My name is Morgan Jones. I'm forty five years old, or at least I was, at the start of all this. Now, I'm not so sure anymore. I am not sure about a lot of things. Let's start from the beginning, if you please. I was born and raised in the City of Atlanta, Georgia. I lived there with my wife Jenny and our son Duane. At least, I did until the Nightmare began. All of a sudden, we began to hear rumors of dead people coming back to life and eating the living.
When the news anchors on CNN said that, I remember laughing while my Jenny shook her head. We were in the living room of our suburban Buckhead townhouse, waiting for Duane to come home from school. I've heard plenty of bullshit in my forty-odd years on this planet, but this one took the damn cake. The idea of reanimated corpses walking about and preying on folks, well, sounds like the plot of a B-movie type of horror flick to me. The kind of stuff I'd take Jenny and Duane to see on a Tuesday night at the Cineplex, if they were really bored.
As far as I know, the nightmare began in Los Angeles, California. That's where the military went to try to contain it, and failed miserably. I thought this walking dead stuff was just nonsense. I mean, I was a contractor, an engineer, a man with good sense and a practical mindset. If people told you the dead were coming back to life, would you automatically believe them? Yeah, that's what I thought. Of course, by the time I took things seriously, the walking dead were slowly shuffling through my neighborhood, having eaten their way through police stations and army bases. The world had effectively ended.
"Morgan, we have to leave," said Jenny, and I nodded at her, the grim look on her lovely, coconut-brown face mirroring my own. We were loading the truck, getting ready to hit the road. I bought a few guns and plenty of ammo, along with canned goods, toilet paper, survival kits and the whole nine yards. Yeah, I was ready to take my family away from the madness.
"Babe, I know this, tell Duane to hurry up, we can't take his damn video games with us," I said, as I hefted a gallon of gasoline in the back of the truck. Nodding, Jenny went to get Duane while I finished loading up our supplies. Pretty much everyone on our street were doing the same thing. Well, all except Lloyd Baker, this chubby redneck who's always looking at us funny.
"You're finally leaving, eh? Well, good, I'll take care of this whole neighborhood by my damn self," Lloyd said, hefting his shotgun for good measure. Reflexively my hand went near my holstered pistol, but Lloyd was already setting down his gun and chugging down on his bottle of whiskey. Typical redneck bozo. Decades spent living in Atlanta and Lloyd always looked at my family and I funny because we're of African-American descent. Oh, well. If this loser wants to stick around and confront the advancing armies of the walking dead, fine by me.
"Mind your own business," I said sharply, and Lloyd didn't even hear me. The bozo does love his whiskey. I half-expected his portly redhead wife Martha to come out of their house and chastise Lloyd about drinking this early in the morning. Hell, it's not even eleven o'clock yet. Oh, well. In a world where the dead are coming back to life, who am I to say what's normal and what isn't? Normal is relative, after all.
"Martha, there you are sweetie," Lloyd said, and I watched as his wife Martha came out of their house, staggering. Even for a white lady, Martha was looking awfully pale, and her eyes seemed vacant. My heart skipped a beat as I realized what was going on. Lloyd waved at Martha as she advanced on him, and I shouted a warning. Instead of grabbing his shotgun and using it, Lloyd got up and went to give his wife a kiss. Instead of kissing Lloyd's puckered lips, Martha sank her teeth into his neck, and the old redneck howled in pain.
"Alright, Dad, I'm ready to go," Duane hollered from our porch as he emerged, flanked by my wife Jenny. I heard Jenny gasp as she watched the reanimated Martha fall upon a howling Lloyd. I gestured for my wife to get in the car, and drew my pistol. Before I could aim at Martha's head, however, Jenny crossed the distance between our house and theirs, and tried to pull Martha off of Lloyd.
"Martha, stop that!" Jenny screamed, and I shouted at my wife to get out of the way. Ignoring Jenny for the moment, Martha began gouging out huge chunks of flesh from Lloyd's throat. My son Duane started to run toward them but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Aiming my pistol, I focused on Martha's head, and took the shot. In an instant, it was over. Martha fell and lay still.
"Jenny, dear, there's nothing you can do for them now, let's go," I pleaded with her, but Jenny shook her head, and began pulling off the dead-for-good Martha from Lloyd's body. Sighing, I told Duane to get in the car and crossed the street to get Jenny away. Not to sound sexist or anything but my Jenny has always been a hard-headed, strong southern black woman. Tall, curvy and feisty, that's what drew me to her at Georgia Tech where we met as freshmen, almost two decades ago. That day, though, her stubbornness would cost us all dearly.
"We can't just leave them here," Jenny turned back to say to me as I walked toward her. In a flash, my world changed forever. Jenny took her eyes off of Martha and Lloyd, and now a reanimated Lloyd sprang to his feet, growling ferociously in the manner of the dead. I aimed, but Jenny was in the way. I shouted for Jenny to get out of the way, but Lloyd, moving faster than any of the dead I'd seen thus far, lunged at her.
"Jenny, run!" I screamed, even as I ran toward her, but Lloyd leapt on top of her. Jenny struggled with him. I crossed the distance and put two shots in Lloyd's head, and the undead redneck moved no more. I pulled my Jenny into my arms, and smiled at her. My heart thundered in my chest, but relief washed over me in a terrific way. My wife was safe.
"Lloyd bit me," Jenny said, a sad look in her lovely dark brown eyes, and in uttering those words, doomed our family. Never again would we be together. Stubborn as I was, I ignored Jenny's pleas to end her life and took her to King County, Georgia, where, rumor has it, a few policemen and soldiers managed to hold off the undead and formed a small protected zone.
"We'll get help in King County, babe, you'll be fine," I said as I applied a bandage on Jenny's arm, and we got on the road. In the back, Duane wept. I glared at my son and told him to be strong. We drove to King County, Georgia, and what we found there was not what we expected. We got there in time to see a few cops and soldiers being overrun by the undead. Duane and I barricaded ourselves in a townhouse, and Jenny apparently wandered off while we were unloading the supplies. The next time Duane and I laid eyes on her, my wife was...one of them.
This was months before my son Duane and I encountered Rick Grimes, the former Sheriff, who'd been abandoned in the overrun hospital by his wife Lori, their son Carl and his former co-worker and best friend Shane. Duane and I did the humane thing and took Rick in, and we told him what was going on. The dude was in a coma when the shit hit the fan, and didn't know anything about the walking dead, and the nightmare the world had become. Rick and I forged a bond during his stay with us. Dude's got a bossy and arrogant side to him at times but I do believe he's basically a decent man.
