Journals of the Damned

'em to collect the rain water. The only problem would be trying to keep the shit-load of mosquitoes and other bugs out of the water. If I could keep the nasty insects out of the water supply to begin with I wouldn't have to boil it first. I was standing there, on the roof of Winn-Dixie, idly brushing my teeth in my boxers, while starring at the abandoned houses behind the strip mall. Bingo, I thought, I can cut the screens out of the windows and layer them over the tops of the buckets to keep the bugs out.

  The second idea, which wasn't a big idea, if I were smarter I would have thought of all of this a long time ago, was to store as much as my stuff in zip-lock bags as possible so I wouldn't have to dry everything I owned out every time it rained.

  I went downstairs, still in my underwear, with the AK on my shoulder and my axe in hand. I cleared out the wandering dead and made multiple trips back up to the roof with my swag. On the final run through the stores, to see if I missed anything I could use, I spotted a map book. It was a decent map book, not one of those cheap fold up paper maps that always ripped and I could never fold back up the right way when I was done with it. I knew I could use it to orientate myself with the city better, if only I could figure out the area Jannie and I had been holed up in. Then the best thought of the day hit me. I knew the name of the tool and die shop. I had put the name in this journal. If it weren't for this journal I know I would have forgotten the name of the place with all that has happened. The burned down shop was basically only a few blocks away from our old hide-out. If only I had a phone book I thought! I realized there had to be at least one phone book in all of these shops, more than likely there was a copy in each store's office. I practically shit my drawers with joy. I felt like a complete idiot for not thinking of it sooner.

  As soon as I had located the tool and die shop on the map I gathered up my gear and headed out. My clothes weren't completely dry yet but I didn't care.

  It took me over three hours to cover the nine miles between my camp and the wreckage of the tool and die shop. I stuck mainly to backyards, with the lots being overgrown now and the fences still locked for the most part. The wildly out of control growth of the plants and trees provided an excellent natural cover and the closed yards kept the undead out. There were a few houses with disgustingly rotted terrors that noticed my passing, none of which could do anything but bump and claw at the closed backdoors so I ignored them. The few I had to use my axe on (which was starting to show some wear and tear, with nicks and dents along the blade) proved easy enough to kill. I was slowed down from all the fence jumping I was doing, having to stop occasionally and catch my breath. The weight of the pack and my weapons and ammo isn't great but after awhile it seems much heavier.

  I finally arrived at the burnt out shell of Orange County Tool & Die, slightly out of breath. The corpses of the herd that had me surrounded back then were strewn about for a block, a thick pile of them encircled half the building. The corpses were almost fully decomposed now, with burned and tattered clothing covering bare bones. The fire and resulting explosions took out a hell of a lot more of them than I thought it did.

  I heard the unmistakable sound of an internal combustion engine. Quickly I hunkered down and scanned the area in the direction of the sound with my binoculars.

  A UPS truck was running over zeds that got in its path in the road. It was obvious that it had a destination in mind and it made a bee-line towards a pharmacy. It backed up towards the entry doors and plowed through them.

  I watched two people jump out of the cab and start blasting away at the now alerted undead. I could hear muffled shots coming from within the drug store. Obviously more than one person was inside the building, having gotten out the back out the van, and was busy clearing and looting the store. This was a planned, concerted effort. Before I could make up my mind as to whether or not to try and hail them and run the mile or so to them, they got back in the truck and were gone. I watched them drive off and lost sight of them as they rounded a corner. The whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes.

  I don't know if this is the same group that looted the stores where I'm camping, but I am definitely going to come back here soon and try to track them down.

  From the tool and die I easily, with the binoculars, spotted the familiar landmarks I saw a thousand times from the old hideout.

  The house Jannie and I had holed up in was in bad shape. The windows were smashed. The doors were off their hinges. The corpses of the hungering dead were lying thick, limbs all akimbo, most missing the better part of their skulls, grouped around the internal doorways. I hadn't done that. Jannie must have. I, like a coward, jumped out a window and ran for my life as soon as the front door busted down. There was no blood spatter, no ripped and torn clothing, and no pieces of gnawed bones. There was a hole in a closet wall, a hole that was opened by multiple shotgun blasts through the drywall, insulation, plywood and aluminum siding.

  She had escaped!

  If she was still alive was another question entirely.

  I went into the kitchen mainly to see if there was any food to be scavenged but ended up finding something of an even greater value. If I hadn't dropped a package of instant oatmeal between the stove and refrigerator I would have never noticed the worn corner of Jannie's journal. How the journal ended up under the 'frige I have no idea. The last time I remember seeing it she had been writing in it at the table. I suppose one of the undead could have knocked it off the table and from there it could have easily been kicked to where I found it. It was a good find. I hope I get the chance to return it to her.

  I made my way back here, to my roof top camp, happier than I had been in a long time. I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders knowing I hadn't let her die there.

  Tonight I'm going to break open some bubbly and celebrate.

  28

  I met another survivor today. While neither one of us said where we were holing up, not totally trusting each other, I did get a lot of information. Some good, some bad.

  I had been exploring, checking out possible places to flee to if I had to abandon my camp. I was slowly making my way back to the old safe-house Jannie and I shared. The prison wasn't very far from the route I was taking either, every time I came within a block of it I found the undead just too numerous to get any closer.

  In my searching, I had been going into random houses and pilfering food and items. There was a two story house that for some reason caught my eye. It had been very well barricaded, with plywood over all the windows and front door. I found the back door solid and securely locked with three additional bolt locks. After making my way up to the awning covering the back porch I used my axe to chop my way through the plywood (which wasn't too hard to do, seeing how the plywood had been exposed to the unrelenting elements for two years or so), covering one of the upstairs windows.

  Once inside the first thing I noticed was the smell of old death. The second thing was the vast amount of dead flies all over the place. I cautiously went room to room prepared to lob the heads off any of the walking or sleeping undead I found. Family pictures were hung on the stairwell, I noted this because if the family had turned it would be a very good thing to know how many there were. Two parents and two children. This was the residence of a reasonably normal middle-class family.

  I really wasn't prepared for what I found. I'm just glad that the scene in the kitchen had been degraded by the passage of time and the work of the flies and insects. The corpses I found there had been reduced to bare bones, I could only image (and I really don't want to, but I can't stop myself) what the scene looked like when it was fresh.

  The first thing I saw as I slowly made my way down the stairs, into the living room was the zombified corpse of what could only be the mother. It could only be a member of the damned undead, any other corpse would have rotted away to bones by now. It was standing like a silent sentinel staring blankly towards the kitchen doorway.

  The wretched thing had gone into one of those odd comatose states that the undead go into w
hen inactive for a long time. It didn't become aware of my presence until it was too late for it. The bitch fluttered her soulless eyes, like it was awakening from a deep sleep, just as my axe bit deep into her skull. As the horror collapsed in a heap at the foot of the couch I noticed a hand-written, time faded note safety pinned to one of the cushions. I didn't read the note until after I had investigated the rest of the house, including the kitchen.

  Three skeletons lay in a pool of dried, putrefied flesh. Two of the skeletons could only be those of the children, by their size they could only have been about five or six years old when they died. Both of the children's remains were missing their heads and one of them was missing a leg. The adult skeleton had to be that of the fathers, it was intact but there was a meat clever sticking out of his face. The oven door was open and there was a roasting pan with the child's missing leg bones still in it on the table. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened here, and the note more fully explained it.

  There came a rustling from the plastic trash can sitting next to the counter and I became curious as to what animal could have gotten into this closed up house. There was no animal in it though. The