Salutations. I suppose, looking back, it all started about five weeks ago. I won't be covering that entire time here, just a few days of it. With any luck, I'll be able to save this document to a disk and take it someplace safe to continue on it.

Nobody's sure how it all started, be it a plague, a virus, or perhaps something slightly more biblical. I certainly don't know, nor can I often find the time to try thinking about it. I have needs now, needs that are terrifying but which must be met. I require flesh and blood, and if possible, brains.

That may seem like a disgusting diet to you. I assure you that it isn't exactly my choice of dietary needs either. I'm a zombie, though, and zombies eat living human beings. We aren't great conversationalists, or athletes for that matter, despite what you may have seen in certain recent zombie film renditions. George Romero had it right way back when he made the first zombie flicks. For the most part, we are a slow, methodical, and above all, stupid species.

Yes, I am a zombie. How, then, am I getting these words across to you? Slowly, painfully, and with more mental effort than I believe most of my kindred to be capable of. As I sit at this old computer, staring at the white screen and tapping away, I am only capable of typing out a maximum of about twenty words a minute. Ask any secretary and they'll inform you that that is incredibly slow. As such, I'll keep this diatribe to a minimum word count. Oops, hold on a while. I'll be back. My stomach is grumbling and I can hear someone living entering the floor.

Hey there, I'm back. Poor son of a bitch didn't stand a chance. However, I will say this; he put up one hell of a fight. They just don't seem to realize, in their panic, that if they took the time to actually aim at the head, they might make better effect of their firearms. And contrary to popular belief, being shot in the chest over and over again may not kill my kind, but it does hurt like a bitch! The karate instructor from about a week ago did more damage, tell the truth. He broke my right arm when I took a swing at him.

Again, how then am I typing this out? Well, I'm situated on the fourth floor of an office building here in downtown Detroit. As a result, I don't get too many visitors. The zombie body has a limited ability to heal itself by making use of the organic tissue we consume. There were a few survivors trapped in the second floor elevator, and, well, I did what needed doing. I feel like hell having to give in to my compulsions, but survival is a more powerful instinct than you might believe.

We are more powerful in larger numbers, but trying to communicate this to others of my kind is nearly impossible. We have a basic form of semi-telepathic communication, but it only works well with a few of us. There's one lass up here with me, and she too is a member of the walking dead. She's been bringing me coffee now and again, and warning me when she senses a living person entering the building. She's very helpful, though the coffee doesn't do me too much good. Its only real result is me having to get up every now and again to use the bathroom.

Yes, the zombie body does process normal sources of nutrition. However, we tend to excrete everything into our pants, since most of us don't have the presence of mind to use a toilet. And while normal food and drink could serve us, we need flesh and blood in the long run. It's hardwired into our systems from the moment of our un-birth. The more often we feed, the more powerful and capable we become. A few weeks ago, I had myself a family special down the street in one of the dilapidated apartment buildings dotting the interior landscape of this city.

The wife went down quite easily. I tore her throat open with one of my now long-nailed claws. She gagged and tried to gurgle a shriek as she fell on her kitchen floor. Again, I felt terrible, but I had to do it to keep going. The husband, well, he struggled, and he was strong as an ox. He hit me over the head with every damned thing he could lay hands on. Then he retreated back to his bedroom, where he kept a small .22 pistol. He shot me a few times in the stomach before I jammed my thumbs into his eye sockets, and boy, that hurt. It was the first time I'd been shot. The dog just cowered in the corner. To be merciful, I snapped his neck with sharp twist and dug in.

Where am I going with all of this? Oh, right, I remember now. I wanted to tell you, whoever may eventually read this, what it was like being a sentient zombie in a world going to hell and breakfast. Having access to the Internet and newspapers, I've kept up on the human perspective of this world-changing event. Believe it or not, this whole series of events started in Ohio, but I'll get to that later.

Oh, by the way, the name's Bob. Bob the Zombie.