Chapter 1

I didn't know who I was before the world I was born into ended. Before Zombieland, I was stuck in a place, with a man, who could kill me at any moment, and who reminded me of that every time he looked at me or even touched me. The truth is that the apocalypse saved my life. Not many people can say that, but I can. Otherwise, I might never have gotten away from him, but instead, he would have killed me instead of me killing him. The truth is that the apocalypse set me free. I had been living with my boyfriend, a man whose name I refuse to say, but who seemed to have soured since meeting him the first time. He had won me over with soft kisses and sweet words, but after a while that façade fell away. He became sinister, with eyes that held a bloody evil that scared me even as they were boring into mine as he took my body as he pleased, but I didn't dare run. Everything about my life then felt dirty, everything seemed to be smeared in shit, and yet I stayed there with him. Because I believed him when he said that he would kill me if I ever dared to leave, and I knew he was telling the truth. I felt it in his words, in the look that entered his eyes, and the rough callous touch of his hands. Yet, when the apocalypse happened, our roles suddenly reversed, and one day I found myself liberated with a baseball bat and a handgun that I'd never dreamed I'd wield. As I did though, I was set free, purified, and in that moment a new beginning was given to me. With that came a new name as well. I stopped being Cassidy Harris and like the rest of the survivors I took up the name of the city where I was from. I became Phoenix, another bird rising from ash, and I somehow survived even as I left his body lying in that apartment in the Arizona heat.

"That might have been me once" the thought ran through my mind as I left that place remembering for the last time the four years that I had spent in terror before choosing to forget.

It had been instilled in me four years before that if I left, he would kill me.

Millions had died, millions were walking around the living dead, and in those first few days, I wondered what my fate would have been if he'd never been infected. Would he have killed me? Would I have come back as a monster to take him to the grave just as I'd already done? Our fates could have been, so easily reversed, and the longer I survived in Zombieland, the more I wondered what fate still had in store for me. I still remember the sound of the gunshot when I shot him.

"He fell to the floor, so easily, too easily almost" the truth was that I had thought it would feel different, killing him, and yet it had been quick, too quick.

I ran out of there after that, I got in my car, and I just drove. I kept feeling the seatbelt as it hugged my chest, and I kept looking to make sure my guns and my bullets and everything were there beside me.

Now, the years have all melted together, and I've since abandoned that car. I've hotwired more then I can count and shot more guns than I would have ever believed possible. I didn't need to think about it. I just let it happen and moved on as I would. I never saw any other people, so much so I was the last one standing, but I wasn't. I just didn't know it yet. I moved from place to place not even aware of where exactly I was. I arrived in California not even sure where I was. All I saw were palm trees and empty golden houses where the rich once lived. I couldn't allow myself to dwell on that as I moved through this empty place looking for something that I didn't truly know. For it was there, beneath the Hollywood sign, that I would find my home, and the family I had always been looking for.

"Am I alone, here, will I ever see another person again?" the question haunted me as I moved from house to empty house, each once owned by a celebrity whose name didn't matter now.

It was easier to hide from then zombies and that was how I met my family. The house I was hiding in was large and covered in memorabilia from another life. Bill Murray had owned this house once, but what had happened to him was not something I cared to know. I was sure I was the last one until they came to destroy that elusion. Four survivors, each of them that would change me for the better.

I knew by the sound of their voices that they weren't zombies, but the second they saw me, they pointed their guns at me.

"Please don't…I'm not infected…I'm a survivor just like all of you" the words left my lips as a scream.

My eyes looked into each of theirs, looking for mercy, searching for it really, but in that moment of deathly indecision, they fixated on him. He was tall, the gun in his hand never wavering, but sitting as firm as the hat on his head.

"Guys don't shoot. She's not a zombie" the voice that cut through the anxiety was that of a boy with pale skin and curly brown hair.

He stepped towards me with no hint of fear and his gun lowered while the others did the same. I saw that they were ready to shoot again at moment's notice though and yet as my eyes focused on this boy, I felt an instant of kinship with him. Somehow, he had already become my brother, and we had only just met. I knew somehow that this boy and I were the same. That where before we had been weak in the old world, here, we had gathered our strength. We were new people now and for the first time, I knew I was truly not alone.

"Don't be afraid, we won't hurt you. What's your name?" his voice was soft even as the girl behind him rolled her eyes at his kindness.

"I'm Phoenix" I said looking at the others behind him now.

"I'm Columbus, this is Wichita, and Little Rock. That scary guy there is Tallahassee…we've all been traveling together" said Columbus, again my eyes went to Tallahassee, finding even as he didn't smile at me that just looking at him, I felt safer.

For me, that was tremendous especially in a world filled with zombies.