No Zombie for a Neighbor - End of day 3

No Zombie for a Neighbor
Day Three
End of Day Three: Evening News

This is Bruce Williams. As you can see, things are different. I want to thank those of the Sycamore Baptist Church for my present safety. They are armed and holding their own. I lost two of my news team today, but gained a church congregation in exchange. I want to speak of those who died and other facts of the day, but I am being told to first let a broadcast that came across the airwaves earlier to be played again.

Hello America and any other nation that might be watching. I am Anthony Lincoln, the Secretary of Defense. I am presently the highest ranking person in the line of the Presidency. When I was informed of the fact that I was now President of the United States, I declined the honor. America has always had a strong military, and I am proud of the fact that it is surviving the crisis. To keep this nation strong, I am continuing to work with our armed forces. It is presently a very difficult time, and I have plenty of work to fill my day. I thus want to present to you who I now accept as my leader, and the leader of my country.

Hello America, this is Abraham Stephans, your new president. For those of you that don’t know, and most of you probably don’t, I am, was, the Secretary of the Interior. Just as Anthony felt it his calling to stay with the military, I feel that it is my calling to stay with the issues of the interior of our country. I thus do not consider my job as president to be much different than what I was already doing. To have the title is an honor, but I understand the amount of work that lies before me. Honestly, I felt that I was overworked already, but I have promised Anthony that I will prove myself worthy of the title of President of the United States. For those that might wonder, I consider Anthony my vice-president, and he has accepted that honor.

Right now America has closed its borders, as has every nation in the world that has enough military strength to man its borders. That does not mean that we have closed our ports, only that we are doing everything we can to secure our country. We have enough problems without letting in others.

I however want to inform everyone that the nukes will not fly. Let me repeat, the nukes will not fly. I will not nuke my own people, and nuking the world will not help our country. Those of you that have been in fear of having their neighborhoods annihilated by a mushroom cloud, I want to make it clear that you do not have that to fear.

We have enough to fear. The fact that I am president should tell you that the zombie threat is real and very dangerous. The amount of security in Washington is great, yet the zombie threat overcame many barriers to affect our leaders. I am, was, eighth in line to be president. Only in my wildest dreams did I ever consider holding this office. This however is not a wild dream, but a horrible nightmare. I live my life just as scared as many of you, because the fact that I am president tells me just how fragile the security around me can be.

I am working with Anthony and others to try and restore a normal life. We have many hurdles here in Washington, but I understand that I have a vast nation to return to its strength. Anthony is a help. He is in contact with almost every military base. They all report having to deal with incursions, but almost all have managed to regain some control of their immediate facilities. Should you see military vehicles, feel secure that they will continue to fight for you, the people of America, and will not be bringing death upon you.

We do not know what caused the zombie threat, and we have not yet come up with a method of removing that threat. I am sure that we have all been thinking about certain movies, and ‘shoot ‘em in the head’ is about the only solution that seems to work. It will take time to shoot them all in the head, and none of us are certain that zombies won’t rise up behind us. We don’t know, and that fear keeps us holed up just as it is keeping most of you holed up.

I just want all of you, all Americans, to know that they are still part of a great nation. We however are not strong because Washington D.C. is strong, but we are strong because all of us are strong. I am not telling you to depend on me. I am not telling you that I, us, have any answers. I am only telling you that America is still strong. I am actually putting my trust in you to rise up, as Americans have always risen up before. No president of this country has been strong by himself. Those great presidents had great people behind them. I want to be remembered as having been a great president, but that means that I want the people of this country to rise up and prove just how great we really are. May all of you remember me in your prayers, and have the trust that I am praying for you.

This is Bruce Williams again. I cannot say that I am pleased with what I heard, but most of us accepted that Washington would attempt to keep their hold on our country. We dealt with them before, so I guess we can deal with them again. I would like to think that we can reconsider our choice of president on our next election, but that is some time in the future and we have zombies to deal with presently.

I have heard a number of you mention the fear of being nuked. Truthfully, I actually had the hope that a nuke or two would resolve our problem. From what I have however seen, it won’t, so it is best that the missiles stay where they are. I however believe that most of us think that the nukes will fly if certain communities are unable to adequately deal with the zombies on their own. From what I have seen, we have our work cut out for us to keep us off the nuke list.

I lost Ben Bishop, my sound engineer, this morning. Again we woke up to have zombies all around. When Ben began some of the actions he had used yesterday to kill zombies, a board broke and his leg got bitten. I am sorry for the loss of Ben. He was actually someone who kept up our spirits. I however have some facts to provide from his death.

It takes about an hour for a zombie bite to infect someone. I believe Ben actually died within fifteen minutes, but his body continued to move. To be honest, in saying an hour, that is simply the amount of time it took before we felt certain enough of Ben’s condition to kill him.

I doubt any of you knew Amy Hamilton. She was the wife of Theo Hamilton, who is my cameraman. She was a trooper, and bravely fought with us. The zombie that got her rushed from a direction we had not expected. I am sorry for her loss.

I told you a couple of days ago that we would head to a church. That sounded like an easy objective at the time, as we knew of a couple of churches within a mile of our location. Zombies however infest the countryside worse than we had imagined. By the time we reached this church, we were in a desperate situation.

What I said at that time has however been proven true. Those of the congregation have pulled together in these hard times. They do have stories of losing members to zombies that all considered friends. They have had to learn hard lessons, but their faith and trust in God was seeing them through. Me and what few members of those with me remained found doors opened to us. We were watched for at time, then checked, but once they felt certain we were not zombies they accepted us with a warmth that one associates with the love of Christ. I can only hope that the same can be said for the other churches.

Zombies do surround the church, but its high roof gives the congregation an advantage in dealing with them. We had the same advantage in the barn, but it was old and with the structure not as well maintained. I am told that it is a part of their day to kill zombies, and they look for the day when they can look outside and not see any of the threats.

I am having my cameraman now pan to show you that the men of this church are armed. They will do what is necessary to protect their congregation. They have had to face a number of very serious situations in the last few days. They are good Christian men, but this crisis is forcing them to make some decisions they would rather God not have put before them. They are doing their best to meet the needs of the congregation. They probably would not have accepted me and my crew, except that they knew me from my reports. They also understand those at the news station are working as well to provide for the number that showed up there. While none of us want to be disrespectful or cruel to others, we all must make what decisions we feel are necessary to protect our lives. There is a need for Christian brotherhood in this crisis, but the men of this church want it known that such goes two ways. Forcing someone to share with you when they have barely enough for themselves is not proper. Some might share, and should the two of you survive the tale of the sacrifice could make a man a saint. Those that don’t share however are not evil, but simply making a more conservative choice. While they might not become saints, they will live to make other possibly good choices to possibly atone. Those of you that know this church, do not think of it as a safe haven.

I spent a good amount of time speaking with the good men of this church. They would like to move on past this crisis. We still have electricity, but none know for how long. The question of food is a major concern as well. As well armed as these good men are, they all speak of the difficulty of hunting where there are things hunting you. The children cry seeing playground equipment, but not being allowed to go outside. These men are attempting to figure out ways to regain their lives. Listening to those in Washington, we all hoped that some method to restore our nation would be provided. What we heard however said that they were doing exactly what we were, attempting to restore some internal coherency. These men around me feel that they presently have done that, and are of the stuff to now do more.

America, Shreveport, we have an internal threat. We now must rise up and defeat it. I believe that I speak for all when I say that we have a lot to be proud of for simply surviving to this moment. Tomorrow is coming, and I don’t want to live like this tomorrow. I do have a family. I would like to join them. My daughter told me words that I felt were very appropriate. She said that she did not want to have a zombie for a neighbor. I agree with her. I promised her that I would do what I could to keep what information we had moving to those that needed it. Together, we can unite to again make our country free from the threat that now constrains us.

I am going to again contact the military tomorrow. Now that some decisions are being made in their chain of command, hopefully some plans can get approved. With our leaders giving assurance that we will not face death from our own stockpiles, hopefully they will now turn their attention to how to remove death from our neighborhoods. Hopefully, I will have better words tomorrow.

This has again been Bruce Williams. God bless and good night.