Hidden deep within the tall trees and dirt roads of rural Georgia, and beyond a hand-painted sign reading, "WELCOME TO WILLY'SWHITE SANDS," a man-made beach in which local families used to frequent now sits deserted. From the pure white sand around the still water of the large swimming pond to the forest surrounding the entire area, not a sound can be heard, save for the scattered chirps of passing birds and the occasional thumping of a woodpecker. A place where the passing winds once carried the sounds of laughing children and splashing water, Willy's White Sands will never again see another paying customer.

A single lifeguard tower sits on the sands of the makeshift beach. The structure contains a small balcony facing the water, with lawnchairs that used to seat lifeguards keeping watch. Behind these chairs is a locked room, an office of sorts where the manager had kept all of the location's paperwork and finances. The only way up seems to be a wooden staircase on the side, which has evidently been deliberately destroyed. On the rear wall, a small window faces the dirt path leading into the resort, and a pair of eyeballs can be seen peeping through the blinds, the only sign of life visible on the entire beach.

"You're gonna worry yourself to death, Minnie."

Inside the manager's office, a young man, Ray Thomas, tries to reassure his panicking friend. Although the two of them do share a growing concern about the absence of the third member of their trio, Ray, always the optimist, doesn't show any signs of his similar feelings of dread. His words, however, are of little comfort for his companion.

Ignoring Ray's comment completely, Min-yung Jackson continues to stare at the empty road at the entrance to the resort. Min-yung knows Ray means well, but she can't help but feel helpless without her husband, Simon Jackson, by their side. Her petite, ninety-eight pound body offers little in the way of defense against outside threats, while Ray's own self-proclaimed "pacifist lifestyle" has also made him pretty useless in any sort of real conflict.

Ray decides to leave Min-yung be, realizing there's nothing more he can do or say, and takes a seat in a fold-up lawn chair. With his only present companion unwilling to talk, he can't help but let his mind wander. Ray tries to think of things like drawing, painting, playing basketball and a lot of other activities he used to enjoy. However, it's always only a matter of moments before he begins to see the images he's been trying so hard to block out, the atrocities he witnessed first hand when Hell on earth began.

Before the outbreak, Ray Thomas happily worked as a movie theater projectionist. Having a lifelong geeky obsession with film, it seemed to be a perfect job for him. The only problem was that it didn't pay all too well, which is why Ray still lived at home with his mother although he was in his mid-twenties. With his father long dead to lung cancer and his identical twin sister, Rachel, away at college in Atlanta, Ray's mother was more than happy to have his companionship.

At the time of the outbreak, Ray Thomas had nearly called off from work because of a wicked cold he had been battling, but went in anyway to try and be a model employee. On that tragic day, Ray wasn't sure exactly what moment the carnage had begun as he sat in the projectionist's booth in the theater. He had missed it completely because of all his distractions.

While the loud sounds of the action movie on the screen muffled the screams from inside the theater, Ray fumbled with a Dayquil bottle and disposable tissues. After spending some time taking a few swigs of medicine and giving a Kleenex a good blow, Ray looked at the screen and noticed that there seemed to be an exorbitant amount of screams that wasn't matching the scene playing. It was then he looked down from the window into the theater and felt himself paralyze with fear, unable to process the horror he saw.

It wasn't clear whether somebody in the theater had turned, or if the undead had swarmed into the cinema from the outside, but the situation was complete chaos. From the window, Ray could see what appeared to be people viciously attacking other people. Everybody was fighting and there was blood everywhere. Like rabid dogs, people were biting off large chunks of flesh from limbs, necks and faces. Small pockets of zombies fed on single corpses, completely ripping them apart. It was a bedlam.

Unprepared for such a sight, Ray threw up, and then rushed over to the door, flipping the deadbolt lock into place. He collapsed with his back against the wall, trying to catch his breath and make sense of what was happening. He found a small comfort behind a locked steel door, but the never-ending sounds of violence kept him trembling so hard he was almost seizing. His only hope at that point was to stay put until the police or SWAT teams came and brought order to the situation.

For two weeks or so, having lost track of the days, Ray holed up in that desolate projectionist's booth. There was no phone, internet or any way to contact the outside world. With a thread of luck, Ray was able to gain sustenance from vending machine stock that had been stored in the room, including various junk foods, soda and bottled water. He had been trapped there, waiting for some kind of rescue from the ensued chaos, totally unaware that the problem extended far beyond the theater he was in.

What nearly drove Ray Thomas insane was his inability to comprehend his predicament. He thought initially that the attackers in the building were either terrorists or drug-fueled psychopaths, but as time went on, he couldn't understand why emergency personnel never showed up. Furthermore, he was really confused as to what was happening to all of these people. Victims he could have sworn were dead were beginning to rise again, one by one, and all of them would moan and shuffle around aimlessly.

Early on, Ray had made the mistake of shouting down at them from the window, "Are you guys okay?" causing every walker in the theater below to start angrily snapping, snarling and moaning, trying to track down the source of the voice. A bearded zombie in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, who was now missing an arm and most of his face and neck, peered up and made eye contact with Ray. The mangled corpse viciously growled at Ray, reaching up at him with his remaining hand, signaling to nearby ghouls where he was. Before he knew it, all forty to fifty walkers in the room were howling with their hands in the air, unsure of how to reach Ray but hungry for his flesh all the same.

Instinctively, Ray dropped down out of their sight, and quickly decided he would then stay the hell away from that window. It became more clear how dire things were. Still unsure of what was happening, Ray was able to surmise that for whatever reason, the dead were walking, and they seemed to really want to tear him apart.

As the days progressed, Ray really began to ponder just how critical the situation was. He had so many questions. Why hadn't help arrived? Was he in a quarantined area, or had the entire world become consumed by chaos? Was he the only one left? Was his mother okay? Was his sister safe in Atlanta? Should he just go ahead and commit suicide?

The food supplies were getting low, and the time to make a decision was fast approaching. It wouldn't be long before the last bottle of water would be empty, and with the decreasing likelihood of government assistance, Ray knew he needed to somehow escape. However, this task seemed like a completely impossible mission, being on an upper floor of a building filled with monsters.

It was then that Ray thought of something which gave him a glimmer of hope. There was a ladder leading to a roof access point located in the hallway outside of the door of the projectionist's booth. Ray had been far too petrified to ever unlock the door up to this point, with the constant, ghoulish moans of the undead echoing through the halls. Still, climbing to the roof seemed like the best choice for his next move, as he could then survey the surrounding areas, and the neighboring buildings were close enough to leap onto.

The walkers in the theater below had pretty much forgotten about him, and many had gone into a dormant state while others shuffled around. Ray hoped that all of the zombies in the building had also gotten a bit more relaxed, giving him the ability to sneak over to the ladder and hastily get away. The only problem was that Ray didn't know if there were any lurkers in the hallway outside of the door.

With the hallway outside located at the top of a set of stairs, and the only other nearby room being a broom closet, there was a smaller chance of running into a zombie. Ray hadn't heard anything from behind the door, but with the never-ending sounds of walkers emanating throughout the building, it was hard to tell. After shoving the few remaining packs of Twizzlers and a couple of bottles of water into his pockets, Ray turned the deadbolt lock as slowly and quietly as he could, took in a deep breath, and pulled open the door.

Immediately, there was a problem. Although he had spent a great deal of time pondering his plan and mentally preparing for the worst case scenario, Ray completely froze up when he saw a blood-drenched ghoul standing before him. What made this horrifying sight even more creepy was that Ray recognized who this monster used to be.

The heavyset, thick-bearded and bald-headed man who once served as the theater's manager was easily identifiable even with his face covered in blood. He had apparently been bitten on the neck and retreated up the stairs to the hallway where he bled out, died and turned. While Ray was processing what he was seeing, the zombie manager slowly turned his head, resting his neck when he looked directly at Ray.

With a snarl, the walker lunged at the terrified projectionist. Ray quickly took a hop backwards, a move that probably saved his life. The zombie crashed face first onto the floor, bumping a fold-out table and knocking over a stack of film canisters. As the former manager struggled to get back on his feet, Ray jumped out of the room as fast as he could and threw the door shut.

Unfortunately, the sudden loud clanging of the fallen film canisters had seemed to rouse up every ghoul in the building, with the sounds of vicious moans swiftly increasing in volume. Ray's worst fears began materializing when he saw the venturing walkers appearing at the other end of the hallway at the top of the staircase. There were at least ten of them that had come into view, with who knows how many more behind them. Ray knew he had to move quick.

A suspended ladder led to the roof exit. Ray jumped and grabbed the bottom rung. He hastily attempted to pull himself up, but the perspiration of his nervousness had loosened his grip and he wound up on the ground, flat on his back. Turning his head to see the hungry zombies only a matter of a few feet away, a boost of adrenaline surged through Ray's body and gave him the power to get back on his feet immediately.

Wasting not even a millisecond, Ray took another leap upwards, making sure to get a tighter grip on the ladder. He managed to hoist himself up, shimmying up the ladder just as the group of snarling walkers appeared below him. Feeling dead fingertips on his ankles nearly scared Ray to death, but he continued on until he reached the hatch at the top. He turned the circular valve counterclockwise, then pushed it up and open.

It didn't seem likely for Ray to have felt any more hopeless after being trapped in a zombie-filled movie theater, but that was because he hadn't seen the true horror outside of the building. The city now appeared to be a war zone, littered with crashed cars, burnt buildings, broken glass and dead bodies. Much more concerning than that was the insanely high amount of undead roamers shuffling and crawling through the streets, their collected stench so horrid that it made Ray's nostrils burn.

Collapsing to his knees as if he'd been hit by a cannonball, Ray wept into his hands. Within a matter of seconds, he had felt an incredible amount of emotional highs and lows, brushing with death upon his escape from the cinema only to wind up straight in the middle of Hell. His worst fear had been fully realized; it is, in fact, the end of the world.

Pondering his next move was not easy, so Ray took his time. If anything, at least he was out of that tiny, stuffy room where he was beginning to develop cabin fever. However, he was having difficulties in seeing the point of continuing on. His mother, sister and surely everyone else he ever knew was most likely a corpse or a walker, and here he was with a front row seat to the carnage on a rooftop that had simply become his new dungeon.

Ray slowly trudged over to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. Being around four stories up, he figured there'd be a good chance of death should he choose to jump. He couldn't help but be terrified at the thought of surviving his fall, having to just watch as the zombies nearby crept up on him and tore apart his flesh. He couldn't decide if that was worse than starving to death. In any case, all of Ray's suicidal thoughts were for naught, as he knew he'd never be able to follow through with such a violent act, even in the midst of an apocalypse.

Still, Ray continued to stand by the ledge, desperately trying to talk himself into just ending it all. There was nothing else to do but think about death, and since he lacked the courage to kill himself, Ray began hoping for a swift gust of wind to sweep him off the edge.

Staring directly at a dead end made a nearby human voice calling out for him all the more shocking, nearly causing him to actually lose his balance and fall.

"Stop, don't jump! Please!"

Ray luckily managed to retain his balance and take a few steps back before looking around to try and locate the source of the voice. He wasn't even sure he had really heard anything, so he called out, "Hello? Who said that?"

"Over here!" the voice called again. Ray could clearly make out the voice as that of a female, and after a moment, he could see an oriental woman's worried face in a neighboring building's open window. She had enough of an accent to tell she was foreign-born, though she enunciated her English very well. It was also obvious she was very short and skinny, but more importantly, she was alive, and the first human being he'd seen since all this madness started.

Ray smiled; he couldn't have been more thrilled to see another living person.