Starvation was another population decimator. Shaun lost his new baby to starvation, along with his girlfriend. It didn’t matter how far we went out into other parts of the city and scavenged for food, there just wasn’t enough edible food left for a population that size. We tried starting gardens, but they didn’t grow fast enough. Seeing those people die was the hardest. Starvation is a hard, slow death.
I remember Uncle Andrew and I sitting in Shaun’s bedroom while he watched his girlfriend pass away. Then we had to give him a few minutes to grieve before we ushered him out and killed her again in case she turned and came back as a zombie. It was different with the influenza victims; they never turned. We don’t know why. People feared starving so much that a few asked to be placed near someone who was infected with the flu in the hope that they would also get infected and die normally. I’m glad those days are over.
Uncle Andrew had the responsibility of dealing with the governor’s mansion. He learned how to operate a bulldozer and big construction equipment, and after he and a team went through the gates, they set fire to all the buildings and let them just burn. Then he knocked everything down with the dozer and used a dump truck to haul everything out. He had a crew of a dozen men with him who wore protective clothing and went through basically a HAZMAT scrub every evening before they left the site. It took them a few months, but they destroyed it all, thank God. Don’t EVER ask me what was behind the gates of the governor’s mansion. I and all those who saw it never want to talk about it again. EVER!
Grandpa, who had stayed holed up in his house with the rest of Shaun and Uncle Andrew’s family, grudgingly left the house and came to a meeting at Trinity one evening just before the flu started taking people. He ended up actually not being all that cantankerous. He helped us plan our gardens for the spring and helped us organize ourselves for planting. I think he enjoyed being an authority on farming. He used to own a farm in his younger days. He helped us with planning the crop rotation and the early planting and late planting of plants and how to do a lot of other things. He and I became pretty good friends. I was sorry to see him pass. He passed that April of old age and starvation, I suspect. Over the months I got to know him, he wasted away to nothing but bones before he passed.
Keith, the handsome kid who was the new trainer of our troops? We lost him after the battle for Philander Smith. We decided to clear the campus after Paris Towers. We lost Keith clearing one of the dorms. One of the adults who he’d been training freaked out or got clumsy going into one of the rooms and a zombie got past him and bit Keith. The kid kept fighting till he turned and one of the other kids killed him.
The funny thing about that battle? We lost more adults in it than we did kids. Besides Keith, we lost one other kid who was just too weak to fight off the zombie that surprised him. We lost seven adults that day.
Roland died at the battle of Broadway Plaza. That’s where Broadway meets Roosevelt Road. There’s a shopping center that used to hold a grocery store and a few other businesses. We knew it was a weak spot on our walls and were slowly trying to build it up, but we were suffering from the flu outbreak and malnutrition. Those who were healthy were stretched thin. A group from south of Roosevelt tried to attack us, and it was happening more and more as people across Little Rock got desperate for food.
Roland was on the wall defending that gate when one of the attackers got him in the shoulder with a hatchet. It broke his left clavicle bone and the attack almost took off his arm. He survived the fight and the battle, but even after we took off the rest of his arm and cauterized the wound, he had internal bleeding we didn’t know about. This was before we got the doctors; Ashley just didn’t have the skills to deal with it. A few weeks later he died.
Also that February, we lost power. The electricity finally went out for the entire city. It was after a very hard snowstorm. Luckily, we didn’t lose the use of the gas lines until the spring, or I think we’d have burned everything in sight just to keep warm. We had city water till the hottest part of the summer, when it quit. We got lucky there too. We’d started digging wells after trying dowsing. We came up with a few empty holes, but we did find a few wells, so we have water. Sewage became a big problem when we lost the water. A few families refused to change over to the new sanitation rules, so they were evicted. The squalor they were living in was unnecessary and just waiting to breed a batch of diseases we didn’t need. Now, as much as nobody likes it, we all take a turn in the sanitation rotation. To set a good example, I took the first rotation. I’m coming up on another very soon and I don’t look forward to doing that again.
It wasn’t all bad news. Mrs. Greenbaum established a school and it’s doing well. We take in more kids than we do adults and Bobby does a great job with them. They come from all parts of the city, as one kid put it, “for the safety and the education.” Kids just want to learn. Although none of them like the sanitation classes, either. Our population has grown again and is up to about five hundred. Like I said, we’ve been trading with other parts of the city. Our government is strong and we have a lot of order. Uncle Andrew, who was a government policy teacher, now teaches a little government and a lot of gardening. He’s carried on his father’s farming skills.
Jamie became a part of our family. She’s my daughter now. At least we all recognize her to be ours, along with Jr. He’s recognized as our son. He’s doing his sanitation rotation now. He lost an eye in a library run. He and a group of kids went to the library to gather books and bring them back to Philander Smith to add to our library there. Topics that we didn’t have books on. They didn’t see any zombies, but got into a fight with a band of marauders. He won’t say much about it or anything else. He’s as tight-lipped and matter-of-fact as he always has been, but from interviewing others, I found out that they were attacked by a group of adults. Two kids were killed and one got his leg broken. They managed to kill all but one of the marauders, who apparently came from the group we stayed with early on at the Big Dam Bridge. Jr. laughs a lot, but he just doesn’t talk much.
Jamie has fallen into pediatric nursing. She helped Ashley with the setup of the hospital and she started taking care of the babies. Compared to then, we now have a lot of babies. It’s amazing what a year will do. It might seem strange to some that we approve of kids having families so young. Babies having babies, is what they say. But I look at it this way: most of the world’s population has been wiped out through the zombie outbreak, starvation, greed, and disease. These kids who have survived all that, if you can call them kids, are stronger men and women than we had on the planet before. In two years, they’ve seen more death and destruction than anyone should have to see ever. These are good kids. If they want to fool around, they deserve it. If they have kids doing it, I think we’re all a lot better off for this new generation we can shape than we were with the generation we left behind. Jamie will make a fantastic mother one day. I just don’t want her to date anyone, ever. Am I a father or what?
As for me, what happened to George? The web designer turned king turned interim president? I’m a farmer! What did you expect? Food is very important around here. There are two lots along Chester where a long time ago there used to be two apartment complexes. They were torn down years ago and have been empty fields ever since. We turned them into our main farmland and our first year’s worth of crops barely kept us alive. But thanks to an aggressive sanitation and composting program and a lot of dedicated people, I think we’re going to have a good crop this year. I certainly hope so, because with Sarah pregnant, I want the baby to survive.
I like working with the land. It’s very relaxing. Getting your hands dirty is very satisfying, eating what you grow. We tried to make beer this past spring with some of the crops. It didn’t go well, so we’re going to try again this coming spring. I think we have a better understanding of how to do it now. We had to build a big fence along Chester because that’s where our fields border the outside world and a lot of people try to sneak in and get the food. More than
a few people have been shot trying to do so. It’s probably the most guarded spot we have.
We had a spring celebration last week. Everything was going great. People were making music by any means available. We had a lot of people from our local friendly communities in to visit us. There was food and contests planned. It kind of reminded me of an old county fair before electricity. Eddie had just announced the museum exhibit for our library here at Philander Smith where there will be little statues of us made from Ken and Barbie dolls, along with our photos and this diary.
We made it. We are here.
The End
Appendix
This entire story started out as a tweeted story on Twitter because I didn’t know what else to put on there. The little captions at the start of each chapter are from most of the original tweets. After a while as you read the story you’ll find that I started straying from the tweets and the story took a direction of its own. I went with the story that I was now telling instead of trying to follow the tweets, but I kept them mainly out of my own interest.
If you’ve been reading them and following them, you’ll see that they stop abruptly in the middle of the story. Had I followed them the story would have dragged out a lot longer and a lot slower. Keep in mind I was making them up daily and didn’t really have a story in mind when I started tweeting.
But if you’re interested in what that story would have looked like, here are the rest of the original tweets right up to the point I decided, after much encouragement from tweet readers, to write this story. So here are the last eleven chapters to the original story.
Enjoy.
Appendix.
Left a message for them. "Meet me at post office Broadway." We’ll set up a sniper just in case. These days I’m careful w/neighbors.
Stopped by the hidden freezer 4 more meat. It’s still frozen solid. Back to the Safeway roof and our camp. This meeting got me worried.
ZWD: Jan 01. As we thought, the folks from the school were going to steal from us. Hidden in the hillside we blew a gas can & brought zombies on them
From Safeway roof watched 7 zombies drift down the alley. 1 looked in bad shape. I don’t feel sorry for them. We could be their food.
ZWD: Jan 03. The sun sits low in the sky, glair off everything, can't see. Someone is moving around below. Sometimes I catch the glint of metal.
Shots ring out. They’re trying to hit us on the roof. I count 7 different guns. Must protect the ladder up to here. 2 trying to sneak up.
We wait till a head clears the roof before shooting. 2 down, I can see the zombies coming down the street. Attracted to the gunfire.
We wait and listen from the roof. Zombies get 5 of them. Lots of gunfire. 2 on the run. Days for the dead to drift away. Rations for2.
In a few hours we’ll take the new dead’s heads & loot the bodies, it’s the best place to find lighters. No sign of the 2 living friends.
2 days rations for us both. With this many dead around we will have 2 wait 2 days before we’re really safe to scavenge again.
ZWD: Jan 04. 2 gunshots this morning. We checked the pole note. From Bob ”U ok?” we heard a fight. Maybe it wasn’t then. Wrote back “still alive.”
ZWD: Jan 06. Came down w/bug. Sick all night. Real comfort to know your spouse is standing watch ready to comfort or blow your brains out if you turn.
ZWD: Jan 08. After 2days and better. Woke once to a gun at my head in the heat of fever. We have never seen someone turn into zombie being careful.
Table of Contents
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 02ZWD: Dec. 02.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 03ZWD: Dec. 03.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 04ZWD: Dec. 04.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 05ZWD: Dec. 05.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 06ZWD: Dec. 07.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 08ZWD: Dec. 09.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 10ZWD: Dec. 10.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 11ZWD: Dec. 11.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 13ZWD: Dec. 12.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 14ZWD: Dec. 13.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 15ZWD: Dec. 13.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 17ZWD: Dec. 15.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 18ZWD: Dec. 15.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 19ZWD: Dec. 16.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 20ZWD: Dec. 17.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 21ZWD: Dec. 17.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 23ZWD: Dec. 19.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 24ZWD: Dec. 19.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 25ZWD: Dec. 20.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 27ZWD: Dec. 23.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 28ZWD: Dec. 23.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 29ZWD: Dec. 24.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 30ZWD: Dec. 24.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 31ZWD: Dec. 24. WE ARE HERE!
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 32ZWD: Dec. 27.
ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 33ZWD: Dec. 27.
ZWD: King of an Empty City EpilogueEpilogue
Appendix
ZWD: King of an Empty City Page 34