Selected journal entries from the time of the zeds

 

1

My name is Allan Russell Phillips. To my knowledge I am the last living survivor in the greater Orlando area. While I am sure that there must be more, holed up in some secure location, I have no knowledge of them. I wasn’t always alone, there were others with me, but one by one all the others have joined the ranks of the undead. Most of them still walk. It’s been about two years since the Scarlet pandemic swept the globe. Even though it didn’t turn people into “zombies” outright, the dead started rising just as the epidemic was receding. Cause and effect in my mind. Of course I could be wrong though, and if anybody (hopefully) in the future is reading this then they will have a better understanding of just what the hell really happened.

I’m not sitting down and writing this because I’m a scholar or a historian, I’m doing it because I want to leave something behind. Time is running out for me, along with food. Eventually I’m going to starve to death here.

I could try to find another place to hole up, but there are so many of them outside now. Sometimes I think the shear weight of them outside will collapse the walls and they’ll come busting through, so much so that I spend a lot of my waking time just ensuring the building is secure.

My paranoia has become so obsessive lately that I find myself doing nothing but checking the doors, windows and perimeter over and over again until I finally pass out from exhaustion. Even sleep is no longer any refuge, filled with horrible nightmares. Waking up from them is bad too. Most times when I awake it’s in a paranoid delusion that they have gotten in and are about to find and eat me alive.

Writing this will, with any luck, take my mind off of the endless cycle of paranoia that has gripped me. Psychologically it may help to calm me, allow me to better come to grips with what has happened. Death doesn’t particularly scare me, (no more than most people anyways) it’s the walking undeath that does.

When I get to the final stages of starvation, and the end is for certain anyways, I’m gonna take my .38 and blow my brains out. Although I’m ninety-nine percent certain that I won’t rise from the dead, I was never bitten, nor did I catch the Scarlet Fever, I will make damn sure that I won’t come back as a zombie.

Until then though, I’ll tell you my experiences, as I remember them, starting from when I first heard of the Scarlet Fever.

　

2

It was another hot and oppressively humid central Florida late summer day. I don't remember what day it was exactly, (even back then when things were normal it didn't matter too much to me what day of the month it actually was) but I do remember it was sometime in the latter part of August. I know it was in August because that's the height of the slow season for cab drivers.

The students from UCF and Rollins were for the most part, still on their summer break, having gone back home from wherever they came from. The "snow-birds", (who migrated from their homes up north to sunny Florida for the winter) hadn't even started to return. This was compounded by the fact it was the hottest part of the year down here, and it was also the rainy season. Nobody who knows Florida weather decides to spend their vacation in a hundred plus degree sauna. The rotten economy didn't help either, people without jobs don't take a cab unless they absolutely had to.

Anyways, it was around that time that I started to hear of a new flu going around, like every year. I really didn't pay much attention to it though. It seemed every year the CDC and the government blow everything out of proportion and issue dire warnings for people to get some new flu shot. Swine flu, Bird flu, blah, blah, blah. To most of us it was just another effort for the government, in collusion with the pharmaceutical companies to sell more product to the public.

This strain supposedly came out of North Korea, or so they speculated, as no news ever comes out of that crap hole except propaganda. The South Koreans were the first to officially report it, followed by the Chinese and then it rapidly spread throughout the whole of Asia and the rest of the world. The quick spread of the disease and the fact that about ninety percent of the population was affected by it was the most alarming aspect of it.

It was quickly dubbed "Rat flu" as the local rodent population always suffered mass casualties wherever it turned up (at the time that seemed like a good thing to most people. Nobody likes rats). In humans though, it was a relatively mild flu, with a short duration and, for the most part, people responded to it like it was an allergy (like dust or pollen). The symptoms lasted about a week or so, but unfortunately that was only stage one of the disease. As the rat flu spread around the world, and then just as quickly died off, the government warnings for children and the elderly to get their yearly flu shots died off with it.

The CDC admitted that they still hadn't actually identified the virus, but they would continue to research it.

"Whatever", was what I and most people thought. It seemed that it was just another knee jerk overreaction, as there were no actual deaths related to it.

About a month after the rat flu died off is when things started to take a really bad turn for the worse. The disease entered stage two, and everybody who contracted the rat flu automatically ended up with "Scarlet fever".

I'm going to stop writing for the day. I'm worn out and constantly tired now. I have to make sure the barricades are still holding before I can try to get some rest...

　

3

Last night was bad, really bad. It was by far the worst night of my life. Around 3:16 am, according to my watch, I was startled awake by the sound of a transformer or something exploding. There was a huge flash of light followed by numerous secondary explosions and I swear I could hear the electricity arcing.

I hesitantly made my way to one of the small windows, in what I suppose was the CEO's office, here on the second floor of "Orange County Tool & Die". All the power was out. It was out as far as I could see. Granted, I could only see through a couple of small windows but it was pitch black out there. There was and is, no hope of the electricity coming back. The only light was a small glow to the west and I suppose that means whatever blew started a fire.

I think I broke down last night. I had never been afraid of the dark, even as a kid, but since I've been closed up here I've used the desk lamp as a night-light. That weak little patch of light reassured me that I was safe. Without it I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I kept thinking that they had breeched my make-shift defenses and were shambling around downstairs, slowly working their way up the stairs to the offices here. I know now it was just the normal sounds of the building, all buildings have their own creaks and moans, but I was not used to this ones peculiar sounds. I was too afraid to actually go downstairs and investigate. No way was I going to go down there in the dead of night to face down the undead of the night. I huddled up in a corner of the couch and basically sobbed and pleaded with god, the gods or whomever would listen to my sad little prayers to let me escape this prison.

It seemed like it took an eternity for dawn to break. When it finally did, I fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

It is now early afternoon as I write this. There is a heavy smell of smoke in the air. To the west, where there was just a small glow in the darkness last night, I can plainly see buildings burning. Oh god I hope it doesn't spread and come this way. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! I don't want to die!

I didn't pick this building to hole up in on purpose. At the time it seemed the most secure one I could get to, the old one having been over-run. Jannie died in that one. This one was close, the zeds were everywhere. A building made of solid construction blocks and steel doors. Windows only on the second floor where the rotting fuckers couldn't reach or look into.

I thought I could hide in here for a day or two and then move on. They must have seen me come in here. I swear there were only a couple that could have possibly even seen me come in here, but the next day they had literally surrounded the place. Every day there's more and more of them. How the hell do they know I'm in here? How the fuck are they growing in such numbers? Are they communicating somehow?

Dammit, I only have a few days worth of food left. I guess my options are limited now. I can hide in here until either I starve or die of thirst (the water went out last night too, no power to run the pumps to pressurize the water lines I guess), die by being eaten alive trying to escape or by burning to death if that fire spreads any further. Suicide may be a mortal sin but I think I'll risk hell after death rather than this fuckin' hell on earth.

I know I've gotten way off track here... I'll get back on track and write again about when the chaos started and the Scarlet fever brought down mankind after I check something out. I might be able to get out of here after all, if things go right for once.

　

4

I remember sitting in my cab at a BP station when things started to get weird. A squirrel literally started ambushing people. I first noticed it when it leaped out of a tree and started biting a middle aged, slightly over weight woman. She screamed hysterically as the "tree rat" viscously latched onto her head and just started to rip apart her scalp. As the poor woman screamed, she was practically running around in circles in the middle of the parking lot, flailing her arms. Every time she would try to yank the insane squirrel off of her head, the squirrel would bite a huge chunk out of her hand.

Everyone who saw this was completely taken aback, and initially everyone involuntarily backed away from her. My initial reaction was shock, my jaw dropped, and I watched the scene unfold mouth agape.

It didn't take too long before the disbelief of the situation wore off and a nearby older guy with graying hair, who had been pumping gas into a beat-up old ford pick-up, ran to help her. His first attempt to grab the crazed thing failed, as the woman was by now completely hysterical and weaving around the lot. The guy rushed towards her again in his attempt to help, and at the same time the woman, who by now had blood literally pouring from her head and hands, stumbled right into him. They collided, but her rescuer managed to get a grip on the thing. The impact with the man sent her tumbling harshly to the ground while the mad squirrel came away from her head clutching a huge tangle of dark brown hair. I could see in the well intentioned guy's eyes a momentary pride that he had gotten the monster off of the woman. That look was completely erased in a sparse second as the squirrel turned on him. Pain showed plainly on his face as teeth and claws sunk into his hands. He added his screams to the woman's, who by now was sobbing while screaming. The rescuer, now victim, reacted by shaking his hands around wildly, throwing the creature to the ground.

The little hairy fiend hit the asphalt with a solid "thunk" and lay there momentarily stunned. The thing landed no more than a foot away from a burly guy who had just gotten off of a Honda motorcycle. A brief moment passed, and the squirrel from hell (wild-eyed and tangled hair all askew to begin with, now practically covered in the blood of its victims) started to twitch and recover. There was a small amount of panic in the biker's eye as he went to stomp the squirrel to death with his heavy boots. I could plainly hear the maddened tree-rats skull and bones breaking and crushing as the big, 300 plus pound biker repeatedly put some serious boot leather down, over and over again until there was naught left but hair and gore.

My Gandalf (the brand name of the computerized dispatch system) went off then, telling me I had a fare to pick-up. I left the scene, driving slowly away thinking this was an isolated case and would make a hell of a story to tell my friends.

How wrong I was. It wasn’t an isolated case. This same scene was playing out all over the world, and it wasn’t just squirrels going mad. Whatever rats survived went into a blood frenzy...and mice...and cats, both feral and domesticated...and raccoons, to name a few. Basically all the smaller species of mammals went hell bent for blood. Dogs, horses, cattle, things like that, they didn’t go mad, but they also suffered the onslaught.

The crazed critters didn’t just attack people, they attacked anything that moved, even each other. Over the next few days, as Mother Nature turned on herself in an orgy of violent, pointless destruction, everything practically came to a halt world wide.

The American CDC and the British NHS both announced that the cause was due to some kind of new parasite. Stay inside until this was over they said.

This dreadful single celled menace seemed to lodge in its hosts’ brain and shut down any serotonin production, while putting the aggression and anger centers into overdrive. The parasites eggs were transmitted into a new host through the saliva into the victims bloodstream.

A mass killing of cats and hamsters and any and every other small pet ensued, adding to the death toll that was happening outdoors.

As humanity waited for the unbelievable, horrible act to play out, and the animal madness left, Scarlet fever strode onto the stage. There was already the smell of death and the rotting of flesh in the air from the billions upon billions of animals who died within the two, seemingly eternal, weeks it took for them and their innocent victims, to starve.

I stayed in my apartment for those two weeks, until the wave of horror subsided. It hadn’t completely ended, but I was broke and absolutely had to get back to work. I guess the same could be said for most people, as we tried to get back to some semblance of normality. Unemployment went down, as animal corpse collection, and elimination (mainly by burning the corpses) became a new career choice. Teams went out dressed in heavy riot gear and killed any animal they even suspected of being capable of being infected. The heavy black smoke of the burn piles and the constant sound of gun-fire added to my overwhelming feeling that I had somehow breached the walls of hell and had ended up in some obscure ring of Dante’s Inferno.

That was nothing compared to what was starting up. The first symptoms of Scarlet, small red freckle like splotches, started showing up on everybody. Everybody except the ten percent, or so, of us that were for some reason immune. I’ve got to go and check on the spread of the fire now. From the thickness and smell of the smoke, I think that the building next door has started to burn. It may be a huge danger, one that may roast me, but it may also be my savior if my plan works.

　

5

I did it! I made it out of there! This new place is good, and it's isolated, and it's got food! I'm going to eat. Then I'm going to get to work on making this place more secure. Then I'm going to get some rest. Somebody had already started on some fortifications here, now I'm going to finish them. There's also a hell of a lot of blood, blackened and dried, not only in the entry way but spread throughout the house. Oddly there's no bodies or, thankfully, zeds. Whatever happened here it took place possibly months or more ago. The place is abandoned now. More later.

Ok, I feel better than I have in a long time. It's abso-fucking-lutely amazing what a meal and some decent sleep can do for someone. Before I continue with what I remember with the rise of the Scarlet, I want to tell you how I got out of the tool and die shop.

There was nothing special about the shop, it was a standard set-up. Offices on the second floor, loading dock and machinery on the first. The loading dock had a sturdy metal roll-up door and although it bowed inward and shook and moved with the weight of the zeds trying to gain entry, it held quite nicely. There was a propane fueled Hi-Lo and an assortment of chain hoists and tools, as I suppose there is in every machine shop.

Until the fire started, I didn't think of any use for the Hi-Lo besides driving it out of here. That would be suicide, most of the zeds can still shuffle along quick enough to catch up to a slow moving Hi-Lo. I have to say though that they do seem to be slowing down. It's about god-damned time too. After almost two years their finally starting to show some signs of true decomposition.

There was a small window, the old fashioned kind operated by a little hand crank, at the top of the stairs facing the burning buildings to the west. It wouldn't open more than a crack and the glass was the opaque kind that you couldn't see through. I used a sledge hammer I found in the shop below to bust apart the window. At the time I was mainly interested in just having a better view of the spread of the conflagration. It only took a couple of good whacks from the sledge to knock the window out.

The undead bastards immediately started converging on this side of the building. There were a bunch of them here already, but now they were just piling into the area. Their hearing isn’t very good but they were already close enough to hear the window being shattered from the other sides of the shop.

(I have to comment on something though, as long as I’m writing. The zombies in the movies always either moaned or hilariously shambled around muttering “Brains...” In reality though, they never uttered a single intentional sound. Occasionally they will bump into each other, forcing putrid air out of their lungs and past whatever is left of their vocal chords, making a sound that’s an odd cross between a sigh and a whimper. The multiplied chorus is completely unnerving when they group up in a “herd”, packed close together and in large numbers. Combined with the foot dragging, they sound like some huge beast thrashing around in agony in the dirt and whining in its death throes. I guess in some way, that is exactly what is happening.)

I got pissed at the abominations and started throwing pieces of the window down at them. The pieces just bounced off, of course, and I started looking around for something heavier to drop on their heads. In a rage I started to destroy the surrounding wall, hoping to get a whole block of the construction masonry to come apart to crush some skulls. It wasn’t working though, the sledge was just busting off fist sized pieces. I dropped the heavy hammer as the blaze swelled rapidly, engulfing almost the whole of the building that was merely ten to fifteen feet away from me.

Downstairs I found iron and steel and brass rods and bar stock. Not quite what I was looking for. The rods were approximately a half an inch in diameter and about twelve foot long. I briefly thought about making a spear with one of the pieces, but then something else caught my attention. There was a propane canister rack where the Hi-Lo was parked.

The full canisters were heavy enough by themselves to crush a zeds head by throwing it down on them from above. As an extra added bonus, I knew they could explode. I didn’t have any idea of how to make that happen, nor could I find any flares or something to attach to them. I figured that I could toss them into the inferno raging next door, and that the flames would be hot enough to cause the canisters to fail and release a nice fireball. It was dangerous, bordering on insanity. I really knew nothing about if they would actually explode, or for that matter, how big the explosion(s) would be. There were six full propane tanks and I dragged them to the upstairs landing, setting them under the gaping hole in the wall where the window used to be.

It took no time at all before the building wall opposite me started to catch. The zeds seemed oblivious to the fire with some getting so close to the heat that the rags they wore started to smoke. I had to be sure my plan would work so I waited until the most opportune moment to toss these babies into the voracious crowd of undead below me.

The smoke started to become as thick as water and I could start to feel the heat of the flames. Small flames started to grow on some of the zombies hair and clothing. It wasn’t my plan to simply catch the horrors on fire, they would burn for some time before they stopped moving. Not to mention the fact that a flaming zombie horde is much worse than a normal zombie horde. The fire next door by itself may or may not light this building on fire, but a flaming zombie horde sure would. I wanted to blow a hole in the herd that I could run through and escape to freedom.

I went and quickly gathered my backpack and few possessions I brought with me, adding a few tools from the shop to it in preparation for whatever happens next.

Back upstairs the outside paint started peeling and I crouched under the partial wall to stay out of the majority of the heat. A couple of the zeds were actually alight now, but it seemed they didn’t burn well for some reason (There was some kind of waxy coating they developed, or at least it appeared so. I never actually wanted to get close enough to one to give it a physical examination). After a brief few minutes I could hear the supports and ceiling of the structure about to give way. Now is the time I thought.

I nervously heaved those propane canisters through the jagged hole in the wall and prayed they didn’t go off until I got to a safe place (not knowing how big the explosion would be and also hoping that it wouldn’t collapse this building on my head), if they even went off at all.

I was able to run and hide behind a huge CNC machine in the shop and as I was wondering how long it would take for them to explode, they went off. I heard the structure next door collapsing, followed by multiple explosions. They sounded huge to my ears as pieces of rubble and flaming debris wafted down around me.

I got up quickly, more than worried, and made my way through the ruins as fast as I could, hoping I didn’t just sign my own death certificate. I initially was thinking I would have to go back up the stairs and risk jumping out the cavity I made in the wall, but when I got there, the wall was gone. The wall was gone not just by where the window used to be, but the whole west wall was gone. Small flames started up inside the shop and bright red embers were falling all around, both inside and outside the collapsed wall. The smoke was thicker the closer I got to the outside. I didn’t see any standing zombies as I ran outdoors, through the burning wreckage, but there were pieces of them. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I looked behind me at the horde that I knew now was recovering from the shock-wave and detonations. Most were struggling to stand upright, having been packed so densely together they must have fallen like dominoes. A shit load of them were on fire, which pleased me to no end. The surrounding area was practically zed free, having been driven by hunger towards the Tool & Die shop where I was holed up. There were a few stragglers here and there, but they were much slower and clumsier now so I had no problem out running them.

My luck was good that day. I found a dirt bike right out in the middle of the road, just waiting for me to claim it. It started on the first kick and I drove it, off road, away from civilization. The bike ran out of gas on me on some dirt road. Only god knew where I was now, but it seemed clear. Following the lonely, now slightly overgrown, two track road, I came to this place. I cased it out from a distance and slowly, hesitantly made my way towards it.

I’ve got stuff to do. I’ve spent more time than I thought I would writing this out. It does seem to be helping me though, so I’ll continue the next time I get a chance.

　

6

Everybody was traumatized to some extent from what had just happened. The madness that swept the animal kingdom was finally waning. People the world over were just starting to timidly poke their heads out from their homes, like scared rabbits (I don‘t even know if there are any rabbits left) from their earthen burrows. Just because a lot of the population wasn’t personally attacked by the marauding parasite controlled critters, didn’t mean they didn’t suffer loss or know terror. Children especially, were terrorized by what they saw on TV. Added to this many were also in mourning over a beloved family pet that had to be put down or were frightened to death about going outside. The media was in full swing of their over-coverage, of course, endlessly showing animal attacks again and again. The twenty-four hour looping of some of the more violent and horrendous videos were only broken up by speculation and baseless accusations. The Army and National Guard units were still conducting sweeps in the more inaccessible parts of the nation, while trying to effectively quarantine the most remote and unreachable wildernesses.

The food chain was broken, and the natural order of things was truly screwed up. Nobody had any idea of what Mother Nature was going to do next.

I remember watching a particularly disturbing video in which a whole colony of prairie dogs were ripping the flesh off of a herd of cattle. The cows, who had for thousands of years been bred for docileness and timidity, seemed confused and unable to react to this new threat. The image of the fear and agony of these poor victims stays with me even now, creeping into my dreams.

I remember coming to the realization that our food supply was also dealt a heavy blow. Farms were abandoned and the countryside was quickly de-populated. In areas where the animals out numbered people, the people fled to the urban areas. Now the initial threat was on the decline, but most people didn’t want to go back out to the country until this had completely dissipated. There was talk of the government actually forcing people back to the farms. The U.S. was the bread basket of the world before the parasite and now whole states were without any living livestock. Produce was rotting in the fields. Once crowded chicken and turkey farms were open fields of decaying meat, having been ravaged by maddened squirrels, rabbits, cats, etc.

Famine wasn’t the only thing we had to look forward to, oh no, there was more coming. The predators, those that survived being attacked by what used to be their prey, would start coming in force into the urban areas. A second wave of animal attacks was rushing towards us like a freight train (and we were tied to the tracks). Wolves, coyotes, bears, eagles, hawks, wolverines and every kind of animal that used to feed on the smaller animals were going to starve and they would do the only thing they could, they would add mankind to the menu. For the most part, people didn’t (or didn’t want to) think about what the near future held in store for them, although everybody knew. But that was still in the future, and that was what was going to happen if the Scarlet fever hadn’t reared its ugly head. The Scarlet saved us from an agonizing slow death and granted us a quick and violent one.

When the Scarlet fever first appeared, it showed up as small freckle like, blood-red spots all over the body. Everyone knew this had to be connected to the parasites somehow. The government and CDC were trying to keep as close a lid as possible about it. Looking back, I’m absolutely positive they knew what was happening, and what was going to happen. I’m also absolutely sure they had no idea how to treat it though, otherwise they would have and they would still be alive today (maybe). Maybe it didn’t matter. The CDC admitted that it was indeed a reaction to being infected with the parasite. In the beginning they (and every government on earth) tried to calm the populace, that it would quickly pass and it would be ok. No other large mammal they said (and they were right in this), reacted to this in any other way than a mild cold or flu. They guaranteed that now that they knew what they were facing, that they would shortly have a cure. Top scientists were working day and night they said.

People were clearly on edge. Tempers were short and anger flared easily. Myself, I just put it down to all the stress people were under lately. Fistfights, brawls and a slight increase in the murder rate ensued. Completely understandable for what we were going through. It got so much worse though.

As the parasitic infection grew in its new hosts, the little red freckles became larger and larger. As the parasitic infection grew, people started acting more and more like the infected animals that had plagued them previously.

The people who were obviously suffering from the infestation openly started to hate the small percentage of us that were immune. It got to the point that everyone who got into my cab, upon seeing me, went into a spit flying rage at me for no reason at all.

When I watched some wild eyed, scarlet speckled teenager with a knife chase an older woman into rush hour traffic on Colonial Drive I decided I was done driving a cab for awhile. The teens eyes were blood red, I remember it clearly, there was no white left. The panic-stricken woman was chased into traffic and got hit by a passing motorist, who I’m sure didn’t see the terrified woman at all. As the poor woman was thrown by the impact and lay in the middle of the street, the teen ran over to her and just started stabbing the injured woman over and over again. I don’t even think she was conscious, thankfully.

I was even more surprised when the driver of a new Cadillac gunned the motor of his car and proceeded to run the teen down. The sound of the teens head busting open on the front grill was sickening. The Caddy just drove over him, dragging him about a hundred yards down the road and never stopped, he just drove away like nothing happened.

I wasn’t making any money at all anyways so I decided to keep a low profile until this shit worked itself out in one way or another.

I once again retreated to my apartment, watching what I could stand of the news channels, but mainly sticking to reruns that had nothing at all to do with what was happening outside.

I remember the night they declared martial law nationwide. It was the same night I heard my apartment manager beating on my neighbors door demanding the rent which was apparently only a week late.

“Open the God-damned door and pay me my rent mother fucker!” were the first words out of his mouth.

I peeked out the small window in my door, pushing aside the privacy curtain to view the skinny, frail looking manager. His face was half covered in blood red blotches.

The manager was just pounding on the door with both fists screaming obscenities. I knew this was not going to end well.

“Get the fuck away from my door asshole.” was my neighbor’s reply. It came out more like a growl than spoken words.

I knew my neighbor. He was over six foot tall and easily weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Normally he was a nice, easy going guy that got along with practically everyone. If he wanted he could crush the managers skull with his bare hands and I feared that that was exactly what he was going to do.

“You’re a week late and now you owe me a late fee fuck head. Get out and fuckin’ pay me right now or get the fuck out right NOW!” he yelled. The manager’s blood-shot eyes had a crazed look to them as he beat so hard on the door that his knuckles were bloody.

“You want me out you little douche bag? Go ahead and evict me then you little piece of shit” was my neighbor’s reply.

From there things just got worse and I won’t bother to write what they said to each other. It wasn’t like I was the only one who heard them. People were poking their heads out of their apartments, (and all of them had red blotches clearly visible on whatever skin wasn’t covered) some adding to the chaos by yelling at the two to shut the hell up. Somebody must have called the cops because shortly sirens were heard in the distance quickly getting nearer.

Police involvement was my neighbor’s breaking point I think. He was on parole for gettin’ drunk and assaulting someone pretty badly in a bar fight previously and I knew he thought he couldn’t win and that he was going to jail. It didn’t help my neighbors frame of mind one bit that the manager was crazily laughing at him now and taunting him, saying he was going to toss all of his shit out on the street as soon as the cops took his ass away.

The door to the apartment whipped open then and in the blink of an eye my neighbor had a shotgun pressing into the stomach of the apartment manager. My neighbor was wearing only boxers, sweating like a pig. His skin was so covered in those blood red blots that it appeared as if his skin was naturally scarlet colored, broken by white freckles.

With the shotgun pressing so hard into his stomach I thought it might actually spear him and come out his back, the manager was backed up into the hallway wall opposite the apartment door.

There were no more foul words spewing from the managers mouth, as he was completely silent now. My neighbor was also silent as I knew he was trying to figure out how to control himself and not pull the trigger. The cop car pulled up just outside the main entry way to the apartment block, the blue and white lights flashing inside the hallway. My neighbor looked to the door where the cops were sure to enter momentarily, then he looked back at the manager.

The roar of the shotgun was deafening in the enclosed hallway. I backed away from my little window real quick then as the cops came in guns drawn. The last thing I saw as I recoiled from the shotgun blast was the utter disbelief shown in the managers eyes as he tried to hold his guts in, which were spilling out from both the front and the back.

It turned into a shooting gallery then, like something from the old west. Multiple shotgun blasts and the sharp sound of police issue nine millimeter pistols rent the air. There shortly came the sound of automatics, with their distinctive, repeated quick-fire echoes as others joined in the murderous fray. I jumped in my shower, hoping that any errant bullets would be deflected by the metal bathtub.

After about half an hour the gun shots stopped. The sound of my TV, which I had left on one of the twenty-four hour news channels was only marred by distant shots, screams and the occasional siren. I lay there wondering how long it would take for the Scarlet fever to run its course and if I could ration my food to outlast it. After an hour or so I heard the National Security Advisor issue martial law nation wide.

I knew they were hoping that the discipline instilled in the members of the armed forces would be enough to overcome the parasites insidious emotional control, but it was not to be.

At first it seemed to be working. Shoot to kill orders and strict curfews put a damper on the insanity that threatened to over-run the nation.

For a few days anyways. Even the members of the military were only human though. They just started mass murdering everybody they saw as their skin turned beet red. Then they turned on each other.

Someone once said that there were only three things that nature used to keep man’s numbers in check. Famine, Disease and War. War because as man had no natural predators, he had to be his own. Nature was harsh and brutal, but it had decided that seven billion plus people were too many.

The last news I heard (the television and cable stations blinked off one by one) was that this parasite was a man made, bio engineered creation. The CDC showed proof positive that DNA from three separate deadly organisms had been spliced into this parasite. Mother Nature had not evolved it. Two of the bio-engineered gene strands were identified, but the third strand was an unknown. The third strand was a very specific thing that targeted the nervous system for some reason, but they had no real idea how it was supposed to help the parasite or what it specifically was meant to do. Fingers were pointing at North Korea, and almost as a final fuck you, North Korea launched a full scale nuclear attack on South Korea, obliterating Soul, Pusan and a number of other cities, even launching a few nukes at Japan before they crossed the de-militarized zone and literally slaughtered everyone in their path.

Pakistan and India went to war, they also quickly used nuclear weapons. Israel and most of the Arab nations went directly to nuclear war. Russia and China exchanged a limited number of nuclear weapons. Genocide and war became the norm for nations as all sense of humanity left all of humanity. War raged in the last few days in the sky, on the seas and on land. In the end I don’t think it mattered who the men with the weapons attacked, as long as they could sate their blood lust. The only thing that stopped them was when the parasite finally ended up killing its host.

Then things went quiet. Like being in the eye of the hurricane. Quiet and still for good twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

That’s when the dead, in their billions, started to rise.

　

7

It's been a couple of days since I last wrote in this journal of mine. I can't begin to tell you how much better it feels not to be hiding in some random building with a multitude of ravenous undead trying to get inside to devour me alive. I personally haven’t felt this good since before this all began, almost two years ago. Concealing myself and my every move, with nothing to do but wait for the seeming inevitable, made time just crawl along at a snail’s pace. For the past three days I’ve been passing the time, which has been flying by, fixing up the place and cleaning it.

About this place though, it has some real good features about it. It’s sturdy, well built and isolated. The only real way to get here is down a now partially overgrown dirt road. Until you get to the drive way itself, you can’t even see the house. The lack of visibility isn’t due to the thick growth of the surrounding wooded area, although now in late summer that would normally be the case, it’s due to being in a natural depression. Its sits on a small plateau in a the middle of a huge, almost bowl like hollow. The roof of house and attached garage sits far enough below the upper ridge that even in winter, when the leaves have fallen and the lush vegetation has died off, that it still can’t be seen from the surrounding area. About ten feet below the plateau, upon which the house sets, there’s a lake. I think there’s a natural spring that feeds it, as the lake actually feeds a little creek that runs off into the woodland. There’s a little dock here, and a row boat, and there’s actually fish in it. I think this building had been originally built before electricity and water were even invented. It has been expanded and obviously upgraded a number of times, but its origins are still observable, here and there. The pantry is also, surprisingly, well stocked.

There’s also some things that kinda worry me about this place though. I actually spent two full days cleaning the gore and blood from this place. The blood trails start in pretty much every room and they all converged in the kitchen. There’s an old style pump that can be used when the water main is out (which it is) next to a large double sink and a largish butcher block. I’m hoping that somebody came back here during the height of the madness and found some scared animals had taken refuge in the place, and that whomever it was (person or persons) took the opportunity to do some hunting. Meat is really a rare thing now. I’m not sure, but some of the dried blood looked like it was layered on top of each other, like the killing had been dispersed months apart. The butcher block, a thick hard wood slab, was covered in the dried gore and shows signs of repeated use. Smaller blood tracks went through the back door, across the dock to the lake itself. I guess if I really want to know what was butchered here, I could swim down to the bottom of the lake and look for the bones. I don’t really want to know that badly though.

I keep getting this feeling to just take what I can and get out. I’m sure it’s because I feel that this is too good to be true, what with the experiences of the last two years coloring my mind. I keep trying to tell myself that eventually luck would finally favor me, that eventually I would have to find a safe haven, but it still feels to me like this place is somehow haunted.

Enough of that for now. Tomorrow I’ll resume my telling of what happened. Today I’m going to go fishing. I’ve seen a couple of nice ones jump out of the water and I’ve got a craving for some fresh fish. It’s been so long since I had any real meat, let alone something fresh. Wish me luck.

　

8

It was my old friend hunger that made me leave my apartment. Until I found this place, hunger had been my constant companion. Always was I hungry, always I had to ration every scrap and morsel of food I found.

Even though I knew of the scene that laid just outside my doorstep, I wasn't prepared. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was the scent of rot and death. Inside my apartment it hung in the background but it wasn't overpowering like it was when I opened the door. I don't know if it was the strength of the smell that assailed me and made me involuntarily retch or the sight of my door and the surrounding wall. My door was covered in the blood and pieces of my neighbors brains, dried and stuck firmly, to it. Thankfully I hadn’t much at all in my stomach, or it all would have come out instead of the thin dribble that did. What did come out landed right smack dab on what was left of my neighbor’s head.

I had never really seen death this close up before, and the puke reflex had bowed me over, bringing my own face that much closer to his. What was left of his head was flattened, being just his face, lying there like a mask with a small hole in the forehead. Everything else that wasn’t his face was, I suppose, splattered all over the walls. I remember I had to force myself to close my eyes and regain my composure before I could continue. Now though, neither the sight nor the smell bothers me.

There were footprints in the blood, both coming and going through the scene, as if people didn’t care at all. The apartment manager’s body was gone, along with the shotgun that killed him, but to where I had no idea. I didn’t care to linger but before I left the apartment I remember I made sure to lock my door. I never made it back to my old apartment, nor do I have my keychain anymore.

I carefully stepped my way outside and was grateful to be outdoors where the smell of death wasn’t so cloyingly thick. The gray, muted quality of the light drew my eyes skyward. Dark heavy clouds covered the sun and the whole part of the sky. Pieces of ash and soot fell down like rain. The world was burning and I could smell it.

There was a dead cop lying in the parking lot. Whether he was one of the police that responded to the altercation between my neighbor and the manager I don’t know. I do know that he had been shot in the neck and bled out soon after just by looking at him. He was clearly dead and I about jumped out of my skin when I saw his fingers flex and twitch. It didn’t help at all that the cop spasmed as I was checking for his weapon. I didn’t know at the time if it was rigor mortise or my imagination or what. Now I know that it was the parasites regaining control of the body. There was no weapon though, somebody had gotten it already.

I made my way over to the side parking lot thinking I would just get in my car and drive to Wal-Mart. Yeah, I nervously laughed aloud when I saw it. It was crushed under a big yellow school bus that had somehow ended up laying on it’s side across the top of the row of cars. So much for that.

My stomach growled, urging me to walk to Wal-Mart if that’s what it was going to take.

My apartment complex wasn’t really that far from Wal-Mart. It only took me about 20 minutes to walk there. As I was walking I don’t remember seeing anybody or anything moving, except for the occasional corpse twitch. I do remember thinking that even if I had my car it would be worthless anyway. Autos and trucks were strewn around the roads and every intersection was an accident scene. Traffic signals were still changing from red to green and I caught myself actually reflexively waiting at one of them until the pedestrian crossing flashed that it was legal to cross.

The Wal-Mart parking lot looked as though a major riot had taken place there. Burned out cars and trucks, a military troop carrier (I think it was a deuce and a half, the kind with the canvass covering the rear bed), a fire truck and two police cruisers were interspersed with decaying bodies of every age, sex and color.

The inside of the store wasn’t any better. Every once in a while one of the dead would twitch and I hurried around the store getting what I could.

I had grabbed a camping backpack, one of the nicer ones that I would have never have been able to afford before. After gathering a bunch of other items from the camping section I made my way to the food isles. It was there, while I was stuffing Spam and chili and whatnot into my new backpack that I realized I was going to have to carry all this weight around with me as I had no car. I was lost in concentration, trying to decide what I wanted to carry with me on this trip, as I thought for sure I could make my was back here again, when I heard a mechanical click behind me.

“Stop right there...”, said distinctly female voice.

There was a hard edge to her voice and I slowly turned to face her.

“Put your hands on top of your head, nice and slow, or I won’t hesitate to kill you.” She said it nice and calmly, like she had said it more that a few times already.

The barrel of an M16 was in my face so I decided to comply with its owner’s wishes. She was looking me over and I knew she was scrutinizing my face and skin for those tell-tale red marks to see if I was one of the infected. I was doing the same to her, noting that she could barely be out of High School.

“Lift up your shirt and turn around. Show me your not affected and you can live.”, Her voice was steady and I had no doubt she wouldn’t hesitate to murder me if I didn’t do as she said.

“Ok, good...”, she said as I finished turning around for her.

“Now drop your weapons to the ground nice and slow...One fast move...”, she said as I interrupted her.

“I don’t have any weapons.”, I stated nervously.

“What? Bullshit. Who the fuck walks around anymore without a weapon?” Anger was starting to tinge her voice and the M16 was being leveled into a firing position.

“I don’t...I been in hiding ‘til the shit blew over, now I’m just hungry...”, there was a pleading tone in my voice as I tried to talk her out of shooting me.

“Turn around and place your hands on the shelf. I’m going to give you a pat down and if I find a weapon on you you’re dead. If you don’t submit you’re dead. Do ANYTHING I don’t like and you’re dead.”, her voice was flat and monotone.

Not wanting to be dead I let her give me a pat down. I could tell that it seemed incredible to her that someone would actually be running around the apocalypse unarmed.

Her stance changed a bit then, and I could tell she relaxed a bit, which made me relax a bit.

“Where the hell have you been hiding? The shit hasn’t blown over, its getting worse dumbass.” She looked at me as if I was a retarded, red-headed step-child.

“What do you mean worse, the streets and the whole city’s fuckin’ empty except for the corpses.” I thought there was some insanity lurking in the girl yet.

“Yeah, the corpses...You seen any of them twitching on your leisurely stroll here?”, her eyes narrowed as she spoke.

“Well, yeah, so what?”, I replied. As I had stated before, I had no idea of what that was from. For all I knew it was completely natural.

“So what?”, she asked in reply, and then let out a little dark laugh.

“That means the dead will rise shortly. That‘s so what.”, it came out of her mouth with the ring of truth to it.

It was clear that she believed what she was saying, but I thought she had lost her mind and started to back away, slowly.

“It’s ok, just stay calm and let me go.”, I carefully picked up my backpack and continued to put some distance from her.

Her eyes went cold as steel then and she raised the rifle and sighted down the aisle towards me.

I didn’t know what to do so I spread my arms wide and walked backwards from her to show her I had no weapon or intention of harming her.

“Get down dumbass!” She yelled at me.

That’s when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I instinctively started to drop down like I was ordered as I turned to see who had crept up on me.

It was a close thing too. This horror that used to be a human being had started to grab me close and I could hear its jaws bite the air where my head was just a moment before.

I felt the hair on my head swish as the bullets from the teen’s gun whipped past me. The retort was loud enough to partially deafen me. Three shots to the undead things chest and shoulder knocked it back and flat on the ground. The slugs didn’t stop it though, and now I was scrabbling back towards the person who I was previously backing away from. I swear the girl couldn’t be more than nineteen years old by the look of her, but she easily stepped over me and put a couple of rounds into the nightmares face until it stopped moving again.

“C’mon dumbass, we need to get the hell out of here before more show up to investigate.”, she told me, with a snarl on her lips.

That’s how I met Jannie.

The light is fading now and I don’t want to waste any of the candles I have left, so I'll continue again tomorrow.

　

9

　

For the past two weeks that I've been here, I've had these nagging feelings that something about this place is wrong. I kept putting it down to my nerves, past experiences, mental fatigue or whatever. Sometimes I would notice something out of place from where I left it before but I just ignored it, blaming it on a crappy memory. Then there was the time I was absolutely sure I had eaten the last can of asparagus (because I love asparagus and I know I counted them out and rationed them for myself), and then lo and behold there appeared another couple of cans of them tucked away in the corner of a shelf. Not to mention the blood, the layers of blood.

I know when I arrived here I was down to about a hundred and thirty-five pounds or so, which is skinny as hell for someone over six foot tall. I must have put twenty or so pounds back on, living the good life. Ha. Probably I was just being allowed to fatten myself up for the slaughter.

Dammit, if Jannie were here she would have raided the place and left on day one. She was only half my age but that girl paid attention to her surroundings. I hoped (and still do) she had gotten out of our last safe house alive, but I don’t see how it could be possible.

I mentioned before how the building was solid and well built, but I didn’t really go into details. I will now though. The windows are all triple pane with a clear sheet of thin material between each pane, making them bullet proof, hurricane proof windows that can be closed remotely. The walls are of a solid brick and mortise type, with steel reinforced bars. Even the ceiling is solid cement reinforced with rebar with a drywall covering it. Apparently, the solid hard wood doors also have steel bars that can be slid into them, from the walls, and remotely too to boot. Where the electricity to do this is coming from, I have no idea as all the available outlets I’ve found are dead. I knew about the triple pane windows and I knew the walls were brick, however, I just this morning found out about the rest of the security features. I’ve found out that this place is well suited to not only keep people out but is well designed to keep people in.

Somebody spent a lot of money on this place before the world went to hell. That same somebody was probably planning for world war three to break out and being ready to hunker down and wait it out when this day of reckoning happened instead. That somebody is probably in a thick, deep fall-out bunker under this house. That somebody has decided, for reasons I’m sure aren’t for my benefit, to lock me in here.

I woke up really groggy, looking back I know I was drugged. I slept soundly, without dreams, for almost fourteen hours. Normally I sleep very lightly, waking at any small noise (being surrounded by the walking dead will do that to you), for no more than six or so hours at a time. It took quite a while for the cobwebs to clear from my brain, and as I noticed that all my shit was gone, my backpack, gun, even my boots, I wondered if I was still dreaming.

I remember leaving the bedroom window cracked open and locked in place before I slept so I could have a little flow of fresh cool night air. This was something I would never even consider in any other safe house, so it was worth noting when I did it. When I noticed it was closed and when the window would not budge one bit is when I seriously started to freak out.

I ran into every room and tried every door and every window, while furtively searching each room for my stuff.

Until I walked into the kitchen. Then I stopped in my tracks. Then I knew I was being toyed with. My journal was laying open on the kitchen table, to the next fresh page. This page. This page that I’m writing on now. Placed neatly to the side of it was this whittled down, next to nothing but an inch left, small ass golf pencil.

When I saw that I went crazy trying to rip apart the ceiling and walls with my bare hands. All I did though was manage to break up some drywall and pull a few pieces of molding off the walls and tire myself out. I searched and searched but I still couldn’t find any of my stuff or any possible hatch or hidden entry to a bunker. Even the pantry door and the damn cupboards and silverware drawers are shut tight.

Whatever. Fuck it. I’m not giving up. I know this was left out for me to write my own obituary, or last will and testament, or finish up whatever I had to say. Maybe the fucker wants to keep it as a trophy or something. I don’t know. I’m writing because frankly, It gives me a chance to kill some time until whatever is going to happen, happens.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write what the hell happens with this situation when it resolves itself. Hopefully I can either get the fuck out of here or kill the bastard who locked me in here.

 

Been over twenty-four hours now and there’s nothing but stillness and quiet. I would have thought he would have attacked during the night but it was unnervingly eventless.

Forty-eight hours and I’ve tried repeatedly to find a way out of here. All I found were two cameras. They were extremely small and well hidden. I found one in the bedroom, embedded in some of the more intricate molding, looking like it was part of the carved scroll work. The other was behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I found that one when I started smashing the shit out of it. Even that was thick and reinforced. I don’t think he (I’m assuming its a he), will be expecting me to be armed with this nice, sharp, wicked, piece of mirror that I’m going to try and gut him like a fish with. I’m so tired now. That’s his game then, to wait until I pass out. Time to play possum and draw him out...

　

10

　

If anyone is reading this, you surely noticed that there is a page torn out. I did that. The bastard wrote a bunch of foul shit in my journal, taunting me with his vile ramblings, as he took breaks from his torturing of me. You're not missing anything by not reading it. His childish scribblings were hard to read to begin with and what you could read was pure filth. Insane garbage of how he was going to enjoy torturing, raping, cutting me up and eating me (and not necessarily in that order). I have no doubt that he would have done exactly what he said he was going to. As it is, he cut off both of my small toes and fucking ate them in front of me. He cut me multiple times (in some very sensitive places) and rubbed salt in the wounds. I’m in a lot of pain and its going to take me awhile to heal up from this lunatics assault. I had seriously thought that being eaten alive by the undead would be the worst way to go. Now I know better. At least with the zeds you bleed out and die within a minute, maybe two at the most. But this, this is so much worse. He worked me over for a day before I got loose and killed him. I don’t even want to think about how long the fucker would have drawn out my death to satiate his hate.

Unfortunately, there isn’t just the immune and the walking dead. There are also those who are carriers. Like the maniac who was going to torture me to death. The carriers are the ones who’s immune system are strong enough to stop the Scarlet fever before it kills them, but not strong enough to beat it. They exist in that stage of the disease where their skin is a permanent bright red and their mind is utterly gutted. I’m sure it’s a horrible way to exist, completely filled with rage and hatred. I know now that they are aware that their brain has been mainly eaten away, causing extreme insanity and delusions, driven by the parasite to crave the taste of living flesh and blood. While I do take pity on them, they are by far more dangerous than a hundred zombies.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with a carrier. Jannie and I had our run-ins with some previously. I’ll have the time now, since I need to recuperate, to tell you about her. But not right now. Right now I need to write about my day in hell.

I sat there at the kitchen table, not moving, pretending as if I were sleeping. I may have actually dozed off at some point, but it was a dreadfully light sleep. I had gotten used to the normal sounds of the house, and still I awoke at the slightest sound, waiting for a noise that was out of place. It seemed to take forever, my body was crying out for me to change my position. I was cramping up from the forced motionlessness and every small itch seemed unbearable. Then it came. A noise I hadn’t heard before. A small creaking of hinges from the same bedroom I had chosen to sleep in all those nights. If I hadn’t been so keyed up and waiting for just a sound I wouldn’t have heard it. Then came a sound I could place. it was the closet door in the bedroom sliding open. That’s where the entrance to the bunker was. I knew how much time it took to get from there to here and I strived to get up and get into position. I had wanted to get to the spot beside the doorway to the kitchen but my body wouldn’t comply fast enough. I was nervous, stressed, keyed up and exhausted at the same time. My adrenaline was flowing and panicky sweat covered me. I stood up too quickly and my legs cramped up on my and I fell solidly to the ground.

As I was forcing my body to get back up and ambush the sadistic fuck I saw him coming in the doorway.

He was bright red, obviously he was a carrier, naked and just covered in filth. I smelt him then and his scent was overpowering. They say that demons are proceeded by the stench of decay and shit, but they could have nothing on this guy. His eyes and fingernails were completely black and no cloven hoofed devil could be as terrible a sight as him. I fully expected him to try and tackle me or physically assault me, if that is, he didn’t try to put a couple of ounces of lead in me. I had my makeshift knife, made out of the painfully sharp piece of mirror, ready for the physical attack. Even if he shot me I still thought I would have the time to slice open his gut or jugular if he missed or if I got the drop on him. What he did though I didn’t expect. He tasered my ass. His black gums showed as he laughed manically while he shocked me repeatedly. With my body going into spasms from the electric shocks from two separate taser guns, he quickly hand-cuffed my wrists to my ankles, effectively hog tying me. He screamed obscenities at me as he beat me so hard with the butts of the tasers that they actually broke on my skull. Then I passed out as he beat me unconscious.

When I awoke I was tied spread eagle and naked to a gore encrusted work bench. I knew I was in his private bunker as I had never seen this room before. There were no windows. The light was from a flickering fluorescent light fixture, one bulb wasn’t working and the dim, almost strobbing, quality of illumination from the single remaining bulb lent itself well to this nightmare.

I don’t care to write down what he said exactly, or for that matter, what he did to me. What he said were vile ramblings and bragging about how I wasn’t the first to fall into his lair. He was bat-shit crazy it was true, but he was also telling the truth. I found five severed heads in his freezer. Two adult males, a teenage males, a middle aged woman’s and a little girl’s. They were in there along with some pieces of meat I will bury as soon as I can. Enough of that. I don’t want to get into what he said he did to them, and how he planned to do all the same evil shit to me.

His anger and insanity either lead him to overconfidence or he just plain overlooked the fact that the strap holding my left hand down wasn’t nearly as tight as it should have been. With every slice and hateful torture he committed on me I pulled with all my strength on that loose leather strap. The pain he placed on me made the pain in my left wrist seem like nothing, so I worked that strap until I knew I could break it easily. I just couldn’t break it while he was in the room with me. The torture seemed all the more worse knowing I could break at least that bond and smack his infected ass upside the head whenever I wanted. It took all of my composure and will not to though.

Finally though, after he fuckin’ masturbated himself over my bleeding and mutilated body he went into the door-less adjoining room to sleep. After laying down for about twenty minutes giggling and talking to himself he finally slept.

The strap gave way easily then. I was nervous that he would hear the sound of me undoing the restraints but I’m sure he had learned (even relished) to sleep with the crying and sobbing pleas of his other victims in his ears.

He is now going to be sleeping for the rest of eternity. There is no chance of him coming back from the dead either. I picked up a ball-peen hammer, which I am absolutely sure he was planning on using on me, as it was on a shelf along with some of his other “tools”. Then I slowly crept up on his foul ass and manically beat his skull and head into a bloody pulp as he slept. I think I laughed like I was insane (and maybe I was) and uttered vile things at his corpse as I literally beat his body into an unrecognizable mass of meat.

Tomorrow I’ve got some digging to do. Body parts and a body to bury. Tonight I need to rest.

　

11

　

It took me most of the day to dig a proper grave for the dead. I didn't want to bury the carriers body with his victims, but I did anyways. Even though the ground is mainly sand here, using a shovel was another experience in pain.

The bastard who cut my little toes off was no surgeon. The bone is jagged and exposed on what is left small toe. The bone on his right small toe was a cleaner cut, although the skin around it had shriveled and turned black. Both of them give off the putrid odor of infection. I have tried to bandage them as best I could but with any amount of walking they weep a sickly mixture of puss and blood. I need to find a doctor (good luck with that) to have them properly amputated. There is a small amount of medicine and pain-killers in the bunkers stock and I'm hoping that it will be enough. If not I'm going to have to go back into town and find a pharmacy and find something stronger than the penicillin I have now. Maybe I'll be able to find a doctors office or something where I can get a hold of a Grey's anatomy book or something so I can operate on myself if it comes to that.

I’m so depressed right now. What is the point of all this struggling to survive in a world where there is nothing left? My outlook is bleak. I can stay here and hope that my feet, which are swollen and red with a deep blackness spreading from the severed digits, miraculously get better. Or I can force myself to hobble slowly, with each step bring fresh pain, into town. There is a decent collection of weapons here, if there aren’t a large number of zeds in my way, I could probably fight my way through. In my condition though, not being able to run, if there’s more than a handful I’m just going to be zombie bait. To stay here I’ll surely die, but to try to get to town I’ll only probably die. For what though? Even if I do heal and get better what for? To eat canned and freeze dried food for the rest of my life? To bear loneliness as my only companion? My .38 looks to be a viable option. I think the only reason I’ve made it this far is because I’m a coward. I only carry on in this life because I’m afraid of death.

I did have the time to investigate the bunker. There’s a whole pantry fully stocked with canned and freeze dried food. One room, the main room I guess, is full of monitors and a couple of computers that control the security for the house and shelter. There’s the small bedroom, of course, well stocked with plenty of DVD’s and a couple of books. A small kitchen and a tiny bathroom with a shower are also down there. I don’t know what the original purpose of the torture room was, it was possibly an exercise / utility room as I found some weights and a what’s left of a now destroyed tread mill. The place is a complete mess though, with broken and shattered stuff scattered all over. The place stinks to high heaven, being covered in filth and blood and god knows what. Gonna be a huge project to clean it up, I’ll wait to do that when (and if) I’m healthy again.

I had to do some serious investigating to find out where the electricity was being generated from. Remember how I told you there was a small stream that flowed from the spring fed lake? Well it seems there is a well hidden water wheel cleverly hidden under some large carved and hollowed rocks in the stream. I was actually standing on top of the covering stone before I noticed that the water swirled oddly around it. The constant flow of electricity is such a blessing.

Even though this place is fairly isolated, it isn’t free from zeds. While I was doing some of the digging I was occasionally swearing and bitching from the pain my feet were giving me, forgetting all about the current state of the world. The damn thing had stumbled to within twenty feet of me and I hadn’t heard it. I was so absorbed in the task at hand and my pain that I didn’t hear the things clumsy crashing through the brush towards me. It was a close escape, one that was due more to luck than anything else. I couldn’t limp away from the horror any faster than it could shamble towards me. I placed the grave away from the house and as I went down the slope that leads to the lake and the house itself I tripped and almost ended up taking a swim. As I got up, the zed came crashing over the ridge and it also fell and went head over heels down the steep slope. I got out of the way as fast as my painfully swollen feet would let me, narrowly avoiding the things outstretched hands as it rolled right at me. Thankfully it didn’t have the coordination to stop itself from going into the lake. I know that if this had happened six months earlier it would have caught me and quickly made a meal of me. Time was finally decaying them as it should have a long time ago.

The undead clearly can’t swim, but they don’t drown either. It splashed and struggled to get free of the muck and silt that hampered it. Slowly it ended sliding further and further down into the lake. The water is really clear in the lake and I was surprised as a veritable swarm of fish, both large and small, surrounded it and start taking tiny pieces off of it. I was worried that the monster would find a way out of the lake eventually and I would have to keep an eye out for it until god knows when, but the fish were taking care of that for me. When it finally disappeared into the depths, the last thing I actually saw wasn’t the zed itself, it was the school of fish that were slowly, methodically eating it. I think I’ll stop putting fish on my menu for the time being.

For the next few days I’m going to concentrate on getting together my equipment and weapons for my foray into the nearby town.

　

12

　

Another pain filled two days have passed. Agony is now a familiar friend. I've almost forgotten what its like to feel normal. I think I successfully performed the surgery on myself, but I’m no doctor. At least the pain has abated somewhat and that’s got to be a good sign. It could be due to the shit load of pain killers I’ve been eating like candy, but some of the swelling and puss has seemed to have also lessened.

I'm currently taking refuge in a Walgreens store, in some small, nameless town. Small means the zed population has been manageable. This store hadn’t been raided by looters, it looks like it’s been untouched since the shit hit the fan. Until I arrived that is. Now there’s a H2 crashed through the wreckage of the sliding doors and about a dozen dead zeds decorating the aisles.

The day after my last entry I decided to get my ass in gear. The sooner I got my feet taken care of, I figured, the better a chance I had at surviving.

It was the pain that spurred me into action, or the hope of being able to be rid of it anyways. My right pinky toe wasn't as bad as my left. The right toe seemed to be sheared off cleanly, almost at the joint, while the left was a jagged mess with the remainder of the bone sticking out. I had to properly amputate both of them at the joint.

After I had packed my gear up into the ol’ backpack I went about choosing some weapons from the “Reds’” cache. (It was Jannie that introduced me to the slang word to reference the infected ones.) Along with my snub nose .38 I grabbed up a sawed-off shotgun and an AK47. Both the AK and shotty were considered illegal, but what cop was going to arrest me? The shot gun was illegal because the barrel was sawn off about two inches past the stock, and used with buckshot it makes a nice room clearer. Even if the shotty don’t kill a zed outright, It’ll definitely knock a group of ‘em back and down so I can shoot their fucking asses in the head with the AK. The AK was modified to fire on full auto, highly illegal. Plenty of ammo and clips. There were other guns there to choose from, but I didn’t want to load myself down with a bunch of stuff. Besides I thought, if this wasn’t going to be enough firepower then I would probably need a tank. That and the fact that every step brought a huge jolt of pain to begin with.

I padded my feet as much as I could, even using a pair of the red’s work boots that were three sizes too big for me. I started by filling them up with rags and cotton balls to lessen the shock of walking.

I really hadn’t thought about the lack of a vehicle here. I found a key chain with some car keys and there were oil stains on the driveway but there was no car. There was doubtless a car or truck hidden somewhere, the crazy bastard had more than likely stashed it somewhere nearby. I hadn’t seen anything of it in my explorations of the immediate surroundings. I’m sure the fuck hid it in some remote location, camouflaged of course, to keep his prey from being able to easily flee. Instead of taking the time to wander around the woods aimlessly in the hopes I spot it, I could just save myself some time and head on over to a neighbors house. One of them was sure to have a car I could find the keys to or hotwire or something.

Nature was quickly reclaiming what was left of the now unused dirt road. Saplings and brush were growing in it. In some places I could only determine where the road used to be by looking at the relationship between the old growth of the forest and the shorter, younger growth that was taking back the road. In another year or two the road would doubtlessly be completely obliterated and impossible to find. As I trudged along, the pain in my feet grew worse and worse. By the time I reached the nearest neighbor my left foot, especially, was screaming out in pure misery.

With an amount of relief I saw the house had an attached garage. Even if there turned out not be any car there I was glad I at least found a place I could rest up and check the status of my feet before moving on. I had only hiked about a mile and a half, but by the time I reached the front door I was huffing and puffing and covered in sweat.

I beat on the door, the banging seeming loud and out of place here, and waited for a minute or two, gauging the area to see if it attracted anything. Nobody answered the door, I would have been surprised if anyone did. Nothing came crashing out of the forest trying to eat me either.

The screen door was locked, as was the front door behind it. Even in civilized times locks only serve to keep honest people honest. Not that I was a thief or anything but locked doors are only a nuisance to me now. A quick slice with my nice sharp bowie knife (also allocated from the dead red’s bunker) gave me access to the screen door to unlock it. A quick strike with the shotgun’s butt shattered the decorative window placed, conveniently, in the center of the hardwood front door, allowing me to simply reach in and unlock it.

After I entered I closed the door behind me and waited. I waited not only to let my eyes adjust to the gloom of the house, but to listen for anything unusual. It seemed all clear. My feet were howling in pain but I decided to make a speedy search of the house before I got caught unaware from any crazy shit that might happen. There was an underlying scent of rot hanging in the house, but I didn’t consider that anything unusual. The house had been closed up for the better part of two years now and it would be only natural for the smell of the rotting food and consumables to linger in the enclosed space.

There was a nice family portrait hanging above the fireplace mantle. Two beaming parents and their healthy child. My stomach turned a bit as I recognized the little girl in the picture. Her parents I’m sure I’ve never seen before. I know the face of the little girl though, I buried her head just the other day.

A wave of anger mixed with sadness rose up in me and I sat down on the family couch and softly wept for a moment before moving on.

My suspicions about the child were confirmed and explained a bit when I searched the kitchen.

On the refrigerator door was a hand written note, in the girls own writing.

“Dad, I don’t know where you are and it’s been a week since you came home. I hope you’re OK. Mommy’s upstairs and I’m afraid of her. She got the Scarlet real bad since you left. She didn’t move all day yesterday but I had to lock her in the bedroom because she tried to hurt me today. I’m going over to Mr. Kolinsky’s like we discussed. Please come back. I love you, Kimmy.”

My eye’s teared over again and it took some will to halt it. I knew now how the little girl ended up in the bunker. Her father had, in all probability, died in the insanity. Mommy though was a possible problem, I couldn’t account for her and she could very well be upstairs still. Which she was.

I wasn’t sure undead mommy was going to be found upstairs though. I had made a lot of noise and that always alerted the zeds. The undead never worried about being stealthy and clumsily bumped or bashed anything that got in their way.

On alert, and as silently as I could I crept step by step up the stairs, heart pounding, feet throbbing, waiting for any sign of danger.

All was quiet as I spied the bedroom door that must contain mom. The door itself was solid, not like most of the interior doors in a lot of houses. Most houses nowadays have those cheap hollow doors that you can punch through in, at the most, a couple of swings. These people must have had some money as most of the items in the house were quality. Still, there was evidence someone, or something I should say, tried like hell to bust out. the door itself was intact but the frame had started to come away from the wall, cracking the drywall and plaster around it. It’s a god damned good thing the zeds are so stupid. Just by looking at the knob on the door I knew all the bitch had to do was simply turn the lock on her side of the door. That and actually turn the knob itself.

I listened but I didn’t hear anything. I tried the door and it was indeed locked from the inside still. There was one of those holes in the knob, one that was designed so that you can sick a coat hanger end or one of those funky jimmies in the hole to pop the lock. It was no big deal at all to grab a metal coat hanger from the hallway closet, unbend it and go back to the bedroom door. It took only a second to pop the lock and the door swung open.

Mommy was there, desiccated, emancipated, shriveled and stinking. She was sitting on the floor with her legs splayed and her back propped up against the bed.

I took a quick look around the bedroom from the doorway and was wondering what, if anything, I could gain by scavenging the room. I had decided to come back later when I had looked after my feet and searched the rest of the house. I would leave this room for last, or completely alone, out of respect for the dead.

Almost on cue as I thought about respect for the dead the corpse started to slowly reanimate. It started to get up at a snail’s pace, haltingly, stutteringly. Old dried muscle and flesh straining to rise to devour the flesh of the living. This was a first for me, I had never known a zed shut down and go into a comatose state before but, I suppose, two years was a long time to be inactive.

“Go back to sleep.” I told it as I drew my gun and laid her down permanently.

I’ve got some more visitors here at Walgreens. I’m going to have to give them their prescription of hot lead. I’ll write again after I administer their dosage and play doctor with them.

　

13

　

Sorry, Dear reader of mine, if the following seems a bit incoherent it's because I think I took too many drugs. That's right, "Don't do drugs kids. 'Cause if you do you might end up OD'ing in a Walgreens after performing Autotomy."

Just thought it was funny.

I am so stoned right now.

I'm trying to use this to stayed focus.

Found "The Complete Guide to Prescription & Nonprescription Drugs." Didn't take me much time identify a fist full of antibiotics and pain killers. I Don't even remember how many I took. I waited for what I figured was an hour to gauge the strength of the pills I had swallowed. It seemed OK until I started to seriously put the blade of the bowie knife to the right mutilated toe. Tried to cut it in one go of it. Thought I could do it as it was on a joint higher up it and there was just a small piece to actually cut off.

I yelled.

Damn I yelled.

I decided that cartilage was tougher than it looked and another fist full of drugs were called for.

I knew my yell was going to bring another round of zombies. They come stumbling and crawling over and around the rubble of the entryway. They were all pretty slow now, except for some. Some still possessed a decent amount of vigor. It was evident the ones that retained their speed and mobility were the ones that had fed the most.

I dispatch them easily now. I blocked off some of the aisles to funnel them into one row. The security mirrors in the corners, meant to stop shop lifting, gave a good view from the pharmacy booth. Its good thick glass, it’s small but it shows the place had gotten robbed more than once. The manager’s office entrance (and the access to the safe,) was also on the other side of the locked door.

Oh locked door, you didn’t stop me now did ya?

A foot past the frame was a regular drywall covered wall.

Punched a hole in that large enough to reach around and open it. Doubt a zed would figure it out but I put file cabinet from the office to cover the hole. Sometimes if a zed can’t see into a room, he thinks can’t get in it that way

Anyways, where was I?

That child. Kimmy. I thought how carrier dude killed her and I shot her mommy.

I can clearly see her mothers mangled body, with its arms broken off from the constant beating upon the door. For how long had she uselessly beat herself upon that door he wondered. Broken bone shards and finger digits were scattered about the immediate vicinity of it.

I’ve done some rotten shit to survive before I started the journal. Wondered how much the same we and the necromantic parasite. I curse it for killing people while I’ve been doing the same. Not just the carriers or the hungry dead, but I’ve been forced to (in my mind) justifiably kill the immune too. They just do it on a larger scale.

I told you I was depressed, stoned and writing.

I got to remember to find some antidepressants or something before I leave.

Found a nice Hummer2 in the garage, half a tank o’ gas. Started on the third crank. Raided the house and loaded it up.

Kinda don’t care about life right now. It’s leading me to be reckless, I know. Honestly though, like I said, I don’t care.

Drove that thing like it was a snow plow and made a game of playing tag with the dead head that strayed in the road. The windshield is half missing and the rest is spidered and plastered with zombie shit. Almost learned the hard way to hit the zeds on the passenger side. Thought the fuck was gonna ask to drive. Drove with my head hanging out the window or practically in the passenger seat till I spied this place. Drove right into it at almost 50 miles per hour.

I know I used my seat belt and I may not care if I live or die, suicide was something else.

I guess 50 mph was a little fast. Almost went through half the building before I stopped. Shelving forming the aisles were knocked into one another, effectively closing three rows access to the rear of the store.

Ran over a zed who was standing where the first lane was. He got stuck somehow in the crumpled up remainder of the front passenger tire and the frame. His body thumped under the tire, trying to throw off my steering. The H2 was still drivable though and I parked it sideways across the gaping hole I made. The damn zed in the undercarriage had to be shot as though being twisted and mangled was only a minor handicap.

The wave of zeds from the nearby area arrived shortly, more spread out in their arrival. The shuffling beasts were finally on the verge of collapse with their slowed, restricted movements.

There was a small, weak second wave that I had no problem taking care of.

I think I dozed off or something. I think I remember being awakened by zeds pounding on the bullet proof glass. I barely remember firing repeatedly at the group of almost mummified, walking cadavers through the group of small circular holes that were actually meant for speaking. It took only one shot of the sawed-off to make a bigger hole through those concentric rings of holes. Then I just put the barrel of the AK through and blasted away.

The memories have a fuzzy quality to them, dream like. Definitely had to be from the mix of meds and this fever that’s hittin’ me. I kinda remember having to go out and foolishly hunt down a much more active one.

I thought I had been becoming inured with the pain I had already inflicted upon myself. The left small toe had to be cut off about halfway up the bone as the joint was too high up into my foot to want to dig. I was covered in my own sweat and blood. Before I decided to just try to cleanly cut it off and slap some liquid suture on top of it, I grabbed another round of painkillers. I used a disposable plastic lighter by itself and I used some tape get three lighters together to heat up some cheap silverware for cauterization.

Too early to tell what’s gonna happen with the surgery.

Gotta piss.

Drank a shit load of water, so thirsty.

Place seems quiet.

Gonna pass out again.

　

14

　

I awoke with a head full of cobwebs and body full of dull aches. How long I was actually holed up there I can’t say exactly, I gotta grab a watch one day. Guess it’s been about four days since I made my desperate entrance. My feet still hurt like hell, especially when I bump them clumsily into something. Better than they were before, so I guess that’s what matters.

I gave myself a whore’s bath with distilled water, rubbing alcohol and baby wipes. Found some lice shampoo and washed my hair over the big sink in the janitorial closet.

The distant sound of gunfire caught my attention as I was putting on some t-shirts. Seems there was currently a sale on pocketed tees so I got rid of my old, tattered and stained crap. I wore three of ‘em out the store and tossed the rest in the Hummer. There was a pile of t-shirts to choose from, but there weren’t any other clothes in the store. One day soon I was going to have to go hit up a clothes store. I think I been switching between two pairs of jeans now for about a year and both of them are in some sad ass shape.

The shots were steady, single shots interspersed with quick tattoos of automatic rifle fire. Now and then the heavy sound of a shot gun barked and made itself known.

As I looted the store and stuffed it all in the back of my busted up H2 I glanced out the windows. Whenever I came back to it with an armful (and yes, I finally found a watch that still worked,) of expired chips and melted together candies I took a minute to check out the outside.

There were no zeds in the immediate vicinity, those in the distance I did see were all making their way as fast as they could towards the gunfire. All the better for me to make a quick exit. I could tell that the gun fire was issuing from more than one survivor. Sounded like there were two, possibly three of them.

I stepped and slipped a bit as I was getting into the Hummer. Looking down I knew what I stepped in. The cooling system had a leak. Green, viscous liquid had pooled under the engine. Checking under the hood was going to be a problem, the hood was crumpled and buckled so I didn’t even bother to look.

I briefly mulled over whether or not to go and at least check out the situation and decided it really wasn’t a good idea.

There was the scent of change and hope in the air. The zombie terror was waning. People who had been cooped up for years had a serious case of cabin fever by now, I’m sure. Now that the lifeless, parasite controlled hosts were showing signs of weakness it was a good time to start thinning out their numbers. Absolutely the gunfire could be the sounds of somebody’s last stand, a do or die situation, having run out of food or water. Be that as it may though, it wouldn’t serve me or those that might be needing rescue for me to go staggering with my bad feet into the ass end of a herd and end up needing to be rescued myself.

I turned the key and the Hummer grudgingly turned over. With a nasty clanking and grinding the engine voiced its displeasure at me. Momentarily I considered turning the key off and searching for another car. There was no guarantee the Hummer would start again, and no guarantee I would find a car I could drive. Batteries died, gas either evaporated or went bad in the tank or you couldn’t find the keys or I couldn’t hotwire it, etc., etc. I could easily spend hours trying to get another ride and not have any luck. The bunker was only a couple of miles away, easily walkable if not for the fucking flesh eaters of bad feet. As long as the H2 was still willing, so was I.

The damn Hummer broke down and finally quit. I let it slowly roll to where I am now, the last of the antifreeze being blown out as steam through the broken radiator. The smoking heap rests just off the road in the parking lot of this little restaurant / gas station / market.

On a good note I broke down within sight of the dirt bike I used to get here the first time. The dirt bike was simply out of gas and I was in the process of siphoning the tank of the H2 when I heard the sounds of the pack.

Dogs.

I heard a pack of them nearby barking and yowling like the wild animals they’ve surely reverted to. All the small dogs were dead so this had to be a pack of some of the bigger and more vicious (since they had survived this long) former pets. They seem to be getting closer. For a while it sounded like they had chased something down and were in a frenzy.

The front door to “Dmitri’s”, as a faded blue and white sign proclaimed, was deceptively sturdy. It took repeated bashings with my shoulder and the butt of the gun to bust it open. I didn’t want to completely destroy the door, I wanted to be able to shut out the dogs after I broke in.

I had almost gotten the gas I needed from the tank of the hummer. As I grimaced and spat out the residue of the gas from my mouth for the twentieth time, a large mongrel of a dog slowly crept towards me.

It kept its distance, for the time being, waiting for the others in the pack to join it and decide what to do about me. Head lowered, fangs barred and growling it slowly inched towards me, pausing occasionally to let out a rough bark to alert its motley companions.

When the second and third dog joined it I broke in.

Rottweilers, Pit bulls, German Shepherds, Dobermans...unkempt and hungry. It’s a huge pack and their running around the building excitedly. They keep jumping up on the windows and throwing their starving bodies at the door trying to get at me.

The main windows cracking and the door won’t stay. The AK is out of ammo but the shotty and my .38 are going to remind these bastards and bitches why we were their masters.

　

15

　

When I bashed the market door in I busted it up a bit. It still closed but just barely. It surely wouldn't hold up for even one good smash by one of those dogs and I knew it. I hurriedly crammed and kicked stuff into the jam and between the bottom of the door and floor. Hoped to make some ad hoc door stops.

One of the dogs, a huge and natty haired Great Dane charged the door then, testing my makeshift repair. I did a horrible job, with just that one blow the door bulged and almost came open.

The barking and baying was ringing in my ears, so loud I could barely hear myself think.

I did the only other thing I could do in such a short notice. I pushed a nearby shelving unit, full of old and moldy magazines, behind the door to add some weight to help block the door. I’d be lucky if it held more than three determined blows I thought, and it turned out I was right.

I took refuge behind the cash register counter and as predicted, the door gave way. It was momentarily stopped by the shelf behind it but that didn‘t stop the hungry pack for long. As soon as the first dog had partially pushed through, two more of the motley mongrels were busily, excitedly struggling to force themselves and the first dog through.

I almost felt bad about blowing the first dogs head and shoulders to hell. My first shot got a bite of some of the dogs that were behind that sack of meat, squirming their way in behind it. The barking and howling stopped momentarily, the only thing I heard was the pain filled whines of one of my shotguns victims.

Almost felt bad that is.

The dogs milled about unsure of what to do then. More than likely they had been chasing down and eating undead stragglers for the past two years. Can’t really see there being much else to eat. I’m sure they remembered, to their horror, what a boom stick was. I’m sure of this because when everything went to hell with the animal madness, people abandoned and then hunted them mercilessly. Generally anything over a hundred pounds was safe but nobody stopped to try to weigh a damn animal before they shot it. Then with the insanity of the human madness, I’m sure they learned that it was a bad thing to even be near a human.

The veneer of civilization has been completely peeled away, we have all reverted to savages. When once we fed dogs, now we feed on them. I knew if I lived I was going to gut and dress those dead dogs. I’ve learned to like the taste.

The pack was working itself up again. Getting itself ready to make another go at me. The door was open and the shelf was pushed out of the way. I could see them taking quick glances at me and moving quickly away from the now buckshot peppered door. A Pit bull with one eye missing and drool dripping from its yammering jaws busted out the previously cracked pane window.

That’s when I fired my second shot. More or less just aimed at the open doorway, hoping to either get a lucky shot and knock down another one or scare ‘em away. Either would have worked.

As soon as I fired I felt an enormous pain in my left shoulder. Some god damned walking stiff was gnawing on me. Dead, cold hands and arms gripped me with a vice like quality, knocking my shotgun out of my hands.

I didn’t have time to even think about reconnoitering the store before the group of famished canines attacked. Fucking batshit world. The flesh eating prick of a zed was just tearing a huge gouge in my shoulder. It was an agony to fight off the withered claw like hands while it was eating me alive. I unholstered my .38 as it greedily, repeatedly bit into me. My first shot didn’t kill it. It knocked it back however and I was free of its grasp.

Just barely in time too. The dogs saw us fighting and had breached the door. I let loose another shot at the zed, hitting him in the chest as I ran to the nearest interior door.

The pack zoned in on the zombie as I slammed the door shut behind me. Thankfully this door had a lock on it and was in good shape. It was dark as hell in the room and I hoped I didn’t just lock myself in with another of those lumbering terrors. I could clearly hear the pack satisfying its hunger with the body of the zed that made a quick snack of me.

While the animals were tearing apart their meal I was able to quickly check out the back room by the small flame of my lighter. Old storage and cooler access room. More importantly it was zed free. I stayed quiet and took care of the jagged hole in my shoulder as best I could. Been a couple of hours now since I heard them run off. There’s still a whining coming from outside from one of the wounded mutts.

I guess now I’ll go and put the wounded fur-bags out of their misery.

Then finish gassing up the dirt bike to tow the Hummer and my swag back to the safe house.

　

16

　

When the "Rat flu" made its debut on the world stage, killing off the vermin by the billions, no mammal was safe. The infinitesimal eggs of the parasite came out in the animals urine, feces, sweat, blood and saliva. They were light and resilient, excellent qualities for airborne transmission. Bites and deep scratches from an infected animal injected not only the eggs of the parasite, but the parasite themselves. It took time for the eggs to grow into adults who then multiplied at an exponential rate inside their hosts. The body reacted to the egg infestation as if it was pollen or another irritant, causing slight flu like or mild allergy symptoms. The eggs quickly hatched, becoming young, single celled invaders. The immune system of most mammals, including humans, didn’t react strongly to the new invaders once they hatched and were few in number. But once the number reached a “critical mass” then the body went into overdrive in a fight for its very survival. It was this period of the contagion that was dubbed “Scarlet Fever”. Red and itchy splotches appeared all over the hosts body and high body temperatures of a hundred and four plus degrees Fahrenheit weren’t unusual. Once the parasite established it’s foot hold it rapidly spread along and throughout the hosts central nervous system and the most basic parts of the brain.

I know I’ve stated before that I was immune and that I never caught the Rat or the Scarlet but this bite pressed my body to its limit. I have gone through a shit load of injury and infection in the last couple of weeks. More than likely my immune system was already stressed and was slow to react to this new danger.

The disgusting wound festered and swelled. At first it seemed like it was a normal reaction to any wound. Then hole in my shoulder started to itch like a mother and small red freckles started popping up around it. I broke out in a fever and I gobbled massive amounts of drugs that I looted from the drugstore.

That damn thing tore a big chunk out of my shoulder. My whole left arm is weak now, any real weight brings massive pain.

For three days I lay in complete misery wondering if this massive injection of eggs and adult parasites injected directly into my bloodstream would overwhelm and overcome my weakened system. To survive the airborne phase was one thing, to survive a direct bite was another. I personally hadn’t seen it happen to anyone before. What I mean is I hadn’t seen anybody escape from just a single bite. Usually when someone got themselves into a situation where they got bit, they got eaten.

I overcame it though.

I have a lingering headache now, it gets less painful day by day. It was a close thing.

My feet are doing better. The emergency surgery I performed upon myself seemed to do the job. They still hurt a great deal, and every bump and miss-step sends shocks of curse word laden pain through my body, but they seem to be healing well.

I plan on just holing up here for the next couple of months, waiting out the rainy season while I fully regain my strength.

　

17

　

Its been a long hot summer. I don't remember it raining since before I started this journal. That changed today. Today the heavens let loose with a heavy downpour. It started raining around noon and its still pouring now as night falls.

I've spent the last couple days cleaning and bringing some sense of order to the chaos of the bunker. It's a complete second house, bigger than the upstairs "real" house. The bunker is also filthier than the upstairs was. I don't even want to think about the refuse filled room that is the bunkers bathroom.

I'm sure it was a pain in the ass getting all this stuff down the hatch that seals off the bunker. I know getting the garbage and stuff like the foul mattress out of here sure was.

The false floor in the closet has a rung ladder set in the side of a concrete wall that leads down to a room just large enough to fully open the kind of a hatch that you would expect to find onboard a naval ship. Beneath the hatch there is a set of stairs that are almost straight up and down that go down into the bunker itself. I had to take breaks from just dragging up the grimy, blood and gunk covered clothes and accumulated trash he had down there. Even though there is a small washer and dryer set down there, amazingly, it looks like he just wore whatever clothes he had until they almost rotted off of him (kind of like what I’ve been doing, but he had no excuse to not wash). A lot of shit down there is just battered and broken, including every dish and glass. That damned soul of a carrier must have vented his rage on whatever was at hand when he had nobody to torment.

At the end of the last couple of days I had my own private bon fire getting rid of all that refuse. I threw junk that I knew wouldn't burn in there too, hoping to at least purify with fire any contaminate left on it.

Dug a burn pit well away from the house, not that zeds are attracted to fire, but because the extended drought has caused a lot of the vegetation to just dry up. I don’t want to accidentally start a forest fire the would engulf my new home.

On one of my breaks from my custodial duties I decided to try and see if the “red” had indeed stashed a vehicle somewhere around here. He did. He had a expensive but reliable Land Rover with four wheel drive stashed away. He dug a trench with one sloping side (to drive the Rover in and out), covered with plywood, which was itself covered with topsoil. It was overgrown with weeds and plants and I didn’t notice anything special about it until I was standing right on top of it. When I did notice something unusual it was because the ground seemed to give way slightly when I walked on it and it had a bit of a bounce to it. I jumped up and down a couple of times and I heard a distinct crack of splintering wood. I kicked the dirt around to see what was buried and there it was. After two years or so The plywood had started to rot, and getting the layer of sand and soil off of it enough to drag the plywood aside took longer than I expected.

Some dry-gas and a fresh charge to the battery were all I needed to get the Rover running. Took it out for a spin to the neighbors. The house where Kimmy used to live. Raided it for clothes mostly but also grabbed a good bed and some clean, fresh sheets. Nothing about the house had changed. The dead woman in the bedroom was still, thankfully, dead. One day when I go back I should bury her. There are other houses scattered here and there and I should go scope them out too. I’ve got plenty on my to do list as it is, so that will have to wait.

What was notable though while I was there was the distant sound of gunfire that I could hear coming from the direction of town. I swear, but I’m not sure that I heard someone yelling through a bullhorn. For a while the gunfire and yelling (I couldn’t make out what was being said) seemed to be coming closer to me. The ruckus appeared to taper into silence at the cross road where I almost became zombie chow. I don’t have any clue as to what’s happening back in town, but I am worried. I’m going to have to stay low for a couple of more days here, at least another two weeks, before I’ve healed up. Then I’ll go and check out the town.

It’s raining like hell now. I’m not going anywhere until it stops. Knowing central Florida though, it could be weeks or even a month before that happens.

No matter how much I clean down here it still stinks. I know I’ll eventually get used to it but damn. I’m going to have to go to town just to load up on air freshener and shit.

As I sit here writing this, there is a large monitor that flashes the feeds from the security camera. The light is fading rapidly and on one of the outside feeds I thought I saw movement.

A lone zed was wandering outside. Can barely make him out between the night and the rain. One isn’t a problem. Tomorrow I can evict his undead soul from the planet. Tonight I can’t do anything about it except stay quiet and catch some shut eye.

On a side note, I have been taking Zoloft for my depression, and while it does seem to help (a little), there is no getting past the fact that if I weren’t depressed by my fucked up life I would be insane. I’m also using sleeping pills to help me fall asleep. The sleeping pills don’t stop my nightmares but without them I can’t seem to shut my mind off enough to doze off.

　

18

　

When I awoke this morning, the first thing I did was to check the three outside monitors. It was still raining slightly, which didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the number of walking, decaying corpses that seemed to be slowly moving to the west. I was expecting to have to go and silently crush an undead skull or two, even a handful of them with my sledge hammer. A small number of them is manageable, but there's zeds all over.

There's a dog pack following the swarm. The grainy black and white monitors don't have any sound, but I don't need to hear the spectacle taking place outside. In the early morning, before the swarm became too thick, I spotted a number of mangy, flea ridden curs weave in and around the slow moving shamblers. I watched them take one down and quickly devour and rip it to pieces. At times they seemed to actually play with their food, rushing up on one and knocking them down from behind. The dreadful, animated undead have a hard time struggling back up from any prone position and the dogs, being much faster, would grab one by the arm or leg and shake the limb around like it was some rotted chew toy. They tugged and shook until the limb came apart or was pulled from its socket completely. The pack seemed to actually be enjoying themselves, making a great game of it.

As the day progressed the swarm became thicker and thicker. Once the numbers of zombies became too great the dogs ran off and I haven't seen them since. There are so many of them out there now, all slowly moving towards the gulf coast. Each zed seems to be following the zed in front and around them. I have no idea why they act like this, blindly following each other in groups like this.

The clumsy bastards keep stumbling and falling into the lake. As the swarm of bastards became a densely packed herd, more and more of them come over the rise and roll down the steep slope to disappear into the now murky water.

There was something that was disturbing me about the zeds themselves though. I figured out what was different about them. Before the rain the corpses were starting to look more like the mummies you see in museums, all desiccated and leathery. Since it started raining though, the fuckers seemed to have been revived a bit. The rain moistened and softened the dead flesh. Just a week ago the vast majority of them struggled just to move around it seemed, but now they appear to move around much easier and faster. Damn it all to hell. It’s as if the parasites were on the brink of dieing from thirst, if that was possible. Even if the dead flesh of it’s host didn’t need water any longer, I’m sure the parasites themselves need it to survive.

The zed are in various states of decomposition and undress, with most wearing nothing but tatters of clothing. Some walked, some crawled and some dragged themselves around with one clawing arm attached to a partial torso. The demons have no regard for any other of its kind, crushing and trampling any who get in their way.

I’m safe here. Underground in this modern bomb shelter. I can wait for a long time until the herd passes.

　

19

　

Been two day since my last entry. The water pump overheated and shut off. What water it had been giving was tainted and dark. It gave the odor of death and I know it was contaminated. I hope it shut down because the filtration system got clogged. I pray it was due to something I can easily fix once the herd moves on. I have some bottled water so I’m not in any immediate danger of going thirsty.

I crept upstairs to the house to check on the old fashioned hand pump in the kitchen. It may have been that the hand pump was a back up to the automated water supply but I found a flaw in the system. It seems that the water supply for the hand pump and the modern electrical driven pump got their water from the same source. That source had to be from the lake.

The curtains, drawn tight across the triple pane windows, showed the shadows of the wandering undead outside. I pumped the lever to the hand pump as quietly as I could, praying that the hungry dead just a foot away didn’t hear me. I don’t think they heard my efforts, thankfully, but the pump was dry.

When I returned to the bunker the generator quit. The electricity switched off and went into battery back up mode. It won’t last for long. I kept the lights on only as long as it took me to find out what happened. The water wheel, which acts as the electricity generator, has a main panel in the utility room here. Something is jamming it. I shut it down knowing that the only way to get it running again is to go outside and manually clear the obstruction. It has got to be a zed or detached body parts that have clogged it.

The situation outside is unbelievable. The once clear, spring fed, lake was now an overflowing mass of writhing, grasping corpses. As body upon undead body went into the lake they made a horrible mash of those that are beneath them. All were trying, struggling, clawing their way out of the steep sided depression. The water churns and quickly turned black. Its now a thick viscous soup of rancid flesh. They climb over and on top of each other in their struggle to escape while more and more are added to this scene. All the time more fall in and they rip each other to pieces like they were in some hellish meat-grinder.

The small dock, even though it was sturdily built has been destroyed. Grasping and groping for purchase they pulled and wore down the wooden posts at the end of the dock first. The dock collapsed and the monsters seethed over each other using the docks wreckage to make their way out of the depression. The dock is completely gone now. Pieces of stray planks resurface every now and then, breaking the surface momentarily, only to be pulled back down into the writhing mass. Flotsam on a sea of death.

If they keep coming I fear wondering just how deep the zeds will pack themselves into this depression. The roof of the house is actually lower than the rim and if they keep coming the house itself could possibly disappear under decaying flesh.

The lake is a nightmare scene taken straight from hell. The quality of the air itself now is horrible. The air, and it’s not just the air in the bunker but all the air inside and out, smells of rot and decay and disease. A foul miasma of filth and death. The odor is so strong that I retch unless I keep a towel soaked with cologne around my face.

No way I can leave now. I’m trapped here. I can deal with the lack of electricity but eventually water will become a problem. Sanitation is going to be a problem. Toilet don’t flush, of course, but I can’t just open up a window to empty out a make-shift chamber pot. I sure as hell can’t go do my business outside either. This situation is going to get rather bad rather soon.

The herd does seem to be slowly moving on. They move a mile or two an hour on average. There must be a hundred thousand of them in this herd. Easily. Florida had a population of over eighteen million before the Scarlet. It seems like most of them are coming to my house to visit.

Nothing I can do but wait it out.

　

20

　

It's taken about a week for the herd to move on. During the thickest core of the undead mass I could hear them even through these thick walls. Their constant stumbling and bumping into each other, forcing fetid, rancid air past the remnants of vocal cords causes them to emit a truly terrifying sound (especially when its multiplied by the thousands). The sound of legions of rotted and foul footsteps endlessly trampling over everything in their path, including their slower comrades. The disturbing sounds of a multitude of grasping claws randomly pounding and grasping the building. Added to this is the horrible splashing and thrashing of the things struggling to escape the now rancid pit that was the lake.

I’ve caught myself talking to myself and even having small arguments with myself. Whenever I became aware of my verbal outbursts it was with horror. I never realize when it starts, but when I catch myself doing it I fearfully wonder if any of the ghouls outside heard me. Then I huddle in the darkest corner of the bunker and fret that they know I’m in here. I’ve picked up the bad habit of chewing my nails. I don’t know when that began but my nails are gnawed down to the point they start to bleed. I seem to slip into this verbalization of my thoughts without realizing it. I think I’m going slightly mad. The boredom is a palpable thing now. There are no books or magazines to read. I haven’t even thought of peeking outside through the curtains to watch the legion of the undead march by.

Trapped here, with the smell of the death and decomposing flesh and the addition of the smell of my own unwashed body. Additionally, I’ve added to this is the odor of my own excrement. I started using the freezer that had once held the remains of Kimmy as my chamber pot. The freezer closes still, but it doesn’t stop the smell from escaping. The reek is overpowering and I’m constantly nauseous.

I have to get the fuck out of here. I’ve got my trusty backpack and a sturdy duffle bag all packed up and ready to go. I haven’t heard anything from outside for a full day now, except the cawing of birds. No water or electricity isn’t the reason. It’s the stench. The stench is laden with the taint of disease. The lake, even though the natural spring that feeds it is clean and clear, won’t be safe for swimming, fishing or drinking for a long time. I know it’s a festering hole of infection. I think I remember reading how people used to poison wells and water supplies with dead bodies. This is beyond that, way beyond that.

I’m going to go up and peek outside soon. I wanted to put down my thoughts in the journal before hand because it does a lot for my grasp on reality and helps me order my chaotic mind. I need to steady myself and not screw up and let some passing dead fucker see me and call down the horde on me.

　

21

　

The sight that greeted my eyes needs to be written down. I thought I would never see a vision worse than the hellish lake of churning bodies but I was wrong. My nightmares are going to be worse now, of that I’m positive.

The multitude of the damned were gone. I peered out the front window long and hard for any of the undead. Only a few scattered crawlers were left, all busily heading westward, towards the coast. It’s a complete mystery to me why the hell they group up in such a huge mass like this and start, seemingly aimlessly, heading off in one direction or another.

I grabbed my .38 and my shotgun and gathered up some weapons for quiet killing. The sledge hammer and a sharp hand axe was all I needed though.

The house’s driveway was the only gentle slope that led away from the natural depression that formed the boundaries of the lake. It was here that those of the zeds that escaped the lake continued their unholy pilgrimage. It was here that I dispatched the first of the handful of crawlers.

A nasty partial torso being dragged along by rotted and broken hands. The skull had most of its flesh gone and stringy strands of filthy long blonde hair hung from it in small patches. It had to be a mercy for it to be finally sent to rest when I crushed it’s head with my sledge. There was no way to tell if it had once been an man or woman when it was alive. The tissue on its chest had been worn away and only broken ribs showed.

I had been more worried about dispatching these isolated monsters than my actual surroundings though. Overlooking the lake of the damned I killed those few that seemed to have a chance of escaping, easily dispatching them and kicking their rank bodies back into that abyss of zombie stew. The waterline had risen with the sheer mass of the zeds that had tumbled into it, sending the foul dark water with its chunks of unrecognizable body pieces to just below the back doorway. A sickly oil and filth cover the surface and haphazard limbs form an unnatural dam that partially blocks off the stream.

When I was sure that there were no more stragglers is when I finally focused on the landscape around me.

In all of human history, with the multitude of forsaken battlefields, could any site match the utter dreadfulness. Body parts, tattered pieces of clothing, trampled ground and felled trees. Every living thing had been trampled into the mud. Not one blade of grass nor bush or shrub survived. Not one sapling stands. Large trees and palmettos, having stood for decades in the sandy soil, were knocked down. Those trees that still stand have been stripped of their lower limbs. Everywhere the soil had been mashed into a muddy soup from the rain and the tens of thousands of uncaring feet. Mixed into this carnage was pieces, chunks and sometimes whole limbs. One arm and hand sticks up from the mud, clenching and writhing as the body it is attached to tries to lift itself out of the mire after having been driven deep into the earth during the undead’s slow stampede. In every direction, as far as I could see was a nightmare.

If the devil were real, he would love this place. He would turn this into his summer home. I can see him reclining on a fold up chair. Admiring the beauty of a sunset as it slowly descends over the anguish of the lake. Sipping a tall, cold glass of despair from the ruins of the dock. Smiling at the earth covered with mangled body parts. Breathing deeply the stench of rotting human meat.

Oh god, I don’t know where that came from. I don’t know why I wrote that. I have got to get away from here. This place is cursed. If I go to hell after I die, I fear I will be chained to this place.

For all of its horror, some things enjoy it. A huge murder of crows, fat and healthy looking, have landed and are walking amongst the carnage. They walk around and selectively eat the pieces of once human flesh they find the most delectable. There is such an availability that none have to scrabble of fight for a meal. The numbers of the murder are as the numbers of their meal they follow. In the past two years their food supply grew and so did their children. The crow never really competed directly with man for food. Insects, lizards, snakes, berries and seeds was what it always had. Sure, they would raid a farmer’s field occasionally, necessitating the need of a scarecrow. Usually I saw them by the side of a road or highway pecking at some unfortunate piece of road-kill.

While I went around and finished off the undead laggards I could feel the black crows cold, black eyes watching me. More than once I would spot one starring directly at me, like they were just waiting for me to drop dead so they could feast on flesh that was fresh. More and more of the black birds flutter down to join the feast. The multitude of their caw’s sound like a deranged laughter in my ears.

I can hear the distant sound of barking. I don’t know if it’s the same pack I tangled with before or if it’s a different one altogether.

I don’t care though. I’m packing up the Rover and driving the fuck out of here now. I keep getting the feeling of someone walking across my grave and the hairs on the back of my neck won’t go down. If I stay here surrounded by this madness I will soon completely loose the tenuous grasp that I currently have on my sanity.

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