The Zom Diary

by Eddie Austin

  “Hey, Bryce, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “Ok then, forget it. Let’s go. How far do we go today?”

  “It’s a ways over that first rise, then another beyond it. Maybe eight miles to the first night’s stop. I have a place in mind. Doesn’t sound far, but there is a lot of up involved.”

  I wait for him to collect his gear, his face is still pale. The sun and heat will do him good, and help him sweat out all that booze. I don’t envy him.

  The path out doesn’t start right at the shack’s yard. I am intentionally deceptive here, not blazing any clear path until well beyond sight of the place. A couple of times I hear Bryce exclaim as a loose branch whips his face or arms. He drops back a couple of paces. The brush is thick here on the ‘wet’ side of the hills. After a mile or so, the incline starts.

  ⃰ ⃰ ⃰

  The trail has a hypnotic effect, and the longer I walk, the more intent my gaze, scanning ahead of me, registering objects as they flit past: clumps of grass, flat rock, a weathered knob of root. My brain cooks the images into chowder for my subconscious, which is deeply nourishing on some spiritual level. I’ve always felt closer to whatever creative force exists in the world while out of doors and high up.

  The scrub has long receded by mid-morning, making way to bare yellow rock, sand and the occasional ancient pine. The sentinel beings cling to rock ledges with improbable success. It seems to me that any moment, one of the squat twisted things will fall and tackle me to the ground with its bristle-arms.

  I pause at a tall boulder, clamber up, and look back for the first time this morning, down on the valley behind me. Bryce joins me, dropping his pack, and grabbing water.

  “Wow.” Bryce croaks.

  I agree. The view is incredible. From here at two thousand feet, the objects back in the valley look miniature. Toy farm with rows of trees, cross hatch patches on a brown/green quilt. The road cuts west, a gray line bordered on one side by a large patch of black, the results of my activities days before. Salem might just be visible on the horizon; hard to tell at this distance.

  I’m looking for the great canal responsible for diverting water out to this land, a nice landmark, when Bryce draws my attention back to our surroundings.

  “So, how are we doing, time and distance wise?”

  “Fine. Over that next rise you can see the peak, maybe 3,000 feet or close to it. There is a little bit of actual climbing involved near where we’ll camp, for safety reasons, but smooth hiking otherwise.”

  “Great. I like this place; I can see why you come out here.”

  I nod and survey the wreckage below before answering.

  “Someday, I’d like to come up here and see no trace of us, just land overgrown and natural, like it was thousands of years ago. Except for Salem, of course, and my barn. I’m going to keep that up.”

  “Kyle, what soured you on mankind? I know we weren’t perfect, but we weren’t all bad either.”

  I let out a deep breath.

  “Where to begin? The invention of money? The division between wealth and poverty? Big businesses that crushed people and ruined the planet for their own greed? Or, the little greed and laziness of regular people too lazy to change habits that ruined our air and water? I think the last straw was that mass of plastic out in the Pacific. You ever hear of it?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah? It’s twice the size of Texas, our floating plastic garbage, churning in a current driven maelstrom. Somewhere past Hawaii, but before New Zealand. It’s still out there slowly breaking down to fine particles and even base chemicals, turning the water into a yellow poison soup. Forever. That shit will be in the water cycle forever. Sorry…”

  “It’s ok. I hate that kind of stuff, too. It doesn’t have to be that way the next time. We can build a new world, learn from our mistakes.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. There is always someone that ruins it for everyone else. Always one asshole. Even in your little utopia, one day someone will show up and have all the wrong ideas, and be in a position to enforce them. How could you prevent it? You won’t live forever. I was glad when the end came! It felt like justice.”

  I continue to stare out at the valley. The rock is warm from the sun, and afternoon is coming. It’s past time to move.

  “Come on Bryce. I don’t want to sit too long.”

  “Yeah. Ok,” he mutters.

  We’re silent as we continue on and I suddenly realize that I’d been yelling towards the end of that rant. I’ve been too long without practicing social niceties. I’ve probably offended him on some level. That’s what happens when you’re honest, when you’re not afraid to tell people how fucked things are, or were. People don’t want to dwell on the evils of the world, not when there is a tomorrow to put it off for. But there’s no tomorrow now, just the rest of our time ‘til we die.

  Twisting our way up and around the rounded boulders of the hill, we start to gain altitude quickly. The short pines fade out, and even sand is blown away, leaving only bare yellow rock, flaked with black mica, and collections of smooth polished gravel in any crevasse or hole.

  The wind is warm, but feels cooling from our sweat. Whipping around us, it has the added effect of blowing away the biting flies that have harried us up the incline below. Looking out at the horizon is easier now, and it feels like we are above the haze of the valley. Violet-blue skies…

  I lead us around the base of the peak. There is no reason to go all the way up, and the footing is more treacherous that way. Around and down, Bryce gets his first look at the dessert, salt pan, below.

  Grey-yellow. Flat? Beyond flat. From this distance, it almost looks like a convex. Bryce is silent, and I worry I might have really upset him. No good. I think. Not with him watching my back.

  “Bryce, about earlier. I’m sorry. That was some heavy shit, and I didn’t mean to lecture you.”

  He’s still silent, looking out, jaw slightly open. Finally, he speaks, “There’s nothing there.”

  I wrinkle my brow in confusion.

  “Uh, yeah. I told you. Big, flat, empty as can be.”

  He looks over at me now, eyes almost pained. “You can’t feel it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s like it’s going to pull me off the mountain.”

  “What is?”

  “There’s nothing there.” He whispers.

  “You said that. We agree. Are you ok?”

  He winces, closing his eyes tight for a second, then shudders. “Yeah, yes. It’s just a lot to take in. There is something big down there. I can’t see it, but it’s there.”

  “Maybe when we’re closer I’ll feel it. What about the prophet? Is it safe to assume we’re all headed to the same place?”

  “Yes, I think I understand now what he meant about it calling to him. Could he have felt this all the way from town?”

  I’m starting to worry now. If Bryce loses his shit out there in the desert, I won’t be much help to him, and good luck explaining that back in town. Sudden visions of Molly carrying a torch with mob in tow assailing me.

  “Bryce, should we go back?”

  “No, the feeling is passing, it’s just so strong. I’ll make it. I have to settle this.”

  “Ok. We’re almost to the place I want to camp. Let’s go.”

  I slide down the side of a boulder and feel my feet stomp down into the gravel, caught beneath it, on a ledge. Around and up, following the small ridge that leads over to the next peak. We won’t be going that far, though.

  Coming around another bend in the wind-sculpted rock, I pause and look up the side of a conspicuously flat wall, maybe fifteen feet from ledge to lip. Bryce stops behind me, and I turn to him.

  “We’re here. Watch me go first. It looks harder than it is.”

  “Ok.”

  Reaching up, I feel for the shallow handhold that I know is there and pull myself up, legs wide, hips close to the rock. I find my foot holds and climb sideways, a foot at a time. The crack runs out,
and I reach over for the next knobby grip. Using both hands, I swing from this, toe-catching another lip, this one wider and going up and left at an angle. About halfway up this, I can grab the top edge and pull myself up, which I do, before rolling to the side.

  The place is as I left it: the wide circular ledge with a gravel filled basin at the back is perhaps fifteen feet at its widest diameter. A bare trickle of water drips from a crack in the back wall and gathers to form a small pool to the right side, maybe four feet across, six inches deep, shaped like a teardrop.

  I set my pack down and lean over the edge. Bryce is still working his way across the face below. He pauses where I pulled myself up and I offer to take his rifle for him. He passes it up, before pulling himself over the lip and taking in his surroundings.

  “Nice place.” He exclaims appreciatively.

  “Yeah, I found it last year when I was out here messing around. That rock face is the only way up, so no zombie worries, and as far as I’ve seen that pool is the only good water out here. It makes for a nice stopover.”

  “I can see why,” he clears his throat, panting some as we both catch our breath from the climb “about earlier. Don’t worry about it. I have a different perspective, that’s all. My glass is half-full. And, if you should ever want to come back to society and see what we’re making of it, you are welcome.”

  “Thanks. I respect your vision Bryce, I hope you succeed--really. Just don’t get caught off guard if you find one day that the glass is empty. This world is made for the solitary man, trust me.”

  With that, I walk over to the pool and set one of my empty bottles under the trickle of water. Bryce makes no effort to continue the conversation and I agree; don’t force it. Looking down, the small pool is clear and lined with the same gravel as the rest of the place, smoky quartz and yellow granite. I lean over and wash the rock dust from my hands, an almost spiritual act.

  In trips past, I have spent days here, smoking, watching the great buzzards ride currents of warm air, meditating and lying in the pool, cool water beneath me, my front baking in the sun. I’m not sure if I dare to smoke now, not after my last experience. I don’t want to have a freak out in front of Bryce. Damn it.

  I look over, and Bryce is sitting on his pack with his rifle out, scope aimed at the plain below. I join him at the edge and chew on some dried fruit.

  “See anything?”

  “Not really. Which way do we head from here? I’ll look ahead.”

  I point down to the left, distantly, where the hill meets the pan, and at several arroyos that form there and cut paths down and through the desert.

  “We cut over there and follow one of those out. Maybe another day’s worth of travel and there is a man made tunnel, like a big culvert or underground irrigation canal. That’s as far as I’ve been.”

  “You said there was nothing out here,” he sounds shocked, “what kind of tunnel?”

  “It’s an old public works project, or maybe an outlet from another town or something.”

  Bryce looks amused. “Out here?”

  “Yeah, out there.”

  “No offense, but I don’t think you’ve thought that one through. There is nothing out here that needs drainage or that anyone would try to bring water to,” he nods absently to himself, “I want to see it, if we go anywhere close by.”

  My turn to consider, then: “Well, once we’re down there, which direction are we headed? Which way are you being pulled?”

  Bryce points his finger to the right, and then out some--pointing pretty much directly toward where the tunnel should be.

  “Whoa.”

  “That’s where it is, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  We are both silent now. Bryce brings his rifle back up and scopes along the paths below us. I walk back over to my pack and grab the paperback. Maybe three hours till sunset, and then an early night.

  As I settle down on the gravel, my back to the wall, I can just hear Bryce mutter to himself from the edge: “What is going on out here?

  Chapter 27

  The sun is well up when the next day finds me. Piercing, it seems, from this height. Lying on the gravel, my body sunken into it in a comfortable way, I stare up at the bright light. No clouds here, now familiar, violet-blue sky; it brings me no warmth.

  Rolling to my side, I see that Bryce is up, perched on the edge, scope-searching the ground below us. I fold my white shroud and pack up my things before joining him.

  “See anything?”

  He turns his face from the scope, but is careful to hold it in the same position.

  “Good morning, yes, I do. There, below that third wash from that rose-colored edge. There.”

  I look down to where he indicates. Ant-small, I can make out the slow confused movements of the zombie. It looks like a scarecrow, torn clothing, casting a thin, nearly imperceivable shadow, as it tries to clamber its way beyond the many obstacles below.

  “Can you hit it from here?”

  “Maybe. It would be fun to try, but I thought I’d wait for you to get up first. Care to spot for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Head back to the scope, I see him track back to the form and make an adjustment, aiming a little high. The gun reports, shaking his frame, and I see a tiny puff of dust far to the right and low.

  “Low and right.”

  He makes another adjustment, lets out a deep breath, and fires again. This time the puff is low, but spot on.

  “Low.”

  Bryce seats another round and raises the rifle even higher before firing again. My ears ring this time. The round hits the thing square in the pelvis, giving it the appearance of taking a bow. It doesn’t get back up, but I still see movement.

  “Hit.”

  Bryce lowers the rifle and begins to pick up spent brass.

  “I can’t see its head anymore,” he states, “won’t be going anywhere, though.”

  The rest of the morning and into the hot part of the day finds us fighting our way down the side of the hill. No pine or scrub of any kind on the dry side of the hills. Desert lichen, small colorful loose gravel, and the occasional reptile constitute our surroundings and company. My new boots work well. Bryce stops a couple of times to remove aggravating pieces of the small gravel from his low hiking shoes. Once we drop into the first wash-out, the head of the arroyo that we’ll follow out, I notice a decrease in temperature due to shade and circumstance. It’s a nice place to rest, so I decide to start a conversation.

  “So, how far do you think the prophet has gotten?”

  Bryce has taken the lead now, drawn forward by his senses, and stops to rest against the wall opposite from me.

  “He left Salem four or five days ago, so he’s got at least a full day on us. I assume he doesn’t know his way through the hills like you do, so your guess is as good as mine, behind us or before us.”

  “Was he armed? I mean, could he be back up there now, watching us through a scope?”

  “I can’t say,” he pauses to spit out some dust. “He didn’t take Daniel’s rifle, and I’ve never seen him use a gun, so plan for any contingency.”

  “Sure.”

  We start walking, and I suggest we climb up onto the open pan for a minute --to take it all in.

  Hundreds of thousands of years ago, this would have been the floor of a small inland salt water sea, or maybe more properly, a lake. Now it is dry, beyond dry, and so flat that it can play tricks on ones vision, or mind. I want to experience this effect again and to admire how it deceives the senses.

  Taking a few steps away from the trench cut by long forgotten winter rain, I behold the vastness before me. The longer I look out, the stranger things become. I remove the amber colored aviators and blink once. I hear Bryce shuffle behind me. There is no other sound.

  I sat once, on a quiet night in my parent’s sound proof basement, as a child, looking through stacks of old National Geographic magazines. I can remember the sound of the pages turning, sounding alarmingly
loud in my ears. I can close my eyes, as I did that night, and hear a silence, so complete, that it thunders in my mind. The ultimate dead air. No static. No heartbeat. Silence.

  I feel Bryce’s hand on my shoulder and realize that I must have swayed standing there. He clears his throat, “Hey. We should get going.”

  “Right. Hang on.”

  It’s time. Walking as we are, toward this beacon of death, I feel that I can accept my own mortal terror. I’m not afraid to die, to go on to the plains beyond, to drink with my ancestors. I pull out my pipe and check the green bud packed in tight. That same old cracked purple lighter, roller rusty. I take a pull.

  Bryce sighs and heads back to the slope of the arroyo. I start to follow, exhaling as I walk. Yes, the terror is there.

  My extremities tingle, and I feel my palms moisten, but still, a smile forms on my lips. I resist the urge to drink from my water bottle and take another hit. Coughing spasms wrack my body, and I have to pause. Bryce waits up ahead.

  The tingling sensation localizes in my face. I can feel my jaw and chin become numb, and a deep coolness radiates from here. I spit clear thick saliva from my raw throat. Bryce is moving ahead. I can trust him, at least to lead on, so I follow him with an automatic pace that comes from my snake-brain, same place as the pace of breathing.

  The arroyo slopes to either side, one half-shaded. Bryce lumbers ten feet ahead, under the weight of his pack. Silent.

  I follow, awaiting that sensation of first contact with this force in the desert.

  Nothing yet.

  My mind wanders, and I reason my way around the idea of panic. I am anonymous in my own mind, but in this meditative state, this is irrelevant, even preferable. I pull my knobkerrie from its place, looped through a strap on my pack, and swing its head in slow circles, slapping it against my palm as I think.

  I plod on, following the arc of the land and Bryce’s footprints before my own. After an indeterminable time, I feel the pressure slide into position in my mind. It is staggering. I slip to one knee, taking halting breaths. Bryce turns and walks back to me.