by Jaime Munt
How could I run and hide?
"I need to piss," someone announced.
I heard two "shhh"s.
But it was the second man who ordered: "Keep it down! You want to draw in every zombie in a hundred miles?"
The third man said something. He sounded irritated.
"It is a big deal!" the first man countered.
"You make it sound like I'm trying to get us killed—you're the one who--"
Then all of them were yelling. The second man, I heard say something about making a mistake. The first man said "--always doing stupid stuff--" I don't know who they were talking to.
"Hey! He's got something!" I heard a woman exclaim.
"Goddamn it—I told you about concealing food!" the first man said
"It's not!"
"Show me!"
Then I heard fighting. A weight struck the side of the camper.
I heard punching—so someone was pushed or shoved. I heard the woman scream. It was loud enough, I think, that no one heard Mr. Ages get out a bark. I closed his face into my armpit and folded myself around him. We lay like fetal twins, listening hard and hearts racing.
"What are you doing?" one of the men cried out in a voice so distorted with panic I couldn't tell if I'd heard him already. The woman screamed again. There was a cry of pain.
It sounded like right over my head, I heard someone utter, "Oh God..."
"Let's go!"
The woman refused.
"Fuck you then!" I imagined the words screamed right against the side of her head.
"Wayne!" she cried.
"They're gonna get cha."
"Wayne!" she wailed.
Then she made an identical sound, but without the shape of a word.
"Look at this shit he has on him!"
"Piece of shit!"
I heard male groans and cries to every "thwack!"
"We gotta go!" a man said urgently.
I heard something thump and slide along the opposite side of the camper.
I heard running. More screaming.
And I heard things taking their time crossing the crunchy, snowy ground.
It's been about twenty minutes, I guess, since whoever was left behind finally died, the beaten man, and probably the woman too. There will be two more busy bodies now.
I’ve released my WWE hold on Mr. Ages’ head.
Mr. Ages looks worried. His ears are laying out flat. His "eyebrows" are pinched.
When I pet him he leans into the cup of my hand, but mostly, I know, he wants to see what I'm going to do about this. And I feel like he wants to know what's expected of him.
I know some people think projecting "human" qualities on animals is stupid.
Can someone be so ignorant to think that humankind has a monopoly on emotions and thoughts?
But then, it wasn't that long ago when popular opinion was that black people were animals and were dumb and had no feelings too.
I don't know why anything people ever did should have surprised me.
Why race and ethnicity were terms too hard for people to understand—
-anyway. I was just thinking about ignorance. Which is a lot easier to think about than the pressing issue.
Do the dead know I'm here? Will they leave? And if the answers to each, in that order are: Yes and No—Then how do I get out of this?
In a Starcraft in a possible lose/lose situation, I can’t help but think: What would Isaac Clarke do?
Dec 20 3:32pm
It's freezing.
Mr. Ages has been making horrible sounds—he needs to get out and "go."
I can't tell if what I think I'm hearing is real or not. I can't tell if they're out there. But I need to decide before nightfall. It’s getting too late, right now, because I'm not going to crawl out the door and find shelter nearby.
I have a pretty good flashlight, headlamp and lantern, but what's light is light. What's dark is dark. More than once I've swung the light and found busy bodies where they weren't a moment before.
I wish I knew what I'm hearing.
I don't know if what I'm hearing is real.
I thought I heard Marie laughing out there.
I thought I heard growling.
I thought I heard clinking nails.
I thought I heard something on the roof.
I thought I heard breathing against the door.
I thought I heard my mother crying. I know the sound of it like I know the smell of death and react to both about the same. But that was when I thought I heard Marie. The sobs turned to laughter.
Maybe I was dreaming.
I'm sure I was.
Obviously, I had to be.
I can't make him hold it anymore.
I hope this isn't the last I’ll write.
If you find a scrappy looking dog with somewhat curly nondescript brown and gray, black and white fur… a mutt—please love him.
I do.
Christmas Eve 11:43am
I'm wondering what other people are doing.
How many people even know the day?
This is a day a lot of dreams and wishes teeter on becoming reality.
Add to them my wishes and prayers for all of us.
Tomorrow I'm going to take a personal day.
Merry Christmas.
Dec 26 5:04am
Should I write even if I have nothing to say?
I guess I can say this; I'm still in Illinois... unless I'm back in Illinois, then I would have been in Indiana.
Anyway, I know where I am.
Dec 27 8:29am
Have been thinking a lot about what happened at the Starcraft. Loneliness can be hard and I don't even have real loneliness, but how could someone give up all the benefits of being alone to take the chance of that shit happening to them?
I would think a person would be safe with people they knew before this started—but did any of us know who we really were before?
Does anyone really know themself before they face catastrophe? How many "strong" people back down? How many "weaklings" step up?
How much worse is this than it had to be, because someone puts their needs, their life before others' when it didn't have to be "me or them"?
I saw a woman leave her own child—who had some distance yet, running to the car. I saw people run from their overrun homes to a neighbor to be turned away. Then I later saw them wandering around hungrily, with those horrific, ungodly eyes.
Way to be, looking out for #1!
I'm guilty of that.
I killed those men. I killed that lady who attacked me for attacking people she knew. Loyalty is a virtue beyond many others, these days. And I killed her for it.
To love someone is a privilege.
How horrible was it for her to see me spring on the rifleman?
If she cared about him—it had to be somewhere in the spectrum of fear and
Jan 2 4:49pm
I ran out of ink. Once it warmed inside my shirt, I got this new pen working. I always kept the other one clipped on the middle of my bra to keep it warm and working.
I'm glad it worked.
I have a couple pencils now too and the rest of the pens from this pack.
So far I'm not seeing any form of winter that I think I can survive in the long term.
That's what I want.
I want to have a house again—a home—a place that I can take care of—will also take care of me.
My shoes have almost had it.
I haven't had any luck in people's homes. Nothing suitable anyway.
I'm too scared to go into town.
Mostly I've been counting on cars, homes that don't look too big and don't appear to be occupied.
I also count on gas stations, like this one, that are a little off the beaten path.
There's not much here, but it had the two things I really wanted: shelter and a pen.
The first things I look for when I decide I need to try a house, now, are if the windows are covered. This could indicat
e it being occupied by someone else.
No one would leave their windows uncovered—at least not this long into it, would they?
I watch for hints of light. I look for activity in the yard and listen around the house. The last I leave to Mr. Ages' good judgment. And it is good.
But I've never found a house with a living person.
I'm hoping that I've heard the end of unnecessary barking. I think he gets it now; at the house there was no reason to be as strict as I am out here, so he wasn't learning anything then.
There were busy bodies outside when we left the camper.
That afternoon his barking saved my life.
Seneca advised, “Choose as a guide one whom you admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.”
I don't know if it was because he had to go so bad, but as soon as I turned the knob enough that the door was loose, he pushed through. The small half-door slammed against the exterior of the camper.
I heard Mr. Ages barking like crazy.
I went out feet first with the screwdriver ready. I pulled out the suitcase with my free hand.
One moved right past me as my head cleared the small entrance.
He kept barking and kept them out of reach. His bark was different—defiant. His bark kept them fixed.
I went around the back of the camper, out of sight, and broke into a run as soon as I reached the shoulder—or I would have broken my neck on the ice.
I called him. It took several times before he bolted to catch up, with a knob of poo sticking out of his ass.
For his sake, I wasn't going to mention this, because I am so proud of him, but the moment that keeps returning to the forefront of my thoughts is when he wiped out on the ice just as he reached me. Even as he hit the road on his side, his legs were still moving so fast.
I think it's at the forefront because I can't stop thinking about what might have happened if the spill had happened closer to them.
Jan 3 7:37am
If there was nothing to worry about I'd wish there was a man here today. Someone strong who'd do some of the worrying for me. Someone who'd protect me.
I want to know what it feels like to fall asleep in someone's arms.
And I'd like to know what kind of woman I would be to a man. Would I be a bitch? A nag? Dominating? Supportive? Loving? Submissive?
I want to know.
The things I felt in relationships when I was young weren't love.
They weren't even lust.
I didn't understand real desire until I was just about to turn twenty. Then I had a whole different part of my mind to get to know.
And I think I was close to everything I’d ever want, then.
I want to know how well I can love someone. I want a second chance.
It's that simple. Today.
Tomorrow it might just be lust.
The next day I'll probably be glad to be alone.
There’s no one to leave you then. No one else’s feelings to consider when you’re dying. What am I going to do without you? Being alone or being with someone, the rule is: Who wants to be hurt?
Jan 4 10:10am
I dreamt I was dead and God asked me, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
How would you feel if you made a wish that destroyed the human race? What would you do if they came back for revenge?
I just feel sick.
Jan 5 3:04pm
I think people writing their will, their last wishes, their final farewells had felt like this. I don’t want to be like that woman.
Trying to capture whatever matters about me and record what is happening makes me feel like a person who knows they’re dying and needs to get their life down so their grandkids will know how they lived—who they were and in that way, more about who they are.
Am I writing to someone who will turn out to be no one? It makes me feel like I’ve been “Catfished” by God. Why would I have felt such a strong compulsion to write if God knew that these would be the only eyes to ever see it?
Statistically speaking, the number of lives left for God to monitor has dropped exponentially. I may be the only living tenant in His supervision.
Wow. That’s actually a little intimidating. I almost felt like the air pressure changed.
There was definitely a sense of being lost to God before—most of us spend so much time trying to find Him.
And all our little or great moral indiscretions were comparable to the acts of millions of other people. Then a person can tell themselves they’re a better person than they are.
We are not being graded on a curve. And the teachers eyes are on me. Like the only person in detention.
I suddenly have this feeling, in almost absolute certainty, that the NEED to start writing this down is like God taking a paper and pen and saying, “I need a written confession.”
Only almost absolutely certain—because I believe that you are out there—or will someday be.
Maybe I’ll try to write a confession. It might be good for me. Even so there are things I’ve felt and done and known that I have to deny that even God knows.
The unspeakable.
The things too ugly for the light of day.
I’ve always been gullible—but now it seems I can talk myself into anything too.
Mr. Ages is watching me.
Is he watching me?
I’m probably projecting again—but his eyes look so smart. They look like he knows what I’m feeling and thinking. Even what I’m writing.
I have a sense that I’ve known him for a lot longer than I have.
He looks at me like he knows me. As if he always has. It reminds me of the way my boyfrie
I’m giving myself goosebumps—I’m just projecting on him whatever way my mind needs to feel less lonely—whatever it needs to keep a firm hold in there—while I am sometimes so afraid my mind is getting lost—I hope I never write to you when I’m like that.
I hallucinate. I sometimes can’t tell what’s dream.
And when my thoughts start going place—looking for people.
I’m freaking myself out for nothing.
I just asked Mr. Ages if he was a dog or if, for authenticity, God would ask an Apocalyptic spy to eat so much shit?
4:16pm
I’ve been thinking that I don’t think I can write a confession. So I’ll just start by listing some regrets.
4:52pm
Just thinking about regrets. Why did I think that would do me any good?
Jan 6 9:01am
I'm wearing out my pictures.
I'm guessing it’s a combination of climate and dirty hands, but they're really beat up.
I'm afraid of losing the faces and the moments.
Is there anyone left to remember?
I feel as if their images keep them around somehow. That they're really just someplace else right now, but if the pictures are gone—it's like they are erased and yet I can't help looking.
Who else will remember their faces?
And I need to remember...
I don't want to think of anybody as winking out like the woman that was eaten by Neighborhood Watch back in Rhinelander.
I dream of dying like she did—not how I've seen anyone else die. It's always like her.
I can hardly remember what her face looked like when it wasn't screaming. I didn't see it that way many times.
There was the first time, when I realized there was someone at that house. She'd thrown out a mixing bowl of what I assumed to be piss.
She reminded me of Joan's sister in Romancing the Stone. The hair and build and now outdated clothes were right.
But I can hardly remember her face.
Jan 7 4:13pm
I wanted to find a library, but thank God I won't have to take any chances in a town, not for a book—because I found the book I needed here.
A book about climate and stuff in the US.
I have thought Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, maybe Kansas would suit me.
I g
uess when I find the place I'll know.
I'm deep in the stomach of winter. I'll get a chance to see the climate I fear the most.
It does slow them down, the winter. The cold.
It slows us all down.
Jan 8 9:40am
Am staying another day here. A winter storm came up last night—howling and blowing snow. To be out in it would be suicide.
The wind-chill must be merciless.
I have to kind of laugh at that when I think of winters in Rhinelander—which were better than the winters I knew in northern Michigan, where I lived until I was seventeen.
The wind is making Mr. Ages make the weirdest sounds. The last blast made the whole building rattle and groan.
Mr. Ages made a sound like "Row" or "Whoa".
His mouth looks short and puffy. I don't understand where all the mouth goes when dogs to that. Like how the bones in their face appear to be able to slide into their skulls when they bare their teeth.
I said, "Oh?" back at him and he kinda rolled his head at me while cocking it.
A series of almost verbal sounds followed. He looked like he was pleading his case.
I'm trying to be in a relaxed state of mind because every sound sounds like something and I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.
I suppose it’s just as well, because I haven't been sleeping that good anyhow.
It's always too cold, even with a sleeping bag. And my arms and shoulder aren't healing right. They are definitely infected.
I took three aspirin and was able to put medicine on them. There was about 1/2 a tube of Polysporin in the medicine cabinet, in addition to a lot of things I had no use for—dentures, estrogen, hot oil, those nasty floss sticks and several prescriptions that I didn't understand.
But I did understand one of them.
Valium.
I stared at it for probably a minute and a half.
I didn't mean to, but when I closed the cabinet I did it hard enough that the sound startled me and everything fell over inside.
All those pills represented to me the Out of a quitter.
Who the fuck could waste their life so ungratefully when so many people didn't have any fucking choice what their last hour would be???
Lots of people. If you don’t already know it. Lots of fucking people.