I punched him in the arm, told him he was a dickhole, and then we went back home.
March 1
It’s March already. Spring starts this month. I wonder what spring is like in the tundra. I imagine it’s just like winter, only marginally warmer.
I found myself laughing today at Benjamin who had stripped off all his clothes and was running around naked. I immediately caught myself and felt guilty. How can I still laugh after everything that has happened?
David saw this and put his arms around me. He told me that life had to go on. There wasn’t a single person we’d lost who’d want us to lose ourselves in grief and depression. I know he’s right, but the pain is still so fresh. Now that I’ve seen exactly how the virus works, I can picture how our families and friends suffered. I don’t know if those who had minor bites, like Olivia, were better off, or if those who were torn to pieces, like Jonathon, had it easier. One death is long and lingering, while the other is over so quickly. Maybe I’m totally wrong. Maybe Steve and Bruce were the ones who were better off. Death by hypothermia has to be preferable to death by zombie bite/virus.
All I know is that this way of thinking can’t be good for any of us. It’s not good for the children to see me so down. They are all trying to get my attention and cheer me up. There were times it worked today, but other times, I just wanted to run and hide.
Dan’s outlet for his grief seems to be in furniture making. He came in today with a beautiful coffee table for our living space and says he has many more plans for our home.
We are out of so many things: toilet paper, tissues, Tylenol, baked beans, flour, and sugar to name a few. We are far from starving, and I’m a little surprised this all lasted as long as it did. But we are starting to be creative to replace some of our perishables with alternatives. We are trying rags for toilet paper and it’s working so far, but it’s also a little disgusting. I rationalize it by saying that it’s no more disgusting than cloth diapers. We’ll get used to it, but God, I miss two-ply.
I’ve always hated baked beans, but even so, I was irked we were out. It’s so funny how these things are leading to such irrational reactions. I can’t explain it. I suppose it’s almost as if I associate these things with home, and the more I lose, the farther away home feels. Or maybe I just grew to like those damned baked beans.
* * * Xuân * * *
Mike showed me the furniture Dan has been throwing himself into. It always has her initials worked into it intricately somehow. You need to know what you’re looking for to see her in everything he makes.
I found a piece of gum in my backpack yesterday. It was from a Mexican restaurant I liked. It looks like an individually wrapped little rectangle and was rum flavour. I managed to bite it in half without any damage to my teeth and Mike chewed the other half. We fantasized about rum, and rum cake, and rum syrup, and wondered: where’s the rum?
The thaw must be coming because there’s been an increase in zombie and bandit activity.
Cold water gets bloodstains out the best. It just took me a couple of months to figure that out. Luckily, most of my clothes are dark anyway. I don’t think anyone else has noticed.
March 2
* * * Xuân * * *
There were some bandits camped south of us.
Mike and I ran into them while they were drinking booze by a campfire and talking outside of a tent. There were three of them, young men. They had walked up here somehow. They had heard rumours of some kind of compound around here. Supposedly, the compound was well protected, but it had women and food. They joked about wanting real, warm women, because “Candi” wasn’t cutting it anymore.
Then I saw her.
They had a female zombie by a tree with a harness around her body. She was wearing a mask, one of those full-face Venetian masquerade masks. When she moved her head to the side, the mask slipped and I saw that the lower half of her jaw was ripped off so she couldn’t bite. She also had no forearms, just stumps. She was dressed in a cheerleading outfit. Or what was left of one anyway. The pompoms had been taped to her arm stumps. She must have been fifteen when she died.
The eldest guy went over to her. She started thrashing around when he came closer, trying to snap at him. He just laughed and pulled the leash and her into the tent, joking, “I’ll be back soon boys, just gotta talk to the little woman here!”
His friends laughed while I heard him grunting in there. I’ll call him Pinkie. Why? Because I’m sure his cock and balls must be tinier than a pinkie finger.
Mike was slightly green.
While Pinkie was groaning away in the tent, his friends drifted off. One went to take a leak, and Mike motioned towards him and left. I don’t think he wanted to be near what was going on, but he knew I could take it. The other guy sat down close to the tent, eager for his turn.
I cut the waiting guy’s throat from behind. He fell, and while he was gurgling and bleeding out, I pulled him around to face me so he could look at how pissed off I was while he died. I dragged his body to the side.
Pinkie was making too much noise to hear his friend die.
Mike came back and we waited outside the tent, on either side.
Pinkie came out (geez, didn’t last more than three minutes in there) and was zipping his pants up when I smashed his knee in with a crowbar. He screamed and tried to reach for something in his pocket when Mike broke his arm with a shovel.
He writhed on the ground, clutching his arm and sobbing. He looked up at me, his eyes got wider, and he shit himself. Then he screamed, “It’s you! It’s you! Oh God, please don’t kill me!”
Me? Am I famous? Why isn’t he mentioning Mike? Or also screaming while looking at him? We go out on patrol together. We don’t ever leave anybody alive, zombie or bandit, so how would word travel? Were they scouts? So if enough scouts sent in one direction don’t return, then, to bandit groups, might that mean a heavily-armed and well-stocked compound? Or were there scouts watching secretly while I killed their comrades? Now I will need to do wider sweeps.
But I didn’t ask. Neither did Mike. We didn’t say anything while we broke his other arm and kneecap. A switchblade fell out of his pocket, likely what he’d been thinking of attacking us with. We dragged the bodies of his friends over and left them in a heap next to him. I don’t know if everyone who dies comes back as a zombie, so we crushed their heads, just in case.
I went into the tent for Candi. I think her name would have been something like Samantha or Amanda. Just something nice and rather wholesome. I didn’t look at anything in the tent. I killed her quickly and covered her with a blanket. And I untied her from the stakes.
We piled their stuff (nothing worth taking) in the tent while Pinkie sobbed and babbled incoherently. I splashed the bottles of tequila and rum inside the tent, along with stacks of money they had in a backpack. The wind wasn’t blowing in the direction of the compound, so we set the tent on fire, for Samantha/Amanda.
Then we went home. We didn’t say anything.
Pinkie, we left outside the tent, alive.
March 3
There has been a sense of listlessness about us this past week. I almost felt as if we were sitting a form of Shiva for our friend. We did our chores around the compound, cooked our meals, and did the bare minimum of washing up. However, there was no music, no entertaining ourselves of any kind, no activities of leisure. When we talked, it was mostly about our loss, and about how we were feeling.
Today, Mike got us all to snap out of it. After dinner, he marched into his room, came back with his guitar, and announced that we were going to sing. There was some resistance at first, but he got us started with some classic rock. This led to other songs, some musical theatre tunes, and some requests from the children for Disney and Muppet songs.
The evening soon involved laughter and smiles, which for once did not leave me feeling guilty over my happiness. The fact of the matter is that we are alive, and we should be doing our damnedest to remain that way. Living in sadness and gr
ief was not what we came out here to do, and no one would want that for us. The lives of our friends and family members should be celebrated and remembered. This is what I will try to take to heart from now on.
* * * Xuân * * *
Mike woke up screaming.
I sleep just the same at night. But I don’t dream about food anymore. I don’t dream about anything.
I might be a bad influence. I wonder if I should leave.
March 4
After last night, I thought we had reached a turning point, however today, Xuân and I heard another engine somewhere out beyond where we could see. I was glad that she could hear it as well since two of us could more easily persuade the others that someone new was nearby.
The sound filled me with dread as opposed to hope. The last time I heard this noise, it had eventually led to someone’s death. I can’t believe anything good can come of hearing it again. Xuân seems to be in agreement with me about this. We will not go searching, and if we do come across them on one of our hunting trips, there will be no investigation. Let them come to us, and let the gate remain closed to them. They have a hard road to go if they want us to think they are our friends.
Xuân and I spent the whole day together. We felt we needed this time. The guys took care of the children and the chores while the two of us sat and talked. We watched some movies together, and drank probably more than we should have, and spent a lot of time just talking. We reminisced about all the things we’d done. We talked about the time we took a course in England together one summer, about all the Renaissance Faires we’d been to. We decided that if we ever got to go back home, we would organize one for everyone. We all need a little jousting in our lives. We briefly entertained the idea of holding one here, but the period costumes are all in my house in Toronto, and it’s too difficult to sew them here. And yet…I really want to make this happen.
Over dinner, we talked about our plans with the boys. They think that a Faire sounds silly, but they’re up for it provided they don’t have to wear tights. I think we can find other costume ideas for them. Pirates didn’t wear tights. Ethan and Benjamin are very excited about the idea that they will get to be pirates when we go home. Samantha wants to be a princess and a pirate. I said that was okay.
I hope we’re making the right decision about the new mystery vehicle out there. I just couldn’t bear to lose anyone else. I don’t think anyone here could. I’m at the point where I can’t see any good coming to us from the outside world. I may be putting on a brave front by planning the future in Toronto; I just don’t see any future myself. Not here, not there. There’s nothing for us anywhere, and this scares the hell out of me.
* * * Xuân * * *
I think Mike needs to be away from me for a bit. So I spent the day talking with Alexis.
We just talked about normal, ordinary things. Stuff from back in the day. Like the Pirate Festival we went to, the hearts I broke at Fan Expo, and the nerds who were completely incoherent and unable to speak to me because, as one guy put it, I “exuded sexiness and those guys just couldn’t deal.” We thought it’d be a great idea, maybe, when (if) we got home, to do a Ren Faire. Something nice and ordinary to look forward to. Something where I’m not murdering.
I would like to be normal again, some day. But is this normal now?
March 5
We are definitely seeing the weather slowly warming around here. It still feels like winter, but it’s not as brutal as it has been. I don’t see all the snow melting any time soon, but it will at least be tolerable.
The triplets spent a lot of time outdoors today. Ethan is mastering the art of snowball making, and he has quite the arm, if not the aim. Samantha thinks that this is great fun; however, she just tosses handfuls of snow at people, rather than trying to form balls like her brother does. Benjamin has no interest in throwing projectiles at people and David has taught him how to make snow angels. By the time we went inside for lunch, the yard was dotted with tiny angels as Benjamin went from spot to spot, dropping to the ground.
Watching the children play sure lightens everybody’s mood. It’s as if their enthusiasm for the simplest things is infectious to us all. We smile, we act happy, and we are pleasant to be around. The effect is wonderful to see.
It is so hard pretending that everything is fine. I know I’m not fooling my husband one bit. He’s tried so hard to get me to open up about what I’m feeling, but I just don’t want to talk about it all right now. I can see from watching everyone else that I’m not the only one who has lost hope for a real future. We all have dead eyes when we think we’re not being watched. We keep talking as if we’re going home, but I think we are trying to fool one another at this point. Maybe it’s all a show for the children. If so, I’m grateful for the attempt.
* * * Xuân * * *
Is it murder? Wouldn’t it really be self-defence? Isn’t that what I’m doing? Protecting my group? Or I am just trying to justify my need to smash heads?
Is my “crazy” beginning to infect the others? Alexis and I heard a car and for once, she agreed with me: shoot first, ask questions later.
I worry I’m a psychopath, but Mike points out that a psychopath wouldn’t wonder if she was one.
I think he’s better now. But he doesn’t want to patrol too far away anymore, especially south. He thinks we should fortify our compound.
I want to tell him that if he wants to leave me, he can. It would be awkward living together still, but I won’t flip out. I think.
But I don’t know what to say.
March 7
The car was heard again. It seems closer than it was the last time we heard it. We were all outside letting Sebastian pull the kids around on their sled, and this time, every single one of us heard the car’s engine.
Benjamin looked up, pointed off in the distance, and said “Car!” when we heard the sound.
Xuân and I exchanged looks. If they were driving around, they would eventually come across our location. Chances were very good that this would happen. When that does occur, what would we do? It seems as if the choices are being taken out of our hands. If they come to us, we will eventually have to deal with it. We need to be ready. We need to remain vigilant.
* * * Xuân * * *
The car was so close that the sprogs heard it. Time to break out the weapons. No more patrols outside the perimeter. We stick close to home; we need to be here in case of attack.
March 9
I had the most horrific dream last night. In it, I was walking down a street littered with abandoned vehicles. I was searching for my family, and I remember being terrified that I couldn’t find them anywhere. I heard movement up ahead and I headed in the direction of the noise. I kept hearing this metallic scratching sound, and I was scared that my kids were trapped inside one of the cars. I looked inside each and every window I passed, seeing nothing but blood and abandoned toys and clothes littering the seats of the cars.
As I continued, the noise kept getting louder and louder. I saw movement behind one of the cars ahead and headed towards it. Suddenly, I became aware of a hoarse moaning sound and I became paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move at all and was rooted to the spot waiting for whatever doom awaited me. When I saw who it was, I relaxed, as Olivia came into view. As she came closer, I tensed up again seeing her for what she was.
Olivia’s hair was matted with blood, and her eyes were glazed over, staring vacantly ahead. She moved with the shuffling gait of a zombie, her clothes covered in soot and dirt. Her mouth was open and let out an incessant moan.
I shuddered as she came ever closer. I wanted to turn and run away but found I had lost the ability to move in any direction.
Olivia finally came close enough to touch, but she didn’t reach for me. She just stopped moving and stared right through me.
“You did this to me,” she rasped out. “You killed me. This is all your fault.”
I couldn’t speak. I had nothing to say.
A car door slammed to
my right, and I looked to see the frozen corpses of Steve and Bruce shuffle over. Soon, they were followed by Jonathon, his throat torn out, a huge bloody gash on his arm, his entire body covered in gore. Behind him staggered the lifeless, zombified corpse of Loren, then my parents staggered into view, followed by my ghoulish three-year-old niece and my sister. David’s family followed, with missing limbs and covered in blood. Marilyn staggered forward, dragging her intestines behind her.
Every one of them groaned the same message at me.
“You should have saved us. You knew what was happening. We should have been forced to come with you. Why didn’t you save us?”
My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t know what to do. In fact, I agreed with them.
“Look what your folly has led to.” Loren pointed at a spot directly in front of me.
I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to look.
Ethan, Benjamin, and Samantha pulled themselves forward on ruined arms. Their mouths were open, and I heard the same lifeless moan I had heard too often. Behind them shambled David, his throat torn open, one eye missing. Beside him walked Xuân, a cavernous hole in her chest.
My zombified children grabbed onto my legs and pulled themselves up to stand in front of me.
“Please no,” I whispered, “not them.”
I had no fight left in me as my children began to slowly devour me. I let it happen. I had nothing left to live for.
The Bath Salts Journals (Volume 1) Page 13