The first zombie I saw? The first goddamn, motherfucking, stinking ass zombie I saw? The first zombie I saw was my mother, and after that, my family…

Survivor- Richmond, Virginia.

I first saw this little dry patch of dirt called Retroville from five miles away. I remember it vividly; we had just advanced up a hill that gave us a perfect view of this town. Shit, should I call it that? Should I even consider this a city, devoid of human life? But hell, whatever the fuck it was, I was there.

I know that Retroville is up there with, like, Iwo Jima and those types of battles. Hell, not even Iwo Jima could counter this. We knew what we were facing at Iwo. We knew where they were, what their weaknesses were, and all that jazz! None of this at Retroville. We didn't know if they were fast ones, slow ones, fuck you up the ass ones, hell, we didn't know if they could die…

So anyways, we were driving towards it when we saw our first ghoul, down in the city below us. It was a noob; it had just recently been bitten. You have to understand the zombie mind, well, lack thereof of mind. I'm no expert, but this is how I got it. A zombie spots you, okay? I don't know how they 'see', smell, hearing, but he spots you. As soon as it does that, a moan escapes his throat. That attracts another ghoul, who in turn moans, which in turn attracts two more… It goes on and on, until we have the entire USA knocking on our front door!

So after it had attracted maybe fifty zombies, our commanders ordered the tread jobs, you know, the useless tanks that we used to worship, to fire. They let loose most of their shells onto the zombies. I ask you, what the hell is a depleted uranium shell going to do the living dead? Did they even think that an armor piercing bullet wouldn't even damage something that couldn't feel pain? I remember the little voice in my head, beginning to whisper, "Oh shit."

The voice momentarily went away when the rockets and arty fired. I mean, shit, you should have seen it! It was like the entire world had decided that Retroville was the place to... I don't know, make a stand? Hundreds, thousands, of different kinds of rockets just flooded the skies. And when they hit…

I'd say about ¾ of the near thousand zombies died, I mean, the ones just in front of us. Not the girth of the southwestern United States that remained in Retroville, just the damn thousand people in front of us. That's when we should have been scared. That's when the little voices in our head should have been saying, "Get the hell outta here!"

Ghouls are pretty weird. I mean, being dead and coming back to life is weird in itself, but their physiology and biology, it's freaky. When a bomb hits, it spreads steel rain. Just, you know, shrapnel, bits of metal. I sat there and watched it shred organs and cut off legs, but the zombies shielded each other! One died at potential killing of many!

You know what else happens when a bomb lands near something? Balloon effect. When a sudden explosive fore hits near you it ripples with force, just blowing up all the water inside of you. Why it didn't happen with zombies… Another thing, Sudden Nerve Trauma, was supposed to happen. It's like… God flicking off your light switch. Your brain just shuts off. Was it because a zombies brain was dead already?

Soon the fire kind of petered out, withered away…

They tell us about supply routes, weapons in short supply. Don't bullshit me. The only thing in 'short supply' was common fucking sense! They never thought to stop and ask themselves, "Hey, we got some fancy fucking weapons; we got enough shit for them to shoot?" They tried to bullshit the zombies. Like the Gulf war, they called round one 'Shock and awe.' They wanted that one propaganda smackdown, you know? What do we do when the enemy won't be shocked and awed? Not just unwilling, I mean physically CAN'T? What then?

1/10 of us were expected to fire a weapon. 1/3 were expected to score a kill. I mean, you're expecting for this to be a cakewalk, after that firestorm, but now you're thrust into battle. Thrust into battle with a shitty uniform, too.

This uniform seems like it is designed to restrict mobility and sight. It weighs you down so much, that running away from a turtle is potentially dangerous. I swear I didn't hear the rockets fly past my ear. Could it be because of the friggin lead hood? And you know what else? It wasn't designed to protect. It was designed to filter air. Jesus H. Christ, I know.

And don't get me started on Land Warrior. Land Warrior was the new thing back then. It gave us each a link up with whatever we wanted- a persons rifle camera, the commander, you know. But goddamnit, when I saw the spybird uplink's photo's of the massive horde in front of us- Fuck, I didn't need to see that.

I remember one instance the most. A man who was in one of the buildings, looking for something, found a zombified family. His rifle camera was in such a good view, right on the action. He struggled with the mom, shooting her in the arm with his pistol, but then the kids came and started ripping his lips off. The dad came and bit off a piece of his cheek.

That's when the voice in my head got loud. "Oh shit… OH SHIT!" I was a rifleman; I had an M-14 rifle. You're supposed to fire, breath, fire, breath- I was too busy shitting myself to care, I just set it on automatic and fired away. We didn't know what to do. I soon realized that the voice in my head wasn't in my head anymore. Every time somebody panicked and screamed his shit off into his headset, everybody there heard him.

And then all the rumors and stuff… Y'know. "I hit him in the head and he didn't die!" He probably just missed the brain, but shit, it caused a panic. "What?" "They're invincible?" "Oh shit!" "Can they run?"

And then some Air Force general with an atomic errection decided to drop the bomb. A thermobaric nuclear bomb, to be exact. It wasn't really nuclear, but damn… First, it releases a huge ass fireball that just keeps expanding. Then, if you survived that-They'll NEVER admit this- it rips the windbags right out of you. And since a zombie doesn't need to breathe, what does it do? Only kills the few thousand, the ones in the initial explosion.

I remember jumping in the tank and getting tossed around like a hot wheel. I remember coming to with a bullet wound in my shoulder. But most of all, I remember looking back. Back to Retroville… Back to our last chance. I turned my back on victory.

Sorry for the long update. Oh, here's a link to what they wore, for reference. http://en. if you wish to be included in the story as a survivors narrative in a chapter, please tell me. I'd be happy to allow you. Just email me at