I set myself a simple little challenge in Project Zomboid

But it is not going as expected

I thought I could have a fun little challenge, a short and simple diversion from the attempts to survive as long as possible in the Zombie Apocalypse.

When I started playing Project Zomboid, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. My first character spawned in a mobile home, in a trailer park, and before even figuring out how to exit the building he was spotted through the window by a zombie. It smashed its way in and started attacking my character as I tried to figure out how to fight back. I eventually figured out how to shove it to the ground and stomp on its head, but not before it had already taken several bites. My guy did manage to climb out the window after but was dead within moments.

My second character survived a little longer, but fared no better in truth. After some initial scuffles and getting surrounded by Z's, he fled out into the woods. He came across a road and then just kept walking, hoping to find a farm or a petrol station or something. It got extremely dark that night as he was forced to sleep on the side of the road.

The next day he just kept walking, but the first signs of civilization again were just a group of zombies by a crossroads. At this point he was in no state to fight them off.

My third character was a nurse, and she managed to survive quite a lot longer. I was starting to get the hang of the game, at least the very basics at this point. She still ended up fleeing out into the countryside, but she was also a bit luckier and happened upon a little cabin & trailer outside of town. She stayed there for a little bit but was at risk of running out of food so had to eventually move on. She wandered again, and was lucky to find a farmer's warehouse full of food, but it was aleady starting to go stale and rot. She couldn't avoid the zombies completely, and she ended up taking a scratch, getting infected. Taking shelter in a rural house, she tried her best to nurse her fever but eventually succumbed to the illness.

The Challenge

All three of these characters existed in the same world, before I started creating a new world for every new character. Now that I've played so much more, with a lot more experience in Project Zomboid, I thought for fun I'd come back to this first world I created, and set the challenge of finding my first three survivors and letting them be put to rest (by killing their zombie and giving them a proper burial). Sounds easy enough, with my experience now I can easily make it out to those three points on the map. Not so fast...

Arriving at the location of my first survivor, and clearing out all the nearby Z's, I found no sign of my original survivor. Of course, it has now had days now to wander in any direction. So just how far can a zombie wander off in the games background simulation (it's been about 8 days)? Have I set myself a fool's errand? Is this viable at all?