Journals of the Damned (Book 1)

by GJ Zukow

  When is this nightmare going to end?

  Wednesday, September 12, 2012

  In every neighborhood now, there are armed groups of men breaking down peoples doors and conducting room to room searches. It started out as a call upon the citizenry to assist the police who are stretched paper thin. The county deputized them to patrol and eliminate any infected animals in their local areas. Like a neighborhood watch, but with guns. The plan was that they could handle the overwhelming number of calls concerning a maddened squirrel or whatever, leaving the police to respond to the true emergency situations. In reality it turned into a drunken mob that has decided prevention is the best medicine. They go house to house and beat on the doors, demanding entry. If nobody answers the door, usually because they fear the group, they bash open the door and search for any sign of a pet. The mob doesn't care if the animal is sick or not, and in reality I doubt they killed very many infected animals (as all the cats and those creatures that were infected have already plainly gone mad). Sure they find the occasional ferret or cat or bunny that the owner has locked into a room or exiled to the backyard (mainly in the hopes that the illness will pass), but what they normally find are the pets that aren't infected. Like dogs, who show no sign of the parasitic infection. They break into people's houses and shoot any pets right in front of children who are terrorized by this act. Then they take the body of the dead pets and rudely toss them into the back of a pick-up truck to be burned later in great pyres. Better safe than sorry they say. Those who try to fight back are beaten severely. Those who defend their homes with weapons of their own are murdered in a hail of gunfire. Innocents are killed by stray bullets and wild shots. The authorities turn a blind eye to these crimes.

  Whenever one of the mob even thinks they see a squirrel, they open fire, turning the area into a shooting gallery. Whenever any of the shooting starts we have to lie upon the floor and hope there are no stray bullets coming with our names on them.

  Luckily, when the armed group beat upon our door, my mother hadn't left for work yet. She calmly let them in, making sure to keep a friendly smile upon her face (I know it was a false, strained effort) and made sure this unconstitutional search and seizure was at least conducted civilly. They carried with them an air of menace. We were all relieved when they left, and my mother is torn over the need to go to work or stay home with us. In the end though, she goes to work, leaving me to try and take care of Lucy. Lucy is not taking this well at all, crying and pleading with my mom to stay.

  The hospital is almost overwhelmed with victims of animal attacks and gunshot wounds from stray bullets, on top of stress induced heart attacks and the normal medical emergencies. Before all this began she had normal eight hour shifts, now her shifts last at least twelve hours. Many of the doctors and nurses actually sleep at the hospital now, not only from a sense of duty but because it's actually safer there.

  I haven't been able to watch the news much, mainly due to the fact that it sends Lucy into a panic. Instead what I try to do is keep cartoons and children's programming on, with the volume turned up in an attempt to cover up the sounds of gunshots and the ever present sirens.

  When I do get the chance to watch the news it's when my little sister has finally, fitfully, fallen asleep. She doesn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time now. She also doesn't eat very much, even if it's her favorites.

  What I do see on the news channels disturbs me to no end. Chimpanzee's, it turns out are incredibly vicious animals. When they go berserk they are not merely content to kill their targets, they mutilate them, biting off the fingers, hands, feet and even the faces of their prey. The violence of watching a troop of the infected beasts maul each other to death in an orgy of blood-lust actually made my stomach churn.

  Whole herds of deer are seeking safety by wading out as far as they can into lakes, usually they go out so deep into the waters that only their heads are sticking out. They stay there until its night, then silently and cautiously creep to land to sleep. Exhausted they pass out near the shore, rushing back into the water at any sign of attack by the crazed creatures. They resume this behavior just before dawn breaks, only coming out of the water to try to forage (which doesn't last very long as some infected animal soon spots them).

  It's not just the deer doing this either, bears, wolves and whatever hasn't been driven insane joins them in the relative safety of the water. It's an odd sight to see what are normally predator and prey both fearfully wading in the lakes and rivers side by side, no more than a few feet apart. It appears that the parasite causes an unnatural aversion to water in its hosts, like rabies (in its later stages) does.

  Farm animals, free range cattle, sheep flocks, chicken and turkey farms, all of them are being massacred. Farms are being abandoned. Those farm animals, like the free range cattle and sheep that have no protection, are at the mercy of the blood-lust infected fiends (and sadly, there is absolutely no mercy shown). Whole herds of hundreds, sometimes thousands of head, are gone. The horses and animals that were penned up into a stable or barn found no respite from the continual attacks from the maddened smaller creatures. They get in through cracks, gaps and just plain poorly maintained and rotted wooden boards. They die from blood loss, infection or just plain old exhaustion from fear and no sleep.

  Pigs have succumbed to the madness, and that really sucks. There isn't going to be any bacon in the grocery stores for a long time now. I am going to miss that.

  Lucy is awake now and is desperately clinging to me. I need to reassure her and give her my attention.

  I'm tired and I feel as if I've written enough for today.

  Gods let this be over soon.

  Friday, September 14, 2012

  The apex of the infection has passed. The maddened animals are starting to drop dead in their tracks. It had to come to this sooner or later, as the parasite ridden animals stopped eating and drinking in their insanity. One odd thing about this particular parasitic infection is the fact that most of the infected mammals should have died days sooner from thirst. Why this is, nobody is quite sure, normally things die after three to four days without water. It's been nine days since those critters that succumbed to the parasite first, namely bats and squirrels, finally started dying.

  When the infected ones finally do cease their hold on life they do so suddenly. They don't lie down or try to hide away in their misery, instead they simply fall out of the sky or out of the trees. If they were in the process of doing something, like leaping to attack, they die in mid leap, crashing to the ground in a crumpled, bedraggled heap.

  The whole world over, people are relieved knowing the madness will be finished in another week or so. There had been an ever deepening sense of futility and depression building, now there is a ray of hope lifting everyone's mood. Barring any new infections in the previously unaffected animals that is.

  The CDC released a report on the status of the parasitic infection. They conducted thousands of autopsies and findings from multiple studies. The center has come out with a reliable and inexpensive method to test for the presence of the parasite in any animal. They have also come out with a complete list of which mammals are susceptible to the disease and which ones are naturally immune. According to the list, any animal that can be infected already has been affected. Unfortunately, the one thing we have all been waiting for, a cure, has been elusive. The infection is spread by a ridiculously minuscule egg. The eggs have a thick protein shell that protects them from sunlight and since they are so small and light they are air-born. The CDC is still researching the length of time that the eggs remain viable and the news is disheartening. In the two weeks they've been examining the eggs, they still remain capable of hatching the parasite. Once "The Madness" (which is what everybody calls it now) has passed, the eggs won't have anything left to infect. Then, even if the eggs are capable of surviving even for a month (which is the longest anyone believes they can survive), it will be practically meaningless. If there are any new outbreaks after this, the
CDC says that they will be small, isolated cases and can then be dealt with like a rabies outbreak.

  Through all of this the Army and National Guard have been providing security around the countries vital infrastructure. Power plants, both nuclear and conventional have to be kept up and running. One of their biggest jobs is keeping the interstates open. Some of the main arteries for the lifeblood of the country are our roads. The madness drove tens of thousands of animals to launch themselves at people who were driving down those roads, causing accidents and mayhem. Without the help of the military, constantly patrolling the vast miles of our interstates, breaking down or getting into a wreck is almost a death sentence.

  Refugees from the country are pouring into the cities, overwhelming the already stressed support systems. Since all sporting events have been cancelled, most local governments have placed these people into the empty stadiums and arenas. Some of these people have basically lost everything, where once they had a turkey farm with thousands of birds, now they have nothing but long buildings full of mutilated and rotting flesh.

  Harvest time for a number of crops should be happening right now but much of it will rot in the fields. It's going to be a race between when it'll be deemed safe to go back to the farms and the time it takes for those crops to go bad. It'll be a crappy harvest but it won't be devastating. The largest harvests will happen after this madness is predicted to pass.

  Lucy is starting to cope with everything that's happened. She's still not the same girl she used to be and she still needs constant reassuring but she's starting to adjust.

  As for myself, I have this nagging feeling that this thing isn't dying down like everyone thinks it is. It may be due to stress or fear but it doesn't feel like that. In my spare time I've broken down and cleaned the rifle a few times, to say the least. I practice getting into the three standard firing stances and regulating my breathing as I practice my aim. Actually, I think I'm obsessing over the weapon, but it does keep my mind from wandering too far into what the future will bring.

  Monday, September 17, 2012

  The "Madness" has receded here in the greater Orlando area. The state government, following an assessment from the Florida National Guard and the U.S. Army, stated that the situation has stabilized in the major metropolitan areas. This is true for most of the country and around the world, except for areas like the Pacific Northwest. From the western border of Wisconsin to the eastern borderlands of Washington state and north of Colorado, the outbreak, while dying down, is still making it too dangerous for the inhabitants to return to their normal routines. Grocery stores in those areas are only open twice a week, for only a few hours to allow people to get food and supplies, all the while heavily armed troops guard and patrol.

  Power went out in a lot of places around the country, mainly due to various everyday reasons. The electric companies had refused to send workers out to repair the lines unless they had some protection, leaving a lot of people to live through this nightmare without power. Sending repair crews out into the lonely night, or for that matter during the daytime, filled with blood thirsty critters would have been a death sentence for many. Now that the state Guard units and some of the Army have been freed up to provide that protection, they are busy repairing what they can. The rest of the Guard units and Army troops have now moved on to quarantining and eradicating the last of the menace from places like the Everglades and Yosemite National Park.

  Work crews are going around and collecting all of the dead animal carcasses and burning them in huge piles. We, the citizens, are told that if we come across a dead body we are to call the newly formed "Animal Disposal Units" (A.D.U.) and not to touch them ourselves, even if the cadavers of the beasts are in our own back yards. The corpses just keep coming in by the truckload (literally), in an almost never ending procession to the burn yards. All types of animals from the bodies of infected possums to the huge carcasses of fallen cattle are all burned together. It is a smell that I will never forget. The thick black smoke hangs in the air and sticks in my clothes. The stench of it is revolting at times and at others it smells like someone is throwing a massive Bar-B-Q.

  I asked my mother why the government didn't want us to go near the dead animals and she said it was probably just a precaution, there are a lot of diseases that can be transmitted and they just want us to be safe. I've seen how the new A.D.U.'s conduct their business and they come dressed up in the same outfits the N.B.C. (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) Army units use. The state of the art suits are a far cry from the simple shovel and plastic bags that the Department of Transportation workers were issued to clean up road-kill before the madness though. Something doesn't seem right to me and it's clear that my mother is as in the dark about this as the rest of the general population.

  I try to talk to my mother about the parasites and their eggs, if they're still inside us, and she just completely shies away from the subject or changes it completely, ignoring me every time I ask about it. If I really press her on the subject she placates me by telling me she will talk to me later about it when Lucy is asleep.

  Some places around the world suffered much less than the rest of us. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore and a lot of the Arabian Peninsula, having a smaller amount of natural wildlife, wasn't hit by the madness very hard. They did get hit by the vast numbers of people desperate to escape it though. In Hong Kong there were so many people fleeing from mainland China that every open space, alley or piece of concrete had become crowded with refugees. Some places in the world have, and are continuing to suffer, much more than us. New Zealand has seen is population cut in half. Much of New Zealand's people lived in isolated wilderness, existing pretty much as their ancestors had for thousands of years before them. Those people that lived in the remote parts of the world are gone now. Nobody can say with any confidence how many people have died so far. I've heard some estimates ranging from a couple hundred thousand (a ridiculously low number) to hundreds of millions and even more. Only time will tell what the death toll was from this global menace.

  My mother got a day off today, finally. I know she must want to just kick back and catch up on her sleep. Instead, seeing how our refrigerator is low she decided to go shopping now that the stores are opening their doors again. Lucy wouldn't be left behind this time, even for something as mundane as grocery shopping. I must admit that I also wanted to go, just to get out of the house.

  When we got to Publix, I was kind of taken back with the crowds of people. Everybody had the same idea, causing a run on practically everything in the store. The stocks were low on meat, milk, butter, eggs and everything in between. The employees were actually in the process of placing "Out of Stock" signs on huge empty areas of the meat section. When asked when they would get new stock to replace the things like hamburger and pork chops the answer was a sad one. The farms were ruined around the world. I hadn't realized the implications of that before. Everything used to be cheap and plentiful, at least here in the U.S. Now that the pigs, chickens, cows and everything else had been virtually wiped out it will take at least six months for things like chicken and eggs to bounce back and it might be years for beef and pork to be available in any quantity again. There was actually very little left in the warehouses and supply pipelines. Once that was gone, they would be gone for quite awhile. Fish, rice, beans, soy milk, flour, those things would still be around but the prices were surely going to climb. No more hotdogs and hamburgers for anyone for a long time. No more milk or butter. We'll have to deal with practically becoming vegetarians for the next few years. It's not really a bad thing, it'll be a much healthier diet for us all, but I know it's going to be a hard transition for a lot of people.

  McDonalds, Wendy's and all those fast food franchises are going to go bankrupt. Burger King will have to change their name to Falafel King or something to stay in business, because they sure weren't going to be selling any burgers. This is on top of an economy that still hasn't bounced back from the "Great Recession". Restaurant's around
the world will close and all those people are going to become unemployed again, so soon after having finally gotten some kind of employment.

  The madness may have passed but things were going to go straight to hell in hand basket.

  Wednesday, September 19, 2012

  I have no idea where to start this journal entry. Everybody is trying to cope with what has just happened. The world has been turned upside down and people are trying to resume their normal lives, except our normal lives are almost a thing of the past. I'm not just talking about the terrifying acts of animal insanity or the extreme food shortage either.

  I guess I'll start with telling whomever is reading this in the future, whether it's you Mrs. Johnson or my future self. That is if I live through this. Maybe this will go unread by anyone and collect a thick coating of dust or maybe a complete stranger will find this and add it to an historic collection of what it was like to live through these troubled times. For the first time in my life I am scared, I'm actually horrified at what the future is going to have in store for all of us.

  The "Madness", for the most part has finished its "near extinction event" (the media's new catch phrase for the parasites uncontrolled destruction of over half the worlds mammal species). The attacks are fewer and farther between now but they still happen.