Journals of the Damned (Book 1)

by GJ Zukow

  “Turn around and place your hands on the shelf. I’m going to give you a pat down and if I find a weapon on you you’re dead. If you don’t submit you’re dead. Do ANYTHING I don’t like and you’re dead.” Her voice was flat and monotone.

  Not wanting to be dead I let her give me a pat down. I could tell that it seemed incredible to her that someone would actually be running around the apocalypse unarmed.

  Her stance changed a bit then, and I could tell she relaxed a bit, which made me relax a bit.

  “Where the hell have you been hiding? The shit hasn’t blown over, it’s getting worse dumbass.” She looked at me as if I was a retarded, red-headed step-child.

  “What do you mean worse, the streets and the whole city’s fuckin’ empty except for the corpses.” I thought there was some insanity lurking in the girl yet.

  “Yeah, the corpses...You seen any of them twitching on your leisurely stroll here?” Her eyes narrowed as she spoke.

  “Well, yeah, so what?” I replied. As I had stated before, I had no idea of what that twitching and spasmodic flexing was from. For all I knew it was completely natural.

  “So what?” she asked in reply, and then let out a little dark laugh.

  “That means the dead will rise shortly. That‘s so what.” The words came out of her mouth with the sharp ring of truth to them.

  It was clear that she believed what she was saying, but I thought she had lost her mind and started to back away, slowly.

  “It’s ok, just stay calm and let me go.” I carefully picked up my backpack and continued to put some distance from her, slowly backing away.

  Her eyes went cold as steel then and she raised the rifle and sighted down the aisle towards me.

  I didn’t know what to do so I spread my arms wide and stopped walking backwards from her to show her I had no weapon or intention of harming her.

  “Get down dumbass!” She yelled at me.

  That’s when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I instinctively started to drop down like I was ordered as I turned to see who had crept up on me.

  It was a close thing too. This horror that used to be a human being had started to grab me close and I could hear its jaws bite the air where my head was just a moment before.

  I felt the hairs on my head swish as the bullets from the teen’s gun whipped past me. The gunfire was loud enough to partially deafen me. Three shots to the undead things chest and shoulder knocked it back and flat on the ground. The slugs didn’t stop it though, and now I was scrabbling back towards the person who I was previously backing away from. I swear the girl couldn’t be more than nineteen years old by the look of her, but she easily stepped over me and put a couple of rounds into the nightmares face until it stopped moving again.

  “C’mon dumbass, we need to get the hell out of here before more show up to investigate,” she told me, with a snarl on her lips.

  That’s how I met Jannie.

  The light is fading now and I don’t want to waste any of the candles I have left, so I will continue again tomorrow.

  9

  For the past two weeks that I've been here, I've had these nagging feelings that something about this place is wrong. I kept putting it down to my nerves, past experiences, mental fatigue or whatever. Sometimes I would notice something out of place from where I left it before but I just ignored it, blaming it on a crappy memory. Then there was the time I was absolutely sure I had eaten the last can of asparagus (because I love asparagus and I know I counted them out and rationed them for myself), and then lo and behold there appeared another couple of cans of them tucked away in the corner of a shelf. Not to mention the blood, the layers of blood that I had laboriously cleaned.

  I know when I arrived here I was down to about a hundred and thirty-five pounds or so, which is skinny as hell for someone a hair over six feet tall. I must have put twenty or so pounds back on, living the good life. Ha. Probably I was just being allowed to fatten myself up for the slaughter.

  Dammit, if Jannie were here she would have raided the place and left on day one. She was only half my age but that girl paid attention to her surroundings. I hoped (and still do) she had gotten out of our last safe house alive, but I don’t see how it could be possible.

  I mentioned before how the building was solid and well built, but I didn’t really go into details. I will now though. The windows are all triple pane with a clear sheet of thin material between each pane, making them bullet proof, hurricane proof windows that can be closed remotely. The walls are of a solid brick and mortise type, with steel reinforced bars. Even the ceiling is solid cement reinforced with rebar and drywall covering it. Apparently, the solid hard wood doors also have steel bars that can be slid into them, from the walls, and remotely too to boot. Where the electricity to do this is coming from, I have no idea as all the available outlets I’ve found are dead. I knew about the triple pane windows and I knew the walls were brick, however, I just this morning found out about the rest of the security features. I’ve found out that this place is well suited to not only keep people out but is well designed to keep people in.

  Somebody spent a lot of money on this place before the world went to hell. That same somebody was probably planning for world war three to break out and being ready to hunker down and wait it out when this day of reckoning happened instead. That somebody is probably in a thick, deep, fall-out bunker under this house. That somebody has decided, for reasons I’m sure aren’t for my benefit, to lock me in here.

  I woke up really groggy, looking back I know I was drugged. I slept soundly, without dreams, for almost fourteen hours. Normally I sleep very lightly, waking at any small noise (being surrounded by the walking dead will do that to you), for no more than six or so hours at a time. It took quite a while for the cobwebs to clear from my brain, and as I noticed that all my shit was gone, my backpack, gun, even my boots, I wondered if I was still dreaming.

  I remember leaving the bedroom window cracked open and locked in place before I slept so I could have a little flow of fresh cool night air. This was something I would never even consider in any other safe house, so it was worth noting when I did it. When I noticed it was closed and when the window would not budge open one bit is when I seriously started to freak out.

  I ran into every room and tried every door and every window, while furtively searching each room for my stuff.

  Until I walked into the kitchen. Then I stopped in my tracks. Then I knew I was being toyed with. My journal was lying open on the kitchen table, to the next fresh page. This page. This page that I’m writing on now. Placed neatly to the side of it was this whittled down, next to nothing but an inch left, small ass golf pencil.

  When I saw that I went crazy trying to rip apart the ceiling and walls with my bare hands. All I did though was manage to break up some drywall and pull a few pieces of molding off the walls and tire myself out. I searched and searched but I still couldn’t find any of my stuff or any possible hatch or hidden entry to a bunker. Even the pantry door and the damn cupboards and silverware drawers are shut tight.

  Whatever. Fuck it. I’m not giving up. I know this was left out for me to write my own obituary, or last will and testament, or finish up whatever I had to say. Maybe the fucker wants to keep it as a trophy or something. I don’t know. I’m writing because frankly, it gives me a chance to kill some time until whatever is going to happen, happens.

  Hopefully I’ll be able to write what the hell happens with this situation when it resolves itself. Hopefully I can either get the fuck out of here or kill the bastard who locked me in here, but accomplishing both of those goals would be best.

  Been over twenty-four hours now and there’s nothing but stillness and quiet. I thought whoever locked me in here would have attacked during the night but it was unnervingly eventless.

  Forty-eight hours and I’ve tried repeatedly to find a way out of here. All I found were two cameras. They were extremely small and well hidden. I found one in the bedroom, embedded in
some of the more intricate molding, looking like it was part of the carved scroll work. The other was behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I found that one when I started smashing the shit out of it. Even that was thick and reinforced. I don’t think he (I’m assuming it’s a he), will be expecting me to be armed with this nice, sharp, wicked, piece of mirror that I’m going to try and gut him like a fish with. I’m so tired now. That’s his game then, to wait until I pass out. Time to play possum and draw him out...

  10

  If anyone is reading this, you surely noticed that there is a page torn out. I did that. The bastard wrote a bunch of foul shit in my journal, taunting me with his vile ramblings, as he took breaks from his torturing of me. You're not missing anything by not reading it. His childish scribblings were hard to read to begin with and what you could read was pure filth. Insane garbage of how he was going to enjoy torturing, raping, cutting me up and eating me (and not necessarily in that order). I have no doubt that he would have done exactly what he said he was going to.

  As it is, he cut off both of my small toes and fucking ate them in front of me. He cut me multiple times (in some very sensitive places) and rubbed salt in the wounds. I’m in a lot of pain and it’s going to take me awhile to heal up from this lunatic’s assault. I had seriously thought that being eaten alive by the undead would be the worst way to go. Now I know better. At least with the zeds you bleed out and die within a minute, maybe two at the most. But this, this is so much worse. He worked me over for a day before I got loose and killed him. I don’t even want to think about how long the fucker would have drawn out my death to satiate his hate.

  Unfortunately, there isn’t just the immune and the walking dead. There are also those who are carriers. Like the maniac who was going to torture me to death. The carriers are the ones whose immune system are strong enough to stop the Scarlet fever before it kills them, but not strong enough to beat it. They exist in that stage of the disease where their skin is a permanent bright red and their mind is utterly gutted. I’m sure it’s a horrible way to exist, completely filled with rage and hatred. I know now that they are aware that their brain has been mainly eaten away, causing extreme insanity and delusions, driven by the parasite to crave the taste of living flesh and blood. While I do take pity on them, they are by far more dangerous than a hundred zombies.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with a carrier. Jannie and I had our run-ins with some previously. I’ll have the time now, since I need to recuperate, to tell you about her. But not right now. Right now I need to write about my day in hell.

  I sat there at the kitchen table, not moving, pretending as if I were sleeping. I may have actually dozed off at some point, but it was a dreadfully light sleep. I had gotten used to the normal sounds of the house, and still I awoke at the slightest sound, waiting for a noise that was out of place. It seemed to take forever, my body was crying out for me to change my position. I was cramping up from the forced motionlessness and every small itch seemed unbearable. Then it came. A noise I hadn’t heard before. A small creaking of hinges from the same bedroom I had chosen to sleep in all those nights. If I hadn’t been so keyed up and waiting for such a sound I wouldn’t have heard it. Then came a sound I could place. It was the closet door in the bedroom sliding open. That’s where the entrance to the bunker was. I knew how much time it took to get from there to here and I strived to get up and get into position. I had wanted to get to the spot beside the doorway to the kitchen but my body wouldn’t comply fast enough. I was nervous, stressed, keyed up and exhausted at the same time. My adrenaline was flowing and panicky sweat covered me. I stood up too quickly and my legs cramped up on me and I fell solidly to the ground.

  As I was forcing my body to get back up and ambush the sadistic fuck I saw him coming in the doorway.

  He was bright red, obviously he was a carrier, naked and just covered in filth. I smelt him then and his scent was overpowering. They say that demons are proceeded by the stench of decay and shit, but they could have nothing on this guy. His eyes and fingernails were completely black and no cloven hoofed devil could be as terrible a sight as him. I fully expected him to try and tackle me or physically assault me, if that is, he didn’t try to put a couple of ounces of lead in me. I had my makeshift knife, made out of the painfully sharp piece of mirror, ready for the physical attack. Even if he shot me I still thought I would have the time to slice open his gut or jugular if he missed or if I got the drop on him.

  What he did though I didn’t expect. He tasered my ass. His black gums showed as he laughed manically while he shocked me repeatedly. With my body going into spasms from the electric shocks from two separate taser guns, he quickly hand-cuffed my wrists to my ankles, effectively hog tying me. He screamed obscenities at me as he beat me so hard with the butts of the tasers that they actually broke on my skull. Then I passed out as he beat me unconscious.

  When I awoke I was tied spread eagle and naked to a gore encrusted work bench. I knew I was in his private bunker as I had never seen this room before. There were no windows. The light was from a flickering fluorescent light fixture, one bulb wasn’t working and the dim, almost strobbing, quality of illumination from the single remaining bulb lent itself well to this nightmare.

  I don’t care to write down what he said exactly, or for that matter, what he did to me. What he said were vile ramblings and bragging about how I wasn’t the first to fall into his lair. He was bat-shit crazy it was true, but he was also telling the truth. I found five severed heads in his freezer. Two adult males, a teenage males, a middle aged woman’s and a little girl’s. They were in there along with some pieces of meat I will bury as soon as I can. Enough of that. I don’t want to get into what he said he did to them, and how he planned to do all the same evil shit to me.

  His anger and insanity either lead him to overconfidence or he just plain overlooked the fact that the strap holding my left hand down wasn’t nearly as tight as it should have been. With every slice and hateful torture he committed on me I pulled with all my strength on that loose leather strap. The pain he placed on me made the pain in my left wrist seem like nothing, so I worked that strap until I knew I could break it easily. I just couldn’t break it while he was in the room with me. The torture seemed all the more worse knowing I could break at least that bond and smack his infected ass upside the head whenever I wanted. It took all of my composure and will not to.

  Finally though, after he fuckin’ masturbated himself over my bleeding and mutilated body he went into the door-less adjoining room to sleep. After lying down for about twenty minutes giggling and talking to himself he finally slept.

  The strap gave way easily then. I was nervous that he would hear the sound of me undoing the restraints but I’m sure he had learned (even relished) to sleep with the crying and sobbing pleas of his other victims in his ears.

  He is now going to be sleeping for the rest of eternity. There is no chance of him coming back from the dead either. I picked up a ball-peen hammer, which I am absolutely sure he was planning on using on me, as it was on a shelf along with some of his other “tools”. Then I slowly crept up on his foul ass and manically beat his skull and head into a bloody pulp as he slept. I think I laughed like I was insane (and maybe I was) and uttered vile things at his corpse, as I literally beat his body into an unrecognizable mass of meat.

  Tomorrow I’ve got some digging to do. Body parts and a body to bury. Tonight I need to rest.

  11

  It took me most of the day to dig a proper grave for the dead. I didn't want to bury the carrier’s body with his victims, but I did anyways. Even though the ground is mainly sand here, using a shovel was another experience in pain.

  The bastard who cut my little toes off was no surgeon. The bone is exposed on what remains of my right small toe and is plainly sticking out, with the skin around it having shriveled and turned black. What's left of the toe on my other foot isn't any better, with both of them giving off the p
utrid odor of infection. I have tried to bandage them as best I could but with any amount of walking they weep a sickly mixture of puss and blood. I need to find a doctor (good luck with that) to have them properly amputated. There is a small amount of medicine and pain-killers in the bunkers stock and I'm hoping that it will be enough. If not I'm going to have to go back into town and find a pharmacy and find something stronger than the penicillin I have now. Maybe I'll be able to find a doctor’s office or something where I can get a hold of a Grey's anatomy book or something so I can operate on myself if it comes to that.

  I’m so depressed right now. What is the point of all this struggling to survive in a world where there is nothing left? My outlook is bleak. I can stay here and hope that my feet, which are swollen and red with a deep blackness spreading from the severed digits, miraculously get better. Or I can force myself to hobble slowly, with each step bring fresh pain, into town. There is a decent collection of weapons here, if there aren’t a large number of zeds in my way, I could probably fight my way through. In my condition though, not being able to run, if there’s more than a handful I’m just going to be zombie bait. To stay here I’ll surely die, but to try to get to town I’ll only probably die. For what though? Even if I do heal and get better what for? To eat canned and freeze dried food for the rest of my life? To bear loneliness as my only companion? My .38 looks to be a viable option. I think the only reason I’ve made it this far is because I’m a coward. I only carry on in this life because I’m afraid of death.