Zombies! Rising from the Dead

by Richard Palmer

  As for me right now things aren't too bad. I still have electricity, water and heat I know sooner or later it will go out but I am going to utilize them all I can while I still have use of it. I also have peep holes cut in each corner of the house so I can see out and watch what these things are doing. I feel like I am a prisoner in my own

  home.

  Day Seven

  I have a radio and the TV is still working for now. The Emergency Broadcast Channel has been up for almost a week now. Up until a few days ago there were still live news broadcasts and updates, I guess things have gotten worse because one day I got up and there was nothing; nothing but a blank screen and a generic E.B.C signal with an automated message. The last update I saw before it all went was from some doctor working with the CDC. It looked as though they had been moved into a bunker or something. That's the last live broadcast I ever saw. It’s all just repeated Emergency Broadcast recordings. I haven't been able to get any news from the outside in days. I have no idea what’s going on, when or if aid will ever come. I am preparing for the long haul.

  Day Eight

  I watch these things as they shamble across the grass, a lawn I used to be so proud of and worked so hard on. I don't think they know I am here, I've been quiet, careful not to make any sound. The house is deftly silent, so still in fact that I find it a little disturbing. It's as if everything around me has gone to sleep, waiting for the day when it will be safe to waken once again. I don't have much that I can do; all I do is sit and listen to those things outside. I can read some when I'm not distracted, luckily I have lots of books around me, books I always intended to read but never got around to them. Now I have nothing but time; talk about solitude!

  Day Nine

  This whole mess started with a meteor in case I haven't told you. The radiation caused dead tissue to ‘wake up’. Putting it bluntly dead people started coming back to life; well not life exactly, but they weren't exactly dead anymore either. It’s not like in the movies, not all of it anyway. We had some run-ins with them several days ago before all hell broke loose. These “things” are just reanimated corpses not really people by any stretch of the word, but they still present a very real danger.

  Day Ten

  Talked to Rick today, I try to talk to him once a day on the radio it helps keep our morale up. He is with Amanda a few miles up the road at his place; but I told you that already. These things are all over the place. Rick told me he had about fifty in his yard; too many to try and make a run for it at this point. They're okay for now

  though, so I’m not too worried at this point. My only concern is his house doesn't have the natural protection that mine does. I have counted about forty of these things myself. They come up to the doors and the windows sometimes. I can hear them shuffling on the front porch, they scratch at the brick, making a sound not much unlike finger nails on a chalk board. At night it can be very unsettling, sitting there in the darkness with only those things to listen to. Every bang, every scratch, and every creak of the house....well, you can't help but think that it's one of them finally breaching the defenses.

  Day Eleven

  I usually write in my journal late at night, when I have nothing else to do and can't occupy my mind with other distractions. It helps to drown out the constant sound of moaning and clawing. I can't go

  around with the lights on, light is tricky, it seeps in and out of the most unlikely places; sound carries further too.

  I hate the nighttime, I can't do anything. I can't listen to the radio, can't watch a movie or move about the house. All I can do is sit here in the corner of this darkened hallway with only a tiny, single candle to light my way as I write, the soft, mellow glow of the candlelight is strangely comforting to me in these hours. Any type of electrical lighting is out of the question...too bright, they might see it and be drawn to its source, they would know I was here for sure then.

  It's just after midnight now; I'm going to try and get some sleep, Good Night.

  Day Thirteen

  Didn't write yesterday, just didn't feel much like it, I get that way sometimes. Who's going to read this but me anyhow? Every day that goes by is more mundane that the last, if these things don't get me the isolation could.

  I spent today rechecking every last door and window in the house; it just couldn't get any more secure than it is. I caulked around the seams to help block out more light, it helps with the

  Sound-proofing to.

  Day Fourteen

  These creatures, as I call them, well they are real people; or were real people. Once they were caring mothers, devoted fathers, loving sons and daughters. They had jobs, homes and lives of their own. Now they are reduced to withering piles of flesh with bloated bellies and heads full of rotting flesh; not much reward for a life of hard work and sacrifice is it? It just seems wrong. I believe in God and I believe that when you die your soul goes to a place, be-it heaven or hell, but there is a scientific aspect to it as well in that what biological material is left behind after the soul departs is something we have to deal with in the physical world. The body is left behind, a body that has seen its own share of happiness, sadness, joy and disappointments; all that time and history leaves an imprint of its own.

  I've seen some shit in the last week or so and I'm telling you that when you die it isn't over, there's more to it that we have yet to fully understand. These damned things seem to have memories, why the fuck would they be gathering at houses? When Rick and I were coming home that day we saw one and it looked right as us, it knew we were there.

  Day Fifteen

  My house was built on the slope of a hill with the front of the house at the top of the hill before it starts to descend, with the rooms in the back of the house unreachable from the ground unless you come in through the basement and up the stairs. I took advantage of that natural protection that afforded me, see with the rooms so far up off the ground the creatures can't see in those rooms, so I can have the curtains open and sunlight can get in; I just have to be careful at night and not use candles near those rooms. Anyway, I have built a

  small garden with tomatoes, peppers and potatoes all planted, it's not much right now but I'm going to add more into it later. It's a bit of a mess what with tubs and plastic canisters filled with dirt everywhere you look. I figure when the prepackaged food runs out this will be all I have to fall back on. If this stuff doesn't grow I'm fucked. Right now I have so much food stockpiled I have months before it becomes a major concern. I have a well which will be good for a while, but when the electricity fails the pump will stop working, I have lots of water stored up, but water is not something I can really replace, so that's a major problem, the one saving grace might be rain water and melting snow runoff when the winter comes.

  Day Sixteen

  I've been watching these things for days now through the peep holes I made in the doors; it really makes you want to vomit. Some of these things are decades old and some look as though they died yesterday. A few days ago one of them was stumbling around in the yard and its leg snapped right in half . . . just broke, clean in half! It fell to the ground but just kept on going. They eat whatever they can get their hands on, I got up yesterday morning and when I looked out the hole one of them had its face covered in blood and fur. In its hands was the carcass of a house cat that had been unlucky enough to cross its path, it must have been sick or something, how else could it have caught the thing? The monster just stood there with the cat’s body in its hands tearing at the flesh with its rotted teeth, the blood of the poor thing dripping down its chin.

  Day Seventeen

  I've said it before these things have memories, something left from their former lives, some basic memory or instinct remains, familiar patterns of behavior carved into the brains after years of repetition; nothing else could explain it. They know to gather at homes, they recognize people and they still have the desire to eat.

  They keep on multiplying and multiplying, I didn't think they knew I was here but I
'm starting to second guess myself; why else would they still be here? Wouldn't they have moved on by now? Maybe they can sense me, smell me or something. There has to be some reason why they don't move on, Rick tends to agree. Rick keeps in constant contact with me. He keeps Amanda isolated, away from doors and windows, pretty much everything. He is trying to make things as normal for her as he can. I know if she saw one of those things that would be it, she would lose it. I have no idea how he is managing to deal with all this. At least I don't have to worry about anyone but myself.

  Day Eighteen

  I wonder about Frankie every day. It pains me to think about what may have become of him. Rick and I both have tried to contact him to no avail. The last time either of us spoke to him was almost twenty days ago now, not a single word since. The last we knew of he was held up inside his store, I fear for him. Thinking about his place there in

  Panatauk, what with the location and layout and all, well I have serious concerns as to whether or not he has survived.

  Day Nineteen

  The days grow long. The television spews weeks old Emergency Broadcast Warnings, the radio is nothing but static, I am alone.

  Rick and Amanda are the only living souls I have contact with or have heard from, I don't think there is anyone else.

  Day Twenty

  My mornings are all the same....

  I get up around 5 in the morning, have a quick look around. On the days when I sleep in the bedroom I listen with my ear to the door to make sure nothing got in overnight. If I sleep at all it’s only a couple hours at a time. I sleep so lightly a pin drop would have me at attention . . . flashlight and shotgun in hand. Nonetheless I listen at the door before opening it, then if I think I'm in the clear I venture out.

  Every morning I make sure no beams or boards have come loose during the overnight hours, shortly after my rounds I peer outside to see what the creatures have been up to during the night. Once I'm convinced everything is secure I radio Rick and check on him and Amanda. We talk for several minutes then I sit down to breakfast.

  I am saving the processed foods for last, waiting till all the perishable commodities are exhausted, some might disagree with my strategy for any number of reasons, but my thinking is meat, fruits

  and vegetables don't last indefinitely, sooner or later they sour or spoil. It's amazing how little the human body truly needs to survive.

  Most people would drink a whole can of Coke in a matter of minutes with narrowly a thought; I can make a can last for almost three days by rationing.

  Any given morning I will have two to three ounces of juice or soda. My breakfast usually consists of half a piece of bread with a little butter sometimes I splurge and have a quarter of a pop tart; it's not living but it is survival.

  After twenty days isolated here I have lost ten pounds, never before did I think my overweight status would come in handy. At 5'3 I weighed 185 pounds, by government standards I was overweight if not obese, but regardless I would be considered heavy for a short fella. I could easily lose forty pounds without suffering any ill effects; you see evolution wants us to be fat for times of famine and strife. If I had gone into this weighing say, a hundred fifty, I would be in seriously bad shape by now. I will never dispute Mother Nature again,

  she knows best.

  Day Twenty-One

  I have seedlings! My garden is beginning to sprout and I considerably relieved. I should have some ripe vegetables in a few weeks’ time. I want to plant more, but I don't have any potting mix or soil. I am thinking about going down into the basement and breaking up a patch of the concrete floor in the arcade room so I can get to the dirt

  underneath. I think eating is more important now than a game of billiards, but still I am very excited!

  Day Twenty-Two

  My situation hasn't changed, those things are still out there, they can't get in and I can't get out. I estimate that there are around sixty of the damned things out there now. They huddle all about the house, walking around my vehicle and driveway just lumbering about with no real intention or goal; yet they remain. Rick insists there are almost a hundred or so around his place, Rick is prone to exaggeration and I truly hope he is exaggerating now; I pray that he is.

  Day Twenty-Three

  I have been trying to figure out where all these things are coming from. How can there be so many out in the middle of nowhere? It's not really a hard question to answer when you think about it. After all, in a five mile radius of my home I can recount five cemeteries that I know of for certainty, and no telling how many more lay scattered about the country side, forgotten. These lonely places are left to wither, due to neglect and the slow passage of time until they fade from all thought and memory; till scarcely they are known to have existed at all. How many of these solemn places sit quietly on grassy hilltops with only the wisp of trees swaying gently in the summer breeze to give hint of the final resting place for so many?

  The dead outnumber the living twenty to one. You spend seventy-five years living on this planet, the rest of that time you spend as a corpse. In reality you spend a lot more time dead than you do alive. We have mummies thousands of years old still turning up in the modern day, still perfectly preserved. Is it really no wonder that there would be so many of these things roaming about? It can take decades, if not hundreds of years for a body to turn to ash, and with embalming techniques such as they are today it could take even longer; but it begs another question. These things are supposed to be buried six feet under in steel crypts, how the hell are they getting out? I figure the funeral industries to blame. Just like any other business (and it IS a business) there is corruption, shortcuts taken in an effort to minimize expense and maximize profit. Who knows what type of underhanded deeds take place behind the closed doors of a mortuary? The very industry itself is taboo; no one wants to think about their own mortality, so they stay as far away as they can from anything dealing with death. It's a free pass for the dishonest who would take advantage of the grieving.

  Another thing is the burial vaults. They look great on the outside but how often does the grieving family of the deceased take the time to examine them? My guess is never. How well are these things really constructed? It’s all for show, to make the body look respectable and dignified for the ceremony, but fuck, they make these things knowing that they will spend the rest of eternity in the ground. No one's going to see it ever again, so who the hell cares if there's a hairline crack on the inside of the lining or a weld that isn't a

  hundred percent perfect? Who's going to notice that shit when they are busy blubbering over sweet Aunt Mabel and checking the list to see who sent flowers and signed the guest book. Even at the end of life it's all about the spectacle.

  Who knows what other corners are cut? Maybe they don't always bury the bodies six feet under, who's to say? How many are buried in Pauper's graves in plain wooden boxes? How many unmarked graves? Murder victims? Shit like that. The possibilities are endless. For every dead fucker who was buried properly I bet there are half a dozen others that weren't. No wonder there are so many of these damned things up and roaming about. Makes we wonder if the ones that are sealed nice and tight in their coffins are just in there clawing away; trying to force their way out.

  I've been trying to figure out the numbers on this. How many of these things am I up against? We have so many cemeteries in Barkley, I can think of two large ones right off the top of my head. I figure in those two alone there must be anywhere from five to eight hundred bodies per graveyard, so in just two cemeteries it's already stands at a thousand or more; and there are countless smaller ones. Let’s say for the sake of argument that there are around two to three hundred in each of those. At the very least we’re dealing with around 3,000 dead, festering corpses within a five mile radius of Barkley alone, and I know I haven't accounted for them all. Let's be generous and say that a good half of them were interned properly, okay fine, but that still leaves fifteen hundred of these things that might not have been. Onc
e again I am only dealing with Barkley; I don't even want to take into consideration neighboring towns like Earington, Kirbyville or Cunningham. I haven't even tried to do the math on those, the

  numbers are staggering.

  Day Twenty-Four

  I am having my lunch the same as I do every day. It's 2 pm, a small drink and half a can of baked beans. It’s my main course...my big meal of the day. It seems like the less I eat, the less I need to eat; stomach is shrinking, it’s a good thing.

  The longer I can ration my food the longer I will survive. Those ‘things’ are still surrounding the house, I don't guess they will ever leave now. If

  they were they would have moved on long ago. It’s just a matter of waiting them out, hoping they rot away before I do.

  Day Twenty-Five

  My little garden is continuing to grow nicely. I look out the window here in what I now call the ‘The Gardens’. The gardens are a special place for me now, it's my “getaway”, my tropical island resort, with the vines and sunlight streaming through the single open window I can come in here, close my eyes and pretend I'm somewhere else. But the growing number of undead continues to concern me. My backyard is just a big swath of unused farm land, and from the window in the gardens I can easily survey the whole area with relative ease.