Editors Note
The contents presented in this book were originally discovered in a backpack in the town of Colfax, located in Northern California. It is presumed that the last owner of the backpack is the author of the notes on pages 8 through 10. He or she seems to have acquired the notes, letters, and photographs having already been previously collected and may or may not have added further to the collection. Its also unclear how many people may have carried the backpack and added to the collection before it reached the author of these most recent notes. It is clear that those who kept the collection considered it an important enough record to carry, even while other survival factors would have weighed against doing so.
The material is presented here unaltered and as it was removed from the backpack.
FebruaryThe Super Flu
The so-called super flu pandemic begins in February as a common, seasonal influenza.
By March, the number of cases reported has quadrupled, and the flu strain is first dubbed the super flu by the media. The super flu proves resistant to influenza vaccines. On April 1st, the World Health Organization announces that the super flu meets the three criteria of a pandemic. In the streets, people begin wearing dust and surgical masks. As May approaches, there is still no vaccine for the flu strain. government, and there are protests in cities across the United States. government, and there are protests in cities across the United States.
In San Francisco, a man robs a bank with a squirt bottle full of what he claims is super fluinfected blood.
MayCamp St. Teresa
On May 1st, the U.S. government, working through FEMA and the CDC, sets up a camp in the Nevada desert with the announced purpose of treating the uninsured sick. The government issues St. Teresa passports to hospitals across the country.
Hospital staffs are instructed to give the passports, which grant access to Camp St. Teresa, to uninsured patients in need. People all over the country rush to their local hospitals seeking passports. By June 1st, all the passports have been issued, and a black market for real and counterfeit passports flourishes. By mid June, additional camps are set up in every state across the country.
JulyThe Campion Virus
Thirty-five-year-old Russell Campion is discovered to have a mutated strain of the virus.
JulyThe Campion Virus
Thirty-five-year-old Russell Campion is discovered to have a mutated strain of the virus.
The mutated flu spreads, and the total death toll doubles in just a few weeks, from 50,000 to over 100,000. The CDC dubs the mutated super flu the Campion virus. Cases of the mutation are documented around the world. The United Nations declares a global state of emergency. Accounts surface from Camp St. Teresa that describe dire living conditions, as well as reports that the facility is in fact a death camp, where the infected are sent to die.
The government characterizes the purpose of St. Teresa and other camps as quarantine. Widespread rioting occurs. On July 14th, protesters set fire to the U.S. capitol building and martial law is enacted.
SeptemberDead and Attacking
On September 8th, an emergency call is placed from a mobile phone somewhere near the city of Davis in Northern California.
The person making the call claims that he is at a pharmaceutical testing facility where they are testing Campion virus treatments. The caller claims that some of the patients have died and are attacking people. The emergency services operator asks if the patients are dead or are attacking, to which the caller responds, Both. This is the first recorded case of zombie behavior resulting from the Campion Virus.
NovemberWe Lost Some Zombies
On November 1st, the headline on New Yorks leading newspaper reads We Lost Some Zombies. The quote is from a uniformed guard stationed at Camp St.
Teresa, excerpted from a frantic radio transmission made by the guard before he and other soldiers flee the facility in Humvees. By November 2nd, the infected reach Las Vegas. Despite a significant army presence and efforts to quarantine the city, it falls within days, and the infection spreads across the entire continent by November 7th. There is no way to know for certain, but it is estimated that 75 percent of the population is dead or undead by November 19th. Governments collapse. Cities have largely gone dark, outside of the power from isolated civic and private generators.
Survivors around the world are left largely on their own.
AugustA New Industry
By August, pharmaceutical companies claiming to have a cure for the Campion virus begin selling their products directly to consumers and drug stores, circumventing any regulatory or approval process. The benefits of the drugs are unproven, and in light of events to come, functionally nonexistent.