We're Alive

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 Original audio 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," "Scorched Earth" and "The Ink Runs Dry," were released as single, hour-long episodes.) Aside from the official site, there is a forum, a Facebook page and a wiki.

In 2022, the creators announced a fifth season. Subtitled Descendants, it takes place 18 years after the start of the outbreak.

• 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.
• The fourth season began on August 26, 2013 and ended on July 19, 2014.
• The fifth season is scheduled to premiere on April 5, 2022.

Part of the Rusty Quill Network as of 2021.

Chapters:

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.
• Ambiguously Bi: Riley, per the ambiguous nature of her relationship with Angel, as well as an unusually touching conversation with Burt on the subject of Lizzy in which it's implied Riley had an unrequited crush on her.
• Ambiguously Gay: Victor. He never seems to reciprocate Kelly's affection toward him, doesn't show interest in any other female character, is often implied to have been involved with a male former colonist (though this may be friendly ribbing between soldiers), and says "I love you" verbatim to Saul in the finale.
• 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.
  • Also during the First Battle of The Tower, when Tommy is Zombified and turns on the crew.
• Apocalypse How: Societal Disruption (with the possibility of Societal Collapse or Species Extinction) on a Planetary scale.
• 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.
• Arrow Catch: Ink does this when Riley tries to shoot him with her bow in the hospital in Chapter 23.
• Artistic License – Military: Fort Irwin is the location of the National Training Center and 31 Bravo is the Army Military Occupational Specialty code for a Military Policeman. . . and that's about all this series gets right.
  • The characters oddly refer to humvees as "Hummers" when Hummer is a civilian brand name that does not describe military vehicles.
  • In the very first episode, Angel identifies himself as "Lieutenant Angel", which is very egregious, as giving one's rank and given name is considered unprofessional. (The correct way would be "Lieutenant Telludo.")
  • Chain of command is also very unrealistic:
    • Colonel Kimmet is depicted as the commander of Fort Irwin, when an actual post commander would be a major general at least.
    • Junior non-commissioned officers like Michael and Puck also wouldn't work directly for him, or even ever see him, as he is far above their command level.
    • Angel implies that he is a squad leader, but as a lieutenant, he would actually lead an entire platoon (which is four squads). The role of a squad leader would be fulfilled by a sergeant like Michael.
  • Michael initially states that his job should be to gather information on the zombies, as he previously served in Military Intelligence, but simply serving in MI does not intrinsically make him trained or qualified to directly gather intelligence, as there are multiple MOSs within MI that fill very different tasks.
  • Muldoon is stated to be a Warrant Officer, but as a Black Hawk pilot, he should be a Chief Warrant Officer, as a W-1 Warrant Officers are promoted during flight school.
• Attempted Rape: After taking Lizzy captive, Tardust tries to rape her only to be stopped by a very pissed off Scratch.
• Bedsheet Ladder: Used by Angel, Burt, Kalani, and Riley in Chapter 23. It broke while Kalani was climbing down, leaving Angel and Burt stranded
• Big Damn Heroes: Used a few times.
  • 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.
  • In Chapter 36, The Colony appears to be on the brink of collapse when Michael and crew show up with the helicopter to cut down zombies with an M134.
  • Skittles even gets his own Big Damn Hero moment when he saves Angel and Kalani from the behemoth at the Army Reserve base.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Used by Burt to disarm Bill in chapter 4.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: After Pegs kills Latch
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: Both the Season 1 finale: "The War" and the Season 2 Finale: "The Harder They Fall".
• Boom, Headshot!: The easiest known way to actually kill a zombie.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Subverted. Riley's weapon of choice is a bow and arrow, and CJ whips out a katana to fight Scratch.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Began when Burt kicked Lizzy out of the Tower in Chapter 19. But the group really began to fracture when Saul, Victor, and Burt got left behind in Chapter 24.
  • And then Pegs, Kelly, Datu and Hope got Put on a Bus to Boulder in Chapter 29.
• Buried Alive: The ultimate fate of Scratch
• The Bus Came Back: Datu and Hope get out of Boulder and make it to Irwin in chapter 34. Pegs and Kelly return in Chapter 36.
• Butt-Monkey: Angel has some elements of this.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The crew calls the zombies "Flesh-biters" or occasionally just "Them," but they know that they are zombies and simply choose not to call them that.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • 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.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Scratch keeps Burt locked up for months, starves him half to death, and finally resorts to destroying Shirley in front of him and then cutting off his trigger finger.
• Conflict Ball: Kelly owns this throughout Season 1, occasionally letting Burt borrow it, but eventually dropkicks it into low orbit.
• Country Matters: While the series as a whole is pretty cuss-heavy, this word is almost completely avoided. (One notable aversion is from Burt to Scratch when they first meet.)
• 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.
  • After Samantha's Death, Datu spends a lot of time being generally depressed and hopeless. During The War and its aftermath he is completely convinced that everyone is going to die and begins leading some of the other Tower members in prayer rather than trying to help fend off the Mallers/zombies/fire. It isn't until Michael, Pegs and Kelly return from the Colony with Samantha's daughter, Hope, that he really gets better.
• Deadly Closing Credits: Chapter 35-1 Scratch stabs CJ, just before the episode ends.
• Deadpan Snarker: Samantha
• Death by Childbirth: Lizzy
• Description Cut: From Chapter 3:
  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!
  • Another one in Chapter 34.
  Riley: They will. They know what they're doing.
  (Cut to Datu and Hope desperately trying to fix a car)
  Datu: I don't know what the hell I'm doing!
• Distant Finale: "The Ink Runs Dry" ends 14 years after the climax of the show and reveals the the entire series has been a tale told by Michael and Pegs to Saul and Lizzy's son, Nicolas
• 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. And while she is more willing to use a gun when necessary afterwards, she still prefers not to use a gun.
• 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?
  Datu: Samantha.
• Elite Zombie: "runners," "jumpers," "smart ones," "behemoths," and "little ones" on top of the regular "biters."
• The End of the Beginning: "The Ink Runs Dry" shows that 15 years after the outbreak, society is starting to rebuild while still dealing with the zombie threat. But the threat is still out there and Ink may have even left one or two surprises behind for the survivors to deal with. All this is explained as Nicolas takes his first steps into the world by choosing to become a guardian.
• 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.
  Kelly: Who else was in there?
  Michael: Everyone!
• Exploring the Evil Lair: Riley and Kalani end up doing this by accident when they find Ink's Torture Cellar in chapter 23.
• Face-Revealing Turn: How we're properly introduced to Ink in Chapter 11.
• Fetus Terrible: The "Little Ones" were created by injecting infected pregnant women with growth hormones, creating babies that quickly grew into massive killing machines in a matter of months.
• Flashback: The entire story is being told to Saul and Lizzy's now 14 year old son, Nicolas using the journals of people who lived out the pandemic in the Tower and Colony.
  • 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.^note The Zombie Apocalypse happened in May, 2009 so they never found how the show ended. Saul claims "They'd probably just screw it up, anyway"
• Finding Judas: Turns out the only reason Kalani became The Mole was because the Mallers were holding his daughter hostage.
• Fingore: Scratch cutting off Burt's finger.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Many, many examples. It would be easier to list the combinations of people who haven't become this.
• Gas-Cylinder Rocket: In 40-2, Victor shoots at a scuba tank that a little one was tangled up in. The tank goes flying across the street and gives the Little One a nasty case of road rash.
• 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.
  Angel: So unless he's secretly Jay Garrick...
  Michael: Who?
  Angel: The...nevermind. It was a nerd joke.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • 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.
• Heel–Face Turn: Kelly starts out as a difficult, selfish and obnoxious person, but gradually becomes more helpful and heroic as she gains Character Development.
• I Call It "Vera": Burt names his favorite pistol Shirley, after his deceased wife.
  Burt: Well, that way she's always with me.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: After being bitten, Datu begs Michael to kill him before turning, because suicide would be "unforgivable."
• The Immune: People started to speculate that Saul and Tanya might be immune after some close calls. But when it's revealed that they can both breath the Haze from Ground Zero, their immunity became a real possibility.
  • Saul's immunity was pretty much confirmed late in Season 4 when he was bit directly on the neck by a zombie and didn't turn. ^note  This even helped Saul defeat Ink in the Grand Finale. Ink couldn't understand that biting Saul wasn't going to turn him, giving Saul enough time to reach the CJ's Katana
• Katanas Are Just Better: CJ's weapon of choice.
• Living Lie Detector: Kelly is able to do this from her background as a lawyer. She's able to detect when one of the Colony members is lying, allowing her to save Pegs and Michael in time to escape Gatekeeper's coup. She is less able to get a read on Pippin though, because his face was so badly swollen from the beating the Mallers gave him that she couldn't read him facial tics.
• Locked in a Freezer: Angel and Riley in chapter 10. Although it's more like "trapped in a freezer by flesh eating zombies." And without electricity there's not so much danger from freezing, but there is the overwhelming, stomach-turning, stench of rotting meat.
• Loophole Abuse: In chapter 8, Kelly falls asleep on guard duty and doesn't notice Latch and Scratch approaching the building. When Michael threatens to kick her out of the Tower she points out that there's no rule against sleeping on guard duty. ^note There was a rule that said everyone has to "pull guard duty" but it apparently didn't say anything about staying awake. Michael fixes this with an Obvious Rule Patch.
• Mêlée à Trois: By the end of the first season, it's the Tower versus the zombies versus the Mallers.
  • The Colony was was positioned to become yet another faction, before the Mallers took it over.
• Missing Floor: The Tower has no thirteenth floor, instead going directly from 12 to 14.
• The Mole: It turns out that 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.
• Morning Sickness: Lizzy in chapters 20 and 21.
• My Fist Forgives You: Chapter 13, After putting out the fire and clearing out the zombies threatening the Tower, Angel calls Burt out for his earlier attempts to run off. Burt responds by giving Angel a "free shot." After Angel lays Burt out, all is forgiven. (Though Michael can be heard shouting "Hit him again!" from an overlooking window.)
• 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.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Mallers. They live in a mall, but their spoken name is a homophone for "maulers."
• Non-Indicative Name: The Little Ones are still called Little Ones after they get much bigger.
• 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 So Different" Remark: Riley's arc in Season 4 showed that her desire for revenge against Scratch caused her to veer dangerously close the slippery slope, which would make her just like Scratch. Tardust and Scratch both describe this trope word for word when comparing Riley to her nemesis.
• 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".
• Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: Burt mentions this when he, Saul and Angel are camping out on the roof of his store for the night.
  Burt: Remember to say you prayers boys, especially the part about "If I should die before I wake."
  Saul: Oh great! There's no way I'm getting any sleep now.
  Burt: Good! I was hoping to force a lookout
• Nuclear Option: Bye, bye Boulder
• Old Soldier: Burt is a Retired Badass Gunnery Sergeant from the USMC.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Mallers seem to be fond of this: Latch, Scratch, Bricks, Puck, etc. The Colony also has Gatekeeper who names himself after whatever his job is.
• O.O.C. 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.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Most are a merger of Technically Living Zombies and Plague Zombies. However, the Behemoths and "Little Ones", are more like Artificial Zombies.
• Prisoner Exchange: Saul tries to set one of these up in Chapter 24, by offering to kidnap and hand Pegs over to the Mallers in exchange for the captured Lizzy. But both sides end up trying to screw each other over. The Tower folk use Riley as a decoy and plan to ambush the Mallers to get Lizzy back, while the Mallers use a decoy of their own, who they promptly shoot to cause confusion, to allow Scratch and company to pull an end around and attack the Tower while its best fighters are away.
• Put on a Bus: Pegs, Kelly, Datu and Hope were all sent to a safe zone in Boulder, CO.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Scratch after Pegs kills Latch, and Riley after Scratch kills Angel
• Saying Too Much: Tardust has this problem in chapter 46 when he demonstrates a little too much knowledge about Lizzy, leading Riley to deduce that he was the one who tried to rape her in the furniture store. This doesn't end well for Tardust.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: The soldiers from Ft. Irwin: Puck, Robbins, Muldoon and Carl are attacked by Behemoths in Chapter 42. Robbins, Muldoon and Carl are killed, while Puck remains hospitalized though much of the rest of the series.
• Shoot the Fuel Tank: Subverted, twice. First when Burt Angel and Riley try to use gas canisters as bombs to hold of the zombies in Chapter 13 and they fail to explode when shot. And again in Chapter 24 when Burt tries to shoot the Mallers' fuel truck bomb before it reaches the Tower and it fails to explode.^note  It takes Kalani's Heroic Sacrifice, flying his helicopter into the tanker, to get it to explode.
• Shout-Out: Burt can't resist the urge to quote The Road Warrior in "The Remains Of Eastern Bay":
  Burt: Just walk away. We'll spare your lives; just walk away.
  Lizzy: You and your fucking movies...
  • 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!" This is an explicit reference to the film The Shawshank Redemption. Word of God said so.
• Sigil Spam: In the epilogue, the survivors have adopted the symbol Ink used to control the zombies as the symbol of their new society. It's on the flag, armbands, and pretty much anywhere else they can put it. This is Justified since the symbol is some sort of instinctive stop sign for the infected, preventing them from attacking people and places marked with it.
• Smug Snake: Marcus, as much as we got to see of him.
• Spy Speak: Soldiers from Ft. Irwin use code phrases to identify themselves over radio or sat phone communications. These phrases are ad libbed but require a certain combination of pre-arranged words within them. For example:
  Puck:Three tangos sat on the wire.
  Carl:The Roman pillar fell on the fish!
  • Earlier in the series survivors from The Tower used bird-themed callsigns for people and places to disguise their communications over CB radio.
• 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 were still alive but but had fallen into the hands of the Mallers.
• A Storm Is Coming: In Chapter 40, as Victor and Tanya prepare to make a trip into Ground Zero, the sounds of thunder and rising winds can be heard faintly in the background. Victor notes this by saying "Those are some nasty looking clouds, you sure you want to do this?"
• 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.
• Survivor Guilt: Datu finds it really hard to forgive himself for letting Samantha get taken.
• Technically Living Zombie: The zombies have demonstrated a need to breath, eat, and sleep. They can be killed by gunshot wounds to the chest rather than requiring a headshot, and they can even bleed out from amputated limbs.
• 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 later 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.
• Torture Cellar: Ink apparently had one in the basement of the hospital. Riley and Kalani found it while exploring the hospital in chapter 23.
• 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.
• Villain Ball: Marcus again. You know, if you value someone's capacity for loyalty so much, you probably shouldn't tell them they can't go help the person they're loyal to.
• 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.
• What a Drag: Riley and Burt coax information on Scratch's whereabouts out of Tardust by forcing him to run along behind their vehicle until he falls. They then threaten to just keep going and drag him if he doesn't talk.
• You Killed My Father: Scratch's reaction after the death of Latch
• 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.
• Zombie Infectee:
  • Averted for most people as those infected usually turn rapidly.
  • Tanya mentions that she has seen examples of people turning slowly over the course of days or weeks.
  • Some of the survivors from Boulder began turning at the checkpoints to enter Irwin.
  • Subverted with Saul who was chained up for much of season 2 out of fear of this but then got better.
    • Again Subverted with Saul's mother, Tanya, who is locked up through most of season 3 after a bite mark is found on her wrist, but she never showed any symptoms, even 5 months later.
  • The first truly straight example of this has been Datu in season 4.