Chris McShell

Chris McShell
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Abel Township
Occupation	Runner Mathematics Teacher (formerly)
Status	Deceased
First appearance	S1 M17 Information Exchange
Last appearance	S1 M19 An Unimportant Mission
Voice actor	Nick Kay

Chris McShell, also known as Runner 10, is a character in Six to Start's running app, Zombies, Run! and is a member of Abel Township. Before the outbreak, he was a statistics teacher, a skill that turned out to be quite handy in Abel. Using careful observation and application of the scientific method allowed Chris to turn his knowledge into a zombie-killing weapon. As a result, he becomes the runner with the most kills to his name. Sam is a large fan of his.

Chris has a daughter named Veronica.

History

Pre-apocalypse

Chris worked as a maths teacher, mainly teaching statistics.

Early Apocalypse

Chris's wife was eaten by zombies on their front lawn. Chris tried to get in touch with his daughter Veronica, who he thought was on a camping trip with the North London Girl Guides, but he couldn't reach them on the phone.

Chris eventually made his way to New Canton, where he began researching zombie behavior. He worked with Archie Jensen at times.

Chris left New Canton when they started asking if he could make zombies target attacks on other humans.

The Way of All Flesh

Chris and Jody arrive at Gadsen Manor after being cut off from Abel by a horde of zombies. There they meet Keith, Manisha, Callum, Rose, Geri, and Professor Huebner. Another woman, Sheila, is trapped in a treehouse outside. Chris is temporarily blinded when Keith mistakes him for a zombie and sprays him with Mace. As the group is sitting down to eat, they hear the manor's doorbell ringing. They go and check but nobody is at the door, only the zombies crowding around the fence. They return to the dining room. Callum begins eating his stew, but suddenly starts choking and collapses. Manisha checks him and confirms that he is dead.

As the intial shock of Callum's death passes, Chris takes charge of the investigation. He gives everyone handheld recorders so that all of their conversations will be monitored. Chris, Jody, and Manisha go to explore the west wing of the manor. Manisha finds a hidden door which opens to reveal a control panel labelled "Property of Pandora Haze". Although the power light is on, the control panel is unresponsive. The investigations are interrupted by Sheila screaming for help outside. Chris advises Jody to lure the zombies away by ringing a bell to get their attention. Geri and Keith kill the zombies with rifles, and both Jody and Sheila make it safely back inside the manor. However, a noise outside alerts everyone that the rest of the zombies have breached the fence.

After fortifying the doors and windows with boards, the group decides to check out Callum's laptop that Keth and the Prof found. But when they try to turn the laptop on, it just makes grinding noises. Chris determines that it's probably hard drive failure. They then check out the voicemails on Callum's cell phone that Rose and Geri found. One of the voicemails is from Manisha, in which she calls herself a murderer. Chris and Jody take Manisha to a separate room to talk to her. Keith barges in, accusing Manisha of killing Callum. Manisha insists that she didn't, and explains how Callum had slept with her wife. When she confronted him about this, he was honest with her and the two of them bonded over drinks. During that conversation, Callum told her about his sister who was in jail. Chris gathers Jody, Rose, Sheila, Geri, and the Prof in one room. He declares his theory based on the evidence he has seen so far: Rose is Callum's sister, and Rose is the one who killed him.

Rose admits to being Callum's sister but when Chris asks why she killed him, she does not answer. Jody pulls Chris aside and asks if he'll help her convince the others not to kill Rose. Chris agrees and Jody kisses him on the cheek. Chris, Jody, and Sheila take Rose into another room to question her further. Rose tells them how she killed her abusive father when she was 18. She says that Callum used to write to her when she was in prison, but eventually stopped. She says that once the apocalypse began and the prison fell, she tracked Callum to Gadsen Manor and when he refused to acknowledge that they knew each other, she was overcome with anger and killed him. Chris continues questioning her story, noticing a few holes in it. Chris and Jody take another look at Callum's body and Chris comes to a realization. Back with Rose, Chris tells her that she didn't track Callum to the manor - he told her to meet him here, on this day. Rose confirms this. Then Jody realizes what happened - Callum was the one who killed their father, and Rose took the blame to protect him. Rose confirms this as well. Chris asks if Rose know who really killed Callum. Rose has an idea but refuses to say. Chris is frustrated by her obstinance. It's getting late, so Jody pulls Chris away so they can get some sleep.

Rose is found strangled to death the next morning. With the knowledge that a murderer is still among them and with the zombie horde outside growing by the hour, the group decides to search the manor again for any weapons or safe rooms. Chris, Jody, Geri, and Sheila check the boiler room, where they find Rose's scrapbook burned nearly to ash. Keith and Manisha soon join them and report that there should be a secret room behind the storeroom. Keith finds the switch and the wall opens to reveal a control room. Inside are camera feeds from all over the manor and buttons with various functions - including ringing the doorbell. On the screen, they see the Prof outside the fence, leaving. He's somehow found a way out and made it past the horde. On another camera they see that zombies have breached the manor. Sheila hits a button that activates the fire doors and buys them some time. Everyone flees upstairs. Chris and Jody examine the scrapbook. One page at the very beginning had been torn out before the book was burned. Chris tells Jody to gather everyone in the sitting room. He knows who the killer is.

Chris goes over all the evidence and explains his reasoning to everyone. His conclusion: Sheila is the killer. She confesses and explains her reasoning. Sheila wanted revenge against Callum and Rose for the roles they played in the death of her daughter, Billie. Callum had written an article mistakenly blaming Billie for an accident that caused the deaths of thousands, and once in prison Billie was bullied into suicide by Rose and the other inmates. With the murder mystery solved, the group turns to their next problem: the massive zombie horde. Sheila offers herself as a sacrifice. The group lowers her down to the ground floor and Sheila draws the zombies away with a noisemaker, allowing everyone else to slip past. Keith and Manisha leave together. Geri sets off on her own after admitting she's a member of Netrophil. Chris and Jody run back to Abel together.

5K Training

Chris learns from his experiments that zombies are infuriated by certain motions such as knee lift exercises.

Season One

Chris is sent out on a mission with Runner Five to exchange some hard drives of information with a runner from Red Settlement. Along the way, Sam repeatedly enthuses about Chris's zombie-killing abilities, much to Chris's discomfort. Chris explains how he's been observing zombie behavior and movements, and asks Five to help him with a new tactic he's developed. He's noticed how zombies always target whichever human is closest, so Chris and Five run away from the zombies in different directions but at the same speed. This leaves the zombies confused about which one to chase after, so they just continue running forward in a straight line, making it easy for Chris and Five to finish them off. Chris and Five complete the information exchange without any problems.

Chris tries to test out a theory that zombies have a rhythm to their movements, but he gets too close to a crawler and it bites him. Knowing that he's going to die soon, he asks Runner Five for a favor and sends them out to his house at 17 Decco Park Drive. He tells Five to grab the envelope on the living room table labelled "Veronica" - it contains a recording her mother made before she died. Five successfully retrieves the envelope just before Chris dies. His final words are that he loves Veronica very much.

Season Two

Sam makes a copy of the message for Veronica and gives it to Runner Five to give to the Girl Guides, in the hopes that they can get it to Veronica.

Chris is memorialized in the Forest of Fallen Runners.

Relationships

Veronica McShell

Veronica is Chris's daughter. They care deeply for each other, though Chris seems a bit absentminded about her sometimes, as he was unable to remember how old she was.

Appearances

The Way of All Flesh

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6

5K Training

• Week 3 Workout 2

Season 1

• M17 Information Exchange
• M19 An Unimportant Mission

Season 3

• M16 Battle Born (flashback)
• M17 Carry Me Home (flashback)
• M18 I've Got a Theory (recording)

Season 4

• M32 Tower of Song (recording)

Quotes

Chris: "Look, it’s not that I mind being temporarily blinded. It’s being temporarily blinded because of a fundamental misconception about the nature of zombie cognition! I mean, zombies would not be affected by mace!"

---

Jody Marsh: "Chris is… look, he’s what he says he is. He notices stuff. He’s a scientist. He’s done all this work on zombie behavior. I mean, I know I complain, but really, he’s kind of brilliant."

---

Chris: "My, uh, daughter used to love bouncy castles. [laugh] She thought if she bounced hard enough, she could jump straight to the moon! I told her she couldn’t. She cried and cried."

Trivia

• Chris's stats from The Runner's Guide are as follows:
  • Number: 10
  • Name: Chris McShell
  • Missions: 27
  • Kills: 383
  • Status: Active
  • Notes: BAMF, Statistician
• Chris reached a zombie kill count of 487 before his death.
• On the Rofflenet board for the Halloween! Virtual Race, Chris's username is CMcShell.

Gallery

A tarot card featuring Chris as The Hanged Man.
(VR9: Escape From Runaway Fairground)

10 kilometres milestone letter