The Survivor Chronicles | Book 1 | Say No! To Zombies

by Crystal, Tiffany

  SCOTT IS A FUCKING IDIOT.

  He made it back. His arm is a mess, but he’s back. The only reason I’m not killing him now is because he brought back some really good stuff.

  We had to raid another couple apartments to find a bag for all the bottles of sunscreen and bug repellent alone. The toilet paper and the duct tape went in the backpacks, along with the medicine packets. The ten cartons of cigarettes have been double bagged and spread out through all of our bags and suitcases.

  We each have a map now, and hats proclaiming our love for New York. We still need to see about grabbing meds from a pharmacy, especially since dumbass managed to cut his arm pretty bad (one of the shelves was knocked over, and he was trying to push it back up to get to the stuff underneath it. He slipped, or it slipped, either way, he’s got a nice sized gash). At least he was smart enough to get his ass back home, instead of still fussing with it.

  His arm is wrapped up now, and we’re making him take some of the amoxicillin I found. He said he just had a tetanus shot last year, and the sites online say that the shot should last about 10 years, so at least he’s good there.

  I’m checking the forums one more time tonight and then it’s off to bed. We’re leaving at the crack of dawn.

  * * *

  12:01am

  needarideinthesouthside says:

  “If you’re in Chelsea, and you want out, now’s the time to go. The zombies on the south side are getting restless and headed your way.

  ETA (VERY rough estimate):

  Canal: @1:45am

  Houston: @2:30am

  East 14th: @3:15am

  Guys, this isn’t just a couple or even a hundred. I’m talking about THE ENTIRE LOWER CITY. If you can’t make it out of there before they hit, you’d better hope you’re stocked up to stay a while.”

  We’re between Houston and East 14th. We need to get to Canal (the ferry boats are gone, but needarideinthesouthside said there’s two boats left at pier 26. One of them is his, if we can get it to him, he’ll guide us out to sea). If we move fast, we can still make it to a pharmacy before we reach the pier. Cart is packed, kids are dressed and ready. I’m writing this in the elevator on the way down to the lobby. Looks like it’s go time. Wish us luck.

  * * *

  April 23rd

  The sky is starting to get lighter.

  fair warning: I’m fucking exhausted, so mistakes galore. Bear with me, okay? it’s been a fucking rough 24 hours. Or, around there, anyway. I’m not even sure what time it is at this point. My phone is turned off for now. I made sure it was fully charged before we left, but that’ll go fast if I leave it turned on. *snorts* All of the scavenging we did, and never thought to grab cellphone batteries.

  We made it to the docks, by the way. We have meds, too. Lots of meds. We also have two new people. Ben (the needaride guy), and Shane, who has replaced Scott as “dumbfuck”.

  We found this dumbfuck at the pharmacy. He had barricaded himself in the staffroom, venturing out now and then to grab a bag of chips and a soda, and then running back to his little hideout. He came scurrying out without even checking to make sure the way was clear and almost got his ass shot. If it wasn’t for Scott’s bum arm, Shane’d be a dead man. Or at least an injured one.

  We almost left him behind. We probably should’ve. He’s an idiot. a grade A, first class idiot. He’s also a pharm tech though, so he was a big help when we were gathering medicine to take with us. With him there, we were able to hit up two other drug stores before we got to the docks.

  Oh, and Dave did some scavenging on his own. He took the bike Abby and I found and rode off after we picked up Shane.

  I was pissed. Scott had just been injured doing the same damn thing, but hey, whatever. I told him if he wasn’t at the pier when we got there, we were leaving without him.

  He caught up with us as we were leaving the last pharmacy. We all have new shoes now. And maps. And ACTUAL ropes. And a few plastic water bottles. We emptied some of the glass jars we had filled with water into the plastic ones so we could make more molotovs. I was expecting trouble when we got to the Narrows, but we got past the bridge, no problem.

  We’re camped at the little island in the bay now (I forget the name of it. There’s the bigger one and a little one. We’re on the little one). Well, I say “camped” but there’s no real campsite. Everyone but Jason and I are sleeping on the boats. I’m fucking exhausted, but we agreed. Two people on watch at all times. Jason managed to catch a little bit of a nap on the boat earlier, so he volunteered to sit with me. We both ate ourselves a can of ravioli (Ben offered to cook it on the boat stove thing, but I’d rather wait til we’re further down the road, as it were). When the sun is up, it’ll be their turn to eat, and our turn to nap.

  I’m writing this to keep myself awake. Jason is practicing tying knots. Ben showed him a couple, and drew him a picture of the sails and stuff so he can learn the different parts of the boat and what they do. Ben is supposed to give Dave and Scott some sailing lessons when they all get up. Ben’s gonna look over the boat we nabbed, too. Supposed to give us some idea of what it can do/how fast it’ll go.

  God, I’m fading fast.

  Okay, so anyway, we got to the docks...and, oh, that part was fun.

  Ben was right. There were two boats left. He just neglected to mention that they were both sailboats. Abby knows how to drive a stick? shift? Automatic, I don’t fucking know, a regular boat. One with an engine. Not one with the flappy sail thing, and especially not fucking huge ones like these.

  And even better: as we’re standing there, looking at the boats like “wtf??”, guess what started coming into view?

  Did you guess a bunch of fluffy wabbits with cute wittle noses and cottonpuff tails? Cause if you did, you’re fucking stupid. Just sayin’.

  Scott has done some sailing, so he took over the bigger boat. He took Dave and Shane with him. Abby, the kids and I got on the other. We untied (undocked? unmoored? I don’t know what to call it) the boats, and thankyougodorwhoeverisupthere, the boats had engines.

  Didn’t do us much good without the keys, but Scott threw out a rope, we tied it to the front thingy and we managed to get away from the dock enough that we didn’t have to worry about the trolls. Dave said he knew how to hotwire a car, and, it took some finageling (however you spell the damn word…) but we got him onto our boat and he worked his magic.

  We got...kinda turned around, looking for Ben. He said he’d be waiting at the south tip, but not how or where exactly. We didn’t even know what he looked like, and we were worried about getting too close to shore and damaging the boats, so we’re just kinda….floating there, not knowing what to do, trying to see if we can spot anyone moving. We finally spotted someone paddling out to us on a kayak.

  He got onboard, made the guys bring up his kayak for him, then showed them how to get the boats next to each other without them bumping so we could all talk.

  He’s the one that suggested the little island. He said it was close enough that the boats would be able to reach it without running out of gas, and since it’s not open to the general public, the islands should be empty. The only problem is that they’re easily visible from the shore, but as long as bandits haven’t gone to sea, we’ll be okay.

  Oh, and Scott managed to get himself in my good graces.

  When we were at the store and Shane was blathering on about how useful he could be, Scott told him to shut up, got our people busy getting what we need, and pulled me aside.

  him: We agreed. You're in charge of planning shit. I’m in charge of killing shit. Here’s my opinion: he’s a loudmouth, and an idiot. He’s gonna get us all killed. We should leave him behind.

  I told him he was right, cause, I mean, the guy really is gonna end up a problem, I can already tell. But at the same time, he can tell us what meds are good to have, and what aren’t, you know? I told him to be patient for now, and that we should get him out of the city, at least. He did help us. Plus, we’ll probably be on
the boat for a while. Maybe by the time we reach land, we’ll be able to teach him some skills to actually be worth keeping around. If not, we can part ways.

  Scott said fine, but “if he starts running his mouth or doing something that puts my niece at risk, I will split his fucking skull.” Which is a-ok with me. If Chloe’s in danger so are the rest of us, and fuck that noise.

  So yeah, anyway, Scott is apparently over his “me Tarzan, you Jane. I lead, you follow” bullshit, so I am fucking thrilled.

  Course, it could all also be for show, who fucking knows.

  Ugh. Running out of stuff to say. Jason keeps asking what I’m writing, and why I’m writing it. I told him, eventually someone will find this. It might be an alien civilization at this point, or a new form of intelligent species might take over once the humans are gone, but whatever it is, they’ll need to know this part of our history. It’s a fucked up “how did this even happen?!” part, but it’s still history. He asked me to say “hi” for him. So, “hi” I guess.

  Oh my god, I’m yawning my brains out. What else is there…

  The boats are nice. I’m not sure what kind they are, but they’re pretty big. There’s enough room that everyone is on a bed. They’re sharing, but still beds are good. I’m looking forward to sleeping in one as soon as it’s time to start waking people up.

  Oh! something to add to the “shopping list”: a tool set. It doesn’t have to be big, but you never know when you might need a screwdriver or a wrench, you know? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, honestly. We can use a butterknife for any flathead screws, but phillips are bitches.

  Oh thank fuck, the sun is up. Time for sleep.

  * * *

  sometime after noon 2:45pm (thanks Ben)

  Writing this while Jason and I eat something real quick.

  I don’t remember all the specs, but the boat we have is a “Tayana” something, and it’s not bad. Ben gave some sailing lessons while Jason and I were napping, and they made up some plans (Scott’s on a roll here. Ben wanted to get a move on while I was sleeping, but Scott insisted they run the plans by me before we did anything).

  So, plans.

  First things, first, we’re getting the fuck outta dodge. We’re not far from the mouth of the bay, and then we’ll be out on the ocean. I was hoping we could stay on the boat all the way down to the Carolina coast, but Ben says that’s a no go. Not with us not knowing our main sail from a hole in the ground. The gas we have will only get us so far, and that’ll have to do.

  Since we can’t get all the way down to the Carolinas, Ben is going to try and get us at least past Jersey. He said if we stick somewhat near the coast, he’ll be able to paddle in when we’re near a few port towns and see about siphoning out some gas for us to use. I suggested just grabbing a new boat from the docks, but Ben said 1) we can’t count on Dave being able to hotwire any old boat we come across, 2) the boat we have is one of the better ones out there, so we should stick with what we have, 3) we can’t be sure that the boat we nab won’t have trolls aboard, 4) the longer we stay near land, the more risk we have of trolls and/or bandits spotting us.

  We have enough food that it shouldn’t be a problem to stay out at sea for that long, so that part is fine.

  Ben says we’ll need to take frequent breaks since we’re not used to being on the water, and we have kiddos with us. We’re also going to be passing by a national park thing where people camp, so depending on how the coast looks, we might use that as a stopping point. I was worried about it being crawling with trolls, but Ben says it’s not a busy season yet and there’s the coast guard on the other side of the peninsula (sand bar?) thing, so anyone who was there, was probably evacuated.

  If the coast is clear, Dave and I are gonna check around for deserted campsites. Ben had a tent and some basic camping gear on his boat, so that brings us up to two tents...for nine people. Yeah, not gonna work. We need more tents, and more sleeping bags. Preferably cold weather ones. We’re having a warm spell at the moment, but that won’t last long. The sky is already starting to look kinda grey, and I didn’t remember to check the weather before we left, so for all I know, we’re all fucked. Again.

  So yeah, we’re basically going to hop and skip down the coast, picking up supplies and gas where we can. Ben says Delaware is only about six or seven hours, but with all the stops we’ll need to make, it’s gonna be a real pain. He wants us to try and get at least half the distance out of the way, before nightfall, if we can. I have no idea how this is going to work, but hey. We’ll see.

  Okay, we’re done eating. Time to get on the road (ha).

  * * *

  8:30pm

  We’re…kinda camped? The boats are anchored off a beach. We’re squatting in one of the beach houses. Ben says we’re still off the Jersey coast, but we had to stop while we could still see well enough to do it safely.

  The campsite thing on the other side of Sandy Hook was a bust. We ran into the coast guard. They have the whole peninsula blocked off. They let us pass, but we had to let them search the boats. It was a lot more low key than I expected, to be honest. According to the guy in charge of the inspection(?), they only stopped us cause we were headed to shore. They’re more worried about people trying to get in, than out.

  While the grunts were searching the boats, I asked Mr. In Charge if there were any updates on the whole FUBAR sitch. There really wasn’t anything new. The cause of the outbreak is still unknown, so there’s still no cure. They gave us symptoms to look out for though.

  He says it starts out with a headache. Then the person starts getting dizzy and nauseous. From there, it goes downhill. They said it’s almost like the person develops dementia or alzheimer's, but it moves really fast. Within a day, they start forgetting things like how to drive, or ride a bike. They get lost if they stray too far from home. They start repeating things over and over. On the second day, they start fixating on people. They’ll call a person’s name and try to get as close to the person as they can, sniffing at them. They also start giving off this cloyingly sweet smell. Day 3 is the end. They lose their vision early in the day, and within a couple hours, they’re throwing up blood. When the vomit turns black, the change is complete. Bash their head in or start running your ass off.

  They said there’s been a few cases where it didn’t even take a full 3 days, so to keep a really close eye on anyone who shows the symptoms, even if it’s just the first day.

  When they were done checking the boat over, they offered to let us stay on base, but I told them we have a destination in mind. They couldn’t give us any extra supplies, and they wouldn’t allow us to scavenge any tents from the park area, but they were helpful in their own way. They warned us that a storm is making its way up the coast and we would need to find a place to shelter by tomorrow night.

  We left Shane behind.

  When the guy told us about the symptoms, Abby just about yanked my arm out of the socket. Apparently Timmy and Chloe, both, were complaining about Shane. Chloe said he smelled weird, and Timmy said he kept looking at them “funny” and was sniffling a lot.

  I don’t remember him saying anything about a headache or whatever, but I guess it would explain him not checking for trolls before running out of the break room last night. And the way he just kept repeating the same thing over and over again. “I know the drugs, I know what you need. I know the drugs.” At the time, I just thought it was from having a gun in his face, you know?

  I talked it over with the guard. He agreed to take Shane with them, but I’d be surprised if Shane actually made it to land without a bullet in his brain.

  Anyway, like I said. We’re camped.

  We were lucky a lot of people here apparently like boating. We found a dock. We had to wait for Ben to take his boat moored (?? anchored or whatever it’s called), then paddle out to Abby and mine’s boat to take us in. After he had the boats secured, he checked the tanks. Both boats needed gas, so he and Dave hot wired a truck off the street and w
ent into town. They came back with like 8 of those big red gas can things. It took more than one trip, but the boats are fully loaded with gas, and we have about 40 extra gallons of gas to go with it.

  Scott and I broke into one of the houses facing the beach. Found a couple dead bodies in the bedroom upstairs. Looks like they blew their brains out, but we didn’t find the gun. We locked the door to that room and checked the rest of the house. Once we were sure it was clear, we brought Abby and the kids in.

  Our “host” had a freezer full of tv dinners and frozen pizzas, so we all had a hot meal tonight. We have all the windows covered and the doors are locked. Dave ate his dinner by the back window. He’s keeping an eye on the boats.

  Every once in awhile, a troll will shuffle by out front. It’s a male. He keeps walking from one end of the street to the other. I’m not sure if he used to live here, or if he’s still in the transitioning phase, or what, but it’s making things a bit tense.

  On the upside, we found two more bikes in the garage, and a couple sleeping bags. Still no extra tent, but with Shane gone, we might be able to make do.

  There will always be two people on watch, so we only need sleeping space for six of us. My tent is, technically a 2 person tent, but I’m pretty sure we can fit 4 people, especially if 3 of them are kids. Ben’s is one of those “one-man” tents, but if they don’t mind the closeness, two of them could probably squeeze in there together. It won’t be all that comfortable, but it’s better than nothing. The tarp can be thrown over a rope to provide shelter if it’s raining. We just need to find a way to pin the edges down so it doesn’t blow away. Scott suggested forks. It might work? I dunno.

  Jason also offered up his spot in the main tent when he’s helping keep watch, so there’s that, too. Still gonna be keeping my eyes open for another tent. And we need at least one more sleeping bag.

  We made a cake. We found the mix in the pantry. I didn’t trust the eggs in the fridge, and we didn’t have any milk, so the guys went for another ride to the gas station. This time they went all out. They grabbed the milk and eggs, but they also brought back all of the ramen and canned foods they could find, and a bunch of frozen pizzas. Ice cream, too. It’s been seven days since this shit started, and we’re all alive. Seems like a good enough reason to me for a little party.