Dear journal,
My name is Michael Thomson from the year 2012. I am a sixteen year old a Portland, Oregon native and this is my zombie apocalypse journal. Let me bring you up to date. But before that let me introduce myself. Like I said before my name is Michael Thomson, I am a sixteen year old Portland, Oregon native. I have dark short brown hair, brown eyes; I’m kind of skinny and short. I usually wear jeans, a t shirt, and a Trail Blazer hat.

So I’ve been running from zombies for the last few weeks. It all started about 3 weeks ago, there was a zombie outbreak . We still don’t know how it happened. But we know that these zombies aren’t that fast, also they're not even that strong. But there are a lot of them, and they can be hard to kill at times. Right now I’m hiding in the forest with my best friend Andrew and my uncle Dan. We’re hiding at my uncle’s house which is located in the forest. We’re surrounded by tall oak trees, a creek, and you could see mountains hovering right behind us. I’ve been living with my uncle for the last ten years, ever since my parents left me. I don’t really remember them that well. They would always fight and they never really were around. My uncle would always babysit me. So when they left me he decided to take me in. He was never married or had any kids. But he’s the nicest guy I know. He’s in his thirties, he doesn’t work anymore, and he also doesn’t like talking about his past. He’s a really tall dude, kind of ripped, and he’s bald. Uncle Dan always wears his gray sweatshirt and jeans. He’s also got some funny looking bowling shoes.

Yeah and then there’s Andrew. My best friend, we meet in school in about sixth grade. We have a lot in common, his family is kind of like my family in some way. We’re always hanging out, Andrew has been doing bad since his brother died two years ago. He thinks that he was hit by a drunk driver but that isn’t true. I actually saw who killed his brother but never told him. I might tell you later what happened but I’ll leave it at that. Andrew has short blonde hair, usually wears a dark blue sweatshirt, and torn up jeans. He’s also has these sweet Nike’s but they’re not as cool as mine. Yeah so that’s what’s going on. So right now me, Andrew, Uncle Dan are camping at his house till the coast is clear. Andrew was spending the night before all this happened. We haven’t been able to leave my uncle’s house until we find his truck. He has a ton of guns and ammo in his truck so let’s hope we find it soon. Well I better be going journal, till then this is Michael signing off.
 
As I was writing up my last sentence in my journal I heard my Uncle calling my name.
“Michael where are you?” shouted my uncle.
“I’m in the living room Uncle Dan,” I responded back to my Uncle. Andrew was taking a nap on the couch.
“Hey Andrew wake up!” shouted my uncle.
“What”, Andrew shouted back to him.
 “I need to tell you guys I found my truck about half a mile up this one rocky path” said my uncle.
“Well why didn’t you drive it here?” I asked.
“Well it’s out of gas but we have some in the garage so let’s get some and head that way,” he responded. As my uncle went to get some gas ,me and Andrew packed some snacks and things we thought we could use to help us survive better. As my uncle walked into the living room he gave us both guns. “Here guys this will help us get to the truck, but just to warn you I’m very low on ammo so be careful.” So we started to head up the rocky path to my uncle’s truck. About a few minutes into the walk I noticed something.
“Did you guys see that,” I pointed out.
“No bro I didn’t you’re probably seeing things,” Andrew replied. But right after he respond a zombie jumped out of nowhere. It had the deadly look in its eyes as if I wanted to harm me. His skin was a dark green color and half of it was piling off. He had blood gushing out of his mouth and he looked extra hungry. My Uncle shot his head right before I noticed some more zombies behind me.
“Run!” My uncle shouted. I and Andrew tried to shoot them off.

I, Uncle Dan, and Andrew ran to my uncle’s truck about half a mile up the road when I noticed something. My gun was out of ammo. The only weapon I had left was my very small knife and I knew that wasn’t going to do me any good. As about fifteen zombies, with blood thirsty eyes and having the same look as the zombie that was trying to eat before were chasing us. Just then I noticed that Andrew and Dan were also out of ammo.
“I’m out,” I said.
“We all are,” said Uncle Dan with a worried look on his face. “The rest of the guns and ammo are in my truck about half a mile up this path,” he continued.
“Let’s make a run for it then,” said Andrew. We all looked at each other and ran as fast as we could. The good thing about this is that these zombies aren’t that fast so we didn’t need to worry that much. Also I knew the path we were on. Surrounded by tall oak trees, on this path made of rocks I knew that we were going to be okay. As we ran, we out ran the zombies and made it to my uncle’s truck. But I noticed then that there were zombies surrounding us. My uncle ran to his black 2010 Chevy truck to fill it up with gas.
“Here you go guys,” he said as he passed us his guns from the back of the truck. We tried to kill off as many zombies as possible till we started to become overwhelmed. We tried shooting and shooting but more and more came, looking like they haven’t eaten in days . I shoot of legs, arms, you name it but they were still coming. Then my uncle started up the truck and shouted, ”Get in now”. Me and Andrew dropped the guns and got in. Then my uncle hit the gas and we took off. As I looked behind me I saw about forty blood-thirsty zombies running behind us. But I knew that they weren’t going to catch us. I had a weird feeling that I might see them again soon.

As we started driving down the back road in the forest I looked at my uncle and said, “So what’s next?”
“I don’t know yet,” He replied. “Let’s just listen to the radio and see if there’s any updates going on,” As he turned on the radio a weird update came on. It started saying, “Outnumbered “and it went on saying:
“The virus has completely devastated millions of people worldwide. People who crave human flesh. The only known way to kill these so called “zombies” is to destroy the brain. As we know little to no information about these creatures we try to keep you updated! All we know is that once bitten you will become one of them! So try to stay far away from these zombies. And if under attack killing is the only way to stop them. We are outnumbered! We are the last few surviving!”
My uncle turned off the radio with a really worried look on his face.
“Let’s see if Andrew’s family is okay first,” said Uncle Dan.
“Yes let’s, I’ve haven’t seen them in weeks and really want to know what’s going on,” Andrew replied. So we decided to see if Andrew’s family was fine. But when we went to his neighborhood it didn’t look so good. The entire neighborhood was either burned down or zombie infested. Zombies tried to surround our truck while we went past Andrew’s house. It was all burnt down; no one seemed to have survived. Andrew eyes started to tear up and he said,” My brother and now this.” I hugged Andrew and told him that everything is alright and that we are his new family. He didn’t want to accept the fact that he lost his family.
So we left the neighborhood and started to head back to the direction we came from. Andrew didn’t say much. Then suddenly as we were driving past Andrew’s and mine high school I see this girl running from a group of zombies. They were the same zombies that we left behind when we left my uncles house. I could tell because they were missing a lot of limbs.
“Oh my gosh that’s Emily!” I shouted.
“Who”? , asked my uncle. ’
“This one girl that Michael really likes,” Andrew responded back.
“We’ve got to save her,” I said.
“I don’t know, she has a pretty big group of zombies chasing her,” said my uncle.
“Whatever bro,” I responded back. I grab a gun from under my seat and jump out of the truck. I say as I start running her way.
“Kill them, kill them, kill them,” she shouts. I start to kill the zombies and then she runs right into me. My uncle now stops the truck and busts out this Ak and kills the rest of them off.
“Don’t ever do that again,” my uncle yelled at me.
“Sorry, but this was important,” I respond back. If you were me you would agree. Emily is the girl of my dreams. She has long brown hair, she has brown eyes too. She’s about the same height and size as me. She is wearing a long gray shirt, blue tennis shoes, and grayish, blue jeans.
“Thank you so much,” she says and she gives me a hug. “It’s so great to see you guys, I’ve been trapped at this school for a few weeks now,” she goes on. “ I had to stay after school and help tutor when they shut down the school”, she kept going. “Then they told us that it wasn’t safe to leave and that we had to stay, and we did but we started to run low on food and people who went out to get some never returned so I came out to see if everything was alright when I got chased by a group of zombies and that how I got here”she finished .
”Interesting story” I said.
“ Yeah so do you guys mind taking me back home with Chris?” she asked.
“Do you mean Chris Johnson?” I asked
“Yes, why?” She responds.
“No reason at all,” I say. Chris Johnson has been bullying me ever since the 7th grade. He always calls me names and never leaves me alone. Andrew buts in and says ” Emily, I have some bad news, our neighborhood is burnt down.” “No it can’t be, my family,” she says while she starts to tear up.” I’m sorry” I say as I give her a hug. Meanwhile I see Chris coming in the distance.

Chris is a kind of tall kid, who always wears clothes that are torn up, he isn’t the best looking either. He’s good friends with Emily so whenever we hang out he’s there too.
“Hey it’s dumb and dumber,” Chris says. “For once in my whole life I’m actually sort of happy to see you guys,” he goes on.
“Okay before we all start going on about how much we miss and need each other let’s get in the truck,” says my uncle.
“Alright as long as I’m no longer stuck in this hell hole,” responded Chris. We all loaded up and hit the road. Andrew and Emily start to comfort each other about the loss.
“So where are we going Uncle Dan?” I asked.
“This might sound crazy but we’re going to Texas,” he says with a worried tone of voice.
“What!” We say.
”Yeah I heard that’s the only safe place in the U.S,” he explains.” I can't tell you why, but you guys will find out soon” he went on.
“But we’re in Oregon how are we going to get to Texas?” Andrew asks.
“A lot of driving and Zombie killing,” he responded back. Wow well I didn’t see that coming. I guess I’m now stuck with the girl of my dreams, my best friend whose secret I still have, my bully, and my crazy uncle.

Dear journal,
It’s me again. It’s been a long time since I wrote in here. A lot of good and bad things have happened. But right now we’re in Arizona and enjoying the sun and killing zombies. Yeah we’ve been to a few places the last few days. A lot of stops like Las Vegas and places like that. I’ve gotten a lot closer to Emily and I’m one step closer to telling her how I feel about her. Chris hasn’t been that mean to me. He’s hasn’t talked too much and if he does he talks either to Emily or an insult to me. Andrew also has been pretty quiet and really depressed it seems. He isn’t the same; I’m trying to work up the courage to tell him the truth. I also don’t know what’s wrong with Uncle Dan; he’s been so stressed lately like he’s late for something. He keeps talking to himself about Island Z and some teleporter. I think he might have lost his mind a little. I’ve also noticed that zombies are harder to kill in other states. I just hope my uncle is right about Texas being safe. But I have to go journal, until next time this is Michael signing off.

We started getting closer to Texas, Dallas to be exact. We made a stop at a Subway in New Mexico.
“Okay guys this is one of our last stops so let’s get something to eat and head to Texas”, said my uncle. As we were all getting out of the truck I noticed Chris was still in the car so I decided to stay back and see what’s going on.
“Hey bro what’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he responded.
“It’s okay I promise not say anything to anyone else,” I said.
“Well the thing is I’ve been really depressed about having to leave my family but at the same time I’m happy”, he said.” My parents use to beat me when I was a kid and I couldn’t take it anymore so I would take my anger out on people in school including you.”
“ Wow I never knew that I’m so sorry about that,” I said.
“It’s okay, the thing is my grandma moved in with us and she would treat me so well,” he said “But now she’s gone and I don’t know what do.” He started to cry. All those years of insults and pain went down the drain right there.
“You know all those times you would bully me really hurt, at one point I had thoughts of taking my life,” I said.
“I’m sorry for all that I really enjoy kind of having a family now,” he said. That’s when it hit me, we all have lost people in our lives and now we only had each other. We are family now no matter what happens.
We finished eating and got back on the road again. My uncle kept going on to himself about a teleporter when I finally asked him,
”What are you talking about?”
”I guess it’s time to tell you I’m an ex-CIA agent,” he said. We all started to laugh. “I’m serious right now, that’s why your parents left,” he went on. “I was done with that life, but your mom and dad just had to go on a mission,” he said.”
“What!” I shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he said. “Look I know now how this whole zombie outbreak happened” It all started when you were born, I was working with your dad on a secret mission. In Iran there was a man who claimed to have stolen a formula from the U.S. government that would bring humans back to life. We needed to get it back and in the end we did.” I later helped the government on perfecting the formula. One man who I worked with was obsessed with the idea. He would work on it day and night. Then I found out that your parents were leaving on a mission and needed someone to watch you. So I dropped out of that. A few years later that one man would perfect the formula and actually would bring a human back to life,but everything went wrong. That human became a zombie. Then I would later kill it and throw the man in jail. About 2 years later I received a letter saying to come back and work on the formula again. Since they were so close last time they knew that if I were to help we would get it right. That’s when I left for the summer and left you at Andrew’s for three months. We worked day and night on it. In the end it still failed, we decided never to use or work on that formula again. Then that scientist got out of prison that year. He would later on steal the formula and try it on a lot of people. Zombies slowly started to rise. I didn’t know what to do with you guys. Till one day I got a phone call from an old partner of mine. He said that the government built teleporters on an island called Island Z. It’s an island free of zombies and where humans could live. No worries or anything. Since I knew and worked on the formula we could use it. I could also bring my family. That’s pretty much it. It’s in Dallas, Texas on this farm and I know the location since it’s near the lab that I once worked at,” he explained.
We were all in shock when he was finished. None of us had anything to say. I just thought about the way my parents left me like that. I couldn’t believe it, but I knew that we needed to get to that island because my parents might be there. Later on that night we ended up sleeping in the car. I noticed that Andrew was still up and I felt like it was the time to tell him the truth.
“Hey man I have something to tell you,” I said.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I know who killed your brother,” I said.
“What!” He quietly shouted.
“Yeah here it is, it was the Reynolds kid, David,” I said.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me or my family, we never knew who killed him,” he said angrily. “I’m so sorry I never meant to hurt you,” I said. “I was just so scared when I saw it that I didn’t know what to do,” I explained. Andrew didn’t respond and he looked really upset.
“How could you, you’re my best friend and I should trust you with things like this,” he said angrily. “Goodnight I’m done with you,” he said even more angrily. That went better than I thought.

The next day we woke up bright and early and were out on the road. We were only about an hour away from the farm where the teleporters were. The car ride was really quite, Emily tried to put everyone in a better mood but it really didn’t work.
“Michael I wanted to reload all the guns and get them ready,” said my uncle. “We need them set because Texas has the biggest, the strongest, and baddest zombies in the whole U.S.” he went on. “Oh and Emily I want you to help him,” he said and winked at me.
After all these crazy conversations I knew that telling Emily how I feel about her might be a bad idea. But then again I might die today so it’s probably a good idea. As we were in the back in the truck loading up the guns I started. ” Hey Emily I really wanted to tell you that I really like you.”
“I really like you too,” she said.
“But I mean I really really like you”, I said.
“Yeah I know already Andrew told me awhile back,” she said.
“What!” I said.
“Yeah its no big deal I kind of have the same feels for you,” she said
“All this time, wow I feel so much better now,” I said.
“Yeah and if we make it out alive maybe there'll be something between us” she said. We went on to talk for a little bit longer. But not that long because we had finally made it to the farm.

As we finally made it to the farm we saw just an open field with tall grass and in the distance was a small beat up red barn. We all loaded up our guns and started to walk toward the barn. It seemed like there wasn’t a zombie in slight. But right as I thought that, I saw about a 100 blood-thirsty zombies running my way. The zombies had greenish skin, that some of their guts were showing. There eyes are blood red, and on the look of their faces they seemed pretty hungry. They were huge compared to the zombies I’d been fighting. They ran pretty fast too. But I guess people were right everything is bigger in Texas.
“Run for your life,” yelled Chris. And we did, as these zombies chased us. We went all out killing them like crazy. From throwing knifes to just using our guns. We got really close to the barn, just right at the door. My uncle just put the code in when the biggest, fattest zombie came out of nowhere. It’s skin was yellow, its eyes were dark red, it looked extremely hungry.
“Yup we’re screwed,” Andrew said.
“Use everything we got while I start up the machine. That’s just what we did, but it didn’t seem to work. It came closer, and closer. “We need five minutes then we’re good,” said my uncle.
“I’m so low on ammo,” I said. As we all ran into the barn the zombies started to pile up.
“Two minutes, everyone gets in the machine,” shouted my uncle. And we did just that, packed together very closely. The zombies surrounded the machine. We all screamed. Then everything went black.

I woke up on a beach and looked around. There were palm trees, sand, and an ocean. It looked like Hawaii. We made it, I thought, I looked around and saw everyone else.
“We made it,” I shouted. We all hugged each other.
Then Andrew looked me in the eye and said” I forgive you my brother.” We hugged it out.
Then I noticed “Where is my uncle?” We looked around the beach but couldn’t find him. I knew he was in the machine with us when we left.
We went down to the huge city, and asked ” Do you know where Dan Thomson is?”
“Who?” said the lady at the front desk of the huge hotel we went into. But then Uncle Dan walked in perfectly fine.
Dear Journal,
This is my final entry since everything is the end worked out. We all turned out fine and we’re all together. We’re all one big happy family. That day we realized that we need no one else but ourselves. But there’s still one more question: where are my parents?