Journals of the Damned

town. Small means the zed population has been manageable. This store hadn’t been raided by looters, it looks like it’s been untouched since the shit hit the fan. Until I arrived that is. Now there’s a H2 crashed through the wreckage of the sliding doors and about a dozen dead zeds decorating the aisles.

  Drove that Hummer like it was a snow plow and made a game of playing tag with the dead heads that strayed in the road. The windshield is half missing on the passenger side and the rest is spidered and cracked. Hit one on my side and it damn near came through the windshield. Thought the fuck was gonna ask to drive. When it hit the windshield, it seemed to violently burst open and a thick, black fluid mixed with its guts clings there, hampering my vision. The wipers just got stuck in the sticky, stinking mass, smearing it around and generally made it worse. Drove with my head hanging out the window or practically in the passenger seat till I spied this place. Drove right into it at almost 50 miles per hour.

  I know I used my seat belt and I may not care if I live or die, but suicide is something else. There's a strange strength I have found in not caring about dying. Like I can be content in the sole fact that I tried and that alone is enough.

  I guess 50 mph was a little fast. Almost went through half the building before I stopped. Shelving forming the aisles were knocked into one another, effectively closing three rows access to the rear of the store.

  Ran over a zed that was standing where the first lane was. He got stuck somehow in the crumpled up remainder of the front passenger tire and the frame. His body thumped under the tire, trying to throw off my steering. The H2 was still drivable though and I parked it sideways across the gaping hole I made. The damn zed in the undercarriage had to be shot as though being twisted and mangled was only a minor handicap to it.

  The wave of zeds from the nearby area arrived shortly, more spread out in their arrival. The shuffling beasts were finally on the verge of collapse with their slowed, restricted movements. That first wave was followed by a small, weak second wave that I had no problem taking care of.

  I dispatch them easily now. I blocked off some of the aisles to funnel them into one row. The security mirrors in the corners, meant to stop shop lifting, gave a good view from the pharmacy booth. The pharmacy register is surrounded by good thick glass, it’s small but it shows the place had gotten robbed more than once. The manager’s office entrance (and the access to the safe,) was also on the other side of the locked door.

  A foot past the frame was a regular drywall covered wall.

  Punched a hole in that large enough to reach around and open it. Doubt a zed would figure it out but I put file cabinet from the office to cover the hole. Sometimes if a zed can’t see into a room, he thinks he can’t get in it that way.

  I think the pain-killers have kicked in now...

  I'm going to try to do this then I'll write again.

  The only watch I could find in the store was a child's model. There is no date or day on it, just a digital read-out of the time. I don't know how accurate it is but all of the cartoon character watches, for the most part, read within an hour or so of each other.

  Found "The Complete Guide to Prescription & Nonprescription Drugs." Didn't take me much time identify a fist full of antibiotics and pain killers. I don’t even remember how many I took. I waited for what I figured was an hour to gauge the strength of the pills I had swallowed. It seemed OK until I started to seriously put the blade of the bowie knife to the right mutilated toe. Tried to cut it off at the joint in one go. Thought I could do it as it there was just a small piece to actually cut off, the actual joint was close.

  I yelled.

  Damn I yelled.

  I decided that cartilage was tougher than it looked and another fist full of drugs was called for.

  I knew my yell was going to bring another round of zombies. They came stumbling and crawling over and around the rubble of the entryway. The Hummer blocks what's left of the doorway, but it just serves to slow the bastards down instead of stopping them. They were all pretty slow now, except for some. Some of the undead still possessed a decent amount of vigor. It was evident the ones that retained their speed and mobility were the ones that had fed the most.

  I took care of the zeds then locked myself in here again. Fuckin' buckled down and sliced that piece of shit toe off.

  Sorry, Dear reader of mine, if the following seems a bit incoherent. I think I took too many drugs. That's right, "Don't do drugs kids. 'Cause if you do you might end up OD'ing in a Walgreens attempting to perform Autotomy."

  Just thought it was funny.

  I am so stoned right now.

  I'm trying to use this to stay focused.

  Kinda don’t care about life right now. It’s leading me to be reckless, I know. Honestly though, like I said, I don’t care.

  Anyways, where was I?

  That child. Kimmy. I thought how carrier dude killed her and I shot her mommy.

  I can clearly see her mother’s mangled body, with its arms broken off from the constant beating upon the door. For how long had she uselessly beaten herself upon that door I wondered. Broken bone shards and finger digits were scattered about the immediate vicinity of her animated corpse.

  I’ve done some rotten shit to survive before I started the journal. Wondered how much the same we and the necromantic parasite are. I curse it for killing people while I’ve been doing the same. Not just the carriers or the hungry dead, but I’ve been forced to (in my mind) justifiably kill the immune too. The parasite just does it on a larger scale.

  I told you I was depressed, stoned and writing.

  I got to remember to find some antidepressants or something before I leave.

  I think I dozed off or zoned-out or something. I think I remember being awakened by zeds pounding on the thick glass of the pharmacy. I barely remember firing repeatedly at the group of almost mummified, walking cadavers through the group of small circular holes that were actually meant for speaking. It took only one shot of the sawed-off to make a bigger hole through those concentric rings of holes. Then I just put the barrel of the AK through and blasted away.

  The memories have a fuzzy quality to them, dream like. Definitely had to be from the mix of meds and this fever that’s hittin’ me. I kinda remember having to go out and foolishly hunt down a much more active one. I'm not sure.

  I don't remember if I went to work on the second toe before or after I went out and cleared the store again. It's all confused and jumbled in my mind. I thought I had been becoming inured with the pain I had already inflicted upon myself. The left small toe had to be cut off midway up the bone, as the joint was too high up into my foot for me to want to dig. I was covered in my own sweat and blood. Before I decided to just try to cleanly cut it off and slap some liquid suture on top of it, I grabbed another round of painkillers. I used a disposable plastic lighter by itself and I used some tape to get three lighters bound together to heat up some cheap silverware for cauterization.

  I’ve got some more visitors now. I’m going to have to give them their prescription of hot lead. I’ll write again after I administer their dosage.

  Too early to tell what’s gonna happen with the surgery.

  Gotta piss.

  Drank a shit load of water, so thirsty.

  Place seems quiet.

  I think I successfully performed the surgery on myself, but I’m no doctor. At least the pain has abated somewhat and that’s got to be a good sign. It could be due to the shit load of pain killers I’ve been eating like candy, but some of the swelling and puss seems to have abated somewhat.

  Gonna pass out again.

  14

  I awoke with a head full of cobwebs and body full of dull aches. How long I was actually holed up there I can’t say exactly. Guess it’s been about four days since I made my desperate entrance. My feet still hurt like hell, especially when I bump them clumsily into something. Better than they were before, so I guess that’s what matters.

  I gave myself a whore’s bath with a mixtu
re of distilled water and rubbing alcohol. Dried off with some medicated baby wipes. Found some lice shampoo and washed my hair over the big sink in the janitorial closet.

  The distant sound of gunfire caught my attention as I was putting on some T-shirts. Seems there was currently a sale on pocketed tees so I got rid of my old, tattered and stained crap. I wore three of ‘em out the store and tossed the rest in the Hummer. There was a pile of T-shirts to choose from, but there weren’t any other clothes in the store. One day soon I was going to have to go hit up a clothes store. I think I been switching between two pairs of jeans now for about a year and both of them are in some sad ass shape.

  The gunfire was steady, single shots, interspersed with quick tattoos of automatic rifle fire. Now and then the heavy sound of a shot gun barked and made itself known.

  As I looted the store and stuffed it all in the back of my busted up H2 I glanced out the windows. Whenever I came back to it with an armful of expired chips and melted together candies I took a minute to check out the outside.

  There were no zeds in the immediate vicinity, those in the distance I did see were all making their way as fast as they could towards the gunfire. All the better for me to make a quick exit. I could tell that the gun fire was issuing from more than one survivor. Sounded like there were two, possibly three of them.

  I stepped and slipped a bit as I was getting into the Hummer. Looking