Journals of the Damned (Book 2)

by GJ Zukow

  All the more reason to try and find other survivors I told myself. Although, I still felt like I was abandoning them when I left. Laelaps was whining softly as I closed and locked the door.

  “I’ll be back soon, girl. I promise.”, I whispered to her as I shut the door, trying my best to reassure her before I locked them in.

  For every part of the electric car that I loved, like its dark window tint that keeps anything, dead or not, from seeing inside, it had its drawbacks. Like having to be recharged at least once a week if you drove it or not. The second thing that I didn’t like about it was the odd smell of the car. I searched for whatever was causing the odor but never found a thing. I was even paranoid, while driving the vehicle, that someone would start shooting at me, not realizing I stole it from the Reds. That’s why, when it broke down about a mile from the junkyard I wasn’t too upset.

  The herd of undead that had crowded around the Reds old lair had dispersed. Apparently with no more free music to distract them and no more of the abominable carriers around to attract them, they scattered like cockroaches from light. There were the occasional corpses of the undead lying crumpled in the street, further proof that horrors days were numbered. The rate of die-off isn’t near what it was when it started, only one or two a day drop now. There’s still a heck of a lot of the slavering beasts walking the earth, hopefully I’m going to cause a huge dent in those numbers.

  I was surprised that the generator at the junkyard was still running. It’s located in a decently sound-proofed room, one can only really notice the engine’s noise when you’re on the property. There’s a tanker truck half full of fuel that’s been rigged as the combustion engines fuel tank. I’m sure the generator will keep running for another couple of months, at least.

  It didn’t take me long at all to locate the tanker truck filled with anhydrous ammonia. Lance wasn’t kidding when he said this stuff was cold. It took me a few minutes to understand the setup but once I did, I figured out how to fill one of those stainless steel canisters with the freezing liquid. The cold quickly forms a frozen coat around the metal can and it slowly leaks before destroying the gasket and blowing out in a great cloud of choking, suffocating, cold gas if I try to use it straight from the tanker. The strongest concentration that one of the containers can hold safely is around seventy percent. There was a freaking pallet of the hand pump pressurized containers sitting there and I filled up a dozen or so of them before spotting a lawn care truck. The truck caught my attention because it has a giant, thick, plastic tank mounted on the back along with a motorized pump and a huge hose and wand to spray with.

  When I reached the truck I found to my amazement that the Reds had obviously already put plenty of thought into this. The tank had already been filled with a fifty-fifty percent solution and was in excellent condition. The engine cranked with the first turn of the key (which had been left in the ignition), its gas tank already filled. I looked around and there were two of these rigs ready to go. There’s also a hose and spray nozzle for the driver or passenger to use while seated in the truck. I knew as soon as I made up my mind to use the fertilizer truck that I was going to have a very interesting ride home. I loaded my canisters and gear into the green flatbed pickup and went and explored the compound further.

  Most of my wanderings took me through a surreal nightmare of extreme violence. The gore and dried blood was punctuated with finds like I hadn’t dreamt of. There is an old steel roofed Quonset hut building here and all along one half of its length are cases, crates and pallets of ammo and weapons. There’s everything from twenty-two rounds to RPG’s and I think there’s even a stack of shoulder fired TOW anti-tank missiles. There is literally enough ammo and weapons here to arm a small army. Between this find and the fertilizer trucks filled with ammonia I could rid the city of the undead in a short time, single-handedly.

  First things first, I had to find a radio or something to try and contact any other survivors, then I could worry about eliminating the undead.

  The first thing I tried was the radio in a cop car that was parked in the back. Like all the other vehicles parked here, this one was ready to go also. I tried every channel available on the police radio only to hear nothing but static.

  I came to one room that held a bunch of cell phones charging and found that they must have been the primary means of communication. I randomly tried dialing a few of the numbers in the cell phone's memory and was not surprised when another phone in the room rang. Knowing these were probably the only working cell phones for fifty miles, I took a handful of them and their chargers. There were also portable radios and scanners. I sat in that garbage strewn, dirt covered room and tried for hours to raise someone to no avail. I don’t think anything can even get a signal past the county line.

  I started to get a bit aggravated with the situation of not finding some sort of decent radio. What I needed was a short wave radio that could pick up signals from thousands of miles away, not a local radio that strained to reach out ten miles. I went through every room in every building, finding things I normally, gladly, would have killed for just days ago. Food, booze and smokes of every brand are there for the taking but there is nothing that can help me find a doctor for Nancy.

  There had to be a store or shop somewhere that sold what I was looking for, I reasoned. The junkyard makes for a foul and vile base to work out of but it’s already got running electricity and all the stocks in the world there, including tons of medical gear. I briefly thought about bringing Nancy and the child here but just as quickly nixed it. Nancy would surely freak out if she woke up back here again. Not to mention the place is unlivable. I have no idea if the Red death squad had any friends that might come unexpectedly visiting, I certainly don’t want to be here if there are. No, using the junkyard, however convenient it might currently be, is a bad idea.

  So I went for a drive in my new green as grass painted truck, looking for a decent radio. On the way out of the main property (which would make any psychotic, murderous, hoarder green with envy), I grabbed a powered bullhorn, wincing and then laughing when I accidently hit the siren button. At the time, I really didn’t have a use for the megaphone, silence around the undead had always been the rule.

  I was paranoid as I started up the truck, the sound would definitely draw the notice of the parasite controlled corpses. I had a ton of ammo with me and gallons upon gallons of liquid zombie death with me, so I swallowed my fear and drove out the gates.

  I drove no more than a hundred yards, intent upon finding a Radio Shack or electronics store when the first of the walking dead noticed me. Seeing how I was still close to the gates, I figured now would be a good test of my idea. If my idea of gunning and spraying any undead that came close to me failed for some reason, the gates to the compound were close enough that I could safely run back and shut them behind me. I got out of the truck and stood on the bed, waiting for the ghoulish aberrations to come within pistol range. At first there was only a handful of the undead. As the things got closer and I started my target practice, upon hearing the loud reports, more of the vile things immediately started making their way towards me. After two clips the zeds were coming out of the woodworks, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared when I saw the herd that was making its way towards me then. From what I had been expecting, I thought that the undead would stop within twenty feet or so of the truck, once they smelled the ammonia. They didn’t though. I nervously switched to the increased firepower of my M16, mowing down rows of the undead as they came ever closer. The more I killed, the more came. Killing the undead was a lot like killing a hydra. Every time I blew a zeds rotten brains out of its skull, two more wandered into the fray from Gods' knows where. I kinda freaked out a bit when they surrounded me. I think I started a fight to the death with the thousand or so undead that had been in the area, previously drawn to the former tenants of the junkyard. When they got within arm’s reach of the truck I switched on the pump. As soon as the mixture jumped from the nozzle the whole of
the herd shuddered and started to hesitate. Once the almost overpowering smell assaulted my nose I realized why the undead got so close to me. It must have been weeks, maybe months since the truck had been used. In all that time, the tank was sealed and rain must have washed away most traces of ammonia from the vehicle.

  A few of the beasts dropped within minutes of being sprayed, shaking and shuddering in their death throes as their undead brethren trampled them underfoot in their haste to escape. The vast majority of the necrotic puppets didn’t immediately drop. Instead most of them tried to escape the solid stream, which actually reached out to over twenty five feet or so. Wherever the ammonia touched the monsters, dead flesh seemed to melt and fall off in nasty chunks.

  By the time I gave a liberal coating of destruction to the massed horrors, my eyes were watering and my lungs were burning. The undead were fleeing just as fast as their emasculated legs could propel them. I actually had to stop and wait for the things to clear out enough that I could drive on. Of course, that didn’t mean I didn’t take some satisfaction in running some of the slower ones down, crushing their nasty skulls under my wheels. Or shooting them in the back of the head as they staggered away from me. I felt invincible. I ended up taking every opportunity to wipe out as many of the things as I could. I was so wrapped up in the killing spree that the search for the radio became secondary.

  The first Radio Shack that I came across proved to hold nothing of value. It was covered in over a year’s worth of dust and dirt. It had been since before the Apocalypse that this store held anything, its empty shelves proved that it had fallen victim to the rioting and looting that heralded the end of our world.

  The second store, one of the big electronics chains, had burned to the ground, leaving nothing behind that could be salvaged. To give myself solace at the bad news I drove around the neighborhood and gave more of the undead an impromptu shower.

  The final store I hit up actually had what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the small shortwave radios I found weren’t transmitters, only receivers. Then I read the manual that came with the product. I kept a couple of the receivers even though they were no better than the police radios I had already come across. Without a proper antenna the range was limited to maybe ten miles and without being able to hook up a microphone all I would be able to do was listen.

  When I noticed the dusk quickly falling, I realized that I had been away from Nancy, Candice and Laelaps for over twelve hours. I had to come back. Nancy’s condition hadn’t improved, maybe some of the stuff I brought back from the Reds medical supplies will help. If I can just keep her alive long enough to find a Doc she might still survive. Candi, although she needed changing, feeding and lots of attention, seemed to be none the worse for my absence. Laelaps greeted me with great slobbering dog kisses before bounding outside to do her business and be free of the dark confining space she dislikes so much.

  Tomorrow I will continue my search for a Doctor or for a way to get in touch with one. And kill zombies. Lots of zombies.

  Saturday, June 28, 2014

  This morning I got a later start on the day than I had expected. After taking care of Nancy and Candi last night and then seeing to my own welfare I was tired from the day's’ exertions. Candi kept waking up and crying every couple of hours, demanding attention before she fitfully slept again. The baby’s cries woke Nancy, who responded with fever filled hallucinations, which in turn, required me to give up ever more sleep to calm and tranquilizer her. I don’t know what gangrene smells like but I imagine it smells like Nancy. It seemed to take me a long time to get both of them situated so that I could leave again.

  The sun was well into the sky by the time I climbed back into the truck. Even then I couldn’t drive the city in my quest for survivors right away. I had to put some fuel in the truck and refill the tank with more of the ammonia mixture and restock my ammo. The only place I could accomplish all of those tasks was back at the junkyard.

  While I drove across town I noted with great satisfaction the piles of undead that I had finally laid to rest. When I got within sight of my destination I actually had to drive two blocks out of my way and approach it from the south. The thousand plus herd that threatened to initially overwhelm me in my first test of the deadly mixture lay strewn in heaps so thick that I couldn’t drive over or through them. Well, that’s not technically true, it was just too gross and the odor so foul that my stomach churned whenever the weight of the truck squished open rotted abdomens and skulls, spilling the horrific contents and spraying jets of black gore and thick liquid all over.

  It didn’t take very long to find the tanker truck that the Reds had been using to fill their gas tanks, everything there is crudely marked with spray paint. What took me the longest was filling up the former liquid fertilizer tank with water. Running water is a blessing in these times, I know, but the flow there is really nothing more than a glorified trickle.

  While the tank filled, I took the time to check up on something that I had forgotten about in my haste to get going yesterday. When I found the corpse of the Red that had tried to drag me off to my death I gave it a good swift kick, just to say hello. I had given the demented souls’ brain new ventilation holes in order to keep him from rising again (and to make sure he was truly dead) the last time we met. When I removed the nightmarish mask made from some poor victims face and scalp, I found to my utter disgust that it was the only thing that was holding his shattered skull together. I guess I kinda stabbed him too many times with my bayonet in my exuberance to ensure he would never rise again. I couldn’t tell from what was left of his face if it matched the military ID I had found in the pages of the ex-patriots journal or not. I had to know, so I cut his shirt off and noted his tattoos. I’m ninety-nine percent certain that the corpse belonged to 1st Lieutenant Lance Ewer. The ‘tats were all military in nature, the oldest and most faded ones were Army with the newest ones bearing the markings of the Florida National Guard.

  Before I left the facility I liberated a case of hand grenades from the ammo bunker. I had promised myself that I would destroy the unholy altar to Yama-Kali, it just turned out that it wouldn’t be today. I was going to pour gas all over it and light the thing on fire but looking at the thing I wondered if fire would cleanse it properly. The only combustible thing about it was the vast number of human bones that provided the support, with the rest being wire, the metal of weapons and dark marble. Any fire would quickly spread and burn down all of the other nearby buildings and that is something I didn’t want to happen. The buildings hold a lot of usable items, items that I knew I wouldn’t be able to find again without many hours of searching. After packing the grenades in the filthy cracks and crevices I left it, deciding that I would only risk destroying it and burning the whole place down when I had properly looted the place.

  Then I was off again and this time I had no fear of the undead. I made a holiday of it, cranking up the volume on a portable CD player. I played mostly some good ol’ rock and roll as I did drive-bys on the undead that were unlucky enough to get anywhere near me. It really had been too long since I had the opportunity to listen to some music and I was enjoying the day despite my inability to find the radio I was looking for.

  With an old phone book and map of Ocala in hand I methodically went from store to store, determined to investigate every possible place a working shortwave radio could be found. Every place I went had either been burned, looted, shot-up or simply didn’t stock what I wanted. Of course, on the way I took every opportunity to kill as many of the undead as possible. As if the noise of the truck’s engine and the blaring of Guns ‘n Roses wasn’t enough to attract the walking dead, I also shouted obscenities at the parasite controlled puppets through the bullhorn.

  Eventually I came to Ocala Regional Medical Center, a place I hadn’t actually been to before due to the huge mob of undead that were always in attendance around every hospital. Immediately I thought of my mom, whose corpse might still walk. She was infected on that last day
that I saw her, we both knew that her time was short but I always expected to at least find her corpse (walking or not) and give her a proper burial. My eyes were blurred from the unbidden tears when I thought of her but my heart was full of absolute hate as I took on the largest herd I had ever seen.

  As the ghoul’s relentless hunger drove them to me I unloaded clip after clip into their dead faces. Once they got within twenty feet or so, the first ones to arrive slowed and hesitated once they detected the distinct odor of ammonia. For whatever reason, the undead are very sensitive to the scent, which is probably why the Reds attached the aftermarket, high pressure pump to the tank. There were so many of them that the crowd of those coming up behind the first rows actually pushed and forced those in front of them closer to me. It was a dangerous precedent, there were so many trying to get to me and my delectable flesh that the crush of the herd either pushed the things right up to my truck or trampled them underfoot. The fifty-fifty mixture takes a couple of hours to kill and there were so many of the abominations that it forced me into a fighting retreat or I risked being over-run and eaten alive. As soon as I drove onto the hospital grounds I saw the whole place was thick with undead. If the numbers of the walking dead would have stayed at that level I would have had no problem at all dealing with them as they came at me, recoiling at a distance as I hit the wretched husks with the mixture. So many of the horrid things spilled out from the buildings and the parking lots that it startled me when I saw it. There was a solid wall of dead flesh. There just as many, if not more, of the undead dragging their mangled and twisted bodies towards me, as there were undead behind the prison gates before I fried ‘em. I’m unsure of just how many of the things there were, their numbers just seemed to continue on and on. I had actually gotten surrounded, thankfully most of the undead kept their distance, except for where the legion of undead was approaching. It was as if the mass of teeth and claws was being driven from behind. The zeds closest obviously wanted to stop when they smelled the ammonia but as soon as their slow, forward steps faltered they were roughly pushed aside or trampled, being relentlessly driven by the weight of unknown numbers behind them. When the tidal wave of dead, clawing flesh started to grasp my front fender, even though I was spraying gallons of the liquid directly on them, I knew I had to drive out of there. I drove backwards to the street, only driving over two of the abominations by the time I reached the cracked, asphalt, main road again. I watched as the horde slowly pushed itself around the feared, ammonia soaked ground in pursuit of me. I was just slowly driving away from them and waiting until they hit the smell, then I would drive up quickly and spray the nasty creatures before they could recoil away. With this mob they broke the perimeter twice again before I got the situation under control. By the time I had driven backwards down the street about a hundred yards or so, someone started shooting from the top floor of one of the hospital wings. Thankfully they weren’t shooting at me, they were trying to get my attention. I didn’t know if they could make out what I was yelling at them through the bullhorn but I’m sure they tracked my progress as I drove around and around the buildings, drawing out and spraying and shooting the undead beasts. I ended up using all of my ammo, including the second case of grenades I brought with me and I even burned through all but a couple of gallons of the zed poison.