The Zom Diary

by Eddie Austin

  My fortunes are improving. I hang the light around my neck and rummage some more. I pocket the smokes and the lighter and leave the rest of the mess on the passenger seat. I shoulder my AR-15 and close the big doors. I will be going out after window glass and food in the next few days. No sense in mothballing the truck.

  Walking through the cluster of sheds and old pens, I look around me at the overgrown grass and broken down junk. Anyone coming up the drive would see a burnt out cellar hole and run down sheds. As long as they don’t cross the drive and investigate the barn, I won’t have much to worry about. What do I have to worry about?

  People from all points west would hit Salem first, unless they went around town. Serious trouble probably would. Play it safe, Kyle. “The one that gets you, is the one you don’t see coming.” Talking to myself again.

  Walking the perimeter of the barn, I begin to collect the trampled tomato stakes. I won’t be needing these anymore. As I continued my inspection, walking behind the privy, I feel a brief nudge in my brain.

  It is a faint touch, a gloved fingertip on the absolute edge of my perceptibility. I feel it pass; heading east. It is probably just reaching the hills. Too far to lock on to my presence, it continues on its journey towards whatever pulls it to the desert or beyond.

  My search of the grounds doesn’t turn up much. Some of the trees are weighed down heavily with fruit. I should spend some time harvesting. It isn’t good to leave that much weight on the branches. They might split the tree. I also add grass cutting to my mental to-do list.

  I stand and pump the well for a minute or so, reaching my finger up the spout to pick out a big black spider that has taken up residence. It wrestles with its own matted down web remains. I keep pumping. The water slaps against the flat rock that keeps the pour from washing away the soil. A small river weaves its way through the grass, across the slim path worn through the grass, and back toward my fire pit.

  Yes, my ankle throbs, and I am still a little weak, but the rhythms of the farm soothe me and sink into my flesh. It is restorative; calming.

  Stepping up to the door, I press down on the wrought iron latch and push open the door. There is still evidence of the past week’s violence stained into the floor boards, but time will bleach even these from the wood. Shavings still rest in places, in a fine layer here, bunched and drifted in corners there.

  I walk the rooms, opening a back window to circulate fresh air. The place is stuffy. The big room is as I’d left it. Perhaps a little dustier. The bars of soap on the work table are curing nicely. I select one and decide to try out the batch. It will be a little sharp; the lye hasn’t had time to mellow with the remaining fat, but I can stand a harsh cleaning just now.

  I open the door to the supply room and grab the bucket that holds .223 rounds—all of them that remain; about a hundred rounds. I use my thumb to empty the drum, counting to twenty-seven. I sit on the big green couch and set the AR next to me. The bucket and drum, I set on my right. I pull back the bolt and round number twenty-eight spins and lands on my lap.

  Leaving the bolt open, I look down the barrel. I hold a white patch of scrap paper in the breach to reflect light so that I could see down the barrel. It gleams, light spinning on the inner rifling. Bryce must have cleaned it for me. What a guy.

  I replace the rifle on its shelf and deposit the drum and ammo in their spots as well. Tomorrow, I will resume my cleaning regimen, starting with the Glock. I leave it hanging on the back of a chair and swap belts, switching to my bathing pistol.

  Even though I can now feel the buggers coming, I don’t feel comfortable without some kind of firearm. Indeed, I feel naked, even for the brief moment it takes to swap belts. The world of today forces its own track through the mind as well, it would seem.

  The weight of the .38/.357 is a comfort on my hip. I close the door to the supply room and go back outside.

  I select some loose branches from my wood pile and set them ablaze in the fire pit. The kettle I retrieve from its resting spot right inside the door. Filled from the pump, I hang it over the fire.

  It feels odd not having to look over my shoulder every few moments. I catch myself doing it all the same. Today is all about habits. I suppose.

  I have some time before the water will be hot. I fill a five gallon plastic bucket and carry it into the back room. Stopping the tub, I dump the bucket into it, and make several more trips. The smell of bleach is still heavy from my cleaning efforts following the mob incident. A warm breeze blows in the window. It carries the smell of over-ripe fruit.

  I hobble back out to the fire. The water has begun to steam. I decide to do a quick check on the trees and scare up something to eat. The pears hang low, and my fingers press into their flesh as I twist them off. I select three and set them in the voluminous front pockets of the jacket I’ve put on. I wander a circuit through the trees noticing the direst cases of my neglect. Add juicing to the list.

  Living on a farm means zero holidays. And I’ve neglected my work for too long. I also think it will do me well to spend a few days here sweating out toxins in the ultra-violet sun; wrangling fruit.

  I walk back to the fire remembering to grab the eggs from the truck as I pass that way. The kettle is really going now, and I drop in six eggs. The rest I place in a cabinet in the barn.

  After ten minutes, I slide on some work gloves and carry the kettle inside. The water steams as I pour it into the bath. I am careful to dump the eggs so they don’t hit too hard on the bottom of the tub. I refill the kettle and set it back on the fire.

  I pick the eggs out of the tub and set them on the window sill to cool. I remember to take out the pears I picked before stripping off the jacket and shirt, tossing them and the rest of my clothes on an old tool chest along with the head lamp. The bandage, I unwind, slowly. It is starting to smell, and the clean patch over the bite is yellow.

  Walking back outside, I enjoy the warm air on my bare skin. I toss the bandage into the fire and grab the kettle, hot, once again dumping it into the tub.

  I lower myself in, slowly, letting the water close over me. I sit back and drop the bar of new soap into the water next to my foul leg. The wound stings as the soap mixes with the water. I relax and let the hot water soak do its work on me. I sit like this for a long while before I feel the pulse.

  The sensation has just entered my field of perception, and I can tell that the zom will pass close enough to feel my presence. Sure enough, it turns and I can feel it heading my way as soon as it is within range. Of course, I am guessing about distance based on my experiences with this new ability but it feels right, if that makes any sense.

  I can feel it making small adjustments in its course, as it avoids some obstacle in its way. I can understand on some level how my mind, infected as it is, can sense and have some affinity with the zoms, but how do they find us? What power or force of nature pulls them our way, drawn towards our healthy non-zom minds? However it does this, it is coming. I know it is. I feel it. I stand and drip dry. I have time.

  The pants go back on, since they are clean. I decide to leave the wound uncovered to get some air on it. I leave the shirt and jacket until I have belted on the .38. Passing through the entranceway I note that the zom is getting closer, and that as best I can tell it is alone. I crack the door and look about the yard. Nothing. I slip on some old flip-flops and wait; sitting at the fire pit, eating eggs.

  I peel them one at a time and throw the shells in the fire. I eat two and save the rest for later. I rub the skin off a pear and eat it, juices dripping. This guy is taking his time.

  At last it shambles out from behind the barn, and I rise, walking out into the trees, wiping my hands on my thighs. It follows.

  I don’t even look over my shoulder. I can feel it follow, twenty feet behind me, its one remaining arm raised. He looks like a bum, long scraggly beard and sore-pocked face. The clothes are fancy, like an Armani suit, shit-stained now, but probably brand new when he looted it off the rack before he was
bitten.

  He follows me like an obedient dog, all the way back to the ditch-pit where I stop and turn. I open the cylinder and check to make sure the .38 is loaded. There is a .357 round mixed in with the bunch, and I close it so that it is seated to fire first.

  I raise the pistol, thumb back the hammer, and wait. When he is about five feet from me, his arm raised, and his mouth open, I aim and pull the trigger.

  The noise hurts my ears, and I can feel molten lead backsplash burn my hand but not seriously. Kind of feels like snapping bacon grease from a hot pan. That is a hot round to run through a snubbie but it gets results.

  Bum-zom’s head falls forward, well, the front half does and the rest is chowder blowing backwards. I step aside, and he/it falls neatly over the edge and onto the pile. I felt the pressure disappear like a dropped switch when the hammer fell. It had been an odd rising pressure until that point, almost like I was being pushed physically in the brain, the harder when he closed in on me.

  I leave his smoking mess in the pit and start to walk back to the fire. I feel like a cold-one under the stars. The sun is sitting low behind me as I wind my way through the trees. The grass trampled low in some places, shin high in others. My eyes wander as I walk, watching my shadow do tricks around me, warping with the blades and stalks of the dancing plants.

  It is some world that I walked out into, all those weeks ago, which now feels like a lifetime. How have I missed stumbling into all of this before? Alone I thought myself to be, and alone I can be happy with myself. I feel the welling suspicion begin to tug at me, perhaps I am going crazy and creating these fantasies, believing them to be true. But one look at my leg, or the remains of lunch tells me otherwise. Maybe it is shock, too much too soon. These strange intrusions which upset my fragile mental state. And they have, disturbing my utopia with the another man’s revelation. I wonder about Bryce.

  His vision, an idealist’s dream, relies on everyone playing nice with one another. That is doomed to fail. It just isn’t in our nature. More likely, his town will limp forward, or completely sideways, adapting as all things break down.

  Electric light is an amazing thing to resurrect, but what happens when the bulbs burn out? No one, anywhere, is making new wire, fuses, circuits—anything. Salvage will provide some things; wood and nails from old homes, for awhile. What happens when things wear out? When the last bullet is fired, man, we’ll be using bows and arrows, sticks and stones.

  Perhaps Bryce’s plan rests in that library of his; detailed information on how to someday build again. His hope rests in his faith that people will one day want to build again. Well, not me. Bring on the new dark age.

  And how long will these zombies last? A normal body would be withering bones three years on. How long will these things last? One day, in the wan and sick sun of the distant future, will my progeny be accosted by leathery Hollywood socialites and creaky limbed yuppies? Not that I have any progeny. I chew these thoughts and digest them as I plan my evening.

  The fire is getting low, and I walk over and add logs, stacking them cross-hatch for optimal burning. This done, I position my chair just so. The pear booze I fetch from the cellar, and there I sit, watching the glow of burning fruit tree.

  My hand slips and I spill pear hooch on my beard and the cold of the sour fluid shocks me back to alertness. I walk over to the pump and wash it out before it gets sticky. The sun is down now, and as far as my mind can divine, the coast is clear. No zoms. Another perk of my new “freak” status: my nights are returned to me.

  The evening grinds on, and the effect of alcohol and flickering heat brings the tired out of me and makes it dance before my eyes. Best not to push it, Kyle. I think. My healing body and travel weariness have drained me. I nod and snap my head back up. Have I been asleep?

  Yes. The fire is low; a platter of orange embers. I am cold.

  I make my way back to the door and secure it behind me. I walk through the big room in the dark, trusting my familiarity to guide me.

  I find the ladder and ascend.

  I sleep.

  ⃰ ⃰ ⃰

  I am stumbling along a wide paved street. I am not sure which street, or which town, for it is dark and the lights are out; save for one.

  In the distance, a warm looking, red lump glows.

  I gravitate toward it, dragging my ruined leg behind me.

  I look down at it and noticed my garments, flowing rags, and a set of enormous breasts.

  I shake off this image; this strangeness. I am me again. The red lump calls to me. Now it is moving away from me.

  It closes itself behind a wall, and I can’t get past, but now there are others like me, and I know that one of them knows how to get in. I follow, around back.

  There is an opening. Success!

  The red lump resolves into the form of a humanoid male.

  Vibrations of sound wash over me.

  Some of my companions fall, but I lean over and grab the arm of the glowing red man. One of the others also tries to grab an arm.

  We pull.

  Others join us, pulling and tearing. The red is glowing everywhere now.

  I sink my teeth into the warmth. It glows inside me.

  ⃰ ⃰ ⃰

  I sit up in my bed, covered in sweat.

  “What the fuck?”

  It is a long time before I get back to sleep, but when it comes, it is black, long, and empty.

  Chapter 20

  Something startles me awake in the grey early hours. I think for a moment that I hear a receding echo. I go back to sleep.

  I awaken again, to the sound of someone knocking on my door. It is dawn, but just barely.

  I roll out of bed and look out the row of small windows; it is Nathan. He is dressed in khaki pants and a camo vest. He has a hunting rifle slung on his shoulder, and he is looking around. I tap on the glass, and he sees me.

  I stand up and test my leg.

  The air must have done it some good, because the ache is less, and the angry purple bruising has a faded yellow edge. The bite-scrape marks are still scabby.

  I toss on my clothes quickly; loaner pants and my camo jacket. Nathan is waiting at the door. I greet him and stepped out onto the stone steps.

  “Hey. Good morning. Was that you shooting earlier?”

  “Yes, I got one; you going to help me move it? I don’t think I can get it by myself. He’s a big bastard!” He smiles.

  “Yeah, hold on.” I say.

  I look around inside for a minute for something to put on my feet. I don’t have much to pick from, but after a time I find a pair of muddy sneakers that fit. That is one thing that I don’t take from the dead, shoes. It grosses me out. I walk back out, grabbing the .38 as I pass the table where I set it last night. I am belting it on as Nathan pumps some water and drinks from his hand.

  He coughs and then speaks, “That’s good water. Sweet. How deep did they have to dig to get to it?”

  “I’m not sure. Bill said it was deep; if I remember it right, maybe a couple hundred feet or something like that.”

  “Shit! Lucky you guys didn’t hit oil or something.” He winks.

  As dry as the land is up here, there exists a shallow aquifer down there. It had been too little to irrigate with; to people’s dismay, when they noticed that their wells went dry quick and refilled slow. Deeper drilling had found some brackish water, for the few that bothered. So long distance irrigation canals were built; some many miles long, and they provided for much of the lushness that followed, until the end. But Nate knows this, and now we have a deer to gut.

  I follow him out through the orchard, and he remarks about how thick with deer the place is. I explain that they seem to multiply when there is grounded fruit.

  The deer is enormous; must weigh two-hundred pounds. I struggle to lift it from where it has drug itself; shot through the hip, then the neck. Once I have it on my shoulders, we walk off a ways to get away from the beaten path, to the butcher tree.

  Nathan helps to
hoist it, and once we have it up, he produces a wicked looking knife. I watch closely as he cuts and chops at the carcass. He glances at the coyote bitten, half drug off, and dried guts from the last kill, the one I had to abandon. He looks over his shoulder at me.

  “What happened there?”

  I swallow, smelling the busted entrails and wishing that I had a kerosene soaked rag or something, it doesn’t seem to bother Nate. “Yeah, I got distracted, and then the day got away from me, so it didn’t get butchered.”

  He grimaces.

  “You don’t have much experience with this kind of stuff do you?”

  I shake my head no.

  “So pay attention,” I do, and then “don’t leave it till the job is done, it’s a ticking clock, and you can’t stop it,” he pauses, pulling off the hide like a glove and hacking at the spine and then the ribs, quartering the carcass quickly “for anything.”

  It is a bloody mess.

  We quickly have a five gallon bucket full of what he calls “stew parts”. I tell him I want thin cuts for jerky and he cuts quickly, racing the flies and time. These strips go into another bundle with a leg on the top for spit roasting. He stacks the other quarters, leaves the bucket for me to carry and pauses, looking back at the pile of offal and skin.

  “The rest,” says Nathan, “is for the coyotes. Don’t waste your time messing around with the guts. There’re no fridges, and you aren’t going to run out of deer. Take what you need, and feed the coyotes with the rest.”

  I nod. We grab our burdens, and head back to the yard. Nate makes for the fire with the bucket and leaves the rest for me to deal with. He gets to work with the kettle and dressing that one leg for the spit. I go to my shed- turned smoke house.

  It is very dark inside and smells chimney-like. I eye my “ham” dubiously. It has a nice mold on it, supposedly this is a good sign. I push it to the side and it slides easily on the shower curtain rod, I hang the three new deer slabs and walked further in. The strips I hang quickly from the fishing wire and hooks that I have installed for this purpose. There must be pounds of the stuff hanging when I am done. I light a fire in the pot-bellied Benjamin and find some damp apple wood chunks for the smoke. It will sit all day and all night with minimal attention from me. I close the door up tight and look up at the make-shift chimney. Curls of white smoke are starting to wisp up to the sky.