Sometime in October 1977: NASA confirms the breakup of a probe returning from Venus, in the Earth's atmosphere. At approximately the same time, recently deceased individuals begin returning from the dead and committing acts of violence against living persons. Local law enforcement begins searching for revived corpses.
Day One of the Outbreak (sometime in October 1977): Barbara and Johnny drive from Philadelphia to Evans City to visit the grave of their father. Accosted by a revenant male, Johnny is fatally wounded, and Barbara flees to safety in a farmhouse nearby. As more undead are attracted to the property, she is joined by survivors Ben, Tom, Judy, and the Cooper family. In an attempt to escape and find a rescue station, Tom and Judy are killed in a truck explosion. The Cooper patriarch is shot by Ben in a struggle over the group's only rifle. Mrs Cooper is murdered by her daughter, who became infected prior to reaching the farm. Barbara is dragged into the crowd of zombies and presumably dies. Ben survives being overrun, only to be mistaken for a ghoul and shot by law enforcement officers.
November 1977: start of Societal collapse in the Northeast United States. Unwillingness to dispose of dead loved ones results in swarms of zombies in populated areas. Law enforcement, national guard, and military resources struggle to keep up with the waves of violence. Civilian rescue stations begin shutting down or failing. Martial law is declared throughout the country.
Week Three of the Outbreak (sometime in November 1977): WGON technical supervisor Francine Parker leaves the Philadelphia TV station with her boyfriend, pilot for WGON's traffic reports, Stephen Andrews. Stealing the traffic helicopter, they meet up with Philadelphia PD SWAT members Roger DeMarco and Peter Washington and take shelter inside the Monroeville Mall, barricading the entrances.
Week Four of the Outbreak (sometime in November 1977): Communications begin breaking down in some parts of Pennsylvania. Television broadcasts become unscheduled and sporadic, with little manpower left to continue operating broadcast platforms. Surviving experts propose eradicating entire cities by bombing in order to destroy as many infected people as possible. These proposals are never acted upon, and it is not known if the United States government even considers them seriously.
(sometime in April 1978): The shopping mall survivors, minus Roger DeMarco (deceased) attract the attention of a nomadic biker gang, who break into the building and raid the stores, letting the undead swarm inside once again. Stephen Andrews is killed, but Peter and Francine escape with the helicopter, and their fates become unknown.
July 9, 1978: The Southern Globe in Fort Myers, Florida publishes its final edition with the headline: "THE DEAD WALK!". Additional bylines include "Whereabouts Of President Unknown", "Vice President Declares State of Emergency", and "CIA At a Loss For Explanation". This implies that the outbreak spread unevenly, and that some areas of the country were able to maintain civilian operations for years while others fell apart in just a few weeks.
October 1978: Without further support from the government, secluded installations researching the plague lose contact with one another. The Seminole, Florida installation is destroyed after the military members of the team begin suffering post-traumatic stress and turn on one another and murder several scientists. One distraught soldier opens the gate keeping the zombies out and triggers an invasion of the installation, killing everyone but the pilot, radio operator, and one virologist, who escape via helicopter.
Numerous years after the outbreak {some time after 1978 and into the 1980s}:The events in the Land of the dead: road to fiddlers green occur, and societal collapse is very evident across the northeastern United States.
some time in 1990s~2000s: militaries and governments collapse and safe zones in all around the world begin to crumble even though numerous new supplies such as PASGT helmets and BDU uniforms were supplied. Fiddlers green is built in the late 1980s.
Notes[]
- Evidence for the zombie outbreak occurring in 1977 rather than 1968 include: opening scene of Dawn of the Dead, where the outbreak is described as existing for "three weeks" by TV guest, calendar on the wall in the airstrip office being November 1977, and the book Doctor Logan gives Bub in Day of the Dead (Salem's Lot, printed 1975).