Zomblog

by T. W. Brown

  We returned to the RVs and decided to head north once we skirted the outside of town. A small private road split these two huge fields and led up to some foothills. We only passed one house that we could see. We had slipped into Ritzville just before sunrise, and with it being full daylight by the time we made it out, we just wanted to find a place to hide.

  Nobody is talking much. I dozed off, but woke an hour or so later to find that Meredith and Joey had climbed into my bunk. Joey is nestled into her back. I draped my arm across them both and went back to sleep.

  Steve Morgan eventually woke me and said that Tim wanted to get moving soon. I guess we’ll head north and then east.

  Saturday, April 19

  Tim and I went out on recon today. We used the bicycles. Yesterday was one bad indicator after another. Bridges are being taken out intentionally. It is impossible to tell if it is survivors trying to protect themselves or military trying to take steps to prevent movement of looters…or control the ever-dwindling population of survivors.

  Another troubling sign is that we can’t find a gas station that has not been cleaned out. At first we just thought that the remote location had probably not received a refill from a tanker. But yesterday we watched two military trucks roll into a small roadside station. We had intended to hit the place ourselves right after sunset, and were using an abandoned barn to hide and survey. Late in the day we heard the rumble of large vehicles. Eventually these two big trucks rolled into view. They pulled into the gas station, dispatching the handful of zombies in the area as a team of soldiers went to work. Both of the trucks had cylindrical tanks in back and they ran a hose with a pump from the ground tank to the trucks. Then…they torched the place.

  We face the real possibility that we might need to abandon the RVs. This changes everything. Tim and I went out with the hopes that this was an isolated case. It is not. This could mean that the only places we could find fuel are the big cities, and that is suicide. Not only are the zombies a problem, but Spokane proved that there are things almost as bad. I still have bad dreams about seeing little Amber Thompson shot and killed by a sniper. Both of her parents meeting the same fate. They had survived together…a family intact…and it was some anonymous survivor who, for no apparent reason, gunned them down. Only then had the zombies been able to take them.

  I don’t know what Tim saw today as we searched in futility for something we had taken for granted—fuel—and returned empty. I saw another reason to question why we were fighting so hard to stay alive. Where could we run? Where can we hide?

  We have enough fuel including reserves to take us a few hundred miles at best. So, tonight we sit down together with a AAA Road Atlas and figure out where to make a run for that we can reach, because it seems these RVs we’ve been taking for granted just became obsolete.

  Sunday, April 20

  Things become more bizarre with each passing day. We have been staying put. Not ready to move until we knew exactly where we would go. We were just south and west of someplace called Little Falls. We could not actually see the town from our hiding place, but early this morning we could hear a lot of vehicle activity.

  Greg, Tim, Meredith, and I followed the ridgeline we had been parked behind these past few days and had plenty of brush to creep through. We could look down on what Tim said had to be State Route 23. Sure enough, a convoy of military vehicles was creeping along. They were killing every zombie in sight.

  At first we thought they would be raiding the town. We guessed that this group or one like it had been the reason Ritzville looked the way it did. Meredith was the first to hear screams. There were survivors in Little Falls! But the convoy seemed oblivious. Two half-tracks with mounted heavy machineguns continued along with guns blazing.

  After at least ten minutes, the shooting stopped. It became clear that not all the folks in the convoy were military. We saw all sorts of people jump from the back of the covered trucks and begin running into places—businesses, residences, it didn’t seem to matter—and emerge with arms full of all sorts of stuff. They were stripping the town.

  For some reason, I was reminded of the Grinch and his late night raid on Whoville.

  Then…the Indians showed up. Native Americans for the politically correct.

  The folks raiding the town never saw them coming. We could because we were up on this hill. They swept in from three sides, sneaking into buildings from the side opposite the looters. Whoever was in charge of the convoy was too late in noticing that his people were not returning. I had read in history books about the “war whoop”, but I never figured to hear one for real. This cry cut through the air and suddenly guns opened fire from every direction on the hapless convoy.

  Ten minutes later, other than the ones burning, every vehicle was taken. There were no survivors. We hustled back to the RV’s. We had not really considered anything spectacular about the pink swath on the map labeled “Spokane Indian Reservation”.

  It seems we’ll need to use caution tonight. We have determined that this is no longer a safe hiding spot. We will have to dive between Spokane and the reservation. Hopefully before any sort of war breaks out in this area. It is a safe guess that the convoy came from the Air Force base. Now it appears as if the Native Americans are reclaiming what was theirs. Take it any way you like, but they are welcome to it. Lord knows we’ve screwed it up enough.

  I may have failed to mention this, but the Spokane Reservation Indians…some were actually on horseback. I saw bows, arrows, and a lot of hand-held weaponry in with the guns they used on the convoy. I am curious to know what they are doing to survive…but not curious enough to go onto their land and find out.

  Monday, April 21

  It is windy, cold, and rainy. We are in some pretty wild country. This isn’t quite a mountain like Mt. Hood or Mt. Rainier, but it is bigger than a foothill. We are looking down on something, and don’t know what to make of it.

  It is a small town.

  The lights are on.

  Thursday, April 24

  It is possible that we may be in a place we can stay!

  We are on the Washington/Idaho border in what the residents are calling Irony, USA. Situated on a plateau in a rugged valley is a heavily fortified town. The plateau itself is almost two miles wide at its thickest. Shaped sort of like a football that is flat on one side, the town has a dense tree canopy. It sits about thirty feet off the valley floor. One side is bordered by a fast-flowing white-water river that is fed by a waterfall a mile or so up the valley. The other is a thick ravine that slowly inclines several hundred yards before the sheer face of a mountain suddenly thrusts up out of the ground.

  The place is well hidden. We would have more than likely missed it entirely if we had not come in from the south. We had been following the river off and on as terrain allowed, seeking a crossing point.

  We waited till sunrise to try and get a better idea of what sort of folks were there. We watched a group of about twenty people come to the southernmost tip. They were all armed with assorted weapons, but they also carried buckets and gardening tools. With varying degrees of skill they repelled down on five lines that, once everybody was down, a few young children about Joey’s age pulled up.

  There didn’t seem to be any zombies in the area, but it was clear that these people took no chances. They followed the river on the side opposite us and disappeared over a slight ridge. Tim and Samantha crept away to try and see them from another position and returned forty minutes later to report that they had a large fenced garden in an obviously well tended plot of land about the size of half a football field.

  After a quick discussion, we backtracked with the RVs and found a place to hide them. It was decided that Antonio, Colleen, Perry, and I would go and see if they were welcoming strangers. If no word returned within a week, everybody would leave and continue seeking a place to try and call home. I made it clear: No hero crap. No rescue. We should be able to tell in a relatively short period of time what sort of folks these wer
e.

  The four of us grabbed a few weapons and enough supplies to support our story that we had been on our own as a group surviving off the land. We approached the plateau in plain sight from the northwest, again doing our best to keep knowledge of our comrades’ direction and location as hidden as possible.

  We knew we had been spotted when a crowd began to gather along the western edge of the plateau. A man with a bullhorn actually called down to us, telling us to follow the river south to a single tall pine. We did and were met by a handful of men and women on the other side.

  They directed us to a six foot log with an eye-bolt screwed into it. A casual look around revealed three more logs of similar size scattered about. Hmm. Clever. They tossed us a nylon line with a big nut-and-bolt weight at the end. Of course it fit in the eye-bolt, and after hauling the log to the water, the folks on the other side pulled us across the thirty foot wide rushing river.

  We were asked very politely to come forward one at a time to be searched. After being looked over, and a brief conversation, we were invited to climb up. It was made clear that we would be quarantined—together if we wished—for seventy-two hours for “safety reasons.”

  This evening we will be invited to come out and meet people. So far, they’ve treated us fine. They did ask that we relinquish our firearms, but were allowed to keep our hand-held bludgeons.

  “Nobody should be without some protection,” a young blond in her twenties named Tara smiled as she led us to a long building that served as a crude medical facility. This is where we spent our isolation time.

  We’ve been treated great. Fed well. Had several visitors, who I can’t remember the names of, all inquiring if we need anything.

  I’m terrified that I will wake up any moment now to discover this is all a dream.

  Friday, April 25

  Irony, USA. I get it. It seems that this was a compound built by some fringe white-supremacist group. They set up a town and, while they were apparently on some government watch list, they had managed to live off the grid. When the Z-plague hit, that’s what it is referred to as by folks here (I can’t bring myself to be so glib just yet) the Homeland Security agent assigned to the area died, but not before he told his wife about the compound.

  Grace Arndt could be a neighbor on Desperate Housewives. She’s in her mid-to-late forties and is a total knockout. That is where the similarities end. Grace is a no-nonsense lady. When she heard about the compound, she rounded up a bunch of her twenty-two-year-old son’s college friends, equipping them at an arsenal of the town’s (she is from Boise) abandoned National Guard depot.

  It turns out that somebody had brought the infection in from the outside. All they had to do is clean the place out. Now Derrick Arndt, Grace’s son, is masterminding the garden we saw on the way in. It seems he was a major in Agricultural Science at Oregon State.

  I must admit that finding salvation in some separatist compound has an ironic element. Did I also mention that while Grace’s husband was the image of a WASP, at least in the picture I glimpsed in Grace’s house, Grace is what I would call Vanessa Williams-brown, complete with long, silky black hair and green eyes that seem to cut into your soul.

  There are almost a hundred people here. About a third to half of what this place seems built to hold. There are solar cells, windmills up on the hill opposite of where my people are hiding, and four generators. One is modified to run on some sort of bio-fuel and Derrick plans on converting one more of the generators soon.

  Everybody here works and shares in the maintenance, security, upkeep, and farming. In short this is exactly what we were seeking to start ourselves. I’ve only been here a couple of days, and only out of quarantine for one, but tomorrow I think I will talk to Grace. That is if everybody else has the same vibe as me. I will ask to go get the others.

  I want to do it tomorrow because I’ve already signed up to make a supply run. It seems this place still has need of outside resources. (They say the hope is to be completely self-sufficient within the year.) We have a briefing tonight to lay out the plan. They have maps and all sorts of stuff.

  I do think that it would be wiser to let Grace know about Spokane and also about those government spook types we encountered in Pasco.

  I am actually feeling hope. For the first time in a long time, I truly believe that things might be okay. Sure, they will never be normal. But maybe, just maybe, we can stop running. Sleep the night through. Take a walk in the sun.

  Maybe.

  Saturday, April 26

  The tiny town of Chilco was the target for today’s supply run. Of course it has been a busy twenty-four hours for me. Grace was not only thrilled to have the rest of our group join the population of Irony, she was impressed to see the foresight we used in our approach to this community. She was most excited to welcome Julia. Having an RN arrive was big news here. We still have no actual doctor. But there are five nurses here now which is, when you think about it, a very favorable ratio.

  Anyway, there were ten of us on the supply run. We hiked out of the woods and came to a gravel logging road. After a couple of miles we came to an abandoned Ranger Station where an assortment of vehicles are kept: Jeeps, Hummers, pick-up trucks, and five deuce-and-a-halfs! All but one of the deuces have tarp covers. The real prize is a pair of fuel tankers. Derrick has it rigged so that, upon return, any vehicle that needs it can be gassed. Having been told about the RVs, he said a team could have them brought here tomorrow. Tim has already signed up.

  So, we pair up and I team with Trent Blake. He was a bank manager in Coeur d’Alene. Never married, but had a seven-year-old son who he says lives—he won’t use past tense—in Seattle with his mother. Trent, at age twenty-nine, has pretty severe male pattern baldness with just a faint wreath of blonde hair. He seems a bit too optimistic which, from all I’ve seen, can only end badly if and when reality sets in.

  We rolled into town and it was clear that they had hit this place before. Trent pointed out buildings with big, white spray painted “Xs” on them. Those were places already hit. So as we roll in, the zombies of course start coming from everywhere. The town population was posted at 2107 and it looked like more than half remained to greet our intrusion.

  Each of the deuces had reinforced bars in front so the convoy just plowed through, sending bodies in all directions. I was driving ours and I glanced over once at Trent who had grown silent the moment we hit town. He had his hands covering his eyes. I can’t say I enjoy smashing into what had once been a five or six-year-old, but I can’t think of them that way. They are the husks of humanity and will try to take a bite out of me any chance they get.

  So…the targets given Trent and I were a bakery and a pair of houses. Each location was marked with a circle on our map. We rumble up to the bakery first, and I intentionally overshot it to take out a cluster of five zombies coming right at us. No sense in going hand-to-hand if I don’t need to. Trent and I jumped out and used our machetes to make sure the downed zombies stayed that way.

  Trent drew a pair of .22 pistols and climbed on the top of the cab of our truck while I ducked through the already broken glass door and into the bakery. I got to the counter and found it clear on the other side. Before I climbed over I listened best as I could, but didn’t hear anything. So over I went and to the door to the production area in back. Now, this place was about the size of two mini-marts together, so I knew the rear was gonna be pretty big. I pushed open the door and jumped back, nothing comes. But I could smell it. Eventually what I was looking for tumbled from behind three big Hobart mixers. At first I couldn’t tell if it had been male or female. It was short, about four-feet-eleven and easily over two hundred pounds. One arm had been torn off at the shoulder. The back area had several skylights and plenty of windows mounted up high, all of which were miraculously intact, and allowed for plenty of light. I brought my 9mm up, Grace was kind enough to provide a laser site, and once the red beam reached the center of its forehead, I fired. Nothing else emerged.
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br />   Then I went to work grabbing bags of flour, salt, sugar and everything related to baking that lined racks and shelves. Tonight, as I write this, I feel every fifty, twenty, and ten pound bag that I loaded onto a flat pushcart which I found next to one of the big, now defunct ovens. It took most of the morning. A few times I had to stop and help Trent take down a few zombies. Since we—the other trucks and mine—were scattered all over the tiny town, the zombies stayed spread out. That helped a lot.

  After the bakery, we hit the private residences. This time Trent went in. I heard a couple of shots before he came out with clothes, linens, any food still useable, kitchenware…you name it. Basically, the house was stripped of anything and everything.

  Eventually the radios we carried began calling for us to re-group. It was time to leave. I asked Trent if any survivors were ever found. He said it had been a few weeks since they’d brought any back.

  Well…I’m exhausted. But I feel good. Maybe I’m being too optimistic…only time will tell I guess.

  Sunday, April 27

  Her name is Snoe Banks. Maybe she got teased when she was younger, but around here…she is called “Lady B.” At no taller than five feet (she keeps her hair cropped in a crew cut so she isn’t getting anything extra height-wise in that department) and build like a gymnast—except for being way top heavy—she is final death to any zombie unfortunate to cross her path.

  I was in a five person team with her today on a scouting mission of some town called Opportunity, just over the Washington Border. It is one of the largest communities the folk at Irony have considered raiding. Our job was to gauge the density and scout for signs of survival.

  I’d seen Snoe…Lady B…around, but she wears these oversized sweats all the time so I really had no idea. She showed up at the vehicle site wearing skin tight leather from neck to mid-calf. She had a studded-collar, gloves with two-inch spikes mounted on a padded knuckle-band, boots with a steel heel that looks like a meat tenderizing mallet-head and angled steel-toes. She had a pair of laser-scoped 9mm pistols on each hip, sword hilts sticking up over each shoulder, and a knife that would make Crocodile Dundee jealous strapped to one thigh.