Hey folks and fellow zombie worshippers!

I have decided to take this blog in a new direction from now on. The first of my stories based on the survivor 'The Chef' was very long and if I'm going to post a weekly story, then I'll have to drastically reduce the length of each story.

Therefore, I have settled on a nice round figure - 400 words - which should suffice to tell the story of each of the survivors to grace this blog.

In a month's time, I'll be launching a weekly voting poll so all you lovely readers can vote for the best zombie apocalypse survivor of the week, each and every week.

Stay tuned this week for the next survivor: Here is a little info on the lady herself.

Name: Laura Hopkins
Age: 32
Occupation: Primary School Teacher
Location: The Town of Stansdown

Will she live?

Find out later this week in the first of our 400 word survivor zombie stories!

Zombye!

Hey guys and welcome to my blog. My aim in building this blog is to bring to all the zombie lovers out there a taste of a zombie apocalypse from the eyes of the average man or woman. I have read a lot of zombie stories and it seems to me that so many of them fail to capture the perspective of the average person during an apocalypse, i.e, they always seem to be able to handle guns and have military training when in reality, very few of us are able to handle guns or be prepared for survival in such situations. As each one of us is skilled in different ways and equipped with our very own personality traits and behaviors, I wish to write about each type of person and how they may or may not survive a zombie apocalypse. For example, how would a chef cope? Or a baby-sitter? Would a quiet, nerdy teenager fare well or would he or she be torn apart? Based on my own experiences of life and Psychology I shall endeavor to bring to you a zombie apocalypse from the perspective of as many different types of human being as possible.

Please, sit back and enjoy the gore!

The Chef reached across the blood-stained counter and picked up the large knife with the red handle - The raw meat knife. How fitting that it would be that particular knife he would use to protect himself as he made his way across town to his girlfriend's place. Just before the world had gone silent he had managed to get through to his girlfriend on his mobile phone and told her to stay inside and keep quiet. As far as he knew, the zombies didn't go searching for prey as such, they shuffled stupidly around until a noise or the smell of fresh meat got their attention and then they suddenly became very animated. He'd watched through the small porthole in the kitchen door as 2 bloodied men had barged their way into the restaurant through the entrance and began tearing into his colleagues as if they were a pair of lions on the hunt in the savannah. His boss only ever hired students to run the floor during the week and they had put up a weak fight before succumbing to the ferocity of the two men in torn, blood-drenched suits. He'd turned from the door and quickly found a chair which he lodged under the door handle to keep them out of his kitchen, before jumping into the walk-in refrigerator and closing the door firmly.

At first, the darkness of the refrigerator had seemed safe but he soon regretted his decision while sat there resting against the boxes of lettuce, as his mind began running through all the possible scenarios that could occur at any moment. Would they get into the kitchen and find him cowering in the refrigerator? Were they outside the door at that very moment? He couldn't figure out whether he was shaking from the cold or the terror of what might be coming to get him at any moment. After an hour, he'd finally summoned up the courage to leave the refrigerator and crept out into the kitchen. The silence had been almost too much for him to bear as if the sounds of the slaughter outside in the restaurant comforted him somehow.

Now, as he stood there at the porthole staring into the abattoir that had once been a posh restaurant he felt shame wash over him. There was no sign of Amy or Andrew, the waiting staff, nor were there any zombies. Just the carnage that had been left behind. The tables and chairs were strewn about the restaurant, some had been smashed into small pieces and here and there he saw a piece of gnawed flesh or a streak of blood. In the corner by the bar, he was disgusted to see an unbelievably large pool of blood that had soaked into the newly laid carpet and it had a sticky, viscous look to it like lumpy stew that has been sitting on the stove for an hour, going cold. Disgusted, he turned away from the horror in the restaurant and quietly walked back to the stainless steel counter where he had laid out a selection of possible weapons.

He decided upon the raw meat knife which at 12 inches long was a formidable weapon, and the stainless steel gauntlet he used for cutting large pieces of meat, although he didn't plan on using them unless things got really, really bad.

The knife in his right hand and the gauntlet on his left he was ready to leave. He would leave via the fire exit at the back of the kitchen and if things weren't too bad, he could bring Sandra back and they could hole up there, after all there was enough food and supplies to last them a few weeks.

He paused at the fire door and listened to the world outside. Sirens, lots of them all intermingled with car alarms and burglar alarms creating a cacophony of piercing whines that gave the chef the feeling that the city was about to be bombed and the air-raid sirens were sounding the warning to run and hide. He knew the reality was much worse than a mere bombing. It had been roughly an hour and a half since the attack on the restaurant which meant that he may be walking into a graveyard where the corpses wouldn't stay dead. He took a deep breath and pushed on the bar; being careful not to open it too widely and quickly scanned the alley searching for any signs of danger. The area was clear but the sudden barrage of noise that assaulted his senses left him feeling vulnerable and on edge.

Distant sounds of shouting and screaming could be heard in all directions amidst the low monotonous moans of the dead, presumably and from multiple sources he heard the crack of small arms fire. He smelt smoke and knew that zombies weren't the only thing to fear. Somewhere nearby, a building or several buildings were on fire and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the fires spread and engulfed the area. Dumpsters were lined up against each wall of the alleyway and he ran to the one closest to the high street and crouched down beside it before peeking around it into the street.

The entire street appeared lifeless and quiet. Nothing moved but there were numerous forms sprawled on the pavements and roads as if he were staring at a battlefield that had long since been abandoned by its soldiers, and left with the remains. Souvenirs of a bloody fight for survival but the chef couldn't tell who had won because nothing moved,the victors had long since moved on; it was unnerving and for a few moments he simply stared, dumbstruck by the finality of it. A car lay on its side against one wall, and in the distance he saw more abandoned vehicles, their doors wide open, windscreens and side windows smashed as if something had fought to get in, or out.

It was time to begin the journey across town. He would cut across the high street into Gordan Square and then take the back streets to his girlfriend's house in Victoria Street. It was a 15 minute walk on foot so it wouldn't take long, or at least it didn't take long before the world had gone insane.

Still in a crouch, he eased around the dumpster and checked to the left and right of the high street for any signs of danger but for the moment it appeared deserted, however, the sounds of violence in the distance all around told him it would be foolish to stay out in the open for too long. Feeling more alone than he'd ever been before he stood and forced his legs to begin to move; he moved slowly at first entering the high street warily but after a minute or so he began to speed up.

He stuck to the wall and the shop fronts as he walked, scanning all directions as he moved. Many of the shop windows were broken and appeared to have been looted although the blood smears and bloody hand prints on the doors and windows suggested that wasn't the case. Everywhere he looked there was blood, but so few corpses to go with the blood and that worried him deeply. If the living had won then wouldn't there be more corpses, zombie corpses? He reached the small cobblestone street that led to Gordan Square but just as he stepped into it, a dark shape suddenly exploded towards him and he instinctively fell to the side into a hedge to avoid the charge. He fell head first into the hedge and was lodged in the branches expecting to be bitten when he heard a familiar sound, it sounded like a horse galloping and he suddenly began to laugh almost hysterically. It had been a frightened horse. He pulled himself from within the hedge and watched the terrified police horse race into the distance before turning back to the cobblestone path that was fenced in between two tall hedges. He began to walk towards Gordan Square but as he did so a thought occurred to him. What was the horse fleeing from? That's when he heard them. The loud, ravenous moans of the dead approaching from somewhere up ahead and there was nowhere to hide so the chef waited, fear taking hold of him and causing him to shake uncontrollably.

He didn't have to wait long before he came face to face with the first of his zombie assailants. It rounded the corner faster than he thought possible for something clearly very dead and he instinctively raised the knife, ready to slice and his left hand clenched into a fist. The zombie had been a well-built black youth, it was impossible to tell how old because there was no face to tell of; only the gleaming white of skull where his face had been eaten away. Compared to the average human, it was still slow and the chef, despite the voice in his head screaming at him to run, stood his ground and raised the knife over his shoulder ready to strike.

When it came to within 3 feet of him he didn't wait for it to attack but instead struck first hoping to surprise it and kill it quickly because from the sounds of it, there were more approaching, unseen from the square. His first slice took off one of its hands and a dark red fountain sprayed forth covering him from head to foot and then he grabbed its arm with his left and swung the knife once more, this time catching it in the throat. Surprisingly, its head came off and the body fell forward to the floor where it lay still pumping black blood over the cobblestones. Jesus wept, I did it ... that was too easy.

Two more zombies rounded the corner and when they saw him they began to lurch forward towards him, their blood-stained mouths gaping wide ready to rip him into pieces but the chef wasn't about to allow that to happen. Adrenalin pumping through his veins, lending him a superhuman power he'd not felt since his rugby playing days, the chef leaned back before smashing his steel covered fist into the face of the first to reach him. His knuckles burned from the blow but the zombie spun around and collided with the hedge before slumping to the ground, twitching and flopping like a grounded fish. The second , a beautiful blonde - despite the fact that her face was contorted with animal-like ferocity - with two bloody stumps where he arms should have been charged at him, her jaws snapping loudly. The chef simply swung the knife as hard as he could and it sliced clean through her open mouth and continued through her skull with a metallic rasp.

He stood over the corpses and looked at his handy work, disbelief etched over his features. It was hard to believe he had just cut apart 3 people. Yes, they were zombies but still, they had been people. The fear he had previously felt vanished, to be replaced with a feeling of hope. It had been easy. There had been no moment of indecision or hesitancy, somewhere deep down those feelings had been overridden and replaced with a desperate courage and a resolve he never knew he possessed. Maybe he would live through this after all. He would cut his way through to his girlfriend and save her and for once he would be the hero that saved the day.

He strode forward into Gordan Square filled with a determination to reach her, no matter what. In the center of the square was a large fountain with a pair of mermaids frolicking and 2 jets of water spouted from each of their mouths high up into the air before returning to the pool. The fountain was a popular spot at lunch time and on an average day up to 200 people would be lounging on the benches and grass by the fountain. Today, there were a few more people than normal, only from where the chef stood his mouth open in shock, there were no living among them. They were all walking dead. Here and there, crowds had gathered and on the fringes of each crowd he saw zombies burying their faces in chunks of flesh or tearing at limbs like beef jerky, it was the scene of a slaughter. 3 police cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, doors open and the cars positioned as if the police had meant to form a barrier around the square, but the police were no where to be seen. Gun shots still rang out in the distance though so he knew that somewhere, the police were putting up a fight. How had the dead taken over so fast?

He needed to pass through the square but there were so many of the dead and they had already seen him, a steady stream was breaking off from the crowd in the square and heading in his direction although the pavement running along the bottom of the square was clear so he could make it if he ran. He ran as fast as he could and made it across the square but not without gaining a few more pursuers. Behind him, the small horde had shifted and were headed in his direction in their untiring, loping steps, he could hear them calling him, and the sound chilled him to the bone. He entered the town market zone, an area filled with covered second-hand stalls and fruit and veg sections that had been long since abandoned by their owners although as he ran he saw others running with him, appearing from the dimness of the covered market and calling out to him but he ignored them. It was a relief to see he wasn't the only one though. There was still hope.

Breathless and shaking from the exertion, he reached the residential area on the edge of town and stopped to rest against a wall in Exeter Road. Just a few minutes more, piece of cake, he thought as he gulped in lungfuls of air. A muffled moan suddenly erupted from his right and he turned to meet the danger. The zombie was walking blind, a sweater pulled up over its head as if it had been getting dressed when the attack occurred and one of its arms was still wedged in the sweater at an awkward angle. Where there should have been a mid-section there was only the spine and the rib cage covered in bloody flesh swinging as the zombie staggered blindly towards him. The chef swung the blade once more and silenced the moans before stepping over the remains and heading up the street.

More moaning reached his ears and he knew there were more dead somewhere nearby, his senses were so alive. So attuned to the environment, he felt like a soldier on duty during a war as he crept from abandoned cars to darkened doorways seeing and hearing every zombie that approached. He was more alive than ever before, and he destroyed several more zombies on the way to his girlfriend's house. His chef's uniform was completely saturated in blood and gobbets of flesh clung to his face and hung from his clothes and hair but he didn't care, he was past caring at that point. From a distance, one couldn't be blamed for mistaking him for a zombie the way he appeared to walk slightly hunched, head turning from side to side like a predator on the hunt.

As he neared his girlfriend's house he heard a series of pops and cracks and he realized it was gunfire coming from the corner ahead of him somewhere behind the mangled wrecks of crashed cars and debris. He approached warily, slipping his knife into the as of yet unused sheath attached to his belt, it must have been the police because only they had guns since the ban on guns years earlier.

He made his way through the maze of wrecked cars, in a crouch and looked up through the window of one. 50 meters away on the corner directly opposite his girlfriend's house he saw dozens of armed police in riot gear with huge rifles positioned around a makeshift barricade that spanned the entire T-junction. He saw flashes coming from the windows of the houses above the barricade and realized the police were positioned inside the houses as well as outside and firing off to the east, somewhere up Falmire Crescent. They were winning the battle by the looks of things. There was a huge pile of bodies in the middle of the road and armed police were dragging more bodies to the pile and that's when he saw 2 officers heaving the body of a woman out of a house, his girlfriend's house. His throat tightened as they haphazardly tossed the woman onto the pile and made sure she didn't roll off with a few kicks and stamps. Shit, is that ... , No, she was safe in there wasn't she. That must be someone else, it can't be her, his mind was racing through all the possibilities searching for a plausible explanation but the only thing he could think of was that it wasn't her. She must have left and fled. So who was that?

He jumped up from his hiding place and set off running towards the pile of bodies, still unnoticed by the police. He reached the pile and covered his nose with his sleeve, it stunk of rotting flesh and made his eyes water and sting as he rolled the body of the woman over to identify her. He turned her over and looked into the lifeless eyes of his girlfriend Sandra. She had been killed by a single bullet to the forehead but she merely looked asleep to the chef, except for the small trickle of blood that was oozing from the wound and trailing down her nose, She had died only moments earlier. Something struck him about the body, there were no other wounds, no bite marks or scratches. Just the solitary bullet hole. Then it suddenly occurred to him, the police killed her when she was still alive ... they murdered her. He hadn't loved her, they'd only been together 2 weeks but that didn't matter. The police were murdering innocent people, exterminating them as if they were expendable. Ignorantly sacrificing innocent people to prevent the spread of the infection.

Fucking murderers!

The chef unsheathed his knife and raced into the house where the 2 police officers had re-entered and sought them out. He didn't think - he was driven by solely by vengeance. They were dragging the body of Sandra's mother downstairs, they had murdered her too. The chef walked forward and calmly slit the throat of the officer at the bottom of the stairs facing away from him before throwing the knife with all his strength at the second officer struggling to bring his weapon to bear in the small space. The distance between them was a mere 3 feet and the knife struck the officer in the face lodging deeply in his eye socket; he shrieked and fell back against the stairs clutching at the blade. Sandra's mother slipped through his fingers and slid to the bottom of the stairs where the chef gently moved her to the side before straddling the shrieking officer and pushing the knife the rest of the way into his skull, silencing him forever. Outside, the officer's shrieks went unnoticed, the gunfire had drowned them out.

Minutes later, an officer appeared to leave the house and walk into the circle of firing policemen his face dark and grim.

"You, over there, the east side needs reinforcing. What are you doing standing there, Get over there now! They will not take this position, do you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you," the chef said as he raised his rifle and shot the commanding officer in the head point blank. He stepped over the body and began firing wildly into the line of men protecting the west facing barricade. Despite never having used a gun before he aimed for the unprotected heads and depressed the trigger emptying the weapon into the men just 4 meters away, smiling as he did so even though the rifle felt like it was about to break his arm with each judder and jolt. They would pay for what they had done.

He turned to the east wing, but he'd been noticed and the dozen or so police officers there were watching him, their faces confused and questioning, but he didn't care. He knew the end had come for him, but that was o.k. He didn't want to live in a world like this anyway, a world overrun with zombies and a Government that allowed its police force to kill innocent citizens ... for what, to cleanse the streets, so they could start afresh?

"Go to hell, pigs!"

The officers opened fire and the chef became just another hunk of dead flesh in a dead world. All over the world similar scenes were being played out, except sometimes it was the citizens doing the slaughtering. The zombies would ravage the planet, that much was certain. The human race was still too ignorant to leave behind the petty prejudices and policies of the old world, and that's why those who had started the plague sat patiently in their bunkers underground, watching and waiting for the inevitable collapse ...