Zomblog: The Final Entry (2 page)

Here is a weird note; they have had nine births at The Sunset Fortress (that survived). Three were boys, of those three, two were named Sam. Of the six girls, three—that’s half!—were named Meredith. Word came to me in a letter from Jenifer. (She also wished me luck with my trip, though I’m not sure if she meant my upcoming run or the impending Vegas journey. She didn’t specify.) I guess news travels fast. Nothing like it was just before the Gates of Hell opened, but lots quicker than the Pony Express.

Did I mention that there are nightly runs made between the two main complexes and the mansion? What a difference two years makes.

Wednesday, January 6

Doctor Dennis gave me a check-up today. I got the feeling that he doesn’t approve of my plans to leave. In fact, I got the distinct impression that he believed I would be sticking around …having babies!
Well, isn’t that a bit Genesis Brotherhoody.

It made me wonder. I know that there were people who listened to the broadcasts that those crazy people put out there on the airwaves. Did some of that madness stick to several of the listeners? Are there people at either of the complexes or here at the mansion that bought into that crap?

I do have to give this to all the survivors…they are trying very hard to bring back the Old Ways. Does the phrase “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it,” mean anything to these folks?

Thursday, January 7

The team is set.

Jeff, Rodney, Eric Grayfeather, Tina Capps—at twenty-five years old, her meth days have her looking fifty…and not a healthy Susan Sarandon fifty—and I will leave with the midnight transport. We will be dropped off at the 170
^th
Street exit on The Corridor. As much as I am sick to death of rest, I will try my best to get as much as possible in the next twenty-four hours. I seem to remember that you don’t get much out there in the wilderness of a dead world.

Saturday, January 9

First night out.

I am sitting on the very same couch that Sam sat on when he held his daughter Beth after she had been bitten by her own mother, Sam’s ex-wife Erin. Tina is acting like we’re in a damn church. Hmmm…I know I probably shouldn’t say ‘damn’ and ‘church’ in the same sentence, but sheesh!

It is normal to speak in hushed tones or whispers out in the wilderness because of the fact that noise brings trouble. Zombies are very Pavlovian insomuch that they are very responsive to sound. Yet, this gal Tina is walking around the house and won’t speak above a barely audible whisper. I don’t know why, but it is annoying the crap out of me. She’s read a copy of his journal (which became mine and still is by the way). I lived with the man, sorta. She is acting like we are in the Vatican…and I am sprawled on the Holy Couch flipping through a photo album.

It was really bad when we went upstairs to the bedroom. To Sam’s credit, he put them both—Erin and Beth—to rest just like he said…er…wrote. They both had pillowcases over their heads. I imagine that might’ve made it easier, but I can’t imagine what he must’ve felt using a baseball bat on his loved ones so early on in the zombie rising. Sure, as time has passed, those tasks have gotten easier. If it is a total stranger, it is practically perfunctory. Only, when it is somebody you know or care about…even now it can be rough in the best of circimstances.

This house has very little in the way of salvageable or scavengeable goods. This photo album and a couple others are about it. It seems odd looking at Sam’s face again. I’d all but forgotten what he looked like to be honest. What really hit me were the pictures of his daughter Elizabeth. She and Baby Snoe could be twins.

Tomorrow we move through this neighborhood in an indirect way back towards The Corridor. Tonight, however, we sleep in this place. I’m trying to understand how people can see it as some sort of shrine, but honestly, it is just another empty house that used to belong to somebody who eventually turned into one of the walking dead. It is just a house containing long-since-dead corpses that have dried up and barely stink at all anymore.

I will say that I am amazed at how little zombie traffic we encountered on the way here. Also, Eric has done a wonderful job training my goofy dog. Sam—the dog to be clear—is exceptional at sniffing out creepers. Creepers are what we call the ones missing lower extremities. They like to hide in tall grass and under cars. That makes me wonder if they possess some sort of rudimentary reasoning skill. Anyways, Sam made sure we were never surprised.

Tomorrow afternoon we will venture out and do the modern day version of shopping. One final note…I went out to the backyard and put down that female zombie that was
still
hanging from the fence. That was one of the ones that initially convinced Sam that really bad things were happening.

Sunday, January 10

It just can’t be this easy. Each of us has a backpack and one of those nifty all-terrain carts that can be hitched to your backpack—each fitted with a quick-release just in case a fight kicks off—that we use to maximize what we can return to base with.

We haven’t seen anything larger than a group of seven. They were wandering down a street with no real apparent purpose. We didn’t even have to take them out. They were heading the other direction down a cross street.

At this rate, we’ll be at The Corridor by tomorrow. Once we reach our spot, we hang a banner that will let any passing vehicle cruising The Corridor know that there is a team ready for pick up. I was more than a little surprised when I discovered that they were using
my
symbol; the one I devised with Jenifer and Dominique.

I’m not trying to come off as too weird, but I have this dread that, now that we’ve found Erin’s residence, there will be a push to locate Sam’s. Worse still, I fear that they will turn it into something like a holy relic and attempt to diefy the man. Already, his (our) book is given to every survivor on The Corridor. It isn’t required reading…yet. I can just see a hundred or so years down the road when he has been turned into a statue, every school that starts up in this area is named for him, and my little pattern is turned into some sort of holy symbol with all these deep meanings. Honestly, all I tried to do was create a design that was easy to recreate, but distinct enough to recognize.

Geez! Somebody is thinking highly of herself tonight. Right? I don’t know…maybe. Or maybe I am just being weird.

Monday, January 11

Finally! Some real action. Sam is such a good doggy. Eric, Sam, and I were poking around a small twenty-unit apartment complex. We were coming up pretty big with canned food and even some cleaning supplies. The Warehouse has been great about sharing the wealth, but all manufactured resouces are now very finite. You can never have enough toothpaste.

I found a one bedroom place that obviously belonged to one of those role-playing geek-types. It seems he had a real passion for collecting a variety of actual medieval weaponry. That is why I now have a pair of curved blades sheathed on my hips. (Eric called them scimitars.) I also have a spiked-headed mace dangling from a strap on my shoulder.

I was sitting on a rumpled bed prying open the black case that ended up revealing the scimitars. The lock wasn’t very impressive, but it still took some jimmying. I guess that is why I didn’t see the zombie walk through the front door that we’d left wide open. Eric was in the bathroom pulling stuff out of a cabinet under the sink, so he didn’t see or hear it pass him as it trudged down the hallway.

Then Sam growled.

I’ve gotten sloppy during all these days behind the relative safety of the walls of the Mitchell mansion or inside the confines of an armored truck. I know Sam must’ve reacted sooner, but I was in serious tunnel-vision mode as I pried open that black case.

I looked up as the middle-aged man stumbled through the door. Sam was already at its feet, tugging on the hem of heavily frayed dress slacks. He growled louder and let loose with a single, sharp bark. I had the mace sitting on the bed beside me, so I grabbed it and brought it down hard with an overhead swing that also scraped away a bunch of that popcorn stuff that most apartments have coating the ceiling.

Every zombie can tell a little story if you look close enough. This guy knew he was turning and tried to kill himself. His mouth is a misshapen mess. Most of his teeth are shattered, and the tongue—what is left of it—is black and crispy looking. There is a nasty hole in the back of the throat that you can see through. This poor guy tried to eat a bullet and didn’t put enough angle on the barrel of the pistol he used. He shoved that thing straight back and pulled the trigger.
“How do I know it was a pistol?”
you might ask. It is still dangling from his twisted and broken hand. Two years of God-knows-what has rendered the weapon useless just like most other firearms and ammo these days.

Back to what happened…

I brought that mace down hard on the top of the thing’s head and it shattered like an overripe melon at a Gallagher show…and stunk worse than rotten eggs. This was my first field kill since taking on The Genesis Brotherhood. It felt invigorating.

Say what you want, and judge if you like, but THIS is where I belong. Out in the world…killing zombies. After it was over, Sam looked up at me as if to say, “Hey, lady, you better pay better attention if you want to live.” Is it natural for a dog to have what appears to be a look of disgust? I scratched those soft ears and gave him a treat from the pouch that Eric told me to carry for just such occasions.

Searching the rest of the apartments, Sam’s hackles rose at the doors of five of them. We went in ready for a fight. I got to try out all of my new toys. Whoever that geek was, he kept his weapons in excellent condition. Those scimitar blades were sharp enough to shave with.

We hung the banner an hour ago. Now we wait. When a vehicle passes and sees it, whoever is driving will wait five minutes. If we don’t make it to the road in that time, we have to do it over again.

Tuesday, January 12

Back at the Mitchell’s place.

I packaged up the stuff I found for Baby Snoe. Yes, I did consider making the trip to The Warehouse myself one last time, but decided against it in the end. I suck at goodbyes. It may be the cowardly thing, but I asked Jeff to deliver it for me.

I thought about just sending it with a supply run, but the way people seem to totally weird out over anything to do wth the journal, I thought those photo albums might send them into a fervor. I looked things over one last time, added a copy of my journal and her dad’s, and called it good. This one is coming with me to Vegas. Personally, I doubt she will ever see any of this stuff. I don’t give humanity, no matter how organized they try to be, a chance in hell of surviving this ordeal.

Oh! How could I forget? Eric gave me a lovely sketch done in pencil. It was of me. I have no idea how or when he had time to do it, but it was creepy good. I put that in the box, too. Now, if she makes it that long, Baby Snoe will have an idea what her mommy looked like. And having both of our journals, hopefully she will feel just a little bit better about how things worked out.

Now it is time to give Sam a bath. I am pretty sure he rolled in dead people guts at some point. There is no way he will be allowed into the house smelling the way he does.

I got my first mission out of the way! It might’ve been a bit of a cake walk, and I think it was planned that way on purpose because I was coming along. At least I did it. I’d like to make one more before I head out. I think I will go check the sign-up sheets after I bathe Smelly Dog.

Wednesday, January 13

A light snow is falling. Even wearing four layers of clothing, I’m still cold. Being out in this is gonna take some getting used to. I am reminded of this one time when my best friend Katy and I decided that, during the third season of
Survivor
, we would live off of rice and rough it with the cast. It was only thirty-nine days…we knew we could do it. By day four we were sitting shame-faced in Mickey Dees.

I went outside today and cleared an area, made a small fire, and tried to get in sync with Mother Nature. I am now sitting inside in a rocking chair with a thick comforter over my legs and Sam curled at me feet. I’ve turned into an absolute sissy-girl.

Friday, January 15

I just had the strangest talk.

Eric Grayfeather came into my room after breakfast. He stared at me with those big, dark eyes of his for a few moments (which began to feel like an eternity). Finally, he asked if it was true that I was leaving for Las Vegas soon. I told him it was.

We spent an hour talking. He said that if I equip properly, Highway 26 through Mount Hood and all the way to Madras would be an ideal first leg. I told him I wasn’t interested in becoming a Meredith Popsicle, nor did I want to try and recreate some sort of Donner Party adventure considering Sam was currently my only guaranteed company.

He explained that I could use the snow and weather to my advantage. Also, it would be less likely that I would encounter other living people that way. Since dealing with zombies has never been a problem for me and most of my problems have stemmed from encounters with the living…he had a point.

I listened and found myself starting to agree. Cities are still war zones: Living versus Dead; Living versus Living…
et cetera
. Eric helped me make a pretty impressive list of essentials. The good thing is that almost everything that I need is available here or at one of the other compounds.

As he was walking out my door, he stopped. Again I got that long, silent stare. Finally, he said, “I will go with you to Las Vegas.” Then, just like that, he left!

That guy is so weird. Don’t get me wrong; it’ll be nice to make this journey with somebody alongside, but he is probably the last person I would’ve picked for company.