Willamette, Colorado

Willamette, Colorado, U.S.A. was a small rural town located within a valley, a few dozen miles from mountains. The town was described as a boring place, its main attraction being the Willamette Parkview Mall situated in the middle of town. By late September of 2006, Willamette fell victim to the first ever zombie outbreak in America, and by early 2022, the last thus far. It served as the setting for the Dead Rising videos.
== Description ==
By 2006, Willamette is a simple small town with plenty of businesses on the outer rim of it, with the biggest main attraction, the Willamette Parkview Mall, being situated in the middle of town.
Ed DeLuca explained to Frank West that the town’s population was 53,594 and it had “jack shit” distinguishing characteristics and that the locals mainly kill time at the shopping mall.
By late 2021, Willamette had been reformed, having been restored and made safe for inhabiting again. The town appears to be bigger than before, with the mall having been renovated and turned into one of the biggest malls in the country.
In 2006 and 2022, the town became overrun with zombies, with very few civilians surviving.
== Biography ==
=== The First Outbreak, 2006 ===
Before September 19, 2006, Willamette was suddenly overrun by zombies thanks to the Santa Cabeza native and terrorist Carlito Keyes, alongside his sister, Isabela.
On September 19, photojournalist Frank West received a tip about something going on in town and hired a charter helicopter to fly him into town, his pilot being Ed DeLuca. After jumping onto the mall’s helipad and dropped off for the next three days, Frank discovered the zombie outbreak and worked with DHS agents Brad Garrison and Jessica McCarney and eventually as well as Isabela against Carlito and his plans. In the end, Frank and Isabela were the sole survivors of the incident, excluding the initial survivors Frank had saved and janitor Otis Washington, with the others having been killed over time, with Brad having been shoved into a zombie-infested tunnel, where he was torn apart, Jessie having been bitten by a turning Russell Barnaby and eventually succumbing to the infection, and Carlito having been mortally wounded by Brad and later tortured by a butcher. When Frank’s helicopter returned by September 22, the pilot, Ed DeLuca, who watched the helipad from afar on another rooftop, was suddenly ripped apart by a zombie that snuck onto his helicopter, leading to him crashing the helicopter and stranding Frank. After he gave up hope, he was nearly bitten by a zombie until Isabela saved him in time, but Frank, who had gotten infected somehow prior to this, collapsed due to it, but survived. The two created a plan to craft a drug that would delay zombification for an unknown amount of time and find a way to escape town without being killed or captured by Special Forces. After doing all of this, the two reached a small area on the outskirts of town, only to be intercepted by Commander Brock Mason, who headed the Santa Cabeza clean up and, not wanting Frank to expose what happened in Willamette, decided to try and kill him in unarmed combat. In the end, Frank killed Mason by sending him into a crowd of zombies. It was later revealed that Frank and Isabela escaped alive, with the real truth behind the outbreak in their hands.
=== September, 2021 ===
By this time, roughly 15 years after the first outbreak, Willamette was declared to be safe to inhabit again, with the old Willamette Parkview Mall having been torn down and renovated into the Willamette Megaplex Mall, one of the biggest malls in the country.
Around this time, Frank West was tricked into going back into Willamette by his pupil, Vick Chu, who received a tip of a shady compound operating on the town’s outskirts. Inside, it was revealed that people were transformed into zombies once again and although Frank managed to grab intel, due to him attacking the security guards, Frank was framed and since he was abandoned by Vick, he had to flee Colorado and move to the Midwest under an assumed name.
=== December, 2021 ===
Around Christmas time, Black Friday was occurring inside the mall, but a teddy bear ripped apart due to struggling customers, releasing a black substance that practically turned everyone into zombies, thus, beginning the second outbreak of Willamette.
=== January, 2022 ===
Four months later, Frank returned to Willamette after being recruited by ZDC Colonel Brad Park into investigating the town due to the zombie outbreak and steal the scoop from Vick, who traveled back into Willamette to get her own story. After discovering that the Pentagon had sent Obscuris into the town, Frank discovered their true intentions and defeated them. In the end, Frank caught up with Vick, but after defeating the “zombie lord” Calder, who was a Obscuris member, the two decided to share the story 50-50. Unfortunately, as Frank, Vick, and Brad tried to escape via a helicopter on the rooftop, Frank was grabbed by a growing number of zombies while he tried to jump onto the helicopter. After he saw that he was not escaping and that he would essentially doom Vick and Brad, Frank let go of the helicopter and fell into the zombie horde to his death, allowing the two to escape and publish the story.
However, although Frank was eaten alive by the zombies, his body remained intact and after being stung by a wasp, transformed into a zombie and began eating people. However, when he was discovered by Kylie Hammond and Dr. Blackburne, he was knocked unconscious and was put under a treatment by Blackburne, who believed that he was still alive, while Hammond believed that Frank is actually dead. Blackburne’s belief was true as after her treatment, Frank gained his human thoughts and back, showing that he was alive, but the treatment only gave him an hour and a half to find a cure for his condition before he would revert back to his zombie state and by then, Willamette would be firebombed by the Pentagon due to their finding out about Obscuris failing their objectives. Although Blackburne attempted to use Frank as a test subject initially, she was intimidated into following up on her promise to cure Frank. Around that time, Frank had proven to Hammond that he was indeed still alive but still zombified. The three come up with a plan to hijack an Obscuris helicopter and escape the town before it is scheduled to firebomb. After undergoing a serious process in turning on Barnaby’s zombie curing machine, Frank was finally cured, but a massive amount of zombies attacked the winery where the situation took place. In the end, Hammond and her team escaped with Frank and Blackburne on board the helicopter, leaving Willamette behind for good. The city was eventually finally destroyed, ridding the world of the nightmare for good.
=== Non-Canon End ===
In this non-canon end of the final outbreak of Willamette, Hammond and her team were wiped out, leaving Frank and Blackburne as the sole survivors.
=== Non-Canon Endings ===
There are many non-canon endings that depict the fate of Willamette. In the non-canon endings of Dead Rising, the town remained full of zombies, but in one ending, the entire mall was destroyed by a bomb that would send parasitic larvae that was inside zombies into the atmosphere.
== Locations ==
* Willamette Parkview Mall