(Contained here is an interview of the survivor Albert C. Hale. The interviewer has kept Albert's original wording and phrasing. Any grammatical mistakes made are true to Albert's speech. Cochlean Entertainment does not endorse the views expressed herein.)

"You'll probably want to know what the hell happened here, because that's the first thing anyone wants to know. 'Tell me the story' they ask, one way or another. And I don't blame them for it; we're all just trying to understand. But that's the thing, you know? If you weren't there, and didn't see it happen, you can't understand."

"Then try to help me understand. I wasn't there, so I can't, but try to make me."

"Yeah, yeah, of course I'm going to. If I wasn't gonna try it then I wouldn't even be here, would I? I'd be off hiding from you all, hiding from everything that happened. But I'm here, so I'll give it a chance.

"I guess the best place to start is the beginning, but there's no way I'm telling you every detail of my life that led up to this point. So I'll start at the right place instead of the best: that day in chemistry."

ONE

~In which the Story is Begun~

I remember exactly what was going on and what I was thinking about when it all happened, you know. I won't tell you what I was thinking about because she's none of your business, but the teacher, Anthony Casey, was standing up in front of us all spouting off facts about electrons and atoms and orbitals and I had no idea what the hell was happening. Super confusing stuff, you know? And I'm wedged into the corner of the classroom with some Mexican guy next to me that I had never been introduced to, and one of those super sweet couples that are just MADE for each other and make me sick is seated right in front of me, and there's all sorts of other community college goers, like the overweight middle-aged woman and the athlete-that-doesn't-fit-the-stereotype-at-all-'cause-he's-actually-a-pretty-cool-guy, in the room having no problem paying attention. And it's incredibly boring, listening to a lecture that you don't understand, but you have to sit there and take it. So I'm not paying attention at all.

But then something happened.

Somebody screamed outside the room, in the commons area just down the hallway. Then the stampede of feet, and the yelling, and Casey walking over and closing the door and continuing his incomprehensible lecture on electron configurations. It was like it was a normal thing, and it shouldn't disrupt class, this screaming and yelling and running around. Of course, the intruder alert that sounded over the speakers kind of disrupted the class, but that should be a given.

So when the alarm sounded, we all moved calmly over to the wall next to the door (I say calmly because nobody ever thinks it's more than a drill until they're made to realize it). But, being the furthest from that point of refuge, I was in front of that tiny little window in the door last. So I was the only one that got to see it.

I was the first, of that classroom at least, to see those dead things that should be laying down not moving but instead are eating. (What, you want a better description? Well too bad, you asked for the interview, so I'm telling it like I saw it, and that's what they are, so screw you and your job.)

Where was I? Right, the dead dude. This is the same building that had the veteran student club thing, and he had on a hat promoting it, so I guess he was one of them? Which is super sad and depressing, actually. Like, the guy was off in the military so that I didn't have to, and he finally makes it home, and gets into college, and he thinks he's safe now, and BOOM now he's dead and making other people dead too. But he's doing that dead-dude shuffle down the hallway, arms stretched out and everything. And then that middle-aged woman does a damn fine impression of the Umbridge cough: 'hem hem!' like there's not some dead guy walking around not two feet from her through the wall. So the guy's head turns and stares straight through the window, right at me.

That's really when I realized that the guy was seriously dead. It was a couple weeks before Halloween, so I thought before that maybe the guy is getting a head start on his costume, by acting like a zombie without really looking like one. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's moaning and groaning and reaching for me and stuff, but he's not all bloody and torn up. He had on a white T-shirt, and probably jeans, and only his forearm had any kind of injury. He must have been bitten and then got home and cleaned up the wound, because he looked fine other than being dead. His shirt was impressively white.

Anyway, he starts beating on the door, trying to break it down, and the entire class is terrified. Myself included, I'll admit that. Casey though, has to be given credit. He apparently was fine with being fired and arrested, 'cause here he comes pulling a Glock out of his bag. I know, I know, 'seriously, a Glock? That's embarrassing, they're so ugly and how do you even know what it was?' I worked at my dad's gun shop, so I know guns. Casey had a Glock 43, one of those new single stack 9mm's that everyone had been so crazy about a couple months ago. But he goes and gets in front of the door, holding his gun with both hands, shaking like crazy. (Personally, I had no problem with him as a person and a teacher. It wasn't his fault I didn't understand quantum mechanics, it's just a super confusing subject, and the whole carrying on school grounds just reinforced his being a cool guy.)

And he lets off a shot, but he's shaking so much that it hits the floor in front of the door. But the shot seemed to settle him a little bit, because he got this weird look in his eyes, and he ripped off his tie and aimed again, this time hitting the glass of the little window in the door. Action movies would have you think that it would automatically hit the dead guy, killing (re-killing?) him. But alas, such was not the case. The bullet shattered the window, but whizzed past the dude's left ear.

And now more of the dead guy was getting covered in blood because he was reaching through the window and the glass was shredding his arms. Casey fires again, and the dead guy finally starts acting like he's dead, and everybody's ears are ringing from the gunshots, and we're all of us terrified, and the entire door is covered in blood and goo from inside the guy's head, and it's suddenly very quiet in the room.

After that, it gets a little hazier. I'm sure that we escaped the classroom, but I don't know who opened the door. I know that I made it to my car, and somehow Casey and the Mexican dude were with me, but I don't remember how we got there or why they were with me. People were getting in their cars and driving out of the parking lot and getting into wrecks and screaming and crying, and there's other people eating folks, and everything was one massive shitstorm.

But we made it to my dad's shop, which was actually only maybe four or five miles away, and when we got out to go inside, suddenly the Mexican guy wasn't there; he was off down the street. I never saw him again. Casey, though, stuck with me, and after we had finished loading everything from the shop up into our cars, and all the employees—Jacob, Daniel, and the new guy George—went their separate ways, my dad pulled me aside into his office.

"Albert," he said. "Albert, we're going to the house. You're coming with us, and later on we can go back to your place and get all of your stuff, but right now we're going home." And I remember nodding, and being handed a gun (also happened to be a Glock, a 19 this time, even though I think they're ugly and boring). But I remember getting back into my Jeep and driving off in a general home-ward direction. After that, things get even hazier.