Let’s see, what else. We’re camped in the woods..um...near a stream/small river thing. We didn’t really have a chance to scavenge, so we’ll be doing that tomorrow.
Ugh, I am jumping at every sound. I’ve told the scouting members of our little party about the trolls learning shit, but not the others. I only told the scouts cause they’re the ones who will be in the most danger. I don’t want to scare the others more than I have to.
Fuck it, I’m going to patrol. Tomorrow we start heading for the river. GI Information (army tech guy, forgot his name) said to stay away from bridges and tunnels, so we have to keep an eye out for boats along the way. I am not looking forward to the next couple days.
* * *
3:38 am
IV Man woke up. His name is Roger and he’s a vet. He was trying to make his way to Richmond but got turned around somehow. Gave him some food and switched him over to drinking water. He said he’ll take the IV out himself.
Not much help to us, but if he survives the trip, he could be useful at dad’s. Now it’s back to sleep for me. Hopefully, anyway.
* * *
May 9th
8:43 pm
We’re in a house/farm thing. Well, actually, we’re in the barn. The owners are still human, but they’re not all that welcoming. They don’t trust us, which is understandable. We don’t really trust them either. We’re keeping two guards at the door, and Scott is trying to figure out the crossbows. They should be easy enough to use. Put the arrow thingy in the slot, pull it back and pull the trigger. Not sure if that’s how it really works, but it’d be nice if we could get it sorted. Then we’d have a quiet weapon. We could even use it to launch scent bombs and whatnot. Plus, and this is just going out on a limb here, but I think arrows might be easier to make than bullets.
I’m not on watch tonight. I’ve either caught a cold or my allergies are kicking up. Been snifflin’ and sneezing since I woke up. We did some scavenging on the way here. Didn’t get a whole lot, but it should last us another couple days. We’ll be eating a lot of ramen, but we already kinda knew that was gonna happen.
Roger is doing much better. He’s a real quiet guy. Not sure if it’s just who he is, or if he’s shellshocked or what. He went through the meds we still had from NY.
Pro tip: if you raid a pharmacy, make sure you have a cooler for medicines that require refrigeration. You know, like the shit ton of insulin we picked up. Our medicine box is looking pitiful now. And I’m not sure how we’re gonna restock it, with all the cities being blown sky high. We can try raiding the small town pharmacies along the way, but I’m not really sure how well stocked they’ll be.
Blah. I took some cold medicine before I started writing this. It’s starting to kick in, so I’m gonna go turn in.
* * *
May 10th
8:50 pm
Farmer man woke us up a little before dawn. Had to milk the cows. We decided to get a move on. Good thing, too, considering how long it took us to get where we are now. Stupid Virginia with its stupid hills and stupid rivers and stupid COLDS, and just...ugh.
But hey. We’re at a fancy schmancy house, it has a fully stocked freezer, and I have cold medicine. We’re going to stay here for a couple days. There’s a wood burning fireplace here that we are taking full advantage of. No ramen tonight, thankyouverymuch, we’re having hamburgers! Scott cooked some french fries in aluminum foil...it was okay. Not the best, but it was food.
I put myself in “quarantine.” I’m feeling a little better, so it’s possible it’s just my allergies, but I’m not taking any chances. It sucks. Mike is teaching the older kids how to play Gin. I love Gin.
This is depressing. I’m going to sleep.
* * *
May 11th
2:57 am
It’s storming. The thunder woke me up. Woke Chloe up too, from the sound of it. Dave is on watch at the front window, and she’s got herself wrapped around his legs like a little monkey. Annnd, Abby’s awake. They’re talking. Not even gonna lie, I ship the hell out of it. It kinda reminds me of The Brady Bunch, but with a lot less kids.
I’m not going to fall back asleep anytime soon, but I don’t really have anything to write either. I’m just bored. Bored bored bored. And I’m cramping. Motherfucker. I am so done with this bullshit.
I wonder if we have any chocolate...
* * *
3:38 am
No chocolate. No Midol either. More cold medicine. Yuck.
* * *
6:41 am
I feel better, but it’s still raining its ass off. And apparently I’m not the only one PMS’ing. Abby’s snarly too. This should be fun. Hopefully the trolls can’t smell blood. Dammit.
* * *
9:53 pm
We’re getting back on the road tomorrow. We have to risk boats again. It’s just too long to go around, especially with the bridges and tunnels not being an option anymore. Mike showed me his proposed route. There’s not many options for looting along the way, but we’ll make do.
The sad thing is, we knew we were gonna have to risk using boats again, but we were hoping we could avoid it until we got to the big river. This is a small river, but it’s big enough to be a problem. I guess we can use this as practice, but dammit. I am tired of this shit. I just want to go home, turn on the tv and watch some stupid movie or hell, Netflix, I don’t care at this point, I’m just fucking done. Netflix and fuck you, that sounds like a plan.
If only.
I called my dad earlier. Told him everything. About the baby, about the new guy, and the troll development. He said not to worry about Anna. He would take care of her. He’s looking forward to Roger arriving. Apparently he’s got plenty of work for him to do.
While the rest of us have been trudging along, dad’s been keeping busy. He and some of the neighbors have teamed up. They reinforced their fences, and then started combining their lands. They have the entire back end of the land fenced off, and they’re working on building it up. They’ve got themselves a little community going. The neighbor on one side has farmland, the neighbor on the other used to have a ranch, but they sold their cattle. There’s another guy on the outskirts of town who has cattle, but no one has heard from them in a couple days. Dad said they’re gonna go check on him here in the next couple days. If he’s dead, they’re gonna do some “cattle rustlin’.”
What else…
The cops are helping dad out. I dunno if they know about the guns yet, but for now, things are good. They had the same idea about using cars/trucks to block out an area. Between the neighbors, the abandoned cars, the firetrucks and the police cars, the lands are blocked in pretty well.
They had a near miss with a tornado the other day. Not sure if it’s the same storm that just came through here or not, but it tore up the next town over.
Not sure what I’m going to miss more this summer...the AC or the weather channel.
* * *
May 12th
9:11 pm
Today was just a shit day.
We didn’t reach the boats. We almost lost the wagons twice. Karla twisted her ankle, and the younger kids decided that today was the day to have themselves a full blown hissy fit.
I’m talking about an on the ground, rolling, screaming, crying, kicking, you name it they did it, hissy fit. In the middle of the road. We’re in the backwoods, so the road was deserted, but still.
We were due for a break, anyway, so I gave everyone about 15 minutes to rest, drink plenty of water, get a bathroom break, and then we got moving again. I didn’t say a word to the kids. Just got everyone up and moving. Left them sitting there in the middle of the road.
Don’t worry, they caught up with us. They’re both mad as fuck at me right now cause I wouldn’t let them ride in the wagons again, but they’ll live. They both passed out the minute we got in the house here. They’ll wake up in a few hours hungry. They’ll have to deal with eating cold noodles. Maybe that’ll teach ‘em not to start that shit up again.
Waiting for Scott and Ben to get back. They’re scouting the marina Mike looked up last night. It’s only about a mile down the road, if even that far. We might try slipping across the river in the night. It depends on a lot of things, like how many boats there are, how big they are, etc..
Oh what the fresh hell is this.
* * *
11:04pm
Oh look. More survivors. Fuck you, I’m done.
May 13th
1:32 am
Okay, so they turned out to be sensible survivors. I’m still saying ‘fuck you’. We’re on an island right off the coast. It’s not very big, but there’s also only about 40 people, tops, and most of them stay on the boats. The island is pretty much just there for when they need to cook. They build a fire up, heat the food, eat it and get back on the boat. They have a floating village. They’ve offered to ferry us across the river, but they want something in exchange. We’re supposed to talk about it in the morning.
* * *
10:05 am
We’re a traveling circus, I swear.
The conditions were relatively simple. They had someone they wanted to get rid of. They wanted us to take her. She didn’t want to go with us anymore than we wanted to take her, but apparently she wasn’t given much choice in the matter. According to the “captain” of the village, she was caught stealing from another boat. We weren’t allowed to talk to her until we were on solid ground, so we didn’t hear her side of the story until we were down the road a bit.
She fully admitted to stealing....kisses from the captain’s daughter. He caught them making out on the island, and instead of joining the rest of us in the 21st fucking century, he decided that it was an unholy crime, and the “criminal” was to be punished. They were trying to decide what to do with her when we came along.
So now we have Becca. She’s a sweet thing so far. The kids love her. She’s eager to be useful, and she’s a quick learner, so I don’t want to strangle her yet. Plus, it’s not like it’s her fault the captain is a fucking idiot and an asshole.
She’s asked us to spend the night nearby. She seems to think Gabby (capt’s daughter) and her “boyfriend” will show up. She says they’re all friends. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the only gay kids in your town? Well, as far as they know of, anyway. But yeah, supposedly Josh has been Gabby’s “boyfriend” for a couple years. It’s kept everyone off their backs, but on the downside, when the captain caught the girls together, he automatically blamed Becca, because obviously Gabby is straight...I mean, she had a boyfriend, right? So yeah.
I’m still trying to get over how the captain didn’t see through it, if he’s as homophobic as Becca says he is. She seems to have a lot of faith in her girl though, so we’re giving her the day.
For her sake, I hope she’s right. For our sake...I’m not too keen on the idea of having even more teenagers in our traveling show.
* * *
11:32pm
I am done. Fucking done. Sing it with me folks, done, done, done DONNNEEEE. Oh my fucking god.
Also: I am calling some MASSIVE amounts of bullshit. There is NO way that guy was THIS stupid.
BULL-fucking-SHIT.
So okay, check this shit out.
After Becca got caught with the captain’s daughter, she was locked up on one boat, and Gabby on another. Now, you would think that the captain would lock his daughter up on his own boat so he could keep an eye on her, but no.
Remember Gabby’s “boyfriend,” Josh? Well, supposedly, he talked the captain into locking her up on his boat (his parents were trollified). He was soooo upset about her cheating on him, and he wanted some alone time with her. So he puts her on the boat, and he tells the captain that he’s gonna take her down the river so she can’t see where Becca and the rest of us are dropped off. Just in case she gets it in her head to try and follow along later.
Well, joke was on the captain, cause Josh ships the fuck out of these two. So he took Gabby down the river all right. Down the river and around the bend where Captain Dumbass wouldn’t see them come ashore. They slogged through mud and swamp for hours trying to find us.
The only thing saving my sanity right now is that the kids brought food with them. The captain had been rationing food out, and the boyfriend had a little extra, because...well, he was the boyfriend of the captain’s daughter. So yeah. They shoved as much food in their backpacks as they could carry and hauled ass.
They have a lot of beef jerky. We all munched on some while we were trying to put as much distance between us and the river as we could. The captain and some of his cronies had guns, and we can’t take any chances. Not with the kids and everything else.
So, now we’re up to sixteen fucking people. Well, technically, I suppose they’re not all fucking, but Gabby and Becca sure are giving each other looks like they’d like to be. I don’t even care. I told them to keep it quiet and to themselves, and if they make the mistake of not making sure the area is clear of trolls before they get to it, we are not saving their asses. Other than that, I’m out of it. They’re both seventeen, and I am not their parents. The fuck I care what they’re doing.
Besides, it’s not like they can get each other pregnant. They can go at it like bunnies for all I care.
The downside is...I might have to strangle Micah. He’s turning out to be just as homophobic as Gabby’s dad. Oh, he’s fine with Gabby and Becca. He’s just about drooling, following them around like a wet t-shirt/mud-wrestling competition is gonna happen any second, but he’s being a complete ass to Josh. Won’t let Josh near the kids, won’t talk to him. Josh tried to hand him a water bottle, and you’d’ve thought it was a snake, the way he reacted.
I’ve talked it over with the others, and they all agree. Next group of survivors we come across, we’re gonna see if we can get rid of him. Let him be someone else’s problem. I’m fucking done with him.
I’ll be talking to Melly about it tomorrow. She’s welcome to stay with us if she wants, but I don’t expect her to. The world is upside down, and it’s normal to cling to what you know. She’s known Micah her entire life. We can’t expect her to just walk away from that.
We’ll see though. She’s been pretty sick of his bullshit lately, too. Okay, my watch is over. Time to sleep.
Goodnight world.
* * *
May 14th
7:41 pm
Yay! We have more food! Sorry, but I am so sick of ramen. I am honestly not sure what part of this mess I hate more - the whole flesh eating monsters bit, or the lack of a good variety when it comes to food.
We’re stopped at...okay, honestly, I’m not sure what this is. It’s like a mix between an office and a house. I dunno. I don’t particularly care either. It was a convenient stopping place, so here we are. The boys did a supply run earlier, so we’re good on food for at least a little while longer.
Meh. Abby is mad at me. I let her read the journal so far, and apparently, besides what little I said about her, there’s next to nothing about us. (Also, I’m not allowed to ship her and Dave. She says there’s nothing there. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, but we shall see. For now, the ship is still happily floating along.)
Anyway, I promised her I would include more about us. It makes sense. This could be all that survives any of us, and considering how far we’ve made it, I think we deserve to be remembered. Besides, I meant to do this before, but I kinda got sidetracked.
Abby took a vote, and I’m supposed to talk about me first, but I don’t really know what to say. I mean, it feels kinda like being at one of those AA things. “Hi, my name is Shelly. I’m in a zombie apocalypse.” (everyone else: “Hi Shelly.”)
So um, let’s see. My name is Michelle McElroy (no, my parents did not hate me). My friends call me Shelly or Shel. I am 29 years old, and I was a graphic designer. Not a big name thing, but enough to make a living. I grew up in BFE North Carolina with my parents and my brother. My brother is happily married, I am happily single. Even more happy to
be single now.
What else...um, you guys already know I lived in New York. I moved there a little over a year ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I enjoyed it. It was a nice change of pace from my little one-horse town, but with what’s going on, I kinda wish I had stayed home. Or at least closer to home, but I didn’t really have any reason to. I didn’t have a lot of friends there, and I couldn’t stand the guys in town, so...yeah. No reason to stay.
I don’t smoke, I don’t really drink anymore. I’m a fairly quiet person. Um...I like long walks on the beach? Fuck, I don’t know. I am just a very lucky woman who has managed to survive almost an entire month of the zombie apocalypse, and somehow gathered way too fucking many people along the way.
Oh, and on my tombstone, I want pepperoni, bell peppers, and onions. On the other tombstone, just the words “FUCK THIS SHIT!” will do. Sums it up pretty well, don’tcha think?
Ugh. I’m chompin’ at the bit. I had wanted to get a little further today before we stopped, but Micah kept complaining that the sun was giving him a headache. It wasn’t hot today, but it was pretty muggy, so Abby is worried about him having heat stroke or something. At least it’s still getting cold at night.
What else...oh, I talked to Melly earlier. Told her that we plan on leaving Micah with the next group of survivors we meet up with, if they’ll take him. She’s fed up with the way he’s acting, and said she’d rather stay with us. I was surprised, to say the least. At her age, I figured she’d want to stay with someone she knows, but I guess he really has gotten on her last nerve. I just hope she doesn’t change her mind after we’re down the road. I’m not risking any of our people to escort her ass back to where ever we dump him.
The Survivor Chronicles | Book 1 | Say No! To Zombies Page 8