Eleven

While the government did not want their soldiers publicly sawing people in half with machine guns, they were certainly not going to allow random zombie variables to walk around uncontrolled anymore. Luckily some squints in the lab were able to offer a compromise. Although a starving zombie's saliva was lethal in even tiny amounts a heavily diluted dose from a freshly turned zombie had a much different effect on regular humans. If a few cc's of the correct concoction were injected intravenously it would not only infect a previously healthy human it also turbocharged the previously slow acting disease. This information would play an important role in the not too distant future.

The Alvarez family were one of the hold outs. A Mexican collective of seven who lived in one of those surrounding satellite towns on the outer cusp of Los Angeles. They resided in a stereotypically small two bedroom walk up apartment on a street that was liberally peppered with graffiti and garbage. The army had revised the way they approached families to a simple good cop/bad cop routine that included 5 or 6 yes or no answers that ended one of two ways. The first way, the easy way, ensured that the remaining family members would eat well for the next month or two. The second way, the hard way was a little bit more cruel.

Oscar was 11 he was middle child of the five kids in the Alvarez family and he was the only one that was infected. Of the five children, he was the first and only boy and was his father Luis's pride and joy. It came as no surprise then that when the nice military man politely asked Luis to surrender his son that Mr. Alvarez angrily refused. The longer that the nice army man implored Luis to give up his son the angrier he became. With fists flying Alvarez ran at the army men in a last ditch effort to save his son. With a few quick standard combat moves the green men quickly neutralized Luis and pinned him face first on the ground. Luis and others like him would become known as a "typicals." When push came to shove 95% of all people related to the infected resorted to violence eventually. It was these outbursts that helped the military goons feel a little less guilty about what they did next.

10

The orderly didn't get infected. In fact, he died. Much like a poisonous snake Eve's saliva had become potent to the point where only a few drops were necessary in order to kill a man. It was discovered much later that an infected human when starved for too long would produce a lethal toxin in their spit specifically designed to take down prey so they could feed. It was this revelation that forced internal government organizations to reassess the overall threat of the zombie race.

It started out as a passive request. The government began a program called "Step Up" a euphemism employed to veil the exchange of zombified family members for food. Every week armed members of the military patrolled the poorest neighborhoods in the poorest towns and offered up huge bags of rice and other none perishables for every undead person that they produced. The solace that the army men were able to offer was that their loved ones were not being put to death. They were simply being gathered together for observation and "treatment" while they were contained  in a number of secure, monitored locations across all fifty states. 

Of course there were a few hold outs, a few families who thought that they could care for their infected brothers and sisters better. Most of them were just negotiating for more food but some of them were legitimate in their belief. It was a delicate situation because the country had yet to devolve into chaos. Some form of community, solidarity and respect had developed from the country and class wide realization that all Americans were stuck in the situation together. The government did not seek to disturb this delicate balance by mowing down a few hillbillies who did not want to surrender their husbands, wives, kids or parents.

9

She bit him, she bit him right on the hand and tore the flesh clean off. Apparently Eve still had a little energy left in her emaciated body and when an orderly came to drag her onto a gurney she snapped back to life. Although the man was almost thrice her size her teeth remained clenched in his arm like a Pomeranian gone postal. Once he recovered from the initial shock of the bite he madly pummeled the crazed woman in the face with his fist until she finally unlocked her jaw. With blood and saliva pouring down her chin she reared back, lunged in for another attack and was able to throw one arm around the ankle of the retreating orderly. Like a cat trying to escape an impromptu bath every sinew in her body locked tight as she dug deeply into his leg . She pulled herself along the floor trying to get close enough to take a bite of the meaty part of his calf while absorbing the frightened stomps of his white bloodstained Nike's.

The whole thing only lasted about ten seconds and she was limited to about two solid bites before security got there.  Once they burst through the door the tortured story of Eve  only lasted five seconds and two bullets longer.  A diligent researcher decided to leave no doubt in the matter and knocked the zombies head off with a fire axe.  With the threat neutralized all attention was turned to the bleeding orderly who was hiding in the hallway nursing his wounds. The doctor who assessed him deemed the injuries none life threatening, that was until he started to show extreme signs of discomfort.

8

Eve went a little less gently into that good night.  The doctors had been looking for a meat alternative to feed folks with the condition but with no success. Everything they forced down her throat she immediately barfed or shat out before holding onto her stomach and wailing with discomfort. It was this result that led the researchers to alternatively monitor the effects of starvation on her appetite.

Over the course of the next few weeks the sciency people withheld all meat from Eve. They provided fresh bowls of salad and chopped celery every day and jotted down incremental notes if she played with or attempted to eat the food. Eventually she became aware that real food was not coming and as such paid no regard whenever the metal feed flap of her cell door clinked open.

The researchers noted that the longer that Eve was starved the less resilient her body was. A well fed zombie could take several whacks from an aluminum baseball bat or shovel and after a short healing period of about two days showed no signs that they had been beaten at all. However, as Eve was given less and less food she seemed to get weaker and weaker so much so that the government was almost convinced that in case of emergency mass starvation was the simplest and cheapest way to kill all members of the undead race.  

Unfortunately as with all great plans there was a catch. The problem came to light after about two months of starvation. Whatever had triggered Eve to attack John was the same impulse that was triggered after her hunger was prolonged. A once docile almost catatonic zombie now ran around the room screaming bloody murder. She dug her fingernails into the walls and scratched them down until the bones of her fingers were visible. For four days she howled and screeched and at random intervals threw all of he mass repeatedly at the steel door blocking her exit.  After two weeks of frantic, aggressive behavior Eve stopped in the middle of screaming one day and collapsed to the floor without a peep. Everyone observing her decided that she had finally died for good, all that was left was for someone to go into her cell and collect the body...

7

They killed John and Eve...again. Somewhere in between America being ostracized  from the rest of the world and the implosion of the country the government killed the world's first zombie couple. At the time there was mounting concern that the undead might not be killable.  Even though folks with the condition were slow moving and generally non violent anything that could not be easily terminated posed a threat. With the number of infected people growing by the day the government wanted to stay one step ahead and elected to see if the zombie people died just like regular people. 

As it turned out, they did...kinda. It was determined that people with the condition were most easily killed during the initial stages of the disease directly after they crossed over. During this time the victims were more human than monster and as such were susceptible to anything that might kill a human short of suffocation.  As the months passed and the disease progressed the bodies of the undead also evolved.  During the later stages their bodies would no longer bleed out and their skin grew tough like beef jerky. As one might assume removal of the head and/or extreme brain damage always resulted in death. 

The only unique characteristic in the later stages of the disease was that the liver continued to function and was necessary for survival. Actually, that was how John met his final end. He had proved to be the more docile of the zombie couple and as such had the majority of the experiments performed on him. Researchers were trying to figure out the biology of the disease and how the body was able to survive once it was noted to be clinically dead. They rewarded John with a ration of meat then proceeded to cut him open and do a live autopsy on his body. He happily munched on his food while the doctors removed his organs one by one and cataloged them. When they eventually got to John's liver and severed it from his body, he made a sharp sigh, looked to his left, dropped his meat and died instantly. 

6

There was however a silver lining to the rest of the world turning their back on America and refusing to import any food into the country. We were quick to exploit a recently developed technology named y18 in order to preserve the food that was shipped in long enough so that we could eat it.  As it turned out a slight variation of the formula made it possible for it to be used on plant life and other grains so that even those yoga doing vegans who might otherwise have starved to death were able to ride out the food crisis. 

This of course was the point at which the "condition" went viral like a Justin Bieber video on Youtube. Since everyone was ingesting the chemical everyone was unknowingly getting sick. Canada and Mexico had long since closed up their borders and on many occasions had shot first and asked questions later about "white skinners" who "accidentally" set foot on the wrong side of the boundary line. In some places in Mexico the police had been profiling citizens of a light complexion and demanded their passports and finger prints. If they were discovered to be American they were quickly quarantined and systematically executed in groups. All the airspace along the U.S. coasts were vigilantly monitored and anyone trying to make a quick  escape was dealt with swiftly. Outside of a few rich billionaires and a few thousand crafty individuals who burrowed their way through the underground drug trade tunnels no one was able to escape the country without being killed. Left with the probability of getting sick and eventually becoming zombified or the certainty of imminently being killed most of us elected to live out our remaining existence as happily as possible.

5

Much to the chagrin of the American public news of the condition eventually became undeniable. Over 6% of the population had lapsed into an unresponsive state while another estimated 4% had already crossed over.  Fearless children had taken to "faking zombie" and ventured to chase their friends around the playground at recess.  The strange thing was that even though the disease seemed to keep spreading throughout the United States there were no reported cases discovered in any other country.

It was single piece of evidence that led to America being quarantined from the rest of the world. Even though no one had yet traced the source of the disease to Y18 it became vitally important to immediately stop the import/export of people, food and products to America. The passing of this decision almost lead to war as the United States was not able to sustain the lives of its people with its limited on hand resources. Luckily a compromise was made whereby a few brave souls were paid a disgusting sum of money in order to ship fresh supplies into the country. This compromise lasted for a while, that was until an overwhelmingly large number of people became infected. Once that happened, America was no longer considered a threat and as the level of threat decreased so to did the number of ships entering the country. 

4

Over the course of the next couple of years only a few more cases of the condition were being reported. We know now that the number of infected was significantly higher they were just not discovered because the lack of health insurance kept most Americans from taking their family members to get looked at. Initially the infected were not violent toward close friends and relatives. Actually, in most cases the sick seemed overtly passive and were happy to be sequestered in a small room as long as they were fed regularly and had a television or radio on in the background. Aside from being unresponsive and clinically dead the main issue with the infected was the prolific amount of runny shit that they produced. 

The less humane among us opted to keep our undead brothers and sisters unclothed and simply blasted them twice daily with a power washer.  Those of us who could afford it  shipped their loved ones off to old folks homes and washed their hands of the whole thing entirely. Because of this for a few years there was a huge increase in the business of elder care which the media quickly attributed to the aging baby boomer generation.  Inadvertently the media outlets, due to their casual researching skills were covering up a country wide problem, one that conspiracy theorists would later describe as the largest contributor to the systematic undoing of America. 

Like an aging quarterback with two shot knees and a botched Achilles heel operation America was too proud to sit on the sidelines and admit that the untamed sickness was approaching epidemic proportions.  At some point the country was divided down the middle by a small but very vocal group of condition deniers who refused to accept that their was anything wrong with the growing number of living dead Americans. These protesters only proved to help proliferate the disease throughout many of the red states as well as irreparably damaging the image of American strength on the world's stage.  

III

The Second was a female, an unidentified Jane Doe code named Eve.  Unlike John Decker her condition was not as freely surrendered to the general public. Number two was a confirmation that the disease might not be an anomaly and that it was capable of infecting both sexes equally. Ultimately there was no foreseen financial benefit from the two disease carriers and because they were projected to be a great monetary burden over time, it was agreed that after they were sufficiently tested for research purposes that they would both be terminated.

One of the first tests the government did was to put the pair together to observe how they would interact. At first they just stood on opposite sides of a 20 foot by 20 foot padded room staring off into their respective walls. Eve was the first to gain awareness that there was anyone else besides her in the room.  Slowly she ambled over to John and closed the distance between them.  Like a short leashed dog she stopped abruptly about a foot from her infected partner and began sniffing him. Although her gaze was blank and glazed she seemed to recognize him as her kin and pawed at his arms and neck. After a few moments she lost interest, turned away and slinked back to the other side of the room.  The initial interaction stimulated something inside John and he quickly turned and followed Eve everywhere she went. Every time she moved, he moved and stayed standing directly behind her. Beyond that, they just aimlessly circled their small enclosure like a couple of caged tigers at the zoo might.

It was discovered through experimentation that the two of them could only eat meat. Tofu dressed up to look like meat was tried on  the pair and while they did consume it, they immediately vomited it back up. A few minutes after eating the food it was noted that they seemed extremely lethargic and they laid on the ground and howled in immense pain. On the contrary, when either of them were given meat they fiendishly snatched it up, swiftly consumed it and then bounced around with an abundance of energy.

The two infected had never been fed together and since Eve had established herself as the dominant personality the researchers wanted to see what would happen if they were fed from the same food source, together. One of the scientists opened a metal flap in the steel door and tossed a couple of medium rare steaks into the middle of the room. Mr. Decker as if pulled on a string walked directly over to the steaks and began shoving one into his mouth. At the sight of this Eve started screaming, ran over to John and jumped on his shoulders. As he ate she clawed at his eyes and bit him viciously about the neck and shoulders. John for all intents and purposes was being murdered but his singled minded goal to cram as much meat in his face consumed him entirely.  Eve on the other hand seemed to feel threatened by the sight of her once submissive man friend and sought to kill him before even thinking about grabbing a piece of food for herself. Although John profusely bled from the wounds in his back and face he did not retaliate.  Eventually one of the scientists had to intervene and taze Eve before she was able to bite John's head off (literally) for his poor dinner etiquette. On that day of testing two things were learned: 1) A male with the "condition" would stop at nothing in order to eat and 2) A female with the "condition" would stop at nothing to kill any competition for food.

..II

It started with the hunger.  People were eating more and  certainly getting fatter but nothing they ate seemed to satiate their desire for meat. Rumors began circulating that illegal drugs were being mixed in with the food hearkening back to the days when cocaine used to be in Coca Cola. These highly publicized rumors did little to deter customers from snatching up copious amounts of burgers and fries. In fact, sales seemed to increase exponentially as people claimed to get "buzzed" off of the burgers. In a brilliant wave of marketing that was almost Harold and Kumaresque the promise that the burgers got you high brought customers in and the side effect of the food increasing people's hunger kept them coming back.

As it turned out Y18 was only effective if it was ingested in repeated doses. The average person would need to eat at least 12 units (12 burgers) within the time frame of a year before showing any symptoms. Numbness in the fingers and toes, exhaustion and a change in diet from herbivore to almost exclusively meat was to become the mark of the disease. The bloating came almost a year later as did the skin discoloration but anything sickness related was associated at the time with a previously undetected terminal illness. Individuals die of suspicious maladies everyday, it wasn't until one died and then came back to life before anyone paid attention.

An average Midwestern man named John Decker was the first. As suspected, he became the new messiah. He couldn't speak or understand and he had to be restrained with a straight jacket 24 hours a day but that didn't stop the media circus from parading him around the country for every possible interview. Piers Morgan thought for a moment that he could break through Decker's glazed over pupils and get him to answer the tough questions about the after life. Alas, all the infected individual could muster were a couple of angry screams before he jostled about and fell out of his chair. As the months passed and no one including Barbara Walters could get a peep out of the unresponsive individual he was eventually locked up in a psych ward and forgotten about presumably indefinitely. That was of course until there were two.

Chapter 1

#1

The world ended but there was no apocalypse. Actually, if I'm telling the truth the world kept on moving at its slow predictable pace. It was only America that died and when it did, it sputtered out without incident.  For centuries The United States was regarded as a fierce  and spontaneously vicious place so it seemed rather odd that it would be the first country to disappear from the world's map especially without a fight. But that's the thing about an untraceable, incurable disease that manifests out of thin air, you can't stop it and it doesn't take much of an advantage in a highly competitive global economy to destroy the momentum and spirit of an entire country.

Contrary to the musings of a modern day Nostradamus when  the dead rose it was not an acute happening thrust into motion by an aggressive outbreak or the fallout from nuclear warfare. The actual sordid details are a little bit more subtle and pathetic.  As it turns out the culprit was an additive used by a now defunct well known fast food chain. At first the chemical named y18 (yellow 18) was being championed as the next big thing in expedited cuisine, intended to prolong the shelf life of the grade Z meat they were flinging in drivers side windows. It was so popular in fact that competing fast food chains sought to purchase the chemical and when their overtures were denied they conspired to steal the technology. It was this covert additive espionage that ultimately signaled the beginning of the end.

Apparently a clone of the initial formula caused an unforeseen mutation in human cells which over time was highly detrimental to our bodies. Lethargy, obesity and stupidity had run rampant prior to the "sickness" and was for years a main source of critique from other countries. Sadly, the sickness amplified the effects of these stereotypes which contributed to the spread of the disease as the symptoms were simply confused with the continued decay of American culture.