Okay so a little explanation as to what is up with this story. This was originally a Walking Dead story me and a few of my friends came up with however as we talked more and more seriously the story itself evolved into it's own sort of thing. This is the product of three weeks of planning, testing and rewriting, all in all I hope you guys will give this story a chance to forge a new world with the ideas of many post-apocalyptic stories as well as some of our original ideas. And without further adooooooo, I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1: Zero Year

One Hour since the End…

When the first alarms started to ring I thought it was another false training session we weren't informed off. Our intercoms weren't always the best. Instead what we were quickly informed is that we were not allowed to leave the school. 'Stay in your seats, under no circumstances should you leave the school premises.'

It didn't matter how many times we asked, how many times the younger kids screamed and cried, how many times the older kids threatened the teachers. We couldn't leave, and that was that.

An hour later we saw helicopters, police cars, armoured van's, all going towards the city. The sirens were so loud I remember having to stuff paper in my ears as an attempt to block it all out. I thought it was an earthquake that didn't reach us. Then I thought it was a fire that had broken out in one of the parks. It took all of us a day to find out what had actually happened. It wasn't a natural disaster, nor a man-made one…

It was the apocalypse.

Meanwhile…

I called my wife, hoping to God they hadn't gotten to her yet. When I first heard her voice the relief I felt almost made me forget about the end of the world. She told me she was driving towards the school now to pick up Sam, driving past the highway to avoid the endless amount of traffic.

Didn't have time to talk to her for long before my chief called me in his office. I was going to be organizing the rest of the police officers to set up barricades next to the crisis centers. Get all the weapons we could carry, SWAT teams would be sent out to help the people they could, and hold out until the National Guard make it to us.

Four hours later, four hours of shooting at all the red-eyed, pale-skinned crazies sprinting at us. All in all we managed to gather around 2,000 people, including children. We set up a blockade of vehicle's and trucks, anyone with a gun and who knew how to shoot them wanted to pitch in and keep their friends and family safe. None of the police were very inclined to let civilians be risking their lives out there, that was our job, but we did what are you gonna do when the world's falling to shit. We needed all the help we could get.

Both the elderly and the younger kids were set up inside the airport to board all of the escape planes heading towards Washington. The chief didn't tell me much, but it looks like the White House issued a disaster level event happening worldwide. All the civies are going to be escorted by the National Guard to military checkpoints.

At first there was a checkpoint to check people for bites or anything that could lead to infections. The checkpoint quickly became mute as the first horde started charging towards the barricades. Our snipers on the rooftops managed to take a few out before they got in range of our first line whilst the barbed wire and sandbags didn't do much to slow them down.

The way they moved, their hands flailed around without control, running so fast we couldn't even nail them down with our guns. I was surprised how many our snipers managed to take out. When the chief told me the dead were coming back to life I thought he was joking, making a sarcastic remark. But the chief didn't laugh, he didn't even smile, he just continued to tell me what I was going to do. And now these crazy motherfuckers are charging us head-first with no regard of the fact that we were aiming both shotguns and sub-machineguns straight at them. Blind-firing towards the horde rushing at us with a speed no normal person could do. The first to jump past the barricade was some skinny looking dude, his head flailed around behind him as he ran and jumped towards his fellow officer Mcannaugh. We quickly dispatched him before he could do more than pounce on Mcannaugh however it gave the creepy bastards just enough time to completely breach the firing line. My officers tried to stay as calm as they could, however, a lot of the civilians who were fighting beside us panicked, they either ran or started to fire off wildly, spewing as many curse words as they could before they got surrounded and killed.

It's funny, I expected a lot more screaming, and believe me there was screaming, but I couldn't help but think how… strange it was. I glanced behind me to see the infected not eating the dead, but just killing them, mercilessly. Mcannaugh tried to go back and save what civies were left behind, didn't take long before he got surrounded too. I wanted to go back for him, so badly, but I wasn't about to make my son live without a father. My Anna wasn't going to be a widow.

It was do or die, our backs were against the wall, that wall being the entrance to the airport. If they got through us now, everyone inside would be dead. Anna, Sam, I'm sorry, I am so sorry.

Three Days since the End…

Four of the teachers have abandoned the school, 29 kids have also sneaked off during the night. The military was supposed to come for us by now. But each hour that passes makes me think that those students and teachers had a point. Most of us have basically stuck to our classes, sticking to the people we knew. On the first day I called my mom every hour, hoping she would pick up. She never did. All I could hope was that mom and dad were alright.

The first people to leave were the older kids, the 14-year old's whose egos were bigger than their brains. They broke the tables and chairs, grabbing large chunks of woods and pipes, excited about the start of the end of the world.

Food and water hasn't become a problem yet, our drinking supply basically consists of the couple hundred water bottles and jugs we managed to fill up on the first day. Teachers told us to do it before the sewage collapsed. I didn't think it could have been that bad out there but life seemed to have quickly gained this annoying habit of proving me wrong every step of the way. The teachers and some of the older kids rushed towards all of the nearby stores and bakeries around our school to pick up as much food as they could, using the biggest school backpacks we could find. On the third day me and my friends volunteered to go as well, my thought process being the more hands the better. Our gym teacher, Mr. Douglas Kannings, or just 'Doug' as the kids who've grown familiar with him would always call him, was hesitant at first however Ryan managed to quickly convince him that there would be a bigger haul if more people came with him.

It was all Jason's idea at first. He had the most trust in Mr. Kannings, I guess the kid with the most experience in P.E. would be the one to volunteer.

The four of us weren't the most distinct bunch, four normal middle school kids. Well, "normal" being quite the subjective term.

Jason was our sports guy. Running, climbing, workouts, football, basketball. It didn't matter how hard it was, he would always be the best at it.

Ryan was the smart one. Grade A student across the board, excelling at even P.E. almost as much as Jason. He's… I wouldn't say cold just… logical. Even in the 1st grade he had a very cynical outlook, not something you usually find in a 7 year old.

Timothy, or just Tim as we called him, was a shy kid, the one that would often get bullied and picked on. Luckily we managed to get to him before any of that happened but that doesn't mean his demeanor's changed.

And then there's me, Sam. I'm just your everyday average kid. No big ups or downs about me, you either know me by name or you forget I even exist. Needless to say I'm probably the odd-one-out of the group.

Four of us all meet at the start of the 1st grade. We talked and got to know a bit about each other and ever since then we just kind of stuck around one another, keeping to ourselves and hanging out whenever we could. The times right now sort of forced us into an extreme of our situation I would say. 5 years of basically keeping to ourselves hasn't really done much favors for us in terms of our connections with the other kids, even the others in our class. When the sirens began to blare it was everyone for themselves, within the school grounds of course. There was only so many school staff to keep us in check so you could say nothing really changed, apart from the whole end of the world stuff.

I don't really know why I'm writing all this down. Guess it's in the hope that someone might find it if we all end up dying, or worse. For at least someone out there to know who me and my friends were, to remember us.

We're heading out in an hour, there's 20 of us in total, not including our teacher. I just hope I'll be able to write what happened in this piece of shit notebook tomorrow.

Six days since End…

We did it, we held the line. All the civies managed to get in the escape planes. Hopefully they're all going to be safe in whatever place the guard sent them. But that unfortunately doesn't include me. When the first horde attacked us six days ago I thought we were goners, but somehow we managed to fend them off. Follow that with 4 days of no real confirmed threats and all we were left to do was search the city for any possible survivors. Lucky us when the only people we find turn out to be some crazy homeless dude who was just mumbling to himself near an apartment building. At first we thought he was infected but he showed no symptoms, the appearance also didn't match what we've already established the infected to look like. He was just some sick old man that went over the edge.

The guy apparently was sick from something else though, a day later he died, just started coughing and keeled over all of a sudden. Barbara said it was a heart attack but with no real medical equipment it was just me, my 7 remaining officers and one dead hobo, all locked inside a now abandoned airport. It was obvious that the guard wasn't coming back for us. I had half the mind to just abandon the airport and look for Sam back at his school. Every day I tried and to contact Anna but she wasn't picking up, all I can hope is that she got to the school in time and that they're somewhere safe.

Only a few minutes passed before the hobo turned…

We were so stupid, thinking that this was like in the movies, thinking that you'd need a bite to turn, I should have pieced it all together on day one. At first we didn't even notice him getting back up, it wasn't until that ear-busting screech he let out before we unloaded our clips into him. But it was too late.

While we may have managed to kill him without much trouble that scream called forth every single infected in Los Angeles. And it wasn't long before we were overwhelmed.

And now here I am, a broken leg and almost torn off arm because those fuckers were just so fast. The people I was fighting with, the people I've worked with for years, all of them are now dead and currently breaking down the door. I keep thinking I could have saved them, fired off a few shots and made the horde follow me instead. One life to save 7 others, but instead… I just ran… like a coward. Because of me, they're all dead.

Mcannaugh, Barbara, Price, John, Mikey, Sarah… I can see them through the barricaded door. Funny, I never did get a good look at those fuckers until now, it was probably for the best, because now it's sending chills down my spine.

Bloodshot eyes, pale skin as white as snow, veins running through their necks so thick they looked like they were about to explode, their fingernails were torn off from how hard they were scratching the door at first leaving only blood-soaked hands trying to reach out to me.

Ironic, the horde must have probably moved on from now, and they must have been all that was left in the airport. I guess I deserve this after everything I did…

No… after everything I didn't do.

One month since the End…

We've been walking non-stop for almost two weeks now. To the person who finds this, if someone finds this. We were successful in the supply run, managed to bring in a really good haul. It's funny, after that all of us became so optimistic, we thought we were going to be able to survive, that in maybe just a few weeks time the military were gonna come in and get us out of here. That maybe it wouldn't be like in all those movies and stuff, that we would actually be saved.

Boy were we wrong.

I think it was a Tuesday. I had just been woken up from my comfortable little corner that I called a bed. Tim kept shaking me so much I think I hit my head on the wall a few times. It didn't take long for me to fully be aware of what was happening. Something that I was afraid would happen since the moment I learned about everything that was happening on the outside.

A horde was coming, straight towards our school.

Before this I had only encountered one, but that one time was enough to scare the shit out me. They just looked so wrong. Everything about them made me almost piss myself in fear. If this was what the people back in the city had to deal with then I'm so sorry for ever talking bad about the people of LA.

While I'm writing this down all of these thoughts are constantly running through my brain. What if we had stayed and fought? What if we had held our ground in the school? What if we weren't on the brink of dying right now because we were cowards? The school could have been barricaded (even more that we already barricaded it) and we could have held out with what we had, it's not like we didn't know how to fight.

I'm sure if dad was reading this right now he'd probably slap that sort of thinking right out of me. 'A brave dead man is no use to the world' he would say as if he were some sort of mentor in a fantasy book or something. The irony was always clear to me seeing how he's a cop and cops need to be brave all the time.

The moment we learned about the horde we packed everything we could into every backpack we could carry and started our long journey into the world that was currently falling apart at the seams. At the time there was around 150 of us in total I think. Now, there's only 78 of us left, I even counted.

I guess I should write down all the things we've seen in these two weeks of travelling since I haven't really been that active in writing to my imaginary reader. Honestly though, I'm exhausted, not only from the walking but from just seeing everything that our world has become. The cities have been absolutely destroyed, sometimes I hear explosions off in the distance. I keep thinking that they might me the military, sending out scouts to look for survivors that were left behind. It's not like I'll ever be able to find out since our teachers are refusing anyone to go away from the group, even to take a piss.

If Mr. Kannings were here, I think he would have led us all much better, he knew how to do crowd control and at this point he was the most experienced out of all of us in regards of dealing with infected. Not just killing them, but how to maneuver around them, distract them, all of that stuff.

It was no wonder then when he volunteered to distract the horde while all of us evacuated the school. We were all hopeful that he would come back by now, that he would have easily just tricked them into going a different direction, or that he was just fast enough to outrun them. But I think even Mr. Kannings knew that he was going on a one way trip.

Food and water are becoming scarce, but I think we'll be able to manage for now. I don't really know where we are but the infected mainly seem to gather around major cities so perhaps we'll be able to find other people, it would be a nice change of pace from the nothingness we we've been encountering for two weeks straight.

I'll probably keep writing in this stupid notebook until I run out of pages, or pencils, whichever. It's a good way to pass some time during the breaks.

37 days since the End…

Ryan was right. I didn't want to admit it but he was right. We're becoming more desperate. So desperate we've started to walk over those who can't keep going. The teachers are trying to keep us all from going crazy, but I think even some of them are struggling to do the same. Food is scarce right now, more scarce than even a week ago, our rations consist of small meals, one in the morning, one in the evening. But that obviously isn't enough for over 50 kids who've have been almost starving for a month now. Water is an even bigger issue. Our biology teacher taught us how to boil water using pots and pans as well as how to make a campfire but as we go in more inland there's less and less water sources for us to boil and use.

At least I think we're going inland, I'm convinced we're lost at this point and without a proper map we might as well have been walking in circles an entire month.

To the person reading this and wondering what I'm talking about when I mention Ryan;

We were all sitting down, taking a break after yet another day of walking. It was the four of us, as usual. I don't know how but the conversation got brought up, how were we planning on keeping this thing going. Jason, the idiot that he is, immediately just shut it down by saying what he always did, 'We'll manage'.

But it was Ryan who said what we were all thinking. Someone was going to have to leave, not just one either. There obviously wasn't enough food for all of us and the answer was obvious.

I didn't say anything at the time but between the loud arguing between Jason and Ryan and Tim trying to peacekeep as much as he could, I knew what had to be done. No one else in our entire school would be willing to do this, that is something I am 110% sure on, and I was not going to willingly throw out helpless kids who just want to see their parents again.

I may be one of those helpless kids, but if my rations, or clothes, or flashlight, or even this stupid goddamn notebook manages to help even a single person, then I will know what I am about to do is not going to be in vain.

My name is Sam Fuller, my parents' names are Phillip and Anna, please if anyone who reads this knows who they are…

… tell them I love them.