by Wood, Gareth
We stopped for the night on a logging road. We ate cold canned soups, and took turns staying awake to keep a watch. I went first, Sarah took middle, and Darren took last. While I was up, I walked around the area the Explorer was in, listening and watching the road. I didn't hear a single other car, or see any lights. No aircraft went over. I saw a moving light way overhead, but I figure it was a satellite. I wonder how long they will last. I seem to remember the Space Station had crew in it. I wonder if they are still up there, watching.
In the morning we had a cold breakfast and talked some more about what to do. In the end we decided to make for Glacier National Park, and then Revelstoke, and see what conditions there were like. Hopefully we could find another vehicle to siphon the gas from soon.
About 20 km down the road we came upon a multi-vehicle accident. Six cars had managed to collide, and we couldn't tell where it had started. A silver Miata was upside down in the median, and looked like it had rolled a few times. Behind that was a red Ford Focus with a destroyed front end and four flat tires. The door was open, and glass was everywhere. Behind that were four more cars in similar condition. One, a blue Mustang, had been torn right in half, and another had burned. We could still see smoke coming from the wreckage.
Right on the ground in front of the Focus was a body, but it was so covered in blood that we couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The body was bent oddly, legs sticking out at a strange angle, and Sarah said it looked like the spine was probably shattered. I stopped the truck about 20 meters back from the first car, and we just looked for a long time. Nothing moved, so we decided to check it out. I told Darren to get in the driver’s seat and come get us if anything happened. I took the rifle, made sure it was loaded, and led the way, Sarah following with the axe.
We cautiously came up to the first car, and I bent down to look inside. It was occupied, and the corpse in the driver's seat was looking right at me and struggling to get out of its seatbelt. I backed away quickly, and moved over to where Sarah was looking at the corpse on the street with the broken spine. Her face was pale, and she told me that this body had been partially eaten. She warned me not to look. I did though, and spent the next few minutes leaving my breakfast in the road. I have never seen anything like that, and I pray to God I never will again. I don't think he's listening though.
We moved on, and found that none of the other cars were occupied. One was an RCMP cruiser, but no officer was to be seen. There were bloody footprints leading away from a few of them, and near the back of the pileup we found another corpse, this one even worse than the partially eaten one we'd just seen. I think it was a woman, but I just couldn't be sure. There wasn't much beyond some bones, skin, and clothes left, and a huge swath of gore across the pavement. Tracks left the site, going away down the road in the direction we were going.
About then, Darren started honking the horn. I could have left my own skin behind when I looked back and saw one of those things walking towards us, arms outstretched and a hungry look in its eye. It only had one, the other was an empty socket, and blood and goop had leaked down onto his cheek. He looked about 22 or so, with those stupid baggy pants and a black punk rock t-shirt. The pants were caught on his feet now and were slowing him down. I called for Sarah to get behind me and I whipped the rifle up and shot at him when he was about twenty feet away. Missed completely, but the shot sure sounded loud out here. I fired again, and missed again. Adrenalin was doing wacky things to my responses. I took a breath, levered another shell into the chamber, and took aim. Dead guy was about ten feet away. I aimed right between his eyes and shot. He fell with a surprised look on his face. His head hit the pavement when he fell backwards, and he stopped moving. The smell hit us then, the awful rotting meat smell these things exude, and I nearly barfed again. Sarah turned around and told me that there were more behind us, and when I looked, they were there, six more about 250 feet away, just coming around the corner in the road. I guess they must have wandered away from the feast here, and heard us arrive and were coming to investigate. I saw that they lurched along, shambled, but they were moving faster than I liked. One was in an RCMP uniform, so I guess that's what happened to the cop. I noticed he had a gun in a holster at his side. We retreated to the Explorer, and I handed Sarah the rifle. We quickly decided we wanted that gun, but weren't sure how risky it would be to try to shoot all these things. When they were just starting to wander through the wreckage on the highway we backed up another 250 feet down the road. I saw that they were not all staying together. The former officer was in fact leading the way, hardly shuffling at all, but in no way as coordinated as he had been in life. Once he had gotten far enough ahead, about 50 feet ahead of the following corpse, I drove towards him slowly, and stopped when we were about 25 feet from him. Sarah steadied the rifle and shot him in the face. I saw the bullet go in, making a wet slapping sound, but he didn't drop! He staggered a bit, but kept coming. She shot again, this time a little too high, and missed. And again, and this time the bullet passed into the skull, and he dropped like a sack of rocks. I jumped out while Sarah covered me, and ran to the body. With Sarah yelling to hurry up, I grabbed the gun out of the holster, grabbed an extra clip that I saw on his belt, and sprinted back to the truck about 10 feet ahead of the next of those things. We reversed another 200 feet or so, and I stopped to hand Sarah the handgun. She passed the rifle to Darren. After that I drove forward again, and wove between the walking dead. One of them got too close, and we knocked him down under the passenger side. Then we were home free, around the pile-up, and off down the road. The gas tank was on a third of a tank, but I wasn't stopping to siphon a tank there, no way in hell.
June 10
We have spent the last few days at a campground a few kilometers from the pass. We decided to stop when we went through the pass, and saw a gas truck at the service station by the tourism center. We checked the place out and found nobody was there, despite the fact that there were a few cars outside. The front doors were unlocked and there were lights on inside, so I went in and had a look around. I took the police officer's handgun instead of the rifle this time. Sarah and Darren stayed in the Explorer, and when I waved, they moved the vehicle up to the pumps and I went back out to help pump fuel. We ended up with a full tank, and then found a few empty gas cans in a car nearby, so we filled them too and put them in the back. Then it was time for a shopping trip. I'd seen lots of things inside that I think we could use, so Darren and I went inside while Sarah kept the rifle outside in case we had to run quickly.
We loaded up some bags with all the canned goods we could find, and grabbed bottled water and fruit juice as well out of the coolers. I spotted a portable gas camping stove and grabbed that too. We loaded all this into the back of the Explorer (getting crowded back there now) and then decided to look inside the tourist trap gift store next door.
It started raining, which was odd, since the sun was shining. We had passed a sign that said the weather could change suddenly up high in the mountains, and I guess that was true. So while it was raining we walked over to the store, Sarah keeping pace with us in the Explorer. Inside (again the door was unlocked) we found the place in chaos. Shelves tipped over, tacky tourist shirts and books scattered all across the floor, and a bloody handprint on the cashiers’ desk. As we stood there looking at the destruction someone came out of the back. Something, rather. This creature had once been a gas station staff member, and its reek preceded it, making both of us gag in the close quarters. It looked terrible, smelled worse, and came at us with a low moan and bared teeth. Darren yelled and back-pedaled outside, and I followed him. The walking corpse was on me before I could get another three steps. It was faster than I suspected it would be. It grappled me and tried to bite me, but all it managed was a mouthful of my denim shirt, and I used a judo technique to sweep its legs out from beneath it. I lost the gun somewhere; I don't even know when I dropped it, probably the adrenaline acting on me. Dead guy fell down, but was turned over in a second and ge
tting up again. He lunged at me as I backed off, and I let him grab my sleeve. A martial arts teacher I had years ago had once told me that if an opponent grabbed your arm or your sleeve, you had him. He'd committed his energy, and you could do whatever you wanted at that point. I found this to be true in practice, and now I found it to be true in reality. I twisted his wrist back, caught it with my other hand, straightened his arm as I slid behind him, and broke his arm at the elbow with a sharp thrust as I passed. Then I found out that the undead don't feel pain. A blow like this would normally have incapacitated a normal human, but this dead guy just ignored it. He was off balance, and one arm was useless now, but he still wanted to bite me. He snarled silently and tried to grab me, and I had to dodge out of the way. I slipped in a puddle and went down, skinning my palms as I broke my fall. I expected nearly two hundred pounds of undead carnivore to land on my back, but instead I heard a gunshot. Not the .22, Darren had picked up the cop's gun, and shot the dead guy in the temple. He toppled and twitched once, and then bloody gore leaked out of the exit wound in his head. Sarah was there right away checking me over, but other than skinned palms I was fine. We looked around carefully, but nothing else came to try and eat us. We packed up what we had and drove away.
After a few kilometers we found this campground. There was a trailer abandoned here, and we stayed the night in it. It was cramped and the beds were small, but it made us feel safer to have metal walls around us. No one else was around, though several of the campsites had signs that people were there recently.
At about 2 in the morning I was out on watch, looking at the glorious sky full of stars, when a few cars went by on the highway. We had the lights off, and the campsite was set back a ways from the road, so I doubt they know we were there. I counted four cars, and they drove by slowly, about 40 kph maybe. They were going west, the same way we were going. They passed and the night got quiet again. Why they were traveling at night I have no idea. I thought that maybe that would attract any undead nearby to the noise and light.
I have also been thinking about how this happened so fast. It seems like within two weeks the whole world just fell apart. Sarah had the thought that maybe the virus was widespread before this started, and something triggered it. She said that some viruses mutate and change when certain conditions happen, and maybe this one was a mutated version of a more common virus. I don't know. I can't imagine what the cities are like now. I think heading into the mountains was the best and luckiest thing we could have done. We have seen a few zombies, some people trying to survive, but nothing on the scale of what we saw in TV feeds from New York or Toronto. It still seems unreal. I think about friends and family, and I have no idea what happened to them. Both Sarah and I lost our cell phones or forgot them when this all started, and we haven't found a working phone so far. And who would I call? Anyways, it's near dinner time now. Its overcast, about 7 pm, and the sun will set pretty soon here. We have been using the propane stove in the trailer to heat food, and Darren is making something that smells wonderful. The kid has hidden talents. I'll try to update more later.
June 13
It's the 13th...a month since this all started. It's amazing how fast the world fell apart.
It's raining lightly, and has been on and off for a few days. We've stayed at the campground, and after the first night I went down to the entrance road and shut the barricade. It won't keep anyone or anything out, but it'll make noise if it's moved, and give us some warning.
A plane went over earlier today. We all heard a jet go by at about 10 this morning. After the quiet we have been used to it was quite loud, but we couldn't see it at all due to the clouds.
Our food and water situation is growing dire. We have enough food to get through about a week and a half, or even two weeks if we stretch it a little. Water is so far not too much of an issue, though we all wish there was enough hot water for a shower. I haven't shaved in days, and Sarah is looking for a way to wash our clothes. We refilled all our empty water bottles from a stream, and boiled all the water on the propane stove to purify it. Provided the propane lasts, we'll use the purified water first, and save the unopened bottles.
We haven't seen anyone on the road since the convoy went past the other night. The radio doesn't receive anything this high up in the mountains. We've been considering our options, and we think we are going to keep moving in a few days, heading for Kelowna eventually, or maybe we'll go north towards the Yukon. Either way, we'll have to get supplies and a better vehicle.
June 17th
It's our last night here in the campground. We've decided it is time to move on. The rain and cold weather at night have chilled us, and we're out of propane now. We have taken to huddling together in the camper even during the daytime to stay warm. Even in June the temperature this high up can get fairly cold.
We haven't seen anyone pass this way since my last entry. A bear wandered through here two days ago around dawn, but he left us alone. He looked healthy and well fed, and probably outweighed all three of us together. He only got about 100 feet away from us at the closest. As soon as he smelled us he took off.
We are planning to head into Revelstoke and see if anyone has survived. From there we are going to try to find a better vehicle, better on gas than the Explorer, and head north towards Prince George.
I am on first watch again. Darren thinks it is stupid keeping a watch here, but I disagree. All it would take is one of those things to find us all asleep, and that would be it, we'd all be dead. I'd better get to it; it is starting to get dark now, and colder. If I walk around and wear layers I can keep warm, though without the propane we can't make coffee, and I won't risk a fire that can be seen or smelled for miles. More in the morning when we're on the road. I'll make Sarah drive.
June 21, 5:45 a.m.
We drove towards Revelstoke, leaving the camper behind. In the event someone else comes this way and needs some shelter, we left the key in the door, and a few blankets and a note inside telling who we are and where we went.
We passed the odd car or truck on the road, but otherwise saw nothing and no one. There were a few deer out on the roads, but they ran off as soon as we appeared. We stopped to siphon fuel a few times, each time being careful to keep a watch while I ran the tubing into the other car. I picked up a magazine from one car, a Newsweek dated four days before I left Calgary. It didn’t contain anything useful.
We reached Revelstoke without any trouble, but found some when we got there. The town wasn't exactly crawling with the undead, but there were enough out in the streets to convince me the place was overrun. The sight of houses and stores with smashed windows and doors, a car nose first into a traffic light pole, and a few skeletal remains in a store parking lot, not to mention the trash blowing along the sidewalks, was more than enough to make me think this was a dead town. We drove past a few shambling dead things, easily avoiding them, and were thinking of just driving straight through when we heard a gunshot. It was easy to tell what it was, but we couldn't tell where it came from! The undead seemed to know however, as they all turned in a northern direction and started shambling off that way. We quickly decided that if there were other survivors we had better go help.
We drove into the area the undead were searching and heard another shot. After that we had an idea where it was coming from, and then it was only a matter of time. We found a house with a pile of corpses in front of it. There must have been twenty or so, and the walking dead were converging on this place. In the second floor bay window I could see someone moving, and then there was another shot, and a nearby zombie went down as its head was destroyed by a bullet. The person in the window started waving, and I drove right up to the house, and then turned the Explorer around. Darren leaned out the window with the rifle from the back seat and shot an approaching undead, and Sarah stepped out with the pistol and covered the front of the vehicle. I saw the windows open on the second floor, and a rope was thrown out. The main floor doors and windows were all boarded up and sealed
with bars, so I guess whoever was in there was coming out the window. A backpack got tossed out just as I was stepping out of the truck with the baseball bat, and I heard Sarah shoot twice at something. Darren shot at another one that was about 50 feet away. I ran over to grab the pack just as a young woman with a rifle and a child of about four clinging to her back stepped out of the window and down the rope in one smooth motion. We just stood and stared at each other for a second, and then I grabbed her pack and told her to come on. We all piled into the Explorer, and I stepped on the gas as everyone was getting squared away in the back.
She introduced herself as I wove the vehicle around and through the walking corpses that were clutching for us. Her name is Jessica, and her son is named Michael. She busied herself getting him belted into the middle seat, and then asked if we had any food or water. She explained that the electricity and water had cut off a week ago, and she was out of food for two days now and nearly out of bottled water as well. Darren reached back and gave her two water bottles and a can of fruit salad and some canned soup, and after he found a can opener in his pack she opened them and fed her child. Little Michael was so happy to see the fruit salad especially that he cried as he was eating.
By this time we had gotten back to the main road safely, and in a matter of minutes we had left Revelstoke behind. I checked the gas; we had over two thirds of a tank still, so I wasn't too worried.