According to personnel files recovered from the zoo’s computers, Jonathan Ramirez was a 52-year-old custodian who worked at the zoo for 22 years. His personal file showed a man who was rarely late for work and who had multiple reports from zoo patrons telling administrators how nice and helpful Mr. Ramirez was.

A few handwritten notes by a human resources worker said that Ramirez had been around the zoo a long time and probably knew more about the ins and outs of the complex than anyone else – even helping zookeepers with a few tasks.

The account is not a journal, but an inference made by the authors as to what happened to Ramirez based on computer records and security footage salvaged.

Why Mr. Ramirez was still working at the zoo on Z-Day+13, while the rest of the city and state had been evacuated 13 days ago, is not known. It has been suggested by some of the researchers that a part of his personnel file that said that Ramirez took the bus to work every day might suggest he had no car of his own to evacuate.

Whatever the reason, Mr. Ramirez was at work despite there being no visitors for nearly a week and no other staff logging in for two days.

Additionally information about Ramirez taken from his HR file:

He had no wife or family listed in his file – his wife dying of cancer in 2002.

He also had asked HR about the possibility of getting Lasik eye surgery in 2005, but it was not covered in the zoo’s insurance plan.

Z+13

• Jonathan Ramirez clocks into the automated system at 7:30 a.m. Records show that Ramirez was nearly always on time for work.
• Mr. Ramirez’s security card is swiped for entry to the custodian garage. Ramirez was certified to drive every maintenance vehicle the zoo operated. What he drove that day of work is not known, although it is likely that he mainly operated one of the several golf carts that staff used to shuttle around the zoo.
• Automated systems record the opening of the garage door of the custodial garage roughly 15 minutes after Ramirez had entered. Shift assignment logs recovered at the zoo showed that Ramirez was to clean up any overnight trash or mess before the zoo’s opening at 9 a.m. every day. A number of trees around the zoo might mean that leaves or branches had to be cleared away from sidewalks before opening.
• At 8:15 a.m., the automated system in charge of letting the animals out of their overnight pens switches on, opening cages and letting the animals out into their enclosures. Handwritten notes were discovered in the zookeeper areas for the African lions, showing that a majority of the animals needing to be hand-fed were getting food and water from whoever was keeping the informal log during the two days after authorized zookeepers had stopped coming in to work (Z+11). Since Ramirez was the only person researchers know was still working at the zoo, it is believed he was doing his best to feed the animals.
• At 1:15 p.m., Ramirez clocks out for his hour lunch. He clocks back in for work at 2:13 p.m.
• 6:24 p.m., the front gates of the zoo are pulled down and locked. Security cameras are not on at this point, but investigators wonder if this was a normal task of Mr. Ramirez.
• 6:32 p.m., the custodian garage door is shut and locked. Seven (7) minutes later, the door to the garage leading back to the employee entrance opens and shuts.
• 6:42 p.m., Mr. Ramirez clocks out of work. After Ramirez leaves the zoo, automated systems are still up and running. Researches have learned from zookeepers interviewed that animals in captivity learn a routine and are usually waiting for automated doors to open at certain times of the day. It is assumed that the animals in the enclosures went back into their cages at night as per their normal routine. Animals expecting something to eat before bed, however, had no one to feed them as the handwritten log does not have any entries for those habitats. A simple explanation could be that Ramirez’s day shift meant that he was unaware of the feeding times or habits of nighttime feeders and didn’t know what to feed them.
• The security system for the zoo activates at 7 p.m. From what researches were able to find, the system did not lock down the zoo, but put secured areas on higher alert. It is here that security cameras start adding to our understanding of what happened that night with snapshots and short pieces of video of areas that have movement in them.
• At 8:13 p.m., the employee entrance to the zoo is opened from the outside by Ramirez. A security camera takes a shot of Ramirez entering the facility with a suitcase and a green gym bag. He also has a baseball bat tucked under one of his arms. (See Item PIC1304A) Experts suggest, due to the blurred nature of the photo, that Ramirez was moving very quickly despite having two travel items and a bat with him. The fact that he is not seen wearing his zookeeper uniform has led to the theory that Ramirez had gone home, encountered a H.I.P., and returned to the zoo. Attempts to see the condition of his home turned up nothing as the address listed in his personnel file was one of the homes caught in the fires that burned down much of suburban Roswell years later.
• 8:14 p.m., the automated system records a clock-in by Ramirez and the door being opened.
• At 8:16-9:23 p.m., cameras record video of Ramirez in administrative offices.

• • It shows him setting down his bags and trying to use a phone. Phone logs were not available, but Ramirez spends nearly two minutes on the phone before hanging it up. Records show that the 911 telephone system in TOWN had crashed due to high use on Z+13, but we do not know for sure if he called 911.
  • Ramirez then locks the door and moves a filing cabinet and a table in front of it. It is now very apparent at this point that Mr. Ramirez is being pursued, or believes he is being followed, by at least one H.I.P.
  • Seemingly satisfied with his barricade, he sits down in a chair and hunches over for a period of time, either to catch his breath or cry (No audio is available)
  • Ramirez opens the gym bag and pulls out bags of food, a book (most likely a Bible, the book was not recovered from the site), a framed picture (of his late wife, recovered from the site) and a clock radio (not recovered). The authors believe that Ramirez brought the radio with him because the national news media had been stressing to viewers that even if television stations were to fail, that radio would still be able to broadcast. Additionally, media and government messages had been telling the masses that bringing a battery powered radio was a key survival item in the event of evacuation.
  • Ramirez seems to turn on the radio and adjusts the dial for a few moments to try and get something to come in clearly. After finding something to listen to, he eats some food while listening. After roughly 20 minutes, he gets up and grabs his bat, packs his belongings back into the bag, moves toward the door and starts to remove the file cabinet and table. It is unclear what motivated Ramirez to leave the administrative office – be it something heard on the radio or a sudden idea. We do know that at that point no alarms had been triggered by Infected.

• At approximately 9:45 p.m., Mr. Ramirez uses his keycard to enter the Security Office of the zoo. Here, there were multiple ways for him to monitor nearly the entire zoo at once. No cameras were installed inside the security office, but an exterior camera did record Ramirez entering. Post-crisis survival experts say that moving to the security offices may have been where things started going wrong for Ramirez. In order to get there, he had to travel halfway across the grounds, which could have attracted attention of H.I.P.’s that had already been attracted to the zoo’s animal population or perhaps some other unseen evacuee. Additionally, the offices had ground-level access to the outside while the administrative offices had multiple doors and checkpoints to get through in order to gain access.
• At 10:09 p.m., a security camera near the main entrance activates after detecting motion near the main gate.
• At 10:12 p.m., security cameras record several snapshots of H.I.P.s outside of the zoo moving towards the main entrance. Within a few minutes, most of the H.I.P.s began trying to force their way through the gates. Ramirez would have definitely been able to see the H.I.P.s from his monitoring station. In fact, all of the video evidence used in this case study was recovered at the security office. Evidence has shown that the kind of pull-down security gates that were commonly used by business provided only temporary protection against a H.I.P. and that protection time was dramatically shortened with each additional H.I.P. attacking it.
• At 10:16 p.m., Ramirez leaves the guard station. A snapshot taken by the external camera showed him carrying a firearm. Records show that the zoo had four rifles on-site for use in animal attacks – two that shot tranquilizer darts and the other two being a Browning Maxus Semi-automatic 12-gage shotguns. Examining the site years later showed that only one of the weapons, one of the tranquilizer guns, remained years later. Most likely escapees later found the weapons and took them.
• 10:23 p.m., cameras at the front of the zoo are still filming the Infected at the gate. Suddenly, one of the hostiles flies backward several feet as his left shoulder is struck by a rifle round, effectively removing the arm from the torso. The other H.I.P.s react by increasing their efforts at the gate. H.I.P. experts believe that when Ramirez shoots the first zombie, the others notice him for the first time due to the sound of the gun. Upon seeing human prey, the amount of effort the H.I.P.s would be putting upon the gate would have increased.
• 10:24 p.m., Cameras record another infected individual being hit by a gunshot in the stomach. The round rips through the left abdomen and the force spins the H.I.P. to the ground (Note: the hostile returns to the fence a few minutes later). Experts say that the time between shots might indicate that Ramirez was not an experienced gun user – however, with no camera shooting video that shows Mr. Ramirez or a way to count muzzle flashes, it is unknown how many shots Ramirez had taken in that time of roughly 60 seconds.
• 10:25 p.m., A spark or flash is seen on the fence, indicating that a rifle round hit the fence and not a H.I.P. The bullet breaks the metal links at the point of contact and the fence’s integrity begins to be compromised.
• 10:26 p.m., Two more H.I.P.s join the group, most likely responding to the sound of gunfire and the moans of the other H.I.P.s. (see report on H.I.P. response to audible sounds made by other H.I.P.s)
• 10:27 p.m., A hole in the fence, roughly 3 feet about ground, starts to appear due to the H.I.P.s’ efforts; A rifle round from Ramirez strikes a hostile in the face from a different angle than before, causing it’s skull to explode and eliminating that H.I.P. as a threat. Experts say the blood spray pattern and the angle in which the eliminated H.I.P. moved after being hit show that Ramirez had moved from directly in front of the group of hostiles to an angle to the right. Zoo maps suggest that he went from shooting from the large fountain to the ticketing building, which would have moved Ramirez 15 yards closer to the targets.
• 10:29 p.m., Another gunshot hits a target. This round destroys the left had and wrist of a hostile. The height and angle of the shot seems to imply that Ramirez was aiming for the head of the H.I.P. directly to the left of the struck target. By now, the hole in the fence has increased in size and two of the H.I.P.s are trying to crawl through.
• At 10:30-10:37 p.m., cameras record Mr. Ramirez engaging the attackers up close with the rifle.

• • Standing just feet away, he pulls the trigger at one of the two H.I.P.s fighting to get through the hole in the fence. His shot hits the nearest target between the right shoulder and neck, effectively destroying the collarbone, which causes the target’s head to start to lean towards the ground.
  • Ramirez takes a step forward as he loads a second round into the chamber. He fires into the crowd of attackers again, this round hitting a hostile in the chest and knocking it onto its back.
  • Ramirez reloads, and again gets closer. This time, he puts the gun barrel in the mouth of a H.I.P. leaning towards him through the hole and pulls the trigger, causing the head to explode and the elimination of the threat. The eliminated hostile’s body goes limp in the middle of the gang of attackers, getting wedged into the hole.
  • Mr. Ramirez reloads and steps to the left (his right) of the hole and tries to put the gun barrel in the face or mouth of another attacker. He pulls the trigger and drops another attacker, only four remain.
  • Ramirez attempts to reload his rifle with the barrel still between the bars, but has to pull more ammunition out of a pocket. It is at this moment that one of the H.I.P.s grabs the gun and starts to pull it. Experts agree that the hostile’s actions were not meditated, but simply instinct. The hostiles saw the rifle as an extension of their prey and grabbed the gun as they would have grabbed an arms or leg. It should be pointed out that tales of H.I.P.s “disarming” prey has been proven to be simply a case of a basic action being viewed as something else entirely.
  • Another hostile then grabs the gun’s barrel. Ramirez is right handed, so the rifle is under his right arm – effectively putting his body between the hole with attackers in it and the rifle. He responds to the rifle being grabbed by trying to pull it back, but is unable to free it from the hostiles’ grips.

• 10:37 p.m., Ramirez is struggling to wrench the rifle free from the H.I.P.s on the other side of the gate. With one last tug, Ramirez pulls back to pull the gun’s barrel away from the pack of attackers, but in order to achieve that angle, Ramirez puts himself closer to the hole. It should be suggested here that Ramirez may have been so caught up in retrieving his weapon from the hostiles that he forgot that one of the two H.I.P.s in the hole had not been eliminated.
• 10:38 p.m., the H.I.P. that Ramirez had hit with a rifle round in the collarbone reaches out and grabs Ramirez’s left arm. The victim tries to pull away, but the hostile’s grip is too strong. The attacker then pulls Ramirez closer to the hole and bites into his left bicep, removing nearly half of the muscle in a single bite. Medical experts agreed that a H.I.P. or animal bite removing that much flesh would be fatal in conditions where medical attention was not immediate. Doctors also said that Ramirez would have immediately lost all strength in his left arm with the apparent muscle and tendon damage.
• 10:39 p.m., A second arm from the pack of attackers reaches through the hole and pulls Ramirez’s left arm through the hole with a sudden jerk, possibly breaking the forearm.
• 10:40 p.m., Ramirez is pulling back against the group to try and free his arm. In his panic, he begins punching with his right hand into the group. Second looks at the footage confirm that the victim is only landing shots on the headless zombie he had killed earlier.
• 10:41 p.m., Ramirez wrenches his arm free from the pack of H.I.P.s and falls back away from the gate. His arm is broken and most of the flesh from the arm has been removed. The victim crawls, then walks, away from the danger area back towards the security office. Experts say that Ramirez had very little time left at this point. They also confirm that the number of bites would have easily infected Ramirez in less than two hours.
• At 10:44 p.m., Ramirez gets back to the guard station, but is unable to open the door. The victim kicks and punches the door a few moments in apparent frustration. Whether the victim simply forgot his security card when he left the station to shoot at the H.I.P.s, or if it was lost during the struggle, is unknown.
• 10:46 p.m., Ramirez sits down in front of the door. Experts suggest that at this point, the tranquilizing effects of the hostiles’ bites have begun to take effect on Ramirez, who would most-likely have no more adrenaline in his system to ward off the toxins.
• 10:52 p.m. The attacking H.I.P.s break through the gate and begin to pursue Ramirez. The number of attackers is now at six individuals since two more have arrived. It is likely that the sound of the moaning and the gunshots during the encounter at the gate.
• 10:57 p.m., The first H.I.P. reaches Ramirez, who does not try to flee. It is indeterminable if Ramirez has died of blood loss or if he is still stunned from his bites.
• 11:14 p.m., Jonathan Ramirez has been consumed by six H.I.P.s, which begin to walk the zoo for additional prey.

The account of Mr. Jonathan Ramirez was put together by researchers going on evidence found at the scene of his death. Interviews with medical, survival, zombie and psychology experts were used.

In the case of Ramirez, Dr. Samantha Wells felt that most-likely it was Ramirez’s attachment to his gun that ultimately caused his death. Wells said that research has shown that victims in survival situations will cling onto an item, usually a weapon, which they view as their means for survival and, many times, it ends up costing the victim their life.

“During his attack, Ramirez could have released the gun and simply retreated back to the guard station to retrieve the second rifle,” Wells said. “Instead, he saw the gun he had been using as his lifeline and fought to keep it.”

It should be noted that Dr. Wells also admits that Ramirez may have known he was locked out of the guard station and knew he would not have access to the other weapon.

“However, Ramirez still could have retreated from the gate and found a hiding place or simply ran off the zoo grounds to flee his attackers,” Wells concluded.

MB: “I’m in conversation with Joseph Wyndham, leader of the Eastnor tribe and one of the longest running siege survivors in the UK, I’m also here with his daughter, Isla,..”

Isla Wyndham: “hi”

MB:”We are in his farmhouse on the Isle of Mull off the West coast of Scotland. Joe holed up in a little known stately home..”

Joseph Wyndham: “It was a castle”

MB: “Erm ok in a castle in Worcestershire for nearly fifteen years, in fact Joe is it true to say that the clearances were fully in effect and London was almost Zack free by the time you were discovered. In fact the US, was, completely cleared at that point was it?”

JW: “yup. We just got forgotten about. All you reporters put up stories on the net about some rednecks in Texas holed up with an arsenal of guns and the military helping but we had none of that, just British nerve and each other, we didn’t even have a working radio for the last few years”

MB: “Er ok (nervous laugh) well that’s why I’m here Joe! To let you tell your story”

JW: “Yeah. But you lot started it I reckon.”

MB: “Well its generally accepted that it started in China, in a rural location…”

JW: “Bollocks…….It was all over the place. You couldn’t turn over the TV without a new zombie film advertised, or some new book, or some game or such, for fucks sake Donald told me there were people writing stories and putting them on sites and that. If you asked me we all wanted it, nature just provided it based on our collective belief. It had all gone wrong way before it started.”

MB: “So we asked for it? Because of the media?”

JW: “Look. Everyone was pissed off at being a consumer, we all wanted to feel alive or ‘real’ or whatever the fuck that means. Well we got it in spades, mate, in fucking spades!”

( A scuffling sound we assume is Joe rising from his chair.)

IW: ” Dad, please, sit down. Look can you just move on please”

MB: “Well how did it start? For you I mean”

JW: “I don’t want to talk about that night”

MB: “Oh”

IW: ” Dad that’s why he’s here, that’s why you invited him”

JW: ” I didn’t fucking invite the wee fucker”

/crack

(Analysis tells us the noise on the tape is Joe’s walking stick, falling to the floor)

IW: “Ok that’s why I invited him then Dad……….Because you wanted to tell him what happened…….you said someone needed to know……needed to know…well… because we were the only ones left”

JW: “I don’t want to talk about the first night, or the beginning, or…your mother. I want to talk about what we built, about what happened to the others, about him.”

IW: “Is it ok if he just talks about that?”

MB: “Sure”

JW: “I’ll tell you what we built. We built Heaven in the… the midst of fucking hell. That’s what we built. Of course we were lucky in the first few weeks, with resources that is, not the whole apocalyptic ‘Everyone you have ever known is dead’ kinda thing”

MB: “In what way?”

JW: ” Well Eastnor had a good defensible layout, a fully functioning portcullis, so the few of us who were there in the first days could at least be secure. We then had a week of hard frosts at the end of the month which didn’t fully freeze the Dead but made it impossible for them to move quickly or even walk.

During that time we picked up about a hundred survivors, most in shock, and we managed to get working vehicles, a generator, and supplies to hold out for as long as we could. Hell we even got furniture, beds sofas, tables towards the week because we had just about everything else we needed and were running out of ideas. More than that though most people, myself included were just in massive amounts of shock and didn’t wanna think about what they had seen, or what they had had to do to survive, and we had some weapons too, old medieval swords and maces, all sorts of things, just no guns. So we just kept busy building stuff, getting the power running, and of course we fucked up, not thinking about things we would need, and getting things we didn’t, like fucking TV’s! Jesus we had four TV’s at the end of that week all with nothing but static on them.

It took us about five years to be in a position where we were doing ok with hard winters, it was the ones where the temperature didn’t drop below freezing and we couldn’t go raiding that were tough. We had some good people too, a good mix of everything, I mean some of the teenagers were a pain in the arse, like they just expected the net and TV and phones to work and  shit like that, and when it didn’t they couldn’t adjust and started causing trouble.”

MB: “When I spoke to Isla on the phone she said you had an unusual punishment for those that broke the rules?”

JW: “Hehe. Well the castle had a kinda round dungeon that lead in from the courtyard through a locked door down into a stinking pit underneath the main building, and there was a gate to the outside with solid steel bars going floor to ceiling in the stone. So if someone broke the rules we put them in there for the night, sure enough a night of the undead howling and scratching to get in at a live one that was just enough to make you think about what you’d done, and with no light down there you were shitting it that one would get in, you could just about see them moving in the moonlight getting more agitated the longer you were there, clawing and ripping at each other, biting at the bars. Shit, I even put Isla in there once when she was about twelve.”

IW: ” I broke the rules, stole some food, and I knew it was wrong. As leader, Dad didn’t have any choice but to put me in there. I didn’t steal again though.”

JW: “I didn’t tell you this, but I just sat with my back against the door all night listening to you cry down there. Broke my fucking heart……..”

(Unidentified bang, we believe it was the arm of a chair being hit)

JW: “Time for a Whiskey! Can you go get a bottle hun? You want one son?”

MB: “No i’m fine thanks”

(Isla leaves and goes through to the kitchen, the background sounds on the tape for the next 2.45m is her fetching the drinks)

JW: ” We stopped using it after a while though.”

MB: “Why?”

JW: “About 6 years in, this young guy called Danny, been with us since that first month, well he’d been starting to go a bit stir crazy, you know. Just started going over the top about things. Reacting to anything said to him, you know what I mean. Well he’s sat in the main hall, a huge room with an old medieval fireplace and brackets on the walls where we had removed all the weapons, and huge maroon tapestries with hunting scenes and things like that on it, playing draughts…er…..chequers you guys call it?”

MB: “Yeah same thing”

JW: ” Ah ok. Well he’s playing chequers with John Edwards, an old guy who was in his seventies when it all went tits up, so he couldn’t do much work, but he had a great sense of humour, knew some great jokes, and was just a real nice old fella. Well there’s no one else in the hall and Danny just up and grabs John by the collar and starts to beat the crap out of him, I mean, just really pummels the old guy until his nose is all over his face, one eye’s blown up like a balloon, Johns teeth are all over the floor and Danny’s screaming at him, and poor old john’s just sobbing and going ‘what have I done?’ over and over and over, so I hear this and come flying into the room, and Danny just won’t stop, just punching and screaming stuff at him until me and Bill Mynott pull him off and he’s just wild man. Just fucking insane. It took about three of us to hold him down, so Emma took old John out and we dragged Danny to the dungeon and just fucking threw him in. I mean It was like a switch

(click of fingers)

he went from human to wild animal, so he’s at the bottom of the stairs of the dungeon, still screaming and punching the wall and I’m watching him from grate through the door, and I’m going ‘Danny calm down man you gotta calm down, what’s wrong?’………….Well he’s not watching what he’s doing and he’s just pacing about really agitated shouting and waving his arms around and one of the zombies just catches his sleeve and pulls him in to the bars. So I haven’t locked the doors yet and I’m down the stairs quick as I can, but there must have been ten Z’s pulling at him and they just grab his arms and legs and you can hear the bones cracking and Danny screaming, and they just pulled him through the bars in bits and the last thing I see of his face is stretching, and his jaw bone sticking out through his mouth and the bones popping in his skull and deforming to get through the narrow opening, and the scream just turns to air rushing out his lungs as his body is pulled through, and then he’s just bits of flesh being fought over………….just bits of meat…………………..”

MB: “Jesus”

JW: “And the worst of it was when we asked John why he’d done it, John didn’t know. Danny just stopped mid-sentence he said and his eyes glazed over and that’s all John could remember. Well John was never the same after that and he died a couple of winters later. Poor old sod. We just put it down to mental pressure, you know just something you have to deal with. I’m sure you know mate, you lived though it too.”

(The sound of Isla re-entering the room, the click of ice on glass can be clearly heard)

JW: “Where you been darling you’re soaked!”

IW: “That storms’ come in and the rain is peeing it down, so I nipped out the back and locked the gate, so I don’t have to do it later in me jammies”

JW: “See wisdom beyond her years this one”

IW: “Oh Dad shush…….Here’s your whiskey”

(Sounds of glass being placed on table)

IW: “Can I have one?”

JW: “Isla Wyndham. You know you’re too young”

IW: ” Please?”

JW: “She’s got me wrapped round her little finger (laugh) just like her mum did.”

(Sounds of Isla fetching a glass from Kitchen)

MB: ” Look Joe………..Its getting late and I don’t want to beat about the bush anymore”

JW: “Oh aye”

MB: ” There was something you said in your TV interview when you were picked up. Something about a Minister?”

JW:”………The Minister……yes”

MB: “Well when did he join the community?”

JW: “HE didn’t join the community. But I can tell you what happened when he left.”

MB: “Please”

(Sound of whiskey being poured twice)

JW: ” Last winter we had been in Eastnor for over fifteen years, we had gone from about a hundred people down to about thirty, through zombies, disease, injuries you know what I mean. It would be fair to say though that we had it down to a fine art, this survivalism I mean. We knew what we were doing and some of the kids, like this one here, grew up not knowing anywhere else………so it was a good winter for us, with some frozen weeks, and some good raiding, and one afternoon just as the sun is going down, this guy just wanders up to the castle, at first Jim, who was on watch, thought it was a Zack that had somehow survived the freeze, but this guys just picked his way through the thousands of frozen Z’s outside and collapsed by the gate.”

MB: “Thousands?”

JW: “Yup, we found a way of counting them by shining a torch at them and counting the ones in the beam, then we just moved the torch round the castle a quadrant of torch beam at a time and multiplied that by the ones we had counted in the first beam, I think in the 12th year we had over fifty thousand surrounding the castle, some were from as far away as Bristol, Birmingham, Hereford, we found out when we could get out and search their wallets when they froze. Anyway, Jim ran and told me and I went out and this guy was alive, I could see his breath as I walked up to where he lay. He was skinny as Z and dressed head to foot in black, well when I bent down his arm flopped to the side and I could see he was a minister, you know, like a priest, with a dog collar.”

MB: “Yeah I know what a minister is”

JW “oh ok. He was dirty, covered in gore and shit and mud and God knows what, well we got him in and managed to nurse him back to health but he wasn’t well. You know. up here. We couldn’t get him to say where he had been surviving, or, how he came to find us or anything, he just rambled on and started quoting the Bible whenever anyone spoke to him, or, he would just sit in a corner and just say ‘ wait…………wait……..wait’ over and over and over in that thick Scottish drawl he had, nodding and pulling his knees up to his face. Some of the others complained that he was just a waste of food as he never helped or pulled his weight or anything, but we had lost enough people through the years and we weren’t murderers or anything. So after a few weeks we just left him be, sitting their muttering to himself and reading the bible. Hell when you looked at some of the things the rest of us did to stay sane he actually looked pretty normal some days.

Spring came and soon enough the zombies were up to their usual number and we had closed the gates, and moved the modified artic across that had steel plates welded to the sides as an extra protection, so the Z’s couldn’t see into the castle and get all excited about seeing us doing our thing. Life went on as normal and I pretty much forgot about the Minister. Then, one night, Isla here wakes me and we can hear the truck engine revving and someone shouting. I throw on some clothes, and grab my stick here…..oh. Which I should show you.”

(We hear the walking stick tap the ground and the sound of a sword being withdrawn from a scabbard, we believe this is the one found on site)

MB: “Wow. That is a nice blade. Japanese?”

JW: “Think so, was in the castle when we moved in. Gets more use as a walking stick since my leg never set right……………….Anyway, what was I saying……….Right. We come out of our room to see most people have thought the same as us and are running out into the courtyard, well the gates are open, and the artics been reversed back and there are Z’s streaming in. Pouring in, and…..and Jesus I looked over and there were Mary and Phil and their two kids and… ”

(we hear Joe drinking)

JW: “and well they were just youngsters at the beginning, and they fell in love in Eastnor and had two kids, one was only a few months old, and Mary has got two Z’s chomping on her arm, she’s straining to get free not even noticing the things chewing her arm cos one has grabbed her baby boy , and it just bites into him, like a fucking melon and he just bursts, right their in front of his Mum, his baby scream just stops as blood sprays out of his mouth, and Phil is running at them all with a fucking axe like a warrior. He just sees this and its like he just deflates, he just collapses on his knees and they’re all over him, but he’s not noticing, all he can see is everything he loves just being fucking eaten in front of him.”

(There is a pause in the tape. Silence we can hear Joe and we believe, Isla sobbing.)

JW: “Oh God. Bill…….Fucking Bill….He’s been my best mate for 15 years, saved my life more times than I can remember, and he’s got a pile a fucking headless corpses around him, and he’s swinging this big fucking broadsword around like Conan the fucking barbarian but there’s just too many. Too fucking many, and people have come out half asleep without weapons and are just getting torn to shreds. Mary and Phils other son is just a patch of wet blood on the ground, with this Z gnawing on his little arm still in his favourite pyjamas, the ones that we gave him the Christmas before, you know the Power Rangers ones………Emma Thomas, lovely Emma, I probably would have married her now if she had survived, she was like my pressure valve when it all got on top of me. She couldn’t hold the door shut…she…couldn’t get the bolt across you know? So they pulled at the door and she came with it right into a Z who tore her throat out, but she still knee’d him in the balls God bless her, she still fought them all the way, just like she said she would. You know. I think it was worse than the beginning. When I think about it now.

So I look up and at the sentry post over the gate, and Paul’s there just hanging over the wall with his fucking throat cut and not a Z around him, and who is stood in the middle of this fucking torrent of zombies that have been let in? The fucking Minister. THE FUCKING MINISTER I TELL YOU. The Z’s ain’t touching him, they’re not even looking at him, they’re just streaming past him and he’s stood there in the middle with his arms in the air screaming about the book of revelation and the end of days and all that shit and not one of those fucking Zombies, NOT ONE, pay him a blind bit of notice. Fifteen years and that cunt arrives. Fucking hell. He’s just stood like he’s welcoming his flock to Church and I realise what he been waiting for all this months, just for the right amount of Z’s, just for the right opportunity to send us all to the slaughter”

(another long pause)

JW: ” Well they are close to us now so we go back inside a bolt the door, get upstairs just as the door is smashed in and you can hear them now outside, ripping flesh and getting all excited, and I grab my rucksack from my room.”

MB: “You’re rucksack?”

IW: “He always kept one packed for emergencies in case anything went wrong mainly with food and some medical supplies in it. We all did, it was one of Dad’s rules. Meanwhile I’m outside with my sword waiting for them to come up the stairs”

JW: “I just grab her and run, and climb up and up through the castle, up through the hatch to the roof of the main hall and we just sit on the roof and wait to see if we need to drop the ladder down to anyone…….but there’s no-one left. Just us. Everyone else is dead, its just like the beginning all over again. So we’re stuck on the roof and all I can hear is the fucking preacher ranting on and on as he turns and he walks out the gate. Straight through all the Zombies and up the hill, singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ can you believe that ‘All things Bright and Fucking Beautiful’, and then he’s gone, like your worst nightmare in the morning when you wake up. Just gone.”

MB: ” Did you ever find out why they didn’t touch him.”

JW: “Not a clue. He was as alive as you and I.”

(Joe drinks, there is another long pause.)

JW: “Well this has been lovely if not emotionally fraught evening Sir, so I’m going to go to bed. And we’ll talk about the rest of it tomorrow.”

MB: “Well I better get back to the hotel anyway.”

JW: “What! No I’ll have Isla make up a bed for you. I’m not sending you out in a storm like that. Not at this time of night.”

MB: “Oh ok. Cheeers.”

/KNOCK

/KNOCK

/KNOCK

JW: “Oh Isla get that would you hun. Who the fuck is that in this weather, if its Hamish and he’s pissed tell him to fuck off.”

(Sound of bolts being undone and old wooden door opening)

JW: “Oh jesus. Oh god no. No not you”

(Isla Screams)

(we can now hear moans, familiar to all those who lived through the War. Sound wave analysis shows that two Zombies are present in the room, a second sound we analysed proves to be dog choke chains being pulled tight and relaxing, although we are only 50% sure about this.)

Unidentified: “Joe………….. You never did believe all that time I wuz waitin’ to dae the Lords werk, did yae now, and I cannae dae the Lords werk with you blabbermouthing to everyone on TV now can I?”

(The next sound is a Zombie wail, the sound of a sword being drawn from a scabbard and furniture being knocked over, screams, and crashes)

/tape ends

I submit this transcript of the tape found at DunDecapitatin’ farmhouse on the Isle of Mull as proof to the commission of the existence of the one known as The Minister. Up to this point we only had anecdotal evidence of the existence of this man, however it is clear to me (though not actually stated on the tape) that it is the voice of The Minister we are hearing at the end. We have also not been able to locate any of the individuals heard on the tape. We did find the sword-cane mentioned, however the farmhouse had evidence of a struggle and almost certainly a Z attack of some kind.

It is my recommendation that we assign the maximum amount of resource to apprehend a man who appears not only to be immune to the virus, but may also be a carrier of some kind. Imagine the damage that could be done at any point should this individual choose to target a densely populated safe zone. Therefore I strongly urge you carry out the recommendations outlined in my report CA23/4513. Also note that I have the sound file available of this recording available on disk should you wish you to send me a copy, but be aware that it makes uncomfortable listening.

In anticipation of your reply.

(horrified)

They’re eating human flesh!

I watched as the carnage unfolded before me. The cathode ray hurt my eyes, but I couldn’t turn away. I was transfixed to the images.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

Why is this happening?

DR. MOREZ

We don’t know for sure, but it could be something that was consumed or possibly radioactive contamination.

FATHER MARCELLO

(interjecting)

Or a curse, evil manifesting itself in flesh!

I have my own theory as to why it happened. Man has been sucking the life out the planet since the day Adam came along. Mother Earth just couldn’t take it any longer. She refused to swallow our dead, and puked ‘em right back up out of the ground.

Now we’re feeding on ourselves, like some genocidal… cancer.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

Whatever is causing this, we’ve got to stop it. Our families and friends are falling victim, trapped halfway between life and death!

My name is Matt Waldo. I’m a writer. I came out here to Los Angeles to work in the movies. The promise of more money was enough to draw me from one coast to the other. I’d done a lot of poetry and short stories back in New York, and lived like a pauper all the while.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

It’s getting pretty bad out there.

DR. MOREZ

It’s going to get a lot worse.

CHRISTINA

(panicking)

What do you mean worse? What could be worse?

I started writing because I had things I wanted to say.

Out here, THEY tell you what to say. But, they pay you well for saying it. Money still means something, even in an age where the dead walk the earth.

DR. MOREZ

We already know that the food poisoning that has affected the passengers occurred when we docked in Haiti, at the ceremonial feast that they were invited to. They thought it was just a show for the tourists.

Even before it happened, this city was full of zombies. The homeless, and the hopeless, roamed endlessly through the city. And cannibalism was already rampant. The gangs preyed on everyone, including each other. Sure, they weren’t really brain-dead, but that just made it worse. They chose, or in the case of the homeless, were forced, to exist like that. When the real zombies came, things changed. The first to go were the homeless, they were such easy pickings. The gang bangers thought that they were tough, until the people they killed started fighting back.

DR. MOREZ

I’ve just finished examining the stomach contents of one of the passengers who died in my office less than an hour ago. I found the same thing in him that I have found in several others that have died. Only now I know what it is that the passengers ate.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

Well, what was it?

DR. MOREZ

(pauses)

Human flesh.

I inhale an endless stream of cigarette smoke while I write, and fill my lungs with the city’s smog with each breath. These take their toll on my health but it doesn’t really matter. I lost that battle long ago.

I had gone to the medicine man. He told me that spirits had invaded my body and were wreaking havoc. He filled my veins with a preservation fluid (he called it “Chemo”), but I continue to decay. It doesn’t always work, he told me.

FATHER MARCELLO

(reaching towards the heavens)

Out of the depths I cried unto thee, O Lord!

Who would have thought that the dead coming back to life would be my big break?

Back when the zombies first appeared, a well known B-film producer sent a camera crew into the streets to film the event as it happened. It was a cost effective (read: cheap) way of getting footage that would take millions to stage with actors and special effects. He hired me to write a wrap-around story, telling me that the public (what was left of it) just loved movies based on true stories. “They’ll eat it up!” he beamed.

DR. MOREZ

So now we know what’s killing them, but what we don’t know is what’s bringing them back to life.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

I think you’ve answered your own question.

DR. MOREZ

What do you mean?

CAPT. DOLENCIA

The ceremony, the feast in Haiti. The same thing that is killing them is bringing them back to life. As zombies.

DR. MOREZ

I’m a man of science; you can’t expect me to believe in superstition!

CAPT. DOLENCIA

What you believe and what you know to be true don’t always have to be the same thing.

Day after day, I sit in this tiny office watching the slow death of planet Earth. It plays over and over on the television. Somehow I must make sense of these sights and weave them into a tale that tells what has happened to us. This is not what THEY told me to write, but, I have something to say.

Each passing hour I grow weaker. My eyes sink into their sockets, getting ever closer to the brain they serve.
I sure hope I don’t eat anyone I know.

CAPT. DOLENCIA

Take this pistol. The only way to stop the walking dead is to shoot them in the head. Destroy the brain.

DR. MOREZ

But…

CAPT. DOLENCIA

It’s the only way.

It’s the only way…

—–

This story marks the return to the writing world for James Goad. After a lengthy layoff to pursue adventures in the real world he has returned to the land of make believe. His previous writing credit is as one of the writers of the book ‘The Pain Doctors of Suture Self General’ published by Arts Nova Press.