Everyone Un-Died + My Gardener Bit Me: The Oral History of the Zombie Apocalypse

Staycation

Not knowing what else to do to stop the zombie outbreak, the authorities finally implemented the quarantine that Dr. Meyer had proposed months ago. Better late than never, I guess. Everyone was confined to their homes for an entire month, enforced by the National Guard. (And if you're wondering how the homeless fared during this quarantine, you're very much alone.) This was not a popular move, so the authorities tried to rebrand it as a "staycation" which fooled approximately nobody.

Below is a sampling of people's experiences and opinions about the quarantine.

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Andrea Fiddler, 26

Party Planner

Can we please do something about those HazMat suits? I mean if they're going to tell us to Stay calm and Don't panic! maybe — I don't know — they shouldn't dress up like space aliens? I mean — I don't know — I guess I get why the soldiers need them, but they scared the C-R-A-P out of my kids! Why can't the HazMat suits be more — I don't know — light-hearted and fun? It can't be that hard to make HazMat suits, that look like — I don't know — beloved animated characters. A soldier in a HazMat suit lighting you up with a laser sight? That's terrifying. But — I don't know — Dory from Finding Nemo or Olaf from Frozen doing it? That's good clean family fun!

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Braden Gerhard, 39

Unemployed

The quarantine wouldn't be so bad if they let us go outside once in a while. But being trapped in my studio apartment twenty-four-seven is boring A.F. And it makes me feel like a criminal, you know? Granted, I am a criminal, but that doesn't mean I want to feel like one.

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Nina Norton, 51

Optician

Apparently, our local TV station has a weird sense of humor because they decided to run a marathon of, yes, zombie movies throughout the quarantine! It was a bad, bad idea, and not just for the obvious taste reasons. Because when you watch enough back-to-back zombie flicks you start to notice a pattern, which is, Quarantines never, ever work! Which I guess makes sense, because they did work they'd have a really short movie. But it definitely didn't inspire confidence. Especially when a few days into the marathon, the host was eaten alive by what appeared to be a zombie cameramen, a zombie makeup artist and a zombie producer. Which was horrifying, but still better than what the other channel was showing, which was re-runs of The Real Housewives of Orange County. I literally would rather listen to a human being shrieking as a zombie tore out his jugular vein with his teeth than listen to Heather Dubrow's god-awful Long Island rasp.

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Phillip Böhm, 28

Truthfully, I wasn't looking for a relationship. I'm all about the hit-it-and-quit-it. And yeah, sneaking out at night has led to some awkward moments, but not nearly as awkward when I discovered that this chick's building was surrounded by razor wire and I'd have to stay in her one-room apartment for a whole month! It was a really different experience for me. Not only did I learn her name — Tanya Tamsyn Honeycutt — I also learned the names of all of her family members, childhood pets, ex-boyfriends and every fucking Troll Doll in her collection. We intend to marry in the fall, if we're not all dead by then.

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Pamela Stojanovic, 34

Marketing Director