“Oh, my gosh, we need to turn on the TV!” Alexander spent a minute looking for the remote—it was near the microwave, of all places—and hit the power button. In the bottom right corner was the logo for the Progressive News Network, or PNN.
Across the bottom was a banner that read:
BREAKING NEWS: Zombie Apocalypse Sweeps World.
“Oh, shit!” Alexander let slip. He recognized the anchor as Pete Littleton, who said:
We have had reports of what we can only describe as zombies taking over large cities in the US and around the world. This includes New York City where our broadcast originates. We are trapped on a high floor at 70 Carnegie Plaza in Midtown Manhattan.
The shot of Pete gave way to an outdoor shot. Alexander recognized it as outside Carnegie Plaza. Alexander could still hear Pete’s voice.
This is a shot from a little over an hour ago. You can see the zombies—yes, that’s what we’re calling them, zombies—all over the place. Before that—what you are about to see is the most graphic real television footage I’ve ever seen, so be warned.
Now the camera showed a different view in the same plaza.
Here is a zombie crushing the skull of a person. Then the image pans to what looks like a zombie eating the brains of a different victim. Therefore, we’re calling them zombies—because they like to eat brains. Note the sores on the zombie. Now we’ll take you to our current live feed overlooking the plaza. You can see that there are no zombies. Nor any dead bodies at all. It appears that the ones killed by zombies come back from the dead or, if injured, heal from wounds that should have killed them, and become zombies themselves—another reason to call them zombies. Carl Ebert of the CDC recently gave us his time to explain what all this means. Here he is previously in our breaking news coverage.
Now the TV pictured a man in his fifties. Underneath was a banner that read:
CARL EBERT, CDC
A male voice different from Pete’s said:
So Carl, can the CDC make anything of this? What do we know at this point?
The man on the screen spoke.
Very little, I’m afraid. The biggest clue we have is the large sores on the bodies of the so-called zombies. This leads us to believe there’s a virus or bacteria causing this. But there’s a more horrifying explanation—state-sponsored terrorism. Whether the pathogen developed in nature or escaped from a lab, or was released from one, no one can say for certain. But it is safe to say it is nothing like anything we at the CDC have ever seen before. Furthermore, it may be more than just a virus or bacteria because of the ability to come back from the dead, so-to-speak. We do not know of anything that could cause this. But if someone engineered this, there are few entities that could have done it: Russia, China, Iran, the UK, the EU, and, of course, America. But, again, we at the CDC have no knowledge of this. If America developed it, it was with compartmentalized top secrecy.
The male anchor spoke:
What do you mean by the term “compartmentalized?”
Ebert said:
I mean not everyone with a top secret clearance had access to the information—only those with the need to know.
Now Pete was back on the screen.
We want to thank Carl Ebert of the CDC from less than an hour ago with some harrowing news. More harrowing than that, however, is our predicament here at PNN.
“Can we watch something a little less biased?” Vin asked.
Alexander got annoyed. “Shhh. We’re trying to listen here.”
“I’m the only one with a gun here.”
Alexander tried to ignore Vin.
Pete Littleton was still anchoring.
Let’s go back to the live shot outside, shall we?
Carnegie Plaza was on the screen.
As I stated earlier, there are no zombies or dead bodies of any kind. All the zombies have either moved on, or they have entered buildings, hoping to find . . . brains to eat, we assume. Our last report has the zombies overrunning the tenth floor of our building, slowly making their way up. We are trapped on the thirtieth floor, but we are not completely doomed in that . . . hold on, I’m being told . . . it looks like there is a person running in the plaza.
The camera panned and brought into focus a disheveled and panicked man in his forties, wearing khakis and a collared shirt, dressed much like Alexander.
Uh, oh. Coming out of one building—I believe that’s ours—is a zombie running toward him. Oh, my god, he’s so fast—
The camera angle widened, and a figure chased down the man and tackled him.
—Oh my gosh! Now he’s bashing the person’s skull—
Jize gasped as they all stared at a zombie cracking the victim’s skull open.
I’m sorry folks if you had to see that. Live television and all that . . . So I was about to say we here at PNN weren’t all doomed because we thought we could take the elevator down and bypass the zombies altogether.
Alexander had never seen Pete so frightened.
Now it seems we have no means of escape. We at PNN are truly trapped here, folks. I think all of us—all of us in this room—anchors, cameramen, producers, panelists, all of us will soon become zombies or die.
Now tears started flowing out of Pete’s eyes.
If not today, then tonight. If not tonight, then tomorrow. I’m being told something—one of our producers has done the math—my god, he has calculated the zombies will be here very soon. That’s because—
Pete paused, finger holding his ear piece.
—because of geometric progression. Simply put, the number of zombies grows as they go up the tower. And with more zombies, the rate of infecting more grows higher and higher—
Pete paused again, still holding his ear piece.
—I’m being told the zombies are now a mere two floors below us. That means they’ll be here
