Day 1:
The world as we know it, is over...
Something is happening all over the world. People are getting sick, they are dying, and then they are coming back to life. Once they come back, they try to kill everything and everyone they see.
Dad had been bitten by a guy at the hardware store yesterday. A guy came into the store and started attacking everyone in it. Dad tried to stop him, but the asshole took a big chunk out of Dad’s arm with one bite. Dad tried to claim that it wasn’t bad, but the sickness took him within hours of getting bit. He began coughing up blood almost immediately, and it just got worse from there.
The news said to quarantine anyone who was sick. But my parents never trusted the news, so being told that a bite or scratch could infect and kill you wasn’t something they took to heart. Dad wasn’t quarantined, he wasn’t locked in a room, he was left on the couch…and that is where he died...only to come back moments later and try to kill my Mom.
Our neighbor Art heard the screams and ran over to help, and shot my Dad in the head with his rifle. Art said that this isn’t the first one he’s killed. I asked Art how he could kill one of his best friends without hesitation. He told me that thinking about it wasn’t an option.
The dead are coming back to life. How is this possible?
Mom is hysterical and has locked herself in her room. I can hear her sobs all the way down in the living room.
Art and I dragged Dad’s body into the garage, and tomorrow we are going to burn his corpse. They say its the only way to be sure that he’s dead.
The other day in school we were given the assignment to keep a blog of our daily life for at least a month. We were supposed to turn the assignment in to our teacher tomorrow, and I waited until now to start writing down my thoughts and experiences.
So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick, I’m 17 years old, and I'm just trying to survive...
Day 2:
I watched the TV all morning. News reports saying this shit is happening everywhere. No place is safe - not even my middle of nowhere town in Oregon. The local news reported that our 24,000 residents are evacuating the city in mass numbers. I asked Mom if she wants me to start packing the car, and she told me no.
All the news reports keep calling the sick, the walking dead, or the undead. One expert on TV referred to them as zombies. He said that the term originated in the 19th century to describe animated corpses who have returned to life through witchcraft. The news reporter refused to call the sick “zombies”, but I think it suits them just fine.
This afternoon Art and his family came by to help us bury Dad. I tried to talk him into just digging a hole and laying Dad to rest in the ground, but Art was insisting that we burn his body. Art built a small funeral pyre (he told me its what the Nazi’s used to burn bodies during the Holocaust), and we set Dad’s body on it. Mom wouldn’t leave her room when we lit it on fire. Art and his Wife Marie said a few prayers and blessed us. Then they left to go home and finish packing. They are going to the FEMA camp in Portland tomorrow.
The neighborhood is quiet after most people left. Mom and I are going to stay and wait for help.
I made a list of all the food we have left. We have enough for at least 10 days. I’m going to cook us up the perishable food first.
Day 3:
Art and his family left today. They headed north to Portland because FEMA has a camp there. But Mom doesn't want to leave. She is too scared and thinks our house is the only safe place. I tried to tell her that we need to leave, that we need to seek shelter elsewhere, but she isn’t listening to me anymore. She just sits in her room and reads her bible. She keeps rambling about the book of revelations and the rapture. I keep telling her that if this was the rapture, then the dead wouldn’t be trying to eat the living.
I keep trying to connect to the internet to check my email, but all the lines are busy...stupid fucking dial-up internet!
We have less canned food than I thought. Going to scavenge houses tomorrow. Hopefully I'll find something left for us.
Note: need weapons to protect house.
Day 4:
The TV is officially gone now, and Cable stations have gone off air. AM Radio has some reports, but not much. All I am getting from the AM stations is the message to head north to the FEMA station, and to avoid all contact with the sick or recently deceased...that and religious talk show hosts talking about the end of the world.
I searched a few homes today. Didn't find much of any real value. I guess most of the neighbors took anything good with them as they left town. I did find a music box to bring back to mom. I stole it (can I even really call it stealing, anymore?) from Mrs. Butterfield up the street. I don’t think she’ll miss it, and I’m pretty sure Mom will love it.
Other than that the neighborhood is quiet, and there are no zombies shuffling around.
The biggest problem of the day is that Mom is getting sicker from the stress. She’s not eating, and she won’t come out of her room. I’m really worried about her.
Day 5:
Mom refuses to leave her bed now. Says they'll eat her if she walks outside. I tell her it's safe here... But she won't listen...She hasn’t bathed in days and she smells really bad. I know that’s horrible to say about my mother, but its true! At least I am taking showers.
The neighborhood is really quiet now. No cars. No planes. No noise except for me walking around. I think we are the last two people in the city, and that frightens me.
Radio says power grid shutting off soon. I need to get batteries and supplies before that happens. I’ve got no choice but to head into town tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Note: get food and first aid.
Day 6:
I rode my bike to town. The city was overrun with zombies. I don’t know how many of the 24,000 residents in this town made it out alive, but from the hundreds I saw walking around Main Street, I don’t think many did.
Oddly enough, I saw my PE teacher, and the cute girl from my English class snacking on what looked like road kill. Is it sad that I checked out her ass? I think it was just a reflex to how I look at most cute girls. Regardless of how good her butt looked, I still avoided them like the plague.
The pharmacy and the corner market were completely emptied out. The only place that wasn’t totally ransacked was The Pirate’s Den bar on the far end of Main Street. That is where I found a bunch of cool shit in the back of the bar. I grabbed tons of booze, and a pistol from behind the counter.
Gonna drink tonight...
Day 7:
Hung-the-fuck-over. Completely worth it though.
Mom isn't getting any better and she seems to be becoming more delirious as time goes on. I don't think I can fix her either. She pretty much ignores the food I bring her, and she isn’t drinking water either. I fear that she is going to become too dehydrated to even move soon. I just don’t know what to do to make her want to get better. It feels like she is just giving up.
We are running low on food. I have to go to the store tomorrow. I hope to find something to eat.
I messed around with the pistol today. Its a Beretta 92FS. My dad used to have one of these a few years ago. I checked and there are 9 rounds in the clip, should I save 2 of them just in case...?
Day 8:
I went back into town again today. The convenience store I found was nearly empty. I grabbed what I could, but it was mostly canned beets and dog food... I someone had already cleaned out the cigs and the safe... Bummer.
Killed my first zombie too... I found it in the back of the store. It was just standing in a corner looking confused and unaware of it’s surroundings. I tried getting a closer look the guy to see if I knew him or not, but half of his fa
ce was torn off, and I couldn’t get a good enough look at the other side. I accidentally kicked a shelf and alerted the zombie. He lunged at me, and I was able to avoid him long enough to shoot him with the Beretta. It took me 6 shots to finally hit him in the head. But as soon as that bullet entered his brain, he hit the floor like a ton of bricks.
I heard more noises out front after the last gunshot, and I realized that the noise attracted more of them to me. I grabbed what I could and bounced-the-fuck-out-of-there.
The lesson I learned to day was, don’t fight zombies with guns unless you have lots more ammo.
Day 9:
They shut off the power today. I put fresh batteries in the radio for mom to listen to the news. The National Guard is evacuating every city in the state and taking them to the FEMA camp in Portland. Mom doesn't want to go. I constantly tell her that its safer there, and that we’ll be around other people in the same situation…but she doesn’t seem to care anymore.
I just want to drag her down the stairs, out the front door, shove her in the car and leave this city in our dust…but I still don’t have a license, and I can’t drive a stick shift for shit. Maybe I can try and find an automatic and learn to drive that way…I mean, it can’t be that hard…right?
She found my gun too. She wasn't as pissed as I thought, but she took it away because she thinks I’ll hurt myself with it. I’m not pissed off that she took the gun either. In fact, it makes me happy that she was able to muster up enough emotion to yell at me for it.
Maybe she is getting better?
Day 10:
Food is running really low. We only have 2 cans of beets, and 6 cans of dog food left. I think beets taste like piss, so I gave them to mom, while I ate the dog food. I couldn’t risk Mom seeing me eat the dog food, so I hid in the garage and wolfed down the gravy filled bits as fast as I could. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad.
To pass the time, I started reading Mom's copy of the Twilight book today. Got about 100 pages in and nothing is happening. Seriously, I don’t understand how this book is popular? In my school, everyone hazes the new kid for the first few weeks they are here…how is it that every kid in that town knows who the dumb bitch is right away?
Day 11:
Mom found the cans of dog food, and she didn't take it well. She began to cry and blame herself for it. I tried to tell her that it's ok, but she just wouldn't listen. She spent all night sobbing in her room. I felt like a horrible son for letting her catch on to what I was doing, but what else can I do? We don’t have any more food, and I’ll have to head out in the morning to see what I can scrounge up. I’m thinking I might give cat food a try… ha ha ha.
The AM Radio stations have stopped playing the Christian talk shows. The only thing left now is the Emergency broadcast message telling all of us to head to Portland. The FEMA camp is located at the Rose Garden and the Memorial Coliseum. I kept thinking about how Dad used to take me to the circus at the Coliseum back in the day. That was a lot of fun.
That got me thinking about my Dad again. I wonder how he’d handle this situation? Would he have gone to the camp right away, or would we have stayed and tried to survive here? Dad was never a boy scout, or a survivalist, but he was really good at figuring things out. I wish he was here to tell me how to “figure out” Mom, and get her to leave.
I want to cheer her up. Tomorrow I'll find us some real food if it fucking kills me.
Finished reading Twilight today. The book is one of the worst things I have ever read. I feel stupider for having read it. But I will start on New Moon tomorrow. This is how bored I am.
Day 12:
…Mom killed herself last night...
She came in my room, kissed & hugged me, told me she loved me, went back in her room, closed the door, and then I heard the gunshot.
I didn’t know how to react. I wanted it to be an accident. I wanted her to have fired the gun by mistake.
I waited at the door for a few minutes for any sign of life. I wanted to hear a cry, a whimper, a noise of any kind to signal that she was still alive. After a few agonizing minutes, I knew that she wasn’t alive. I just sat in front of the door and stared at it. I didn’t open the door and go in the room. I left it closed. Part of me wasn’t sure if she would get back up again a minute or so later and try to eat me. I knew she had shot herself in the head, but I had to be sure. I had to wait to make sure that I was safe.
Three hours passed and not a peep from her bedroom. Caroline Francine Paskus, born April 19th, 1972, laid dead on the other side of that door.
I'm lost. I'm scared. I miss my mom and my dad. I'm an orphan now. I'm an orphan in a doomed world.
There are still 2 more bullets in the gun... What's worth living for anymore?
Day 13:
Couldn't function today. I didn't go in to mom's room at all. I just can't look at her like that. Every time I walk to the door to open it and cover up her body, I can’t. My hands tremble as soon as I grab the door knob and they won’t let me turn it. Its like my body is telling me “No!”
I need to leave this place, but I don't know where to go. The radio says to go to Portland, but how will I get there? I have to learn how to drive. I have to get away from the city and teach myself how to drive a car.
The zombies are getting closer now. They are leaving town in search of more food. I need to think of an exit strategy and fast.
Day 14:
Mom's room is starting to stink. I still can’t open the door to her room. I just took a bunch of towels from the closet and shoved them in the bottom of the door to cover the smell. It helps, but the smell lingers like crazy.
I wonder how my friends are doing. I wonder how my family is doing. I wonder how anyone is doing. I keep thinking that this will all be over soon. I want this to all go back to normal. I miss TV, I miss video games, I miss the internet...I miss my parents most of all.
The dead are getting really close now. I counted 20 or so of them walking up the street. They are looking for food, it looks like they’ll eat anything they come across. But they keep shuffling towards the house, and I wonder if the smell from my mom is attracting the zombies to my house?
I decided to leave tomorrow. I'm packing up my stuff into a backpack & duffle bag. I am going to leave at dawn.
I need to find a way to bury my mom tonight. I just hope I have the strength to do it...
Thank you for reading the first 14 entries of the daily blog series
A BOY AND HIS BLOG
You can find the rest of the entries at:
https://a-boy-and-his-blog.tumblr.com