Dead Woman's Journal

by Ann Christy

  I suppose I’m lucky in that way. After my surgery freed me so completely, I bought a tiny electric car with all the bells and whistles. It was so exciting not to need a wheelchair lift or a special seat or hand controls that I might have gone a bit overboard. But, I’m lucky. I got it charged to the top again, so I’ve got a pretty good range.

  I’ve got a zipper bag full of leftover pancakes, cans of tuna, plenty of clean water, a tool kit for my legs, and I’m still freshly charged with nanites. I’m strangely excited. It’s almost a liberated feeling. Yes, I’m alone, but even in that situation there is a certain freedom.

  Of course, I have to leave this journal here, so this may well be my last entry. I hope not, but it could happen. If it is, that’s okay too. And I’m not just writing that, I truly mean it. I feel it.

  I’ve added more recipes to the back, updated all the information in the Helpful Tips section to reflect the conditions as they are now. I’ve also paperclipped a sheet to the front page with the things you need to know first off. It’s all done.

  Whoever you are, I hope you are well. I hope this place helps you and gives you peace. I also hope very much that I’ll be back to write more entries.

  Day 42 - Late Night

  I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I made it back. I’m not entirely out of the woods yet, because there’s a pretty good group of monsters nearby that followed my scent or my sound. That’s okay, though, because I’ve learned so much. I think I know how to take care of them.

  The first thing I did upon my return is bathe and eat, because my goodness, I needed a bath. Good heavens! I hadn’t realized how truly disgusting a person can get without a good wash after just a few days in the broiling heat of summer. Revolting. I won’t describe it, but my bath water was gross when I was done. I had to run another just to rinse off the filth from that!

  Also, I’ve missed coffee. I should have searched one of the houses for some instant coffee to bring with me. I’m sure there’s some at Grant’s. I was as foul-mooded as I’ve ever been after a full day without caffeine. I know it will keep me from sleeping, but I’ve got a big steaming cup of coffee right next to my hand here at the table. It tastes divine.

  So, what did I learn? What did I see?

  Much more than I ever thought to see in this life, and some of it might well turn out to be useful. The car was not the wisest choice for locomotion. I would have done better taking a bike or simply running. In the end, I had to run, but I’m lucky that I can run faster than any human alive…or any of the monsters. My car couldn’t go as fast as I could, given the conditions on the roads.

  First, the care home is definitely the source of much of our trouble here. I think someone tried to secure it, and then potentially set it on fire. Unfortunately, it’s a brand-new facility with every possible safety measure built into it from the ground up. So, the fires merely charred things a little and left black, sooty marks around one broken window, but otherwise did no major damage.

  The glass doors were the weak point. It’s possible that whoever set the fire broke those to get inside, which only served to let the monsters out. There’s only so much history to be read from what remains, but the decorative brick around it was pocked with bullet holes, as was the once gleaming, white-painted concrete above the brick.

  There were also bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. The stench around that place was unbelievable. Some were soldiers, a few cops, some people in scrubs, and some wearing nothing at all. There was a full assortment, a one-stop shop of humans and monsters.

  When all this started, we heard intense gunfire sporadically through the forest. Most of us guessed it was focused on the care home. I saw the proof of that with my own eyes. How horrible it was to see, too.

  Did I go inside? No, no way. I did creep close enough to listen a little and I’m sure I heard sounds inside. I don’t think the place is entirely empty. Hopefully, they’ll stay put.

  The two big apartment complexes that went up around the same time as the care home are a little further down the highway, one in each direction. I took the direction away from the city center, thinking perhaps traffic would have been lighter going that direction. After all, barricades had stopped people from traveling along this highway, so it made sense.

  I can only describe driving along this stretch of road in one way: surreal. That there had been some sort of exodus from the city was clear. That it happened some time ago was equally visible by the weather stained materials they left in their wake. So much for the barricades limiting traffic.

  Bikes lay scattered in the deep ditches. Some of them still had little trailers attached, the kind once used to carry children behind a bike. Boxes, rolling suitcases, bags of stuff…all of it left behind. Along with those remnants of heavy items shed by overloaded people were the smaller things. Empty water bottles and wrappers lay everywhere. It was a bright morning, so they shone a little in the light, even after all this time.

  It was strange to see it, like a party or a concert had been going on and I arrived only after everyone vacated the venue. The sad things were the toys or the odd book here and there. At first, there weren’t any bodies, which was strange considering what was piled up around the care home.

  But then there were.

  At the place where the trees were cut back from the road, just before the start of the apartment complex, there were a lot of them, but they were old. I can’t tell if they were eaten or simply rotted away, but the sheer number spoke of an attack of some sort. A mass casualty of one kind or another. I stopped the car and looked around, trying to figure out what might have happened. What made this spot a good place for an attack?

  The forest was cut back away from the road, so it’s possible that the light drew the monsters like it seems to do near us. A wide lawn with a drainage pond in the middle and little dark lines of walking paths took the place of the trees. That pond used to spray water into the air from a powerful circulating fountain. I used to think it was pretty when I drove past, shooting rainbows into the air. With the fountain no longer in operation, the water looked vaguely greenish to me, even from that distance. The ornate fences of the apartment complex lay just beyond.

  All around that field were more bodies, but as I sat there watching, I started to notice that they weren’t all bodies. Many were monsters, lying down and resting perhaps, though they stirred at the change when I arrived. Most of those were near the water. Do they drink? Are they simply staying near their source of water?

  It was something I’d never thought about before, but it made sense. Every living thing needs to drink. Is that what they were really going for when they came to our neighborhood? The river full of water just beyond?

  Since my car is electric and silent, the movement of the monsters wasn’t aimed at me. Perhaps they sensed something new had arrived, but didn’t realize it was my shiny, little car sitting in the road. One got up and ran a rough circle in the field, head forward and arms crooked. Otherwise, they seemed only to look around, sit up, perhaps stand…then lie back down or do whatever they were doing before.

  It must be incredibly boring to be a monster.

  The active monster eventually hunkered down on the other side of the pond, and I figured that was my best shot to get moving. I was hesitant, since I could see a lot of vehicles in the road ahead of me. It was a good distance, maybe a quarter-mile or so. Because of a slight bend right where the vehicles lay, I couldn’t see the extent of it, only that the cluster was there.

  It could be a barrier like the one we set up on our road. It also might be the scene of tragedy and those cars were what remained. I couldn’t even tell if there was a path through them. I’d hate to get trapped and have to try and do a U-turn with the field monsters after me. It was a risk.

  In the end, I simply had to know, so I jolted forward. A few of the monsters saw me, and I braced myself for the screaming. Sure enough, one let out a hoarse, yodeling yell that gave the impression of a damaged throat. My time w
as up, and I needed to move quickly.

  I sped up and quickly discovered that the road wasn’t blocked so much as obstructed. The remnants of a convoy, I think. Each car was angled toward the edge of the road, some with their front wheels on the grass next to the ditch. It looked orderly, but also ominous. Once I passed the sign for the apartment complex and the low, ornate brick wall that fronted it, I realized I was near a military barrier. Only, it was one with no one left to guard it.

  Broken barricades, sandbags half-empty and surrounded by beige spills of sand, those plastic barrels with lights on top. Two military vehicles fronted the collection, one a big truck and the other a Humvee. Yes, there were bodies, but not many. Not nearly enough to account for all the cars. Something else had happened here. Before the monsters caught up with me, assuming they kept running, I needed to figure out the geometry. Was it safe to go through?

  To one side of the road was more forest, on the other lay the apartment complex.

  The apartment complex was a high-end one, the kind with concierge services like dog-walkers and dry-cleaning pick up. The parking lot in front wasn’t huge, but there was a lot of green space taking up room. Ornate trees, large flower beds, and that sort of thing. To one side was the primary lot with the covered parking for tenants.

  It seemed clear that this barrier was set up to enforce the curfew going in both directions. The entrance to the complex lay before it, so anyone living here would have been trapped at home. Scanning the buildings and windows of the complex for movement or hints of people, I was left with the impression of disorder.

  There were lots of open windows on the upper floors of the three-story buildings, and lots of boarded up windows on the bottom floor. Hints of tan from raw plywood covered a few doors. Gauzy curtains gone black at the bottoms hung out of a few broken windows. Luxury cars had been backed up against a few of the buildings, possibly to barricade doors.

  This place had been inhabited since the end, and possibly still was. And I was in full view of them. What happened in our neighborhood with the skeevy neighbors had told me, in no uncertain terms, that monsters were not the only dangers in the world. People could be even worse, because they thought about what they did. I felt very exposed all the sudden.

  Behind me, the monsters weren’t in view. Perhaps they gave up the chase or couldn’t figure out if I was anything to eat. It didn’t matter, because I needed to move. What stopped me was that Humvee and the big antenna curved over the top of it. What if there was someone on the other end of their communications?

  I genuinely hated the idea of opening my car door and stepping out into the world, with nothing between me and everything I didn’t know. Hated it. Except, well, the notion of someone on the other end of their communications trumped that hate. I had to know.

  Pulling my car as close as possible to the two military trucks, I hoped that they would shield me from view, especially from any windows in the apartments. All those open windows made me nervous. I hopped out quick and went right for the Humvee with the big antenna.

  I should have put something around my face first, because the smell was horrific. Truly. The door was hanging open, but the body inside was practically melting. All that heat over the summer had simply cooked it as it decayed. I jumped back out of reflex, because it was such a shock to see.

  Rather than back away entirely, I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and tried to see around the body. It was sort of slumped to the side in the driver’s seat, covering the center portion as well as the seat. There was a curled cord between two fingers and the hand was almost open, flopped out to the side. I think this person was killed while on the radio.

  Scanning the rest of the interior conveyed in no uncertain terms that humans had done this. A few empty green and tan plastic MRE wrappers littered the floorboard. There was even a wrapper on top of the mess that was this soldier’s torso, as if the person who found the food couldn’t wait to eat and gorged right on top of the soldier they’d just killed. Also, the weapons were gone. I couldn’t see any ammo at all.

  Bracing myself, I reached over the melting person and tugged the cord. The sound when I pulled the handset out from between the fingers of that outstretched hand will stay with me forever. Even so, I couldn’t raise any response once I had the handset. Nothing, not even static. Eventually, though I didn’t want to, I had to climb up and lean over the melting person to try and get to the radio controls.

  The whole system was completely dead. Not so much as a peep. I thought about trying to disconnect the system and bring it home where I might power it up, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I wish I’d been more of a techie. Considering what half my body is made of, it’s almost ironic that I know so little about technical gadgets.

  I started to search the other truck, but before I got more than a peek inside, I heard something. Given that I was strung as tightly as a drum, it didn’t take much to get my attention. Was it the wind? A piece of trash fluttering? It didn’t matter, because I pulled my head out of that truck so fast I could have given myself whiplash.

  Listening intently, I didn’t hear anything suspicious. With the trees and the breeze, the world is rather noisy now that human sounds don’t drown it all out. And that’s saying nothing of the trash everywhere, crinkling and crackling as it shifted. What I heard was nothing like that though. It was more of a thump, a distant one, but a thump all the same.

  I’m not sure what made me look around the back of the truck toward the apartments, but I did. It took two scans of the front of the buildings, but eventually I saw it. A ladder. Not like a regular ladder, but one made of rope and bright blue plastic braces. An escape ladder, and it was hanging from one of the second-floor windows. It was the blue that drew my eye, because it hadn’t been there before. I’m sure of that.

  Really, there wasn’t a lot of thought required. All the necessary considerations run through a brain pretty fast. A ladder has appeared, no one called out, no one signaled, and I can see no people. The only reason to do that is if their intentions were not good. Otherwise, they would make sure I could see them.

  I bolted for the car and slid inside like my butt was greased. I’d rather deal with monsters than humans still full of crafty thoughts not aimed toward my best interests.

  While I certainly kept my eyes peeled that direction, I never saw a hint of the person or persons who flopped down that ladder. It was enough to make me doubt myself. Perhaps I’d missed the ladder when examining the building the first time. No, I wouldn’t have missed that. I didn’t miss it.

  Sometimes doubts can get you killed. That’s my helpful tip for the day.

  Once the defunct barricade was behind me, I was headed into the unknown: the suburbs.

  I just looked at the clock and I’m very surprised by how much time has passed. I’ve been sitting here writing and sipping coffee and relishing clean air and clothes, not even noticing the hours. It takes an incredibly long time to write longhand. I’d forgotten how slow that was. Keyboards are so much faster. Too bad I hadn’t picked up new ink for my printer before the world ended.

  Anyway, I’ll leave off here and get some sleep. Probably only a few hours because the dawn is only so far away. I’m just glad to be back.

  Day 43 - Morning

  Wonder of wonders! I slept till eight in the morning. I haven’t done that since I was in the hospital and drugged up on painkillers. Of course, I’ve spent the last few days with almost no sleep and in terror most of the time. I guess my body needed the sleep. No matter the reason, I feel great.

  I’m just over two weeks in from my most recent dose of nanites. I feel fine, better than fine really. I feel amazing. It’s almost suspicious, if I’m honest. I should be tired, bedraggled feeling, or at least sore from all the physical efforts. Instead, I woke up hungry, thirsty, and ready to run a marathon. Seriously.

  The neighborhood is quiet, but there are a few monsters in the field. Whatever smell kept them away from the sick one has appar
ently dissipated. I did notice that they’re not near the body, and the two that were sucking on the chain aren’t there anymore either. My erstwhile chain-gnawing friends have moved on.

  Because it was quiet, I hurried over to Marcy’s house and snagged her bread machine. While the others were still here, both Linda and Doris tried to teach me to bake bread. No matter how closely I followed their actions and instructions, my loaves were dense and low. Doris eventually declared that I didn’t have the baking gene.

  Marcy wasn’t a baker either, but she made the most delightful fruit and nut loaves in this machine, so I figure it’s worth a try. I’m craving carbs like crazy. Right now, the house is starting to fill with that warm and yeasty smell of rising bread. I swear I’m going to start drooling at some point. Her recipe book was inside the machine, so I’m making a loaf with dried cranberries and walnuts. I hope it’s good. I even took a stick of butter out of the freezer for it, another huge splurge.

  With the morning light so bright and the day so perfect, the past few days seem like a distant nightmare, or something that happened to someone else. That’s good and that’s bad. I learned and saw so much that I need to record it while it’s fresh. If it fades too much, then the lessons will be lost. So here goes.

  After that first barricade, I was more cautious. It may have seemed like I was the only person in the world, but it had been less than a month and a half since all this started. The world is most certainly still full of people. Except it had been a month and a half, and those people were likely growing desperate. Many of them anyway.

  It’s easy to forget how few people have solar power when living in a neighborhood like this, but it’s true. Even in this area where the sunlight is almost ideal, the cost keeps people away. Once I realized it, I started paying attention, and there were very few roofs with panels. Without power, the desperation would have set in quicker. Less ability to store and preserve food, cook, clean…anything really. The heat of the summer alone would have probably driven people nearly mad. Even enough solar to power fans and move some air would have helped, but I saw very little of it.