Prologue
I’ve always disliked winters, I think I’ve mentioned that before, but this past winter was on a whole other level. Those who don’t hate winters have never lived underground during them because that will surely do it. Although, if you have to live underground during the freezing winter months make sure you got some good people with you. It makes a lot of difference.
I had my family with me. Not my birth family, except for my flesh and blood sister Ronnie, but my chosen family. Let me tell you about them.
First, there’s my thirteen-year-old sister Ronnie. We share the same parents, but unfortunately, they died a while after the zombie apocalypse. Which left us pretty much alone in the world. My sister then became bitten by a zombie, turning her into a zombie as well. However, she became a different kind of zombie. She’s the unusual kind who doesn’t bite humans. I’ve promised her that I’m going to find a cure to turn her back to human and I will… one day.
Anyway, I’m not the only one who cares about her. The rest of our chosen family do too. It took them a little while to see beyond her being a growling zombie but once they did it was great. No judgment, no discrimination. She gets treated just like anyone else in our family.
Ronnie shares a special bond with Steve, who’s an ex-soldier. I’m not completely sure why those two are so close. I mean I have theories, such as Ronnie thinking that Steve is like her since he tends to go around muttering and growling, even though he’s human, but that’s it… only theories. I figured it really doesn’t matter what the reason is, the point is that Ronnie now has a brother as well and I’m very happy about that.
Then there’s Brim and Michael who, even though I tend to mention them together, are not actually conjoined twins. They’re just close. I doubt they would have been if the zombies hadn’t come, considering how different they are, but the zombies did come. Brim is an athletic woman in her early twenties while Michael is a forty-something couch potato.
Michael has had a bad year. It started last summer when we were in the city of Plaus. We discovered that the military lab there had made a new kind of zombie, one that couldn’t be killed. We managed to solve that problem. Although Michael was injected with whatever it was that had caused the zombies to turn into the even more terrifying new zombies. He didn’t become a zombie from it but there were some changes, such as a heightened fight or flight response, which usually translated into him running for his life whenever he heard something out of the ordinary. Although, Brim has been forcing him to do yoga and meditation which has helped a lot in getting him to control it.
It was actually in Plaus that we met Ren, who is an old army buddy of Steve’s. If it hadn’t been for Ren we probably wouldn’t have survived. Then there’s Henry who, by chance, has become our doctor. Even though the only medical experience he had before the zombies came was putting a plaster on a paper cut. However, I think he’s really risen to the challenge.
Lastly, there’s Luke, who is one of my favorite people and also the one Ronnie and I first met on our travels. He’s a blind man in his sixties who never stops amazing me with his survival skills and calm demeanor.
There are more people in our family too, that live with us in the tunnels that run under the town of Tumbleweed, but those are closest to me. That might have something to do with what we went through together in Plaus.
Oh, I forgot to mention myself. I’m Ellie, I’ve recently turned fifteen. I’m a survivor in this crazy world that the zombies pretty much took over about four years ago.
