Dislaimer: World War Z belongs to Max Brooks, Broadway Paperbacks, and any other person or group associated with it's creation. No copywrite infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.

AN: Various ideas for interviews have been running around my head since I first read World War Z, and it's time to get them out.

Finding the Lost

By Lady Callista

Madison, Wisconsin, USA

[We meet on the former University of Madison campus. It has not yet been reopened as a college, due to both lack of teachers and students, as well as fire damage to many buildings from students trying unsuccessfully to defend it. But over half of the old buildings survived, and are now used by the government. The red brick building I enter had far too many windows on the ground floor for students to try to use it, despite its sturdiness and almost castle like structure, and as a result it still stands as tall and proud as when it was built back in the late 1880's. Although the top of it still proclaims it to be the Science Hall, the sign out front reads Department of Resolutions. Such a simple title for such a colossal undertaking. I am meeting with Jean Klapel, who started Resolutions as a civilian project after the war, and was asked to continue running it even once the government began funding and administering it. Jean, a small, red-haired woman, greets me with a smile and a strong handshake before offering me the chair in front of her desk. She doesn't wait for me to ask a question, but begins to speak at once.]

For the last three generations here in America, there has been a defining moment. Well, maybe defining is the wrong word. There was a moment that everyone in that generation would never forget. They could tell you where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, how they felt.

For my grandparent's generation, it was the day that would live in infamy - the attack on Pearl Harbor. For my parents, it was the JFK assassination. For my generation, it was 9/11.

And then it wasn't.

I bet there's not a person today who was there when it started that doesn't remember every single detail of the moment they learned that zombies were taking over the world. Well, maybe some of the kids who didn't understand, but you get what I'm saying.

[She is obviously waiting for a response, so I nod, and then ask the obvious question. Her conversational demeanor fades away, eyes becoming haunted briefly before filling with strength. Her eyes flick to a large photo hanging on the wall, a group of around forty people who look like they just stepped out of a Hollywood version of a medieval movie. I see both plate armor and chain mail, bracers, greaves, swords, bows, and various other weapons.]

There used to be a group called the SCA - Society for Creative Anachronisms. Basically, it was a medieval reenactment group, just like there used to be for the Civil War, or World War II. We practiced all the old arts; we had blacksmiths, leather-workers, brewers, weavers. We engaged in real combat, both one on one and in large groups. So all of our armor and weapons were real, not crappy costume stuff only good for dressing up a mannequin or hanging on a wall.

We used to do week long events, and pride ourselves on being as historically accurate as we could. The tents were usually modern, and we had sleeping bags and that kind of thing, but we had oil lamps instead of flashlights, cooked in heavy cast-iron pots over the fire, you get what I'm saying.

If I hadn't been at an event the day the Zs hit us, I wouldn't be here today.

I'm sure it was easier with a group, but you should have had a decent chance on your own with all that training, with the weapons and armor. [She shakes her head ironically]

I was what they called a non-com, non-combatant, meaning I didn't fight on the field at all, didn't have all of the weapons training that most of them did. I was, well, I had a big fancy title, but the easiest description is I was the event organizer, as well as the webmaster. I've always been anal about organization, and records, and details, got it from my mom who was more than a little OCD.

My boyfriend and both my brothers were fighters, that's how I got into it. Their web designer and event organizer had recently and unexpectedly passed on, and no one else wanted the job.

So I stepped in, and met some of the most amazing people who became the best friends I'd ever had. There was a core group of about forty here in Madison, our kingdom had around a hundred. There were nearly a thousand people here for the event.

Our generation was probably more prepared for a zombie apocalypse than any other kind, due to all the movies and books about it. We joked about it when we sat around drinking, had thought semi-seriously about where we would go, what we would do, how we would survive. And I was with people who maybe thought about it more than most, and who actually had the skills to survive. Of the almost thousand of us, seven hundred and forty-two survived. First by fortifying, fighting, then eventually by traveling to the safe zone over the Rockies.

[Her eyes grow haunted again, and I imagine she is thinking of those that didn't make it. Her eyes close for a moment, and then with a shake of her head she opens them again and focuses on me.]

But I got you off topic by starting the way I did, didn't I? I don't imagine you wanted to interview me to talk about where I was, or how I survived. You want to know about Resolutions.

I'm always interested in how civilian groups survived, but yes, I did want to talk about Resolutions. You started it pretty much solo, didn't you?

Mostly, yeah, but the SCA people started helping pretty quickly. Most of us had been so far from our families and other friends when things went down that we had no idea what happened to them. When we got back to Madison, when there was Internet again, we decided to start to look. My laptop was still in my old apartment, right where I'd left it, and I had a list of all the SCA people, their full names, where they lived, stuff like that. We went through the list, marking off the people we'd lost along the way. Putting in new addresses and phone numbers for the survivors. Then we posted the list and waited.

There were comments almost immediately, both people asking to be added to the list, and people thanking us for giving them a way to contact someone they were looking for. Within a week, we had a directory of over five thousand people.

And it just kept growing.

Yeah, it just kept growing. I wasn't the only one in the group with web skills, so we kept improving the site. You could search by full name, by city they were living in when it happened. We expanded it to include city you were born in within the first month. Eventually it had links to families, if you found one person you found them all.

And it wasn't just living people, we had the deceased too. If you knew for a fact that someone had been killed during the war you could put them on the list. Your name got linked to theirs if you were okay with it, so if anyone was looking for them they could ask about how they died. We were leery of making that an option at first, I mean, who wants to hear about how their son or whatever was torn apart by a pack of Zs?

But then we got a call from a woman who had learned her son gave his life to save five other people. One of those people had contacted her from the website, thanking her for raising such an amazing son, and telling her how she and her baby wouldn't have survived if not for what he had done. The woman thanked us so much for making that possible, she said it was such a comfort to her to know that her son had died a hero.

After that, we made it an option on the site; you could put in how the person died. We surmised, correctly thankfully, that people wouldn't put in graphic details, or mention if someone had done something cowardly or bastardly.

You never got a bad comment?

Not a single one. There were around 313 million people in the United States when this started, by the end of the first year we were active Resolutions had nearly 80 million of them in our database. Over half of those were dead, and there was a positive comment about almost all of them. They had saved someone's life, or they had given them a ride, or done something as simple as share food or shelter. So many people finally had closure, didn't have to keep wondering if their loved one was still out there somewhere.

What about people who turned? Who became Zs?

You're listed on the site, and you've put in other people, so you know the answer to that. If you were certain that someone had been turned, you checked the box for dead. Didn't matter if you saw them killed as a Zedd or not, they were dead. At least that way people knew not to keep looking for them, not to keep hoping.

When did Resolutions change over from being civilian to government run?

It didn't, not really. The government gave me a title, and funding, and yeah, on paper we're a national department, but they never interfered. They didn't try and tell me how to run it, or change things, or make me answer to anyone. I was surprised at first, but then I understood. They didn't have the manpower to do this, in fact they hadn't even had the idea. Well, I'm sure someone somewhere had, but once there was one site started, why make more? It wasn't like before the war, when any good idea suddenly had ten copycats, then a hundred. There was no profit to make, and no point in having more than one site. What we had done worked so well, so why change it?

How many people do you have now?

There's nearly eight hundred of us working here, and we've got nearly 200 million people in the database. Since lots of people don't have computers yet, or internet, most of my employees work the phone center. You can call in, give us information, and we'll either enter it in the database for you or check to see if we have the person you're looking for. We're not getting many new entries anymore, although there're still a few every day, but there is still a fair bit of updating as people move around, try to find new places to settle. I'm still hoping we'll find out what happened to the remaining hundred million someday, but there's a good chance most of them are dead. I mean, pretty much everyone in the country knows about Resolutions by now, and everyone wants to find out what happened to their loved ones. If you're not in the database by now…

[She trails off, hands waving in a gesture of helplessness. Her eyes shift again to the picture of her SCA friends, then flick to the other wall where there are two pictures. The physical resemblances between the people lead me to believe these are her family, likely one with her mother's side and the other her father's. Her eyes shimmer with tears, and I presume that not all of her family is in the database. I redirect the conversation.]

There's talk of you getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian can receive.

[Scoffs] I don't care about that. I didn't do this for a medal, or a nationally funded job. I did it because one of the most painful things in the world is to live with uncertainly, to not know if someone you love is alive or dead. To not be able to talk to them or hug them. I just wanted people to have resolution, that was the reward. I try to work the phones as much as I have time for, because there's no better reward than the joy in someone's voice when you tell them their mom is alive and give them a phone number.

We know we'll never get them all, we'll never account for every person that was alive when the Great Panic started. For one thing, lots of people never knew the full names of people in their groups, or people they saw die. There were more important things to worry about at the time.

But every single person we find is someone's child, or parent, or wife. Every single person in our database has someone out there who loved them, and is worried about them, and hoping they'll find them.

That's why I started Resolutions, and that's why we're still here.

[We are interrupted by a man then, one who doesn't take the time to knock nor apologize for interrupting. His smile is beaming from his face, and I see the resemblance at once. This must be one of Jean's brothers. "Mom's on the phone." This is all he says, but as I see the relief and joy and tears spring into Jean's eyes, I realize that one more of the lost has been found.]