Dark Days: Infected
By Greg Wilburn
Copyright 2014 Greg Wilburn
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tape #1
Tape #2
Tape #3
Tape #4
Tape #5
Tape #6
Tape #7
Tape #8
Tape #9
Tape #10
Tape #11
Tape #12
Tape #13
Tape #14
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Scraps; the best puppy I never had.
Tape #1
It all began on a sunny day in March; so close to my birthday too. Why did such a bad thing have to start on a day with good weather? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I remember it like it was yesterday, although it was around four years ago since the world went to hell.
Why am I even doing this? Who would want to remember this tragedy or collect these memories? All I want to do is destroy them and forget them forever. But she says I need to do this; that way, all those we’ve loved and lost won’t be forgotten.
Since that’s the case, let me tell you how this hell came to be four years ago.
I used to work as a janitor before the whole world went down in flames. Not that I’d always wanted to be one, but when the economy was as bad as it was then, and you’ve lost your job on top of it, your only option is to take what you can get. Before my days of vomit cleaning and inglorious toilet plunging, I was a lawyer. I had a firm with three other men I knew in college, and we were decently successful. But that all changed when the economy declined and our practice went under.
Even though I was scraping by as a janitor, I had the life. I had a car, a wife, a kid on the way, and a dog named Scraps. We named him Scraps because he wouldn’t start begging for food at the table until the meal was done, and only the scraps were left. Scraps was an amazing dog. Even though he was only a year and a half old, he tried to act as maturely as the older dogs our neighbor had.
I could always depend on him to brighten my day. He took quickly to doggy training, the usual, you know; not to pee on the couch or to poop in my bed at three in the morning because he was afraid of raccoons. I can remember one incident that occurred just a few weeks before the outbreak.
I walked into the house we’d foreclosed the week before to the sound of running water. That was weird because no one had been home all day. My wife was at the doctor to check on the baby and I’d just come back from work. The only person who could’ve turned on that water was Scraps. I walked into the kitchen expecting him to have simply turned a faucet or spilled a water bottle over, but to my surprise I turned the corner to find good ol’ Scraps peeing into my favorite cookie jar. That set back our training a couple of years for sure. I guess it was my fault in the end because it was shaped like a fire hydrant.
I’ll always remember that, not only because Scraps was such a great dog, but mostly because it was one of the few moments of happiness I felt before I lost absolutely everything.
Sorry for taking so much time to talk about a dog, but he means so much to me when I reflect on him now. Now I feel that I have to introduce the rest of my family. This may take a moment.
I can’t express with words how much I loved them, and now how much I miss them, but I’ll do my best to paint a picture of the most beautiful woman in the world, and the child that would’ve been ours if all of this hadn’t happened.
She was, and still is, the love of my life. I met her in high school. I was a hard working student who happened to be the captain of the wrestling team. I was well-liked by those around me because not only was I smart, but I actually had a personality.
However, that doesn’t compare to her. I think I was in love from the first moment I saw her. She was new to the school my senior year, and to this day I’ve never seen a more beautiful creature. I was walking to my Principles of Physical Science class when I looked over my shoulder and saw her.
She had sandy blonde hair and the face of an angel. Her body had an athletic build that was shaped by all the gymnastics and cross country running she did. It was tempered beneath her more conservative clothes. I never once saw her wear anything too revealing, and I respect her for treating herself with such care and dignity.
She wore deep blue jeans that made her red shoes bud as roses do in early Spring. She had a slate gray shirt on that fit her snugly, but not like a glove. She didn’t reveal too much like other girls I always saw around school. But those things didn’t catch my attention as much as her eyes did.
When I saw those blue-green eyes twinkle in the sunlight, all I could imagine was the meeting between the earth and sea that you find in landscape pictures of faraway places. The way the rocks covered in vegetation meet the crashing sea shows how such natural majesty meets such undiscovered beauty. I can never forget how those eyes pierced my soul and told me of a beauty I’d never experienced in this world.
At first, I’d just glance up at her and keep my distance so I wouldn’t seem too interested. Only once did our eyes meet. I remember it clearly; It was a Tuesday morning when I happened to catch her eyes.
It seemed surreal as we gazed into each other’s eyes, but as the moment continued, her expression changed. The warm glow of interest turned to a contortion of surprise with a hint of disgust. I looked away, and from then on I convinced myself not to look at her anymore; I was afraid of having a restraining order put on me.
As luck would have it, she ended up in my class because her schedule had been messed up at the beginning of the year. I think her being placed in my class was what started our relationship.
Maybe not that; when I really think about it, our relationship started when I went up to her and said hello, and she immediately blurted out in the middle of class, “Hey! You’re that guy who kept staring at me across the quad! Nice to meet you!” That kept me at bay for a few weeks.
After my embarrassment subsided, I got to know her through our discussion group in class. We became friends instantly; and when I say we became friends, that’s all that I mean. At least from her side of things.
I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, but she thought I was a dorky guy who wrestled with sweaty men on a mat because I still didn’t want to admit I was a flamboyant homosexual. We became great friends and spent a lot of time with each other. Then we graduated from high school and kept in touch all summer. I’d drive out to her house at least three times a week to visit her and her family. I took her on multiple outings, which I would consider dates, but she considered them to be friendly outings.
After summer, college is where our relationship began to change. I went to the local university while she took her first year off in order to travel around the country as an intern for a national women’s organization. She told me that it helped empower women to be all that they could be in the world around them.
We kept in touch all that year and were as close as ever when she returned home and attended the same university I was at. I was studying pre-law as she began to study for a career as a first grade teacher; that had always been her dream.
During our junior year of college, our relationship changed even more. One night, as we sat on the porch of her house, she confessed her feelings for me. I confessed mine, and to her surprise, I’d liked her from the beginning. That was the beginning of our life to
gether, and little did I know, it would be the beginning of the end.
Tape #2