Day 1

I slowly opened my eyes as salt water lapped against my cheek, I coughed and spluttered in pain as started to realise this wasn't a dream. I tried to stand up but my head started to spin. Memories came flooding back. Fire and screaming as the city burnt. We watched as the chaos unfolded from afar on my yacht. My father; lying on the deck, bleeding heavily. And then... He... Turned. Monsters. That's what they became: beasts, cannibals, zombies. And I had to put him down.

The radio broadcasts had been frequent at first, as we sailed away from civilisation towards the open sea. Me, my wife, my mother, my brother and my brother in-law. After a few weeks, all broadcasts stopped. We were running low on food, and that's when nature dealt the final blow.

All I remember was the storm capsizing the boat, plunging into the ocean, watching helplessly as my family sank deeper and deeper. I grabbed a backpack that appeared buoyant, my wife being swept away into the distance. Before I lost consciousness, the last memory I have was of my wife screaming silently as the water sucked the life out of her.

So cold. I stumbled inland, the night air stinging my skin and my soggy clothes dragging me down. I reached into my backpack and felt a flashlight tucked into the bottom, I found the switch and went to look what else I had. Great I thought; some beans and basic first aid. I found myself at a checkpoint, devoid of life. Soldiers lay on the ground lifeless. Better that way, I thought.

I walked for hours, past derailed trains, small hamlets and industrial parks, all infested with creepers. I felt a glimmer of hope when I approached an airfield, which was swiftly snuffed out when I saw hundreds of dead bodies and tens more standing over them wandering across the plains of the runway. I decided to rest in the air traffic control tower. There was no radio equipment. Does that mean someone looted it? And did they survive? As of yet I am in the dark, literally and emotionally.

Sunrise.

Despite a lack of compass, my basic orienteering knowledge told me I was heading east. And the road signs, Hungarian? Russian? I don't know. I surveyed the airstrip, no creepers in view, but they are there, always. In the shadows, despite the silence I knew they were there. And then a distant whirring sound stirred over the hillside. Helicopters, two of them!

They headed towards me, passing overhead, as dozens of creeps came sprinting out, aggravated by the noise but helplessly chasing the helicopters like a cat with a piece string dangling above them. The creepers must of caught sight of me or smelt me (Do they have senses like a dog or something?), and I had to get out of dodge real fast. I made it out, just, the creeps hit me a few times but they didn't break the skin, hopefully that meant I was safe. Am I immune? I am not sure, I don't want to drench myself in their blood to find out either. My hatchet was effective, a blow to their body results in incapacitating them, and a blow to the head means they won't get back up.

I carried on, I had acquired some items in the past six hours, a pistol, some food and soda, a hunting knife, some tools and a camping tent. Despite this, I still did not have a plan, I was following the coast intending to find a military safe zone or some stray survivors, but their was no one, only the creepers.

So I kept walking along a tarmaced road, occasionally seeing a dead corpse of a creeper, or a wrecked car, burnt out lying there like a dead beast. It seems they were trying to rid the place of infection, using any extreme methods they thought might work. I thought to myself;

'I need to find a working vehicle, and fuel; I presume both are going to be in short supply.'

My train of thought abruptly came to a halt when I saw a tower, a skyscraper on the horizon... I had arrived at a city.

Gas Stations, Shops, Churches; all abandoned, derelict. Like an echo of an old world, despite it being a foreign land, I felt nostalgia. I missed the simplest of things, such as tea and biscuits. Is the same shit here happening at home? I hope not, I cannot bear to think of people I care about suffering, it's best I remember them from before the horrors of the past month. I walked into people's homes, ransacked, the walls and floor were stained with dried blood. I found some tinned food and a water canteen. It felt wrong, unnatural taking people's belongings. The house used to be owned by a person, a human being that is probably mindlessly hobbling through the streets looking for fresh meat. I was an intruder, before all this I would be breaking the law, but their wasn't anyone around to defend those laws anymore. That scared me a bit aswell.

I found a crossbow, practiced aiming with it on a few wandering creeps before my arms ached. I felt confident with it, I had not used the pistol yet, but I got to grips with aiming after ten or twelve shots. It allowed me to be quiet, so I stuck to the shadows, the alleys, the crevices of the city. I climbed a fire escape ladder onto a hospital roof to rest and also eat and drink the product of my scavenging.

Whilst I was there I practiced loading bolts into my crossbow and handling my pistol, these were new skills to me. I need to learn them fast or die, speed was everything in a fight to the death.

Midday.

I saw a person! I was on the hospital roof surveying the area when I heard gunshots, and a man in the distance ran as a dozen or more zeds chased him like a pack of wolves. He climbed the steps of an apartment building, and they blocked the exit for him as they slowly made their way up the stairwell. I shouted but he did not hear me. So I raised my crossbow I picked up earlier and took down a couple of creeps, but I soon ran out of bolts. I could not help him anymore. All I could was watch him through a window as he ran out of ammo, and then crouched in the corner waiting for his demise... I could not watch no more.

Once the horde dispersed I crept over there and went to his body... What was left of it anyway. I took a map from his bag, hoping I kind work out how to get out of this shithole. I also found this empty notebook on his person, of which I am writing down everything I do right now, hoping it will keep me sane. I looked in his wallet, at a photo of him and his family in a now distant world. I hope my family drowned, as sick as that might sound, I do not want them to end up like the man, and if I am to survive I have to steer away from those sort of thoughts. I barricaded the door with some metal brackets so he could lay in peace and left the area.

The choppers passed over again; twice, back and forth. On each pass the creeps were stirred, I had to hide in a shed because of the amount of creepers outside. A man had jumped out of the chopper and parachuted down, descending below the rooftops in the distance behind me. These

people were serious. But I did not know whether they were military or not. I don't want to run up to them with my arms waving about for them kill me thinking I was infected. So I rested until the evening in the dank mouldy shed, and that's when the city became hell.

Sunset.

The monsters, they must of smelt me again, I barely escaped out of the shed. I ran into the city centre. A stupid idea, there were hundreds of them, and a lot of them turned to face me. My subconscious must have taken control of my body for a minute, the next thing I know I am in the nearby hotel lobby. Getting tired, I checked how many crossbow bolts I had, four. Darkness fell, and I decided to hurl a flare through the doorway, illuminating the silhouettes of the horde outside. A few approached the door, quickly dispatched by a bolt to the head, I was out of arrows. Walking backwards, I tripped over a rifle. It was already loaded and it had ammo to spare. Without hesitation I picked it up.

My mind was screaming at me, just point and shoot! I pulled the trigger. My arms had underestimated the kick of the gun, it wasn't like any air rifle you found at fairground attractions. The bullet smacked into a ceiling tile, which glanced a creep on the shoulder. It ignored the tile and continued to advance. I readied myself for a second shot, which punched cleanly through his face and erupted blood everywhere.

The noise echoed, I remember thinking that for every zombie I downed with a shot, another ten will be attracted by the noise. That's how loud it was. The next couple of creeps were still a few feet away. And between me and the approaching creeps ,on the dead infected soldier I had shot, was a frag grenade clipped to his belt.

I managed to grab it without the creeps inflicting to much pain, they lash out pretty hard, but can't break the skin easily without the use of their nails. I have no military experience, my shots so far had been lucky and at close range. I looked down at the grenade, it was my only weapon to hand as my pistol was still in my bag.

(Note to self: Find some sticky tape so I can fix my flashlight onto my gun, or perhaps clip it to my shoulder strap?)

I hadn't prepared myself for the grenade, the adrenaline forced me to pull the pin before I could consider using it or not, I threw it over the heads of the infected mob and into the square. The next minute went by before my eyes, my ears were burning, every sound was muffled. A lot of the creeps were now laying on the glass soaked floor, and the surviving creeps must have forgotten about me, for they were wandering aimlessly towards the doorway again like goldfish. Dust settled, the footsteps slipped off into the darkness, and I was still alive.

I couldn't go out there, but I couldn't stay in the hotel lobby either, so I picked up a crowbar, and forced the elevator doors open, climbed up into the hatch and sat down. The most notable thing I done, something I hadn't done for a long time, was breath a sigh of relief...