The first 72 this is the three days that after a apocalyptic event disrupts our lives the most dramatically and are the most chaotic. Most people in the event of a disater, out break pandimic or anything that majorlly disrupts there average lives have what they call the "flight effect" this is were you feel the need to leave to get away to a place thats better this reaction is built into our system but it is not nessolarlly the reaction that you sould respond to.
When the "Outbreak" happens it could start anywhere from new york city to the remote hills in Montana we will never know till it happens so it could spread i believe in one of 2 fashions(ill exsplane one this time). The united startes is built in a kind of triangle (this is what im going to compare it to) With Texas, New York, and California being its corners (this is totally my perspective on it your may be extremely different) Well New York is densely populated as is California and if the out break were to start it one of these to places it would spread like fire in hay loft quick and almost without warning. Well this is were the flight effect kicks in people would flee these areas. Now this is were you have to think about what causes the zombies. It could start as a vires that starts liquid to air then throught blood as in Resident Evil, it could be like in Night of the Living Dead and just have the dead riase(I do not think it is the latter of the 2 but more of a viral infection such as the first), it could be anything we do not know what will couse it. So lets say its air born in the beginning creating Stang One infested zombies then the air born virus dies leaving only the human infected. Well the stage one zombies are the purest form of the zombies they are the children of the virus in its purest form and from there they are infected. The effects of the virus could start showing anywhere from seconds after exposer to the virus such as in 28 days later or could be slow moving through the body as It says in "The ZOMBIE survival guide" by Max Brooks lets say its the second and it takes hours and hours or even days to show full symptoms before complete infection. If the virus takes hours to move thought the body of the stage one victims they could in that time do many many things like get on a plane (lets say in New York) and travel to Los Angeles or Dallas Texas maybe even leave the country, this means that the virus has spread out of the area that will eventually be quarantined. Not all of the stage one infected will leave the area some may stay and then show symptoms eventually turning into the traditional "Zombie" we associate ourself with, But wait before we think about that we have to think about this. Think about the infection and once it enters the body it moves thought the blood stream infecting the blood the saliva the tears everything and the body its self becomes fully infected. Well lets say if a husband is a stage one infected and he and his wife happen to have sex that night and they kiss and uha and his bodally fluids come in contact with her. Lets for PG-13 sake we talk about him kissing her instead of the OTHER option so through saliva entering her mouth (from a kiss French or other wise) down her throat into her body and from there creating a Stage Two infected. This kind of infection could happen in many way from a sneeze on a unexpected person by the infected to accidental contact with a open wound by the infected. Then after maybe hours or days or even seconds the infection takes over completely in the stage one and stage two infected creating a zombie. When the virus rages thought there body's it creates a zombie and traditionally there are to types of zombies the fast and the slow, people say it has to be one or the other. My perception to this is that it will be both and neither by them selves. How i think this that if you think of the human body and how the muscles and ligaments work you see that when you work out to built muscle the way that it does this is by making minute rips to the muscle and healing them building upon them self increasing the muscle. When you die all functions of the body stop, this is the same for the muscle and ligaments they start to decay. So i think that in life if you are a fast runner you will in post infection zombie state; then as the "Zombie" runs and chases it pray stretching and making those rips in the muscle it will slow, for a zombie by itself is in all rights dead. So as it runs the rips happen and never rebuilt then selfs decreasing the mobility of the Zombie and slowing it from a run to a trot to a jog to a power walk to walking and down and down till it is possibly unable to move do the the buildup of rips in the muscle and the decay of the ligaments and tissue (this is all a personal statement reinforced with facts i learned in my human anatamy class). So as the Stage One and Stage Two zombies convert over to the full consiquinces of the infection they turn into the zombies we think of when we hear zombies the ones that bite and eat flesh of the living; they do not however attack each other because zombies don't eat other zombies, the dead don't eat the dead but the living. So when the infection reaches a certon point within the person that carries the virus they show symptoms and possible go to the doctor or hospital and there condition progresses. Well if the infected are admitted to the hospital then sercome to the infection then the situation will escalate rapidly. Doctor and nurses believing it to be treatable and not knowing what is happening to the stage one and possibly stage two infected they try to treat then and in the prosses get bit allowing the saliva to inter there system and this creats a Stage three infected. By this time when the pure virus has died off only living in the blood and body of the Stage one infected were it changed and progressed then in the Stage two infected getting more accustomed to the human body and the way it works improving itself. So by Stage three the gestation period is shorter allowing for faster spreading of the Virus. This being the case the infected Stage one and stage two will have created significant amount of Stage three which if the Stage 1 and 2 were in the hospital would be mostly doctors and nerses. This people will in turn clean there wounds and go on with there buissness till they in turn change and through violent attack infect other creating Stage four zombies which the prosses will continue on and on and on. I believe that there and only First, second and third generation Zombies possibly a stage four. Stage one and infected from the pure virus, Stage two are the infected from contact with the stage one infected, Stage three infected are form bite of Stage 2 or 1 then Stage Four are infected by the infected stage three this is when the virus is the most violent the fasted working that stage three and four will be the most zombie out there. The infected will spread finding more and more people bitting them eating then reproducing more of them the situation increasing greatly. This kind of commotion will attract the attention of the CDC and the military the area were the infection is rammpid or even the entire city/area will be quarantined in the hope that the "Infection/Virus" will be contained. This will not be the case however (like i said Stage one Infected will have the slowest moving virus talking the longest to infect the entire body) so early i said not all Stage one infected will stay in the immediate area some might travel to other parts such as LA and Dallas. Like the Stage one infected the virus will move slow and if none of the Stage one infected that traveled infect other creating stage two and in turn three it will be about the time that the cause and quarantined talk place in the immediate infected area will the virus infect the traveling fully creating a zombie. So the quarantined will fail because the virus will already be outside the area of containment and thus allowed to spread, the situation will increase to a point were it can not be stopped. Lets say that it started in New York and stage one traveled to LA and Dallas this makes up the triangle i talked about earlier and from there it will spread out slow at first and increase as the Flight effect takes place so the virus moves out from the corners of the "Triangle" moving inward till it is everywhere till there is almost no hope for the few of us that know how to survive. This is what i believe will happen. You can listen to me agree with me or think all iv said is crap but never the less this is what i think or at least one version of it. So take what iv said think about it....