The Dead Lands Diary (Book 1)

by Staggs, S. David

  ME: Start tomorrow.

  ***

  That evening before watch I asked Tim about how things were here in the early days of everything.

  He couldn't actually give me much of an answer. He and Ken sheltered in place and didn't leave...not until that dreadful day Ken left for town.

  He said from back here they saw some cars go here and there. Many were full of people and had bags strapped to their roof or stuff piled into the back of trucks and vans. Many of them probably headed to the "Safe Zones." Others were likely heading to places where they had family or to find loved ones maybe stuck somewhere they couldn't leave from.

  He heard screaming a lot. Gunshots here and there. Screeching of tires. The panic and chaos of course wasn't limited to the cities. It found its way into every neighborhood and even scarce country areas littered with houses here and there. It didn't matter.

  This road was nearly all field devoid of homes save for this one. Two miles down the road lead to a dead end. Turn left or right.

  Houses were a little more frequent on that stretch and that's where we'd begin. It's probably where we should have begun in the first place. Looking for Ken had been priority and that got us thrown quickly into the danger of larger population areas. We were already getting so used to it all that the previous day we had walked around that store and crossed the street to the bar. Something just two weeks-hell, one week- prior we'd have never done. I'm not sure if that was arrogance or cockiness setting in or just facing the truth that constant risk and danger was now an everyday part of life.

  ***

  The next day we got a later start than usual. Headed out about 2:30pm. Kelly stayed behind on this one; Ben taking her place. He was delighted to say the least...even if we were only going a few miles down the road.

  When we reached the dead end we made a random choice. I turned right. Woods to our left. Field and tree clusters to the right which later went on to match the forested right.

  After about another three miles we came upon a farm house on the right. It was white with peeling paint and vines ran up along one side the length of both stories. The gravel driveway was already giving way to growing weeds sprouting sporadically.

  I pulled in and parked halfway in the drive. The house was only about fifteen yards away. Behind it stood a large white barn in the same condition. It's double doors shut.

  BEN: Same routine as always?

  ME: Yes. Just wanna watch for activity. Don't ever get too over confident, Ben. We never know if there's infected...and second, when we're dealing with homes...never know if someone is still sheltering in or someone has claimed a place as their own.

  REGGIE: Old farm houses creep me out man....I've seen enough scary movies to make me scared of places like this. Fuck this.

  JIM: Just movies.

  REGGIE: Still. It's creepy.

  BEN: Is kinda creepy.

  ME: Stop creeping yourselves out. We have enough to be spooked by as it is, don't add to it. Let's go.

  We approached slowly and climbed onto the front porch. Just in case, I thought it was safe to knock but I didn't want to knock too loudly. Might be out in the country but we hear enough Dead Calls through the night to know there's plenty of infected roaming around.

  I knocked lightly. Waited. Knocked again.

  Nothing.

  I turned the unlocked knob and pushed the door open. A dining area. The now normal smell of dust. A rotting food smell. We stepped in and closed the door behind us. I shouted "Hello" but no one called back. No rushing of footfalls, no Dead Calls. I said aloud that if anyone was there to just say leave and we'd leave and we meant no harm...just looking for supplies.

  Quiet.

  Reggie opened a curtain on the left of us beside the door to let more light in. The table had four chairs. The blue table cloth was tidy and neatly placed. Straight back I could see the backdoor. Left, feet past the table, was the staircase and directly left across from the table was a small livingroom area that had a step leading down into it. To the right of the back door was another room I guessed to be the kitchen. I could see part of a tiled floor.

  I stepped down into the livingroom. A red recliner sat in one corner alongside a floral couch. A forty inch TV hung on the wall. It had a crack running through it. A couple newspapers were on the dark wooded coffee table in front of the couch. Dots of what appeared to be blood scattered across them. An ashtray with butts and an empty cup.

  We walked toward the kitchen area and the smell of rot became more apparent. Turning into the room there was blood smeared across the floor. A good amount of it. There was a basement door adjacent to the white stove. The door was cracked and the smeared blood led through it.

  Reggie let out a swift "Fuck No!"

  I was inclined to agree with him. We all were. I wasn't ready to check the basement just yet.

  We went upstairs. Before us was a large bathroom, the door cracked. A long hall ran down the left. A door in the middle of the hall, again, on the left; two others spaced apart opposite of it. All the doors were open.

  The first on the right appeared to be full of clutter. Boxes, crates, plastic bins and bags. Just a storage room of sorts. The next room, on the left, housed a computer. Above it, on the wall, hung a painting of a pasture with two cows grazing. A floral border lining the tops of the walls. A filing cabinet by a window. It was a small room.

  The last room was a large bedroom. There was blood on the white carpet. Dots and splats of it. It was also on the wooden floor we had just crossed but hadn't noticed in the dark until we left.

  A queen sized bed between two lean windows. On the far right wall hung a photo of a couple; presumably the one that obviously lived here.

  Middle aged couple. A rather lean man with a pinstripe shirt and graying hair with a slightly larger woman, also with a little graying hair, sitting next to him. She had on a blue dress and had a bright smile.

  We walked back and I nudged open the bathroom door all the way. Bloody hand prints lined the sink. Blood mixed with water specked the mirror. A bloody yellow towel cast aside near the tub. I wished we'd chosen a different house first. More so, I was glad Kelly wasn't with us on this one. I knew she'd obviously been adjusting well, but damn. I knew she could handle it...Jim did too, too....yet he still naturally wanted to shield her from it all. I guess I did also. You'd think we'd feel that more strongly for Ben considering his age, but somehow he seemed generally okay. Still, this scene was a bit much....then again, he witnessed his family being slaughtered by infected, so this probably wasn't much for him.

  I needed to stop underestimating people and how much they could handle.

  We went back to the kitchen and basement door. We checked the cabinets first. Plenty of canned goods to go around. A jackpot really. We couldn't fit it all in our bags we'd brought. One on Bens back the other on Reggie, along with two duffle bags in the SUV. We also found a fair share of noodles and bags of chips...cheese dip and salsa that hadn't been open. That'd be a nice treat for us all that we sure hadn't had in awhile. We'd have to make a few trips or so to gather it all. It wasn't enough for the long winter ahead, but it was a nice start. We had many other homes to check.

  I clicked my light, followed by the others. I opened the door to the basement and peered down. The smell of rot rushed up and greeted us.

  REGGIE: I feel sick.

  No fuckin' argument there.

  Breathing through my mouth I lead the way down the creaky bloody wooden stairs to the uneven dirt floor below. The ceiling was low and we slightly had to crouch. Reggie more so. Ben was fine.

  I focused my light across the mostly empty basement. A woman was laying by the wall. Her eyes were open. At first I felt a panic thinking it was an infected looking at us. Based on the gray veiny look of her eyes, she was an infected, but a dead one. I recognized her from the photo upstairs in the bedroom.

  She had been stabbed multiple times by something. Blood covered her light pink shirt. There was also a small smas
hed in section near her temple. A large dried puddle of blood around her head.

  Reggie shook his head and walked back and stood at the bottom of the stairs, eager to leave. I shone my light around a little bit. Boxes, a bicycle with scratched up blue paint and rusting spokes. And....four crates. Four crates filled with mason jars. Who'd have imagined. Jim chuckled, as did Reggie upon noticing. Kelly would get a kick out of the irony as well.

  We all grabbed a crate and lugged them upstairs. As I passed through the kitchen I noticed a bloody knife in the sink, along with a ball pein hammer bloodied on one end. It explained the scene in the basement. I wondered just then where her husband was...what had become of him. The poor man had to kill his infected wife who was trying to kill him...I didn't want to imagine how difficult such a thing would be. It was tragic and terrifying and so many similar, or worse, stories haunted the world now. Bens was one of those stories. The people in this house another.

  We went out the back door with caution and loaded the crates and bags in the back. We gathered more stuff in the duffles and returned them before we decided to check out the barn.

  With care I pulled open both doors. They swung out smoothly and the stench hit us once again. I saw the man from the photo. He hung from the rafters by a rope. His face was discolored, eyes closed, mouth clenched. He wore jeans and a white shirt with a pocket on the breast. It was littered with splatters of blood. His wife's blood. There was a slight sway from the opening of the doors. Now I had known what happened to him. A tragic end. I wondered how it came to that. Something similar to Anne and Rebecca maybe.

  The short drive home was a quiet somber one.

  ***

  The story of what we'd just seen brought Kelly down. Tim as well. But both were unable to stop from smiling and shaking their heads when we went back out and brought in cases of masons jars.

  Now, Kelly told us, we just needed to grab some local crops and she'd start canning. Now she was happy to stay home since she'd have something productive to do to help us. That was a lift off Jim's shoulders.

  JIM: The farm we were just at had two large patches of peppers and rows of tomatoes...oh, and a small area with cabbage.

  REGGIE: nasty.

  ME: Which one?

  REGGIE: Cabbage and tomatoes. If it comes down to only have those left...I may just shoot myself in the face.

  [light laughter]

  TIM: Corn ready to harvest. There's a few farms around with fields of it.

  ME: I saw some when we were first coming here.

  REGGIE: I'm out.

  KELLY: What? Why?

  REGGIE: I don't do cornfields. They're freaky as fuck. On corn days, my ass will be on lookout on top the truck....making sure nothing creeping through the stalks toward your asses. Don't call me lazy, either. Lookout is a damn serious job! Lookouts save lives. Remember that.

  ME: Fine...but you're picking tomatoes and cabbage then.

  REGGIE: Why not peppers?!

  ME: If you're never touching the corn cause of some....corn field phobia, then you're picking the two you hate.

  REGGIE: Fine....still better than going in the corn.

  KELLY: Is there anything that doesn't spook you? [laughs]

  REGGIE: Well, now, see...I'm spooked by infected more than anything...obviously! We all are. Now, the other shit...like farms and what not...I was already scared of those, see. As scary as the world is now...I don't need to be throwing in other shit that spooks me and making it even worse. I can't deal. What am I not afraid of? How about bunnies? Maybe some birds? Kittens and shit....shit that doesn't want to fuckin' kill me or places I don't feel I may get fuckin' killed...that's what I'm not afraid of. It's called being wise. Y'all could learn a thing or two from me. Might live longer.

  JIM: But...cornfields?

  REGGIE: Did you ever see Children of the Corn? Or maybe Signs? My point is....bad shit happens in cornfields!

  [laughs]

  ME: I didn't realize you watched so many scary movies...as scared as you get I donno how you ever watched them.

  REGGIE: Probably the reason I get spooked is cause of the fact I watched them. I donno. I enjoyed the scare of movies....cause I knew I was safe! I didn't wanna be in those environments scared for real! You remember...Jack...how I told you I went to West Virginia when I was a kid?

  ME: yeah...

  REGGIE: Okay...hanging with some distant relatives, me and my cousin went into a cornfield with some of his buddies after dark. Play some flashlight Hide-n-Seek bullshit. My city ass was scared. Kept hearing them move...didn't know if it was one of them, an animal, wind blowing stalks. Then I grow up and watched those movies and I'd think back to that night and be like....Fuck! I could'a died out there that night!

  [laughs]

  REGGIE: Shit ain't funny...

  BEN: yeah it is.

  REGGIE: Who asked you, anyway?

  JIM: What else is around here?

  TIM: There's some strawberry patches around...

  REGGIE: Now we're talking...

  TIM: Be a lot in Middlefield but that's a longer distance.

  ME: Didn't you work on a farm around here as a teenager? I remember a big farm you worked.

  TIM: No. That was all the way out in Mogadore.

  ME: That's right...

  TIM: Walnut Drive Gardens. I loved that place. The boss was great. Family owned. Nice little farm market...very friendly and was a good place to work. Honest work. They made you feel right at home; like family. They had almost everything you'd want there, too. You know something weird I learned there? Did you know you should never smoke around peppers?

  REGGIE: Huh?

  TIM: Yeah...some of us smoked then. As soon as we would get there we had to wash and scrub our hands. There's a virus that is sometimes in tobacco and it will wipe out a pepper field!

  BEN: Whoa, really?

  TIM: Yeah! There's your agriculture lesson for the day.

  ME: That's crazy.

  REGGIE: I don't wanna know about anymore viruses....last one ended the world...now what are you doing tomorrow?

  TIM: I could show you locations to harvest a little.

  ME: You sure you're up for that?

  TIM: Yeah...I'm still dealing...don't wanna rush back into shit...but we're talking right around here and all I'm doing is marking locations for you. When I'm ready to go back out I'll say. I need a clear head, I know.

  ME: When I first suggested that you stay here awhile and not go out, I honestly thought you were gonna fight me on that.

  TIM: I almost had...but then I knew you were right. I needed it...still do. I can't put us at risk like that. We take enough risks as it is, don't need someone unfocused and not on their toes out there.

  ME: We're not venturing far, anyway. Ben...you stay with Kelly tomorrow.

  BEN: What?! C'mon, man!

  ME: We're not doing anything interesting anyway. We're not even getting out of the car...we're just scouting farm land. You ain't missing nothing.

  BEN: Ugh. Fine.

  ME: We won't be gone long...Kelly can teach you the art of canning.

  BEN: "YAY"

  KELLY: Quiet, boy. It'll be fun. We all need to teach each other one another's skills anyway...it's smart.

  ME...That's a good idea. Hadn't thought of that...

  REGGIE: So you said we ain't getting out of car tomorrow? I heard that, right?

  ME: Yes [soft laugh] you'll be relatively..mostly..safe.

  REGGIE: Mostly?!

  ME: Nothing is guaranteed. But...we'll be okay.

  REGGIE: You're gonna fuckin' jinx us one day. And I'm gonna be pissed!

  I had drifted out from the conversation and stayed quiet. I just watched them talk and listened to (and recorded) their stories and jokes and fears and hopes.

  Tim was going to be okay. Just observing him that night I could tell. I was worried for awhile...thought he was cracking up and losing it. Thought in his anger he'd rush out and get himself killed somehow. Thankfully, I was wro
ng.

  Kelly...she was the biggest surprise to not just me, but all of us. All this time we tiptoed and held some hushed conversations concerned of her adaptation to things...all the while, unbeknownst to us, she was adapting just fine! The way she rushed that Roamer in town was a shock. She even dealt with killing one of them better than any of the rest of us had. Impressive and a little scary.

  Jim was doing well. I wasn't concerned about him. His only distraction was his wifes safety, of course. Now that she wanted to start staying behind canning food, he was a little less tense.