I knew it would happen. Zombies. Nobody believed me when I said all of the signs pointed to the apocalypse. The bible, Nostradamus, whatever. It all said we were going to die. But not me, I prepared.

My name is Joseph and I'm a US Marine. I've been out for almost six years. I'm a Veteran of the Gulf War, and half of the War on Terror. I never liked that war and when that said I might go for a fourth tour I said fuck you. I retired as Senior Gunnery Sergeant and got a huge sum of money for keeping my mouth shut about what I saw. I refused all job offers that I had to travel for and went out to find a fortified home.

Months before the plague I bought a missile silo. It was pretty cheap, since it had collapsed on itself. The guy who sold it to me that he wanted a cut of the scrap I sold. Yeah right. I dug the whole thing out in a month, paid a bunch of Mexicans to do all the work for me. They cleared out all of the rubble, to my surprise everything was still in tact. I had them fix all of the wholes and then reinforce anything and everything.

I even found a store of weapons. Old M16s, CAR15s, and a whole lot of M1911s and once I cleaned most of them out I found a door behind a weapons rack. I checked the original plans and it wasn't supposed to be there, the door itself was locked up and welded tight. Not too easy to get into.

The only problem with all of the weapons I found, all of the ammo was gone. Gone or unusable. Time is not a bullets friend, that and damp places. I had all of the arms I could need, but nothing to fire it with, good thing this was crazy territory. I found a guy who had enough ammo for his own war (which I think he was going to do) and traded a few of my rifles and pistols for enough ammo to last ten years. He had no idea how much the stuff I traded him was worth and I scammed him into believing it was a lot more then what it really was. Am I proud of that fact? Kinda, I don't know what he would have done with all of it.

I found three things inside of it that I know I would need. First, an old jeep that needed a new engine. It was small enough to drive around my underground warehouse, which I'll get to later. I found the right guy and bought the engine in his.

Second-and the coolest- was an almost new Chaimite V-200. It was an end of the Cold war Portugal army APC. It still had the .50 cal rifle on top with a lot of ammo. I was amazed at the sight of it. I had never seen one up close and I was even more amazed that it ran like new. Both were found in a relatively empty vehicle bay

Lastly the warehouse. 40,000 MREs (meals ready to eat) and I found my missing ammo. Uniforms, radios, survival gear, grenades. It was a gun nuts heaven.

My old buddies from my days in the Corps came to visit a lot. They loved it at my house and helped me out a lot. Stealing things from the base, little things nobody would miss. NVGs, modern uniforms, and things I needed to replace like the radios.

I had a huge dorm area, enough to accommodate an entire Battalion. The ones who got out came and lived with me. They parked their vehicles in the bay and put their firearms in the armory and sat back. Pretty soon it was about twenty guys living in my base.

Needless to say, the Government got scared. Twenty Marines, all ex-infantry and SpecOps didn't look right. They would try and come out to inspect my base but never found anything wrong, except that door in the armory. Nobody could open it, and we all wanted to know what was in it.

We all laughed when they sent anyone to try and shut my base down. I always said when they had a reason that I was breaking a law to come and I'll hand myself over but they never did.

Twelve hours before 'Z-Day' I had just completed the entrance to the main part of the base, which was the last part I needed. A heavy iron door opened to a white room where I could see the person coming in. Twin gun ports at the first door to shoot anything I didn't want in. At the end was another iron door, both had locking mechanisms that couldn't be opened from the outside.

Anyways, twelve hours before a woman came to the front door and pushed the intercom button. A Marine, Ryan who had served under my command, was manning the entrance.

"Offices of Mr.Fowler, this is Ryan how can I help you?" He said, trying not to laugh.

"Lisa Munez with the Department of Defense, I'm here to talk with Mr.Fowler about some explosives." She said.

"One moment." Ryan said politely opening the first door.

She walked in and sat on a chair that we had put in, the room looked like a waiting room for the Dentist than a underground ex-missile silo. I walked into the room overlooking the area and pushed a talk button.

"Yes?" I said in a sing-song voice.

"Hi, I'm Lisa-" She began.

"I know who you are Ms.Munez" I said reviewing a hacked file from the DoD. We had gotten into their system weeks before and downloaded all of their employs. "Grew up in East LA, convicted of Grand Theft Auto but you struck a deal with the Police and ratted out a few gangsters. You went onto change your life and came into this work by the same man who got you the deal."

I looked at her face for the first time. She wasn't half bad looking. Young, maybe mid to late twenties. Hourglass figure. The kind of girl I'd go for.

"You do your homework Mr.Fowler." She said a little taken aback.

"Yes I do. Now, I asked you a question. What do you want?"

"It seems you have explosives and thats illegal. Your now under arrest." She said.

I nodded to the man on the gun port and he aimed at her. She saw it aim at her but didn't move. I reopened the door out.

"Leave," I said. "I know my right and having them isn't illegal."

"You got that rule changed, its now illegal."

Again I nodded and the man on the nest fired a shot two feet from her head. She didn't even flinch.

"Don't lie to me," I said keeping my temper down. "I know that rule and I watch it closely."

Suddenly the alarm went off. I carried a radio on me at all times encase it happened, but the alarm should only go off if...

"Warning the first reports have come in. The dead are rising. I repeat, their coming back."

I opened my eyes with shock, it wasn't supposed to happen until for another day, or week. Hell I had hoped I wouldn't see it.

"Close the door."

"Sir she's still inside." Ryan said.

"Shut it before one of them come."

He shut the door and I walked to the entrance to the main portion of the base. "Open it."