Spring 2009 - Days 0 and 1

I am hunched over the keyboard in a dimly-lit bedroom in an apartment south of campus at 12:38am on Thursday, April 2. My legs are sore and my back aches, but tomorrow will be an early rise. I’m taking full advantage of the lengthening days because survivability against the zombies is easier in sunlight. My name is John Mohr, and I’m still alive in the Kirksville Zombie Apocalypse of Spring 2009.

26 hours and 23 minutes ago, I slid darts into the rotating barrel of the Firefly and let it drop to my side. The strap slung over my shoulder and the gun felt comfortable at my waist. An old friend, the Firefly has seen me through ambushes, battles, and narrow escapes for a year now, and this zombie apocalypse would be no different. It was 10:15pm on a chilled, windy Tuesday night and 30 other humans were waiting for me at the fountain behind the SUB. I had just left a particularly hot make-out session and was less than eager for what I assumed was a zombification false alarm until Mike Solomon described the situation. Three people, in cryogenic suspended animation, were somewhere on campus and their vitals were dropping. 3 days from that point and they’d be dead. Our tasks that night were simple and quick – hit the multiple buildings, solving puzzles at each one, and eventually hack into a communication system that kept track of the life signs of every person on campus. In short, we would receive automated messages every time somebody died. 24 hours later and the soft vibrations of my phone are more gut-wrenching than I could have imagined.

At 7:30am I showered, dressed (wearing my Food Chain Pyramid shirt with zombies at the top) and made lunch and dinner for myself. Sandwiches and fruit – food that I can stuff into a backpack is essential for maximum mobility and minimum locale dependency. Going into the day I didn’t know what to expect, but growing up I was always taught to be prepared. With extra socks in my pocket, an arm band wrapping my right arm and my Firefly tucked behind my back, I climbed into my minivan and made the drive toward campus.

The desolate silence was my first warning – campus is usually noisier than it was that morning. I ducked into Magruder and met Ben Shannon. He is a talented human, a gunsmith, and an all-around brilliant man. It is virtually impossible to sneak up on him, and that’s what allows him to survive. If I knew then what I know now… We chatted about tweaking guns and he even offered me a Zebra Cake – it tasted just like zebra.

By then I’d already sent a mass-text April Fool’s joke declaring Cody Sumter, the game’s original moderator, as an Original Zombie. To this I received responses ranging from “Fuck” and “Chriiiiiiist” to “Figures”. Ben appreciated the joke, but I confessed quickly as I met more and more humans that morning. I went to my Physical Chemistry lecture with no excitement and went to my van afterward. Along the way I saw Carl Schmitt waiting in the Magruder doors toward Violette, so I yelled “Zombie!!” behind him to scare him. He didn’t seem to appreciate it. I let him run outside ahead of me and we kept our distance since we were both worried that the other could be the OZ.

Reaching my van, I drove to the square where I cut my hair. Correction – I hacked my hair. It went from a straightened, almost emo-look to short-cropped and wavy. With such a drastic difference, I could become even more inconspicuous than I already could be, and I enjoyed my lunch in the SUB while feeling like a ghost to friends who passed by, not recognizing me from a distance. It was certainly an experience.

By this point I had almost confirmed Carl Schmitt, Ben Shannon, and potentially Ben Eggering as the three OZs. This was solidified after Organic Chemistry when I stunned Kevin Luker between Magruder and Violette after Carl Schmitt had gone into Violette. This was my first encounter that day, but certainly not my last. I’d been speaking with a few other humans and they’d confirmed Joe Siegel as another OZ – one that was added at 12:00pm so as to catalyze the zombie population growth.

The eventual trek to Ophelia Parrish for my choir class was uneventful, save for the activation of the TrumanZombies Twitter account on my phone. At that point I could receive text alerting me of every zombification as it happened. This is very good in theory, but horribly demoralizing in practice. The path back to the SUB from choir proved to be more dangerous.

It was about 4:40pm and Taylor Hyndman was going to the SUB to attend the same committee meeting as I was, except that he was trapped in Violette while I was in Magruder. I was with 2 men that I met minutes before he called, and they were formulating a plan to break their friend out of the library. The complication: a horde of 12+ zombies were patrolling the Bell Tower. I had Taylor on the phone and told him, when I gave him the signal, to run across the parking lot. I knew that he could make it if the few zombies in the area didn’t know about the mad dash that would ensue. Giving the waving signal, he threw open the doors of Violette and began running across the path. This run turned into a dash, which turned into a mad sprint, when all 12 of the zombies began pouring from the parking lot – between cars, behind trash cans, from across the street the zombies bolted after Taylor. He vaulted the 5 steps downhill and made it to Magruder with just a second to spare.

We quickly made it across the path to the SUB and rested during the committee meeting, and the rest of the day was luckily uneventful. I stunned Joe Siegel while leaving the SUB, made it home for a nap, picked up some papers from my girlfriend’s house, and enjoyed stress-free evening meetings from 8:30pm to 10:00pm. Hogey and I escorted each other from Magruder as far as Dobson before splitting ways. I drove from the northeast corner of campus to Il Spazio on the square to savor a well-earned Rum & Coke and made it back to my apartment.

Upon finishing the narration of the first full day of the zombie invasion, I have mixed emotions. I’ve met some wonderful people so far, but they’re all the same – just human. They’re just as susceptible to the flesh-eating minions as I am, and I hate receiving texts from 40404 because it never brings good news. However, I am optimistic at the same time. Hogey is a smart man and a fierce fighter, and there are many humans just like him. Also, I’ve done my research on this zombie infestation compared to the last one. This outbreak has not been as bad as the one before, and for that I’m grateful. I’m just curious on the state of the rest of the world as well as the three souls in cryostasis.

So ends Days 0 and 1.

-John

UPDATE: I’ve just received message from the communication system in Kirksville. System Power is at 1%, with a total failure predicted within 24 hours. Despite a few bastions of human defense, the world is mostly overrun with the horde. And their numbers here are steadily rising. This isn’t going to be a leisurely stroll.