It was a brisk, August morning. I was walking home from school one day with my friends Tom, Chad, and Andy. We were freshman in high school. It was a normal day at school, as usual. Teachers giving us loads of homework, practicing for sports, and the usual flirting with the ladies after practice. The walk home was when everything went down.

We lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota in a small apartment. It was just my mom, my brother John, and me. My father was a diesel mechanic, working in Bloomington which is not far from Minneapolis. He was working on an old fire truck with a rare Detroit 60 series motor in it, when all of a sudden, the hydraulic lift gave out and he was crushed by the fire truck. The news was horrific and the income went downhill, but as time went on we got back on our feet and started living our normal lives.

On that walk home from school, we saw a man standing in the middle of the road. He seemed phased by something because he was just staring in one direction. I walked up behind him and I asked, “Sir, are you ok?” The man made a strange moan, a weird growl almost. He turned around and it was the most horrific thing I have seen in my life. Half of the man’s face was ripped open and his neck looked like it was eaten by a cougar!

The man looked at me. His eyes were pure blue. He started shuffling towards me and let out another moan. I took off running and told Andy, Chad, and Tom that we needed to get home and find our families, as soon as possible. We all lived in the same apartment building, so we would not be that far from each other.

The farther into the city we went, the more chaos there was. Military personnel and riot policemen filled the streets and people destroyed the city. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen. People were attacking and EATING other people! Tom got sick to his stomach. He couldn’t keep up with us and he stopped and said, “Go, I’ll catch up with you guys later.” So, we left him thinking he should be fine.

We got to the apartment building and our families were there, all ok. I was so relieved Mom and John were scratch free. Everyone was asking where Tom was and I told them he should be here shortly. He never came home. His family believed he was attacked by the cannibalistic people. We never attempted to go look for him because it would put everyone at risk.

There was a buzz in the room about what was going on and why cannibals were attacking the innocent. Tom’s dad suggested that the cannibals were actually zombies breaking out and attacking. He also said it was the end of the world, but nobody really believed him.

At that moment, little did I know that it was actually the start to the end of the world. I never believed in zombies because there was just no scientific way it could happen. The dead can’t just miraculously come back and wreak havoc. It did happen though and the more people die, the more that are coming back as one of them.

We stayed inside the apartment building for nearly two days. We ran out of food and it was time one of us went outside to see the aftermath of the riots. Chad and I peeked outside and it was horrifying. Bodies were everywhere on the street and hundreds of zombies walking around with that moan. A few of them spotted us and started our way. We quickly slammed the doors and chained them up. We ran back upstairs and you could hear them trying to break the glass door.

We couldn’t sit and starve in the apartment. We all had to go and find food. Nobody was getting left behind this time. We tried to find any weapon in the apartment we could. Only one of us had a handgun while the rest of us had knives, bats, or any kind of blunt object you could hit them with.

We went out the back door. Started for the near grocery store which was maybe about six blocks away. We ran into a few zombies and Tom’s parents tried to take them out. It was complete disaster. They tried stabbing the zombies over and over again and they weren’t hurt or phased by it. The zombies then took both Tom’s mother and father to the ground and ate away at them. It was pure screaming and blood gushing everywhere as their stomachs were ripped open and the zombies had a feast.

The screaming attracted more and more of them and we couldn’t handle anymore. We found a ladder to the top of the building and there were only five of us left and it was Chad, his parents, Mom, John, and I. Everyone else died from the hoard of zombies coming in.

We had to sit on the roof until all of the zombies cleared out. Which took about a day and a half. We were starving like no other and we decided as a group with the few of us left that we leave the city of Minneapolis and live off of the land in another location with not as many zombie threats.

We’ve been living on a very small farm in Iowa for about a year now. We’ve managed to bring enough food in to keep us alive for the next year. Only few zombies have crossed paths with us. I’ve learned more about these zombies as time went on. They die by taking a blow to the head. Also if you get bit in the arms or legs, we cut off the ligament up to the bite so you can get infected. Some choose to rather die than lose an arm or leg. For those that get bit in the neck, stomach, back, anywhere we can’t cut off they will die.

We hope to live this out and our theory of the bodies decaying after about two years is true so we don’t have to live in fear. For now as long as we’re alive there’s only one rule. Kill or be killed..