Todd Wainio: Denver, Colorado

Mr. Wainio was one of the many infantrymen who swept the USA clear of zombies.  He was put into the North Sweep, in which they, literally, walked all across norther United States and killed any zombies they ran into.  He talked about how it was, at times, extremely boring and easy, like the points in which you're just walking across miles of desert.  But during other times, like clustered swamplands and urban cities, it got to be a bit difficult.  When they approached any town, they would have to create a full circle around the area (which was hard to approximate the town's boundaries) and wait for any zombies to come out.  Then, special teams would raid all buildings and alleys for any of the zombies still left.  They did this all day until sunset, which was when they would stop because the leaders wouldn't let them travel during night.  I was a little confused with some of his actions, like how they made a straight line of two rows that cleaned up the areas.  Was the whole country just being swept up by some massive line of soldiers until all the zombies were gone?  If this is true, then they would've had millions of soldiers to take care of, and the government couldn't afford that.  I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by that.

Michael Choi: The USS Holo Kai

Around noon today, I met with Mr. Choi, a diver part of the U.S. Navy's Deep Submergence Combat Corps, or the  DSCC.  He spoke of the "cleanup" he went through of the oceans and bays all around the United States.  When we were fully submerged underneath the ocean's top, he started to speak of the exciting equipment they used to take the swimming zombies out.  Mr. Choi always used a more flexible suit:  the Mark 1 Exosuit.  He told me that this suit was much better than the hard suits because you could feel zombies if they were attacking you and there was an option of swimming, unlike the steel cylinders of the hard suits.  Also, he told me of the different ways that they could kill some zombies, and the best way was to just grab their head and crush it.  Because they couldn't grasp guns with their hands and new technology didn't work well in such deep areas, they just squeezed their brains instead of shooting it.  Then, he told me about how him and his team had to protect oil rigs from troops of zombies, because Zack would just creep up on the workers and bite straight through their dry suit.  Finally, Mr. Choi spoke of how they lured the zombie herds away from beaches.  First, they leaded them out to sea by boat, and then they would put up a wall between Zack and the beach, so that they couldn't get through.  Now, Mr. Choi is about to retire from the deep sea diving altogether, and he has recently been tracking movements and actions of certain packs of Zack.  This interview was very interesting, but I didn't like how Mr. Choi couldn't admit that he was frightened of the living dead.  He would always say that he wasn't scared after he had just said he was, and this made me feel that he was the kind of guy that always had to make himself look good.  Except for that, I had a great time during the underwater plunge.

Terry Knox: Sydney, Australia

This morning, I scheduled an interview with Mr. Knox, a former commander of the International Space Station.  He was not down on Earth during the outbreak, but instead, he was flying high up in the orbit of the planet.  During his time up in space, the astronauts were shown live footage of battlefields and attacks of the zombies, and they had to sit in their sattelite and watch, knowing that they couldn't do anything to help.  One day, as they were trying to contact another close by space station, they flew closer, and found it had been deserted.  The astronauts had taken the route back home:  a emergency capsule.  With a dead man shot in the forehead still linguring around the cabin, they stole their appliances and food, which they needed badly in order to keep surviving up in space.  They had gone to the last resort in order to stay alive.  Cutting food rations, not eating for a couple of meals, and even devowering the test rats.  In the end, they made it back down to earth, but Mr. Knox stated that they had never expected to be rescued by anyone.  In all, this interview really gave me a different perspective on the war, and it made me realize that we weren't the only ones suffereing.  The men and women up in space couldn't affect the war in any way, while the people on earth had to kill all the zombies.  I feel that it would be hard to live on earth, but harder to watch others die with knowing that you could've been at their side.

Xu Zhicai: Beijing, China

This morning, I traveled down to the Forbidden City to interview a naval soldier of China during the zombie outbreak.  He was one of the lucky to be stationed on one of the few Type 94.  When they left China with their families, they strolled around on the ocean with only one objective:  stay out if sight.  As they started to travel more around different oceans and countries, thousands of different floating devices, with a lack of a better word to describe all the crafts, siddled their way, with humans and zombies on each one.  Although they were a great naval submarine, and had lots of supplies, they still needed to stop on land to stock up.  They settled on the island of Manihi by selling electricity from their reactor.  Then, they were attacked by one of the two Type 95 hunter-killers, which was thought to have Captain Song's son commanding it.  After destroying the attacking submarine, they found out that it hadn't been Song's son's ship, but insead, Commander Song met with them to discuss what was going on in China at that moment, and finally returned to their homeland.  As I listened to this interview, I felt that the crew of the Type 94 had completely abandoned the earth.  I understand that their country would've killed them because of their actions, but they never even attempted to help the hopeless they encountered during their time out on sea.  Although it was the conscience decision of the captain, it was extremely unethical.

Christina Eliopolis: Air National Guard Base, Tennessee

This afternoon, I had an interesting interview with Mrs. Eliopolis, a former Raptor driver in the Air Force.  She was stationed into the 'airborn resupply' group, which goes around to different safe zones around the US and drops off anything needed.  Most of her story took place after one of her routine flights was "ended."  She landed in the middle of a dry patch with no zombies somewhere around souther Louisiana, for all the Gs were travelling toward  Baton Rouge and Lafayette.  As she landed, she picked up a signal on her radio from a woman in a remote cabin, calling herself 'Mets Fan,' or Mets for short.  As Christina's Skywatcher, she guided her through all the bad and good times, and making Christina think about what was going on at the same time.  With two different reoccurances with swarms of zombies, the confident survivor accidetly broke her ankle when escaping from a tree.  As she headed for the I-10, Mets talked her through the whole ordeal, smashing her with harsh comments and screaming at her to keep going.  Although she was told that Mets was herself and she was hallucinating her voice the whole time, Mrs. Eliopolis still believes Mets is out there somewhere.  In my personal opinion, I feel that Mets was her conscience, because of the resources that Mets worked with to help her through the tough times, and the knowledge only a trained air force trooper would know.  In all, this interview was very intriguing and made me very happy.

Joe Muhammad: Wenatchee, Washington

Earlier this morning, I had an interview with Mr. Muhammad, a gifted sculptist of metals that created the famous statue in the mall in Washington D.C.  During the interview, he spoke of his duties during the middle of the war, as one of the brave volunteers to join the NST, or Neightborhood Security Team.  He talked about the specific duties he undergoed each and every day:  patrolling the houses in his region every night and day.  The purpose of these investigations were to make sure everyone was alright and there weren't any zombies present.  They spoke with the night watchmen, who were in every house, which had to go through an examination and testing to see if they were qualified to keep watch.  Also, Mr. Muhammad talked about the quislings, which are the insane victims of the zombie attack that mentally turn into a zombie, hands held in front of them, groaning, and biting all the time.  Their main objective, if they ran into any quislings, was to capture and escort them to police in the area.  I liked this interview a lot because I really wanted to learn more about what was happening as the Plague was dying down and civilization had to be brought back into modern-day lives.  Also, I really agreed with what Joe said about how the quislings didn't feel pain, because they were mentally focused only on their biting, and nothing else.  In all, the interview was great and provided me with a lot of information.

Ahmed Farahnakian: Ice City, Greenland

Around noon today, I had an interesting interview with Mr. Farahnakian, former Major the the Iranian Corps Air Force.  As we spoke in the underground fortress, he spoke of his time with the outbreak in India and Pakistan and how the two countries angered eachother into a war-type situation.  For about half the interview, he talked about how India and Pakistan were complete rebels; they rejected all plans to become allies in that time of fright and hated eachother even more.  During the last half of the interview, I heard a lot about what happened at the Ketch River Bridge, the road between the two rebel countries.  He said that he was the one that led the attack to bomb the bridge, killing a lot of soon-to-be zombies and killing the passageway into India.  When rebel forces discovered that he had bombed the bridge, they attacked, and after 3 days of fighting, India dropped a huge bomb, which killed thousands of people.  I liked this interview a lot, maybe because I didn't have to interogate or ask any questions, but also because it was very interesting.   The only thing that was wierd to me is that, because he experienced the dead walking, he lost belief and hope in his faith (which is what I feel he meant in his last statement).  I feel that He would be the Person that I would turn to during the entire plague.

Trevor Sean: Bridgetown, Barbados

About noon today, I had an interesting interview with Mr. Sean, a "mercenary" that protected rich and famous when the Great Plague hit New York. They were relocated to a high-tech island off the coast of Manhattan. This island was stocked with food, water, luxury, weapons, and even live webcams that video taped the celebs and was broadcasted all around the world on the web. He spoke about how, when the zombies attacked New York, the citizens actually attacked the secluded area in which the celebrities hung out. This created a huge war between the famous and the normal. None of the guards of the protected temple fired at any people, because their duties were only to kill the living dead, but the celebs definitely went haywire, stealing guns from the weapon pile and going at the citizens like suicide bombers. A lot of them died, he said, but he never spoke about what happened to the "palace" after it was raided, for he escaped through the ocean and never returned to the horrid place. I really loved this interview, for I found it very exciting and very odd. Also, it really suprised me that it wasn't zombies that attacked the celebs' mansion, it was the citizens that wanted protection. In all, I loved it.

Sharon: Topeka, Kansas

Early this afternoon, I travelled over to Topeka to speak with Sharon, a young girl who had a run-in with a group of zombies at her local church.  She spoke of how the zombies banged on the door, how they broke in through the windows, how their groans terrified everyone around them.  Throughout this whole interview, she used a lot of acting, by either making noises of a gun going off, or her mother stroking her hair and face, saying "It's alright."  She imitated each and every move that she could just to make it seem real.  She made me feel extremely sad and forced upon me the thought of how many other children went through the terror that she endured.  Also, I found it very odd that she never got sad, or didn't even cry after speaking of how she lost her mother.  She spoke her story like it was some type of cartoon or childrens' book.  Lastly, I was extremely happy that the room was soundproof, because I definitely wouldn't want to be there if any other patients freaked out from the realistic groaning of Sharon.

Mr. Oliveira: The Amazon, Brazil

Late this afternoon, I payed a visit to Fernando Oliveira, a retired heart surgeon of Rio.  He now dwells in the presence of "The Fierce People" in the tall trees in the Amazon.  To summarize, he spoke about his first incident of the plague, a patient who had their organs flipped aroung in their body, and only one doner had been found:  a Chinise man.  They couldn't test for any zombifying infection because they didn't know it even existed, so they preformed the operation like normal.  He told me his superior, Dr. Silva, let him go home early, which was extremely lucky for Mr. Oliveira.  When he received a call from one of the nurses speaking of an "accident," he found out at the hospital that the patient had reincarnated into a zombie, killed Dr. Silva, and now was locked up in the room.  After Mr. Oliveira shot the zombie straight through the skull, they hid the whole incident from the outside world, hid the bodies, and never spoke of it again.  This interview was very nice.  I felt like it flowed easily, and he wanted me to keep asking question, unlike my interview with Dr. Jingshu this morning, who just wanted to speak his mind and hear no questions from me.  The only think I don't agree with on Mr. Oliveira's part is why would you hide a zombie outbreak from the government.  Although you could be extremely punished for a number of the events that happened, I feel that it would be my duty to alarm my country of a disease that could potentially destroy our lives forever.  Other than that, I liked this interview a lot.

Dr. Jingshu: Chongqing, China

Early this morning, I had an early interview with Dr. Kwang Jingshu, one of the first medical doctors to experience the terror of the dreaded zombies.  His story talked about how the little town of New Dachang had picked up an illness from a young boy, who had gone "moon fishing" with his father and came back alone, pale and deadlike.  Dr. Jingshu spoke of his experience with the seven other patients, how they had a single bite mark and ejected thick brown liquid from their blood stream, and his encouter with the first infected boy, who had snapped his arm off and felt no pain.  Lastly, he told me how the Ministry of Health took the infected people.  After the interview, I was told a couple of times how Kwang made the wrong decision of trying to save the infected, because they just spread it all over the world.  I quickly told them that I had a different opinion.  A doctor's single job is to help their patient, not let them die, so this is why I feel that Dr. Jingshu had to attempt to save the infected.