Zed one
     He begged me not to chop it off but I had no choice, his life or his arm. So I took my belt put it in his mouth and took my machete out of the sheath and said “bite down hard cuz it’s gonna hurt.”
     Day one:
     My name is Keegan. I have been trained as a combat operator overseas. I Work in the Marine Recon One unit. The recon unit of the Marines. The stealth operators, taking out duties like stealth operations and recon missions. I have had a numerous amounts of training with tons of weapons, and self defence.
     I have been here in a place called Ellsworth. It is a town. I have been leading a small group of people. There 14 of us. We are held up in a Hotel. There is six of us that go scouting. There’s David, Chuck aka 40K, Johnny, Ralph, and Donald. We search for other smaller groups, or people that need a place to stay from the undead.
     We have herd of a small Island in which has not been overrun by the zeds.
On the island there is a building where there is a generator the thing about that is we only have limited gasoline and only a Sheriffs truck. And it is a 60 mile trek north. So us six guys are going to go scout the island. First we need vehicles. So we are gonna split up into three groups of two. “ 40K and I are going down town, Johnny and Ralph you can go up by the Mardens. David and Donald you can go to Ellsworth falls.” 40K looks up “Lets go.” Ok now you may be thinking what about the zeds they can hear right? No they cannot hear. They can’t smell they can only see. I have experimented with this I wanted to know and to inform people about them.
     40K took shackles and hand cuffs and cuffed one. Then we left it with itself for a while. We threw a fire cracker in there and it did nothing. Then we slid food in the room under a hole in the wall and it took him a while to find out that it was there. Then I ran around in circles in the room saying “come and get me, common… come here. That’s a good zed.” then I fed him. We can keep a few so when other ones see them around us they assume that we are too.
     40K and I walked up by the side of a truck. I opened the door and 40K asked “ Is there any keys?” I looked all throughout the truck “No theirs no keys.” I sat in the truck for a break. 40K hit the side of the truck and the vehicle started to role down a steep hill. I went to apply the break and there was none so next the emergency brake but nothing. I look up and there is a gas station I am going 65 mph at the pumps. So I grab my backpack and M4 and tuck and role.
     40K woke me up and the gas station was blown up. “HELP, HELP, HELP ME!” we looked and there was people coming out of the gas station. There was an old man wielding a shotgun and three girls about 20 coming out behind him and four men about the same age as the women. 40K helps me up “Common man we gotta help them!” I grabbed my backpack and M4 and ran over there with him. We fought the dead off. “We have one bitten.” I wondered if cutting the limb off would help any I have seen it in the walking dead before. “who is it?” I said. Lea. Shes bitten. Ohhno, It was not a limb. It was her side it was only scratched. “We will bring you guys with us to the camp we have. It’s up over the hill we are stationed at that hotel. Common.”
     We arriver back home. “The others have been back for a while where have you guys been?” said Donald. The older man coughs “well man, these two brave soldiers where saving us. We were pinned in the gas station when a truck started roling down the hill and your friend here jumped out and blew up the pumps.” The older man coughs again. “And we shot at a hord that was down by the pumps and that’s how we ended up with these seven.” 40K said.
     “Now we have limited ammo and not enough to go scouting. How did Johnny and Ralph do?” I said.
“Well they went back to get 2 more vehicles they found. They brought two back already.” Donald said. “We brought back a small car filled with supplies. We found the car and scavenged the supplies.” Donald said. “We now need to go get ammo for our weapons.” I said anxiously. “Ok well I’m tired so let’s go to bed and who’s on watch?” 40K said. “Well I know I am with you 40.” I said humorously. Ohh man I am on watch tonight?” he said sadly.  “Yep.” I said laughing.
  Day two:
     It is 3:00 AM. “40K are you still awake!?” I said yelling. “Yep I’m awake don’t worry about me.” We are posted up in the guard towers that me 40K and Johnny built. There are four of the towers. 7:30 AM “Hey 40!” I yelled. “Yea what!?” he yelled back. “Are you ready to get off of this night shift now!?” I yelled to him. “Yep lets go.” He said. I headed down to the bunks with 40K. to get some rest.
     6:37 PM I woke up and got 40 up. He was tired but now he’s hungry. He went over to the kitchen and got some food while I got the guys together and tell them what we are going to be doing. “Ok boys listen up we are gonna go down to the gun store downtown and get some ammo for our weapons. I will hand out a list of all of the different types of ammo we will need.” 40 came in and handed me a breakfast sandwich.
     The ammo types are: 5.56 x 45
                                       7.62 x 39
                                       9 x 19 Parabellum
                                       .45 ACP
                                       7.62 x 51 
                                       Stanag rounds for 5.56, and 7.62
                                        M4A1, USP mag’s.
     “Now there two places that we can go. There is the crate drop where there is tons of ammo kinds that we need, but there will probably be some hostile people and zeds waiting there to take out anyone who gets near it. Or we could…” huhum “How’s that breakfast sandwich?” 40K asked. “Ah well its good thanks for asking. Or we can go to the gun store. Where there is plenty of the kinds we need and more, and hardly no one will be there. So let’s take a vote. All in favor of going to the crate drop! No one ok let’s go to the gun shop.” So we readied up by 7:30 and was out by 8:00 PM.
     Me and 40K have been through everything together. I met him in boot camp about seven years ago. He was one of the hardest working men on the base. And you know what that got him nothing. He was an over achiever and it took him nowhere in boot camp but in combat it took him great distances. I didn’t see 40K again until he was stationed at the air base I was stationed at. It was a suprising thing to find him pared up with me under my orders. We fought together, ate together and if it came down to it we would die together. It was a long and good relationship. You could say we were “Brothers In Arms.” You may be wondering why do I call him 40K rather than his real name well he doesn’t like his real name. It was his grandfather’s name and his granddad was more of a father to him than his real father. Then when he died he was very upset. I went to the funeral and said something like “Hey Chuck sorry about your grandfather.” He looked up at me and put his head on my shoulder and said “don’t call me by my real name call me 40k or Dixion.” Dixion is his last name.
     We made tracks down to the outdoor mall. “Ok me and 40K will go in to the building and Johnny and Ralph you go up on top of that building and scout out. See if you see anything and Donald and David you will secure the building.”
     “You ready.” 40K asked. I knotted my head yes and we walked in. We shot the two zeds at the counter and grabbed all of the ammo and mag’s that we needed. I heard a noise at the back of the place but I figured it was a dog or some kind of animal trying to get food it is four weeks into the outbreak after all.
     I look at 40K “are you ready to go?” then as soon as I said that and turned around a zed jumps up and grabs 40K. I tried to bash him off but he wouldn’t move Donald and David walked in and shot the zed in the head. I looked at 40K and asked if he was bitten he looked himself over and I looked myself over and him there was no bites. But then a man started screaming. “aaahhhhh!”
     He ran into the store and told me to kill the zed that was chasing him. “Kill it KILL IT!” So 40K took his handgun and shot him and killed it. The guy was bitten in his arm. He said “what are you gonna do with me?” He told me to kill him but I couldn’t. He was an innocent person. I couldn’t shoot him none of us could. he took a shot of vodka and said this may hurt a little. He begged not to chop it off but I had no choice. His life or his arm. I took out my belt, put it in his mouth and took my machete out of the sheath and said “bite own hard cuz it’s gonna hurt.” I brought my machete up and chopped down. I couldn’t look we wrapped him up and took him home to get him to the two girls who where nurses, back at the hotel to patch him up.
Day three:
     I woke up at 6:30 AM in the bunks. I went into the kitchen to grab a breakfast sandwich. I looked on the table and there was only one left. I took it and opened it. I didn’t see 40K when I woke up in the bunks. I walked out into the hall way and saw 40K holding three or four breakfast sandwiches in his arms as he waves to me and says “Hi, I saved you one.” I laughed. “well thanks for the offer but I already have one.” He looks at me with a really happy face on “Haha ok well more for me then.” He laughed and ran to the bunks, so I followed. He sat down pulled his tv tray up to him and opened one “man I haven’t had a good breakfast sandwich since that time when we were on the USS Nimitz.” I tie my boots and get my handgun holster and the gun itself and put my belt on. “Ok well when you are done watching tv and eating sandwiches come to the front desk… You see the outside world is difficult. They have evacuated three of the counties here in Maine. Washington, Handcock, and Penobscot counties. There is still people living in the outside world. It is just that we are quarantined. We have some tasks to accomplish.” I walk down to the front desk and call all of the rooms that the guys are in and told them to get down here. “Ok, so today we are planning on going to that island with no zeds on it. It is down by the coast.. It is a 50 to 60 mile trek down there. So we need vehicles. We have five all together that we found. So we need equipment for two days and we need gasoline. So on our way down we will gas up at a store that I always went to go get gas when I lived there. Then we will leave and go to the island take a boat and get there. Sound good?”
     40K walks in and he asked what was going on. “Get your gear I will breif you on the way. We walked out to the front of the hotel. We pulled the secondary gate open and drove three vehicles out. They closed the secondary gate and opened the primary gate. Zeds flushed in and we drove out. The guys on military .50 cal. Turrets shot all of the zeds that had came in between the primary fence and secondary fence. They got off of them and hopped in. We took off. With the cadalac on empty we drove there most of the way when we ran out of gas. We took some 5000 lbs test line and tied the cadi to the Silverado and me and 40K was toed all the way to the petrol station.
     40K got out took care of all of the zeds as I pumped gas. We filled it up. “Lets go 40.” He opened the rear of the SUV. He fired his M4A1. Shooting all of the zeds in the rear of us but then he hit pump 4 and the whole place exploded and killed many of them. There was one of our only places to get gasoline without the travel. We took off to the island. We stopped and I threw a recon drone out in the sky. I searched the island to see if there was any visible sign of zeds from the air. There was none. I flew it back to us and shut it off. It fell in a field with tons of zeds.
     40k went over in the field to get it with zeds protecting it. I got out my MK14 EBR and sniped all of the zeds that was dangerously close or potentially a threat. I shot only them ones because I only had four, twelve round magazines. I had gotten 7.62x51  rounds but I had only enough time to get four twelve round magazines of ammo.  That’s when he started running and one had stood up out of the field in front of him. I had one round left in the magazine. I aimed for the chest and shot. I got him in the chest. I had killed it.
     We went to the small town closest to the island. I had a couple of the guys go get a few boats. We had set up camp on the shore. There was a lot of trees so it blocked the wind from blowing out the fire. We had gone to where I had lived as a child earlier and got food. We got all of the caned goods that we could get. 40K was sad that he couldn’t have a breakfast sandwich when he was to wake up the next day. David, and Donald stayed up to guard us all night. Me and 40 set up a two man tent and we went to sleep.

Day 4:
     I woke up and saw that there was a new guy at our camp site. I looked at him. He was asleep in the lawn chair. David and Donald was asleep on watch. So I grabbed my shotgun out of the cadi and said “hey you…” pointing the empty shotgun at him. “Who are you and where did you come from.” He looked at me and said “wow take it easy buddy theirs no need for that dude. Calm down.” He said nervously. “Don’t tell me to take it easy I’m the guy with the empty shotgun here. “ as I looked him in the eyes. “Empty shotgun, pull the trigger.” I pulled the trigger and it clicked. “Oh nice trick there man.” 40k came out of the tent. I asked a lot nicer this time who he was. He said that his name was Jarid. He brought a car he said and there was tons of bladed weapons, and a few guns. Mainly handguns.
     We went for a walk after we ate our beans and franks and found a bridge tank. They lifted out in front of them a 200 foot long bridge. It would be good to use from one point of another island to get to the one we want and it’s amphibious. So it can be used as a boat. We went back after this discovery and packed all of our stuff and went over to the island that we could use to get to the island that we wanted to go to. I drove the amphibious bridge tank to the destination.
     There was a fuel tank leek and I had to repair it. So I had to get some scrap medal. And a welding tool. We went to the junk yard up on route one. And went to the scrap medal area and grabbed some. Then I had sent Donald and David on a run to a welder in the town that we had set up camp in. They brought the welding tool back to the tank and welded it on with 40k”s help. His grandfather was a welder and a mechanic. So he was experienced in that field I had no training what so ever so it was new to me but I figured it out. The scrap metal was welded on the tank and all we needed was to pour some fuel I had In gas jugs in the back of the cadi. “ 40 grab the 5 gallon jerry cans out of the back of the cadi and give them to me so I can pour it in the tank?” 40K went over to get the cans when we herd a sniper shot. I thought that they shot 40K when he dropped. I started yelling to him, but he looked over at me scared. He stood up and grabbed his M4A1 and my EBR and threw it over to me. I grabbed it. When I reached out there a bullet hit the ground by the gun. I could tell that it was a bolt action sniper. it would take him three of four seconds to put another round in the chamber. M24 was my guess or a Remington 770.
     I looked over toward 40K and he was shooting in the direction that the sniper was shooting from. ”Throw me two mags 40!” He threw two full mags over to me. I picked up one and said “If I don’t get the kill in the first shot then I shouldn’t snipe. I took aim scopping out the area that the sniper was. I saw a glair off of the rifle scope. I had a no glare cap over the lenses. I took aim It was about 450 meters away. I counted for the wind and for bullet drop, then I squeezed the trigger. “Got him.” We went over to the island where the guy was. I had seen a small car and figured it was the snipers.
     We looked at the gear in the car and saw that there was Remington 770 ammo. So I grabbed it and went over to grab the rifle form the dead sniper and gave it to 40K. “I figure you could use this.” I drove the tank over and let down the bridge and had the cars drive over it. I made a plan to find a wench and hook it up to the bridge so it will be accesable by car. I set up station and got out the radio and called to the other suvivors back at camp. I took the radio and called out to the others and scouted the island. There was no zeds on the island I let them know that. They came down and was here by night. We stayed here for a while. We stayed there for three months before the outbreak was taken care of. It was a long and enduring adventure but we survived.