The Zombie Apacolypse

Canada's - Infectious Diseases Modeling Research Progress Book quote... "If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively."

This is a short article about the atrocities of those that survived the greatest threat to mankind's survival. Those dark days that followed the outbreak that reformed our world and that will forever haunt the annals of our history. This article should remind us of how fragile our existence truly is, and how precious life can be. Let these words be said so that we never forget those billions of people who's voices have forever been silenced, let these words resound for those of us who lost those we loved to the zombie apocalypse.

How It Began:

There is still no idea who patient zero was, but we do know where the outbreak began. The month of October, fall of 2012 in the small industrial village of Nizhneyansk off the Peka Por Cheanko Pycho River in northern Russia. Responding to a distress call the icebreaker Chechnikov traversing the arctic ice sheet was sent to pick up a victim of some yet unknown ailment. The Chechnikov docked a week after picking up the sick man from an arctic oil drilling platform at sea in Nizhneyansk. One of the men working on the oil plat form had become afflicted with the disease known now as morbus-litum-victus-ortus-esurio-viscus (death, reanimated, life, reborn, to hunger, for flesh) or as it has been now called MLVOEV1. His name was Urishka Penchenko a 27 year old off shore arctic oil rig welder / diver. Urishka had been diving when he reported upon returning to the platform that what appeared be a man had climbed the column of the rig that was chained by anchor to the ocean floor below him. The man approached from below and was not suited in diving gear but what appeared to be military like clothing, he grabbed Urishka's leg and began to drag him down the rigs column towards the ocean floor. Urishka was bitten by the man through his suite but managed to use his harness to keep him above while kicking the unknown attacker free of the column to fall back to the ocean floor. During the week of travel to Nizhneyansk Urishka fell increasingly ill and at some point had become feral after awakening from what the ships medic believed must have been a sort of coma state where his vitals were kept at a state just that above death, because he was unable to raise any sign of a heartbeat, breathing, or neurological activity and was declared clinically dead before awakening. Urishka became so violent that the men treating him and the crew set to strap him down to a medical bed for the duration of the journey. He would not eat or drink and his body seemed to be in a state of decomposition.The ships medic and captain quarantined Urishka closing off the medical bay of the ship upon orders from the Russian Navy.

Reaching Nizhneyansk the Chechnikov was boarded by the Russian Naval personel dressed in Hazmat suites. Urishka and the ships crew were all carted away aboard large double rotor helicopters to an unknown destination. Later on the Chechnikov crew were released after being observed for effects of the disease. The only two that were not released were Urishka and the Chechnikov's medic.

Three Weeks Later

It is not known how the outbreak spread and the Russian Government and Military still claim that they disposed of Urishka after determining he was clinically dead and that he had risen back to life by what they called a lymphatic viral cotangent. But there is still no report of what happened to the ships medic. What we do know now though is that some how the virus spread within the confines of the Russian military. Though the Russian Military and Secret Service tried to keep the details away from the public eye there were leaks and within three weeks of the outbreak flear footage from a Russian Hind helicopter was released to the world press of an attack on military personnel at a Russian Military base.

By November 2012 the virus had begun to spread to more populated areas within Russia. Within two weeks the virus had reached pandemic proportions within the entire country. Refugees spread out in all directions fleeing the now reanimated dead that hunted them down. With those fleeing masses many of the infected were carried out with them. Soon the virus had spread into China, Iran, and Eastern Europe. The main cause of the rapid spread of the virus was do mostly to family contact with the infected. Those people not wishing to leave their loved ones to be carted off away to containment facilities, instead holding on to hope they would find some way to bring them back in another place. Once the reanimated corpse arose though the entire family was either infected or dead.

Once the virus hit China the outbreak took on epidemic proportions. By early December the virus had reached global outbreak status. Entire cities in china were incinerated by the Chinese Air Force dropping free air bombs on the populations infected and uninfected to try to contain the outbreak. But it was useless, the infected had reached all parts of the population urban and rural. The virus reached into India and Southeast Asia, the Middle Eastern Nations did stem back the tide of infected for a longer period of time then other areas of the world but in the end they also fell victim to the outbreak.

By Christmas of 2012 Africa, the Mediterranean, and Western Europe set up infection containment camps created using UN troops to round up entire families, even towns and villages for quarantine. The entire eastern half of the world's face had been forever changed. Cities burned filling the sky with clouds of ash and smoke, the dead lay by the millions in city streets, and those that were not dead were the infected running free to feast upon the survivors. The dark ages had returned to the eastern world of civilization and for those that lived through those times it seemed the end of the world had come.

The Battle of Austin Texas

By February of 2013 the outbreak had reached the United States. It is not understood how the transmission was brought to the U.S. but only that the outbreak began in Austin Texas. There was speculation that a yet unidentified terrorist group had smuggled one of the infected from Mexico but it is still unknown as to whether or not this is true. Within hours of the first case on February 7th, 2013, (a man named Daniel Evans age 47) there were over 34 reported attacks within the area around his residence a suburb of Austin. Daniel had returned home early that morning from a business trip in Loredo, he was ill and his wife was going to call the doctor when their office opened. Upon checking her husband in the bedroom she saw the bed was empty, Mr. Evans came out from behind the bedroom door and attacked his wife biting his wife who fled to a neighbors home for protection. Mr. Evans then began trying to break into the house. A child walking by the house was then attacked by Mr. Evans. The husband of the neighbors family a Mr. Jolly in his fifties attempted to stop the attack and was also bitten but he did manage to get the child that was attacked into his home. Four police cruisers with six officers in total arrived on the scene and tried to apprehend Mr. Evans who's aggressive rage could not be stopped. Upon telling Mr. Evans to lie down he attacked one of the officers who while struggling was bitten on the shoulder. The officer's tazzer guns had no effect on the enraged seemingly deranged man who attacked all those who approached him. All of the officers backed away and opened fire on Mr. Evans but the man would not go down. Finally an officer shot him in the head which immediately killed Mr. Evans.

Within 24 hours the entire city of Austin was under quarantine and martial law was enacted. The national guard was brought in to put down civil unrest but the outbreak grew beyond Austin. Many citizens fled south to on Highway 290 to San Antonio and others fled by the I 35 to escape the growing horde of the undead. The military's estimations of casualties that day stand at 7,000 citizens and 800 government personnel.

The United States used it's military against it's people, rounding up the uninfected they put them into refugee camps under 24 hour guard. Those that tried to flee were killed on sight. Food and supplies were rationed and all civilian assets seized. Many of the camps were over run by the walking dead, millions lost their lives.

These were the dark days of the risen dead. The skies blackened with the re-killed burned reanimated bodies of those former family, friends, and neighbors. The world had changed forever and the new world was a terrifying grisly reality of unforgiving survival and brutal outlaw. The days of human innocence was now extinct, beast and man were now one once more, to battle a virus that had no law, no morals, no feelings. It only devoured and devastated, it mutilated and leveled a world to it's knees.

By the summer of 2013 the entire western hemisphere like the east had been over run with the dark scent of the risen dead; even with aggressive military action to put down the risen it was hopeless. There was no military strategy in place for such an unimaginable event.

The Great Revolt and and ensuing Global Collapse began when the clergy and the Arch Daisies of the Catholic Church declared that it was Armageddon. Many other religious organizations in the west and in Europe soon followed their lead. The Pope went on live television and declared that the nations of the earth were now in their hour of judgement and that the men of power and greed of those nations drunk on the blood of the innocent would now reap the wrath of God for their indiscretions.

In the end there was no safe harbor for people to flee to; no place where people had not touched the world and with them brought the greatest plague in history. Those quarantine camps housing the infected became the only safe place for refuges to dig out an existence as meager as it was.Those people that were hardier lived longest. It is true that only the strong survive. It might amaze people to learn that many of the people who were recognized as heroes of The Great Die Off and Famine were not what you would have suspected as people that would be able to survive such an extinction level event. These people were regular people in their old lives. A Carl's Jr. shift manager was given status of most courageous soldier in his unit for saving an entire elementary school's faculty and student body. He staved off a group of over 75 zombies with only two school buses, some athletic equipment and some gasoline.These were the regular people of society when the world was civilized but much like their former reality when survival kicks in only the strong survive.

Time marched on and over the months the dead were truly left to inherit the earth. It took 3 years for The Great Die Off to kill off the larger number of zombies. Over time the reanimated dead began to deteriorate to a point of immobility which made it easier to kill them. So that the survivors could coordinate a finale sweep and the order to use nuclear weapons in the largest populated areas where the nucleus of the hordes seemed to emanate from. There was not much of the world where the dead still walked. Most of them had rotted away long before but the governments of what was left of the world were not taking chances.

By this time marauders and bandits had begun to organize in large groups of post apocalyptic bands of raiding gangs on armed with swords. bent on causing chaos and anarchy attacking military and civilian outposts. It took another six months to round up these groups and put their activities to rest. In the end less that a quarter of the people that once walked the earth were gone. Those of us touched by zombie apocalypse will never forget the sacrifice, the toll, and the ones we loved and lost.

My tribute to one of my favorite stories by author Max Brooks author of World War Z, and The Zombie Survival Guide. You ROCK!