If anybody reads this, you might be the last hope for humanity.
My name is Ryan McAndrews. I’m a survivor in Athens, Ohio. Like you, I’d seen the broadcasts on TV, the videos of Army soldiers getting overwhelmed. Like you, I thought it was all just some sort of elaborate, six-month-early Halloween prank.
But I was wrong.
I was coming home at 3 a.m. after an all-night “study session” at Red Brick Tavern when I saw my first Zeds. There were three of them shambling down Court Street, their arms outstretched toward me, their neon bandanas wrapped tight around their heads.
None of them looked too decomposed; their bandanas looked like they’d just come out of the drier. They must have only been recently turned.
Naturally, I bolted in the other direction, but, in doing so, I almost ran smack into the middle of another group of zombies. In my fevered state of terror, I imagined one of them saying, “Hey, kid, you OK?” Obviously a hallucination brought on by shock, of course.
Then, their eyes caught on the bandana wrapped around my arm and the warm flesh hiding beneath it. I took off running in the other direction again, the hordes of the undead hot on my heels.
I wanted to stand and fight, of course, but what could I do? Ohio’s strict Nerf gun laws meant that someone my age could never get a license to carry. If only the National Rifle Association were here, I thought. What would Ted Nugent do?
The zombies didn’t seem very impressed when I began screaming death threats about President Barack Obama, so, instead, I attempted to lose them by cleverly running through a series of alleyways. And by series of alleyways, I mean one alley, with a wall at the end.
“Who’s the idiot who put a wall in the middle of this perfectly good alley!?” I screamed. Behind me, the footsteps of the zombies were getting louder. I was doomed; there was nothing left for me to do but make peace with the Lord.
“I’m really sorry about all the cursing and drinking. Oh, and that whole thing in Columbia,” I prayed fervently. “I repent of all those Girl Scout cookies I stole from my sister’s troop, as well as all those hoboes I had stuffed and mounted in my summer home. As for that thing with the badger back in ’96, look, I was going through a weird phase.”
In the middle of my pleas for forgiveness, my eyes were cast downward, and fell upon my salvation. In my terror, I had forgotten that I did have a weapon after all! I hastily tore off my shoes and wrapped my socks in a ball. When the zombies turned the corner, I threw it with all my might in their direction.
The explosion knocked me back five feet and left my ears ringing, but it worked:
I was alive ... or so I thought.
It’s been six days. I made it back to my apartment and immediately boarded up all the windows. I could hear them scratching outside every night. I thought I was safe ... but when I woke up this morning, my bandana was starting to fall off. I have to face the horrible truth:
I’m infected.
It won’t be long now. I can already feel the virus consuming me, compelling me to attack anybody wearing faux-military khakis. Soon I’ll be just like them — which means it’s all up to you.
Join the missions. Beat back the horde. And when it’s over ... tell them my story.
Tell them Ryan McAndrews gave them hell.
Ryan McAndrews is a junior studying journalism and a columnist for The Post. Help Ryan’s legacy live on at rm287608@ohiou.edu.
