• A week before the outbreak went global, life continued it's unalterable course in the Semi-Rural 'city' of Eaton Ohio. The sun and the moon continued it's trek across the skies, children would play in the streets, cars would drive down the road. Zombie, was still a term reserved for B-horror films, 'fan-girls', and video games. Every teenager and young adult fantasized about the 'zombie apocalypse', how they were going to survive, where they would seek refuge, and of course the first place to raid for weapons and supplies. These fantasies and daydreams were a great way to pass the time and fill up ultimately meaningless and empty conversations between friends.




    It began sometime in late February or early March, the news reported it as 'political unrest', 'random riots', a break down in social order half a world away. Nobody in the States, or anywhere else in the First World for that matter, ever considered that the unrest, the riots, and the fighting were caused by a disease. A disease that affected living tissue, broke through the blood brain barrier, shut off the majority of the brain, leaving only a walking husk with two objectives: feed and spread the disease.

    Nobody has ever been quite sure who the “Case Zero” in the States was, how long the disease remained dormant in their system, and exactly how long they spread the disease to their neighbors before it went national.



    It wasn't until the riots and the unrest started breaking out nationally that the United States began to take notice. It was on one of those prime-time news shows when the news struck. A reporter, covering the 'riots' staked out and was filming the events from his hotel window. Police in full riot gear were marching onto a crowd of three-hundred or so 'protestors' and 'rioters'. Their mission was simple, quell the riots, put out the fires caused by the riots, and arrest those responsible. What happened was almost too shocking for TV, but too compelling to look away.



    The police marched in a phalanx, creating a wall of riot shields as their compatriots in the back launched tear gas over their shoulders in the crowd. The result was completely unpredictable, instead of scattering, the crowd marched steadily on. The fresher of the zombies running, the older and slightly more decayed shambling along behind. The police called on their megaphones for them to stop, shot rubber bullets into the crowd, to no-avail, the horde ran steadily forward. Clashing into the riot shields with an audible “bang”, the police pushed them back and off their shields at first, it seemed to work. Again the infected smashed into their shields, climbing over one another, and on top of the police and behind their shields. It could only be described as a 'massacre', and the brutality of it was horrible, police literally swamped and mauled over, some getting torn limb from limb, others scattering as the horde ate and trampled those in front of them.



    The only words uttered by the reporter were “May God help us”, as the infected marched steadily onward. Some running and tackling pedestrians, some shambling into buildings. The most horrifying scene was watching the riot police, the ones trampled, bitten, and dismembered slowly begin to rise before going off to hunt on their own. Bang! Bang! Bang! Rattled on down the streets in the footage as some of the remaining police, who scattered at first, began to pull their side-arms.









    Abruptly the footage was cut. Somebody at the station had finally decided that enough was enough. They played some soothing footage of the ocean, accompanied by some light violin. The damage was done, millions of people had watched the footage live, a million more watched it on Youtube, a million more heard about it from their friends on Facebook. What ensued was panic, complete chaos.