Masonville, Iowa

Interview with: Samuel Jackson

We meet up with Samuel Jackson in his recently completed modern home. Samuel designed the house himself, and as the owner of a building firm, he is happy it meets the needs of modern society, its solid-looking yet decorative fences and airlock style double entry gates provide a sense of solidity and comfort, despite the President's assurances the Zombie menace has been eradicated.

Samuel's young family are playing outside in the sun with their mother and Samuel's father, and the shrieks of joy and laughter contrast with his descriptions of events from his own childhood.

"I was just twelve when it all kicked off. I was the stereotypical nerdy pre-teen boy, far more interested in playing games over the net with my equally sad friends than I was in girls, or talking to my Dad. It didn't help that my Dad, who was a huge fan, had given me the same name as the great film star, but at least Samuel L was cool. I definitely wasn't.

"My Mom had died the previous summer leaving Dad and I to fend for ourselves. It wasn't working very well. I'd retreated into the land of online fantasy, Dad had turned to drink. How the hell he managed to keep his job at the prison I'll never know.

"I heard the phone go, but I was in the middle of a game and really didn't feel like leaving my friends to go and talk to some random insurance salesman. After a few rings, the automatic message thing kicked in and I could faintly hear Dad ranting away at the other end. I ignored it. Four of us had just managed to get our mixed party of Elves and Dwarven fighters to the top of MountDoom and we were facing a group of Orcs. It was getting a little intense and required all of us to really concentrate.

"About twenty minutes later, after we'd killed off all the Orcs and a couple of wyverns that had showed up during the battle, we agreed a pause in gaming and I went for a pee and a can of coke. When I came back to the game, only two of us were back online. It happened sometimes; parents often dragged us away doing chores or other nonsense, so we sat waiting for a bit to see if he would come back online.

"I had my headphones on and was listening to some music to pass the time when a sudden shower of glass from my bedroom window brought me round; a pair of hands flailing at me from outside. I fell backward off my chair dislodging my headphones, and it was only then I became aware of the horrible moaning sound from outside. Several more voices joined the first one and I looked out into what looked like a scene from Shaun of the Dead, but without the Queen music.

"There were four of them; one, a man in a pin-striped suit was scrabbling away at the window frame trying to gain purchase and pull himself in, the others were moving around to the other side of the house. The man in the suit was gaunt and grey looking, his face smeared in blood and gore. I was utterly transfixed, almost hypnotised by the rhythmic moaning and his vacant eyes.

"As one of them moved down the drive, there was a sudden screech of tyres, a wet sounding thud and the Zed flew back across the lawn, landing in a heap by the fence. My Dad, wild-eyed, screaming obscenities, and crying with anger and horror jumped out of the car with a pump action shotgun and pumped two rounds into its face as it tried to get up again, blowing its head apart. He reloaded and took out the other three in a rush of gore and grey skin then ran into the house.

"He saw me standing numbly in my room and spent a panicky few minutes making sure I hadn't been bitten before enveloping me in a rib-cracking hug, all the while crying like a baby.

"Once he'd recovered from the shock of nearly losing me, we grabbed what useful stuff we could and ran, with him explaining on the way.

"The Governor had had a call from the prisons minister that morning. Full military rule had been ordered and complete autonomy given to the Prison Governor. We'd been hearing rumours of some sort of rabies type illness for days, but only that day had it really hit home, the dead rising in moaning horror in the suburbs of Fort Madison.

"It's not widely known, but in times of civil unrest or national emergency, the Governor is able to assume absolute control of the facility. He did.

"By the time we got back to the prison, Mr Mason, the Governor, had made emergency plans and had implemented several already conceived government strategies.

"The prison my dad worked at as a guard was unusual in many ways. It was one of the few high-security prisons in Iowa, and also one of the very few in the country located in an urban area. Because of this, it was well protected, with walls, fences, searchlights, and its own emergency power supplies. Even the prison farm was enclosed in the massive perimeter wall. That would turn out to be our salvation.

"As we reached the gates to the prison, my father and some of the other guards carried in our stuff, and then, along with other guards and their families, we were sealed in by the heavy clang of the metal gates.

"Shots rang out as we moved towards the guards' quarters, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a row of men in orange prison uniform slump to the ground. Shots rang out several more times during the day as prisoners rioted and were brutally brought back into line.

"Later in the day, the remaining prisoners were gathered in the main courtyard of the prison. Fifty or so of the guards and their families had responded to the summons from the Governor and all now stood with weapons trained on the remaining orange-clad men.

"The prisoners who remained were given the stark choice. Freedom into a very uncertain world, or servitude in chains for as long as the situation or their sentence lasted. Mr. Mason was very truthful with them about their chances. Even so, most chose to leave. About twenty remained, and to begin with they remained in chains when inside the camp. We found out later that Mason had decided who died and who didn't in the firing squads. From then on, he was the law.

"Prison life started for us all then. It certainly felt like a life sentence to me. None of my friends made it, the internet died and mobile phones quickly followed. And that wasn't the end of it. MacDonalds, Burger King, Cinema, Dunkin' Donuts; all the things we took for granted died with the people we knew and loved. We were trapped behind the walls of the prison with only a small group of traumatised people, twenty criminals and Mr Mason for company. The company outside the walls wasn't the sort you wanted to talk with.

"No one else came to join us apart from the Zeds. Because we were in the city, we were very quickly surrounded by a sea of moaning horror. They couldn't get in, but we couldn't get out. The prison had water tanks, generators, supplies, even workshops and of course the farm. But we were going nowhere, prisoners ourselves held in stasis by a multitude of moaning guards.

"It was one of the prisoners who worked out that they responded to sound. By putting some of the speakers that surrounded the prison on switches, we could emit a sound from one end of the complex and draw the Zeds away from the other. The main gates could be opened, and a small group of us could get out and hunt for supplies. Once I hit sixteen, I was allowed to join them, much to my father's despair.

"A small part of me revelled in the challenge; it almost took me back to my gaming days. Like Doom but so much more realistic, but you didn't get extra lives or powerups or any other gaming paraphernalia. We'd managed to get some pickup trucks going, stolen from one of the local car showrooms and kept them inside the walls. These became mobile fortresses, protecting us from smaller groups of marauding Zeds. The workshops in the prison kitted them out with wire mesh over the windows, a sort of snowplow affair on the front, and we used them to collect supplies. They were quicker than the prison trucks, could carry a good amount of gear and were reliable.

"From that point on, we turned into guerrilla fighters, making lightning fast trips out and back, taking out Zeds only when absolutely necessary when we were outside the walls. Single Zeds were easy really, you just ignored them 'til they got close then either took them out or ran away. They could only follow at a sort of shambling walk so if you didn't have to take 'em out there was no point risking it really. The only problem was that once they started moaning, you'd often get a few more turning up to join in the party, so discretion was often the better part of valour in those circumstances.

"Over time, teams developed. I ended up with an ex-thief called Jim whose jail term finished a year after we were cooped up. He was pardoned by Mason, but couldn't leave. Not that he wanted to with the Zeds moaning around outside. He was a born scrounger. We found supplies of food, clothing, weapons, spare parts, fuel and medicines. With less than a hundred of us to keep fed and plenty of spare space in the prison, we built up good stores of tinned goods, rations and fuel. We plundered every store, mall, gas station and home within a twenty mile radius. Normally, a couple of trucks would go out together just in case one got stranded and we maintained radio contact at all times. Mason was very keen on Zombie Health and Safety.

"Vague contact with American forces and occasional world information broadcasts had given us just enough information to scare us, so when we sure that our stores were full, we raided DIY warehouses all over the town. On instruction from Mr. Mason, the walls were heavily reinforced, as much to keep everyone busy as anything else. Work teams were formed inside the walls and all the defences had been shored up. We even managed to get a trailer and forklift going to help with that exercise. Tons of blocks and mortar were used to add buttresses to the rear of the walls, and the main gates were heavily reinforced. That's where I learned to build.

"He kept us all busy no matter what was going on. During quiet times, the areas outside the walls were cleared, houses torn down and barricades formed to provide a killing ground and first line of defence. Snipers, usually the old guards, were kept vigilant on the observation towers around the perimeter and picked off the odd Zed who approached when the work parties were outside or sounded the alarm if a larger group turned up. Groups were allowed to approach the walls and we used rocks to smash their heads. Bullets were a premium item and couldn't afford to be wasted.

"He also changed the layout of the prison markedly. Any area that could be planted or used productively was turned into a garden. We had greenhouses, propagators, compost heaps, kept chickens and pigs from the old prison farm and grew fruit and vegetables. Once we'd got things set up we even added in new areas using bags of compost from garden centres. Even our own excrement and that of the animals was used. Nothing was wasted. Mason kept us vigilant, prepared and fit for fighting. We were all glad that he had when the first of the swarms turned up.

"They washed up against our walls like a tide against a rock, smashing repeatedly against the defences. Once the swarm was sighted, the prison went into complete lock-down. The gates were barred, weapons readied and everyone went on high alert.

"The barricades we had built outside the walls in the killing zone were very quickly smashed by the sheer weight of the swarm. They had no heed of their brethren and simply trod over their snagged colleagues, until a groaning pile of Zeds lay trapped in the barbed wire and twisted metal we had fashioned our defences from. They stood moaning in the dwindling light of the sun, like a vast crowd at a rock concert all looking up at us on centre stage. As night fell, we switched on the lights and then it really did take on the atmosphere of a huge stage show, the only exception being that the crowd weren't really fans but had just come for the free food, us.

"They trampled each other to the floor in their desperation to try and get to us, and as they did, the front ranks slowly started to lift to the top of the wall. Mason saw what was happening and with the assistance of Jim and a few others, hatched a plan. They'd seemed to be moving in an almost herd-like fashion as they approached, governed by some sort of hive mindset. That's what it looked like to us, I'm sure the scientists of the world would give you a more detailed and probably different explanation, but all we saw at the time was a plan that might just save us.

"The speakers were set off at the points furthest from the swarm and Mason signalled for absolute quiet from those of us defending the walls. The crowd in front of us seemed to part, like the centre parting in hair, as the Zeds, attracted by the noise from other directions, drifted away from the centre of the walls. As they moved around the sides of the prison, other sirens started to wail behind us, and as the sound moved around the perimeter, the Zeds swarmed after it. We raced for the gates, flinging them open and two teams sprang into the modified trucks, heading out and around the back of the swarm to circle round the front, battering through the last few malingering groups of Zeds. Then, as the sirens in the prison abruptly cut out we sounded the horns on the vehicles and gently led the horde away from our home.

"We drove for miles, all the time praying that the vehicles wouldn't break down. There was a huge danger of them overheating, as we were moving at a snail's pace just ahead of the stumbling front ranks of the swarm; cajoling, shouting, tooting and occasionally firing guns to make as much noise as possible. It was like herding cows but in reverse.

"At the arranged point, the other car broke away from us as planned and raced over the old bridge. As the horde followed us, we parked up on the edge of the canyon and made as much noise as we possibly could, then drove away as quietly as possible. As we made our getaway from the grasping, slavering and grey-skinned horrors that grabbed at the car doors, the other car on the other side of the small canyon started making a ruckus, luring them towards them.

"It was a glorious sight watching all those damn Zeds tumbling over the edge like a never-ending stream of marionettes, pin-wheeling down the cliffs. It went on for ages, a stream of the groaning bastards. We drove back to the camp that night, exultant with our successes to find the few remaining Zeds being mopped up by those who remained in the prison.

"We faced a couple more swarms and used similar techniques, but implemented them before they even got close to the prison. The pickups were fitted with speakers to make more noise and we almost got to enjoy riding the herd of Zeds to the bottom of the canyons.

"Mason was implacable throughout. He never said a word about the past, his decisions or his family. Nothing seemed to matter to him but the continued survival of the people inside those walls. He was utterly relentless. There was always something to do; something that needed fixing, shoring up, finding during a raid or tending in the gardens.

"My father, through necessity, got off the booze and we became great friends. Mason promoted him to second in command after a couple of years when one of the senior guards died from a heart attack.

"Eventually, we were liberated by the army as they swept back through the country. Seeing that line of soldiers marching past was a glorious sight. We were told to stay where we were for the time being, and Mason was debriefed by the Colonel in charge of the forces that passed through.

"That night we heard a single gunshot.

"Mason had committed suicide. He left a note for us to explain. For all those years he'd kept everything bottled up inside, the order to kill the prisoners, the loss of his family, and the expulsion of the other prisoners given the chance to leave. He took it all on himself.

"He lies buried in the grounds of the prison he protected and served, and is sorely missed by those of us who survived.

"The remnants of humanity in this area now live in the new town of Masonville. It's a peaceful and industrious place, and my kids will grow up knowing what happened in the past, but hopefully never experiencing what we did."