Winter, 10 AZ ^{after zombie}

My name, it doesn't matter. What matters is my story.

New Zealand was one of the last countries to fall to the zombie virus. Our isolation from the rest of the world kept us safe, and our self sustainability kept us alive. Within a month of the zombie outbreak, our airports and our ports closed. We had no land bridges for zombies to cross. We were safe, or so we thought.

The last plane that flew in New Zealand was loaded with government dignitaries being brought home from an emergency crisis meeting. They flew in at night and were quickly escorted to a safer location.

Life carried on as normal as it could be after that. There was a greater sense of community, and people were generally friendlier. There were the obvious doomsdayers and generally messed up people, but they migrated inland and away from anyone fairly quickly. Had I known what was coming, I would have followed them in an instant. Instead I stayed where I was, did my bit to serve the community, and tried to stay positive. For three years that worked.

The last contact we had from the outside world was 1 year after the initial outbreak. Our top scientists were collaborating with other researchers in Australia in an attempt to find a cure, or at least a vaccine.

Auckland, New Zealand, Winter, 1 AZ

"I've sent through the last of the data we have, infected have broken into compound. Behavior suggests higher neural activity than originally estimated. Moving in packs with clear leaders. Good luck, and God help us all. Move to contingency, blow the charges."

There was a loud explosion, followed by radio silence.

Dr. Fred Lloyd stared at the satellite phone in horror. Research Base Uluru had detonated the explosives surrounding their perimeter. Our last communication with the outside world was severed. New Zealand was alone.

"Dr. Lloyd? Sir? What do we do now?"

Fred scanned the room, looking for whoever spoke. What he saw were dozens of faces looking up at him with fear and defeat in their eyes.

"Nothing, it's over. The data's incomplete, and there's no-one out there... Go home, go to your families, your friends, be with them. There's nothing else you can do now." Fred mumbled, he sat down and stared at the satellite phone, wishing the connection lost message would disappear from the display.

Later that night Fred wrote a detailed list of events that had gone down that night, he set it on his desk and walked up the stairs to the roof. Everyone else had gone home, he was all alone. Standing on the edge of the roof, Fred looked out over the country he tried so hard to protect. And jumped.

Christchurch, New Zealand, Winter, 1 AZ

The government tried to cover up the incident, but word got out that our scientists had failed, and the public panicked. Riots broke out, and the army was deployed at all major cities to maintain order. Life was back to "normal" again.

My friends and I decided that we were safer outside of the city. We got friendly with the local army patrol, and convinced them to abandon their post and come with us. Over the next month we raided the supply depots all over the city, we took anything useful and loaded it into a shipping container that we had stashed under a bridge. From there we distributed the supplies into trucks and fled the city.

We drove inland, searching for somewhere to set up a base of operations. After 2 weeks of hiding from army patrols, we finally came across an old ski lodge. The lodge itself was situated quite far away from the main road, and the only way to get to it was up a steep path. We camped by the side of the road the first night, and prepared for the hike in the morning. It took 2 days to get all of our supplies up the mountain, but what greeted us was the first safe place we had been in since the outbreak. We covered the trucks in scrub and netting so they would blend in with the surroundings.

We spent the next month exploring the surrounding area and found some small settlements. People were usually open to trading or sharing what they had, but more than once we were chased off the land by some paranoid prick with a shotgun. We made regular trips back to the city to catch up on news, gather supplies, and see old friends. Life was good, and we had an unspoken agreement with the locals. Don't screw with us, and we won't screw with you.

Ski lodge, New Zealand, Spring, 3 AZ

The winter was bad, I lost one friend to the cold, and another slipped and fell during a hunting trip. But the winter was the least of our problems.

The zombie virus had arrived.

I was on a routine supply run to a small pre-outbreak town on the coast to the west of our base of operations. I was a few klicks out of town when the stench of shit and decaying flesh washed over me. I drover over the top of the last hill before the town, and saw three zombies attacking a cow. As soon as they heard the truck, the zombies fixed their attention on me, and started shambling in my direction. I just sat there in shock. The first zombie was only a few meters away when I snapped out of it. I threw the truck in reverse, and drove away from there as fast as I could.

I got up to the lodge a few hours later and called a group meeting. I explained everything that I saw. We hoped that it was an isolated outbreak, but feared the worst. That night we sat around the short wave radio and listened to the military chatter. There were outbreaks being reported everywhere, Auckland and Wellington had both gone dark, Christchurch was forming a last line of defense, and Dunedin was on the verge of collapse.

Later that week we hiked to the top of the mountain and fired a 21 gun salute to the fallen. As night fell, we sat down and looked back east towards Christchurch, and watched the fires, lit in an effort to kill the zombies before they could leave the city, light the night sky. The fires lasted for months. It was in the winter of 4 AZ that the fires finally went out.

And we thought we were the last surviving people in New Zealand, in the world.

Ski lodge, New Zealand, Summer, 7 AZ

They're all dead. All of my friends are dead. I killed them out of mercy. I was scared of what they would become. They became sick after drinking infected water. A zombie must have passed through the stream further up, the idiots didn't even boil the water and now they're dead.

The lodge reminded me of nothing but death. I had to leave. I gathered up the last of our supplies and loaded them into the tray of the pickup. I siphoned petrol from the other two trucks into a couple of jerry cans, strapped them to the sides of my pickup, and drove.

I didn't know where I was headed at first, all I knew was that I had to get out of there. I stopped at a couple of small towns on the way to scavenge for supplies, before making the decision to drive south. It would be safer down there, less people meant less zombies.

After a week I made it to the Southern most tip of New Zealand, Bluff. I was right about there being less zombies, the town was empty, no living, and no dead. I made my way to the supermarket to do my usual scavenging, when I noticed a sign:

We are still alive. Make your way to the top of the lighthouse and light a signal fire at the top

My heart jumped, and I drove straight to the lighthouse. Someone had left a crate at the bottom with logs, kindling, and matches. I grabbed what I could carry and ran to the top of the lighthouse. There was fresh ash on the floor, and the room smelled slightly smoky. Maybe there were other survivors out there! I got to work lighting the fire, the wood was dry so it caught fast, and burned brightly.

I ran outside and looked around for any sign that someone had seen my signal. Nothing.

I stayed up there for the better part of a day, hoping to see something. The sun set, but I kept the fire burning. Close to midnight I started to lose hope that anyone was out there. I stood up and wandered back down stairs feeling defeated. I went and sat in the pickup, my body shaking as I cried. False hope was a bitch.

I started my truck and started to drive away. At the edge of town I stopped and looked back at the lighthouse. I could swear that I saw movement by the fire, I initially dismissed it as a zombie attracted by the light. I stayed watching for a few minutes, and saw the figure raise an arm towards the sky.

In that moment, the most beautiful thing happened. A red flare exploded into the night sky.

Survivors.

Stewart Island, New Zealand Winter, 10 AZ

And now you know my survival story.

The community on Stewart Island has been welcoming to me, they've always been fairly self sustaining, and now it just gets put into practice. We're powered by solar and wind energy, and have several farms cleared out in the natural forest. We have fresh sea food daily, and zombies haven't been able to make it to the island. We have a satellite array set up made from old radar parts scavenged from an airport on the mainland. The internet was back up and running long before I got here, but no-one thought to check Reddit. They used the internet to find out how to survive, how to thrive, how to live.

I found this subreddit while looking into my past life.

I close off with this message. Stewart Island is the Last Free Island in Australasia. We welcome anyone.

My name is Mathias Lincoln, and I am alive.

OOC Hey everyone, I found this sub a week ago, and have been reading into it. I've always enjoyed writing, and this is actually a variation of my actual zombie apocalypse plan! ^{jokes not really} I hope to contribute a bit more in future, maybe throw in a few new zombie types (alternate mutation/evolution), and of course there'll be twists.

So what do you think?