by TW Brown
I roasted big chunks of the tender meat; enough to get me to the next town. According to my map, it is Tonopah. If those folks I left behind eventually come, they will have a sign telling them that there are supplies inside the school. Also, they will be able to avail themselves to my makeshift barbeque.
In the morning I will be on the move once more. Even with this brief stopover, my desire and excitement about reaching Las Vegas has not dimmed. I know I may be setting myself up for disappointment, but the possibility does exist that I will find what I have been looking for when I finally get there. I’ve likened this to joining the military…the chance to travel and see things coupled with a (relatively) safe and secure place to return to once your mission is complete.
Saturday, September 18
According to the map, this is Tonopah, Nevada. Too bad there isn’t enough left to identify it as such. I have no idea what happened but it looks like the military bombed the crap out of this place. The worst aspect of that is my water situation. It hasn’t rained in I can’t remember how long and I haven’t found anything drinkable since leaving Mina.
There was one cool thing. I found a mostly intact Stealth-Bomber. I’m fairly sure that’s what it was. Bad news, the pilots were both zombies. I don’t even want to know what has happened here. And as flattened as everything is…I have one worry that won’t go away.
Did they nuke this place?
Seriously, I have never seen the kind of absolute obliteration that exists here. I bet that if I could get an overhead view, I would see a well-defined blast radius.
Also, other than the two pilots in the crash-landed bomber, there is nothing living here. I haven’t seen the rustle of jackrabbits or even a fluttering bird in two days. To make matters worse, I’ve been walking through some undisturbed ash and debris.
Tonight, I’m camping in the payload area of the downed aircraft. I stuck a blade in the sides of the heads of the zombies in the cockpit. I know they seemed strapped in and all, but I just couldn’t get comfortable knowing they were right there straining against their harnesses. Also, what good does it do to leave any of those things alive when you have the chance to put them down?
I sure hope that I find water soon.
Sunday, September 19
Holy crap! It is freezing cold. It feels like somebody threw a giant switch. Normally it gets cold at night, but today it never felt like it warmed up at all.
I’ve passed all these so-called National and State parks. Really? They just seem like dead volcanoes. Some of the distant hills and mountains look like they got dusted with powdered sugar overnight.
There are lots of trenches and gullies carved into the earth around these parts, but not a drop of water that I could see or hear. I am checking any and all abandoned vehicles that I passed, but so far…nothing.
I’m too far out in the middle of nowhere to turn around. All I can do is press on and pray that I find water soon. Being extra careful, I’ll be down to my last canteen by the end of tomorrow.
Monday, September 20
Damn.
I’m trapped on the second floor of the Esmeralda County Courthouse in a town called Goldfield. Using the word ‘town’ might be stretching things just a bit.
This place doesn’t even qualify as a pencil dot on a map. It seems more like it was left in tribute or something to miners of the old days. There couldn’t have been as many people living here as there are zombies on the street. The biggest problem is that I didn’t see where they came from. I ducked inside this big, brick building looking for water, next thing I know, the streets were crawling with the undead. There weren’t even any inside when I arrived! That is what has me so confused.
I’d already checked out what passed as an airstrip at the north end of town and made my way through a few residences. I went in to check out the courthouse which has no windows left on the ground floor—but all of them still in place upstairs. That’s when things went wrong.
I heard the crash of something heavy and metallic hitting the ground. Hurrying up the stairs, I looked out the window and was stunned. Hundreds of those things were on the street. They weren’t focused on any one building—several were pouring inside mine and I quickly barred and braced the emergency exit—but the largest number converged on this four-story building up the road a ways.
The thing is, I keep hearing something. At first it took me a while to recognize what I am certain is conversation. There are others in this town. Living, breathing, talking people.
I’m left wondering if it is these people that brought the zombies. Perhaps they were on the run from a herd. The only problem with that possibility is that anybody that has survived for this long knows not to run someplace and trap yourself with those things on your tail. Zombies don’t get bored and will stay outside, clawing at your doors and walls until something comes along to distract them and lead them away. Even then, if it is a big herd like this one, (I’m guessing it at well over a thousand) then you can’t be sure that all of them will leave. The only way to survive a herd is to lead them on a wild goose chase and lose them as soon as possible.
Since the zombies seemed to be clustered to various degrees around every building in town, I’m not entirely certain what happened. All I know right now is that there are a frightening number clawing at the two doors that would allow access to this floor. If I get any sleep tonight it will be a miracle.
Tuesday, September 21
I don’t know who they are, but I hate them. It’s a large group; of that much I am certain. Most can’t be out of their teens yet. It’s a mix of boys and girls from what I can see, and there doesn’t seem to be one main leader.
This bunch has a real Lord of the Flies nature about them. On multiple occasions I saw them fighting each other as viciously as they do the zombies. I don’t have a clue as to how these idiots have survived this long. I even witnessed a pair of very pregnant girls—the older one was maybe fifteen—go at each other with knives.
Twice they tried to gain my building. Once they even made it to the second floor and tried to get in. I’ve become very proficient at setting a barricade these past couple of years. They gave up when traffic got too heavy.
I’ve heard a few of those screams. Once, I even saw a boy tossed out from a window into the waiting mob below.
The boys and the girls seem to be almost primal with their urges. I’ve looked out a few times to see a boy just run up behind a girl and yank her pants down while she looked out a window or over the edge of a roof. But nothing blew me away more than when I saw a girl tackle a boy, roll him onto his back, and straddle him at knifepoint. This group seems to have no filters whatsoever.
I hope they don’t get any sort of clarity any time soon and mount an assault on my position. I have no doubts as to the chances of my survival. What I need is to get the hell out of here.
Friday, September 24
I’m where a lot of people always thought I would end up: a brothel. This is the first compound of survivors that I have found that isn’t fenced and fortified. Stranger still, this place is a functioning brothel.
Let me correct myself. There is some fortification; all of the doors and windows are barred, and the gun turrets on the roof are iron-plated. But that’s it. According to Jasmine, the house madam, that’s all they need. There are concrete pill-boxes set up two miles out and spaced at five hundred yard intervals around this place. They rely on Morse code and flags to indicate when there are approaching parties, whether they are living or undead, and in what numbers. It’s primitive, but it seems to work.
Besides the madam and her dozen working girls, there are three hundred soldiers here. They weren’t from either faction that fought over Vegas, but they are aware of them. I doubt they’ll have any problem though. This is the largest concentration of weapons I’ve see yet. They have the building that once functioned as the truck stop packed from floor-to-ceiling with ammo, RPGs and all sorts of stuff.
The head honcho of the soldiers, Ed
die Scott, said that they’ve held meetings with some of the leaders from Las Vegas and there’s no concern that an attack will be coming. When I asked about the apparent issue between the folks at Winnemucca and Las Vegas, Eddie said that their beef was an issue between the two unit commanders that spilled over to the men. His group came from Colorado, and has been here for just over a year.
I asked about civilian traffic and he said that I was the first they’d seen in two months. Then I mentioned that pack of feral children. He said that they lost a few men to them last winter. Supposedly, one of the young girls lured a patrol into a secured place. He was sketchy on the details, but I got the idea that it had been very ugly. With what I witnessed, I can only imagine; and even then, I’m probably coming up short.
He asked how I managed to escape a town full of them and zombies. It turned out to be no big feat. The kids apparently grew bored with whatever twisted games they were playing and went on a rampage. And even then, that was some sort of game. They were intentionally beheading the zombies so that they would remain animated. Then they strung the heads from poles, stuck them on fence posts, and all sorts of varieties on that theme.
It was during this event that I made my break for it. I had to take out a few zombies on the way, but I knew that I had to get out of town before they brought their attention back to my building, and more specifically, my locked door. I’m really glad that I didn’t encounter any of those kids on my way out. I don’t know if I would have just been able to kill yet another living being—much less a child—unless they did something first. And my guess is that by then it would have been too late.
This place runs like clockwork. The men and women come and go as they start their shifts. I guess the brothel only had eight girls to start, but a few of the soldiers opted out of the military unit and went to work for Jasmine. It all seems a bit surreal, but this is the world that we live in. Goods and luxuries are the currency of today. The soldiers bring in the goods, and the girls provide the luxuries.
I did the math in my head, and if my guess of two hundred and twenty-ish is close when it comes to how many men are in this group, I figure those twelve ‘working girls’ are getting ridden twice a day every day if each guy only gets one turn per week. And I’m thinking, my guess may be conservative because the six bedrooms are in use around the clock.
Fun fact: each one of the girls is sterile. Three of them were before; I guess the others had a procedure done by the company’s medic. Additionally, almost two dozen of the men were forbidden contact with all but one of the women—one of the female soldiers it turns out—because of STDs. The woman in question is infected with something, none of my business. She is also the only one that is required to use condoms with every customer.
Here’s where it gets a little stranger. The men restricted to her have made runs as far away as Salt Lake City to bring back hundreds of thousands of condoms. I’m no expert, but I know those things have a shelf life. I wonder what happens when those things either go bad or they finally run out. The whole thing is a bit dark and creepy if you ask me, but it is a reminder of what we are as a species…pleasure seekers. When it comes down to it, we want to feel good.
I asked about the women in the company. It seems that they are all encouraged to “play the field.” I don’t see anything good coming from that. We are also a possessive species, one day, someone’s going to snap.
There are seven children here between the ages of a couple of months to what I am guessing to be about a nine-month-old. They really take the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ adage to heart in this place. There is an RV that is used as the nursery, and it appears that everybody rotates through just like a watch shift to care for the children. I’ve never lived in a commune, but I imagine that this is what it would look like.
These folks hunt, fish—although I have no idea where—and even grow stuff. They didn’t tell me where the greenhouses were, only that they have some constructed in the hills. There are windmills set up all over the place, but none of it is used to power lights. When night falls, this whole facility goes into blackout mode. Nothing more than fire pits provide lights after sunset.
I’ll stay here a couple of days. I offered to go out with the hunting group, and in exchange I am getting a water pack. It’s like a backpack but it holds water. The drawback is that I will have to fill it with my canteens because it doesn’t have any filtration device. Which reminds me, I’m down to my last two changeable filters for my canteens. I really need to reach a bigger town and hope they have some sort of sporting goods store and hope further still that they haven’t been completely looted. The filling time on this pack if I use my canteens would be most of a day, and that would also mean that I would be lugging about sixty-four pounds on my back. The more likely scenario would be filling it a little over half way and keeping my canteens full. Honestly, I don’t short change myself, but I can’t see me toting almost seventy pounds on my back for any length of time.
Saturday, September 25
Left this morning to go up into the hills and hunt. I sure wish I could bring this rifle with me when I leave, but I’ve been told that there is absolutely no way that will happen.
I spent the early part of the afternoon on this rocky outcropping. I bagged a nice buck. Being the owner of the first kill was a little source of pride for me. I think a few of the guys—and even the one female soldier—were impressed.
Everywhere I look it is brown. The ground is brown, the plants are brown, and I think this place is starting to get to me. All I want to do is to get moving again. Once I reach Vegas, if I sign on to be a caravan escort, l like I am hoping to, I’d like to do some traveling that takes me into places with a little more color. However, I can’t knock the sunsets out here. They’re incredible.
Tuesday, September 28
Back to what I’ve titled Brothel Base.
I leave tomorrow. Oh yeah! And I’ll have company. Her name is Justine Cash and she has family that is rumored to still be alive in Las Vegas.
I guess it will be nice to have somebody to talk to. She was one of the soldiers. Apparently, while I was on the hunting trip, a team returned from some sort of mission to Beatty, a town about thirty-five to forty-five miles south of here. They ran into a team from someplace called Pahrump. So, based on third or fourth hand information, Justine is heading for Vegas by way of Beatty. Since they knew I was headed that way already, Eddie, the commander or whatever he is—everyone just calls him Eddie, nobody uses rank or anything like that around here—asked Justine to wait. I guess the idea is safety in numbers or something like that.
Wednesday, September 29
On the road.Absolutely nothing to see.
It didn’t take long for Justine and me to get chatty. She asked me why I was headed for Vegas. That kind of surprised me. I assumed that Eddie or somebody had filled her in.
I explained that I’d been in a few compounds and fortified towns, and it just wasn’t for me. I told her how I’d never been anyplace before the zombie apocalypse and how I heard a radio broadcast one night. I decided on the spot that I wanted to go see for myself.
We probably walked in silence for almost twenty minutes. I actually started to feel a bit uncomfortable. Then…Justine let me have it. She told me how she’s fought at least fifty intense battles—I guess that meant battles lasting longer than an hour—against living and undead. She’s been close to starving at least a dozen times, nearly killed by dehydration three times and considers herself lucky. She thinks I’m an idiot.
“You survived the worst disaster in all of history and you run around seeing how close you can get to death. How can you value your life so little?” she asked.
I explained that I didn’t think I valued my life so little. I feel that I am actually turning a terrible situation into an opportunity. She retorted that I was suicidal and that everything that she’d done to risk her life had been in the line of duty. She went on to say that this trip was the extent of her carel
essness, and that if her brother wasn’t actually in Las Vegas, she would either join their military security regiment or wait for the first chance to join a team that would take her back to her original unit. Going out on her own wasn’t even a remote consideration.
The rest of the day, we just walked. We made good time, but the silence was a bit oppressive. If I’d known that I was gonna get preached to and told that I’d basically lived the last two-plus years wrong…I would have gone alone. Good thing I didn’t tell her about my baby.
Thursday, September 30
Spending tonight in the trailer of a jackknifed semi. The sky is clear, which means that the night will be very cold. We did luck out; last night we had to sleep out in the brush in shifts. This trailer is hard to get into. That means that zombies won’t be a problem even if they pass by. Not that I expect them to, we haven’t seen a single thing since we hit the road.
Today was more of the same uncomfortable silence. I hope we reach Beatty tomorrow so I can ditch her and go back to being alone. I thought it would be nice to have somebody to travel with. I was wrong.
She did actually ask me what I was writing at some point last night after we made camp. I told her it was none of her damn business. If that was her attempt to bridge the gap or whatever…too bad. I mean really, who is she to judge me?