by GJ Zukow
Sunday we moved to the school grounds and its awesome facility. I had to help Nancy climb over the walls and fences we needed to keep out of sight of the ravenous dead. She’s definitely a liability to me, needing constant attention. It’s worth it though. The promise of the birth of a child, even in this living hell, is a thing worth protecting in my mind.
Nancy broke down and cried again upon seeing what had become of her beloved school. While I left Nancy and her swelling belly to clean up and make the shelter livable for us, I made my way back to my (and Allan’s) stash of equipment and hauled them laboriously to the new hideout.
I’m taking it easy today, resting up and eating. It’s like a holiday for me today, safe, secure and with a full stomach I have plenty of time to write.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
In the past few weeks Nancy and I have had a lot of time to talk. She actually seems to be a decent person, although she has the tendency to talk non-stop for hours. As the days passed, she became much more emotionally stable. The secure surroundings and the availability of food and water have done a lot to ease her nervous tendencies. We got to talking about the town and everything that’s happened here.
After the Omni first brought an end to civilization, the survivors started to slowly make their way to the prison. The remnants of the government and military had set up an emergency base in the most secure buildings in the county, or so they thought. The prison was a perfect place to group up, thick masonry walls surrounded by high razor wire topped fences would provide real security. The sheriff's office was on the grounds with all of its radios and communication equipment, which would have helped to contact other, more distant survivors. There was food and even backup generators for when the power finally went out. It seemed like the perfect place to wait out the final demise of the undead. Nobody expected the abominations to walk the earth for this long, such a thing was only imaginable in the movies or cheap paperback novels and not in real life. Still, if it weren’t for the Reds that slowly went madder and madder day by day, the prison would have been the seed for the eventual return of humanity. Once the prison fell, nobody wanted to group together in any numbers any more. The threat posed by the Reds meant that anytime more than a handful of people gathered together for mutual survival they would eventually be found out and slaughtered like pigs. The immune started calling the roving bands of scarlet covered marauders the “Red death squads”, fearing them more than the horrid dead cannibals that wanted nothing more than to devour them.
When I told Nancy that while I was in Orlando I never saw one carrier who had figured out how to slow the Toxoplasmosa colony growing inside of them, she didn’t believe me. She had assumed that people like them were everywhere and not just here. She even told me where they were holed up. The last of the scattered survivors in Ocala never tried to storm their fortress, considering any attack merely a suicide run. Since the overwhelming display of power they showed in destroying the former prison, no one wanted to tangle with them. They instead committed themselves to riding the storm out, hoping that eventually nature would take its normal course again, bringing a final death to both the undead and the Red death squads.
Of course, since Nancy had told me exactly where the Reds were operating from, I had to check it out. Unfortunately, I ended up only being able to view it from afar. The closer I got, the thicker the ungodly undead became. I ended up, coming within a half mile or so, having to use my binoculars from a second story window to see it. From what I saw, with its ditches and ramparts set before a high fence, it appears to be well defended. There were multitudes of corpses, trampled underfoot by the zeds that were drawn to the company of their living counterparts. Military vehicles blocked the gate and I spotted a tank set further back, barrel aimed directly at it. While I watched, I saw five separate individuals, all showing advanced signs of the disease, making their way between the buildings of the old junkyard. They had electricity, some of the exterior lights were on even during the day. I think I wisely decided to leave the hazardous area instead of trying to stay to get a better estimate of how many Reds there were. I stayed less than an hour, I was too close. I didn’t have to flee but the neighborhood held to many of the vile dead for my liking.
Then, of course, I had to check out the situation at the former prison for myself. Nancy hadn’t been exaggerating when she said they blew the buildings up. What she hadn’t told me was the neighborhood next to it looks like it had been nuked. There was a huge crater in the center of rubble, surrounded by the charred ruins of scores of houses. There weren’t that many of the walkers in the streets around the prison. I soon saw why. There was a swarm of the things, all locked on the other side of the prison gate. I could plainly see the damage that was wrought by the Abrams tank. At least one building had been reduced to a pile of junk and debris. Other buildings had huge gaping holes in them and all of those that I saw had the distinct pockmarks of large bullet strikes on them. A bare few of them were relatively untouched, if there were to be any survivors left, that’s where they could be found. Getting to any one that is still among the living is the problem. Just as getting out of one of those buildings would be. There are just that many of the ghouls packed onto the expansive grounds.
Two days ago, after returning from one of my forays, I found Nancy in a state of near hysteria. There were deep, bloody and infected scratches all over her lower right leg. However nasty those deep wounds were, they were minor compared to the bite wound she had suffered. There was a good sized chunk taken from her calf. I could clearly see outline of teeth marks on the constantly weeping and bleeding wound. When I found her, she was crying again (naturally) and pouring hydrogen peroxide by the bottle over the painful wound. I helped her disinfect and bandage the ugly injury as best we could but there really is nothing I can do to help her. All we can do is wait and pray for the best. The brutalized area is swollen and pus filled with small scarlet spots appearing from her knee to her toes. Nancy complains of a fever and headaches, along with deep muscle pain. The only thing we can really do is wait for her system to fight off the parasitic infection on its own. Even though we’ve proven immune to the airborne eggs of the Omni, we’re uncertain if such a massive injection of the eggs, along with the parasite itself, will be too much for her to overcome, especially since she’s pregnant.
Our main concern is what this infection will do to the unborn child within her. The situation brings up way too many questions for me to want to ponder them for long. Neither of us knows whether this will cause a miscarriage or infect the child while it’s still unborn. Not to mention the question of the baby having immunity itself. Just because the parent is immune, may or may not mean that immunity is passed on. I always harbored questions in my mind, not wanting to talk to Nancy about them, fearing that Nancy would freak out. I have no idea if when the child is finally born if it would quickly succumb to the airborne eggs and die within the first week of its life to begin with.
Nancy had been spending some of her time searching the closest houses for items for the baby. She was setting up a small nursery in a corner of the shelter in anticipation of the newborn that would arrive in four or so months from now. I made sure she carried a pair of nine millimeters with her at all times but she’s a lousy shot. I have my doubts that she could hit the broad side of a barn with a howitzer. Even though I gave her the wicked sharp machete I pried from the cold, dead hands of the Red in the administrative office, she ended up having to stomp the thing to death. The abomination that attacked her was nothing more than the desiccated remains of a zed with one arm, one shoulder and head. It dragged itself silently through the bedroom carpet, she never heard it. She said she did a good check of the house first and she has no idea from where that monstrosity slithered from. I understand, sometimes the undead lie motionless, under rubble or a pile of garbage, only waking from their sleeping state once a living human walks close by. She had been so engrossed in scrounging through a dresser full of baby clothes that she only be
came aware of the nightmare once it clutched tightly onto her ankle. Nancy told me that even though she instinctively, forcefully, tried to kick it off of her, it’s grip was like a vice, she could not shake it free. The foul, unliving thing quickly bit her and bit her deep. In a moment of horrid recognition, she thinks she actually knew this thing in life, she thinks it was the animated remains of one her former students. Even after she managed to stomp the thing to death, she had a hard time removing the zed’s necrotic claw like fingers from her now swollen, clawed and profusely bleeding ankle.
Hopefully she’ll fight off the infection soon, she’s already running a fever. I don’t want to spend the old holidays digging another grave, let alone a grave built for two.
Friday, December 27, 2013
The winter solstice has come and gone, taking with it the worst of Nancy’s infection. She still hasn’t fully recovered. We have no idea if the infestation harmed the child growing inside of her, all we can do is hope and wait. Now, with the threat of the parasitic Omni past, the bite wound she suffered is the greatest threat to her life. The gaping, jagged, tooth marked hole weeps and bleeds constantly, both skin and muscle are missing. The most unfortunate thing about the wound is its location. The wound has hobbled her, being located on the lower part of her calf, just above the Achilles tendon. I found plenty of penicillin pills and other infection fighting drugs, all expired, giving her double doses to make up for their loss of strength. I don’t think the drugs have any affect at all on the Omni but the pus from the oozing wound has cleared up a lot. Though I’ve spent a lot of time helping her, I haven’t stopped my forays into the remnants of civilization.
Even though it’s dangerous, I love breaking into abandoned houses and condos. Sometimes it’s like Christmas, I never know what I’ll find. Actually, it was Christmas morning when I came across a row of condos that I hadn’t explored before. For the most part, the condos were devoid of anything useful. A few boxes of macaroni, a few cans of assorted food or a couple of desperately needed rounds of ammo is what I usually find. Besides, that is, the idiot undead that don’t have the mental capacity to figure out how to operate a doorknob. I dispatch the trapped and hungering things with no problem at all now. The animated corpses of whole families have fallen to me, by sword, bayonet or the butt of my rifle. The former living inhabitant of one condo in particular held the writhing and uselessly animated cadaver of his former self. From a sturdy rope, strung from the high kitchen ceiling, swung the vile remains of the former occupant. He soon found out that even suicide provided no escape from the Omni. The table had been overturned and the chairs lay scattered. He must have been hanging there since the apocalypse because as soon as his dead eyes spotted me, his parasite controlled corpse started to furiously claw the air. It was kinda funny to me, watching as it kicked its legs trying to walk towards me, even though its feet were two feet above the floor. All the horrid thing ended up doing was spinning itself around, grasping only air with its outstretched hands as it crazily tried to grab a hold of me. Without warning, the things neck finally could no longer hold, having supported the dead weight for well over a year. With a disgusting tearing sound, the body fell away from the decomposed neck and fell limply to the floor. The things head fell from its noose, hit the floor with a solid thump and rolled a time or two, continuing to gnash and bite the air around it. Stupid things.
The zed wasn’t what I wanted to write about, it was what I found inside the condo that interested me. Apparently the guy that had lived there and had hung himself in the kitchen, was a paintball enthusiast. Paintball guns, pistols and rifles, and boxes and boxes of CO2 cartridges, along with a ton of the multi-colored paint filled balls are now in my possession.
The undead don’t recognize or pay any attention to the small hiss of the CO2 nor the small plop of the paintballs hitting a surface. I cleared out one of the nearby classrooms and now use it as my target practice / exercise room. I have spray painted rough targets all around the room, all at varying heights and have been practicing, with the paintball pistols, my quick draw and targeting for headshots while moving. I’ve been burning off a lot of calories, spinning, jumping around and practicing my aim. I know the toy paintball guns are nothing like real weapons, but the aiming and training of my reflexes are what’s important.
Nancy silently watched me as I went through one of my exercise routines and said I looked like some kind of whirling dervish. I laughed at the comment and then showed her how she could practice her aiming, which is terrible, without having to actually fire off live rounds and draw the unwanted attention of the undead. Maybe if she keeps practicing she’ll be of some use one day.
I’m going to give Allan another month to show up, then I’m sorry to say I’m not going to waste any more of my time waiting for him. There’s no telling what became of him.
This entry is short, but that’s a good thing in this case. Looking back at some of my earlier entries I see a correspondence between the length of the entries and the danger I was in. I don’t want to jinx myself, but things are better than they have been for awhile (at least for me). If the wretched dead would just lie down and die like they're supposed to, things would be a lot better.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Allan showed up today, finally returning to the fallen safehouse. I got there too late. One of the “Red death squads” got to him first. I’m pretty sure I got revenge on three of his killers, hopefully I put a bullet or two in the fourth one. I keep thinking that I should have gotten there earlier, if I had, he might still be alive now. I spent the rest of the afternoon burying him.
Amazingly, he was carrying two journals with him. He had started his own journal after we became separated, in addition to having found my old one. I placed one final entry into Allan’s journal, describing how he died. In the next few days I’m going to read through his scrawling writing, I feel compelled to know what happened to him.
It’s been a horrible day. I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally. I don’t have the energy or the will to give an account of the encounter. It’s enough that I wrote it down in Allan’s journal. If it’s the last thing I do, I will exterminate every last one of those insane carriers that have been terrorizing central Florida.
Nancy knew right away that something was wrong when I arrived back to the shelter. When I told her what had happened, all she could say was a meek, “I’m sorry.” That’s exactly how I feel. Sorry.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
I’ve been feeling slightly aggravated and more than a bit restless for the last couple of days, so I decided to expend some of my frustrations out on the undead. I knew just the place where I could kill as many as my angry heart desired. The prison. I crafted a homemade spear out of a long, thin piercing knife, a few bolts and a sturdy, solid hardwood, old shovel handle. It worked well, being easily thrust through the holes in the high chain link fence. I started at the main gate, I had never been so close to so many of the monsters before. There is easily a couple of thousand of the beasts trapped within the grounds. When I approached the gate, the zeds quickly spotted me and for a second I thought the crushing mass of the undead would surely, quickly, break down the gate. I was prepared to run at any time, fearing the lock or chain might give way under all that weight. There are two sets of fences, both topped with razor wire and both are at least twelve feet tall. A concrete path of ten feet separate the two, allowing the guards to be able to walk the perimeter and not have to worry about being assaulted by their charges. There were also two gates, with the outside one being held shut by a lock and chain with the second, inside, gate still retracted into its open position. The undead hadn’t gotten inside the corridor between the fences, the only place I could reach them with my spear was at the gate. The outer gate bowed and strained with the weight of the hungering zeds upon it, so I climbed the outer fence and jumped down into the safe area between the fences. The fence still bowed and flexed with the masses straining to get to me but it was nothing like h
ow the gate itself reacted. I made three circuits of the prison, stabbing and giving a final rest to hundreds of the undead along the way. I didn’t stop until the spear broke, the blade snapping like a twig in one of the creature’s eye sockets. When I was done my arms hurt and ached from the strenuous labor. Most of the day had disappeared by the time I was finished, the sun well past its zenith. However efficient my killing method was, it would take me days to stab them all back into the arms of true death where they belonged. So the next day I tried something different.
I took a box of flares and the old shovel handle with me when I returned. The undead are clumsy, in addition to being stupid, they constantly trip over the corpses of their kin. All of the zeds whose brains I had scrambled the day before had collapsed at the base of the fence, causing the still walking dead to fall over them. There were so many, they crushed and trampled each other in their eagerness to devour me. As they strained to reach me, over each other, over their dead again kin, and against the fence I lit them on fire. I tied a flare to the end of the handle and again walked the circuit of the fence. When a flare sputtered out I tied another one on it. The walking dead don’t really understand fire, they don’t even flinch as their clothes and hair start to burn. With the crush of the things and their sheer numbers, when one started burning its neighbors also started to burn. Within one full circuit, the dead that had been packed so densely inside the prison grounds became tinder in an inferno. After that one round the smoke and smell of blazing, putrid flesh forced me, choking, to leave the area.