Dawn of the Dead/Plot

Below is the extended **plot** for *Dawn of the Dead*.

## Dawn of the Dead

### Milwaukee

While an infection was beginning to rage all around her, Ana Clark remained on the periphery, unaware of the danger. She finished her day of work at St. George's Hospital before driving home to spend the evening with her husband. They had other things on their mind when the news alerts came through, and went to bed peacefully that night. The next morning, however, Luis Clark woke to find their neighbor, Vivian, standing in their bedroom doorway with sever injuries. He attempted to help her, but she was already a member of the walking dead, and she bit into his neck. Ana tried to save him, but in his infection he turned on her and forced her to flee their suburban home.

Ana drove through the disarray of her neighborhood and out into the broader city to find chaos everywhere. She witnessed several car wrecks before a desparate Milwauke County Transit bus driver attempted to take her car and she wrecked it in an attempt to get away. She briefly lost consciousness, awakening to find police sergeant Kenneth Hall standing over her with a shotgun. Convinced she wasn't infected, he allowed her to tag along as he headed toward Fort Pastor by foot.

### Crossroads Mall

Crossing paths with a small group of survivors who informed Kenneth that the path ahead was too dangerous, Kenneth and Ana joined the trio as they headed into Crossroads Mall to seek shelter. They broke in through a loading bay behind Metropolis and ended up in the store. Using a prop toilet, they broke the window leading out into the main mall area, where they settled down at the front fountain. Michael and Andre checked around to make sure the exits were secure, while the zombie of Ben Cozine arrived at the fountain.

Hearing the gunshot from Kenneth's shotgun aimed at Ben, Michael and Andre came back, and the entire group ran for the elevators. The Crossroads Mall security personnel were already held up on the second floor, and the two groups came into conflict. The mall guards decided to let the new group take refuge in Panasonic, then later agreed to allow them to clean up the mess they made in Metropolis and remain there on the lower level of the mall on a restricted basis to prevent looting.

### The Fort Pastor survivors

The next morning the group met on the roof to find a truck arriving in the parking lot. Chased by the undead and with nowhere to go, they circled the mall until seeing signs held up by the mall survivors to lead the way in. The new group brought in new information, including knowledge of the fall of Fort Pastor. Kenneth wanted to use their truck to head to the fort and see it for himself, but after brief exchanges with Michael and then Andy, he cooled down and decided against it.

When an unidentified woman in the group died and arose as a zombie, Ana realized it was the bites that were causing the infection to spread. Frank had also been bitten, so the group ultimately quarantined him away from his daughter, let him live out his last few moments, then Kenneth shot him in the head. Meanwhile, Andre took over Carousel with Luda as their private residence, away from the rest, to avoid them finding out that she had also been bitten. A few weeks passed and the mall residents grew accustomed to their new life.

### Power outage

Having a group meal one day, the power went out and the group decided to start up the generators in the employee parking lot. Michael, CJ, Bart, and Kenneth went out into the parking garage. They found a dog that would later be called Chips and determined that the lot must be free from zombies. As it turned out, Chips was fine only because the zombies were only interested in humans, and so a chase ensued. They arrived at the generators and doused the zombies in gasoline through the chain link fence, then burned them. Bart was lost in the process.

Meanwhile, Luda's infection killed her as she began going into labor, and Andre delivered their baby himself. Norma went to check on them to find Luda tied down on the bed, now a zombie, and Andre holding the baby. In a moment of fear and a moment of passion, Norma shot Luda, Andre shot Norma, and Norma shot Andre. The rest of the group rushed in to find them all dead or dying, with the baby born as a zombie. They collectively decided that they didn't want to die in the mall and that they would find a way to escape.

### Preparing the escape

The group began to prepare the shuttles. They armored them and prepared weapons to defend them while on the road. Andy, long out of food, was starving. The group also needed ammunition, of which Andy had plenty at his gun store, so they devised a plan to bring food to him. Since the zombies were uninterested in Chips, Andy could call Chips across the lot with a dog whistle while Chips carried a handheld transceiver and food. The plan worked, but a zombie followed Chips in through the dog flap and bit Andy.

Nicole had grown attached to Chips, and before anyone realized it, she'd taken Norma's truck and driven across the lot after the dog. Andy went up to the roof and held up one last message, but he was in the process of turning and only left a smear of blood. Hearing Nicole downstairs, he headed down toward her. Meanwhile, she found the transceiver and the mall survivors warned her that she needed to hide, so she got into a closet with Chips.

### Rescuing Nicole and escaping the mall

While they weren't quite ready to head to the gun store to stock up on weapons, the group set out through the sewers to rescue Nicole, which led them just outside Andy's Gun Works. They found Nicole, safe in the closet, and stocked up on guns and ammo. They fled back to the sewers, but exposed to the open streets, they were swarmed. The zombies followed them into the sewer and Tucker was lost.

With the zombies on their tail, the group was forced to head straight into their final escape plan, loading into the Crossroads Mall shuttles and heading out into the horde outside. The lot was thick with the undead and the shuttles couldn't push through, so CJ threw a propane tank out into the crowd and fired a shot into it, clearing a bit of space. They managed to leave the mall lot and head out into the wider Everett area. Kenneth's shuttle crashed, killing Nicole and Glen, then Steve ran off and was killed by the undead.

Ana's shuttle went back for the survivors and they continued on to the pier. CJ got trapped in the shuttle and blew it up to take some zombies out with himself. The others made it to Steve's boat, where Michael revealed that he'd been bitten and wouldn't be joining them. The remaining survivors departed in search of islands on Lake Michigan where the dead wouldn't likely reside. What they found were more hordes.