When a tiny riot in Los Angeles turns out to be not so tiny after all, US Army reserve Lieutenant Angel Tunudo is told to call his subordinates to arms, but only two of them - Sergeant Michael Cross and Specialist Saul Tink - show up to greet him at the reserve base. After working out that the riot is actually the start of a Zombie Apocalypse, the three men decide they have to take matters into their own hands. They rescue a handful of other people and set up camp in the apartment building where Angel's girlfriend used to live, but even with things going well at first it isn't long before the situation takes a realistic turn for the worse.And that's not even the half of it.A Web Originalaudio drama created by KC Wayland and available here. Each chapter is released for download over the Internet in 3 parts every 4 weeks. (The only exceptions so far have been the Season Finales. "The War" was 4 parts long, while "The Harder They Fall" and "Scorched Earth", were released as single, hour-long episodes.) Aside from the official site, there is a forum, a Facebook page and a wiki.
The first season began on May 4th, 2009 and finished on April 19th, 2010.
The second season began on August 23rd, 2010 and ended on July 30th, 2011.
The third season began on January 2nd, 2012 and ended on December 5th, 2012.
A Fourth Season is confirmed for 2013 and will be the final season.
Chapters so far:
Season One (May 4, 2009 - April 19, 2010)
#01. "It Begins" (May 4 - May 18, 2009)
#02. "The Two Things" (June 7 - July 22, 2009)
#03. "The New Arrivals" (July 6 - June 20, 2009)
#04. "Rules And Regulations" (August 2 - August 16, 2009)
#05. "Lady And The Tink" (August 30 - September 14, 2009)
#06. "The Remains Of Eastern Bay" (September 27 - October 12, 2009)
#07. "Blood, Sweat And Fears" (October 26 - November 9, 2009)
#08. "Where Do You Go When You Sleep?" (November 23 - December 15, 2009)
#09. "The Road To Living Death" (December 29, 2009 - January 18, 2010)
#10. "Purgatory" (February 1 - February 15, 2010)
#11. "R&R" (March 1 - March 15, 2010)
#12. "The War" (March 29 - April 19, 2010)
Season Two (August 23, 2010 - July 30, 2011)
#13. "Separate Dying Embers" (August 23 - September 6, 2010)
#14. "Out Of The Ashes" (September 20 - October 4, 2010)
#15. "Desperate Times" (October 18 - November 1, 2010)
#16. "Over The Air-Waves" (November 15 - December 6, 2010)
#17. "There Might Be Others" (December 20, 2010 - January 10, 2011)
#18. "No Place Like Home" (January 24 - February 7, 2011)
#19. "The Catalyst" (February 21 - March 7, 2011)
#20. "About Last Night" (March 21 - April 4, 2011)
#21. "Mark of the Beast" (April 25 - May 9, 2011)
#22. "Our Doubts are Traitors" (May 23 - June 6, 2011)
#23. "The Devil's Workshop" (June 20, - July 11, 2011)
#24. "The Harder They Fall" (July 30, 2011)
Season Three (January 2, 2012 - December 5, 2012)
#25. "Inadequate Strength" (January 2 - January 16, 2012)
#26. "Who Overcomes..." (January 30 - February 13, 2012)
#27. "The Thirty-First" (March 6 - March 19, 2012)
#28. "Last Dying Breath" (April 2 - April 16, 2012)
#29. "Beyond Our Walls" (April 30 - May 14, 2012)
#30. "Short Term Memory" (May 28 - June 18, 2012)
#31. "Family Ties" (July 2 - July 16, 2012)
#32. "Captive Hearts" (August 6 - August 20, 2012)
#33. "Red Winter" (September 3 - September 17, 2012)
#34. "It Only Takes One" (October 1 - October 15, 2012)
#35. "The End is Near" (October 29 - November 12, 2012)
#36. "Scorched Earth" (December 5, 2012)
Season Four (2013)
This series provides examples of:
Achilles in His Tent: Michael spent the first part of season 2 sulking in his room after Burt took over as leader of The Tower. He comes out of it by volunteering to find medical help for Saul and by the time he gets back from The Colony he's ready to take back command.
Action Bomb: During the Second Battle of the Tower, Kalani saves the Tower from the tanker truck bomb being sent in by the Mallers. By flying his helicopter directly into said tanker.
Agent Mulder: Saul is the first to guess that he and his friends are actually dealing with zombies.
Agent Scully: Angel refuses to believe Saul's theory at first. Instead, he thinks it might just be a bunch of mental patients escaping from a nearby insane asylum.
Saul himself becomes Agent Scully temporarily in "Lady And The Tink" when Lizzy tries to explain how the zombies could set up a trap.
Anyone Can Die: Established in the first chapter when the Commander and Cindy both fall victim to the attack. Very firmly ingrained during the Second Battle of the Tower.
Apocalypse How: Species Endangerment on either a Continental or Planetary scope.
Arc Words: "That was then...This is now..." Heard at the start of each season opener and at the beginning of several other episodes. Always spoken by Michael.
Attempted Rape: After taking Lizzy captive, Tardust tries to rape her only to be stopped by a very pissed off Scratch.
When Angel, Riley and Datu are escaping from The Arena, they appear to be trapped, when Michael, Burt, and Saul show up with the Hummer to bail them out.
Remember what Kalani said about the zombies somehow crossing all the islands of Hawaii without boats or anything? Yep. They can swim.
When Bricks takes away Scratch's knife she says she always has a spare. Durai later takes away Scratch's knife and gun while publicly accusing her of betrayal only for her to bring out that spare and stab him in the chest with it
Chekhov's Gunman: The zombie that attacks Saul, Lizzy and Burt in the first part of "Lady and the Tink" turns out to be one of the smarter zombies that the survivors are especially scared of. It successfully breaks into the Tower at the beginning of "R&R", killing 1 person and threatening the lives of several others.
Then in "Mark Of The Beast", it attacks the Mallers the same way it attacked Saul and company.
Chekhov's Hobby: Riley mentions in "It Begins" that she is extremely skilled with a bow and arrows. However, she can't put this to use until she finds a hunting bow in a sports shop at the end of "Where Do You Go When You Sleep?".
Chekhov's Skill: Tower-dwellers successfully attract a group of zombies to a particular spot in "Blood, Sweat And Fears" by dropping bottles of human sweat from the top of a nearby building. This knowledge and the remaining bottles prove essential in attracting a Zerg Rush of zombies to decimate the Mallers at the end of the first season.
The Coconut Effect: The silenced pistol has the standard Hollywood Silencer sound that listeners have come to expect rather than sounding like an actual silenced pistol.
Crazy-Prepared: Burt has a vault full of various weapons and ammo including claymore mines. He also had an RPG with ten grenades in his smaller safe that was stolen by the Mallers. Apparently ol' Burt "thought that whole Y2K thing was some kind of take-over."
There's also CJ who has a whole apartment building filled with weapons, ammo, how-to books and various plans she's designed. She also keeps a network of safe houses and gardens for her to live on. It should be noted that while she did have others with her at first, she has since then been keeping all of this stuff maintained by herself for several months.
Cult Colony: Seems to be the case with the appropriately named Colony, though not everyone's buying into it.
Cynicism Catalyst: Todd's death at the hands of the zombies is Lizzy's main reason for wanting to kill every zombie she sees.
Saul: Whatever, Michael would have done the same thing
Angel: Well he's not here now. He's probably back at the Tower surrounded by ladies.
(Cut to Michael and the other Tower residents besieged by zombies)
Michael: Shoot that bitch in the face!
Diary: The main Framing Device of the story, which is being told through the journal entries of the characters.
Doesn't Like Guns: Pegs, though only at first — she slowly grows to tolerate them, and will even use them ever since she saved Michael's life during the First Battle of the Tower (nevermind that killing Latch was a Bleed 'em and Weep moment for her).
Due to the Dead: "Out Of The Ashes" ends with a funeral for all Tower-dwellers and allies thereof who have died because of the First Battle of the Tower, complete with Angel listing off every single name:
Angel: Bill Norris; Ryan Brown; Tommy Pick. And to those that we've already lost, you're not forgotten: Paul Bailey; Todd Fisher; Cindy Benson. Anyone else?
Elite Zombie: "runners," "jumpers," "smart ones," "behemoths," and "little ones" on top of the regular "biters."
Everybody's Dead, Dave: After the Second Battle of the Tower, those on the helicopter, ( Michael, Pegs, Riley, Kelly, Datu, Tanya, and Hope) thought they were the only ones left alive after the Tower collapsed.
Flashback: The entire story is being read from the journals of people who lived out the pandemic in the Tower. Whether or not these people have survived the whole pandemic has yet to be determined, if it ever will be at all.
Chapter 27 tells Kalani's story from his journals going back to his arrival in L.A. from Hawaii.
Fictional Counterpart: Saul and Victor discuss watching DVDs of the TV show "Found," and their frustration that they'll never know how it ends.*
Finding Judas: Turns out the only reason Kalani became The Mole was because the Malllers were holding his daughter hostage.
Fire-Forged Friends: Many, many examples. It would be easier to list the combinations of people who haven't become this.
Gatling Good: The only way to actually kill a Little One or Behemoth with any certainty seems to be the M134 Minigun.
Geeky Analogy: When discussing the possibility that Lewis might be The Mole, Angel says that he is unlikely to have killed Pippin because he was on the top floor of the Tower filling the generator at the time.
Michael becomes a minor example of this after he breaks his arm fighting one of the behemoths.
Burt starts to suffer from trembling in his hands in season 2. He later reveals that he started suffering from these shakes when his wife died, but they went away when the outbreak started.
The Mole: It turns out that a certain Tower-dweller ( Kalani) used the CB radio behind everyone's back, telling the Mallers about the Tower and its weaknesses. This same Mole then later killed Pippin, who was also a Maller spy.
My Friends... and Zoidberg: Michael chastises a bunch of rebellious Tower dwellers by saying "I just sent two of my friends out there to help you people, and I'll not have you throw it back in their faces!" Angel brings it up a bit later:
Angel: Didn't we send three people out there?
Michael: I said two friends. The other one was just Burt.
Nightmare Sequence: The first two minutes of "Desperate Times". Don't worry, Pegs, Latch is not coming back.
No Zombie Cannibals: A confirmed aversion, which could be why the other zombies pick up their fallen brethren and take them back to the Arena.
Not Using the Z Word: Subverted. Although not all the time, the Z word is used from time to time. They just prefer to call the zombies "them".
The Other Darrin: Anyone who has heard "Skittles" in both the old and new versions of "The Road To Living Death" can easily tell that he is played by two different people.
OOC Is Serious Business: When Burt and Angel are trapped in the hospital in chapter 23, Burt yells for Riley and Kalani to leave them and run for the helicopter on the roof of the hospital by saying "Get to the chopper!" Angel asks if that was a quote from Predator. When Burt says "What?...Oh, no, it was just a coincidence." Angel goes into Oh Crap mode.
In 21-3, "Mark of the Beast" Burt does it again, this time quoting Airplane!.
Scratch chastises another Maller who kept her waiting by threatening to "...feed your ass to the sisters!" Word Of God has said that this is an explicit reference to The Shawshank Redemption.
Smug Snake: Marcus, as much as we got to see of him.
The Starscream: Scratch. She may have started out as a Dragon with an Agenda, but after Durai publicly accuses her of betraying "The Family" by killing Angel she reacts by killing Durai.
Gatekeeper was this for Marcus. He staged a coup to take control of The Colony in Chapter 19.
The Stinger: After the credits for the Season 2 finale, there is a final part which reveals that Angel and Burt may still be alive but now in the hands of the Mallers.
The Straight and Arrow Path: Riley was once a pro archer and prefers to use a bow over a gun, which works out in many situations since its quiet and the zombies are attracted to loud sounds.
Thanks for the Mammary: Burt cops an accidental feel on Riley while trying to put a shoulder holster on her in chapter 24.
Theme Twin Naming: Subverted — Latch and Scratch are nicknames for the twin Mallers. We find out just after Pegs shoots him fatally that Latch's real name is John, but Scratch has yet to reveal her real name to anyone.
Title Drop: Early in season 1, Pegs makes a sign to announce that there are survivors in the Tower which says...you guessed it: "We're Alive"
Took a Level in Badass: Once she got behind the controls of the helicopter Pegs became much more confident, even telling both Datu and Michael to shut up at different points.
Two Lines, No Waiting: Mostly, separate storylines are confined into their own chapters, or even multi-chapter story arcs. But occasionally multiple storylines will appear in the same chapter or even the same episode. For instance chapter 18 features Michael, Pegs and Kelly's journey to The Colony, which is cut with Angel and Kalani going to the Army Reserve base to secure MREs.
Unreliable Narrator: Mostly averted so far, but the story is being told from the journals of the characters which makes the story susceptible to this.
We Have to Get the Bullet Out: Done on Saul in chapter 14 despite the lack of adequate tools, antiseptics or morphine. Plus the only one with the medical knowledge to perform the operation is Saul himself.
Zombie Gait: Inverted, generally. Most, if not all, of the zombies are significantly faster and stronger than the average human, and some of them are smart enough to play tricks on us. Loud noises seem to be the primary method of attracting them, so at least you can avoid them to an extent by keeping quiet.
. Each chapter is released for download over the Internet in 3 parts every 4 weeks. (The only exceptions so far have been the Season Finales. "The War" was 4 parts long, while "The Harder They Fall" and "Scorched Earth", were released as single, hour-long episodes.) Aside from the official site, there is a forum
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