Z Day is Here (9 page)

The only news I have to share is that Spook
seems to not be feeling well. He was looking a little pale this
morning and throughout the day. He says he feels fine, but I can
see sweat beading up, and when he doesn't think I am watching, I
see him shiver a little. I'm not trying to jump to conclusions, but
I am afraid he may have been bitten while in the old couple’s
house. That was the only time we have left each other’s sight. I am
planning on keeping a close eye on him.

Spook is sick. He is very sick. All night and
all day, he has been throwing up and moaning in pain. There is no
doubt he is infected and going through the change. I haven't got
the heart to ask him when he was bitten, not that I think he would
admit to it even if he had been. I have quarantined him in a back
supply closet. I told him it is for his protection in case we’re
attacked while he is sick. I know he is not buying that excuse,
though. I am unsure what to do about him. I know he will be one of
them within the next few hours or days, but he has been a great
friend and protector. If I wait until he has fully changed, I will
have to fight him to kill him, unless I watch him every second of
the day and kill him in that brief moment just before he reawakens
as one of the living dead. Hell, I could go ahead and end his life
now, but I just don't have the heart.

I am glad Paula is not here to see this. I am
glad that psycho Malice isn't around either. He would have blown
Spook’s head off at the first sign. Cole and Tonya don't need to
see this either. They have been through too much already. And
Ken…oh God, I wonder if he is even still alive.

I haven't had the time to think about what
could have happened to the others. Whose blood is all over the
place? Who is alive and who is dead? What if they have the same
dilemma? What would they do? What would anyone do?

I think if I just watch him closely, I should
be able to kill him before he is able to complete the change and
kill me. But how should I do this? Shooting a gun will be much too
loud and will attract the attention of all the zombies within about
one hundred miles. I could grab some sort of blunt object lying
around, maybe a fax machine or a cash register. No, those are too
heavy and bulky. I don't know that I would be able to overpower
him. He is a big guy, so snapping his neck ninja style is also out.
(Not that I could snap someone’s neck ninja style, but I need more
ideas.) I hate even thinking about this. Spook has been a great
ally to me.

Another thing I have been thinking about
today is what happens when Spook is gone? If the others return (and
that is a huge if!), if Ken is gone, that will leave me with a
widow, a pissed-off lesbian out for revenge, and a teenager not
even old enough to drive. Things aren't looking real good right
now. I have no idea how to get out of this one or even what to do
once we are out of this mess. If the others don't return soon, I
will have to begin making my way back towards my house and back to
Darcy. Though everyday, I am getting less and less optimistic about
her survival.

Spook has gotten very quiet in the room.
Maybe he is asleep, or maybe...

Spook is a zombie. I tried to get in the
supply room in time to kill him right before he changed, but I was
too late.

When I opened the door, Spook was sitting
with his hands in his lap, looking down. He was not breathing or
moving. I thought for a minute that maybe he had just gotten really
sick and died from his illness. He looked like he was sleeping.
Without warning, he flung his head up and looked directly at me. I
jumped about ten feet back, tripping and falling over a bucket that
had been lying in the floor. As I slid backwards, Spook jumped on
top of me. His once-brown eyes were stone white. The blood that
flowed through his body had stopped moving and was creating a
purple look to his face. His movements were deliberate and quick.
He wanted nothing in this world other than to pick my bones clean.
Spook’s weight was overwhelming to me. I was fighting just to keep
his mouth away from my body. I had my left hand under his chin,
raising his face up in the air. With my right hand, I felt around
for something to serve as a weapon! I felt my hand wrap around
something hard and round, a broom or a mop handle. All I could do
was swing towards his face. I could hear the wood slam against the
side of his head, but he did not even flinch. He was beginning to
overpower me. My muscles, still weak from the accident and previous
fights, were slowly giving out. I swung again and again at his
head. Each time, the wood would break and splinter, but he would
not even acknowledge that he had been hit. As my arm began to
collapse, my whole body gave out; I could no longer fight him off.
I had felt bad about killing him while he was still alive, even
though I knew this could happen. My delaying would be my demise. I
begged God to take me back in time just one hour before. I would
have bashed his brains into a bloody mush without hesitation. My
wish was never granted. I gave up. I could fight him off no longer.
As I dropped my hand, his teeth came roaring towards my face.

All I remember seeing is his teeth, then a
bright flash of metal. I passed out from exhaustion and stress.

When I awoke, Malice was standing over top of
me. He was studying my face and arms, no doubt looking for bite
marks. He had this scared, wounded dog look on his face. Before I
could say anything, he helped me up, asked if I was okay, and
turned toward the door. I asked where he was going, to which he
replied, "I have a woman back home waiting for me. I'm going to
her." I didn't try to stop him, but he had now saved my life a few
times, so for that I am grateful. As he walked out the door, I
stayed lying on the counter where he’d put me. I stared at the
ceiling for a long time, listening to Spook crash around in the
supply closet.

I have some hard decisions to make now. If I
stay here, Spook will eventually get out of the closet and the
zombies will eventually get in here. If I leave, I may never see
the others again. I just want to be home. I want to be sitting on
my couch at my house, flipping through my TV’s channels,
complaining about nothing being on.

The world has changed. Nothing will ever be
the same again. I am stuck in a small town somewhere far away from
where I need to be, surrounded by the living dead. I can't help but
laugh.

And cry.

Not too sure where to go or what to do. All I
have heard all night is Spook banging and crashing around in the
back room. He moans just like the rest of them. I don't know what
to do with him. I guess I could just leave him in there until he
starves to death, if that would ever happen. What if Paula does
come back? What then? I just don't know if I can take that chance.
I have decided to leave tomorrow, with or without anyone. I am
going to write on the walls, just in case they do come back, so
they will know where I went and to not open the storage room
door.

I have been watching the zombies as they walk
down the road searching for food. I am sure they are getting
faster. Maybe they are just getting hungrier. The human population
has to be dwindling down by now. I wonder how many of us are left.
I am sure there has to be quite a few others. Maybe they got to
some safety before all hell broke loose. There is an Air Force base
just down the road from my house. I wonder how many people made it
into the nuclear fall-out shelter. God, if even one of them were
infected, the whole shelter would be dead by now. At any rate, I am
going to have to be more careful when I pack up and leave. I
believe the best route will be finding a truck or some other
vehicle. I can outrun them, but since they don't breathe, they
won’t get tired. I wonder how fast they will get. Right now, they
are moving at about a normal walking speed. I have no idea what I
will do if they begin to run.

I am going to attempt to catch a very quick
nap. I am going to lock myself in a closet down the hall for a
little bit. If I am going to do this alone again, I need my rest.
Good night.

A Reunion.

Well, sometimes, good things can happen at
the worst of times. Early this morning, I was sleeping (longer than
I had anticipated) in the closet, when I was awoken by a noise. I
heard things crashing around in the room just beyond the door. I
jumped up, grabbed a metal curtain rod I’d found in the closet, and
slowly opened the door. I had decided to just come out swinging,
but when I opened the door, I saw Tonya standing directly in front
of me, her hand reaching out to the doorknob. We both jumped back
just a little. When we finally realized who the other was, we
hugged. I glanced around to see who all had made it. I saw Cole and
Ken but no Paula. I guess I was thinking she had seen Spook and
freaked out or something, but I could not see her. Tonya must have
read my face, because she began to cry. It took a minute to figure
out what had upset her so badly. Paula wasn't there, because Paula
had not survived the attack that sent them running.

Apparently, while Spook and I were gone, the
others were hanging around, watching for any sign of our return.
Paula was standing upstairs looking out the window when she came
running down the stairs, happy we had returned. She flung the door
open to meet us with open arms. What she found on the other side,
though, was two zombies looking for their evening meal. Tonya said
it was very sudden. Paula flung the door open and, within seconds,
the two zombies were on her. The first bit into her throat, ripping
veins and arteries out with every bite. The second went for her
arm. Cole said Paula hit the ground, probably died immediately. He
said when the zombies realized there were others in the room, they
moved quickly towards them. Tonya said they hit one of the zombies
in the head with a chair, and they hit the other one with anything
they could find. Tonya said Cole helped Ken out the door while
Tonya quickly wrote a note on the wall to let me know what had
happened. She said they all made it out just as the zombies were
getting back up. She told me how they ran about two blocks until
they could not run any longer. Cole said they found a firehouse and
ducked inside there, where they have been since. Inside the
firehouse, they found a little medicine that they used on Ken’s
wounds.

Ken looked a little better than he had the
last time I had seen him. He was able to stand up on his own and
could even walk around a little. His wound, however, looked really
bad. The area directly around it had turned a dark red color, and a
visible red line ran down his leg from the wound. I could tell he
was in some pretty bad pain, because he didn't talk much, and when
he did, it took quick shallow breaths. I gave him some pain pills
Spook and I had found at the hospital, and he was all too eager to
take them. I know he is dying—he knows he is dying—but we all try
to hold on as long as we can.

I told the others about our trip and about
what had happened to Spook. Though they didn't agree with me
keeping him in the storage room, they said they understood. One
thing we all agreed on, though, was we had to get out of there and
get on the road. Sitting around in one place for too long would
lead to all of our deaths. We decided that tonight we would head
back to the fire station and take one of the smaller fire trucks
that was still in the house. From there, we would make our way back
to the city. No one wanted to plan any further than that, because
no one knew if we would even make it that far. We decided that,
like an alcoholic, we would take it day by day.

Although it has been a somewhat happy day,
all the bad things going on around us has overshadowed our
happiness. Spook is locked in the storage room directly behind us,
Paula is dead and her body missing, and Ken is going to die, no
matter what we do. We have a long struggle ahead of us. Death is
surrounding us, begging for us to join it. Death is taking everyone
away. The future is not looking too bright right now. But for now,
at least we have each other, if only for a little while longer.

We made it to the firehouse without any
issues. We went really slowly the whole way there, mainly for Ken,
who could barely walk. When we got to the firehouse, everything was
prepared and ready to go. The others had packed everything we might
need for a long trip while they were hiding out there. We wasted no
time getting on the road; a lot of bad things had happened in this
town, and we were all very ready to leave it long behind us. No one
had any idea where we were or how to get to the city, so we pulled
out of the firehouse and turned the way we thought it should be. I
suggested we find a gas station and grab a map as soon as possible.
While driving down the road through the little town, we saw zombies
everywhere. They were wandering down the street in no particular
direction. They would hear us coming and start walking towards our
truck. We began looking like the Pied Piper. Now if only we could
find a cliff.

We’d made one last turn to head out of town
when we saw Paula—or I guess I should saw zombie Paula. She turned
just as the others had, staring at us with no comprehension of who
we were. Her eyes had turned that all-too-familiar dead white. Her
neck had been ripped open to the point of near decapitation, and
her arm from the elbow down to the wrist was nothing but bone. She
turned and began coming towards the truck. She did not care who we
were; she just wanted us for food.

I slowed the truck down, waiting for her to
get a little closer to us. Maybe it wasn't a smart thing to do,
because it only allowed the zombies to get closer to us. Tonya was
screaming at me to drive. Cole was yelling something about how
close they were getting to us, while Ken just stared out the
window, the spark of life quickly draining from his eyes. I didn't
care what they were saying. I could not allow Paula to go on like
this. I felt a thud as a few zombies banged on the back of the
truck, desperately looking for a way in. I waited just a few more
seconds. I could see the zombies converging on the back of the
truck. In front was a group of about twenty or more, heading our
way. Tonya, now hysterically screaming, tried to get into the
driver’s seat to take over. I just shoved her away from me. I was
in control of things. I knew what I was doing.