 
Journals of the Damned Volume 2

By GJ Zukow

Copyright 2012 by GJ Zukow

Smashwords Edition

# Journals of the Damned

Volume Two

G. J. Zukow

## Prologue

Confederate States of America

Southern Expeditionary Forces Command

June 17, 2023

With the opening of the Library of these Confederate States, in its goal to become a repository of knowledge, I have acquired these three enclosed journals. These three hand written diaries of the Apocalypse need to be entered into the public records, they are eye witness accounts and they are historically significant. I was there, in Key West, when the first -and only living survivor- of the authors washed up on an outlying sandbar. In the late summer of 2014 we had no idea about the secret of ammonia. As proof of these -at the time- outlandish claims she offered up these journals. While she and the baby she carried were kept in Quarantine, these books, along with discussions with her, led us to believe she was telling the truth. They were passed hand to curious hand in those early days as people wanted to read them for themselves. We knew about the undead. We knew of the crazed carriers. Nobody except for Ms. Kolkowsky had ever seen some of the things she described -and lived to tell of it-.

Even though there was some small talk of charging her with possible crimes, everybody quickly realized that this teenager had more experience in dealing with the undead than they. There was no reason to go through with such an elaborate ruse and we all have had to do some hard things to survive thus far.

The second journal, written by one Martin S. Trebuchet, M.D., provided some previously unknown insights into the physiology of the deadly parasite controlled cadavers. None of us in this section of the world had the chance to study, let alone dissect, the unnatural animated corpses.

As for the third book, written in a scratchy hand to begin with, it is the diary of a madman. While it is noteworthy for its historical significance, it is an interesting study into psychology and the effects of the single celled menace upon the human mind. The end becomes hard to read, both the deeds and the handwriting become abysmal.

The power of ammonia was the tipping point in the eventual resurgence of the human race. It allowed for the quick reclamation -except for the war against the hybrids- and the start of the reconstruction, it certainly saved countless lives in the process.

The worn books have passed from hand to hand for almost 10 years, ending up in my possession where they have resided for the past two years.

As per requirements, attached is a Document of Release form as signed by the sole remaining, living author. I am enclosing the original journals themselves, along with a transcript of them -included in the body of this message-. I have also included them as attachments -in the required form- for entry into the database.

Lieutenant Jacob Martinez, CSA

Library Officer of the SEFC, Miami

## Book Three

Jannie's Second Journal

### Wednesday, October 30, 2013

My name is Jannet Marie Kolkowsky and this is my second journal. My first journal resides somewhere in a house that was completely overrun by the living dead. It wasn't just my diary that I lost in that house, I lost practically everything except what I was carrying.

When Allan and I first sought refuge in that boarded up house, it was out of necessity and not choice. We were forced to flee our old safehouse when a group of marauders came into our desolate town and discovered us. The small town we had been hiding in, waiting for the ungodly undead to finally collapse, was more a group of ruined buildings and burned down houses than anything else. Even though there turned out to be no other survivors in the town, (except for a single carrier, completely overtaken by the scarlet and driven insane), food was scarce. The food shortage caused by the single celled parasite killing off the world's livestocks and the following time of madness obviously hit this town hard. The one big thing that the desolated town had going for it was that it was zombie free, once Allan and I cleared it. Small groups of the walking abominations still made their way into the area but they were relatively simple to eliminate.

When I saw that the raiders were in the throes of the scarlet I had a hard time believing my eyes. I had to focus intently through my binoculars a second time to confirm it. Never before had I seen anything other than the uninfected (like me), the carriers (those that are sometimes referred to as 'Reds' due to the scarlet coloring of their skin) or the hungering dead. I never got the chance to witness them close up for myself, thankfully, but Allan did and he confirmed my fears. Every person I had seen with the infection never lived for more than a week or so once they contracted it, unless of course they continued to exist in that state of being where their immune system was strong enough to keep them from actually dying and being reanimated.

This in itself raises new questions about the parasite. Has the Omni mutated again, causing those who were once immune to become infected? Have those raiders found a way to slow or stop the parasite's growth? I guess only time will tell.

When the truck Allan and I were diving ran out of gas, due to a bullet hole in the gas tank, the house we fled to seemed to be a good option. All of the other houses and buildings in the immediate area had been ransacked, burned, broken into or damaged by the hurricane that passed through central Florida. The single story house was boarded up and looked secure. It wasn't. The house was boarded up not because the previous owners were preparing for the apocalypse that overran the world, it was boarded up because it was a condemned, abandoned wreck of a house that was about to collapse on itself. We didn't know that until we got inside. The roof leaked in a hundred places, the water ruined the majority of the two-by-fours that made up the structure and the floor had rotted through in every room. That night we were just going to stay there temporarily until we found something better but we ended being trapped inside.

That first night and the following day we made small forays into the surrounds, gathering what food and supplies we could as we searched for suitable shelter. We awoke the next day early in the morning, before dawn came, to the sounds of a host of the undead scratching and clawing at the front of the house. How the undead found us I'm not sure. Maybe one of them had spotted us climbing through the attic's ventilation window, above the porch, and slowly dragged itself here alerting others of its horrible kind to us. Doesn't matter I guess. The only saving grace that the place afforded us was its fenced in backyard. The zeds concentrated themselves at the front of the house and only a few of them were able to get over the wire fence. Those undead that did reach the rear of the house mainly got there from being pushed and shoved by others of its kind and not from being dexterous enough to climb it on purpose. The undead converged upon us from all directions and although our little backyard held only a handful of the monstrosities, the surrounding house's backyards filled up quickly through open gates and holes in the lengths of their demolished or knocked down chain link fences.

Yesterday, in the small hours of the darkness, the whole front of the house actually collapsed from the sheer weight of the famished and rotting undead hammering and clawing at the walls. The ruins of what had been the outer living room wall crumpled into a heap with part of the ceiling falling on top of it. I had finally found sleep in one of the back bedrooms and that sound woke me with a start. If it weren't for the obstacle the destroyed wall created for the undead, things would be very different now. Even though the remains of the wall and ceiling greatly hindered the undead from quickly gaining access to the interior, the horde pushed and shoved itself over and through the broken and splintered opening. They heedlessly trampled one another as they sought our flesh. Allan had been in the kitchen and both of us were cut off from one another by the collapse of the ceiling. Slowly the house started falling apart around us and I heard Allan bust through a window. I heard him yelling and screaming as he fought his way past the monsters in the next yard. I know he escaped and I know he ran first to draw off as many of the ghouls as he could.

All of my stuff was in the other room, when I went to get it before I too would flee, I found I couldn't open the door to it. The door had gotten jammed as the weight of the old house shifted and fell apart. Worse yet the zeds were inside the house now and they spotted me. Back into the bedroom I ran, closing the cheap hollow door behind me, knowing there was no lock on the door and that it wouldn't stand up for a minute. All I had with me was my handgun (which is always with me, even when I sleep), and a Mossberg shotgun. The cheap door was quickly splintering and failing under the pummeling. I tried previously to open the bedroom window but it had been covered and screwed and nailed shut quite solidly. I knew I wouldn't be able to get out that way. A closet in the corner would at least keep the undead from spotting me right away so I entered it and closed the door behind me. Almost as soon as the closet door shut the bedroom door gave way. I was trapped in that small closet, the undead would have surely found me within minutes and then I would have died an agonizing death. The drywall had actually fallen apart in places, exposing water weakened and dry-rotted boards over the thin insulation and outer covering of aluminum siding. I tried to kick my way through the wall but it was still too sturdy for me but not for my shotgun. As soon as I kicked the wall of the closet the undead knew where I had hidden. After my first blast with the shotgun to the wall I could see freedom. As the horde converged upon the closet door I sent my second blast right through it, knocking back and down the front line of those horrors that were trying to get to me. Back and forth I shot, through the wall then through the remains of the closet door until I weakened the wall enough that I could crawl through. Once outside again, blessedly escaping death again, I ran. I don't know what happened to Allan. He was my friend and I hope he's still breathing.

### Friday, November 1, 2013

There was a series of small explosions last night as a bunch of transformers blew all over the city. I heard the distinct sound of each one as they successively overloaded, each one sounding closer to this old church than the last. I had climbed up to the roof to take advantage of the light of the full moon, allowing me to make out and get a sense of the neighborhood without having to worry about being accidentally spotted by one of the walking dead as I would have during the day. As each transformer blew, the area surrounding it went dark. The cascade of explosions seemed to start in the west and quickly rolled towards me, plunging the whole city into complete darkness. In a matter of minutes all the electricity was gone forever with the last explosion sounding like something bigger than a transformer had overloaded. Then came the all too familiar smell of smoke. Thick tendrils of smoke waft from the glow of a few minor and one major blaze. The nearest fire seems to be a couple of miles away, in the direction of the fallen safehouse, so I'm in no danger.

It's going to take me a couple of days to get used to the lack of power. Even when I did use it, I used it rarely and sparingly, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention. Still though, running water was a huge blessing. Now I need to worry about stocking up on enough water to get me through whatever other hard times are yet to come to me on top of not being able to fall back on the socket in the wall when I need it.

I've been taking shelter in an old Baptist church that was still in solid shape. I think the original church was built before electricity to begin with and then two additional wings were added to it. The main church itself seems larger on the inside than it looks from the outside and though the sunlight still streams in through the colored glass windows casting a warm and comforting light, I feel uneasy sitting among the now and forever empty pews. I wondered if "zombification" was what the bible meant by the dead rising again. It felt almost as if I were sitting in the ruins of not only a world of people but that of a newly dead god.

One of the other two wings is smallish, consisting mainly of a few rooms that served as the private quarters for the Deacon. The newer, larger and more modern wing contains a nicely stocked little pantry, a large kitchen, a set of bathrooms with showers and a decent size group activity room along with an almost separate day care with its own small outside playground.

Once I shimmied up one of the drainpipes to the roof I found an access hatch in the stylized tower (raising up high a white painted cross, facing the parking lot that served the day care) that led into the large activity room. The inside of the church was in much better shape than I had thought it could be. It was evident from the thick layer of dust that the place hadn't been touched since the apocalypse. The buildings themselves were still in good condition also, with only one cracked window that would leak if it rained. The windows were all different colored pieces of glass, set in patterns that make looking through them difficult.

The only way into the other wings is through what once was the back room of the old church. As soon as I entered the church itself, as I explored the building, I smelled the unmistakable scent of the hungering dead. When I paused and listened I could hear the faint pawing of what must have been the former Deacon. It came from behind the door across the old back room. I didn't want to risk shooting the thing and alerting everything and everyone around to my location, so when I opened up the door I beat it back into the grave with my shotgun. Using the shotgun as a club served to not only bash in the skull of the zed but bend the barrel as well, making it unusable. I've got to get some weapons to replace what I lost.

I did manage to find one good thing to replace the broken shotgun. I found this really nice composite bow that I can fully pull. I found it yesterday as I was doing some scavenging. It may only be an eighty pound pull but I have a gross of sharp arrows to go with it. I found I could modify the carrying case for a dozen arrows so that I can carry two dozen of them at once. If I can get in enough practice, it might just serve me well. It's silent, quick and I can reuse the arrows if I need. The length of the church is decent enough for me to practice if I stand at the main, heavy, thick, wooden doors and shoot at a target on or behind the altar, over the rows of wooden pews. I've got the corpse of the Deacon propped up and I'm using it as my archery target. I'll practice on him before I try it on his still walking brethren.

Just now there were a handful of short, sharp, loud explosions that came from the direction of the nearest fire. It didn't bother me before but it is coming from the direction of the ruined safehouse. It actually sounds like the explosions are coming from beyond the old hideout but I can't be certain. Tomorrow I'll find out for sure. The last thing I want is for this old building to burn down around me. Tomorrow I'm going to go back to the old safehouse to see if I can get my pack and weapons back. Maybe see if I can find where Allan ran off to.

### Monday, November 4, 2013

The only time I've felt as lonely and depressed as I am now, was on my last birthday. When August tenth came around last, barely three months ago, I fell into a dark place. All I could think about then was what I lost. Not material things, jewelry and wealth are meaningless now, but my family, friends and my whole future was stolen by the man made menace named Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni. I was so depressed that I never even bothered to make a journal entry about it.

Though Allan occasionally annoyed me to no end, I do miss having someone else around. Being cooped up in this church isn't helping my mood either. I get a creepy feeling whenever I spend any amount of time in the church or the Deacon's residence. Even though the church provides a decent amount of security, I think I'll start scouting for a better place to hole up until the walking abominations finally collapse. How much longer can these unnatural things keep on terrorizing the world? I have got to survive this.

I spent most of Saturday exploring the area and getting in some live target practice with my bow as I made my way cautiously back to the derelict safehouse Allan and I had been forced to flee. Sometimes it takes me up to three shots with my bow to get a headshot but I am getting better. When my arrow misses the zeds completely, the undead monsters don't pay any heed at all. I don't believe they have the reasoning power to understand what an arrow is. Only when my poorly aimed shaft hits the things anywhere but the head do they react. They spin around and scan the area, trying to figure out where the silent shaft came from. I find that shooting and then ducking behind cover to snipe them, once they have turned their rotting backs to me again, is a workable tactic. Even when more than one of the shambling cannibals are grouped together, shooting and wounding one of them barely elicits a response from the others of its kind. The only real downside is that half the time, it seems, my arrows end up either being lost or they land in places I can't retrieve them. Still though, I think I love this new bow of mine.

I made another really good discovery when I broke into one of the scattered houses while I was slowly making my way back to the ruined house. When I go into a new house, after making sure any of the living dead are no longer living, I quietly search and ransack the place for anything I can use. People hide things in the strangest places. I went into one rather nice looking home and while I only found the previous owner's stash of porn while I was looking for a gun, I spotted something interesting mounted above the fireplace. Normally, when I find a sword, it turns out to be more of a decoration than a real weapon. Some few turn out to be fairly decent replicas of samurai swords (many of them serve as real weapons for a few strikes until they break) or whatnot but this one turned out to be different. It was mounted in a nice glass case and had a plaque beneath it. In my possession now is one "Fully authentic, working replica of a Roman gladius in the Mainz pattern" with a bone and wood hilt. The blade is as sharp as a razor, cutting easily through the tough, dead flesh of the undead. I can easily lop off heads with a full swing or stab right through the face straight into the brain. The blade is a thing of beauty, replica or not.

When I came to the abandoned and partially collapsed house, there were still a dozen or so of the zeds wandering around. Most were inside the house, obviously unable to figure out a path through the rubble. I was able to inexpertly kill two of the wretches with the composite bow before I was spotted. Once one of them caught sight of me, all of the other horrors knew of my presence. It was a good thing they came at me all spread apart as they did. I'm finding there's a learning curve with the sword as well, it feels awkward in my hands. The only time I thought about resorting to using my pistol was once I got inside the house. It was almost a close thing, the gladius is great for close in melee but in a confined space with multiple opponents it has some real drawbacks. The sword served me well, in any case, slicing deep through flesh and bone, remaining in good sturdy shape. The wounds I received drew blood but they are nothing more than scratches and bruises from their wicked grasping hands.

All of my stuff was still there, so was Allan's. The only thing Allan had taken with him when he fled was his backpack. I'm sure, if he's still alive, that he'll eventually come back for what he had to leave behind, as I have. It took me two trips to carry all of the stuff back to the church. I left a message, spray painted in the closet I escaped from, letting Allan know I will try to come back and meet up with him again every Friday between noon and one. I'm hoping I don't have to wait too long to see him again. The only thing I didn't find, that I really wanted, was my old journal.

Sunday, I made my way past the old house, searching carefully for any sign of Allan. I didn't find anything conclusive. I did locate the sound of the explosions I heard during the day last Friday. There was almost a full block of burned out buildings about a mile past the old house. The only building still standing (and it won't last long) has had one of its walls blown down with the whole remaining structure teetering on complete collapse. I found a couple of ripped open and destroyed remains of what appears to be propane or natural gas tanks. It's quite possible that someone purposely set them off, the charred corpses of quite a few of the previously famished undead lie all around the now destroyed tool and die shop. Only if someone were inside would they be in such numbers around any single building like they were. Maybe Allan hid here and found himself surrounded again. If so then he split for somewhere else. No telling where he went if it was him. Anyways, that was the only interesting thing I found in my investigation as to where Allan could be. He hadn't come back for his stuff he left behind in his hasty departure from the fallen safehouse. I debated briefly with myself, deciding on whether I should take his stuff with me to keep it safe or leave it there. In the end I carried two more heavy loads back to the church. Along with my spray painted note to Allan in the closet I hope he recognizes both of our stuff has been removed as a clue that I was here and still kickin' (at least that I was, anyways). Nothing more I can do on that front until Friday, I guess.

Last night, around three o'clock in the morning I witnessed something I never wanted to set eyes upon, as if seeing the undead wandering around isn't bad enough. I had been checking the neighborhood around the church out, looking for any sign of other survivors when I noticed something highly unusual. A half mile down the street four figures were slowly walking towards the street the church resides upon. At first I thought them merely another handful of the undead as no other of the cannibalistic monsters reacted to their presence in any way. It was only after I spotted them in my following sweep, once they had gotten closer, that I noticed they were all carrying weapons. The dead carry nothing. The night vision goggles I recovered from the old safehouse paid for my sweat lugging them back here with their first use, if I had been relying on my own vision I might not have seen them for what they were until it was far too late. These were more of those 'Reds' that were driven as mad as hatters by the parasite. When they came close I stayed low to the roof, I swear I heard one of them run through the grounds hunting for someone or something. When I popped back up from my hiding I saw them disappearing down the street. I certainly hope that this is an isolated, random thing for the Reds to be wandering my neighborhood. This is just another reason I'm going to find something better than this church to wait out the apocalypse in. If the Reds are based just down the street and they often come this way than I can't safely stay here for any length of time.

### Thursday, November 7, 2013

With the overwhelming plethora of walking dead and the lack of any small game that used to form the base of the food chain now nearly extinct (if not completely wiped-out), some of the animals are starting to view the animated corpses as a food source. The whole natural order has been dealt a severe blow and I'm positive that the famished critters are resorting to eating the foul flesh of the undead out of starvation and not choice. The zeds haven't started recognizing the animals as potential threats yet, only responding once they find themselves under attack. Big, black crows and ravens have taken to gathering in huge murders and landing directly onto any large gathering of the undead. They land on the animated corpses head and shoulders and take quick, vicious pecks of corpse flesh and then fly off again when the horrible monstrosity finally reacts by wildly flailing its arms and moving around to escape the sharp beaks. It's almost comical to watch the undead things bite and snap at the birds only to take a bite out of the air. After a few minutes the zombies seem to forget all about the flying menace and go back to their staggering, wandering, aimless walking. Then the hungry birds return, getting in a few choice pecks before the undead reacts all over again. I haven't actually seen a zed returned to the grave because of the birds, bone is still bone and the birds can't peck their way into where it matters the most, the brain. Some of the undead the birds have been feasting on are nothing more than eyeless, ivory skulls attached to a half eaten neck and well pecked shoulders. Dogs, on the other hand, are actually entertaining to watch. I viewed a pack of large, gaunt canines stalking a handful of the living dead yesterday. The mangy, now feral, curs almost playfully surround their chosen victims first, running around excitedly among the undead that are completely unaware of what the dogs are about to do. Once the pack is in position, there seems to be a silent signal that heralds the sudden attack upon the unsuspecting parasite controlled cadavers. In a split-second the biggest of the dogs picks out a zed and jumps on it, knocking it down, usually from behind. Once the abomination is prone the other animals of the pack close in, jaws snapping, quickly ripping and tugging the unholy thing into a limbless, squirming torso. The dogs seem to pay very careful attention to the jaws of the undead. I'm sure in their previous hunting they've witnessed, first hand, the incredible strength with which the undead bite. None of the other undead in the vicinity seems to care that they lost one of their number just a few feet away. The pack repeats this behavior until their bellies are full. I watched this one particular pack hunt and devour three of the undead before they disappeared back into the ruins of the city.

No matter how many scenes of horror or misery I've seen, I often run across something more horrible than I would have imagined possible. Every week at least, I come across something that sticks in my mind and defiles my dreams forever. Today, while exploring a modest, middle class home I found something that sends a chill running through me still. While I knew immediately there were undead in the house, I wasn't prepared for it. In an infants' gaily decorated and painted bedroom was something that should never have been. The crib held a squirming aberration, highlighted by the thick shaft of sunlight streaming in from a window. The baby couldn't have been more than a few months old when it died and was evilly resurrected. It didn't cry or make any sound at all but when it saw me it still opened and closed its toothless jaws, wanting nothing else than for me to feed its cold black maw with my flesh. As the things small arms and grasping fingers reached towards me in a mimicry of life (once those same motions were attempts to be held in its mother's arms), I felt nothing but fear. I don't know why I felt such fear, it was tougher killing that one thing than all the other undead I've killed before. There was a toddler with well rotted diapers, the last pieces of which were hanging off his tiny hips in the next room. I had to take care of him also. Stomping the infant's sibling to death didn't bother me so much. The Gods must have been truly pissed off at mankind for this kind of hell to manifest itself on Earth.

These past few days I've been concentrating on trying to find other survivors. I'm sure a lot of those still alive were caught short when the electricity and the water went out. Unless the survivors had the foresight to stock up on water, lots of it, they would eventually have to find more. I reasoned that the easiest place to get drinkable water, for now, was to loot the last of the stocks in the stores. So this morning I spotted a good building overlooking the majority of a rather large shopping center. Eventually somebody is bound to come around to scavenge for supplies. Turns out I wasn't the only one with this idea. It's almost instinctual now, finding a vantage point and scanning any area before I proceed. Any time I find the chance, I like to pre-plan my route. I hate running blindly into a herd of the gruesome undead.

The biggest share of the wandering undead have ended up in what I like to call herds. Drawn together by sight, movement, or unnatural sounds they end up, over time, grouped together. In bunches of a dozen or so, up to huge uncountable masses, they seem always to be slowly moving around. Just because there was a herd of slowly shuffling and crawling abominations in one spot yesterday doesn't mean they're there today. The only time I see them staying in one area is when there's a reason, that reason usually being the nearby presence of food. The rest of the undead straggle around, spread out and mindlessly wandering or standing around. A lot of the stragglers seem to have gotten lost or trapped in a backyard or building, lacking the necessary intelligence to find a way out. The stragglers are easy to kill or avoid but attracting the notice of one of those herds is a bad thing. So many times I have simply wanted to cross the street but ended up having to go a half a mile further down the road to sprint across, hoping I didn't get spotted. Always I have to take a circuitous route, just to lose the unwanted attention of any living dead who caught sight of me as I try to keep a healthy distance from one herd or another. I've lost track of the number of undead I've returned to the grave. I kill an easy dozen or so every day when I'm scouting and scavenging. I had thought of keeping a running tally of the undead I put back into the grave but by now the body count would be well into the thousands.

As I got closer to the nameless office building that I wanted to use as my lookout post for the next couple days or week, I noticed that a couple of stragglers were converging below one of the shattered windows of the second floor. The room they were starting to gather under was the exact same room I had wanted to checkout as my first choice for my surveillance of the mall. I ended up having to come around, making a round-about way to the building from the rear. It seemed that more than one of the undead stragglers that I passed were also dragging their rotting bodies over to the ruined office. That made me curious as to what they were being drawn to. They certainly weren't acting as if they knew of the presence of prey, they were much too calm in their plodding movements.

It wasn't hard to get inside the building, most of the windows were shattered long ago. Slowly, cautiously, as silently as I could, I made careful, deliberate steps through the debris and detritus that covered most of the room's floor. Once inside the hallway, no longer did leaves and trash cover the carpet. Instead, a thick blanket of dust covered the once bright weave. In the dust it was plain to see another set of footsteps. There was just one set of footprints, they led to the non-working elevator and continued past it, to the stairwell. It seemed to take me ten minutes to make my way up the stairs to the second floor. I was determined to find out what was going on here, although I was nervous as hell after finding a recently killed zed on the landing between the sets of stairs. The monstrosity had its noodle bashed in with something big and heavy, although there was no evidence as to who or what did it. My ears were straining for any sound at all and it wasn't until I had followed the prints down the hall that I heard anything. I first thought I was listening to someone mumbling to themselves, but as I listened at the closed door I could make out the small sound of an iPod or something blaring at what must have been full blast (so that I could hear it from ten feet away through a closed door). I had been hoping to find another survivor like me when I slowly opened the door. Instead I was greeted with the sight of an almost completely scarlet covered man's hairy back. He was paying no notice to me at all, intent as he was on some nudie mag. There were only small, isolated, patches of white skin left on him and I gave a start as he suddenly rolled his head and neck around, snorting when he was finished. In one ear were iPod buds and in the other ear was a Bluetooth. Even though the day was overcast and rather cool he was covered in sweat. Dirty socks, steel-toed work boots, and filthy khaki shorts were all he was wearing as he manned his post overlooking the deserted shopping plaza. I actually stood back and watched him for awhile, trying to learn as much about him before I ended his miserable existence. I slowly moved up behind him, all the time ready to kill him at a moment's notice. Occasionally he would pick up his rifle and quickly scan the shops through the scope before returning his attention to the magazine. After a couple of minutes he did that oddly compulsive thing with his head again, making that same snorting sound when he had finished.

The third time he did that he spotted me, eyes rolling insanely as he twisted and rolled his neck and head. His black eyes barely had time to go wide as I brought the gladius down.

While I was going through his stuff (of which I found nothing I wanted, even the iPod was covered in dirt and gunk), the Bluetooth lit up. I picked it up and answered the nasty thing, keeping the filthy thing as far from touching my ear as possible, saying nothing and letting the caller speak.

"Report.", was the only word, spoken by an angry sounding male voice.

Although that was the only word said and I refused to respond, the connection stayed open for a few minutes before disconnecting without warning.

As I write, I'm now in an old house with a halfway decent view of the dilapidated building so I can see if any other of the Reds comes to retrieve or relieve their brethren. I can see the entrance to the grocery store from here but my vantage point isn't nearly as good as it would have been from the second floor of the offices.

Food is becoming more difficult to gather. Every once in awhile I find an unlooted pantry and score enough for days but usually I hardly find enough to get my fill. I'm always a bit hungry. Getting something to drink is still pretty easy for me. Every building or house has at least one toilet in it. The tanks hold about two gallons each so unless I really get wasteful with it while I'm exploring my new neighborhood I'll have no problem. I would have thought that today I would have found more to eat than what I have. Anything perishable has done so, perishing and turning into foul smelling, nauseating piles of gunk and with the electricity out the stuff in the freezers have begun to rot also. Tonight's meal is currently my choice of three different colors of canned frosting with toilet water to wash it down. Still though, it's better than the dog food I've had to eat.

Tomorrow, as it'll be Friday again, I'll make my way back to the fallen safehouse to see if Allan shows up. If he doesn't show I'll come back here and wait a few more days looking for other living, breathing, uninfected, human beings.

### Sunday, November 10, 2013

I used to have my body trained so that I fell asleep around the same time every night, waking up automatically every morning just before the alarm clock went off. Since the world turned into the nightmare it has become, with the living dead scouring the earth, I can only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. My sleep is so light that any sound rouses me, I often end up falling back to sleep clutching my weapon, silently listening for danger. While the stress that causes my sleeping problem tends to make me a little tired during the day, I find it more than a little useful at times. Like on last Thursday night. I awoke around four thirty in the morning, what actually caused my eyes to open I don't know. After rubbing my eyes I looked around with the night vision goggles and viewed an electric car parked in front of the office building. It was painted a sweet gloss black with heavily tinted windows, I immediately wanted it. It would be perfect for night time driving, being dark it would be harder to see and being electric it was as silent as a whisper. The only problem is there is no electricity to charge it with. I'm not going to risk running a generator to charge it up either, the dangers are too great. This means the organized group of the infected that have taken up residence in this area must have some kind of generator running. Probably also means that their faction is the strongest in the county, being able to have the run of the streets and a secure enough camp that they can openly operate noisy combustion engines.

After a few minutes someone came out and got something from of the trunk of the car, then ran back into the building. One of the things about the night vision goggles is the fact that it's easy to spot the blackened eyes of the Reds. Their eyes reflect a lot of the ambient light around them, causing their sclera (the whites of their eyes) to shine like they're lit from the inside of their infested skulls. It would have been folly to try and shoot them in the darkness, it's a bit far of a shot for my rifle from here. Not to mention that the rifle doesn't have a night scope on it (I haven't run across one that will fit right on it yet). So I watched the building. I watched as a small flickering glow spread out in the room where my sword split the Reds face and skull in two. Moments after, two men exited the building, throwing some of the dead man's equipment into the back seat before silently driving off. In no time the building became engulfed in flames, sending dark clouds of smoke into the night air.

That odd behavior I witnessed before with the zeds started to manifest itself again as they seemed to be slowly drawn to the infected. Before the two drove off, the walking dead had started to gather around the office, slowly lurching themselves into a small herd. When the electric car drove off, the undead seemed to wander after it for about twenty yards and then they lost interest and went back to their normal aimless meandering. If they had been after the uninfected they wouldn't have stopped for anything, they would have continued to stagger in the direction they last saw a meal until they either caught it or they died again.

I had no luck again waiting for Allan. I found a decent spot to watch the partially collapsed house from, waiting for his return. From a second story window a couple of houses down and across the street, I can monitor both the front and the side doors. I can't believe another week has gone by. Time seems to both speed by and drag along ever so slowly at once. I waited for a couple of hours but I saw neither hide nor hair of him. Next week then.

From across the city, while I waited for Allen, I could still see tendrils of heavy smoke, drifting into the cloudy sky. By the time I returned to my hiding spot overlooking the shopping plaza, the old office building was nothing more than a smoking ruin. Only a couple small licks of flame still struggled to consume the last bones of the structure.

Nothing happened 'til the late afternoon yesterday, as it was, I almost missed them. I caught a quick glimpse of two people, one man and one woman, hastily making their way from the Publix supermarket. Both of them were loaded down with packs full of water in plastic gallon jugs, both of them obviously uninfected survivors. I could tell they were uninfected as the undead that spotted them eagerly chased after them just as fast as their necrotic legs could propel them. Even though I had my pack and things ready to go at a moment's notice, I still lost sight of the two quickly. The undead pointed me in the two survivors general direction, every dead thing that caught even the slightest glimpse of them was shambling in whatever direction the two traveled. I couldn't just run down the street after them, there were too many of the abominations out in the open. I had to take back routes through yards and down alleys, stopping to cut down any of the repulsive things that got in my way. For a minute or two, I had thought I had lost them for good when they changed their direction. The two backtracked and when I spotted them again they were struggling to hoist their overloaded packs over a high brick wall. I should have expected that, it's a tactic I use all the time. By the time I reached the other side of the brick wall myself I had lost them for good. They can't be too far from here, they were struggling with their load to begin with.

Once over the high brick wall I found myself in a gated and walled community of expensive homes. The whole neighborhood seemed to be in decent condition, I spotted only a few scattered walkers inside the subdivision. As I investigated the private residences, I found the main entrance blocked by multiple cars and trucks, allowing only a few, rather determined, of the undead to negotiate the jumbled roadblock.

The appearance of the subdivision turned out to be misleading. Someone had done a lot of work in that walled and isolated group of homes. Whether it was set up as one big trap or there is (or was) survivors actually living there, I'm still not sure. It wasn't until I came across a section of the neighborhood of upper middle class homes that I had a clue that there was something amiss there. Two of the backyards were so filled with the buzzing of flies, gnats and other insects that I heard and saw them before I caught whiff of whatever they were attracted to. Once I did catch the scent, it was one of rot and decomposing flesh. The wooden fence that had previously separated the two houses had been knocked down and the backyards had become an open grave. Most of the corpses had decomposed down to their ivory bones, leaving behind piles of broken skeletons mixed with the rags that were once the dead's clothes. Those old skeletal remains were at the bottom of the pile of disgusting tainted cadavers, the freshest of the corpses being on top. Everything was covered with bird shit and cockroaches, adding to the smell. Judging how long ago the undead were laid back to rest is tricky like this, with the mangled bodies exposed to the elements and animals. My best guess is that the last of the mortal remains were placed on the pile about a month ago. Somebody had been keeping the area clear. Most of the putrefying dead had their skulls crushed with something big and heavy by the looks of it.

When a booby-trapped door almost took my head off I became a lot more cautious. Someone had tied a double barreled shotgun's trigger to the doorknob. The gun's position had luckily shifted over time as its blast splintered only the uppermost part of the door while the main centering of pellets punched through the ceiling and then the roof. The more I looked around the once manicured lawns and now rusting swing sets, the more snares and hidden dangers I saw. To my horror, when I went back to the corpse dump I saw it had been protected by a tripwire. The only reason I hadn't of set off the claymore previously was because the fishing line used to trigger the explosives had weathered and stretched out so that it lay upon the ground. Whoever had placed all of these pitfalls must not have been maintaining them for a while.

I could have died twice inside that subdivision and wouldn't have seen it coming either time. Guess I got careless, I got used to the lack of traps on the houses recently. Usually, the only trapped buildings were buildings that I expected to be booby-trapped and not a whole community. My risks weren't without some reward though. I was able to defuse a couple of the traps. The claymore guarding the grave site, along with a new shotgun and a few hand grenades will definitely get used. The abandoned houses I did get into held almost nothing of value to me. They had all been looted for anything useful long ago.

Though the subdivision was interesting, it wasn't where the two other survivors had run to. More than likely they slipped over the wall someplace else while I was trying to catch up to them.

Tonight I'm sleeping in the house with the highest roof in the neighborhood. The survivors couldn't have gone on much further, as much water they were carrying. I'm pretty fit and even then, carrying around Allen's and my packs of gear for a few miles, like when I hauled them to the church, just about wore me out. I'll hang out in the area for at least a few days, keeping an eye out for any clue of people still clinging onto life and sanity. Time really isn't important now, the only place I have to go is to the fallen safehouse on Fridays. I might camp the area until I find them, now that I know that others are nearby. Maybe I'll take up residence in the community center of the walled residences if the area stays calm like it is now. If they're around, I'll find them.

### Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Allan never showed up last Friday, I didn't feel like writing a separate journal entry for it, it would have been too short.

Since losing sight of those two people, I haven't seen one living soul. I had been staying at one abandoned house or building for a few days then moving to a different spot in the general area, attempting to find any sign of where those two survivors had disappeared to. Two days ago I think I spotted signs of recent human activity. The first clue I had that I was in the right area was the sight of fairly fresh kills of the undead. The recently dead corpses of the wandering undead were scattered about the neighborhood, all suffering from head wounds. Only humans do that. The area I found the corpses of the recently dead again horrors in is part residential with the other section being mainly an industrial/office park.

There does seem to be more of the undead in this section of Ocala than in other parts, whether or not that means there are other survivors is another question. The undead ebb and flow through the streets like the tides, constantly moving.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I found a big clue that there were others around. Unless the animals that survived the parasitic infection and madness have started growing little gardens, that is. By the time I found the small, well tended and watered garden, dusk had started to fall. Potatoes, green beans, green onions and lettuce were ready to be harvested. Some of the plants had obviously been harvested before, about half the rows of green beans and lettuce were already gone. Someone will show up soon to gather the rest of the produce, of that I'm sure. In the meantime I helped myself to some fresh vegetables. It's been such a long time since I had fresh food. I had almost forgotten how good real food was, the raw potatoes and green beans tasted so much better than the soggy canned beans and the instant mashed potatoes I have been living off.

I decided that I would stay in the house next door to the garden. The backyard garden was hidden well from the street, it's surrounded by an overgrown privacy fence and unless you know it's there you'll never see it. It's the same with trying to spy on it from afar, it's too well hidden to be easily seen from anyplace except next door or the house that holds the garden itself. It shouldn't be too long before someone comes to along, the garden will have to be harvested soon or the vegetables will rot on the vine.

As I set up my new temporary camp in the deserted house next door, I had a third clue that I was in the right area. I detected the unmistakable odor of someone cooking. I decided that in the morning I would more fully explore the industrial buildings. The sun was going down by the time I had made my night's camp. There are just too many of the hungering beasts shuffling around to do any kind of reconnaissance in the night's darkness. Running around an unknown area filled with the jaws and claws of the walking dead and worse won't serve any purpose. Besides, there are plenty of places someone can hide around here if they wanted to, and it does seem they want to. Can't say I blame them. Myself, I'm tired of hiding like some timid little mouse. I'm tired of being cooped up like some caged animal, staring at the same four walls, afraid to even peek out a window in fear of being spotted and surrounded by the ghoulish cannibals that wander the cracked and potholed streets. Holing up in one spot for a long period of time hasn't worked out well for me in the past, I actually enjoy sleeping in a different house every night after a long day of murdering the undead. The thing that I have the hardest time dealing with is the sheer amount of boredom in my life.

That's how it is though, days of boredom followed by a few moments or minutes of sheer terror. Like last night. Over a week of boredom ended in a split second.

Shortly after nightfall, I watched nervously as a vast number of the undead started to slowly make their way towards my general vicinity. A huge herd, composed of hundreds (if not more) of the slowly decomposing things, started migrating their way into the neighborhood. The huge herd would completely swarm the area by dawn, threatening to scour the land and devour any living human flesh they found. I wasn't in a fortified building, if I were to stay and try to hide inside one of the unsecured buildings they could easily overwhelm me once they found me. Then there was the food problem. If I chose to hide and wait them out, hoping that they pass me by, I could easily run out of food and water. There's no telling how long they would stay in the vicinity, the undead might not leave for days or weeks before wandering off again. So I started gathering up my things to bug out ahead of the always hungry masses of the undead.

If the undead came within a block of me I was going to leave. There was no way I was gonna try to ride this wave of gnashing teeth out. By midnight the numbers of the necrotic, mindless cadavers grew, easily doubling my earlier estimates and still I could see more following the herd in the distance. They trampled and knocked over everything in their path. Mailboxes, fences, porch railings and anything else damaged by the previous year's worth of neglect and storm damage was battered and clumsily kicked until it collapsed. I watched as an eight foot high fence, topped with rusting old barbed wire, suddenly broke. The fence bowed and stretched, straining both the cement secured posts and the thick wires that tied the links to the posts and railing. Then one of the posts shifted and it toppled along its whole side in a domino effect, as it proved too weakened to withstand the sheer weight of all the zeds as they broke around it like waves around an outcropping of rock. The undead follow each other like a river around whatever is in their path. Once the chain link fence with its uprooted posts collapsed, the undead flowed onto the property in massive numbers.

From my vantage point up on the roof and with the aid of my night goggles, I watched the whole mass of the undead herd start to converge on the old brick building located merely two and a half blocks away from me. One moment the undead were slowly marching past the old heating and cooling shop, the next they were excitedly trying to break into it. I'm not sure what set the ravenous herd off, but in a heartbeat, every single zed turned and moved straight as an arrow to the industrial building.

It's Wednesday morning now and there has got to be a thousand of the nasty things in and around the building with its sun faded and peeling yellowish paint. The whole of the remaining fence has been destroyed, with the parasite driven corpses bashing and pounding upon the whole length of the building. If there is somebody inside the building I'll know soon. The building seems secure, although anything can happen when a bloodthirsty mob starts trying to rip apart seemingly secure structures. The undead's only desire is to eat the soft, warm, flesh cringing in fear inside the tough shell, like the building is nothing more than a giant clam or shellfish to be cracked open through brute force.

Unfortunately, I think the walking abominations found the two survivors before I did. I'm going to stay and observe what happens here for at least the next few days. If there are others inside that building currently under siege they might need some help when they try to escape. I don't know how long they can make that water they humped over here from the Publix last, especially if they were using some of it for the hidden garden. It hasn't rained around here in awhile and a lot of the flora and fauna are starting to suffer from the lack of it.

### Monday, November 25, 2013

The days pass, the worst of the summer sun has abated but it's still too hot and too humid. Seriously, I don't know how anyone lived in Florida before electricity and the blessing of air conditioning.

Friday came and went again with no sign of Allan. I'm not going to bother writing down his failures to show after this. I'm starting to doubt I'll ever see him again. The next time I write of him, hopefully it'll be to say I found him.

The single minded undead are still pounding and clawing at the building down the street. They fling their mangled limbs at the thick brick and mortar of the building, causing a pile of broken fingers, hands, and bone splinters from mangled limbs to form on the ground. They still heedlessly beat upon the building, only to grind an ever growing pile of their own broken body parts into a disgusting mash under necrotic feet. Slowly, bits and pieces crumble off chipped or weather weakened bricks, falling and mixing with the disgusting ooze. Once secure boarding over windows crack and splinter. For as much damage as the undead do to themselves, they do just as much damage to the building. Eventually they will tear the building down with their bared, snapping teeth if it comes to it. I know this.

I can safely view the undead and their progress from rooftop. The dead are quite intent on their goal, rarely looking away from it. Even when one of the mindless automatons does glance in my direction they never look up. The fact that the things are still continuing their frantic exertions after five days leads me to believe there actually is somebody inside. Usually when a zed, or a group of zeds, gets confused or gets excited for the wrong reason they generally stop actually beating on the structure after a few days.

If the survivors, trapped inside the place, turn out to be anyone other than the two I had been looking for, I'll be surprised. I've been wracking my brain to try and figure out a way to clear the undead from the area but I haven't come up with anything so far. There's just too many of them for me to deal with myself. I'll keep watching to see if I can help when they finally try to make a break for freedom.

### Wednesday, November 27, 2013

I had retreated indoors from the heat of the afternoon sun, opening up the windows of the second floor room for the slight breeze. However better the view is from the roof, it becomes too hot for me to stay up there for any length of time once the broiling sun comes out. There was one bedroom, on a corner of the house, which had a window on each of its two outside walls. One overlooked the neighbor's garden, while the other gave a decent view down the nearby cross street. It wasn't a bad view, if I sat on the edge of the bed I could easily turn my head and monitor them both quite easily. The view wasn't perfect but it did the job. The heat and the boredom of constantly scanning, constantly squinting through the binoculars, started to give me the twinge of a headache. So I slept, something I never seem to get enough of anymore. Not that it matters, when I do sleep, I always wake up after a couple of hours. This time when I awoke and I scanned the garden, nothing had changed. When I next peered into the distance through the other window, there was a bad change. It didn't have anything to do with the undead ghouls. The hungering corpses still hadn't gained entry to the building, they were still heedlessly pounding their broken limbs on the still solid framework. The same black electric car from the other day was parked and idling in the middle of the street at the driveway to the besieged structure. That was the bad thing. I had no idea how long they had been out there or even where they had gone to if they had left the vehicle. The windows are darkly tinted and I couldn't tell if there was anyone inside the car or not. In the minuscule amount of time it took for me to bend down and grab my weapon, I heard the sound of one of the cars doors solidly thump closed. By the time I raised my weapon to line up a shot I saw the driver's door slamming shut. I didn't even get the time to line up a good shot before they drove off. I could have taken a pot shot at them, but that would have done nothing but alert them. I do like to maintain the element of surprise.

They had stopped to check out the swarm of bloodthirsty undead, of that I'm positive. Even with the binoculars I couldn't actually see as much of the horde or the building they were intent on destroying as I wanted too. I ended up moving as close as I dared to the deadly herd, reaching an upstairs office in a formerly busy telemarketing company. The office was almost directly behind the zed infested property, giving an excellent, if dangerous, view of three sides of the property plus the roof. The only part of the besieged building I couldn't see was the front entrance. Even then, as close as I was, I couldn't spot if the Reds had done anything except look around. They were obviously interested in whatever the foul herd had locked in on. I was absolutely positive that they would return. And they did. At four o'clock in the morning.

Once night fell, I made my way onto the office building's roof. From the vantage point of the flat, tar and rock covered roof, while I still couldn't see directly in front of the shop, the angle gave me a good view of the driveway leading to it.

When the scarlet colored and infected Reds came back, they didn't care about being quiet. I heard the sound of their engine from blocks away. In the relative quiet of the apocalypse, any man made sound seems loud and out of place. Especially a combustion engine with a crappy muffler.

The streets were clear of the wandering undead, every single one of the mindless things had converged on the worn shop.

The up-armored Humvee that appeared seemed to weave drunkenly before it pulled up, tires screeching and horn blaring in front of the shop. The horrid walking dead barely responded, merely glancing for a moment uncertainly at these new arrivals before returning to their mindless clawing and bashing of the brick building. The camouflage painted vehicle parked itself at the entrance to the property, where the gated fence used to stand before the crush of the undead brought it down. Though my line of sight was partially blocked by the roof of the heating and cooling shop, it really only blocked the bottom half of the military vehicle. As soon as the Hummer came to a complete stop someone popped up in the armored fifty cal. turret while the driver and passenger got out, hooting, hollering and letting off rounds into the air. The Reds acted as if they were drunk, sometimes staggering about as they clearly made their presence known. A long burst from the fifty caliber machine gun rent the air, with tracer bullets flying high into the darkness.

"Attention, attention...", blared from a loudspeaker. Although I couldn't see who was using the bullhorn, I figured it had to be the driver. Both the turret man and the passenger were in plain sight, with the passenger rooting around in the backseat for something.

"You're surrounded. Come out with your hands up!", the words came out slightly slurred and the other men with him laughed.

"Get the fuck out here now you little bastards!", the words were tinged with anger now, as minutes passed with no response being given at all.

With a motion from the infested man in the turret, the passenger disappeared from my view, rushing towards the huge mass of undead at the front of the building. Without warning, the huge group of undead at the front of the building spilled out and away from the area. It almost looked like the undead were fleeing from something. I was about to get up and sneak my way around to another location for a chance to get a better view of what they were doing, when I saw the passenger come around the corner. If they knew something that could cause the uncontrollable zombies to flee, then I would risk a lot to unravel that secret. I waited as quietly as I could and in a minute I saw the carrier spraying something at the zeds from what looked like a metal fire extinguisher. As he rounded the corner to the rear, he saw a lone unboarded window set high up upon the back wall, where a large fan was once installed, and he smiled. He stopped, pumped up the canister and sprayed something that the undead tried to get away from with as much speed as they could muster. With whatever it was in that can he completely cleared the front of the building, the side and the whole rear. Made it look so easy. I became determined that before the night was through I would know the secret. I tried to smell the air, hoping to catch scent of what they were using but I guess I was too far away. The zeds remarkably moved at least twenty feet away from the offending substance, refusing to go near the sprayed liquid even though they clearly wanted to get back to their pummeling and punishment of the brick shop.

Setting down the canister and unshouldering his AK, the passenger took a kneeling position at the corner of the building, bare yards from my hiding spot, keeping the back window in his sights.

"Last chance to come out!"

Receiving no answer the driver briefly appeared in my view again, angrily stomping back to the driver's side of the vehicle. As he proceeded to reach into the Humvee's backseat on the far side, he was once again out of my sight. When the half naked driver came back into my view, behind the hood of the vehicle, he was holding a homemade Molotov cocktail.

"If you don't come out now, we're going to burn your asses to death you motherfuckers!", the driver shouted. Obviously he meant what he said and as he brought out a Zippo lighter to light the rag extending from the gasoline filled bottle, a single shot rang out.

Immediately the driver dropped to the ground as all hell broke loose. I had been hoping that the driver had been killed but as the Molotov, with its rag burning brightly, flew in a lazy arc towards the shop, I knew things were going to go badly. The constant roar of the fifty caliber, as it spit fire and slugs into the shop, was deafening. Automatic weapons fire was being returned at the marauders, the bullets ineffectually bouncing and ricocheting off the bulletproof, war built machine, providing excellent protection to the parasite maddened aggressors. The turret mounted machine gun literally chewed through the shop, with bullets spewing out along the whole length of the building. The driver lobbed Molotov after Molotov at the building while the gunner fired, causing the entire front end of the building to become engulfed in an inferno.

The sole man at the rear of the building, the only person I could get a good shot at, still had not moved, waiting for something. I figured that it was time for me to act, just as I was ready to pull the trigger, my target jumped and raised his weapon towards the window where the old fan used to be. Someone had thrown an old wheeled office chair through it and started kicking the broken glass away from the bottom of the pane, not wanting to slice themselves open when they crawled out. That's why the Red was waiting in the back of the building, he was going to murder anyone he caught attempting to escape from the rear. All he was waiting for was a good shot at whoever was trying to escape. As soon as a head popped out of the window, I saw the carrier move to shoot. It would only have taken a second for him to line the shot up but I was already ready to fire. The whole top of his skull disintegrated as my shot flew true, scattering his diseased grey matter over a wide area. The head quickly ducked back into the shop, uncertain as to what was happening.

I know the gunner heard my weapon speak. Each weapon has its own individual, unique sound. As soon as my rifle added its voice to the chaotic battle everyone knew. I had to take my shot in plain view of the gunner, I'm sure he saw the muzzle flash. I'm sure he saw his vile comrade die. Without hesitation, the gunner adjusted his aim and started to fire at me. It had become time for me to move. Chunks and splinters of the office's walls and windows were being punched out by the half inch diameter slugs like shrapnel. I made my way back down to the first floor, dodging flying debris and lead all the way. Once on the first floor, the number of bullets coming at me slackened as the slugs had to travel through the shop before entering the office behind it.

The second I saw the person crouching down in the ruins of the window, trying to make herself as small as possible, I knew she needed help. She was terrified, her eyes were wild and wide and she was screaming and crying at whoever was returning fire at the raiders. She was stuck. She couldn't go back into the burning building, thick black smoke was starting to pour out of every crack and crevice and she couldn't jump for fear of the huge mass of dead that were waiting for her just twenty feet away. She was screaming for Matt to leave with her, to help her but there came no answer. When she realized that there were no longer any reports from his weapon she wailed and I thought she was going to go back into the building.

The horrible walking dead were desperate to get at the woman but they were unable to bring their horrid selves any closer. They were packed tightly together, forming a wall of outstretched and grasping hands eager to grab hold of any living human being and devour them alive.

As the machine gun bullets and tracer rounds came ever closer to ending her life, she started shooting at the undead waiting for her, attempting to make a hole through which she could run. Her aim was bad and out of fifteen shots she only managed to kill three of the things. The gunner on the other hand, was indiscriminately wasting plenty of the undead that were unlucky enough to be in the line of fire.

I ran outside the office, risking the random, deadly hiss of hot lead in order to get the terrified woman's attention. In no time she saw me and although she raised her handgun towards me, she didn't shoot. I raised one hand and lowered it, palm down, hoping that she would understand I wanted her to stay low. I was behind the row of undead, they were so intent and focused on the fresh flesh of the woman in front of them that they never even noticed me. When I held up one of my purloined grenades she understood what I wanted to do. Then I lobbed my two grenades towards packed line of the ghastly monsters and ducked. The dual explosions tore open the air itself and killed or knocked down every zed within twenty five feet. The teary eyed survivor quickly crawled out the window, only hanging on for a moment before letting herself drop, knowing that time was of the essence. In less than a minute the undead, those that had been knocked down or wounded but not killed would be back on their feet. While she ran through the gap, screaming for Matt all the time, I put a half ounce of metal into as many undead heads as fast as I could twitch my finger. The smell that came to me reminded me of cat piss. I recognized the smell, it was very familiar but I couldn't place my finger on it exactly. The sharp smell brought to mind image of the old lady that had lived next door to me before the holocaust, the old lady with six cats that mauled her to death. I'll figure it out though, it's too important for me not to. By the time the black haired woman reached me, I knew something was very different about her. She was pregnant. By the time she reached me the two mad men in front had stopped shooting, I heard the engine revving up. Then they started driving and firing around the building towards us as we fled. I heard the distinct sound of multiple bodies being hit and run over by the military Humvee, as I looked back the driver was wildly running over the undead that got in his way. With the sound of gunfire and splintering bones approaching ever closer I turned and fired, loosing the majority of my double clip at the gunner's face. None of the bullets I shot at him hit but I did make the brute duck down.

There was no real way we could outrun a vehicle, as we ran and fired I thought about the claymore I still held on to. If I could reach the residential section of the neighborhood, I thought, we might be able to lose them. If not, if I became mortally wounded, I would hold on to my life until my attackers got close enough, then I would trigger the claymore killing all of us if I had to. As it turned out, with the Humvee bouncing and running over and through the herd of zeds, the driver lost control as the vehicle got caught up on the limbs and torsos of all those undead that had gotten stuck or jammed into the Hummer's undercarriage. Somehow, as the driver swerved and ran over more zeds, he drove over a part of the downed fence that was bunched up. The chain link fence, grabbed by the spinning wheels, wrapped itself around one of the front tires like a blanket. As expletives issued forth the gunner's nasty mouth at us, the driver and the hungering dead, he continued to fire blindly at us and the mindless automatons around him. The driver had started to "rock" the camouflaged transport back and forth, slowly trying to work the vehicle free of its entanglements.

I led the terrified, pregnant woman back to the house overlooking the garden, making sure to impress on her the need for her to be quite, that crying wouldn't help us at all. She was desperate to know the fate of Matt, the father of her child. I noted that the two remaining attackers were taking their time extracting the Humvee from its mired status. No more gun shots were coming from within the burning building, there was no sound of anything but the crackling of burning wood. We both watched anxiously as the gunner donned a gas mask and climbed up the rear of the building to disappear inside the broken window while the driver cut away the rest of rusty chain link fence and assorted body parts from the mired undercarriage. I was tempted to snipe them, once in awhile I would have a good shot, I could easily kill at least one more of them. If it were just me I would have. Now though, I have a distraught, three or four month along expectant mother-to-be with me. Discretion being the better part of valor, I let it go. We had escaped with our lives. If they thought we were long gone then so much the better. The last thing I need now is for them to call more of their insane brethren and hunt us down in earnest. If Matt is still alive I'll risk it though, I wouldn't be able to do anything else, my conscious wouldn't let me.

Minutes later, the body of Matt, ridden with multiple holes, fell limply from the broken window. The gunner jumped down, clothes slightly smoking and grabbed Matt by the hair and laughed with the driver. After posing like a hunter with a magnificent deer, I heard them shouting and carrying on like they forgot all about us and their dead companion. A few minutes later they had loaded up Matt's corpse, freed their Humvee from its predicament and drove off, leaving the body of their friend behind.

Her name is Nancy and she's just past her first trimester, I got that out of her at least. Her weeping and silent tears lasted well into the morning, when she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

### Monday, December 2, 2013

I swear, that first day I found Nancy, she slept for sixteen hours. I'm sure she had gotten very little sleep while the dead were furiously trying to tear her building apart. I know, first hand, how hard it is to get any shut eye at all in that situation. Sleep only comes when one finally passes out from exhaustion after days of fear.

Twice, while she slept, I left her a note in case she woke up while I was gone. Neither time I left did she so much as even change position by the time I returned. The first time I left, I went food scavenging. I barely found a couple of old, labeless cans in the surrounding houses. The cans that I did find, I ended up having to fight for. Not that it was much of a fight. I'm getting much better with the gladius. The blade has a few dings in it now but it's still capable of removing someone's head from their shoulders with one good swing.

The second time I left Nancy alone was to check out the now smoldering wreckage of the heating and cooling shop that she had barely escaped with her life from. I had desperately wanted to know if the infested Reds had taken the canister with them. The undead were still thick in the immediate vicinity of the now charred ruins, with many of them having burned to death. The unfeeling corpses show no fear of fire, when the splash from the Molotov's lit them on fire they paid no notice. One by one, the undead that hadn't been forced away by whatever it is that the Reds sprayed at those along the other three sides, became a part of the inferno. The smell of burnt, rotted, flesh hangs in the air. Between the stench and the smoke of the charred remains of the shop, it effectively blotted out any chance I had to catch a whiff of whatever I smelled last night. Half of the necrotic fiends gathered around that shop must have been exterminated last night, their ruined bodies lie strewn haphazardly all around the property. The remaining undead no longer care about the building, knowing their prey had long since disappeared. There were still too many of the horrid things for me to safely search for the shiny silver canister, it was only days later that I could return.

When Nancy finally woke up she was much calmer. She was hesitant and unsure of me, I could tell. There was some tension in that dark, unlit and abandoned house, I was also unsure of her character. It took her awhile to open up enough to tell me what had happened. One of the first things she wanted was water. The way she drank it down almost alarmed me. She explained that Matt and her had been quite low on the precious fluid, having to ration it out severely as the undead surrounded them. When I shared with her the vegetable soup I had cooked up earlier, while she was sleeping, her eyes widened slightly in recognition of the fresh vegetables. Even though the potatoes and other fresh ingredients, pilfered from the little garden, were mixed in with the mystery cans (which turned out to be a can of corn, two cans of peas and a can of mixed veggies), they clearly stood out. She ate the vegetable soup with the same gusto as she had with the water. Between mouthfuls, she related how Matt and she had initially planted three gardens, hiding them out of sight of prying eyes. The other two gardens didn't fare as well, with the summer heat and lack of rain conspiring to whither and kill the plants before they grew an inch. By the time she had finished the simple meal, her few sparse words turned into a river of conversation.

Nancy was twenty six years old when the animal madness struck. Now, a little more than a year has passed and her once raven black, long hair has streaks of grey. She didn't look her age, in fact when she told me how old she was I almost didn't believe her. She looks older, the stress and hardships she had lived through makes her look closer to forty than thirty.

Even before the troubles that heralded the end of the world, the economy had been stagnant. Her husband, Sean, had worked as a carpenter since graduating high school. When the economy ground to a crawl, he suddenly found himself as one of the long term unemployed. Since Sean had been considered self-employed, as he had done subcontracting work, and therefore wasn't eligible for unemployment checks he received no unemployment benefits. They struggled to pay the bills, when their first child was born just before the rat death made its way around the globe, it was only her job as a substitute teacher for a private church run school that kept them going. Her husband stayed home and tended to their beautiful, healthy newborn daughter, almost reversing the traditional family roles. Things were tough, but with the help of family and friends, they were keeping their heads above water.

When the Scarlet hit, so closely on the heels of the animal attacks, things were no better in Ocala than they were in Orlando. As the small red spots spread amongst the population, everybody she knew was affected. Nobody thought the Scarlet would prove so deadly, those that did speak of a coming mass die off were quickly drowned out. Everybody, the government included, pointed out that only the smaller animals had died from the parasite, humans would get sick but then they would quickly recover. To Nancy, the dark cloud of the parasitic infection had a silver lining (or so it seemed at the time). As one of the few teachers in the district who was immune to the single celled menace, she was asked to fill in for those teachers (and there was a lot of them) that used their sick days. Grateful for the work and the extra money in her paycheck she happily took every chance she was offered. Within days of the rapid spread of the contagion, she started to worry, seriously worry about what was happening. There was a madness that came with the parasite, the same madness that overcame the animals. She saw for herself the changes in the students. From sullen, quiet and slightly depressed, those once happy and rambunctious thirteen and fourteen year old boys and girls turned into mean, violent and homicidal criminals. The government was obviously lying about what was going on, still maintaining that the parasite was harmless. When fights broke out they were no longer the simple affairs where one student would hit another until the loser fell to the ground crying. Instead the fights turned into life and death struggles with cheering onlookers sometimes joining in the fray. Murder, arson, rape and all manner of horrible things went on. Students weren't the only ones committing the atrocities, the faculty was also falling prey to the insane compulsions. The last day she went to work the middle school had turned into a blood soaked hell. Two former students (no more than fourteen years old) and one of the Spanish teachers tried to corner her in the teachers' lounge. To say she was flabbergasted by their behavior is an understatement. Nancy barely escaped their depredations, sure they were intent on raping her at the least. When she came home, unsure as to whether or not she would be fired for fleeing her job, her husband had disappeared. Her husband Sean never returned. Her child sickened and died from the ravages of the parasite, breaking her heart completely. No ambulance came, no police responded in those last days. She buried her child in the backyard as deeply as she could manage. I told her how I had done the same to my sister, not realizing the parasite wasn't done with its victim yet. My little sister (I still miss her so much) clawed her way from the grave, not being as deeply buried. Nancy knows the reanimated body of her little child slowly rots in its dark grave, unable to muster the strength to dig its way out.

After speaking briefly about her lost child, Nancy went into a crying jag again, the tears rolling down her cheeks anew and lasting for hours. I felt sad myself, talking about the loved ones I lost forced me to have to control myself lest I ended up a weeping wreck like Nancy had become.

When dawn broke again I made an excuse and left the house, telling Nancy that I was going to try and scout a nearby location where we could safely hole up. The constant sniffling and crying bothers me, it's kinda aggravating. She's not the only one that lost everyone they loved. Every day since then, the same thing happens. I would get her to open up, to start talking, then after every conversation she breaks down and cries for hours before falling asleep. Allan may not have been the best person to be around all the time but at least he wasn't lost in a wallow of self pity.

I didn't actually go and search for another safehouse. I had already scouted the area previously and hadn't found anything that didn't need a lot of prep work to completely secure. What I did want was that stainless steel canister. The body of the Red I killed the other night still lay where he fell. The flies and insects were thick in the area, feasting and laying their eggs in the dozens of corpses. Crows had also found the human remains and were busy pecking and pulling pieces off of their grisly meal. The undead were still thick in the vicinity of the shop, some had wandered off in search of other prey but there was way too many of the things hanging around for me to do a thorough search amongst the foul smelling cadavers.

The only things of worth that I found that day was some food, which is always in short supply, and some prenatal vitamins for Nancy. They were out of date but I figured something was better than nothing. The vitamins would surely provide some benefit for the yet unborn child of hers and the Gods know the child will need all the help it can get if it's to have a fighting chance in this madhouse of a world.

After I returned Thursday night, Nancy seemed to be in better spirits. She was grateful for the vitamins, expired as they were. It was over supper that we really got to talking again, it was then that I heard about Matt and how they ended up trapped in the heating and cooling repair shop.

There really isn't a whole lot to tell, so I won't go into too much detail. Matt had worked at the shop and had taken refuge there just before the dead started to rise from their all too brief slumber. From what Nancy tells me, Matt's trailer was shot up and basically made unlivable in the madness that turned neighbor against neighbor. He still had the keys to the shop, when the owner and all the other employee's never appeared again he decided that the building was as good as any other place to stay until normality (and sanity) returned. When the first of the corpses started to rise, Matt managed to steal a semi-trailer filled with MRE's (Meals, Ready to Eat, another military acronym) from the Army after finding it abandoned. I found it almost funny that Nancy ran across Matt at a small corner store, she was looking for something to eat and he was loading up on toilet paper.

Nancy is a good looking girl and I'm sure Matt jumped at the chance to "cohabitate" with her. Things ran their course, with the close quarters, boredom, and fear driving them into each other's arms. I can't imagine what it would be like to be preggers right now. Kinda irresponsible if you ask me.

I think she recognized the disapproval on my face. That's when she started to cry again. I apologized and she said I was right, that it was all her fault. With the conversation over, Nancy retreated back into the bedroom and she cried herself to sleep again. What I want is for her to get over this crap and start acting in her own interests, she needs to help me out soon. If it weren't for her being with child I might not have cared about her welfare as much. I have to admit though, she gets better, more stable, day by day.

Friday, after waiting uselessly for Allan to show again, I returned to the ruins of the shop. Finally, the walking, rotting abominations had dispersed, leaving me the opportunity to look for that canister and its mysterious contents. I had to physically drag and dig through the corpses, the scent of death still clots my nose. I had to stop more than once, gagging from the reek. Once the undead are returned to death's cold embrace they seem to enter an advanced period of deterioration, rapidly decomposing. It appears that the parasite secretes some kind of chemical that holds the unnatural things together, when the parasitic colony is destroyed the body of the host quickly rots. Every time I got a firm hold on one of the horrid cadavers, dragging them out of the way, the dead flesh came off in my hands, like well cooked meat just falls off the bone. It was disgusting but in the end I found what I was looking for. Finding it didn't shed any light on what the canister had once held, unfortunately. The once shiny, silver, stainless steel cylinder had been crushed under the weight of the Humvee. Whatever it had held must have leaked out. There was a large rupture and the container held not a drop of what I so desperately sought. I had asked Nancy if she remembered smelling anything when she escaped, but she was too terrified at the time to notice anything but the smell of her own fear. It was vaguely familiar, that smell, sooner or later I would figure it out.

I saw that dog pack again, at least I think it was the same pack. One of the dogs, a big German Shepherd with a red tint to its unkempt hair, started making its way towards me. When I raised my weapon towards it, not knowing its intentions, it lowered its head and meekly wagged its tail. Slowly, timidly, it came towards me and I saw the faded, dirty collar around its neck. It obviously knew the difference between a living, breathing person and the abhorrences that should never be. It crouched low and whined, appearing to want nothing more than to have someone reassure it. Once the dog was close enough I could see that it had suffered old wounds where the fur was missing, leaving patches of scar tissue. This dog, as I'm sure were most of the dogs in the pack, were once loving and loyal pets. As I spent a few minutes petting the matted and dirty reddish hair I saw her collar still had a tag attached. "Laelaps", it was an unusual name and when I said it aloud, the dog whined and nuzzled my hand, grateful for the human contact it so clearly missed. A few moments later, the other members of the pack ran by, barking, the hunt was on again. Laelaps seemed torn between following her pack and wanting to stay with me. In the end, the dog ran off a few steps and turned back around and looked me in the eyes. It gave a bark at me, as if it was happy it had found me, and then bounded off excitedly to rejoin her friends. Even though the dogs have reverted to their wild states in their struggle to survive, some of them remember their old lives.

Once again back at the house with Nancy, I found she had actually made herself useful. Not only had she spent the day making some security improvements she had actually cooked dinner for me. When our conversation once again turned to what she had done before the world turned into a living nightmare, she said something that startled me. She had been relating how it would now be time for the annual school fund drive to maintain and stock the church's hurricane shelter. My ears picked up at that. Every year the students of the private school sold chocolates and handmade crafts, spending the proceeds on the emergency hurricane shelter located under the boiler room that provided the institutions hot water. It was fully stocked and had both food and water enough for a weeks' worth of supplies for the whole of the staff and student body. That part of the school was old, having been built in the sixties and as the school expanded, it grew around the central maintenance building. A couple of times a year the students were given classes in safety and they toured the old shelter. It had actually seen use when Andrew and other hurricanes struck, so it was a working shelter, not some quickly thrown together and glorified supply room. When she told me that the hurricane shelter had actually once been a fallout shelter built during the cold war, I knew I had to find the place and check it out for myself. After hearing my intentions, Nancy said it was a bad idea, the last time she had been near the grounds it was crawling with the undead. Be that as it may, it wouldn't stop me. My arrows prove to deal a swift silent death, my sword is sharp and my aim is true. I just hope it hasn't been raided for its supplies, or worse yet, burned down in the insanity that razed half the city.

On Saturday it took me most of the morning to reach the school grounds. The distance wouldn't normally have taken so long if it weren't for all the undead I had to detour around. I'm starting to get low on arrows, with a handful of them being lost every time I go out. Sometimes when I miss completely I can't find or safely recover the razor tipped shafts. Sometimes the arrows hit my target, burying themselves so deeply into a skull that it takes too much time and effort to dig them back out. Every once in a blue moon the undead themselves break them, having been pierced, with the shaft snapping from the nasty cannibals unnatural movements.

The grounds of the private academy are in a state of ruin and chaos. Windows are smashed, doors are off their hinges and desks that once been neatly ordered inside the classrooms have been tossed and thrown into hallways and through the windows. The buildings are one story rows of classrooms with covered walkways in an almost open air design. Some of the classrooms I passed are covered in old blood and gore with the decomposed remains of a few corpses turned skeletons lying scattered amongst the mess of overturned furniture. Scattered here and there vile graffiti covers walls and the few remaining windows.

There were actually very few of the walking dead on the grounds, at least until I came to the administrative buildings, that is. The main offices were once residential houses, having been converted as the needs of the Baptist church run school grew. Once I caught sight of the small mob of undead, crowding around one specific house turned office, it reminded me immediately of behavior I had witnessed before. For whatever reason, I believe that the Omni controlled corpses are drawn to seek out those that are carriers. All around the administrative buildings were pale, fleshless skeletons and decaying cadavers, all headless, all in varying degrees of corruption and rot.

Needless to say I became a lot more cautious. I had turned around and started to go back the way I came from, thinking I'd give this area a wide berth. I was here to check on the existence of a shelter, not to get into a gun battle or a life and death struggle. That's not how it turned out though, I was already being followed.

As soon as I came within five feet of the corner of the building, out of nowhere, this naked, filthy and wild haired kid of no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, popped from around the corner. The scarlet covered, former middle school student, loosed a primal scream as he swung the barrel of a revolver towards me and fired. I heard the bullet's deadly whine and felt the slug tug at my hair. With the smell of singed and burnt hair in my nostrils I instinctively brought up the bayonet affixed to my M16 to block and push the deadly barrel's aim away from my body. I saw his trigger finger twitch just as the sharp blade sliced off the end of his thumb, sending the blackened nail covered digit flying through the air just as the barrel exploded once more. The second shot proved to be no threat, missing by a country mile as the howling and insane carrier swung the rusty machete at my head that he was holding in his left hand. As I shifted my grip on the rifle to block the unexpected secondary attack, the teenager found out just how important thumbs were for maintaining any kind of grip. The blood slick thirty-eight he had been trying to keep his hold on slipped from his grasp and tumbled to the ground. It turned into a wrestling match, with him trying to slice me with his blade while at the same time trying to keep my bayonet from slicing him. He grabbed my rifle with his bloody hand and I then grabbed him and we struggled there, each of us straining to kill the other. I was finally able to use my legs to trip him up and I leaned into him until he buckled. We were entangled but when he fell I was on top. The poor kid had some strength to him, he fought with all of his madness driven hostility against what he knew was going to happen. He just wasn't as strong as me. My body has been fine tuned since the parasite raised its horrible specter upon the earth. With all the walking, running, and carrying heavy packs giving me an athletic body that I would have only obtained before by going to marine boot camp. I leaned into him, bringing the point of my blade ever nearer to his reddened, sweat and dirt covered chest. He couldn't force his long blade to threaten me, if he did he risked being immediately impaled. All he could do was try to push back as I applied all my force and weight, he was slowly losing ground millimeter by millimeter. Once started I drawing blood, his foul breath bellowed from his nasty mouth in one of the most chilling screams I have ever heard. Then he gave up, he went completely slack and my bayonet dug deep into his chest in one massive thrust. I watched the light go out of his black eyes and when I was sure he was dead I stood up and drove my blade into his face, directly into his crazed brains.

I wasn't out of danger yet, I heard the distinct dragging footsteps of what could only be the walking dead. I spun around, adrenalin flowing and quickly, violently, dispatched the half dozen monsters that were drawn to the sound of the combat. I never even had to draw my sword. The bayonet, forced through a mouth, eye socket, ear, temple or under the chin easily kills or disables the abominations. Severing the spinal cord causes the repugnant puppets to collapse, leaving them to uselessly snap and bite at my steel toed and shanked boots. The trick is to not let them grab you with their unnatural strength and tangle you up while you do it.

Since I was there and the scarlet covered carrier had been neutralized, I decided I might as well check out where he had been living. The depth of madness that the infected ones sink into is unimaginable. I found out where all the heads from the scattered bodies had gone. He had piled them up, one upon the other, stacked like gruesome bricks along the back wall of his makeshift lair. Flies, maggots and insects crawled and flew in such numbers in that room, that they were like a dark cloud. As soon as I entered the reeking and disgusting room, the pile of heads started squirming and chomping their rotted jaws at the sight of me. The whole wall of heads, stacked like bricks, started to quiver and shake. Dead eyes rolled, foul tongues lolled and teeth forcefully clacked shut, threatening to topple over the delicately balanced pile. Gagging at the smell, I retreated from the disgusting sight. I searched as well as my stomach could handle, only finding a few boxes of shells for a thirty-eight. He had accumulated a small stock of weapons, including a couple of Chinese made AK's but there was no ammo for them. I left them there, I already had enough weapons, ammo was what I really needed. Without bullets the automatic weapons were worthless.

I found the hurricane shelter. It was exactly as Nancy had described it. A ramp (handicap accessible, no doubt) slanted down to a metal covered, sturdy door. The metal door leading to the shelter was locked with one of those cheap brass locks that served only to keep honest people honest. The lock was on the outside of the door and that was good news. If someone had been inside it would be an impossible task to place the lock on the outside of the door. One heavy blow from the butt of my gun broke it. It was unusual to find a basement in Florida, the ground is too wet and too sandy in most places. The walls of the shelter seeped and slowly dripped moisture, pooling in algae covered puddles. I thought it would be bigger, Nancy had said that it was for the faculty and students. Obviously, the only way a hundred or more people could fit in here is if they stood or sat in the space. All along the walls, from the floor to the ceiling, in orderly stacks were canned and freeze dried food, water, blankets and everything else it would take for a hundred people to survive for days, if need be. I felt like I had hit the jackpot. Before I excitedly returned to Nancy, I had a good meal. Not worrying about having to ration, I ate until I was full for once.

Sunday we moved to the school grounds and its awesome facility. I had to help Nancy climb over the walls and fences we needed to keep out of sight of the ravenous dead. She's definitely a liability to me, needing constant attention. It's worth it though. The promise of the birth of a child, even in this living hell, is a thing worth protecting in my mind.

Nancy broke down and cried again upon seeing what had become of her beloved school. While I left Nancy and her swelling belly to clean up and make the shelter livable for us, I made my way back to my (and Allan's) stash of equipment and hauled them laboriously to the new hideout.

I'm taking it easy today, resting up and eating. It's like a holiday for me today, safe, secure and with a full stomach I have plenty of time to write.

### Tuesday, December 17, 2013

In the past few weeks Nancy and I have had a lot of time to talk. She actually seems to be a decent person, although she has the tendency to talk non-stop for hours. As the days passed, she became much more emotionally stable. The secure surroundings and the availability of food and water have done a lot to ease her nervous tendencies. We got to talking about the town and everything that's happened here.

After the Omni first brought an end to civilization, the survivors started to slowly make their way to the prison. The remnants of the government and military had set up an emergency base in the most secure buildings in the county, or so they thought. The prison was a perfect place to group up, thick masonry walls surrounded by high razor wire topped fences would provide real security. The sheriff's office was on the grounds with all of its radios and communication equipment, which would have helped to contact other, more distant survivors. There was food and even backup generators for when the power finally went out. It seemed like the perfect place to wait out the final demise of the undead. Nobody expected the abominations to walk the earth for this long, such a thing was only imaginable in the movies or cheap paperback novels and not in real life. Still, if it weren't for the Reds that slowly went madder and madder day by day, the prison would have been the seed for the eventual return of humanity. Once the prison fell, nobody wanted to group together in any numbers any more. The threat posed by the Reds meant that anytime more than a handful of people gathered together for mutual survival they would eventually be found out and slaughtered like pigs. The immune started calling the roving bands of scarlet covered marauders the "Red death squads", fearing them more than the horrid dead cannibals that wanted nothing more than to devour them.

When I told Nancy that while I was in Orlando I never saw one carrier who had figured out how to slow the Toxoplasmosa colony growing inside of them, she didn't believe me. She had assumed that people like them were everywhere and not just here. She even told me where they were holed up. The last of the scattered survivors in Ocala never tried to storm their fortress, considering any attack merely a suicide run. Since the overwhelming display of power they showed in destroying the former prison, no one wanted to tangle with them. They instead committed themselves to riding the storm out, hoping that eventually nature would take its normal course again, bringing a final death to both the undead and the Red death squads.

Of course, since Nancy had told me exactly where the Reds were operating from, I had to check it out. Unfortunately, I ended up only being able to view it from afar. The closer I got, the thicker the ungodly undead became. I ended up, coming within a half mile or so, having to use my binoculars from a second story window to see it. From what I saw, with its ditches and ramparts set before a high fence, it appears to be well defended. There were multitudes of corpses, trampled underfoot by the zeds that were drawn to the company of their living counterparts. Military vehicles blocked the gate and I spotted a tank set further back, barrel aimed directly at it. While I watched, I saw five separate individuals, all showing advanced signs of the disease, making their way between the buildings of the old junkyard. They had electricity, some of the exterior lights were on even during the day. I think I wisely decided to leave the hazardous area instead of trying to stay to get a better estimate of how many Reds there were. I stayed less than an hour, I was too close. I didn't have to flee but the neighborhood held to many of the vile dead for my liking.

Then, of course, I had to check out the situation at the former prison for myself. Nancy hadn't been exaggerating when she said they blew the buildings up. What she hadn't told me was the neighborhood next to it looks like it had been nuked. There was a huge crater in the center of rubble, surrounded by the charred ruins of scores of houses. There weren't that many of the walkers in the streets around the prison. I soon saw why. There was a swarm of the things, all locked on the other side of the prison gate. I could plainly see the damage that was wrought by the Abrams tank. At least one building had been reduced to a pile of junk and debris. Other buildings had huge gaping holes in them and all of those that I saw had the distinct pockmarks of large bullet strikes on them. A bare few of them were relatively untouched, if there were to be any survivors left, that's where they could be found. Getting to any one that is still among the living is the problem. Just as getting out of one of those buildings would be. There are just that many of the ghouls packed onto the expansive grounds.

Two days ago, after returning from one of my forays, I found Nancy in a state of near hysteria. There were deep, bloody and infected scratches all over her lower right leg. However nasty those deep wounds were, they were minor compared to the bite wound she had suffered. There was a good sized chunk taken from her calf. I could clearly see outline of teeth marks on the constantly weeping and bleeding wound. When I found her, she was crying again (naturally) and pouring hydrogen peroxide by the bottle over the painful wound. I helped her disinfect and bandage the ugly injury as best we could but there really is nothing I can do to help her. All we can do is wait and pray for the best. The brutalized area is swollen and pus filled with small scarlet spots appearing from her knee to her toes. Nancy complains of a fever and headaches, along with deep muscle pain. The only thing we can really do is wait for her system to fight off the parasitic infection on its own. Even though we've proven immune to the airborne eggs of the Omni, we're uncertain if such a massive injection of the eggs, along with the parasite itself, will be too much for her to overcome, especially since she's pregnant.

Our main concern is what this infection will do to the unborn child within her. The situation brings up way too many questions for me to want to ponder them for long. Neither of us knows whether this will cause a miscarriage or infect the child while it's still unborn. Not to mention the question of the baby having immunity itself. Just because the parent is immune, may or may not mean that immunity is passed on. I always harbored questions in my mind, not wanting to talk to Nancy about them, fearing that Nancy would freak out. I have no idea if when the child is finally born if it would quickly succumb to the airborne eggs and die within the first week of its life to begin with.

Nancy had been spending some of her time searching the closest houses for items for the baby. She was setting up a small nursery in a corner of the shelter in anticipation of the newborn that would arrive in four or so months from now. I made sure she carried a pair of nine millimeters with her at all times but she's a lousy shot. I have my doubts that she could hit the broad side of a barn with a howitzer. Even though I gave her the wicked sharp machete I pried from the cold, dead hands of the Red in the administrative office, she ended up having to stomp the thing to death. The abomination that attacked her was nothing more than the desiccated remains of a zed with one arm, one shoulder and head. It dragged itself silently through the bedroom carpet, she never heard it. She said she did a good check of the house first and she has no idea from where that monstrosity slithered from. I understand, sometimes the undead lie motionless, under rubble or a pile of garbage, only waking from their sleeping state once a living human walks close by. She had been so engrossed in scrounging through a dresser full of baby clothes that she only became aware of the nightmare once it clutched tightly onto her ankle. Nancy told me that even though she instinctively, forcefully, tried to kick it off of her, it's grip was like a vice, she could not shake it free. The foul, unliving thing quickly bit her and bit her deep. In a moment of horrid recognition, she thinks she actually knew this thing in life, she thinks it was the animated remains of one her former students. Even after she managed to stomp the thing to death, she had a hard time removing the zed's necrotic claw like fingers from her now swollen, clawed and profusely bleeding ankle.

Hopefully she'll fight off the infection soon, she's already running a fever. I don't want to spend the old holidays digging another grave, let alone a grave built for two.

### Friday, December 27, 2013

The winter solstice has come and gone, taking with it the worst of Nancy's infection. She still hasn't fully recovered. We have no idea if the infestation harmed the child growing inside of her, all we can do is hope and wait. Now, with the threat of the parasitic Omni past, the bite wound she suffered is the greatest threat to her life. The gaping, jagged, tooth marked hole weeps and bleeds constantly, both skin and muscle are missing. The most unfortunate thing about the wound is its location. The wound has hobbled her, being located on the lower part of her calf, just above the Achilles tendon. I found plenty of penicillin pills and other infection fighting drugs, all expired, giving her double doses to make up for their loss of strength. I don't think the drugs have any affect at all on the Omni but the pus from the oozing wound has cleared up a lot. Though I've spent a lot of time helping her, I haven't stopped my forays into the remnants of civilization.

Even though it's dangerous, I love breaking into abandoned houses and condos. Sometimes it's like Christmas, I never know what I'll find. Actually, it was Christmas morning when I came across a row of condos that I hadn't explored before. For the most part, the condos were devoid of anything useful. A few boxes of macaroni, a few cans of assorted food or a couple of desperately needed rounds of ammo is what I usually find. Besides, that is, the idiot undead that don't have the mental capacity to figure out how to operate a doorknob. I dispatch the trapped and hungering things with no problem at all now. The animated corpses of whole families have fallen to me, by sword, bayonet or the butt of my rifle. The former living inhabitant of one condo in particular held the writhing and uselessly animated cadaver of his former self. From a sturdy rope, strung from the high kitchen ceiling, swung the vile remains of the former occupant. He soon found out that even suicide provided no escape from the Omni. The table had been overturned and the chairs lay scattered. He must have been hanging there since the apocalypse because as soon as his dead eyes spotted me, his parasite controlled corpse started to furiously claw the air. It was kinda funny to me, watching as it kicked its legs trying to walk towards me, even though its feet were two feet above the floor. All the horrid thing ended up doing was spinning itself around, grasping only air with its outstretched hands as it crazily tried to grab a hold of me. Without warning, the things neck finally could no longer hold, having supported the dead weight for well over a year. With a disgusting tearing sound, the body fell away from the decomposed neck and fell limply to the floor. The things head fell from its noose, hit the floor with a solid thump and rolled a time or two, continuing to gnash and bite the air around it. Stupid things.

The zed wasn't what I wanted to write about, it was what I found inside the condo that interested me. Apparently the guy that had lived there and had hung himself in the kitchen, was a paintball enthusiast. Paintball guns, pistols and rifles, and boxes and boxes of CO2 cartridges, along with a ton of the multi-colored paint filled balls are now in my possession.

The undead don't recognize or pay any attention to the small hiss of the CO2 nor the small plop of the paintballs hitting a surface. I cleared out one of the nearby classrooms and now use it as my target practice / exercise room. I have spray painted rough targets all around the room, all at varying heights and have been practicing, with the paintball pistols, my quick draw and targeting for headshots while moving. I've been burning off a lot of calories, spinning, jumping around and practicing my aim. I know the toy paintball guns are nothing like real weapons, but the aiming and training of my reflexes are what's important.

Nancy silently watched me as I went through one of my exercise routines and said I looked like some kind of whirling dervish. I laughed at the comment and then showed her how she could practice her aiming, which is terrible, without having to actually fire off live rounds and draw the unwanted attention of the undead. Maybe if she keeps practicing she'll be of some use one day.

I'm going to give Allan another month to show up, then I'm sorry to say I'm not going to waste any more of my time waiting for him. There's no telling what became of him.

This entry is short, but that's a good thing in this case. Looking back at some of my earlier entries I see a correspondence between the length of the entries and the danger I was in. I don't want to jinx myself, but things are better than they have been for awhile (at least for me). If the wretched dead would just lie down and die like they're supposed to, things would be a lot better.

### Friday, January 3, 2014

Allan showed up today, finally returning to the fallen safehouse. I got there too late. One of the "Red death squads" got to him first. I'm pretty sure I got revenge on three of his killers, hopefully I put a bullet or two in the fourth one. I keep thinking that I should have gotten there earlier, if I had, he might still be alive now. I spent the rest of the afternoon burying him.

Amazingly, he was carrying two journals with him. He had started his own journal after we became separated, in addition to having found my old one. I placed one final entry into Allan's journal, describing how he died. In the next few days I'm going to read through his scrawling writing, I feel compelled to know what happened to him.

It's been a horrible day. I'm exhausted, both physically and mentally. I don't have the energy or the will to give an account of the encounter. It's enough that I wrote it down in Allan's journal. If it's the last thing I do, I will exterminate every last one of those insane carriers that have been terrorizing central Florida.

Nancy knew right away that something was wrong when I arrived back to the shelter. When I told her what had happened, all she could say was a meek, "I'm sorry." That's exactly how I feel. Sorry.

### Tuesday, January 14, 2014

I've been feeling slightly aggravated and more than a bit restless for the last couple of days, so I decided to expend some of my frustrations out on the undead. I knew just the place where I could kill as many as my angry heart desired. The prison. I crafted a homemade spear out of a long, thin piercing knife, a few bolts and a sturdy, solid hardwood, old shovel handle. It worked well, being easily thrust through the holes in the high chain link fence. I started at the main gate, I had never been so close to so many of the monsters before. There is easily a couple of thousand of the beasts trapped within the grounds. When I approached the gate, the zeds quickly spotted me and for a second I thought the crushing mass of the undead would surely, quickly, break down the gate. I was prepared to run at any time, fearing the lock or chain might give way under all that weight. There are two sets of fences, both topped with razor wire and both are at least twelve feet tall. A concrete path of ten feet separate the two, allowing the guards to be able to walk the perimeter and not have to worry about being assaulted by their charges. There were also two gates, with the outside one being held shut by a lock and chain with the second, inside, gate still retracted into its open position. The undead hadn't gotten inside the corridor between the fences, the only place I could reach them with my spear was at the gate. The outer gate bowed and strained with the weight of the hungering zeds upon it, so I climbed the outer fence and jumped down into the safe area between the fences. The fence still bowed and flexed with the masses straining to get to me but it was nothing like how the gate itself reacted. I made three circuits of the prison, stabbing and giving a final rest to hundreds of the undead along the way. I didn't stop until the spear broke, the blade snapping like a twig in one of the creature's eye sockets. When I was done my arms hurt and ached from the strenuous labor. Most of the day had disappeared by the time I was finished, the sun well past its zenith. However efficient my killing method was, it would take me days to stab them all back into the arms of true death where they belonged. So the next day I tried something different.

I took a box of flares and the old shovel handle with me when I returned. The undead are clumsy, in addition to being stupid, they constantly trip over the corpses of their kin. All of the zeds whose brains I had scrambled the day before had collapsed at the base of the fence, causing the still walking dead to fall over them. There were so many, they crushed and trampled each other in their eagerness to devour me. As they strained to reach me, over each other, over their dead again kin, and against the fence I lit them on fire. I tied a flare to the end of the handle and again walked the circuit of the fence. When a flare sputtered out I tied another one on it. The walking dead don't really understand fire, they don't even flinch as their clothes and hair start to burn. With the crush of the things and their sheer numbers, when one started burning its neighbors also started to burn. Within one full circuit, the dead that had been packed so densely inside the prison grounds became tinder in an inferno. After that one round the smoke and smell of blazing, putrid flesh forced me, choking, to leave the area.

A great, greasy, black, stinking cloud formed above the prison as the undead burned by the thousands. I watched the show from a rooftop, noticing with a wrinkled nose how the smell of that burnt flesh stuck to me and my clothes.

Even after I had rummaged through a couple of houses and found new clothes to replace my nasty and foul smelling old ones and taken a quick soapy wash with a couple of gallons of found water, the conflagration still burned.

They burned all night and well into the next afternoon. Most of the abominations roasted themselves in the fire, the unheard call of nearby food drew most of the hungering things together. Only a few handfuls never got close enough to burn themselves, although quite a few of those still standing had scorched and singed hair, skin and clothes. There was a pile of smoldering cadavers, blackened and charred, along the whole length of the interior fence with the greatest mass of undead having burned to cinders where they had last seen me. I had worried that the last of the buildings still standing would have caught fire, roasting any survivors alive but they were fine. In fact, I had thought that once so many of the undead had been eliminated, any survivors would have tried to finish off the last of the horrors and regain their freedom. The fact that nobody rushed out and fought off the last of the undead makes me think there are no survivors.

The ever present crows were thick around the steaming and still smoldering corpses, other birds of prey circled lazily over the great feast laid out before them. The smell of the roasted and blackened meat drew the attention of other predators, in the near distance I heard the excited barking and baying of dogs.

There was also a much larger number of the undead in the area surrounding the prison. For whatever reason, the number of the wandering dead seemed to triple overnight.

I brought a bolt cutter with me this time. As I walked the outer fence line, making my way towards the main gate, I tried to take stock of just how many of the diabolic cadavers were left. There didn't appear to be any number I couldn't handle, so after checking my weapons I cut the lock.

As soon as the jaws of the bolt cutters bit through the hardened steel shank of the lock, the fence popped open, propelled by the weight of the undead that had died leaning against it. A great flock of birds flew up, cawing harshly at this interruption to their meal. I have to admit, I paused before trying to step through, over and around all of those badly burned corpses. It was slippery, forcing me to go slowly, as the charred flesh slipped off bones wherever I stepped. The first of the stragglers that hadn't joined the unholy inferno reached me as I was just about to exit the field of cooked and reeking bodies. The parasite ruled corpse couldn't negotiate the obstacle course of the dead either, quickly tripping and having to proceed on all fours. I split open his head, easily adding his corpse to the pile. I thought it would be so easy to wait for them to come to me. Once the clumsy things hit the pile, they would surely fall to my sword.

And it worked that way, for about fifteen minutes. Then a huge mass of the undead was appearing from around one of the buildings. I don't know where they came from but I hadn't seen or counted them. As they drew closer, my sword swung almost ceaselessly as I killed off the small groups of the more spread out zeds that I had expected. I knew that even with the obstacle course that their numbers would quickly overwhelm me. I started making my way back through the limbs and torsos, having to stop and take care of those zeds that were clawing and crawling their way too close to me. I heard the herd hit the speed bump of human corpses, the sounds of them falling one on top of the other was unmistakable. I turned around to look, they were like a wave of clawing, grasping arms and teeth, quickly seething towards me over a beach of roasted human carcasses. The cadavers shifted under me, causing me to stumble. I almost puked as I struggled to get back upright but the old blood and pieces of burnt flesh under my feet wouldn't let me stand. So I crawled through the dead as more undead mimicked me. Either the undead were better negotiators of the disgusting speed bumps of human meat or I was too slow, when I finally climbed out the undead were right behind me. I swung my sword a few times wondering if I would actually have to resort to gunfire.

When my sword slipped on the muck and mire of death, that now covered most of me, flying off into the air behind me, I drew and started firing. I have seriously started to miss not firing lead into the faces of the undead, always having to worry about whether or not the menaces would hear me. Let every idiot undead thing come for a mile around I thought. I'll kill the unnatural, unholy beasts by the dozens and lead them over to the junkyard ruled by the Reds. There was already the largest herd I have ever seen hanging around the Reds property, a few more won't matter. Besides, since the undead are attracted to the scarlet carriers in such numbers, it leaves the rest of the city that less populated by the things. Even though I know carriers can go right through their midst without a care of being devoured, the things are almost packed shoulder to shoulder in places. If they go around on foot they'll have to shove their way for a block in any direction before they gets clear of the main mass. If they transit by vehicle then I'm going to add more undead to get in their way. I kept well in sight of them and let them chase me right down the streets. I was managing my ammo well, everything was going as I planned. Though I had recovered the sword, the handle was still too slick for a good grip. When the time came to use a blade again I relied on the bayonet instead.

I came around one corner, no more than halfway to the Red's lair, and stood staring unbelievably as that large horde, formerly in residence in front of the junkyard, was a hundred yards down the street.

I barely had time to wonder if the undead were following the scarlet ones when I heard and saw the muzzle blast of someone taking a shot at me. The bullet missed by a good foot to the left, whirring angrily in the humid air. The slug had been fired from at least a half a mile away, if not more. Not wanting to give the shooter another chance at me, I fled.

Two more shots rang out as I jumped fences and ran through neighborhoods. After about three blocks, running basically blind, I paused and peeked around the corner of a house, peering back the way I came. I was too intent on not become the victim of a protracted hunt than I was of the undead. All of my senses were concentrating on the dangers behind me, when dead fingers clasped me, sinking their blackened and broken nails into my arm. I was taken completely by surprise. As the fetid and rancid smell of the foul thing's breath assailed me, it pinned my right arm and was quickly rushing in to bite me with its rotted, chipped and stained teeth. Before I could grab and draw the handgun in my left-side hip holster, as my right arm was in the solid grip of the dead, a ball of snarling red hair tore the zed from its hold on me. With a forceful thud, the two slammed to the ground, the huge, hairy dog on top of the thing's back. With one quick and powerful shake, the German Shepherd snapped the monstrosity's neck, ending its struggles.

It was Laelaps, the dog I had written of before. She came out of nowhere to save me and when she had, all she wanted to do was get some pets and attention from me. I gave her some of the beef jerky I had scrounged, Laelaps devoured what was left of it gladly. She's actually a very nice and well behaved dog, somebody had trained her well. Since I gave her the jerky she's been following me. I think Laelaps has adopted me. Hope she gets along with Nancy, hope she likes having her ear talked off one minute only to have to listen to sobs the next. At least Nancy's hormones haven't been making her angry. I made no promises to Laelaps, she would be free to stay with me or return to her pack anytime she wanted.

I ran and continued traveling, purposely going further and further from town and our shelter, wanting to lead any unwelcome followers as far away from home as possible. After going five or six miles I changed my course and started haphazardly making my way back to my new home. Night had fallen by the time I returned.

Nancy and the new girl seem to get along fine. Laelaps likes the company, easily getting Nancy to pet her, while Nancy, I think, likes the thought of something else to protect her and the child yet within her. I'm not familiar with the dog's name, I haven't heard it before. Maybe one day soon, all of this will be over and I'll have a chance to look it up.

### Friday, January 17, 2014

Laelaps seems to have a dislike of being in a closed room. She slept in the shelter with Nancy and me the first night but I could tell she was nervous as soon as we shut the door to the outside world. The following morning she was waiting eagerly at the door, bolting outside as soon as it opened. Any time Nancy or I shut the door and she's inside she immediately whines to be let out. I don't know what kind of trauma the dog experienced before I found her (or she found me), but she certainly hates enclosed spaces. I found it easier to set her food and water dishes in the maintenance room, out of sight of the entrance, instead of letting her in and out all the time. She prefers to stay amongst the old boilers and equipment, one of the windows is smashed out and she agilely jumps through it. I think she likes to have a way out just in case too much crap hits the fan, much like I do.

I waited a couple of days before I went back to the prison. If the Reds that locked all those monstrosities in there, after laying waste to the place, have been paying any attention at all, then they know I was the one that cleared the facility. If they were waiting for me to return, I want them to get bored and lax. Besides, I had to locate some new tools first. Specifically, I had to find some good snips to cut a back entrance through the fences and some high temperature flares to burn through the locks of the prison doors.

Laelaps chased after me the whole way, occasionally stopping to play with one of the undead. She would charge one, knocking it over and then when it would try to get unstably to its feet, she would knock it down again. The energetic dog would continue this, tail wagging fiercely until she tired of the game, sinking her teeth deep into the things neck and snapping its spine.

When I was cutting the fence, entering opposite the gate, I wasn't concerned with the fence being secure anymore. There was no way I was going to try and live in the prison, it was watched far too closely by the Reds. I was only interested in finding other immune survivors or seeing what I could scrounge.

All the doors on the building nearest my hole in the fence were locked, so I thought I might as well start my explorations with the closest building first. I lit the flare, the flame burned bright and hot. After a few minutes of heat, the lock glowed red hot and then the handle itself warped. One hard blow from the hilt of my sword broke the handle off, taking with it the melting lock. Then I simply jammed my sword blade into the smoking hole and turned. Old paint smoked and burned as parts of the lock broke free and granted me entrance.

Once inside, the atmosphere changed dramatically. Old musty air, laden with the stink of death and human refuse clogged my nostrils. Even though the sun was shining outside, it was dark inside the building. Small windows, laced with security wire, let in barely enough light to see by.

Some of the doors gave me trouble, a few required some extended cutting with my crude torch and wouldn't open until kicked and smashed with swift kicks and the butt of my weapon.

It was while busting down an interior door that there came to me the faint sounds of someone pounding and shouting at me, trying desperately to get my notice. Somebody was still alive inside and I doubled my efforts to make my way deeper into the interior.

I came to the center of the huge cell block and there, pounding and yelling on the glass of a central community room, was a wild eyed and overly excited middle aged man. Tables and chairs, bolted securely to the floor, were staged symmetrically around the room surrounded by rows of cells.

I know he was happy to see someone finally rescue him. For being locked up for such a long time he looked healthy. He had obviously been eating, although he appeared a tad under weight. What he had been eating I didn't find out until later. As soon as I broke down the door he tried to happily hug me, almost seeming depressed when I aimed my rifle at him to keep him at a distance. He was talking fast and slightly crazed, wanting only to get outside to freedom as quickly as he could. Laelaps didn't care too much for him though, she snarled at him, blocking the door, refusing to let him pass.

With Laelaps guarding the door I told the guy that I had no idea who he was and he wouldn't be getting out of here until I did a check of the rest of the cells. He didn't like that at all, he kept telling me that there no other people in here there with him, that he was all alone. I wanted to make sure of that myself and the further I got into the cell block the more the distinct smell of death invaded my nose. A couple of the middle cells held the remnants of food stores, empty cans and boxes lay stacked along the walls and covered the floor. There was a lot of trash but not enough in my mind to keep someone feed for a year in isolation. The guy was saying how he just wanted to leave and was asking me a ton of questions, more and more frantically, with each step I took. By the time I reached the last of the cells, I could see old, dried blood that had seeped from the cell. It was then that the guy tried to run past my loyal but hairy friend, stopping in his tracks once I let off a warning shot past his head. He was quiet then, with tears welling up in his eyes.

In the cell, were old and not so old bones. Crudely cut and tooth gnawed bones of three other people were in there. It was obvious what the man had gone through to survive in here. The trapped survivors, facing starvation, killed and ate each other.

There was no hiding now what had happened, the distraught man cried and pleaded for forgiveness from me, breaking down into a mewling child, fearing I would shoot him on the spot. I told him that I don't know what he had to do to survive, that I was not going to judge him or execute him but that he wasn't welcome to come with me. He was on his own and could leave just as soon as he stripped and proved to me he wasn't infected.

Once he had my assurances that I wasn't going to kill him he quickly complied with what I wanted. All the time telling me his version of what had brought him to this state and all the time me telling him I didn't want to hear it.

As soon as I called Laelaps to me the man fled. I followed, wanting to make sure the man would go and not try and stay with me. There was only one way out, the way I came. The man, although he ran and rushed to every door in his haste to escape, was easy to keep up with at a leisurely walk. He didn't know his way around very well, it took him a few minutes to figure out the path of destroyed doors I had created. At last he found the exterior door, and as he said his last gratitude's to me for letting him free, he joyfully ran outside.

I think he got three paces before he was shot up. I heard the automatic fire and saw the poor man fall dead, his body twitching a few times, through the rectangular security window set high along the cement block wall. I also saw the shooter, and as soon as I recognized the scarlet upon him I also recognized he was leveling a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) in my direction. So I ran, Laelaps on my heels, back through the complex as explosions rocked the building behind me.

After a few explosions there came a silence and I knew I was being hunted. Laelaps ears pricked up as I hurriedly, quietly as I could, burned through more locks to escape the building.

I never saw that Red again, nor any other, as I ran back through the hole I had cut through the fence. The prison was still being closely watched, whatever animosity the Red squad has against those locked inside goes far beyond any normal hatred.

As for the man, whose name I never really caught, all I can think is that at least he didn't die in that place, like his companions did. I don't hate him for what he did to live. I don't respect it either. I don't believe I would have resorted to cannibalism in the same situation. Neither do I want to find out if I would have if it were me instead of him trapped inside that prison. May the gods have mercy on his soul.

Later on that night, just as dusk started to fall, the distinct sound of tank fire came from the prison grounds. Shell after shell exploded in the distance and after a time, a glow appeared upon the horizon as the former prison was ground into dust and ash.

Safe for now, I climbed onto the roof of some nameless business and watched through binoculars the deadly flashes of the exploding munitions. At times the explosions were brilliant and expansive, it was almost like watching fireworks on the fourth of July. The destruction continued on into the night and I left it behind me as I made my way back home. Nancy was fidgety and slightly nervous as I closed off the solid door, blocking off the last of the disturbing noise.

### Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I realize it's been weeks since my last entry. To tell the truth, except for what I witnessed today, there has been little to report.

I have been keeping a low profile, never venturing far from the shelter. At the moment, there really isn't any reason to go exploring very far. We have everything we need, even the dog seems content. Besides, after drawing the notice of the Reds at the prison, I didn't want to risk being spotted again. The last thing I want is to be responsible for leading the insane carriers to Nancy.

I did make my way back towards the prison area, my curiosity made me go and see what had happened there. I kept my distance though, viewing the grounds from rooftop. There is nothing left of the buildings at all. Nothing but broken rubble. If I hadn't known there was a prison complex there to begin with, I wouldn't have known it had existed at all. The Reds seriously wiped it off the face of the earth.

As long as I'm writing of the infected ones, I should write how they've been weirdly absent since the fireworks at the former prison. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them, which isn't a bad thing, it's just odd. I used to see them cruising the city every couple of days as they hunted for supplies and survivors. Their absence is unusual.

I saw a mother black bear and two cubs wandering the streets of the city almost a week ago. I've spotted them every couple of days, maintaining a healthy distance. My first instinct was to shoot, the thought of putting some meat in my belly made my mouth water. Instead I watched her and the cubs, enjoying looking at something other than the foul undead. The cubs need their mother and even if I did kill her for the dinner table, there would be more meat than I and Nancy could eat before the vast majority of it went bad. I think nature is starting to recover, however slowly.

Over the past week or so, I had been noticing the occasional corpses of the walking dead lying scattered here and there. That's not unusual, the fact that they seemed to have no head wounds on them is. I was unable to figure out how they were killed, it was a mystery to me until today.

No more than a hundred feet away from me, as I scanned boredly from the second floor window of one of the houses near the school, I watched as a zed came to a shuffling halt. When the thing went into convulsions I was surprised, I had never seen anything like it before. For a couple of minutes, at least, it barely kept its balance. Then all at once it collapsed in a shaking and jerking heap, flopping around like an undead fish out of water until it suddenly stopped. Hours later, it still hadn't moved again, lying like an old discarded ragdoll.

I'm sure by now anyone reading this knows I had to check out the prone body of the zed. Cautiously I approached it, thinking maybe that it had simply shut down and gone into one of those comatose states that the undead sometimes enter. It didn't twitch once when I was near it, it didn't even react when I stabbed it with my bayonet or when I kicked it hard enough to snap a few of its ribs. It was dead. The undead are finally starting to collapse! After a year and a half the walking dead are finally starting to collapse! Even if only a handful of them die every day from now on, it still means this is the beginning of the end for them. Finally. Thank the Gods.

### Saturday, March 8, 2014

Nancy is going into her seventh month of pregnancy and it shows. Between the hobbling bite wound she suffered and the swelling of her belly, she's almost helpless. Both of us are scared and anxious about the upcoming birth. Sure, having a child is always a nerve wracking thing, even in the best of times. This is not the best of times though. There is no guarantee that the child will even be born as a member of the living. I would rather the child is miscarried than see it join the world as one of the undead. Neither of us have any idea if the infection Nancy barely survived had any negative effect on the fetus that was growing inside of her. Not to mention the question of immunity. Just because the parents were immune to the single celled plague does not mean the child will also be. I guess we'll find out. It would break my heart if the newborn starts to show the allergic reaction to the parasite's tiny eggs soon after its birth. The allergy like response of susceptible people's systems is a precursor to the skin breaking out in the red, measles like scarlet spots that guarantee death (or worse) within a week. If that happens I don't know how Nancy is going to fare. Honestly, with her mental state, even though she is trying to maintain a positive outlook, I think she'll commit suicide. I am not looking forward to being a midwife under these circumstances.

In spite of our fears we have set up a corner of the room as a nursery, well stocked with tons of baby food, formula, clothes, toys and anything else the baby could ever need or want. Seeing the great piles and stacks of stuff waiting for the baby, along with Nancy's constant talking to the child within her, makes me think that if the child does survive, it's going to be one of the most spoiled children in all of human history.

Laelaps is a good dog, I'm glad she found me. Any undead beast that sets foot on the school property soon finds itself knocked down, roughly handled and toyed with before going to its final rest. I always know when she's been "playing". Her breath will be foul, stinking with the nasty odor of the undead. Thank the gods for dog biscuits, without something to clean up her breath after her escapades I wouldn't be able to stand her for long.

I haven't been writing about the weather much, I've either had something else I wanted to say or I forgot about it. The weather patterns have definitely changed. I don't know what the weather is like anywhere else but here in central Florida it's violent. The seemingly year long drought broke sometime in December, pouring down an almost solid wall of water. The downpour lasted for days and when it stopped again, it stopped for weeks with nary a single drop falling from the heavens. When it did return, it brought deadly lightning storms and high winds with it. Not normal lightning strikes. Great booming flashes of light burn through the sky over and over again. The hour's long assault of the sky against the earth is unlike anything I have ever witnessed before. It's like Zeus is in a maddened rage, trying to destroy everything on earth with his lightning. Then it just stops. The sudden silence, with its abrupt and complete appearance, is almost as deafening as the bolts were. Then, once again, it is dry for weeks until the cycle starts anew. It used to be a joke in the Orlando area that you can tell what time it is by the rains, they always went off like clockwork, raining at least once a day, usually around four o'clock. Now I should count myself lucky if I see any raindrops every couple of weeks.

I had thought I'd seen it all by now but I guess I was wrong. The madness that swept the globe caused a lot of odd behavior, that's for sure. While I was scrounging around in one of the older houses in the neighborhood I came across something that would have been a dream come true. Would have been, that is, before the world went to Hades. It wasn't the hungering dead I found in the house, there was nothing unusual in that. It was the room I found him in. It was packed full of money. Bills of every denomination, ones, fives, tens and hundreds lay knee deep in the room. There was so much money in that room it was hard to move around in it. There was a fortune in there, there was more money than I could, or wanted, to count. I don't know where all that money came from, obviously the lone zed I killed had gathered it in his insanity and died with what he desired the most. All the millions he had stolen were worthless to him once the parasite resurrected him, not a penny of it would help him. Money is completely valueless now. I felt a pang of greed, seeing all of those bills. My first thought was to pack as much of it as I could into my pockets and keep it for myself, then I wondered why. The world was ruled by money before the apocalypse, now it's only real use is for tinder. The worth of money was always an imaginary thing, its value determined by the seekers greed. Now it is again what it always really was to begin with. All of that former wealth is little more than small pieces of printed paper now, not even big enough to properly wipe my ass with. I just had to write the find down, I haven't seen anything like it in my life.

The undead are dropping, more of them collapse every day. I estimate about a quarter of the vile creatures have gone to their final rest. From what I have seen of the dead again things, the ones that have been convulsing and dying are the ones that haven't eaten. There is no caked and dried blood around their mouths, nor is there any old, rotted flesh in their stomachs (I know this because I cut a number of them open, seeking answers). I fully expect that at this rate, within a month, the only zeds that will still be walking around will be the more dangerous, quicker ones that have feasted. All of the disgusting, unburied corpses have caused a huge boom in the insect population. Specifically the cockroaches. The roaches have always been thick in numbers here in humid Florida, now they're out of control. There are species that range from the very small, to the huge, hand sized palmetto bugs and all of them enjoy snacking on the putrid cadavers. Some crawl around and some fly, but I hate all of them. The roaches love the feast laid before them, eagerly eating and breeding uncontrollably. It's almost like some revolting biblical plague, they're everywhere.

I'm getting restless now, anticipating the coming end of the abominations. Soon this madness will be over and we can get back to our lives.

### Friday, May 17, 2014

Nancy gave birth today to a healthy baby girl. Ten fingers and ten toes with no sign of infection. The mewling infant still isn't out of the danger zone when it comes to the Omni. It's hard to tell if the child is suffering from any symptoms, as young as she is. The parasitic eggs take about a month to incubate in their human host, so we won't truly know until then. After a full month then the death knell of scarlet spots will start to show if she's infected.

Nancy's raven dark hair started showing long strands of grey from all of the stress in the past few weeks. Where once Nancy had isolated grey hairs, she now shows patches of it. Now Nancy sports a skunk like stripe of grey on the left side of her head. I swear it appeared overnight. She lost her first boy to the parasite and she's absolutely terrified that the same thing will happen to her girl. She named the child Candice after her mother.

Needless to say I was scared senseless helping deliver the child. It's one thing to bash and chop up the living dead or a carrier, spraying congealed blood and brains around. It's another thing entirely to see the blood and fluids that come out of a person during birth. I was so keyed up and nervous that I, at times, felt nauseous and lightheaded. Nancy talked me through it. I felt almost helpless, staring slack-jawed as Nancy grunted and strained, sweat pouring off of her. Nancy did most of the work, directing me to assist her in doing those things that she couldn't. The miracle of birth is one messy affair, to say the least. Even Laelaps watched, quietly whining in anxiety during the ordeal. Thankfully, Nancy told me the first time was much more difficult and painful for her. This birth was a walk in the park compared to the five hours of labor she went through with her boy.

Both mother and child are sleeping peacefully now, giving me time to clean up and write before I too lie down for the night.

For such a little thing, Candi has some lungs on her. When she cries it's so loud I worry if the hungering dead can hear her. We have to keep the sturdy shelter door shut when she bawls, otherwise the infant can be clearly heard for some distance. Even with the shelter door tightly shut the cries can still be heard, but very minutely. The world is dead quiet (no pun intended), sound travels much further than before without all the noise created by our former modern society. I hope and pray that Candi turns out to be a quiet child, I don't want to be surrounded by a herd of the dead again.

As long as I'm writing of the undead, I think around seventy-five percent of the horrid and vile things have collapsed. Those that remain are the more deadly, faster ones that have fed on human flesh. I have no idea how long a meal will extend their unholy existences, only time will tell. All the zeds that remain wander around in packs. Whatever parasitic "hive-mind" they share seems to be a notch above their now extinct brethrens, although they are all still as dumb as rocks and just as clumsy. I can move around the ruins of the city a little easier now, but it's still dangerous. The air is once again tainted with the smell of rotting corpses, forcing me to wear a bandanna soaked in perfume to keep me from gagging at the overwhelming stench.

I came across another promising sign that nature is starting to bounce back from the near extinction event. I saw a mouse, something that I hadn't seen since the Rat-Death swept the globe. The small creature was munching on one of the 'roaches that have breeding uncontrollably after feasting on the once again lifeless bodies that are strewn and scattered all over the place. Maybe in another year or two, things will be back to normal in the animal kingdom. I can only wish and wait.

### Friday, June 20, 2014

Little Candice is past the danger zone, she shows none of the signs of infection. I'm so relieved, now the baby will at least have a chance at life. While Candi hasn't turned out to be the quietest of infants, she's not colicky or constantly whining. Her cries only draw the attention of the undead when they get too close to our shelter to begin with.

When the undead do arrive, it's usually in the dead of night. Only two small groups of the more nimble walking dead have been attracted to the maintenance building. Both groups wandered in during the middle of the night, getting too close to the shelter while we slept. Only after Candi woke up and started crying did the ghouls know anyone was here. Abruptly hearing the sound of the baby's cries the undead rush towards the building, beating on the walls with that oblivious pounding they do, damaging themselves more than the study doors. Still, it's startling, being awakened in the pitch blackness from an unknown number of dead cannibals trying to get inside, Candi's cries in my ears. I end up having to climb out the window in the maintenance room, the one that Laelaps uses, and doing some moonlight archery practice. Laelaps is good watchdog, she's always out there before I am, harassing and distracting the undead. The numbers of the undead aren't nearly as high as they used to be. Neither group of necro-monstrosities totaled more than a dozen, I easily kept my distance and controlled the undead threat with minimal threat to my safety. The hardest thing about killing the zeds is dragging their diseased and stinking carcasses away from our home.

This brings to mind Candi's diapers. I am almost amazed at how much comes out of her. I make a trip everyday just to dispose of the smelly things, tossing them in the pile with the undead I had to drag off. I guess it's a healthy sign. I hadn't changed diapers since Lucy was an infant, the first couple of times I changed Candi it reminded me of my little sister. I miss her.

Nancy has started some new gardens, nearby but hidden out of easy sight. We take turns watching over the babe. Nancy's glad to have some free time, I always make sure the property is cleared before she goes out. Nancy's hobbling injury makes it hard for her to outrun the dead if she gets cornered. Since she also doesn't fight for crap, I make her take a shotgun with her. The blast of the weapon would bring me running and serve as an alarm. Even if the shotgun is aimed badly, all she has to do is aim for the chest and that will knock the thing chasing her flat on its back so she can get away. Drawing the attention of any nearby undead is secondary to her safety. Laelaps and I can deal with a good number of attackers, I assured her.

### Saturday, June 21, 2014

I had just gotten used to the new routine Nancy and I shared when it was all shattered once more. I was out scavenging some propane for our stove, Laelaps by my side, when I spotted that black electric car. It was almost silent, speeding away from the direction of the school where we were shacked up. The only sound the car made was the crunching of bones as the driver carelessly drove over the corpses in his path. I hadn't thought about the Reds for weeks, thinking their absence meant they had died. I got a bad feeling immediately and I ran as fast as I could to the shelter.

Both Nancy and the baby were gone. There was still a flame burning on the propane stove, pot of water knocked over, spilling and shattering the bottle of formula that had been warming up in it. Fresh blood pooled on the floor near the stove. Thin streaks of red led up the stairs, leading out of the shelter into the maintenance room above where Nancy's body had more than likely been drug. I didn't know if Nancy was still alive but there was no blood spatter near the crib. I had no idea if either would be breathing by the time I could reach the junkyard. I was out the door and running after only a few moments, grabbing my preassembled pack of ammo and weapons.

The junkyard is ten miles from the shelter. I ran non-stop, Laelaps following, getting more and more anxious with every detour I was forced to take. It still took me two hours to reach the compound, two long hours that speed by way too fast. When I reached the gates of the Red's domain, I had to stop. Not only did I need to catch my breath before I rushed in, I needed to figure out a way to deal with or distract the undead that were still drawn to the dilapidated junkyard. Though the numbers of the wandering, hungering dead were greatly reduced, there was still way too many of them for me to simply shoot my way past them, as if that wouldn't have alerted the insane occupants to my presence. I had to find another way.

I already knew the sound of human voices would draw the beast's unwanted attention and so would music. I quickly found an old boom box and after checking that the batteries still held enough charge to play the CD within it, I ran down the street from the Reds and turned it on. Eagle-Eye Cherry came booming out of the speakers. 'Save Tonight' blared out, quickly causing the undead to turn, enmass, and start making their stumbling way towards the stereo.

With the concert for the dead playing, I made my way as fast as I could to a cleared area of fence line. I had to go over and through trenches filled with innumerable bodies before I reached the fence, barely noticing the gore and smell in my frantic haste. It was only after I had scaled the razor wire topped fence that I realized Laelaps couldn't follow me. She stood on the other side and whined at me desperately in her desire to follow. Though I would have preferred her to be with me, I shushed her and crept through the rusting hulks of abandoned autos, seeking an entrance into the main building.

The next thing I felt was a powerful wall of force that slammed me into the rusting hulk of a pickup truck. Then I was out like a light, completely unconscious. I don't believe anyone had spotted me creeping through their lair, instead I think I hit a well prepared and concealed trap. As it was, I was lucky to even wake up, the grenade was meant to kill, I'm sure.

The first thing I remember when I woke up was a searing pain in my right thigh. The second thing I noticed, fighting to regain my senses, was that I couldn't move my hands to check my leg and I was being dragged, naked, by my feet.

I had been stripped and hogtied, bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds, while being roughly dragged through the dirt. My mouth hadn't been gagged though so I screamed out in pain, fear and anger at my captor. He was completely taken by the parasite, and I was shocked when he turned his head and spoke. It wasn't the words he said that terrified me the most about him. When I saw him from behind, as he dragged me towards the main building, he had long, dirty black hair. When he turned and faced me, I saw the filthy, unwashed locks weren't his. He wasn't wearing a wig either. What he was wearing was a full mask of some unfortunate victim's face. The lips, eyelids and nostrils had been cut out, with the whole of the scalp still attached. There was dried blood still crusted on it, highlighting the jagged cut around the hairline.

"You're going to beg for unconsciousness again little girl, your screams now are nothing compared the way you'll scream soon.", then he laughed at me, a sick and twisted sound that sent a cold chill through me.

Every jolt over every bump in the ground sent another wave of pain through me. I could feel the sharp fragments of the shrapnel within me shifting and doing more injury with every step I was dragged. I thought I was dead. The only question in my mind was how long it would take for me to die. Struggling to free myself from the restraints proved futile, they weren't shoddy or handmade.

As he dragged me to what would surely be my place of death, he started humming something. When I recognized the tune he was so happily humming, it sent a shiver through me. He was jauntily humming 'I'm walking on sunshine'. I don't recall who sang it but if I find them I'm going to put my foot all up in their asses.

Just as I was about to resign myself to a violent death, Laelaps came running full speed. Her teeth were bared, a deep growling issuing from her throat. With every step, dirt flew from her paws and fur. She must have dug under the fence somewhere and squeezed herself through. Before the carrier could react, Laelaps was on him. The savagery of her attack astounded me. Once she pounced she laid him out flat on his back. Over and over she bit him, tearing and shaking his arms when they got in the way of where she wanted to bite him, his neck. I did the only thing I could to help her kill him. I wrapped the steel cable that was binding my hands to my feet around his neck and squeezed with all my strength. The exertion caused fresh blood to flow from my wounds in a burst of new pain. While Laelaps mauled him, snapping off the fingers on his left hand as he feebly tried to block her sharp fangs, I did my best to strangle him. Finally, he reached up with his right hand and stuck his fingers in my wounds, digging into them, making them howl in pain. I almost lost my grip when he did that, the blood from both of us adding a slippery element to my tenuous grasp on him. After what seemed an eternity he lost consciousness but I kept strangling him anyways. I wanted to make sure he was dead and not playing possum. When Laelaps finally stopped her fierce tearing at him, sitting down and panting profusely, I knew he was truly dead.

The only thing the carrier was wearing was a dirty pair of khaki shorts and there, around one of the belt loops, was a huge set of keys. It took me a lot of tries to find the correct key to unlock my restraints. All the blood made me drop them more than once, forcing me to calm myself. I needed to get my weapons back before more of them showed up. Once unlocked and free again I quickly followed my path back to where the booby-trap had gone off. My weapons were all there, scattered in the dirt alongside my clothes. The weapons were still loaded and ready to rock, having been tossed aside to disarm me. My clothes were useless, having been quickly cut and torn from my body. I must have looked insane then, wandering around naked, covered in blood, carrying enough weapons to fight a war. It might be a good thing to go native in this madhouse, it might give me the edge if they thought I was one of the infected also. If not then maybe they would stare in momentary shock and lust as a naked teenage girl shot them in the face.

On my way back to the entry way the mad Red had been dragging me to, I stopped and stabbed my bayonet, repeatedly, through the dead man's skull. That was one corpse that wouldn't ever rise again. I made sure of that.

I had become paranoid that I would come across more traps once I entered the foul abode. Laelaps didn't care, she immediately took point as soon as I opened the door. I was completely keyed up and ready for anything. At least I thought I was. The interior of the building was a living nightmare. Trash, rotted food, feces, bones and maggoty meat of unknown animals was piled knee deep all through graffitied and blood smeared rooms.

Amidst stacks, cases and piles of looted supplies came the distinct sound of a generator running in the background. I had no desire to explore the hell hole, all I wanted to do was find Nancy and the baby and then get out. I had no idea how many of the Reds were around, I didn't care to find out.

It didn't take Laelaps long to find her first enemy. With her tail furiously wagging she quickly charged and took down a walker, knocking it off balance easily. In a bare moment I was right behind her, slashing the horrid things skull in half, letting its corrupt brains slide out on the dirty floor.

When I found a fresh blood trail I knew I was getting close. I followed the spatter and had to momentarily stop when I came to a makeshift kitchen. The whole room, from the floor to the ceiling was covered in blood and gore. There were so many flies and maggots in the room, buzzing and crawling through the area that I could barely see. The stench was overwhelming, decayed bones, fingers and assorted pieces of flesh mixed their odors and my flesh crawled with every squishing step of my bare feet. Huge ovens and stew pots held fetid and rancid contents that had boiled over long ago and had never been cleaned up. As happy as I was to leave that room of horrors, it led to what I could only call a meeting hall. A single long table, once a very expensive and grand centerpiece, was surrounded by a motley confusion of miscellaneous chairs. There must be some fascination with head hunting among the infected, along with their cannibalistic tendencies. The shelves along the wall obviously used to hold books and repair manuals but was now a display rack for grisly trophies. Most of the skulls had been placed along the nasty walls long enough ago that most of the flesh had rotted off. Occasionally, between the desiccated and emaciated skulls, there was the still animated heads of the risen. As soon as those dead, dark, cataract covered eyes noticed my passing they struggled and squirmed, chomping their teeth and licking their blackened tongues at the sight and scent of me. Before I could reach the halfway mark through the long room, I heard multiple bangs on the double doors that led deeper into the complex. It startled me, the shepherd's hairs rose on her back, gums drawn back showing off her wickedly sharp canines.

I was positive that I had been found out, that the Reds would quickly find and catch me in short order. Even after I had deduced that the pounding was made by more of the undead, I had the feeling that others would surely hear the commotion and come running. That's when Laelaps ears pricked up, listening intently to something. I had to strain to hear past the pounding but then I heard what had captured Laelaps attention. I heard Candice's cries. Laelaps let out a loud and mournful howl then, as if she was trying to tell little Candi that she was here for her. Wanting to waste no time I let slip the simple bolt latch, prepared to greet the shambling dead with some hardened steel. The doors banged open, the hungry dead inside struggled to rush me but they were held back. Thick heavy leather collars, attached to thick steel chains, kept the things from leaving the room. They jostled each other, reaching with their outstretched, unfeeling, dead arms and grasping hands as they tried in vain to reach me.

My jaw actually dropped when my brain processed what my eyes were seeing. Six fettered horrors, all women, were dressed (and partially undressed) like some necrophiliac's wet dream. A blond high school girl in a dirty cheerleader's outfit, a dark haired woman in a French maid's costume with pulled down top and underwear tangled around her black high-heeled pumps were just two of the ridiculous things that greeted me. I was positive I knew what had been going on in this room and I put the poor bitches to rest permanently with a great enthusiasm.

The single overhead light displayed a further nightmare, for there in the center of the room was a great dark altar with Nancy's limp body tied upon it. Behind the blood encrusted, unholy altar was a great throne (fashioned and constructed in the same manner as the bloody altar) and there was Candi, bawling her eyes out. I rushed first to the baby, not knowing if Nancy was still alive as I hadn't seen her body move even once. Laelaps reached Candi first and she proceeded to give her some great sloppy licks which quieted the child.

I scooped the babe up in my arms, glad to see she was unharmed, glad she was no longer lying on that evil throne made of bones and held together with razor wire.

Her mother was in bad shape. She was unconscious, having suffered lacerations to her head and chest that would require stitches. Her nose, cheek and left eye was bruised, blackened and swollen, they had to have been broken. One of her nipples had been cut off and I could plainly see the edges of broken ribs shifting with each breath she took. Nancy had been brutalized in her short time here, blood caked her thighs and I shivered at the thought of what had been done to her. She had lost a lot of blood and as I was untying her she awoke, blinking her one eye that hadn't swelled shut at me. I suppose she thought I was one of the insane, come to torture her further. The visage she must have seen obviously shocked her, covered in my own and another's blood, covered in sweat, dust and dirt and naked to boot. Nancy had strained to scream in terror, all that escaped her throat was a rough, raspy wheezing sound. When she heard my voice and saw me tenderly holding her child she recognized me. The altar itself looked like it was made by the hands of the insane, bones and barbed wire, broken weapons and razor wire, covered by a great dark slab. Inside the center of the terrible construction were the still unliving heads of the animated dead. I vowed, right then and there, to come back here and burn this affront to the Gods from the face of the Earth. Two worn books were upon a podium and they caught my notice. They seemed a bit out of place, the heavy wooden stand held a crudely carved figure of a naked woman with dozens of small eyes covering where long hair should have grown. I grabbed them and made Nancy carry them for me as I dragged her from the vile darkness of the temple.

Nancy could barely stand upright and with one arm I struggled to lead her out of the compound while cradling Candi in my other arm. In the end I basically dragged her out of there, thinking desperately on how to get as far from there as quickly as possible. I counted myself extremely lucky that we encountered no others, living or not, as we made our escape. Laelaps once again took the lead, somehow knowing we had to leave.

There, in a covered bay was our escape. That black electric car I had seen and wanted for myself was parked and charging, just waiting for me to steal it. The dark tinted windows would keep anything, alive or dead, from seeing us and the quietness of its motor would be a benefit of huge proportions for me while denying the Reds of the same. Besides, my wounded thigh and ass cheek, where the shrapnel had tore into me, was starting to get the better of me now that the shock was wearing off. As soon as I tried the handle I found it was unlocked and fully charged with the keys still dangling from the ignition. Once Nancy sat down in the leather passenger seat and once again was able to hold her sweet Candice in her arms I handed her a pistol, telling her I would be right back after I opened the gates.

The gates, once blocked by multiple vehicles, now had a clear path through them. The only thing keeping the gate shut was a single cheap lock and chain which surrendered to a few swift blows from the butt of my rifle. Even as we drove out of there I was expecting to hear an alarm raised and gunshots being fired in my direction but there were none. It was disturbingly odd, how simple it was but I thanked the Gods for smiling on my endeavor.

Nancy lost a lot of blood, I've cleaned her up and stitched up the wounds I could. Candi seems okay and both are sleeping peacefully.

Laelaps and I will be expecting the Reds if and when they return. We've got some surprises in store for them if they do decide to come back. Until then I'm going to nurse Nancy back to as much health as I can and read these hand written journals I found.

### Thursday, June 26, 2014

I've done everything I could for Nancy but she's still in bad shape. She's deathly pale and anemic, she's lost a lot of blood. I know she's in a lot of pain, I have to keep her so doped up on pain meds that she sleeps most of the day. Even with copious amounts of drugs in her system she still wakes up and complains about the pain. Her whole face has swollen into an ugly, blackened bruise. I think most of the bones on the left side of her face have been broken. Broken fingers, ribs and even toes are all beyond my care. She still occasionally bleeds openly, but doesn't seem to remember being brutalized or anything after she had been dragged to the black car. Her whole body looks like it was beaten, punched and kicked, it is so covered in bruises and deep scratches. My greatest fear is that if I can't find a doctor for her soon she will die. I honestly think the only reason she's still holding on is because of Candice.

Candice on the other hand is fine. Besides a rough bruise around her ankle and lower leg she shows no sign of injury. Thank the Gods for small favors. She's still quite the handful though, just as any infant is. Between her and her battered mother I have my hands full.

Once I took care of those two I was finally able to take care of myself. Two of the jagged pieces of metal that had torn into me weren't hard to get out at all. I barely had any problem at all getting those ones out compared to the third piece. The third piece of sharp metal had buried itself deep into the muscle, causing fresh blood to flow with every step. By the time I was able to dig it out, using thin, needle nosed surgical pliers I looted from the hideout of the Reds, I was awash in my own sweat. It had to come out though, to leave it in would have meant eventual infection.

I have a hard time leaving the shelter to do anything, fearful for either the babies or Nancy's safety. The most I've been able to stay away from them is for little more than ten minutes. I experimented with taking Candi with me, securely strapped into a baby carrier but it doesn't feel right or safe carrying a baby around in sight of the hungering undead or firing automatic weapons inches from her tiny ears. In the end I'm left with resorting to locking Laelaps into the shelter to guard them when I'm gone (which I know Laelaps hates with a passion).

Tomorrow I'm planning on leaving the shelter for most of the day. I've got to go back and find that ammonia truck, at the least. I read 1st Lieutenant Lance Ewer's journal and now there's a burning desire for me to go back to the former junkyard and check out the truth of what the ex-soldier had written about. If it's true that I killed the last of the Red's, that should leave their whole base with its huge stockpiles of goods, open for pillaging. There was a military ID tucked between the pages of the journal, I'd like to go back and confirm that Lance was the last of the Red Death squad (turned carrier) whose body I left laying in the dirt. What I need to do is find a radio or something. I need to spread the news of what ammonia does and find a doctor for Nancy. I know the junkyard has working generators and electricity, at least it did almost a week ago, if not then I'm sure it'll be simply a case of finding more gas for them. I would love to find a shortwave radio, that would be perfect. Lance's journal, detailing his descent into madness, shines a lot of light on how the infected ones kept the Omni at bay. It also makes me sick to my stomach to read what he had become. Better that he should have committed suicide than struggled to survive as such a monster.

The other journal I read, the one by Martin S. Trebuchet, M.D, was interesting. It seems he had stumbled upon the undead abominations weakness before starving to death. I tested out what he reported, setting out foolishly armed with bottles of glass cleaner, seeking some member of the cannibalistic undead. It worked! Just as the Doctor reported, even weak ammonia based Windex will cause the hated dead to die again.

All that time I was thinking the Reds had been somehow spraying cat urine around. I had been trying to figure out where all the cats would have come from to produce such copious amounts of urine. I mean, I know they weren't really using cat piss but I didn't recognize the scent for what it was. I had no idea the strong odor of cat urine was from the high ammonia content. Guess I should have paid more attention in chemistry or biology or whatever.

Now that the secret of ammonia is out, I'm going to use it to destroy the last of that horrid Yama-Kali things minions no matter where they roam.

There are so many things I want to investigate but I feel tied to the shelter. Nancy can't even move from her bed and I'm going to have to leave Candi in her crib. If something happens to them while I'm gone I'm going to be wracked with guilt. If something happens to me then I'm condemning Nancy, the baby and loyal Laelaps to a slow death by starvation because I'm going to lock the door shut from the outside when I leave.

### Friday, June 27, 2014

I woke up amped, ready to go and do some serious exploring while waiting impatiently for the sun to come up. A thousand questions and possibilities were floating in my head as I busied my hands with taking care of Nancy and the baby.

I knew the baby would do fine if I left for the day. Nancy worries me though. Nancy looks worse every day and this morning I awoke to the subtle scent of infection lingering in the air. Her wounds are getting infected, all the hydrogen peroxide and Bactine in the world do nothing for her. I've been giving her shots of penicillin since I rescued her from the junkyard but either the drugs have lost their potency or the pus filled, nasty smelling wounds are immune to it. I need to find a Doctor or she'll die within the week. I'm sure of it.

All the more reason to try and find other survivors I told myself. Although, I still felt like I was abandoning them when I left. Laelaps was whining softly as I closed and locked the door.

"I'll be back soon, girl. I promise.", I whispered to her as I shut the door, trying my best to reassure her before I locked them in.

For every part of the electric car that I loved, like its dark window tint that keeps anything, dead or not, from seeing inside, it had its drawbacks. Like having to be recharged at least once a week if you drove it or not. The second thing that I didn't like about it was the odd smell of the car. I searched for whatever was causing the odor but never found a thing. I was even paranoid, while driving the vehicle, that someone would start shooting at me, not realizing I stole it from the Reds. That's why, when it broke down about a mile from the junkyard I wasn't too upset.

The herd of undead that had crowded around the Reds old lair had dispersed. Apparently with no more free music to distract them and no more of the abominable carriers around to attract them, they scattered like cockroaches from light. There were the occasional corpses of the undead lying crumpled in the street, further proof that horrors days were numbered. The rate of die-off isn't near what it was when it started, only one or two a day drop now. There's still a heck of a lot of the slavering beasts walking the earth, hopefully I'm going to cause a huge dent in those numbers.

I was surprised that the generator at the junkyard was still running. It's located in a decently sound-proofed room, one can only really notice the engine's noise when you're on the property. There's a tanker truck half full of fuel that's been rigged as the combustion engines fuel tank. I'm sure the generator will keep running for another couple of months, at least.

It didn't take me long at all to locate the tanker truck filled with anhydrous ammonia. Lance wasn't kidding when he said this stuff was cold. It took me a few minutes to understand the setup but once I did, I figured out how to fill one of those stainless steel canisters with the freezing liquid. The cold quickly forms a frozen coat around the metal can and it slowly leaks before destroying the gasket and blowing out in a great cloud of choking, suffocating, cold gas if I try to use it straight from the tanker. The strongest concentration that one of the containers can hold safely is around seventy percent. There was a freaking pallet of the hand pump pressurized containers sitting there and I filled up a dozen or so of them before spotting a lawn care truck. The truck caught my attention because it has a giant, thick, plastic tank mounted on the back along with a motorized pump and a huge hose and wand to spray with.

When I reached the truck I found to my amazement that the Reds had obviously already put plenty of thought into this. The tank had already been filled with a fifty-fifty percent solution and was in excellent condition. The engine cranked with the first turn of the key (which had been left in the ignition), its gas tank already filled. I looked around and there were two of these rigs ready to go. There's also a hose and spray nozzle for the driver or passenger to use while seated in the truck. I knew as soon as I made up my mind to use the fertilizer truck that I was going to have a very interesting ride home. I loaded my canisters and gear into the green flatbed pickup and went and explored the compound further.

Most of my wanderings took me through a surreal nightmare of extreme violence. The gore and dried blood was punctuated with finds like I hadn't dreamt of. There is an old steel roofed Quonset hut building here and all along one half of its length are cases, crates and pallets of ammo and weapons. There's everything from twenty-two rounds to RPG's and I think there's even a stack of shoulder fired TOW anti-tank missiles. There is literally enough ammo and weapons here to arm a small army. Between this find and the fertilizer trucks filled with ammonia I could rid the city of the undead in a short time, single-handedly.

First things first, I had to find a radio or something to try and contact any other survivors, then I could worry about eliminating the undead.

The first thing I tried was the radio in a cop car that was parked in the back. Like all the other vehicles parked here, this one was ready to go also. I tried every channel available on the police radio only to hear nothing but static.

I came to one room that held a bunch of cell phones charging and found that they must have been the primary means of communication. I randomly tried dialing a few of the numbers in the cell phone's memory and was not surprised when another phone in the room rang. Knowing these were probably the only working cell phones for fifty miles, I took a handful of them and their chargers. There were also portable radios and scanners. I sat in that garbage strewn, dirt covered room and tried for hours to raise someone to no avail. I don't think anything can even get a signal past the county line.

I started to get a bit aggravated with the situation of not finding some sort of decent radio. What I needed was a short wave radio that could pick up signals from thousands of miles away, not a local radio that strained to reach out ten miles. I went through every room in every building, finding things I normally, gladly, would have killed for just days ago. Food, booze and smokes of every brand are there for the taking but there is nothing that can help me find a doctor for Nancy.

There had to be a store or shop somewhere that sold what I was looking for, I reasoned. The junkyard makes for a foul and vile base to work out of but it's already got running electricity and all the stocks in the world there, including tons of medical gear. I briefly thought about bringing Nancy and the child here but just as quickly nixed it. Nancy would surely freak out if she woke up back here again. Not to mention the place is unlivable. I have no idea if the Red death squad had any friends that might come unexpectedly visiting, I certainly don't want to be here if there are. No, using the junkyard, however convenient it might currently be, is a bad idea.

So I went for a drive in my new green as grass painted truck, looking for a decent radio. On the way out of the main property (which would make any psychotic, murderous, hoarder green with envy), I grabbed a powered bullhorn, wincing and then laughing when I accidently hit the siren button. At the time, I really didn't have a use for the megaphone, silence around the undead had always been the rule.

I was paranoid as I started up the truck, the sound would definitely draw the notice of the parasite controlled corpses. I had a ton of ammo with me and gallons upon gallons of liquid zombie death with me, so I swallowed my fear and drove out the gates.

I drove no more than a hundred yards, intent upon finding a Radio Shack or electronics store when the first of the walking dead noticed me. Seeing how I was still close to the gates, I figured now would be a good test of my idea. If my idea of gunning and spraying any undead that came close to me failed for some reason, the gates to the compound were close enough that I could safely run back and shut them behind me. I got out of the truck and stood on the bed, waiting for the ghoulish aberrations to come within pistol range. At first there was only a handful of the undead. As the things got closer and I started my target practice, upon hearing the loud reports, more of the vile things immediately started making their way towards me. After two clips the zeds were coming out of the woodworks, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared when I saw the herd that was making its way towards me then. From what I had been expecting, I thought that the undead would stop within twenty feet or so of the truck, once they smelled the ammonia. They didn't though. I nervously switched to the increased firepower of my M16, mowing down rows of the undead as they came ever closer. The more I killed, the more came. Killing the undead was a lot like killing a hydra. Every time I blew a zeds rotten brains out of its skull, two more wandered into the fray from Gods' knows where. I kinda freaked out a bit when they surrounded me. I think I started a fight to the death with the thousand or so undead that had been in the area, previously drawn to the former tenants of the junkyard. When they got within arm's reach of the truck I switched on the pump. As soon as the mixture jumped from the nozzle the whole of the herd shuddered and started to hesitate. Once the almost overpowering smell assaulted my nose I realized why the undead got so close to me. It must have been weeks, maybe months since the truck had been used. In all that time, the tank was sealed and rain must have washed away most traces of ammonia from the vehicle.

A few of the beasts dropped within minutes of being sprayed, shaking and shuddering in their death throes as their undead brethren trampled them underfoot in their haste to escape. The vast majority of the necrotic puppets didn't immediately drop. Instead most of them tried to escape the solid stream, which actually reached out to over twenty five feet or so. Wherever the ammonia touched the monsters, dead flesh seemed to melt and fall off in nasty chunks.

By the time I gave a liberal coating of destruction to the massed horrors, my eyes were watering and my lungs were burning. The undead were fleeing just as fast as their emasculated legs could propel them. I actually had to stop and wait for the things to clear out enough that I could drive on. Of course, that didn't mean I didn't take some satisfaction in running some of the slower ones down, crushing their nasty skulls under my wheels. Or shooting them in the back of the head as they staggered away from me. I felt invincible. I ended up taking every opportunity to wipe out as many of the things as I could. I was so wrapped up in the killing spree that the search for the radio became secondary.

The first Radio Shack that I came across proved to hold nothing of value. It was covered in over a year's worth of dust and dirt. It had been since before the Apocalypse that this store held anything, its empty shelves proved that it had fallen victim to the rioting and looting that heralded the end of our world.

The second store, one of the big electronics chains, had burned to the ground, leaving nothing behind that could be salvaged. To give myself solace at the bad news I drove around the neighborhood and gave more of the undead an impromptu shower.

The final store I hit up actually had what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the small shortwave radios I found weren't transmitters, only receivers. Then I read the manual that came with the product. I kept a couple of the receivers even though they were no better than the police radios I had already come across. Without a proper antenna the range was limited to maybe ten miles and without being able to hook up a microphone all I would be able to do was listen.

When I noticed the dusk quickly falling, I realized that I had been away from Nancy, Candice and Laelaps for over twelve hours. I had to come back. Nancy's condition hadn't improved, maybe some of the stuff I brought back from the Reds medical supplies will help. If I can just keep her alive long enough to find a Doc she might still survive. Candi, although she needed changing, feeding and lots of attention, seemed to be none the worse for my absence. Laelaps greeted me with great slobbering dog kisses before bounding outside to do her business and be free of the dark confining space she dislikes so much.

Tomorrow I will continue my search for a Doctor or for a way to get in touch with one. And kill zombies. Lots of zombies.

### Saturday, June 28, 2014

This morning I got a later start on the day than I had expected. After taking care of Nancy and Candi last night and then seeing to my own welfare I was tired from the day's' exertions. Candi kept waking up and crying every couple of hours, demanding attention before she fitfully slept again. The baby's cries woke Nancy, who responded with fever filled hallucinations, which in turn, required me to give up ever more sleep to calm and tranquilizer her. I don't know what gangrene smells like but I imagine it smells like Nancy. It seemed to take me a long time to get both of them situated so that I could leave again.

The sun was well into the sky by the time I climbed back into the truck. Even then I couldn't drive the city in my quest for survivors right away. I had to put some fuel in the truck and refill the tank with more of the ammonia mixture and restock my ammo. The only place I could accomplish all of those tasks was back at the junkyard.

While I drove across town I noted with great satisfaction the piles of undead that I had finally laid to rest. When I got within sight of my destination I actually had to drive two blocks out of my way and approach it from the south. The thousand plus herd that threatened to initially overwhelm me in my first test of the deadly mixture lay strewn in heaps so thick that I couldn't drive over or through them. Well, that's not technically true, it was just too gross and the odor so foul that my stomach churned whenever the weight of the truck squished open rotted abdomens and skulls, spilling the horrific contents and spraying jets of black gore and thick liquid all over.

It didn't take very long to find the tanker truck that the Reds had been using to fill their gas tanks, everything there is crudely marked with spray paint. What took me the longest was filling up the former liquid fertilizer tank with water. Running water is a blessing in these times, I know, but the flow there is really nothing more than a glorified trickle.

While the tank filled, I took the time to check up on something that I had forgotten about in my haste to get going yesterday. When I found the corpse of the Red that had tried to drag me off to my death I gave it a good swift kick, just to say hello. I had given the demented souls' brain new ventilation holes in order to keep him from rising again (and to make sure he was truly dead) the last time we met. When I removed the nightmarish mask made from some poor victims face and scalp, I found to my utter disgust that it was the only thing that was holding his shattered skull together. I guess I kinda stabbed him too many times with my bayonet in my exuberance to ensure he would never rise again. I couldn't tell from what was left of his face if it matched the military ID I had found in the pages of the ex-patriots journal or not. I had to know, so I cut his shirt off and noted his tattoos. I'm ninety-nine percent certain that the corpse belonged to 1st Lieutenant Lance Ewer. The 'tats were all military in nature, the oldest and most faded ones were Army with the newest ones bearing the markings of the Florida National Guard.

Before I left the facility I liberated a case of hand grenades from the ammo bunker. I had promised myself that I would destroy the unholy altar to Yama-Kali, it just turned out that it wouldn't be today. I was going to pour gas all over it and light the thing on fire but looking at the thing I wondered if fire would cleanse it properly. The only combustible thing about it was the vast number of human bones that provided the support, with the rest being wire, the metal of weapons and dark marble. Any fire would quickly spread and burn down all of the other nearby buildings and that is something I didn't want to happen. The buildings hold a lot of usable items, items that I knew I wouldn't be able to find again without many hours of searching. After packing the grenades in the filthy cracks and crevices I left it, deciding that I would only risk destroying it and burning the whole place down when I had properly looted the place.

Then I was off again and this time I had no fear of the undead. I made a holiday of it, cranking up the volume on a portable CD player. I played mostly some good ol' rock and roll as I did drive-bys on the undead that were unlucky enough to get anywhere near me. It really had been too long since I had the opportunity to listen to some music and I was enjoying the day despite my inability to find the radio I was looking for.

With an old phone book and map of Ocala in hand I methodically went from store to store, determined to investigate every possible place a working shortwave radio could be found. Every place I went had either been burned, looted, shot-up or simply didn't stock what I wanted. Of course, on the way I took every opportunity to kill as many of the undead as possible. As if the noise of the truck's engine and the blaring of Guns 'n Roses wasn't enough to attract the walking dead, I also shouted obscenities at the parasite controlled puppets through the bullhorn.

Eventually I came to Ocala Regional Medical Center, a place I hadn't actually been to before due to the huge mob of undead that were always in attendance around every hospital. Immediately I thought of my mom, whose corpse might still walk. She was infected on that last day that I saw her, we both knew that her time was short but I always expected to at least find her corpse (walking or not) and give her a proper burial. My eyes were blurred from the unbidden tears when I thought of her but my heart was full of absolute hate as I took on the largest herd I had ever seen.

As the ghoul's relentless hunger drove them to me I unloaded clip after clip into their dead faces. Once they got within twenty feet or so, the first ones to arrive slowed and hesitated once they detected the distinct odor of ammonia. For whatever reason, the undead are very sensitive to the scent, which is probably why the Reds attached the aftermarket, high pressure pump to the tank. There were so many of them that the crowd of those coming up behind the first rows actually pushed and forced those in front of them closer to me. It was a dangerous precedent, there were so many trying to get to me and my delectable flesh that the crush of the herd either pushed the things right up to my truck or trampled them underfoot. The fifty-fifty mixture takes a couple of hours to kill and there were so many of the abominations that it forced me into a fighting retreat or I risked being over-run and eaten alive. As soon as I drove onto the hospital grounds I saw the whole place was thick with undead. If the numbers of the walking dead would have stayed at that level I would have had no problem at all dealing with them as they came at me, recoiling at a distance as I hit the wretched husks with the mixture. So many of the horrid things spilled out from the buildings and the parking lots that it startled me when I saw it. There was a solid wall of dead flesh. There just as many, if not more, of the undead dragging their mangled and twisted bodies towards me, as there were undead behind the prison gates before I fried 'em. I'm unsure of just how many of the things there were, their numbers just seemed to continue on and on. I had actually gotten surrounded, thankfully most of the undead kept their distance, except for where the legion of undead was approaching. It was as if the mass of teeth and claws was being driven from behind. The zeds closest obviously wanted to stop when they smelled the ammonia but as soon as their slow, forward steps faltered they were roughly pushed aside or trampled, being relentlessly driven by the weight of unknown numbers behind them. When the tidal wave of dead, clawing flesh started to grasp my front fender, even though I was spraying gallons of the liquid directly on them, I knew I had to drive out of there. I drove backwards to the street, only driving over two of the abominations by the time I reached the cracked, asphalt, main road again. I watched as the horde slowly pushed itself around the feared, ammonia soaked ground in pursuit of me. I was just slowly driving away from them and waiting until they hit the smell, then I would drive up quickly and spray the nasty creatures before they could recoil away. With this mob they broke the perimeter twice again before I got the situation under control. By the time I had driven backwards down the street about a hundred yards or so, someone started shooting from the top floor of one of the hospital wings. Thankfully they weren't shooting at me, they were trying to get my attention. I didn't know if they could make out what I was yelling at them through the bullhorn but I'm sure they tracked my progress as I drove around and around the buildings, drawing out and spraying and shooting the undead beasts. I ended up using all of my ammo, including the second case of grenades I brought with me and I even burned through all but a couple of gallons of the zed poison.

I don't know if they heard me telling them, through the bullhorn, that the poison would take a couple of hours to work or that I would return later to finish what I started. I saw three survivors waving furiously at me from an upper window as I left. I was positive that they were broken hearted at my departure, I sure would have been.

I had a couple of hours to kill then, the first thing I did was go back to the shelter and check up on my charges. They were all fine. Laelaps was especially glad to see me and once I let her out she refused to come back inside the enclosed room when it was time for me to leave again. I had to bribe her with eight cans of Spam in her food bowl before she would allow me to sneak out while she ate, giving me the chance to lock her inside. She knew though, she gave me an odd look and barked rather quietly at me as I closed the door. I don't know what I would do without that dog, sometimes I think she was sent by one of the Gods to look after me.

Then it was back to the junkyard to do some restocking. By the time I finished all of that, enough time had passed so that many of the necrotic, parasitic colonies would have dropped. Any of the undead at the hospital that gotten showered directly will have died, flailing and twitching. Any of the undead that received lesser applications of the cold, zombie killing liquid would still die a final death, it would just take them longer. Depending on how many of the horrid monsters were left, I thought I might have to make another run back to the junkyard to refill the huge plastic tank mounted on the back of the gore splattered truck again.

When I returned to the medical center I wished I had a bulldozer to push past the crescent shaped piles of still shaking corpses. The truck really wasn't meant for off-roading, the sloshing tank affects the center of gravity too much and adds too much weight. I had to ram my way through some of the piles, having to back up and try again a few times before finally pushing over and through them. I only saw the three other survivors on one side of the main building itself. Every time I worked my way past them they waved and shouted encouragement to me. After another couple circles around the complex, I felt it would be safe enough for me to drive between the buildings and draw out any of the undead that were hanging around the building I had seen the survivors in.

Abandoned cars and an overturned ambulance blocked one of the streets ahead. The parking areas between the buildings they once served were now a tight maze of mangled metal. The vehicular chaos was worst around the ER and the main entrance to the hospital. Around those areas the cars were literally piled up next to each other. Often the packed cars showed evidences of rather sudden stops. Vehicles of all sorts that had crashed violently into the back or side of the unfortunate car in front of it were scattered all over. I couldn't get very close to the buildings, the wreckage of the parking lot kept me from getting too close in most places. I did draw out a lot more of the walking abominations but a lot of them are still inside the buildings or stopped by a dead end in the twisting paths through the rusting autos. If I wanted to get closer, I would have to go on foot.

The third and topmost floor of the hospital is where the three others are trapped. I was able to cautiously drive the truck over the high curbs and onto the overgrown and gone wild lawn to get underneath the trio.

There's no Doctor among the three survivors. They don't even have access to medical supplies. The wing of the hospital they're trapped in was the administrative wing, nothing but offices, cubicles and conference rooms. On the uppermost floor the three were able to block off the stairwells with desks, tables, chairs and heavy file cabinets. They didn't merely block the doors with the furniture, they blocked the entire stairwell itself, stacking and piling the heavy, useless furniture into an immovable wall that starts at the first floor.

The once busy wing of course had its own elevator for the benefit of all those that used to work here, day in and day out. It was only because of the elevator and its shaft piercing through all three floors that they didn't starve to death. On the first floor the elevator came out to a more restricted side of the cafeteria. One that was luckily partitioned off from the general public's side. On the employee side they had easy access to the kitchen and the all important food stores. Before the electricity went out, they freely used the convenience. After the electricity failed they had to jam the elevator doors open on the first floor. Now the only way back and forth between the cafeteria and safest upper office floor means a dangerous climb through the shaft after gaining access by the elevator's false ceiling.

My conversation with them was interrupted when I had to use my rifle to pick off the zeds when they got too close. Honestly, I didn't need to splatter those undead skulls open while I was talking through the bullhorn (the undead kept their distance from the ammonia smell of the truck), but I did want to show those trapped above me that I knew how to shoot and shoot accurately, just in case they got any stupid ideas.

Elle, Keith and Aaron have been trapped in that building since the apocalypse started. By the looks of the clothes they wore (no more than glorified rags and ill fitting articles of clothing that didn't match with anything else they were wearing), I believed them.

Elle, the groups only woman, seemed to be the dominate one, doing most of the speaking. Keith and Aaron, both of them in their mid twenties, seemed to take Elle's (who appeared to be in her mid thirties) directions. While the two guys were certainly happy to see me and try and talk to me, they deferred to Elle whenever she spoke.

Elle told me there was a short wave radio here, on the hospital grounds. She knew because she used to work here as a clerk before the world died. She pointed to the array of antennas and satellite dishes reaching high above the roofline on a wing past the main building. The antenna and radio room are on the wing furthest from them. Between the wing that they're currently stuck in and the one I need to get to is the huge five story building that was the general hospital itself.

When I told them that I needed to get to some medical supplies for my dying friend they told me that the hospital was packed with the hungering dead. I would have to figure out a way to clear it before trying to go in there for any reason. The radio was located in a later addition to the hospital, used mainly to keep in contact with other hospitals and the helicopters that transported patients to and from the facility via the helo pad. The undead are packed in that wing as badly as they are in the general services building Elle told me.

As twilight started falling, once again all too soon, I reassured them I would be back in the morning after I found a sufficiently long enough ladder to reach them. By then the vast majority of the undead that had trapped them here will be dead. Then I plan on taking them back to the shelter so they can rest, eat, whatever they need to do after having been trapped for almost two years. Then Laelaps and I can get a generator for the radio and loot the hospital for some drugs that may yet save Nancy's life.

### Sunday, June 29, 2014

Finding an extension ladder that was tall enough wasn't hard. The first roofing company I broke into had three of them in its dusty storeroom. Convincing the stranded trio that the rickety, fragile looking ladder was safe was a bit harder.

While Elle and Keith climbed into the small cab of the truck, with me driving, Aaron climbed on the back. After Aaron tied down the few possessions the emaciated trio cared enough about to take with them, I was bombarded with questions.

In between answers to their questions I asked questions of my own. They seem to be regular people, traumatized to be sure but who hasn't been. I don't get any sense of ill intent from the haggard group, they seemed more intent on getting something else to eat besides the canned soup and instant mashed potatoes that they had been surviving off for the past couple of months than causing any trouble.

Elle had technically been living in the office wing of the hospital since before the apocalypse. When everything started to go bad with the animal madness and the Rat-flu, the hospitals around the globe saw a dramatic spike in patients. The amount of paperwork required for all of those new customers soon became a round the clock job for her. Her responsibilities grew dramatically once the Scarlet starting showing on the populace. She was allowed, encouraged actually, to use one of the conference rooms to sleep in. There was paperwork that needed to be filled out every day, by law, and it became her job to ensure that it got done. The worst case scenario, that she had heard at the time, was that the Scarlet would end up making people sick for a week or so and then they would recover. That's what she was led to believe.

She put a lot of energy into the work, believing that a promotion would soon follow. When she woke to the sound of almost complete silence one morning, she was shocked. She knew people were dying from this parasite, that everyone but a lucky few had it. Never in her wildest nightmares did she think the mortality rate would be over ninety percent.

She blinked at me when I told her about the Reds. They all, at first, thought I was telling them a story to scare them, like I was full of crap. None of them had ever seen a Red, they don't know just how lucky they really are.

There were a few scattered corpses lying amongst the three floors of cubicles and offices. All those dedicated employees that bravely came in and tried to keep the hospital running, even though they were deathly ill, died at their posts. Elle searched all three floors of the administration building and found not one single soul alive. At first she didn't know what to do and simply stood there, blankly staring at nothing until her stomach rumbled.

She was sitting in the weird silence of the world, stuffing day old donuts into her mouth, when she noted it wasn't truly silent. If she listened intently she could her far off gunshots.

Keith wandered into the cafeteria after awhile, completely unaware of what was plainly happening all around him. He was so wrapped up in his own misery, having just watched his parents, sister and wife all die like raving lunatics, that he didn't even note the complete absence of any other living human, including Elle, when he stumbled dazedly into the cafeteria.

Elle had barely stood up, wanting to get Keith's attention, desperately wanting to know what was going on outside, when both of them turned to the sound of somebody yelling and running down the corpse packed aisles and corridors. Aaron and two other people were running through the corridors shouting for help, that the dead were coming back to life. As soon as they saw the walking cadaver that had obviously risen while in the middle of a full autopsy, Elle led them all into the corporate side of the cafeteria, which was separate from the side used by the general public. Locking the door behind them, they flinched with every beat upon the door that the necrotic abomination made. In a matter of minutes there were more of the unbelievable things joining the impossibility that was slamming itself upon the sturdy door.

For more than three months they survived on the third floor of the hospital, making their way down to the large store rooms and freezers that provided the meals for patients and doctors alike.

From what I understand they ended up clearing out the three floors of the office building by tackling and holding down one of the newly risen dead, then using letter openers to sever the brain stem where the spine enters the skull.

Their best hope for rescue came when they decided to clean out the third floor of the main, adjoining, hospital that lay between them and the radio room. They did it, armed with makeshift spears that stabbed violently through black eyes and blackened mouths. It wasn't without cost though. One of the five, whose name none of the three recall, got bitten pretty badly. He had been a former mental patient, having been on a thirty day hold after a particularly bad day. The group didn't shun him, he took up residence on the second floor on his own when the rest of them preferred to be further away from the living dead, sleeping in the larger offices of the third floor. After he was bitten he got sick. The poor guy freaked out when he saw small scarlet spots appearing on his skin. Everybody jumped to the conclusion that he was going to turn bright red as the Scarlet bred within him and turn him into a bloodthirsty lunatic. They were argumentative at first when I informed them about our immunity to the parasite. Once immune, always immune I told them. Even after a zed sinks his teeth into you, directly injecting the single celled monsters and its eggs directly into your bloodstream, a healthy immune system will beat it off after a week or so. The trio got kinda quiet then, seeming embarrassed and slightly confused, when the story continued I'm sure they had changed it for my ears. Apparently, the deranged, sick and hallucinating man jumped to his death through one of the third floor windows, landing badly on the grassy knoll almost thirty feet below. He was sure the fall would kill him outright, he was wrong. As he lay there, screaming and crying from the pain of numerous broken bones, the undead quickly found him. That's what they said but that's not what I believe happened. I believe they thought they were protecting themselves and threw the poor guy to his death.

They used the radio to keep in contact with numerous groups at first. After time passed, the number of contacts from widely flung groups dropped. There was a good group of survivors that had been holing up in the Florida Keys, having blown the interstate highway that connected them to the mainland. By the time they lost contact with the small group of refugees that had occupied Key West, the small colony was growing and secure. None of them wanted to go anywhere but there if they ever got out of the hospital alive. The whole of the grounds were packed with the horrible things, making any thought of escape impossible. They said that there were other people they kept in touch with, depending on the weather conditions, but the sanctuary of Key West was the closest. When I heard about Key West and its group of survivors holding out there (safe, sheltered and with plenty of fish in the sea for food), I decided I was going there. When they told me for a fact that there was a Doctor there I told them to scavenge the area for whatever supplies we would need for the trip down there. I told them I was leaving for the Keys with Nancy and the baby in three days, regardless if they wanted to come along or not.

It wasn't long after they cleared the third floor of the general hospital until they lost control of it again. It happened at the same time Judy disappeared and all of them think the two incidents are related somehow. Judy never mentioned one word about leaving or wanting to further explore the facility, neither had any of them found any clue as to what had happened to her. They had to block the door to the general services floor of the hospital, permanently, when they found there was way too many of the hungry dead to deal with using the primitive weapons they had fashioned.

When I told them I was going back to the hospital to try and hook a portable generator up to the radio they thought I was out of my mind. Aaron volunteered to go with me after he changed out of the filthy, threadbare clothes he was wearing and got something in his growling belly. The others would stay behind with Laelaps, taking care of Nancy (who was in a fever state) and Candi (who always needed attention).

My tactics for clearing the densely packed halls of the hospital worked well. I brought Aaron along to serve as a mule, carrying with him as much ammo as I could get his skinny shoulders to bear and to watch my back. Aaron took every opportunity to flatter and compliment me as he could, obviously wanting to hook up with me. I'm ignoring all of that, I have no plans to get involved in a relationship right now, I've got enough on my plate as it is. I sprayed a perimeter around myself and Aaron, keeping a safe zone around us that the zeds wouldn't cross. As we were using the hand-held steel canisters instead of the truck mounted tank, the zone only extended ten feet from us. Then it was simply a matter of putting lead into the unfeeling faces of the undead. Shoot, reload, repeat. Spray a new line of protection and move a few feet forward over the nasty corpses then shoot, reload and repeat again. After a while, by about the time I was halfway through, I made a small game of it, seeing how many heads I could blow apart with one bullet. Four. Four heads is my best so far. I have actually hit five or more zeds, they were piled up so thickly in there but I only count head wounds that drops one of the ghouls.

I took every chance to raid the place for meds, going through every cabinet and drawer I saw. I came away with next to nothing. After two years and the countless staggering and stumblings of uncoordinated animated flesh bashing heedlessly around, everything was ruined and falling apart. I don't think it was in such good shape before the dead rose, there were the riots and the disruption of the supply chain, there may have been very little for me to loot anyways, even if it weren't for the mindless dead. All I could do was hope I had better luck with the radio.

Aaron acted like he knew what he was doing but he was bluffing. I almost laughed in his face when he pulled out this monstrosity of a handgun. It was a chrome-plated, extended barrel forty-five with a large scope mounted on it. The thing must weigh between fifteen to twenty pounds, it was so overdone. Obviously it was meant to be used with both hands, kinda defeating the usefulness of a pistol to begin with if you ask me. Anyways, Aaron was firing the thing with one hand, missing his target completely more often than not. When he complained that his wrist was hurting from kickback of the giant sized version of a handgun, I did laugh at him. I gave him one of my nine millimeters and gave him a few tips. Immediately his aim improved and his respect for me grew a bit.

When we finally made our way to the radio room we made a grisly discovery. The overpowering smell of death and decay assailed our noses as soon as the door cracked open. There, in the center of the radio control room floor were two rotted skeletons, locked in a death struggle. Aaron almost openly wept when he recognized Judy's jewelry, still around the bones of her fingers, her wrists and draped around her neck. The other body was a mystery to Aaron. The other decomposed skeletal remains were naked except for the weapons strapped to it. It became clear to us from the shattered skull of Judy's skeleton and the folding pocket knife wedged between the other's sternum and ribs what had happened. The naked cadaver could only belong to one of the carriers I told Aaron. Judy died a hero, I reminded him, if that Red would have survived he would have come back for the rest of them.

Judy's corpse wasn't the only thing that had bullet holes. The Red must have spent all of the ammo in his clip before he died. The radios we could have used to call for help were ruined. Bullets ripped through the electronics, none of it could be repaired.

I gotta say I've been having a good run lately, always finding what I needed. I was a little miffed at not being able to get any meds for Nancy or finding a working radio. I certainly hope it doesn't mean that my luck is coming to an end.

From here I'm going to figure out a way to get Nancy and Candi to the safety of the Keys.

### Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Tomorrow morning we're leaving, as early as possible. The plan is to get on I-75 south and follow it through Tampa all the way down to Cape Coral. Once I hit Cape Coral I'm going to find a boat and we'll sail east until we hit Flamingo where we'll gas up if we need to before heading directly south to the Keys. This way we don't have to worry about traveling through the everglades and we can stay as far away from Miami as possible.

We're taking both of the trucks that have been modified for the ammonia mixture. One will lead the three vehicle convoy and one will take up the rear. The vehicle in the middle is going to be a former Recreational Vehicle, fortified and strengthened to drive straight through a herd if needed to. I'm going to drive the lead truck, Aaron will be driving behind us with Elle and Keith taking control of the RV itself. Of course Nancy and Candice will also be in the RV, being watched over by whichever of the two isn't driving. Laelaps, of course, will be with me in the cab of the lead truck.

I was unsure about using an RV but Keith and Aaron did a great job in making it safe. Thick plywood panels are securely bolted over windows, including the front passenger side of the windshield. It took them most of the first day to locate and work on the RV they chose, packing it up and finishing the work today. They bolted an iron cage over the driver's side windshield and put in a CB so all three of the drivers in the separate vehicles can talk to each other. If I hadn't seen it for myself I wouldn't have believed it was possible, that the cramped vehicle could actually hold all of the supplies that we crammed into it proved to be a happy surprise.

The three newcomers seem to be trustworthy, they could have taken whatever they had wanted and taken off whenever they wanted but they didn't. It's clear to me, from the inside jokes and the cryptic little things they say to each other that they had been involved in some kind of relationship while they were trapped together for so long. Now that they are free, Elle and Keith seem to have become a couple, cutting Aaron out of their conversations and staying a bit aloof towards him. Aaron is obviously aggravated by this turn of events and has started hanging around me. I'm not too thrilled with Aaron's attentions. It's not that I dislike the guy, it's that I don't know anything about him. I've been kinda blowing him off, finding other things to do whenever he tries to carry on even the most basic conversation with me. All three of them have been locked up in that building together for almost two years, they have nothing of interest to tell me, excepting the information they have regarding Key West and the group of survivors there. They may not have had anything to kill the time with except for having group sex, but I did. Each of them, separately and together, have dropped open invitations (no hints with Aaron, he made it basely clear) for me to feel free to join them whenever I wanted, all of which I turn down.

Nancy is doing both better and worse at the same time. She's still fevered and completely out of it. While her face, with the multiple fractures, appears to be slowly healing, her feet are in real bad shape. No matter how much we try to keep her feet drained and cleaned of the nasty smelling pus, it just keeps spreading. I'm terrified that the vile wound is infected with gangrene. Keith had been talking of amputating her feet, in an effort to save her life if they need to but who would do that, I asked. It's one thing to talk about it and another thing entirely to do such a thing safely. Her best bet lies in Key West, hopefully in a matter of days we'll be there.

Candice is doing well. Somebody is always taking care of or entertaining the child. Elle spends most of her day with little Candi, giving me a decent break from my previous babysitting chores.

We did have an anxious encounter while we were raiding the junkyard again. We had been there for less than half an hour, getting what supplies we needed, when from nowhere a signal flare arced high into the air, falling slowly back to earth over the compound. Turns out that there are a few more scattered survivors around, but not many. The Red death squad scoured the county pretty well of the immune. Now that the undead menace has been dealt a severe blow here in Ocala, people, once terrified of going outdoors are starting to timidly venture outside again. The two men refused to come with us, to the Keys, preferring to stand and fight if need be, in the town where they were born and raised. Although they were sad to see two single women leave their town they were pleased about learning the secret of ammonia. They were also happy to take over the old base, maybe they could make better use of it.

Everybody who has seen the abomination that is the temple to Yama-Kali has voiced their extreme hatred of the place. Today I destroyed the affront to the Gods. I didn't blow it up or light the building on fire (at first). I did learn how to operate a massive bulldozer though. I had a great time clearing an area of all the assorted cars and junk strewn about. Then I literally smashed down the temple walls and destroyed the altar and throne with the heavy steel plow blade. I wasn't content to just mash them up though, I pushed the whole building and everything that once resided in it into a huge pile. With the help of a gallon of gasoline I think I created the world's largest bonfire. It still burns, lighting up the rapidly darkening sky.

I hope all of this hard work isn't going to be in vain. I don't know if the colony of the immune even still exists. For all we know, a hurricane could have destroyed the settlement. We could be striving to reach a place worse off than what Ocala is now.

### Friday, July 4, 2014

I didn't even realize it was the fourth of July until I wrote the date. Holidays are nothing more than another day now. Gone are the days of picnics and fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. Now it is enough to simply live to see another morning.

We left for the Keys on time, heading south on I-75 by the time the rising sun cleared the horizon. We thought we would be alright. We thought we had prepared and packed whatever we would need for almost any problem. How wrong we were.

The interstate was, for the most part, clear of any major wrecks or traffic jams until we hit Tampa. Clear doesn't mean we can drive at speeds anywhere near the old speed limits. Clear nowadays, simply means one can drive past the rusted cars haphazardly parked half on and half off the overgrown shoulder or one can weave in, through or around the mangled wreckage of multi-car accidents. The speedometer never climbed past thirty but that didn't bother us. Even though we only averaged ten miles an hour we felt better with every mile closer to Key West that we drove.

Five miles before Tampa the interstate became a complete parking lot. The RV is big and heavy, needing almost a full lane. We ended up having to switch over to the other side of the highway, traveling south in what used to be the northbound lanes. We quickly found out why the northbound lanes were clear while the southbound lanes were jammed bumper to bumper.

The charred remains of a tanker truck completely blocked the northbound lanes, its cab wrapped around one of the support pylons of the old elevated train track above it. The viaduct hadn't collapsed but it was clear that whatever the huge tanker truck had held had been highly flammable. Burned out cars and trucks were resting on tireless rims on both sides of the cracked concrete of the interstate. There were no fire trucks or police vehicles in the area so we figured that it must have happened in the last days of the madness when society broke down completely.

According to the map, it took us all day to drive the ninety miles from Ocala to the outskirts of Tampa. At the rate we were going it would take us another full day to traverse the hundred and twenty five miles until we reached Cape Coral.

The undead weren't the ever present threat they used to be. Rarely did we see anything other than a lone corpse wandering the ruins of the highway. Most of the undead had finally collapsed and those that still walked were, more than likely, were either gathered around a survivor's safehouse or congregating around a carrier.

As the light was starting to fail with the rapid approach of nightfall, we all decided to find a deserted gas station and top off our tanks. We did everything as silently as we could, mainly relying on my bow when the ever curious undead were drawn to us from the sounds of our motors.

Nancy was in bad shape, moaning and calling out in her fevered hallucinations. Whenever Nancy went into one of those phases, Candice would act up, crying inconsolably as if she could sense her mother's distress. As a group we decided to forge ahead to an interstate rest stop to set up our night's camp instead of staying in a former metropolitan area where the undead were the thickest.

After detouring for what seemed miles through the ruins of Tampa, we were finally able to get back on the interstate. Things seemed to be going well, the next rest stop was deserted but for a few abandoned vehicles. The only zed we found was in a comatose state, rousing itself from the long neglected floor of the men's toilets once we got close to it. Nobody actually wanted to get out of the RV and sleep in the mold and grime covered tiles of the restrooms, instead we all crammed into the RV and slept in sleeping bags. We parked with one side of the RV parked along the wall of the rest stop with the two spray trucks parked one behind and one alongside. Then we sprayed the hell out of the surrounding area with the ammonia and set up watches that would monitor the surroundings from the roof of the RV.

As soon as I opened my eyes the next morning I knew something was wrong. The sun was starting to rise, Aaron had never woken me for my four hour turn at watch. Then the smell hit me. The powerful odor of ammonia was way too strong. When I got up, I had to almost climb over others to get to the door. Needless to say, they all woke up and quizzically looked at me, they knew what the watch schedule was supposed to be.

Keith started coughing as soon as he opened his eyes, an instinctual reaction to the irritating chemical. Quickly he covered his mouth with his arm, knowing even the faintest cough could draw the numberless undead to investigate.

Technically it was Elle's turn to be up on the roof by then, my four hour rotation would have been over an hour before that.

We were all shocked by what we found outside. It was the lingering pools of ammonia saturating the ground that first caught my eyes (and nose). Both of the tanks on the converted fertilizer trucks had been punctured, all but a couple of gallons in each tank had spilled out. Every one of the tires on each vehicle had been slashed sometime while we slept. Somebody did not want us to leave anytime soon, although I was of a mind to drive as far as we could away from this place, rims sparking, if need be. Of Aaron, there was no sign, not even a single drop of blood to explain his absence. We all found it hard to believe that he would have done this to us and then run off, leaving us purposely stranded. What was worse was the small numbers of undead that were starting to arrive, held at bay only by the 'monia which was rapidly evaporating in the morning sunlight.

We all had cell phones, appropriated from the Red's junkyard and former base. Instinctually, we all checked to see if Aaron had tried to call us, quickly flipping them open and checking for missed calls. He hadn't called or tried to contact any of us.

Nervously and without asking any of us, Elle called Aaron's phone, taking a risk that the call wouldn't be on ring and attract any unwanted attention if he was in trouble. We all held our collective breath, hoping that Aaron would answer but he didn't. There is no point in leaving a message, none of us know the pass code to open the voicemail, so she hung up with tears starting to form in her bloodshot eyes. If he's alive he'll eventually check his cell for missed calls if he can, we reasoned.

An intense debate ensued as we tried to figure out what to do next. Elle and Keith refused to even entertain the notion of going and searching for Aaron. Elle was scared, as we all were, and both Keith and I nervously laughed when she volunteered to be the one to stay behind and watch after the invalid and the infant before the subject had yet to come up. Neither of them wanted to venture into the wasteland of Tampa to search for somebody that was more than likely already dead.

I finally got Keith to agree to come with Laelaps and me and scout around for Aaron while we searched for something we could use to get us out of the pickle we were in. We needed to either find a suitable replacement for the RV, at the bare minimum, or find an auto shop or something to replace purposely deflated tires. If we didn't find something within a couple of hours, we would find someplace safe to hole up in for the night. That was our only plan at the time, there really was nothing else we could do. Whatever we had to do I told him, we would have to do it as fast as we could. The ammonia wouldn't keep the undead away forever. The automated, ambling, necrotic, parasite controlled corpses would have this place completely surrounded by nightfall, not to talk of whatever happened to Aaron happening again tonight. I didn't like the idea of not conducting a proper search for Aaron but the baby's safety comes first. I have to get Candy to a place where she won't be hunted as food.

It wasn't difficult to see the path where Aaron had been dragged through the long, untended and dew laden grass. We didn't have to worry about getting the hungering dead's attention in order to lead them away from the RV and it's vulnerable contents. After a single walk around our disabled vehicles before we left, every one of the undead in the area tried to follow us around the safe zone that the ammonia provided. We had to keep moving, maintaining an expanding lead on the walking dead that followed us and quickly passing by those that weren't close enough to kill. Keith preferred to use a fire axe (the biggest kind with the pick on the other side of the head) for melee with the abominations, preferring the sturdy two handed grip over the one handed sword I used. It was apparent we were going the right way, soon we caught up to members of the undead puppets who were intently making their way in the same direction as we were. They had obviously caught sight or scent of Aaron as he was being dragged past them and were still trying to follow in the direction they had last seen his desired flesh. Most of the zeds we were forced to kill didn't even realize we were running up behind them, so intent do they become on whatever simple task they are capable of, until their skulls were split open like rotted melons.

The trail had been made only a few hours earlier, leading through an acre or so of light Florida woodlands into a shattered neighborhood. The trail went cold once it crossed onto the cracked concrete of a street and we had thought we had lost it until Keith spotted one of Aaron's shoes lying further down one of the cross streets. I have no doubt now that when we looked around from where we found the single shoe, that we were meant to see the Auto & Tire Kingdom sign rising above the rooftops from no more than a street or two away.

Keith was slowing down after such a short amount of time, starting to sweat and heavily huff as we jogged a bare mile. Having been cooped up in the confines of the offices, he never had much opportunity to get anything in the way of exercise. When he spotted the sign he told me that's where he was going first, he wanted to get away as soon as possible and too bad for Aaron but he was going to take off without him if he could. Neither do I think it was coincidence that we found the other of Aaron's worn sneakers lying further down the street in the same direction as our destination.

When we arrived at the Auto store, we found it had been completely secured with plywood over all the windows and doors. There was one door, at the rear of the building next to the loading bay, that had the lock punched out. Thinking that the door may have been trapped we took care in checking out the door as we gently tried the latch and slowly opened it, using my flashlight to peer into the darkness and searching for signs of a tripwire or worse. The door wasn't trapped and we both nervously opened the door and tried to peer into the unknown darkness. I was in front of Keith as he held the door open while I scanned the pitch black of the interior with my M16 and handheld flashlight, making sure there was nothing that was going to try and eat us as soon as we entered.

I heard a gunshot and felt blood spray my face. It was all so sudden and unexpected that for a moment I wondered if I had been shot. When Keith fell heavily against me, pushing me into the building, I clearly saw the whole back of his skull was missing. I was slow to react, horribly watching as most of Keith's brains slid onto my lap, as more shots rang out. I felt something punch me, twice, in the back and instinctively I dodged deeper into the shop as more bullets pinged and punched into the metal door and the bricks around it. Laelaps wasn't stupid, she knew what gunshots meant. I saw her dodge around Keith's body to follow me into the shop. The door forcefully slammed shut then, propelled by the impact of the slugs. Most of the bullets were stopped by the door, leaving huge dents, while a few went through the door to ricochet around wildly before embedding themselves into the walls.

It was all I could do to find a corner and keep my weapon pointed at the door in case someone decided to come in after me, the pain in my back hindering my movements. I peeled off my body armor, noting two of the ceramic tiles had been shattered but they did what they were meant to. I hadn't actually been shot but there were going to be two nasty bruise covered welts where the body armor stopped the rounds meant to kill me.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness the shooter let loose a few more rounds at the door, keeping me inside. The shots seemed to come closer to the building and after a minute they stopped again.

The hair on Laelaps neck and back rose up and a deep, fierce growl started coming from her. Shots were fired again, from right outside the door, and this time the door started to fail, letting more of the deadly slugs pass through it. I returned fire, now the door was starting to show shafts of light through multiple holes. Silence again. When I strained to hear what was happening, rubbing my bruised back into working order again, I heard what could only be the sound of Keith's heavy body being dragged away. Before I had the chance to get up and try to see what was going on there came more shots and of course I returned fire. The door was starting to look like Swiss cheese. Besides getting Laelaps worked up, all that the gunfire was doing was keeping me pinned inside. The next thing I heard was an odd sound, of tires rolling over the gravel strewn back lot and then came a solid bang as something big hit the door.

A madman laughed at me then, telling me he'd be back later after he'd had his breakfast. At the sound of that voice Laelaps went barking and charging at the door, issuing her own warning. The door was blocked, I could see through the myriad of holes an old Lincoln had been pushed up against it. Strain as I might, I couldn't get the door to open an inch.

Neither I nor Laelaps likes to be trapped in any building, it took no time at all for me to spot something I could use to escape. The whole thing had been set up beforehand, it had to be. Each and every tire in that Auto and Tire shop had been slashed or punctured. The roll up doors to the dock weren't just locked, they were welded shut. Everything in there was useless to me except one single item. Sitting next to a machine used to remove or attach tires to their respective rims was a medium sized sledge hammer.

Within ten minutes I had pounded a hole through the cement bricks of one of the walls large enough for Laelaps and I to squeeze through. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Laelaps jumped through first and immediately I heard her savaging a zed. When I poked my head out I saw to my horror a rapidly gathering herd. Had I delayed another ten minutes we would have been under siege with no escape. As it was we had to fight our way out, with Laelaps knocking down the ghouls so I could give a swift and brutal stab to their heads. At one point, Laelaps was struggling just to keep their numbers from overwhelming me, knocking down and harassing the undead enough so that I could slaughter a path through the mob. I feared shooting them, not wanting to alert what had to be an insane carrier that we were free. By the time we broke away of the main herd I was using my rifle as a makeshift shield while I lopped off arms and heads with my worn sword.

Down an alley and over a low fence we ran, trying to put obstacles in the way of our slow but determined pursuers. There was an abandoned and boarded up house on the other side of a sturdy privacy fence and after boosting Laelaps over the wooden fence and hopping over it myself, I ran right towards the back door, aiming to bust it down and gain entry. The door gave way easily when I hit it with my shoulder at full speed. When it smashed open I rolled and came up rifle raised inside the kitchen of the dilapidated house, a move I had practiced just in case one of the necrotic cannibals happened to be in the room I had just broken into. Although I had practiced for it, I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

As I looked down the sight of my weapon I came in eye contact with a Scarlet covered carrier. Her black soulless eyes stared straight into mine and as soon as she got over the shock of somebody busting down her door she actually hissed at me. When that vile thing hissed, my finger of its own accord, twitched on the trigger blowing a dime sized hole in the naked Red's forehead and a fist sized hole in the back of her head that sprayed her brains all over the kitchen wall.

She had been sitting at the kitchen table holding something that I payed no attention to until her dead hands dropped it. It was a baby. I don't think it was human though, maybe it was at conception but not now. Laelaps growled at the infant as a baby bottle lazily rolled towards me, losing its cap and spilling what could only be blood. The thing on the floor wasn't like anything I had ever seen before. It was obviously of human stock, ten fingers and ten toes, but that's where the resemblance stopped. It was pure scarlet from head to toe, a deep, deep red that looked more like paint than any natural skin tone. The thing's limbs and digits were strangely elongated, ending in rounded sharp nails more like a cat's than a human's. The abomination's head was abnormally flat on the top but stretched out further in the back, hanging visibly far out past the back of the neck. When it cried, it was a shrill sound. The voice seemed a couple of octaves too high as it screamed out from between small, sharp needle like teeth.

I may have been too startled to do anything but Laelaps instinctively went into action. Before I could stop her she had pounced on the monstrosity and started mauling and shaking it around like a stuffed toy. She bit and savaged the thing uncontrollably, biting and shredding it to bloody pieces before I could get her to stop. Even after I calmed her down she still harshly barked and growled at the ruins of the little corpse, as if the thing were an abomination to all of nature and not just humans.

I didn't waste any time in getting out of the house, the undead were gathering and I had just crashed through the door into a different kind of hell. I saw Aaron's body in the next room as I ran to the front door. His body was upside down, feet tied to a hook in the ceiling with his throat cut. Pots and pans had collected his blood as it drained out of his slashed throat, to be poured into the scattered bottles normally used for formula for the wicked thing they called their child.

There had to be more than one of the Red's around, there couldn't be any possible way the dead carrier in the next room could have been shooting at us when it was obvious she had been here feeding her horrid offspring. That, and the voice I heard telling me he would return was distinctly male.

I was in for another shock when I reached the front door. There in the trash filled living room was a disturbingly familiar image, crudely drawn on the wall. Whether it had been created with red paint or dried blood I don't know, that's not what sent a chill down my spine. The image was of a many armed woman with multiple eyes covering her head. The many arms were a new thing. The eyes though, they were the same as the images of Yama-Kali that had decorated the Red's fortress in Ocala.

I wasted no time getting out of that house. Aaron was dead, Keith was dead and if we didn't get away as soon as possible we would join them. The hungering dead were all over the place, making it difficult for Laelaps and I to find a path where the dead's cataract covered eyes couldn't follow us.

My jaw literally dropped when I returned to the rest area. The RV was gone. Fresh gouges in the concrete led directly onto the highway, clearly made by a heavy vehicle driving on rims. The walking dead were following the same path as the ruts, why Elle had decided to abandon us confused and infuriated me.

There was only one thing I could do at that point, I jumped into one of the trucks and followed the trail. I had a difficult time trying to control the tireless truck, going straight I could build up some speed but turning required me to slow down to a crawl or risk losing control. I plowed over a number of the undead that got in my way, I even ended up dragging one of the foul things almost a mile before it fell apart.

Elle hadn't gotten very far in her bid to escape while the rest of us were risking our lives. After a bare mile there was a blind curve past tightly packed abandoned cars. Elle must have been going too fast and missed the turn, the RV had driven off an embankment and landed on its side at the bottom of a steep incline. To say I was pissed was an understatement. I was ready to shoot that airhead if one hair on the baby's head had been harmed.

The RV was lying, driver side down, with the headlights still on and the passenger side door flung wide open. Elle was gone, nowhere to be found. I have no idea what happened to her. I didn't have time to see if she took anything with her, I had my hands full with what was inside. Nancy was moaning and crying out in extreme pain, mindless of the danger that was all around. However badly I felt for Nancy, seeing her crumpled, bleeding and almost buried under the stores we had crammed into the cupboards, I only felt a wave of relief when I heard Candice's cries coming from the back bedroom.

Candy was fine except for a small bruise, her cries calmed down as soon as I held her and hushed her with some soothing words. It only took me a minute or two to find the baby carrier and strap her into it, keeping her firmly secured around my chest. Then I had to get Nancy out of there. Nancy literally screamed in pain as I lifted her broken body and pulled her up and out of the side door. Every time I looked back as I struggled to pull Nancy out of the wreckage the undead were getting closer and closer. At one point, Nancy, sweating and unable to make sense of what was going on, tried to resist me. I tried to talk to her, tell her what was happening but I don't think she understood me. I don't even think she recognized her daughter who was whining only an inch from her face. By the time I got her out of the RV and on the ground next to it, the undead started spilling down the embankment, thudding harshly against the RV once they tumbled to the bottom.

With Candice's cries of confusion and fear in my ears, I tried to help her mother to her feet and lead her away from the parasite driven fiends that were mere yards away from us. Getting her up the other side of the embankment was a struggle for me to control a growing fear and a huge anxiety. I would get within ten feet or so of the rise and freedom when either I would slip or Nancy would reflexively try to break my grip on her in response to the pain, sending us both sliding down closer to the waiting claws and teeth that were also struggling up the incline after us. They had a harder time than we in climbing that hill but not by much. When we finally breached the hill we were mere feet from a fast growing horde of gnashing teeth. Once we reached the top Nancy refused to go on, fighting me when I tried to carry her. I had to shout and point to the things rapidly getting closer before she found some of her mental facilities and allowed me to lead her away. I tried again to carry her but it caused her too much pain. Instead she leaned heavily against me and I saw her bare feet were leaving bloody, pus stained footprints behind her. It must have been torture for her as we made another mile, never getting much further away from the shambling undead that hungrily followed us. After that first mile Nancy slowed down again. She was lost in some hallucinatory state and I swear that she was talking to her mother. Tears were flowing from her eyes as she collapsed again. Nothing I did, besides grabbing her and roughly dragging her, got her to move again. Instead she simply collapsed, demanding a break so she could rest. She wasn't with us, she was somewhere far off, oblivious to the zeds that were mere feet away. Laelaps went into action again, Hounding and keeping away the nearest of the undead but it was like fighting the tide. In mere moments I was fighting with Laelaps to keep the horde away from us while Nancy babbled on about her mother. We were getting surrounded, for every nasty thing I killed two more took its place. There was nothing I could do. Eventually Laelaps and I were pushed back by the sheer numbers and one of the things grabbed a hold of Nancy's infected legs. As soon as the necrotic hands with their black nails gripped her, Nancy's eyes flew wide and I think she came fully to her senses. I started shooting the things in the face at point blank range trying to protect her, no longer worried that the shots would draw the attention of more ghouls or let those Reds in the area know for certain where we were. I was holding them off too, until I spent all my clips and needed to reload. That's when they overwhelmed us. I had barely had time to load up a single shell into my thirty-eight when one of the monstrosities sunk its teeth deep into Nancy's calf.

I looked up and they were going to be all over her in moments. She would be eaten alive and if I stayed any longer I was risking not only my life but Candy's' too. I had already had a number of close calls, Candice had already been grabbed and almost yanked out of the carrier, I had been deeply gouged and scratched myself. I heard the screams of terror and brutal pain come from Nancy and as she begged for help from me, fetid teeth tearing great chunks of flesh from her feet and legs. I started to cry.

"I'm so sorry," I told her.

"Candy will be safe, I promise", I told her.

Recognition of what I was going to do came into her eyes then and as she was starting to be dragged into the fathomless forest of teeth and nails, she screamed and held her eyes tightly shut. Through tear blurred eyes I watched horrified as her lower body disappeared into an undead version of a wood chipper.

Then I shot her point blank between the eyes. Her suffering is over now. The undead greedily focused on the prey they had brought down and as they were devouring their meal I ran. I ran until my lungs were on fire and my gut started to cramp. I didn't even know which direction I was running until I ended up on the beach. The golden disc of the sun was falling into the Gulf of Mexico, its beauty in direct opposition to the horror that lay behind me.

I thought I was in the clear then, even with Candice's intermittent cries. I was wrong. As soon as I stopped and caught some of my breath back, someone started shooting at me. I ran again, the occasional bullet being fired at me from somewhere behind me. I could hear some distant screaming, while I couldn't make out every word, I heard enough that it spurred me on. The Red that was following us was the one that had locked me in the Auto & Tire shop. It was his mutated and contaminated child that I killed back there and he was intent on chasing me until I dropped.

I had to get off the beach, the setting sun did nothing but highlight my silhouette for my pursuer. There was no way I could find a boat, or any other vehicle for that matter, as long as I was being hunted.

The sun had set for hours before I finally felt I had lost my insane and enraged tail. I kept going, slowly making my way through town. Whenever I came to a house that had an old swing set or rusted and sun faded toys in their overgrown yards I broke in and searched them for usable baby stuff. Fresh diapers, formula and a fresh from the package pacifier calmed her down enough so that she slept.

I had taken no supplies with me when I left in the morning, besides the ammo which I was now almost out of. I filled the void left from the ammo in my pack with bottled water and baby food whenever I came across some. I had less than one box of shells for my thirty-eight, a clip and a half for the nine millimeters and my last clip for my M16 was half gone. My sword and bayonet are nicked, dented, scratched, and gouged, so worn now that they no longer cut as cleanly or easily as they used to.

I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as I finished off a couple jars of strained peas and carrots that Candice was still too young to eat.

Sometime before sunrise Candice and I were abruptly awoken by the sounds of not too distant gunfire. The carrier was still hunting for me, firing randomly and shouting vile things through a PA system as he drove through the neighborhood. I never actually saw him as he drove around, luckily he was concentrating on the area closer to the beach and not further into town. As I strained to peer and listen into the dark night there came a familiar sight and scent on the slight breeze. The telltale, flickering light of small fires were springing up, the smell of smoke getting stronger as the fires burned out of control. The Red was burning down any house or building he thought I might be hiding in. It took until daybreak before he could no longer be heard, having driven off further and further to the south as he sought me out. Candice paid no heed, quickly returning to her slumber after the day's exertions. I had a hard time getting any more rest, my head was filled with worry about getting out of Tampa and reaching the safety of Key West.

I waited another couple of hours after I heard him drive off before I thought it was safe enough to continue. I slowly, carefully, made my way south, being ever watchful for my hunter or the ever present undead that seemed to follow him.

Once the fires and smoke were well behind me and I had heard nothing of the Red for hours, I turned back to the west, towards the Gulf.

Most of the once well maintained docks and boathouses had been either damaged or destroyed in the almost two years since the Omni had hit. Finding any kind of boat that was still seaworthy took all afternoon. Most of the boats that had crowded the marinas had either slipped their moorings or ended up capsized in the Gulf. The boats remaining had washed up on shore, sometimes upside down, where it was impossible for me to get back them back into the water. In the end I found a small fishing boat, protected by a sturdy tarp, still on its trailer across the street from the beach front houses themselves. It was difficult dragging the boat and trailer down to the beach, semi-flat tires hindered more than helped as I pulled it over the sand. Once I had the trailer in the water and removed the tarp (which I stowed in the bow), I found, much to my surprise, it had a little trolling motor along with life jackets and a good set of oars. I was excited as I launched it and once safely out to sea a hundred yards or so I gave the motor a try. It was louder than I thought it would be, cranking over and starting roughly after only a couple of pulls of the plastic handled cord.

As the little engine sputtered and caught, slowly propelling me along the coast, my friend the Red showed up again, driving recklessly along the beach, firing at me through the passenger window of an ancient AMC Jeep. I had thought he was long gone by now but apparently he was merely staying quiet and keeping his ears open for my return. The fishing boat has a low profile, I placed Candice in the lowest part of the boat and Laelaps crouched on the deck next to the baby, instinctively keeping her head down as bullets whined overhead. My return fire was much more accurate, I had a better target to shoot at and I spent the last of the ammo in my M16 directly into the WWII style Jeep. I laughed at the crazed, Scarlet infested madman as he quickly tumbled out of the disabled vehicle and ran for cover between the beach front homes. He followed me as far as he could, on foot, firing randomly until he could follow no longer, marsh and wetlands finally blocking his pursuit.

The engine suddenly and roughly quit, seizing up completely on me just an hour or so after I lost sight of the Red. Slowly I've been drifting further and further out into the Gulf, no matter how hard I row. I can't make any headway at all against the current and the anchor isn't nearly long enough to touch bottom and stop me. The sun is setting as I write this and I fear my luck has completely run out. I only have enough water for the three of us for another day or two at the most. I was doing fine in Ocala, I should have never have left. Nancy would have died of her infection anyways, I guess the fates had her marked for death to begin with. All I did was lead more people to their doom.

For Candice's and Laelaps sake I'll keep rowing until my arms fall off, I die from dehydration or I make landfall again. It's all I can do.

## Book Four

Martin's Journal

### March 1, 2013

My name is Martin S. Trebuchet, M.D. and if you are reading this then I am dead. I am sound of mind although my body has entered the mid stages of starvation. I will die within the week. I no longer have the strength to continue my limited research into the animated physiology of the parasite controlled dead. For the past six months I have occupied my time and mind on the foul abominations that should only exist in nightmares. I am no longer able to safely conduct any further research into the controlled corpses of the infected. They are too strong and too violent for me to deal with safely at this point. I absolutely refuse to call them "zombies." This is not some B grade Hollywood movie, these poor souls were once human beings and to call them such a thing seems degrading and disrespectful to me. I will write in this final log, filling it with how I came to be here and the results of my examinations until either I die or am, hopefully, rescued. I should have enough time to describe my situation starting from shortly before martial law was declared, until the present. Writing this will take up the most part of the next couple of days, after which I will become too weak from hunger to do anything but sleep (before entering a comatose state and then dying).

I must admit that what follows will contain useful information regarding the animated dead but it will also contain a lot of material that you may decide to "skip" over. That is fine with me. I need a mechanism to occupy my mind with something other than the looming shadow of my own death.

I won't bother to write a last will and testament. There is nobody in my family still alive to leave an inheritance to anyways. My mother, my father, my brother, my girlfriend and all my friends were infected and surely they are denied a restful peace. Their cadavers are assuredly being forced to walk the Earth and do the will of the parasitic colony inside them, making a mockery of their lives. I take some solace in knowing that the evil won't control my corpse after my spirit has left it. If there is a spirit. If all of this isn't a random mathematical expression of chaos. An illusion forced upon us for a short amount of time, to be quickly forgotten and never remembered. If death only leads to an unrelenting blackness then even our names will be forgotten. All of our works and struggles will be a cosmic joke, even the most famous of us will one day fade from memory. The great pyramids will crumble to dust and none will even know such things existed. Even the Earth itself will one day be engulfed by our Sun, destroying every last scrap of evidence that we ever were. It is to that void I am headed, to join the billions already there. I was never very religious before but staring my own death in the face, I find religion to be a double edged sword. The idea of an eternal spirit of some sort brings with it a desperate hope that I will at least still exist after my mortal body has collapsed. The Buddhist ideals of reincarnation seems a bit unpalatable to my mind and there are aspects of Monotheism that terrify me. To be judged and found unworthy of heaven and thrown into a demon filled pit of fire and eternal torture would definitely be worse than simply a void of nothingness and far worse than returning to life and its multitude of sufferings. This prolonged knowledge of my approaching death is eating me alive. Often in the past couple of months I have pondered the fact that I may already be dead and that this is purgatory. Time seems to stretch in my isolation, seemingly taking a bare minute and turning it into an hour.

It took me over eight years to get my MD. Four years of undergraduate studies and another four years of medical school. By the time I finished my residency more than ten years had passed. After my two year residency was over, I was thirty years old and in debt up to my ears. I had wanted to open my own practice but that would have entailed getting another loan. The financial meltdown tightened up the credit lines and with the amount of outstanding loans I already had, it made my own practice an impossibility. I received a few offers from other established MD's and a couple of commercial enterprises to join them but the best offer I received was from the state of Florida. I'm sure if I would have had the time to seek a job for another couple of months I would have found a better offer. Unfortunately the rent on my small apartment was due and my cupboards were so bare a mouse would have starved to death.

In all honesty, I never thought I would be here more than a few years. I only planned on staying and working here at the Marion County Jail until I repaid my student loans and then I would go into private practice. The hours here were manageable, the handful of doctors employed here worked in shifts and it was all pretty routine. The medical services used to be handled by a private firm but the contract wasn't renewed with them over a demanded raise in prices. All the better for those of us who worked here, the pay wasn't as good as the private firm offered but the benefits provided by the state are much better. We were always on call but rarely were we actually called in. The toughest part of the job was dealing with the inmates. There were always the few that were hostile and prone to violence, but that was relatively rare. The biggest problem was trying to sort through the ones that were lying to gain access to prescription meds and the ones that were already on prescription meds that were also addicted to street drugs. Those cases of addiction required a certain amount of time where we had to make sure the prisoners were clean, thereby stopping all meds and then referring them to a psych for further evaluation before I could authorize a resumption. For any real life threatening emergencies the prisoners were sent to the civilian hospital until they were well enough to do their recuperation here. All in all, if it wasn't for the benefits I would never have taken the job.

I had been here nearly two years when the animal madness swept the globe. The prison population spiked to capacity and beyond as the homeless and the destitute committed crimes just to escape the attacks. Better to spend three to six months in jail for breaking and entering than to be mauled to death by insane cats and squirrels while you slept in the bushes. The jail grounds hold other buildings, mainly used by the Sheriff's office and was surrounded by a tall, razor wire topped chain link fence. Note I said "was" in the previous sentence but I'll get to that shortly. The "Rat flu" filled the medical ward to capacity and threatened to blow our budget, thankfully it turned out to be a mild mutation and not the virulent strain we feared it might be. At the time, none of us here realized the symptoms of the Rat flu were merely the opening salvo of what would be the end of our world. Never in a million years would we have guessed that it would cause the dead to hungrily walk the Earth in search of warm human flesh to devour. With the animal kingdom going hell bent for blood I didn't see any reason to turn down the offer made to all the workers to stay on the grounds until the plague of madness burned itself out. As horrifying as it was to watch the violence unfold on the television, I felt safe surrounded by the razor wire and the armed police and jail staff. I think the jail populace, in general, was also somewhat grateful to be in a secure facility even if it was against most of their wills.

With all the vicious and bloody animal attacks that I saw, one video still stays with me. It's not one of the always normally dangerous animals like the tiger or lion attacks that got to me. It was watching a small group of rabbits attack and maul to death a child. In my mind it was absolutely terrifying to see such timid animals driven to such a state of ferocity. Immediately the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail came to mind where the killer rabbit of Caerbannog attacked and bit the heads off of three stout knights in one fell swoop to the accompanying sound of a can opener. I remember how the two things overlapped in my mind and I had to actually bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood to keep from releasing a nervously fearful giggle in front of a room full of other employees, lest they think I had lost my mind.

The horrors of the animal madness waned and passed. I left the security of the jail facilities and we all tried to get back to our normal lives. Our normal lives were over with though. The aftermath of the animal madness was sobering, to say the least. The world's farms and livestocks were in ruins. There was legislation being pushed through in Washington that would mandate the resurrection of the "chain gangs". Prisoners would be made to do manual labor picking crops and getting the agriculture industry going again. Strict rationing was going to be implemented and while the United States had enough food stocked up to keep its populace from starving to death, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the world.

Some nations, nations that had a hard time feeding their people to begin with, started rattling their sabers. To them it was either go to war in the hopes that they could capture enough food for their people, or watch as their entire population starved to death in the worst worldwide famine ever seen in human history.

It seemed one week we were all talking of how glad we were that the madness had passed and how we were going to get past the oncoming famine when it was all forgotten in the next week. As soon as the "Scarlet" manifested itself, with its small, red, freckle like spots, it didn't matter anymore.

The few of us employees that were immune were forced, by our contract, to stay at the facilities full time until the emergency passed. Before everything collapsed in a maelstrom of bloodshed and brutality, myself and a dozen others who were also immune, secured and holed up in the primary services building. I could do nothing for the infected. The government gave us very little information regarding the parasite. When we did get instructions on how to proceed in regards to the prisoners, they were simply procedures on mandated disposal methods of the dead. The health and welfare of those incarcerated was no longer a priority at any level.

As the Scarlet grew in its victims, taking over their minds and bodies, open acts of violence became common place. It wasn't just inmate on inmate violence that filled every bed in the medical ward and demanded the majority of my waking hours. The insanity and its manifest aggression caused those guards that were under the parasites insidious influence to go cell to cell, beating, torturing and murdering. There was nothing we could do except stay away from them lest they expend their madness on us.

Inside the prison, life became a horrific orgy of violence. The convicts, locked in close confines with each other, argued, fought, struggled and killed each other with their bare hands and teeth. There are multiple monitoring stations throughout the jail complex and every cell contains at least one camera. I sickly watched the unfolding carnage and bloodshed on the black and white monitors, unable to turn away from the sights. I was transfixed by the sheer ferocity of the aggression and madness. Even though I knew what was transpiring was real and was occurring right in front of my eyes, a feeling of utter disbelief and incredulity overcame me. I was finally able to turn myself away from the terrors after I watched one exceedingly large prisoner take huge, bloody bites out of another, smaller, prisoners face. The sight of absolute fear and pain, as the huge madman sat upon his chest and hungrily ate the flesh from his face, made me vomit. When the other infected prisoners joined in the horrible assault, biting pieces off the screaming and futilely struggling man I had to get up leave, never returning to the monitoring station.

Outside the gates it was worse. By the time martial law was declared and the army and National Guard came in to try and restore order it was already too late. What could only have been considered acts of terrorism before was now being committed by everyone from infected school kids to retired old ladies. We watched on CNN as Mexico City burned to the ground amidst riots and chaos like I could never have imagined.

Just before the end came, that is, just before the Scarlet killed the infected, when the madness was at its height, all the saber rattling of the nations turned into war. Before the television stations went blank there came rumors that the Chinese had devastated the west coast with nukes. Whether it is true or not I have no idea. Certainly the depth of the psychosis caused by the parasite made nuclear war a distinct probability.

Through all of this I kept in contact with my parents and my girlfriend as long as I could. They were infected and with every phone call I could hear the change taking place in them. In the beginning they wanted to know, since I was a Doctor, how they could be cured. It broke my heart to tell them there was no cure. The first phone calls were desperate and pleading as they sought any way to stop what was going to happen to them. After a couple of days they demanded I tell them everything I knew about the parasite, which was very little. I felt helpless, having spent the better part of my adult life studying medicine to help those I loved, only to realize that all my expensive schooling was a waste. The final phone calls were nothing more than raging diatribes against everything and everyone. I prescribed myself antidepressants and mourned them when they no longer called.

During the worst of it all we maintained a limited contact with what was left of the Sheriff's office personnel. The police stations and the officers themselves were prime targets for the population's murderous rampage. The prison held a modicum of safety and it became a refuge for those immune that could make their way here. Soon the prison held over fifty refugees that were immune to "Omni" (I'm going to use Omni in reference to the whole name Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni as it is not only shorter but seems fitting) along with however many inmates were left from the original two thousand or so.

It wasn't until after the Omni killed its hosts that we started to go back outside again. It was then that we went through and took stock of the prison population. Overnight it seemed, the parasite killed, bringing an end to the violence. The dead were everywhere, having died in the middle of whatever horrible act they were in the midst of committing. The interior of the prison was a slaughterhouse. Numerically speaking, there should have been about two hundred survivors. There was an eight to ten percent ratio of people that should have been immune but we only recovered only ten inmates. They had been abandoned and left to fend for themselves, locked in their eight man cells with those that went murderously insane. Most of the survivors came out of "the pit" (solitary confinement) or had been able to find a place to hide. Every cell was a bloody mess and it was more than apparent that cannibalism had been practiced. I know it may have been days since they had been properly fed but that should not have led them to eat each other. I find myself extremely distressed over what befell the prisoners under my care but what was I to do?

### March 2, 2013

There was one detainee that had survived but he was not like the rest. He wasn't immune, far from it. His skin had completely turned a deep red and his tongue, gums, sclera (whites of the eyes) and even the flesh under his fingernails had turned black as night. He had been driven completely insane by the parasite but he did not die from it. We left him in his cell with the partially devoured corpses of his victims, nobody wanted to go near the man. The convict was the first carrier of the Omni that I had ever seen and later I used him as a subject in my research.

The sheer amount of the dead all around us tainted the air with the stomach churning scent of rotting corpses. We formed up a burn pile detail and starting collecting the bodies of the dead. Most of the prisoners who had survived fled at their first opportunity. Nobody stopped them. They had no idea the magnitude of what had happened, being locked up with no connection to the outside world. There are no TV's here at Marion County Jail like other facilities have. The only connection to the outside world they had was the collect-call only phone in their cell. In the madness of the Scarlet the phones were soon destroyed and in most cases the broken pieces were actually used as weapons against each other.

There had come an order from the Federal government to destroy the brainstem of any victim of the parasitic infection who had died, amongst other directives for the legal mass disposal of the dead. I put that down as more insanity and ignored it. The government obviously knew more about the parasite than they let on. I soon found out firsthand what was going to happen, enmass, to those cadavers that hadn't had their dead brains scrambled.

Parts of the city were burning out of control under a grey, maligned sky that cried tears of soot and ash like dirty snow. Gunshots, screams and all manner of chaos could still be heard from both near and far. The heavy smell of smoke mixed with the cloying miasma of the numberless unburied corpses and filled my nostrils. With the world in its final death throes we set about the grim task of burning the dead.

For the most part the majority of survivors set about cleaning the cafeteria, monitoring stations and the medical ward first, while I gave a brief examination of the corpses to ascertain they were dead. My day was filled with gathering the information I needed to fill out the thousands of death certificates that the bureaucracy demanded of me. The remains of the mangled cadavers in the cells would have to wait, and we basically left them to rot until we could get to them in the next few days.

The burn pile was set as far away as possible from the buildings we were going to stay in but even still, the distinctive smell of burning human flesh permeated every floor of every building for a mile around. The bodies could only be stacked so high before it became too difficult to toss the corpses up onto the heap. The dead that were in rigor mortise were relatively easy to handle, those that were limp had the tendency to slide back down the necrotic pyramids of putrid dead, requiring multiple attempts to keep them in their place in the pile. Once the pile got to a certain height and depth, gasoline was poured on the deceased and then lit. The bodies burned slowly at first, the atrocious conflagration gaining strength once it got hot enough to use the corpse's fat as fuel. As one heap of cadavers burned another mound was being created.

I had heard of postmortem spasms before but until that day I had never seen evidence of it. There are always stories bantered around in every medical school of the dead moving and even sitting up on the morticians table but it was a rare occurrence. The Omni seemed to cause an unusual amount of muscular movement in its victims. After rigor mortis comes a secondary laxity (flaccidity) and this is the stage where the postmortem spasms occur. The first corpse I witnessed exhibiting this phenomena caused me to rush over and ensure I had not mistakenly declared him dead. The parasite causes whole muscle groups to spasm, and every muscle in the body is affected. The more cadavers they brought, to be stacked like cordwood waiting to be incinerated, the more movement I observed. I had no idea that the movement was the precursor to the reanimation of the dead flesh.

It was disturbing, to say the least, to watch the bodies twitch and move around, en masse, as they burned. It was like watching a scene from hell.

I was trying not to watch the writhing mound of blazing cadavers, it was too unsettling. Instead I focused on doing my duty while others managed the piles.

I heard a blood-curdling scream behind me and I just about jumped out of my skin. I turned around and could not believe what I was seeing. One of the dead, having its clothes, hair and the majority of its skin burned away by the flames, had risen from the nauseating cremation fire to latch onto one of my fellow survivors from behind. The unliving, yet now mobile flesh was still burning and the flames jumped from the walking corpse to the living victim it had found. Small licks of flame quickly lit the terrified man's hair on fire as the animated unliving thing bit deeply into the poor man's neck. Such a thing could not be, I thought I was caught in a dream and would soon awaken. I could do nothing but stare in shock at what was happening. Arterial blood sprayed in huge spurts as the man screamed and struggled to get away from his hideous attacker. The thing kept biting at the jugular vein and digging its cold, dead fingers into its victims flesh. It wasn't until blood splattered onto my face that my lethargy was broken. Both the reanimated corpse and its victim were ablaze then. The unfortunate man collapsed to the ground with the unholy beast atop of him, still biting, chewing and eating him alive. I had no weapon and was at a complete loss of what to do. So I added my yells for help to the inarticulate screams of agony issuing from the poor man's ragged throat.

One of the Sheriff's deputies was first on the scene and even he stopped in mid stride once he saw the sight. I had to yell at the deputy to spur him to action. It took multiple shots to stop the thing, the rounds seemed to have no effect at all. The officer fired round after round, until a slug entered the beast's skull and finally ceased its movements, sending it back into the eternal rest it should have never wakened from.

There was nothing I could do for the victim. He had bleed out and died before we killed the parasite controlled corpse.

The deputy and I were joined by others, also attracted by the horrified screams and we all watched, terrified, as more corpses started to rise to their feet.

Round upon round and clip upon clip was spent into the masses of the dead, ensuring that no other abomination would arise from those unholy piles. Others went inside the jail and ensured that all the cells were shut and locked. Those dead that we didn't get a chance to cremate wouldn't have the opportunity to know freedom. They would stay incarcerated in death, as they had in life, until we could figure out a way to deal with them.

All over the city, and the world for that matter, the dead started to rise from their all too brief slumber. Within two days, the vast majority of those who had succumbed to the Scarlet had been reanimated in a detestable mockery of life.

There are four cell blocks on the jail grounds and work began on clearing the walking dead from the first of the buildings. While groups cleared and cleaned the block, turning the former cells into makeshift apartments for the survivors, other groups went out and tried to rescue more of the town's survivors. The medical ward resides in a different cell block and while the immediate area had been cleared, the building still held hundreds of the parasite controlled victims. I spent most of my time providing medical care to the refugees, many of whom had atrocious, life threatening wounds from the cannibalistic attacks of the undead.

As time went by, the numbers of the abominations in the streets grew, making it tougher every day for the rescue and supply squads to operate. We were safe though, for awhile at least.

Two meals a day were served out of the kitchen and we turned the general services building into a makeshift cafeteria. It was there that I started hearing of some of the odd behaviors exhibited by the dead automatons.

The undead seemed to gather together in groups, forming packs both large and small, depending on how many of them there are in the area. I also noticed this behavior in the jail cells. The dead, once raised, don't stay where they were when they awoke from what was supposed to be their eternal rest. Instead they all moved together, within arm's reach of one another and then they stand like sentinels, barely moving. They stand like that, swaying slightly, until they sense prey, then they go into a frenzy. Once they see living human flesh they beat, claw and bite at their confines trying desperately to tear down any obstacle between them and their quarry. In their single mindedness they continue this assault on their confines for hours, even days, before they cease. Even when they only catch a bare glimpse of a living person they continue this behavior. The undead obviously have no sense of pain as they will heedlessly cause themselves injury, breaking their bones and losing fingers and teeth in their assault upon the steel doors and shatterproof windows of the cells.

As those first few terrible weeks went by, the rescue squads came back with fewer survivors and more of them came back from their patrols wounded. The teams weren't just coming under assault by the hungering dead, they were also starting to come back after being attacked by other hostile groups. Some of the people had no desire to submit to the same authorities that had, in their mind, been a part of the establishment that led the world to its current sad state. Soon, with all the activity and movement in and around the grounds, so many of the undead were drawn here that it made getting past the main gate extremely difficult.

We hunkered down then and started waiting for the parasite to die off. I had never imagined that it would take so long. At first I believed that within two weeks the dead would return to their rest. Then I was sure it would happen in a month. People kept hounding me about how long the dead would walk and many got mad at me when my guesses turned out to be wrong. I became just as frustrated as they were about this, reminding them that nobody knew a damned thing about the horrors that had claimed dominion over the corpses of our friends and families. Now, six months later, I am wondering if they'll ever die.

I turned my time towards trying to learn as much as I could about the parasite, focusing my mind on them to the point of obsession.

A small power struggle ensued here as the sixty three others worked out a new ad hoc governance. Thankfully it didn't get any more violent than a few isolated fist fights. I tried my best to stay out of the politics, I had no desire to make enemies. The end result wasn't a heavy handed authoritarianism, as I feared it might degrade into. Instead sensibility won the day and everyone agreed to vote democratically on whatever issue was at hand. The three main players in our new regime really didn't have much to do anyways then, as we were now pretty much stuck here inside the razor wire fences. The biggest headaches were brought on by minor squabbles caused by fearful people who were strangers to each other, forced into close confines in the midst of the apocalypse.

At first I studied the undead from the guard's old monitoring stations, watching the results of some of my behavioral experiments on the monitors. The first thing that I had noticed was the undead's ability to detect the nearby presence of any uninfected human being. I happened to be idly watching the camera feeds during one of the daily security checks. Every day a small patrol goes through each of the buildings and cell blocks to ensure that all doors that should be closed are closed. The patrols weren't just for security, building maintenance must still be done. As the small group went through the three floors of the cell block, starting with the medical ward (which compromises the first floor of this building), odd behavior became apparent. As soon as one of the living corpses caught sight of the patrol, all the Omni infected corpses in the vicinity would turn and face the direction of the group (even those that were in cells that had no view of the small patrol). Whenever any member of the group was sighted by any one of the undead, every other undead being within twenty-five feet or so seemed to become aware of their presence.

Initially I had put it down to the patrol making noise, talking or even the echoes of their footfalls on the hard floor. When I noticed that the parasite controlled horrors on different floors also responded I became intrigued. I found I could track the patrols progress through the building by watching the reactions of the undead on the floors above them. Though the building is silent, for the most part, and noise can travel easily, I knew that one cannot simply hear someone merely walking around on the floor below or above them. Maybe the parasite caused an increase in hearing I wondered. I started by placing a few simple sound monitoring devices (decibel meters) in different spots to record just how much noise the patrol made. There was no change in decibel levels recorded on floors that were separate from the floor the patrol was on. I even had one of my assistants, a woman by the name of Mary, go through the cell block as silently as she could without wearing shoes, clad in her stocking feet. Still the monstrosities responded through steel and concrete. They would have either had to have supernatural hearing or they were somehow communicating.

To investigate this phenomenon further I had to get the help and approval of the rest of the group. It wasn't a hard sell, everyone wanted to know as much about the walking dead as they could. There was hardly any accusations of me turning into a mad man doing unholy experiments on the dead (at the time, those came later). I needed help to gather a handful of the undead and secure them in the few cells normally reserved for prisoners with contagious diseases. I also had one of the two rooms that held beds and traction tables turned into a makeshift operating room and lab where I could operate on and dissect the things, once they were securely strapped down. It took some time, and although there were a few people who received wounds (mainly deep scratches and bites) doing this, there were no severe injuries.

The cells on the second floor of my building ended up being completely cleared and disinfected with the former unliving occupants either eliminated or moved to my ward. This left the third floor as a reserve of undead. All of the other buildings on the grounds were also searched and cleansed of the undead at this time. The second floor of my building, the group had decided, would be where any carriers would be housed. The carriers, completely scarlet skinned and completely insane, were difficult to handle. The hope was that I could do research on the "Reds" (as the carriers came to be called) and one day, hopefully, find a cure or vaccine. We only had one Red at the time and he was more dangerous than a hundred parasite controlled corpses. I digress though, I will cover this aspect of my research in later writing.

There was some dissent over the fact that the cannibalistic dead would be housed so close to where any wounded or sick survivors would be treated and cared for, unable to defend themselves. Everyone was reminded that this was a jail, this was a secure building and that all of the undead were isolated, strapped and or chained down. Prisoners held here before the apocalypse were much more dangerous than the slow moving undead were. The undead were really only dangerous in groups and even if containment failed a single one (or even a small group) could be neutralized easily. Now I could observe and monitor their behaviors first hand or through the medical wards monitors.

Mary was leery and hesitant of helping me at first. She had been a forty year old housewife in her previous life but once she got over her fear she proved to be a reliable and helpful assistant. She is no longer with me, having been murdered with the others when we came under attack. I can only hope that if there are other survivors from the attack that they have stockpiled enough food to last them until they are rescued or can find a means of escape. Otherwise their fate will be the same as mine, starvation and death. Unless of course they can find the willpower to resort to eating the flesh of their fellow starving survivors as they die off one by one. Such irony, to be turned into a living copy of the hungry cannibalistic dead. To become like that which we fear the most. For myself, I have tried to consume the flesh of the undead in my desperate bid for survival. Not only does it taste disgusting, which I could get past as I must eat, but it is toxic. Even cooked way past well done, to the point it becomes a charred hunk of near charcoal it still causes one to become violently ill, even after having eaten only a few bites.

Twenty five feet seems to be the maximum range that the undead can communicate to each other of any human presence. My experimentation has shown that the twenty five foot range applies to every undead host, each seems to be able to transmit information to others of its kind out to that range. I placed an undead host in successive separate cells and as long as one knew of human presence, they all did. Colonized victims hundreds of feet away almost instantly react as if they are all connected in a 'chain', even though they themselves could not view the prey. Once the chain is broken, all of those after the missing link never become aware of a living being (as the unknown means of communication is disrupted). At ten feet, once somehow alerted to any human presence, they try to get as close to their prey as possible, crowding together and pressing heedlessly against any wall or obstacle between them and their prey even though they have never even set their dead eyes upon them. When they actually see a person they go berserk and even those in separate cells, if they are close enough, that hadn't seen any living being yet enter into this behavior. The undead are incapable of speech and are silent, so how they communicate to each other the nearness of prey is as yet unknown to me.

When I first began my autopsies I surgically removed their eyes, including the optic nerves that connect to their completely dead brains. How they had any vision at all through those organs is beyond my ken to begin with. The sclera in every case had turned black as night from congealed and clotted blood, having a firm, almost rock hard density. On top of this the entire eye is covered in a thick cataract and film. There is no evidence of blinking or tear production. No moisture is produced by the lubricating ducts as in a living person to keep the eye moist and clean. On top of this there is no response to light stimuli, that is, no pupillary light response. For all intents the parasite should be receiving no visual input from these organs as they are clinically composed of dead cells and cannot transmit any information (I have come to the belief that they in fact, can barely see at all and are almost physically blind, as unbelievable as that is). Even with the Omni controlled cadavers having their eyes removed there is only a slight change in behavior. They still respond to human presence at the same aforementioned distances and with the same hostility. The only noticeable difference is that without eyes or optic nerves they no longer react to an unobstructed view of a living person as we would with our living, working sight (unless another colonized host can view that person). Specifically, if a lone colonized host (that has had at least the eyeballs removed) is alone in a cell (with no other nearby hosts) one may stand directly in front of it as long as the host cannot hear or otherwise sense that person. If that enucleated host has another walking cadaver within range with a clear line of sight the blinded, previously isolated, host will immediately react as if it had sight. It is as if there is some other mechanism being used by the single celled parasites that I am completely unaware of. The only other creature I know of that is virtually blind like this are bats but they use a form of sonar/radar to find their prey. I cannot do any further research into this as I do not have the equipment to look into this further. The only other insight I have to this behavior is what was relayed to me by the carrier. He flatly stated that the undead share a common sight, that every weak orb adds to an overall picture of their surroundings much like the many facets of an insects compound eyes (as difficult as that is to believe, I have no other working explanation for this phenomenon).

My experiments continued, even after I told the rest of the refugees my preliminary findings. Many thought I was lying or full of shit. It was only with Mary's testimony, backed up by actually showing them the hard to believe test subjects and their behaviors for themselves, that they started to believe my findings.

It was around this time that excursions into the ruins of our city became much more difficult. Any expedition past the main gates had to be preceded by an hour long extermination effort to thin out the numbers of the undead. Even once past the horde at the gates the danger didn't end. The search teams went out in armored personnel carriers to protect themselves from the unliving marionettes but also from the constant, often deadly, harassment by a small organized group that had laid claim to the city and everyone in it. There was the ever present threat of sniper fire and it wasn't unusual for Molotov cocktails to be hurled at them. From what I understood at the time, the attackers were mainly those who were suffering from the Scarlet. At first I was afraid the parasite had mutated again and had started infecting people who had been previously immune. It wasn't until I had a chance to interview an ex-soldier that I found out how they could even still be alive (or at least not have become a Red yet).

Burns, bullet wounds and other injuries provided a break in my research into the parasite and their dead hosts. For some unfortunate few, there was little I could do for except pray. The medical ward was a far cry from a hospital ward. I lacked even some of the most rudimentary equipment to perform any serious operating. Most of the time I felt like a doctor in one of those old western movies. Having to dig out a slug or suture an open wound while others hold the patient down is something I never thought I would have to actually do.

When a patient succumbed to his wounds, despite my best efforts, if anyone complained I was sure to mention to them that I needed the medicines and equipment that only a hospital could supply. The expeditions tried to get to the hospital to gather some of the equipment we desperately needed but every time they tried they were forced to retreat. The hospitals were the first places that fell to the undead. That is where all the sick and dying went. That is where the morgues overflowed and the dead were laid out in stacks waiting for autopsy, then in piles of body bags waiting to be claimed by relatives for burial. That is where thousands upon thousands of the hideous, ravenous, parasite manipulated dead rose from their brief slumber and turned the hospitals into feeding grounds. The dead are thick in those areas of the city, so numerous that they flow around abandoned cars and other obstacles like water.

My crude dissections on the unliving ghouls continued. I had become fascinated as to how the parasite was using the senses of their dead hosts to find their victims. It is common knowledge that when a person is rendered blind his (or her) other senses become magnified in an attempt to compensate. I decided to next remove the undead's olfactory sense in order to study them further.

I had to rig up a makeshift gag to keep my test subjects from biting me with their incessant snapping. At least I didn't have to worry about causing my patients any undue pain. I found it easiest to remove the nose and its underlying cartilage for access to the sinus cavity. Once inside it was relatively straightforward to remove the olfactory bud since there was no chance of harming my patient.

I did this to ghouls that still had their eyes and on those I had previously removed the obsolete organs from. There was no change in behavior. In every case the olfactory bud had started to decompose. There is no swelling or sign of direct colonization in the olfactory buds as there is with the optic nerves. The sense of smell does not appear to be functional or utilized by the parasite to any degree at all. The rate of decay shown was barely a fraction of what it should have been. It was intriguing how the parasite accomplished this but I think I at least figured that part out.

The skin and indeed the whole corpse, inside and out, is covered by a thin veneer of a slick, waxy like substance. The substance is an almost clear, colorless and odorless material secreted by the parasitic colony lodged within the host. After a small bit of research I found that while it is ineffective on preserving vegetable matter from rot it works very efficiently in preserving meat. I have not the means to determine what the substance is composed of but the possible uses for it is worth further research. I have noted that while the host is active (therefore still producing this waxy substance) no insects will feed off them or lay their eggs in the necrotic flesh. Once the colony within the host has been destroyed, the substance quickly deteriorates. Only then will insects (especially cockroaches) feed and lay eggs in the rotting flesh as they normally would.

I then removed the tongues from my subjects. The sense of smell and taste are closely tied together in the brain and at a certain point they are intertwined. Still no change in their behavior. I must add that in most cases, removal of the tongue (or a glossectomy) is almost unnecessary, as in almost all cases the tongues of the undead have been already bitten and shredded from their frenzied jaw snapping. There is no sign that the parasite uses any sense of taste (as with the sense of smell) and may not know or care if that particular organ of its dead host is viable or not. More often than not all that is left by the time I operate on them is a ragged and shredded nub barely attached to the throat.

I then removed eardrums and mutilated my subjects in every combination possible in my research only to be stymied. It's as if they have a base awareness that is very unlike ours. Physical senses that shouldn't work at all are being utilized by the parasite in ways that shouldn't be possible.

The only one of the five senses that I didn't remove was their sense of touch. It would have been difficult to do but it was unnecessary. The animated cadavers show no reaction to pain at all. Not once in my brutal butchering of them did they show any notice of what I was doing to them. The only response from them came in the form of an openly hostile attempt to bite, claw or otherwise rip me apart and eat me alive. They have no sense of touch whatever.

I have come to the conclusion that much of the cannibalistic behavior exhibited by the undead is driven by the parasite's need. What exactly the single celled menace is craving I haven't been able to ascertain. The digestive tracts of the subjects are decaying, putrid masses of slowly decomposing flesh. There is no way that I can see that the rotting remains of the stomach can digest any amount of food. I think the parasite finds nourishment from living human flesh by another means other than through the use of the host's digestive system. There are rumors going around that suggest that the parasite controlled cadavers do get some nourishment from the eating of uninfected human flesh. Some survivors swear that they have personally witnessed specific members of the undead who had previously feasted seem to have degraded less to the ravages of time and are much more mobile than those undead who haven't. I cannot attest to this and although I want to attribute this belief to fear and psychological paranoia, it is quite possible they are correct.

I did, at one time, approach the group in an effort to gather further material to look into this. The undead show absolutely no interest in eating or drinking anything except human flesh and blood. As such, I meekly asked the group for permission to take possession of an uninfected corpse to feed to my subjects. The resounding knee jerk reaction was more harsh than I had expected. I was accused of being insane and calloused. There was no way they would allow me to chop up and feed the body of any dead person to those unnatural things. To even ask that question, in their minds, proved that I had spent too much time studying and autopsying the ghouls. I still maintain that it is a logical next step in any serious study and besides, the dead (whether animated or not) feel no pain. I find that most people have no idea how medical science has advanced through the ages and just how brutal and distasteful it actually was. Within a week the group practically shut down my dissections of the undead, leaving me with very little left to report in that area.

The final amount of examining the physiology of the undead centered around the brain, the nervous system and muscle control. Before my studies ended I had found that the muscle texture in the ghouls had changed from its normal state to that of an almost rubbery texture. It is as if the waxy substance secreted by the parasitic colony (maybe as a waste product) not only slowed the rate of decomposition of dead flesh but also chemically changed the dead cells of the muscles themselves.

The parasites seemed to actually enter the nerve cells, much like a virus does, instead of attaching themselves to the outside of the cells. I believe that the parasite resides inside the affected cells and manipulates the deceased body from there. I believe that it uses the remains of the cells they have infiltrated as a mechanism to control its host instead trying to directly control the host by itself. The only nerve cells it seems to have infected are the major muscle controls. Nerves to the parts of the body that lead to the sensation of touch, or any other nerve or part of the body, appear to be completely unaffected by the parasite.

The parasite (I cannot say with any real certainty that this is correct but it appears to be, as I have no access to any microscope, I have only my bifocal glasses and a single lighted magnifying glass) only seems to have invaded that part of the brain, specifically the brain stem, that is absolutely needed to control the movement and coordination of its host. The rest of the brain, in every case, has turned into a morass of spongy liquid, which has the consistency of runny oatmeal. There is no possibility of any higher brain activity. The walking dead have no memory of what they once were and are nothing more than decaying automations in my opinion.

### March 3, 2013

Approximately three months had passed by then. I had forgotten completely about the holidays. I had been so absorbed in my research that when I saw the Christmas tree set up in the mess hall I was surprised. Even though there were lights and decorations gaily hanging everywhere, the atmosphere was the exact opposite. A depressing cloud seemed to hang over everybody, leaving the overwhelming feeling that the brightly colored lights and posted well wishes were merely a facade meant to hide the gloom of reality. There are no children at the compound, we never found any who survived through the madness. No presents under the tree, no friends or family to share anything with. It was merely a group of strangers forced into close quarters. The relationships in the past three months that formed under the duress of the apocalypse seemed hollow compared to the loss of lifelong friends. The mood was sullen and a lot of heavy drinking was going on. There was no arguing or fighting as I thought there might be with all the alcohol, instead people were reserved and quiet.

The only time there was any dissent at all was when a small group had been caught smoking marijuana. Now I personally don't care if someone chooses to imbibe responsibly, the influencing effects are not nearly as severe as the effects of liquor can be. From a medical standpoint I know there are some benefits and the real adversity is caused from the fact that it is smoked. Still, those of the group that had served as police or other authorities in the old reality had nothing but harsh words and wanted to punish those that had broken the old laws. Arguing turned into a fist fight and threatened to degrade into an all out brawl. In the end, the smoking of "pot" was forbidden within the compound (as if anyone could leave even if they had wanted to). I think most agreed to this just to shut the objectors up.

It was shortly after the holidays that the search team made their final run. Not only was ammunition starting to run low but they were being subjected to devastating ambushes. Just getting past the horde at the gates was trouble enough. When a huge IED (Improvised Explosive Device) took out the APC the team was using, leaving only one wounded survivor, no more serious attempts were made. The detonation was so loud that we all clearly heard it inside the jail. A huge cloud rose up and pieces of debris rained down for miles around. We all knew it was a bad sign and it was even worse when a firefight ensued at the gates. The attackers were determined to kill every member of the team that had ventured outside the gates and ruthlessly followed the wounded man back here, shooting at him the whole way. The assailants kept firing at the compound even well after their quarry had found safety. I think they only gave up that day because they ran out of bullets.

They returned a week later with much heavier firepower. There was no way we could match their weapons so we did the only thing we could. We hid in the buildings, firing back when we could. Before that happened I found out a few things that I should have been told of a long time ago.

The wounded man, the lone survivor of the IED attack, had practically collapsed once he reached the relative safety of the compound. He was completely spent and was obviously in great pain. He was suffering from first and second degree burns to ten percent of his body, multiple shrapnel wounds and had been shot in the upper thigh. My first priority was to examine the gunshot wound. Thankfully for him the bullet went clean through, missing bone and artery. Once I staunched the bleeding I focused on the shrapnel wounds. There were only a couple of pieces that penetrated with any depth, and most of it was subdermal (just below the skin) with the majority of it being gravel. While it was relatively simple to remove the debris it was the risk of infection that concerned me. From what the patient had told me he had gotten the shrapnel wounds from an M67 fragmentation grenade. It was the fact that he knew the military designation of the weapon and the ease with which he spoke military jargon that I had surmised he had been in the army before everything went to hell. The burns on the young man turned out to be his most serious wounds. There was one spot on his shoulder I would have liked to apply a skin graft to but that was an impossibility. Eventually he would have a fair amount of scarring in that area but the biggest threat to him would come from the risk of infection. All in all, the patient recovered just fine with his biggest problem being coping with the pain. Burns can be the most painful of wounds and all I had to give him was Tylenol.

He swore up and down that the group who had ambushed the patrol were suffering from the Scarlet but were only partially affected. I found this hard to believe. There were over two thousand prisoners here and none of them showed any sign of only being partially resistant to the plague. All who contracted the disease were either dead and re-animated or existed like the single carrier. A base of two thousand is a good number to start from statistically and I will maintain my skepticism until I find actual proof that what he said was even possible. If this is true then either the infected ones have discovered a method to slow or stop the Scarlet's spread or the parasite has mutated again. Even after I spoke to him at length about the subject, I am unsure if the government efforts to slow the disease proved to have anything but a limited impact on the spread of the Omni within its host.

Through his repeated checkups I came to know him. He was twenty two years old and had been in the army for three years before the Omni ruined our world.

Jake Schneider had reached the rank of Corporal and although his MOS was Financial Management Technician, when martial law was declared he was sent out on duty as everyone else was. Combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan imposed discipline on the streets alongside those of the military that had never seen combat before. At first the madness was manageable, most of the citizens steered clear of the army units, preferring to expend their rage on people that weren't carrying fully automatic rifles with them. As the days went by this changed, more and more of the general populace had started the descent into madness, plagued with the overwhelming urge to violent behavior. Then even the combat veterans were saying that it was getting as bad they had seen in the beginning of the wars. In those final days before the Scarlet killed its host, only to later raise them from the dead, they were constantly under fire.

I asked him how it was that the military dealt with their own soldiers when they started exhibiting the signs of the Scarlet when he told me something I had not known before. The government had started giving, actually mandating, the soldiers take some form of amphetamine to counter the effect of the parasite. Dexedrine, the same drug given to pilots to combat fatigue during the Gulf war and handed out to soldiers during WWII, seemed to slow down the growth of the parasitic colony. It only gave the soldiers a week, at most, of extended life and in the end they went just as mad as everybody else had. Needless to say, my interest was piqued at this bit of information. Still, a life extension of a few days to a week is nothing compared to the reports of our infested aggressors still being covered in less than fifty percent in the telltale blood red taint after a full three months.

When his fellow soldiers started to brutally turn on each other and actively engaged in homicidal and cannibalistic behavior, he fled his unit, finally ending up here.

I decided then it was time to bring the sole surviving carrier of the parasite down so I could study him.

It took six grown men, fully dressed out in riot gear, to drag the "Red" to the isolation cell and secure him. He was so violent and aggressive that the only way we could do anything with him meant we had to face mask him (to keep him from spitting and biting), leg shackle him and put him in a straight jacket. I had him placed in an open, barred, observation cell that was normally reserved for those former prisoners on suicide watch.

From the first, as soon as the squad came for him, I knew there was something very different about him. It wasn't that he was simply mad, that was expected and known. It was the fact that every one of the undead he passed, even if they could not see or hear either the Red or his guards, as they were transporting him here went just as wild as he was. It was proof of some kind of unseen communication all over again. I had no idea that this was even possible. Actual communication between the parasitic colonies in both the living and the dead made me want to study him even more.

The day after we moved the Red was the day the attackers returned. The first sign we had that we were under attack was when the electricity went out. The facility normally gets its power from a dedicated underground set of cables that are fed directly from a nearby electrical substation. When the power went dead it was heralded by one of the loudest explosions that I had ever heard. It literally shook the building with its force. Somebody out there was getting good at improvising explosives from all the abandoned military equipment, that much was clear. The explosion was terrible in its fury. I had thought that the blast from the ambush was large but this one easily exceeded that. To say that the amount of explosives used to destroy the substation was overkill is an understatement. The whole neighborhood for a block around it in every direction simply disintegrated. Flaming pieces of houses and buildings flew everywhere, starting a massive conflagration that set everything to the east of us ablaze. I hope the bastard who set it off died in that blast, not knowing just how large it would be and getting caught in either it or the inferno that came after. If it weren't for the loss of electricity I wouldn't be trapped here to slowly starve to death.

The lights went dark throughout the whole complex and automated alarms blared. Emergency battery back-up lights switched on, providing a dim glow that barely cut through the gloom. After a few seconds the lights flickered back on as the auxiliary generators kicked in and electricity flowed once again. Alarms were still going off and although there was power again, the automatic security system went into lockdown. All doors, cells, cell blocks, everything, fails to the closed and locked position and remains like that even after normal power is restored, having to be manually reset at one of the stations. This is a prison after all. The designers purposefully designed everything to fail shut to keep the prisoners safely behind bars. Normally this is not that big a deal as the monitoring stations are set up to control the doors and access ways whether on normal power or auxiliary power generated here on the grounds. Normally there are always at least two armed guards in full control of each buildings computerized monitoring stations. Normally the dead don't walk the earth. Nobody has been stationed there since the apocalypse. The only way I can get out now is to wait for someone from the main building to unlock doors from the central station that can override the local stations. There is no way for me to even get near the local station now.

It was barely dawn and the only living people in the medical ward, indeed, in the whole of the building that housed the ward were myself and the prisoner/patient that was the "Red". The system magnetically locked the ward down from the rest of the building, effectively sealing us in together. The medical ward is a little different from the rest of the facilities here as my keys can open the doors within it to allow for emergency medical services to be provided no matter what the situation. I just can't leave.

At first I remained calm as I knew that main building and at least the general services building had people in it, as soon as they could they would open up the doors for me. As long as there was electricity the phone system still worked. I had barely picked up the phone and dialed the extension for the main control station when another series of blasts rent the early morning. Before I could even say hello to the person on the other end of the line the phone went dead. The new detonations were smaller but much closer. There came the unmistakable sounds of fifty caliber machine guns going off in between the blasts, making a continuous deadly sound that sent a wave of fear through me. I could hear the impacts of bullets and shrapnel smacking into the side of my building. The sounds were almost deafening even through the thick walls and I had to stand up on a desk to peer through the narrow double paned security window to get a look at what was happening outside.

I seriously almost shit my pants as an Abrams tank spit a gout of fire from its lethal barrel and shat death, point blank, at the main building. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight as people came out the main building only to be cut down before fleeing ten feet. The tank fired round after round into the building, blowing it into a flaming ruin. Some of the people ran out, desperately trying to shoot their way past the tank. Some survivors hid inside until the building was engulfed in flames before running outside into the tanks fire. I watched as Mary, the woman who used to assist me, ran out with her hair afire only to be cut in half by the machine guns hail of bullets.

The tank wasn't alone in the assault. There was armored vehicle with it, I don't know what the name of it was, but it seemed to be going around and killing anyone that poked their heads out of the general services building.

Once the main building was a heap of burning remains, the tank did the same to the other building that held people in them. The general services building was reduced to a slag of burning rubble in bare minutes. Nobody survived.

Thankfully? they had no idea that I was inside here or they surely would have done to this building as they had done to the previous two. Thankfully? I wrote because they left me for a slow death instead of a quick one.

That wasn't the end of it. They drove around firing randomly into buildings making sure nobody was left to fight back.

Somehow they spotted the electricity was on after wiping the sub-station off the face of the earth or they heard the sound of the powerful Detroit Diesels that provided the auxiliary power. As soon as they figured out where the power was coming from they blew that building into a fiery wreckage also.

When they were sure they had eliminated the majority of us and it was safe for them they came out of their vehicles and started grabbing up corpses. At first I wondered if they were going to bury the dead or burn them but they did something horrible. They stripped and gutted the dead like they were deer and piled them into the back of a stake truck.

It was hard to see them but I'm sure I saw the signs of the Scarlet upon their faces. I thought hard about that for some time. There should be no survivors from the Scarlet by now, they should be either dead or existing as a carrier, like the Red in the cell down the hall. The only thing that I had heard of that slowed the spread of infection was from the ex-soldier, who I had seen processed like a pig and tossed into the truck before my unbelieving eyes. What he had told me didn't quite explain it all though, from what he said the drugs the military servicemen received only served to slow the rate of infection down by about half. These people who had attacked us so violently, only to cart their victims off as food, were still in the early stages of the parasitic invasion. I coupled this with the fact that whomever had driven that tank was a member of the armed forces at one time. Nobody just gets into a tank and drives it around like it's a car, let alone operates the turret and fires the shells. Somehow they must have stumbled onto something that must slow Omni down to a crawl or maybe even stops it in its tracks.

There were some few things I tried on the captive Red of mine but I didn't have much to work with. I learned more from him by talking to him than by anything I did to him. In all truthfulness I forgot all about him until the next day when he started screaming his head off.

For at least twenty four hours after the attack I was in a panic. I spent a lot of time after the attackers left waiting patiently for someone, anyone, to come out of one of the remaining intact buildings and spot me locked inside. Nobody did. Either everybody had been murdered or they were trapped inside as I am, unable to do anything but wait for death. A rising tide of fear of what was going to happen to me welled up inside me and I searched the entire ward manically for something to beat or break open a door so I could escape. In the end I realized if there were anything here to bust out with, the prisoners would have used it long ago to make a jail break.

It was shortly before sunset that I gave up and went back to the window. My depression turned into a nightmarish horror as I watched a huge horde of the undead being somehow herded onto the prison grounds. Our Scarlet infected foes had diabolically used the entrails and loose internal organs from those of their victims they gutted, using those gory bits and pieces as a trail for the ravenous walking dead to follow. They followed the foul trail in a huge mass, attracted like a flock of birds to pieces of bread strewn about one's lawn. There must be thousands of them outside now as they communicate to each other the presence of delectable human flesh to eat. They came in such numbers that at first I didn't know how so many could get here so quickly. That's when I noticed, in the background, my enemies had returned and they were actually herding the undead like they were cattle. How they were doing this I don't know but I have my suspicions. It appeared as if the infected assailants were spraying something at the monsters that the ghouls did not like at all. I had never before seen any member of the undead react with anything even close to what we would call fear but they avoided whatever it was that was being sprayed at them with vigor.

I suspect now that it was some form of ammonia, as I have only recently, accidentally, discovered the parasite controlled cadavers absolutely detest it.

It was a vicious touch that they drove the undead here like they did. Even if I could escape this tomb there is no way now I can survive trying to get away from here. Even if I could open the doors to leave I would be ripped apart limb from limb by fetid teeth and nails from the foul horde outside.

I find my mind wandering now, I am so weak from lack of food that I am having a hard time concentrating or staying on any train of thought. I have only my discussions with the carrier left to tell about and my final experimentations on the undead whence I found something about ammonia that may help anyone who finds these last words. My body is gaunt and skeletal and if it weren't for my distended stomach I could be easily mistaken for one of the walking dead myself. Oddly my hunger seems to have slackened a bit. If I'm not rescued soon I will die. Of course with such an advanced state of malnutrition and starvation it may already be too late to save my life with the world as it is now.

The attack happened on the morning of February 3, 2013. Only a month has passed since that fateful Sunday but it feels like years ago.

I am almost positive there are other small groups of survivors trapped in the other three cell blocks, there has to be. The buildings were cleared of the dead and undead alike and people spread out amongst them. Call it human nature but people liked the idea of safety in numbers, except when they had to all pile into a single building like sardines, then they liked to spread out. Some wanted more privacy and some just flat out didn't want to bother having to go up and down stairs to get to the second or third floor to reach their rooms. I doubt they had any more food supplies with them when everything went into lock-down than I had. I hate to think what they must be doing to survive.

I have a refrigerator and a freezer here in the ward which was mainly used to store insulin and other perishable medicines. Before the apocalypse the storage of food in them was strictly prohibited. After the apocalypse I was in charge here and I kept a small stock of food here for myself, any patient, and the lone Red. Normally, the food I kept here would only last a couple days. I really only kept enough food stocked for those days when I was so wrapped up in my examinations into the undead that I completely forgot to eat anything until it was well past night. I had two days worth of food for both myself and my prisoner. I gave the captive carrier two meals after the attack, one meal to get him to talk after starving him for a few days and then one last meal I poisoned him to death with. There is no cure for the Omni, he was just going to suffer in his madness and mental anguish until he starved to death (like me) anyways. By killing him I doubled the amount of food I had left. I made four days worth of food last two weeks. I ate my last crumbs barely more than two weeks ago.

I have dreams of food now. I sometimes dream of sitting down with my family and eating a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. There is no Omni in those dreams, everyone is happy in those dreams. I wake from them still being able to taste my mother's cooking and it drives me mad with hunger. Other times I dream that I am in a huge grocery store, stocked with everything my heart and stomach desires. Those dreams are worse, when I get to the checkout I find I have lost my wallet and have no way to pay for what I so desperately desire. I awake from those dreams ravenous and so much more depressed. At least in the Thanksgiving dreams I still have the smells and the tastes in my mind, the supermarket dreams, on the other hand, leave me with less than nothing.

I need to change the subject. I must get my mind off food.

I had been trying the phone line and dialing up every extension to every building in my directory and then some to no avail. I still don't know if it's only my phone line that got cut or if all of them are damaged. That's when I heard the Red bellowing to be rescued. I had forgotten all about him to tell the truth. At first I was certain he was yelling to somebody else and the first thing that went through my head was that the marauders had returned to finish the rest of us off. The only weapon I could think of was loading up a syringe with as much insulin it could hold and using it to inject someone with a lethal enough dose to cause a heart attack. I nervously, hesitantly, opened the door to the isolation cells and saw him raving at the wall of his cell. The closer I got to the insane man, the more I could hear muted pounding coming from the other side of that wall. His cell held a simple concrete slab raised two inches off the ground, a stainless steel toilet/sink combo and a thin, ratty, grey blanket. Through the bars I could see him trying to make himself heard through the thick masonry of the wall and climbing on top of the toilet to try and peer out the thin, thick paned window. When I opened up the cell next to him to look through the cells single window for myself he noticed me and doubled his efforts to contact those on the other side, taking a few moments to hurl a few choice insults at me. When I looked out the window I was shocked. Dozens of the undead were beating and clawing futilely at the wall, trying to tear it down. As I watched the odd spectacle more were attracted by my presence and another couple of dozen started to claw and smash their necrotic flesh under my window. I am convinced the undead were drawn to me with hunger but with the madman they were somehow being drawn to him.

I never managed to ascertain the carrier's name, every time I asked him what his name was he either gave me an obvious fake name or said it was "legion". Even after I withheld food from him for two days he wouldn't (possibly he didn't remember) tell me what it was. He occasionally would stop in my interrogation of him to turn and talk to the undead, urging them to continue to try and tear down the wall separating them. For the most part I got absolutely nowhere with trying to reason with him, most of the words out of his mouth were gibberish and what sentences did come out of his blackened mouth were hard to believe.

He did respond to open hostility and insults though. When I told him he was a liar, that he could not communicate with the parasite colonized corpses of the undead, that it was only his madness that made him delusionally think so, he silently stared me down and after a few seconds the faint hammering and beating from the other side of the wall slackened and then stopped completely.

"Coincidence." I flatly stated to him, keeping eye contact and adding a harsh tone to my voice.

"Go look out the window now Doctor who-will-soon-be-meat. I can calm them or drive the maggots into a frenzy whenever I choose."

The black orbs that were the eyes of the crazy Red seemed to burn upon my skin as I went and looked upon the incredible scene outside. There, in an almost semi-circle they swayed and stared at me through the glass. Even though the undead clearly saw me they didn't move from where they were, they were seemingly rooted to where they stood about ten feet away from me. Dozens of dead hungry eyes locked onto mine and as I turned away from their gaze and back to the madman's he smiled at me.

White teeth surrounded by black gums and an even blacker tongue seemed to threaten me past lips stretched thin in an exaggerated smile.

"Come, my pretties." He spoke calmly, his eyes still locked onto me.

The infected patient/prisoner all but cackled at me after speaking those words and seeing the look on my face. I'm not sure if it was some odd reference to the Wicked Witch from "The Wizard of Oz" or just some insane rambling.

After the span of a few heartbeats the undead resumed their attempts to break down the walls. To say I was shaken was an understatement.

"Bring me some coffee, strong, hot coffee and I'll tell you a couple of secrets my little walking dinner." The words came out of the Red more like an order than a request.

I decided the information was worth the risk and I brewed up the last of the coffee I had in the worn old coffee pot that had seen more than its fair share of use.

Though the liquid was hot, having been barely brewed minutes ago, he drank it straight down. I brought the whole pot with me and stood back from his cage, trying to maintain some distance between us if he decided to throw it at me. He gulped it down like it was manna from the gods and he immediately demanded another cup.

"Before that you tell me one of those secrets you promised me." I sternly told him, fully prepared to walk off and leave him again.

"I can sense every colonized cadaver within fifty feet of me and I can see through their eyes as they can mine."

He held the cup out through the bars and shook it around, demanding that more coffee be poured into it. I started to pour some into it and then just prior to more than a single splash falling into the Styrofoam cup I stopped.

"How can you do that?" I asked, holding the object of his desire back.

"I don't know...It's the legion within me that lets me know of the legions without. More. Now." The cup was being shaken back and forth, demanding to be filled.

Again he noisily drank the whole cup in bare seconds. As fast as the coffee could be dragged by gravity into his mouth it disappeared down his dark gullet.

By the time I gave him the last drop of the caffeine laced liquid he had told me that while he can't really talk to them, as they had no language, they did respond to mental images. Basic mental images of simple things.

The parasitic colonies within the dead hosts recognized the infected carrier as the superior colony, the master colony. He explained it like they were a single colony of ants spread out in different nests.

I don't really know if the rest of the things he told me could be considered secrets, or at least on par with what he had already told me as I would have eventually figured them out for myself if I had spared his life long enough to study his behaviors.

The coffee, a mild stimulant such as it is, did a lot to shut down the things in his head he said. Breakfasts here at the jail consisted of a single cup of coffee and a donut. It took very little time for the Red to figure out that the single cup of java in the morning eased the "squirming" of the parasite in his head for almost half an hour. My dissections on the walking dead showed no such movement to explain the feeling that the parasite squirmed at all, so this may be due to the insanity. The fact that a stimulant of any kind, even something as weak as a couple of cups of coffee, combined with the report from Jake Schneider (my previous patient who had served in the Army) that the military had been distributing another type of stimulant makes me think that there is a connection between the two. I have come to the conclusion that our raiders may be in fact suffering from the parasitic infection but have found a strong stimulant, one strong enough to slow the colonization of their bodies down greatly. Unfortunately the colony within them may have been slowed in its growth but the madness it causes is still quite apparent.

The last thing of any importance he told me was that he had discovered a penchant for sexual deviance. He quickly realized that an orgasm of any kind was enough to greatly ease the pain of his flesh. Being host to the parasite was to have the whole of his nervous system invaded and screaming in response to the burrowing little monsters. The strength of the chemical flood released by an orgasm lasted far longer than in the uninfected, granting some amount of relief for almost ten full minutes. This would explain the reason for his near constant masturbation but then again, he is completely insane and untrustworthy. This was interesting to me as it confirmed that the parasite was manipulating the brain's chemical balance somehow. The magnified effect was a further clue as to how Omni was affecting and manipulating the human brain of its host, both dead and alive. It was after this part of the conversation that he started making lewd comments at me and started openly, unabashedly, playing with himself again. I ended the conversation and as I walked away he laughed at me.

"Eventually my little drones outside will wear down the wall. They are relentless and they are legion. Soon I will be free no matter what you do and then I shall feast on you. Even the mightiest mountain can be turned to dust with but a hammer, given enough time."

I could hear in his voice the confidence that this would eventually come to pass. Right then and there I decided his next meal would be his last.

It wasn't too hard to find something to kill the Red with. There is a whole stockroom loaded with the prescription meds that many of the former incarcerated inmates needed. Everything from aspirin to Zoloft and everything in-between is here. Heart medicines, high blood pressure meds, Lithium and pain killers, the list goes on and on. In fact almost everything can kill a person in large quantities, including water. Just simply drinking too much water at once will kill a person, one does not necessarily have to drown in a large body of water to die from it. I had no problem at all grinding up some meds and spiking some weak coffee made from the left over grounds to poison him with.

Morally, I did feel a pang of guilt over what I had done. Under any other circumstances I would never even have entertained the thought of murder. I didn't become a doctor to euthanize people, no matter how much they were suffering.

As a doctor there is always the risk of misdiagnosis with a patient, even the best doctor makes mistakes. Surgeons repeatedly warn their subjects of the dangers of even minor surgeries (at least the good ones do). It is my opinion that any person who practices medicine long enough will be responsible at some point for the accidental death of someone else.

I remember one of my professors in med school opening his first lecture to the class with "Welcome, future murders. All of you will at some point in your careers kill someone. The most successful of you will become serial killers. This is not conjecture, this is the truth. No matter how safe the procedure, how reliable the drug, nothing is one-hundred percent risk free. There will be those of you who unknowingly prescribe a medication that your patient is highly allergic to and they will die. Those of you planning on becoming surgeons will see your scalpel slip one millimeter in your sweaty, gloved hands and watch helplessly as your patient bleeds out uncontrollably and they will die. This is the harsh reality of medicine and for those of you that cannot handle what you will assuredly become than I advise you now to seek another career..."

This was different though. What I had done was premeditated murder. I had prepared myself for accidentally causing someone's death but not for this. With every bite of the food that was to be his I prayed to God for forgiveness. Even though I feel vindicated in what I have done, I still feel the occasional stab of guilt.

After I made sure the carrier was dead I hauled his still warm corpse into my makeshift autopsy room. I knew he would rise again and this time I was able to directly observe the transformation. After I strapped him down securely I proceeded to the cells that held my animated, dead subjects. I wrestled one of the walking dead down to a table next to him for direct comparison as the Omni took control of the corpse. Even though I had dressed myself out in one of the riot suits for protection and I chose the smallest of the undead, I still had a difficult time in getting it on the table.

I strapped both of them face down to the tables and sliced open the skin and muscle surrounding their spines. I also hobbled both of them, cutting the nerves that ran to their arms and legs for my safety.

As I was making my incisions I perfunctorily sterilized my tools when I switched between the already risen undead and the carrier who would soon be resurrected by the parasite. I had no way to boil water, there still is no electricity and starting a fire in a trash can is out of the question. I had run out of isopropyl alcohol (i.e. wood or rubbing alcohol) in my last round of examinations, leaving me with nothing more than ammonia based glass cleaner to sterilize my tools with. Ammonia works quite well as a disinfectant and I sprayed it quite liberally, noticing a curious thing. With every squirt of the blue liquid the undead cadaver tried to squirm away from the mist. The closer I came to him with the ammonia, the more violently it tried to get away. When I directly sprayed the weak ammonia on the undead, necrotic flesh it went wild, threatening to break its bonds even though it had no use of its arms and legs.

Upon closer examination of the skin where the mist had fallen there appeared to be a small reaction with the thin, clear, wax like coating that the parasite secretes. The coating actually broke down and dissolved. Hours later, wherever the ammonia touched the flesh of the dead the cells broke down and seemed to liquefy. The more ammonia that came into contact with the ghoul, the deeper and more intensely the flesh rotted and fell away, down to the bone.

As I had stated previously, I had opened up the spine and exposed the spinal cord of the carrier. Even before death, the nervous system had been colonized by the single celled menace, causing inflammation. As time went by after death, the inflammation greatly increased and the coloring and even the texture of the cells changed as the Omni was now free to grow unhindered by any immune system. The more time went by the more the Omni multiplied and spread.

After I had seen the effects of the ammonia upon my undead subject I test sprayed parts of the carriers exposed nerves. The result of the ammonia being applied to the carriers flesh immediately stopped any further growth of the Omni. It did not liquefy or go into cellular breakdown as in the undead subject, but instead proceeded to decay as any normal corpse would. From what I can visually see, the only thing holding the dead cells together is the parasite itself. Once the parasite has been killed the cells fall apart immediately.

I completely emptied a bottle of window cleaner on the undead, parasite controlled corpse and by the time the body of the carrier, strapped to the traction table next to it, had started to go into rigor mortis (after two hours and forty-seven minutes in this case) wherever the ammonia had been applied, the undead corpse started to practically disintegrate, leaving behind a reeking mess of runny, clotted dead flesh and ivory bones.

I was astounded. Could this be what the marauders who had attacked us had used to herd the monstrosities onto the grounds, trapping the rest of us here to slowly starve to death? My guess is yes. I would have loved to have something stronger than Windex to experiment with. To be sure, there are other ingredients in the glass cleaner, though not in any great amount. Some further testing would need to be done to say for certain but I am ninety-nine percent positive it is the ammonia.

I did something then that may have been foolhardy but I needed to find out just how effective the ammonia was. I put the riot gear back on and armed only with a bottle of glass cleaner I entered one of the cells that penned up one of the fiends.

At first the cannibalistic corpse came straight at me with no hesitation. I was pumping the bottle's trigger like crazy and almost as soon as the horrible thing got within arm's length it stopped and tried to get away from the weak mist as fast as its stumbling legs could take it. As soon as I stopped spraying the liquid at it, the monster hesitantly resumed its attack. Only once I had it backed up against the cell wall and it had no more room to flee did it fight back. I backed up and flipped the plastic nozzle to stream instead of spray as I left the cell. I liberally coated the face and head of the subject and when I checked up on it the next day, the lifeless flesh that had been its face had completely slid off the things skull, along with most of the scalp. The sinuses had been exposed and the lower jaw had dropped off as muscle and sinew disintegrated. The tongue lay limp and half dissolved and as I watched, it and most of the flesh of its neck fell away. After another day the creature went into spasms and convulsions and then the corpse died its second, final, death.

After thirty-six hours and fifty-two minutes the carrier's body re-animated itself. Those parts of the corpse that had ammonia applied to it showed no signs of resurrection or parasitic colonization at all, acting as dead flesh should under normal conditions. Eventually, I killed it with a small dose of window cleaner injected directly into its brain.

Unfortunately I have less than half a bottle of glass cleaner remaining, not nearly enough to use to fight my way out of here. I have searched high and low for more, with no luck. There are far too many of the ravenous undead outside to fight off with the slow working bane. They may try to escape the ammonia but packed so closely together they would quickly find no more room to escape, being blocked by others behind them and then they would turn on me. In short order they would have me surrounded. In my weakened condition to try that would be suicide. If I had figured this out weeks ago, while I still had my strength, I may have attempted it but not now. As it is I can barely stand for more than fifteen minutes at a time and the previous exertions with the undead have worn me out.

Now I await either death or rescue. I have maybe a few days of life left at this point. The single most important thing I have discovered is the secret of ammonia. To die with this knowledge and not being able to share it is frustrating to no end. If I die here you will surely note the "Ammonia Kills the Undead" written in magic-marker all over the walls. That is not the raving of a lunatic, that is something that can save your life. Heed it. It is the single most important thing I have discovered in my life and I am cursed to have to take it to the grave with me.

Ammonia kills the Undead!

## Book Five

Lance's Journal

### 16 October 2012

I'm tweaking pretty hard right now. I've never done meth before the Apocalypse and I was completely unprepared for the strength of the drug. This is actually the third time I've smoked the shit and I only do so to stop the advance of the "Omni" that's swimming through my body. Before the "Scarlet", if I had found out one of my men was high on anything I'd have beaten their ass stupid and then wrote them up before ensuring they were given a swift discharge from the service. I'm writing what will be my record of the Armageddon mainly to have something to do, as I have to do something. Most, if not all, of the other infected survivors here are also busy doing something, most of it completely unproductive. Some of them obsessively do stupid shit over and over, like the idiots they are. I'm not going to end up like them. I'm going to control this shit and maintain my mind and body with the discipline instilled in me in my fifteen years of Army training and service in the Florida National Guard. Let me introduce myself...

I am 1st Lieutenant Lance Ewer, Company A, 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Florida National Guard. Currently headquartered out of Camp Blanding, Florida and last stationed out of Ocala, Florida. At least that's who I used to be. Now, I guess, I'm just another meth-head, addicted and willing to do anything it takes to stay high and alive.

The meth doesn't kill or even stop the spread of the Omni completely but it does slow its progress down to a sluggish crawl. It works a hell of a lot better than the "Dex" (Dexedrine) that the government mandated all service personnel take to slow the growth of the parasitic colony breeding inside of us. I had been secretly taking triple and even quadruple doses of the crap, which accounts for why I'm still alive while most of my men ended up succumbing to the bug. As the leader of my team I was the one who controlled and issued the drug to my troops. I took as much Dex as my system could handle. I would have given my soldiers double doses also except for the fact that there wouldn't have been enough to go around if I had.

In the three days that my Dex supply ran out and I found out how well meth works, the red splotches that cover my skin, the sign of the Scarlet and the parasite, had advanced another ten percent without it. As it stands now I'm about thirty percent covered in the blood colored patches. I'm about thirty percent dead. In every case of infection that I, or anybody else for that matter, have seen, once the scarlet covers a full hundred percent of the body, death is inevitable after twenty four hours.

There come other things with the scarlet spots too. Mental things. Odd cravings. Horrific dreams that seem as real as waking life. Chaos in the mind. Insanity. The greater the infection the greater the insanities.

I can't even say for sure when the last time I slept was. I guess it was more than a week ago, when I ran out of Dex and before I ran into Joe and his buddies.

I write this and I wonder if anybody but me can understand it I'm so fucking high. Got to try and discipline myself. Control and order my mind. Whatever...This isn't for John Q. Public to read. This is an exercise for my own benefit. I have time now. I'm relatively safe here.

I should start and go back to the beginning. I have more than enough energy to write down everything that's happened since I heard of the rat death. I feel like I could write a fuckin' encyclopedia A to Z in one sitting.

In the aftermath of hurricane Andrew which hit Florida in 1992, a Rapid Impact Assessment Team (RIAT) was created by the Florida Department of Emergency Management. Hurricane Andrew was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history and many hard lessons were learned. Since then, RIAT's were routinely deployed in response to hurricanes, tornados, civil unrest, riots, wildfires and any other time a quick response was needed to determine civilian needs such as food, water, shelter and safety. With my battalion's ability to airdrop in and report using satellite feeds we provided essential "real-time" information. Of course this wasn't the only thing we did. As the "Green Berets" of the National Guard we also did our combat tours of Iraq and Afghanistan.

When the "Rat death" steamrolled through Florida our job was to direct and supervise the collection and disposal of the great masses of dead rodents. For the most part we instructed the civilian populace on how to approach and properly collect the corpses. At the time, we advised people to use rubber gloves or their equivalent and place the bodies into plastic bags. They then took the bodies themselves, or in some cases we made rounds in urban areas using "collection trucks", to specific incinerators and destroyed the corpses. In those areas where there weren't any incinerators big enough to handle all of the corpses we supervised and operated burn pits. Our corpse collection teams mainly concentrated on the more populated areas. Places such as the everglades or remote wilderness areas weren't investigated. In those areas the human population is negligible and we decided to basically let nature take its course. Besides, by the time we would have reached those wilderness areas the local wildlife and its scavengers would have disposed of most of the carcasses for us.

By the time the rat death reached South Florida the "Rat Flu" came hard on its heels. Some of my men were hit hard by the flu while most of us reacted to it as if it were a simple case of allergies. Barely a handful of my fellow soldiers seemed to suffer no effect at all. We had no idea at the time that the Rat flu was in reality the invasion of our bodies by the single celled parasite's insidious eggs. Not that we could have done anything about it if we had known. At that time, the parasite hadn't even been properly isolated or identified yet. This happened in late August of 2012.

The Rat flu didn't just affect people though, it made the animals sick too. Squirrels, raccoons, beavers, skunks, and all species of cats, to name a few, also got sick. What percentage of the critters proved to be immune, I have no idea. In the weeks that followed, as far as my mission was concerned, it didn't matter.

Before we had even finished up fully collecting and disposing the carcasses, of the now almost extinct Muridae family, this new wave of animal death ensued. We were looking at over fifty percent of all mammals (besides man) on the face of the earth dying at once.

This was before we knew the parasite would drive the animals insane before it killed them. This was before we knew it would drive us insane before it killed, then unbelievably resurrect our cadavers.

When the "Animal Madness" reared its horrible head, my job turned into a search and destroy mission. Luckily we had a weeks' notice before it reached the U.S. and that gave us time to prepare. I'm sure that without that single week to prepare, the death rate would have been double or triple what it was. By the second week of September 2012 the animal madness had reached Florida.

I stayed in Ocala and directed and monitored the separate teams as they moved through the boondocks and backwoods. I ordered my teams to kill any warm-blooded animal on sight. Whether they actually had the infection or not, didn't matter at all. I had some men assigned to the cities but for the most part the major urban areas were patrolled by civilians, authorized and trained by their local police and county governments. For a lot of the guys the mission was more like an extended hunting expedition than anything else. That isn't to say I didn't lose any men to the little monsters. I lost a handful of men here and there, usually due to them making stupid mistakes or letting their guards down. The worst of it came in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

I lost a whole platoon to a single demon possessed cougar. I understood how we lost the first man to the bloodthirsty beast. The soldier was taken from behind while he was in the middle of taking a crap. By the time his fellow soldiers responded to his screams it was too late. The area was this cougars natural hunting grounds and the thing had fled before the dead man's comrades even got sight of it. The parasite crazed beast seemed to have an unnatural intelligence as it hunted down and picked off my men one by one. While they slept it attacked, silently. The next casualty happened with an armed watchman standing guard a mere ten yards away. One quick and violent moment was all it took for the cougar to rip out the man's throat and then it was gone, back into the black night a moment later, leaving behind a victim that would bleed out in less than twenty seconds. The damn thing never seemed to sleep and anytime one of my men were separated or distracted it never failed to take advantage of the situation. Within four days and nights the feral, crazed, fiend killed nine good men of mine.

That's what I remember the most about those terrible times. The loss of that team to a fuckin' overgrown house cat.

Turns out the animal madness was merely a precursor for what was to come. We finally got a handle on the devastation of the animal kingdom as the parasite started killing its blood frenzied hosts. Just as we thought we had turned the corner on this thing and could start getting back to some semblance of normality, new symptoms erupted in the human populace. We had barely secured the safety of the masses of civilians that had fled their homes for the concrete covered land of the cities when everybody, except for a few, started getting massive, continuous headaches.

I remember feeling as if the brain in my skull had been replaced with red-hot, liquid pain. The anguish was an almost physical thing and the agony seemed to lodge itself squarely behind my right eye. It was as if someone had hammered a burning railroad spike behind that orb and intense waves of pure torture radiated from it.

Not everyone who had been infested experienced the same pain as I did. Others suffered from mild headaches but reported a horrible full body itching sensation. The itch was nothing to me and thankfully I was able to get a hold of some fairly strong narcotics to mute my pain to a dull background roar.

I personally remember seeing one man scratch himself so furiously he had to be restrained. So deeply had he dug his nails into his flesh that whole patches of his skin had been dug away. Blood covered his hands, his arms and his legs as he grated his fingernails severely beyond the layers of his skin and into his horribly exposed muscles.

The CDC had finished its preliminary study of this new parasite and when my superiors released to us the findings they were nothing but bad. I almost lost all hope right then and there. Others weren't as strong as I was and they responded to the news by blowing their brains out with their service weapons. The outlook was so bleak (and so profoundly accurate) that it became a federal crime to speak to anyone about it. What info was released was a watered down version (one that still allowed a certain amount of hope) of what we knew.

Somebody had done a lot of work on the parasite. It was definitely an engineered little monstrosity, created in a state of the art lab somewhere. The technology that it took to bring this parasite to life could only have been the result of a project that must have taken years. It was so complex that there was no way a piss-ant country like North Korea could have produced it. We (the U.S.) couldn't even have done something like this. Maybe China could have possibly produced it. Maybe Russia. Whoever had created it was far ahead of the rest of the world in bioengineering, either that or they were very unlucky, creating a parasite that mutated / evolved faster than anyone thought possible. The chances of "Omni" having been the result of natural evolution were practically nil. While it is theoretically possible for it to have been the result of nature, it seems highly improbable.

No report at all stated that the parasite would actually take over the human corpses after death. I doubt even those who knew the most about this thing suspected that (at first anyways). We did know that the parasite would live on after the victim's death, continuing to breed and spread its contamination. The brainstem seemed to be the command and control center of the insidious beast and tests showed that destroying that part of the brain stopped it in its tracks. Unfortunately, destroying that part of the brain to kill the colony also killed the human host.

Without a cure I knew for a fact that every single infected person on the face of the earth would soon go as mad as a hatter and then die. The knowledge of what would almost certainly soon happen to myself and the rest of humanity weighed heavily upon my mind and the minds of all of those who knew the truth. We desperately waited for news of a cure while we made preparations for what was to come. Ninety percent of mankind would be driven insane by the single celled bastard. Every single scientist and researcher in the whole earth was looking for a cure, cancer research and everything else stopped cold as people searched desperately for any kind of vaccine or poison to use against the inevitable. Their lives also hung in the balance and I knew they wanted to survive this just as badly as I did. I took some comfort in the fact that a million people around the world were trying as hard as they could as I located and distributed as much ammunition as I could get my hands on. Order and the rule of law would be maintained until the very end, if it came to that.

A call came out for volunteers for those of my men that were apparently immune. I knew, and they knew, what was going to happen to them. Their bravery still motivates me today. It was one thing to volunteer to go into hostile, enemy controlled territory with no back-up. It was another thing entirely to willingly allow yourself to become a test subject for scientists who would risk anything (especially if it were on another person) to find a cure. When they died in service to their country and all of humanity for that matter, I was the one who filed their death certificate as if they had died not in a sterile lab somewhere, but in the line of duty. I also recommended the Purple Heart and Bronze Star be awarded posthumously, they had definitely earned it.

By the time the "Scarlet" had started to spread amongst us there came word that some forms of amphetamines slowed down the parasite. This small bit of news was a great morale booster. I felt that there was hope again, that we would soon figure out how to beat this miniscule terror. The U.S. government hadn't stocked any "speed" for use by its soldiers for decades and supplies were low nationwide. A lot of the commercially available ephedrine and all the other 'drines were almost gone, having been depleted during the first wave of allergy like symptoms, stocks were almost nonexistent when these new symptoms hit. The government had decided to keep a lid on this news from the civilian population or face the prospect that there would be absolutely nothing left for the soldiers. The soldiers would be needed to maintain control until this thing had been figured out. Nobody really knew how long it would take for the Omni to kill off the infected, let alone how deeply or widespread the insanity would become. If we would have had a week more, maybe two at the most, I am sure, someone, somewhere would have found a cure.

At this point bemoaning over what could have been is like crying over spilt milk. The world is as it is and nothing can be done about it now.

With the animal madness came the destruction of farms and livestock around the world. All around the globe the food supply was not only disrupted, it was ruined. The fertile farmlands had been abandoned when the farmers fled for their lives, leaving their defenseless domesticated livestock to suffer the ravages of a mother nature gone insane alone.

When the animal madness finally started to wane with the deaths of the infected animals, the government desperately tried to get those farmers back on the farms as quickly as possible. There was resistance as most of them were still scared as hell. Food riots started breaking out in all the major cities and we were actually mulling the idea of forcibly making people work the farmsteads and ranches.

Didn't matter though. Within a week the vast majority of the human race went completely and violently nuts before they started dropping like flies.

Miami, God what a problem that city gave me. Of all the cities of South Florida under my jurisdiction, Miami gave me the biggest headache. The food riots turned into general disorder and chaos quickly. Rioting, looting and mayhem overtook the city days before the parasite actually turned the populace into mindless, blood-thirsty murderers. We had a whole battalion under our command and we sent almost a third of our force down there. With all those men and their weapons you'd think we could put a lid on what was going on. Miami was a war zone. The fighting there was as intense and violent as any combat I had seen. The violence rivaled the taking of Baghdad and the clearing of Fallujah. By the time people were actually driven to violence by the Omni my superiors had decided to abandon the once thriving metropolis. Miami was lost, being nothing more than a burning shell of what it once was. Then we lost control of Tampa. One by one the cities fell and then even my own, well disciplined men, succumbed to the madness and deserted or became enraged murderers.

I am aware of some of the atrocities that many of my men committed upon the civilian populace. The stadiums had housed thousands of refugees, in fact every open area and public facility was crowded with people who had fled the violence that had overtaken the once timid creatures. Soon there came to be so many people arrested for breaking curfew, looting, rioting and any of a large assortment of crimes when martial law went down that finding a place to house them became difficult. Factories and any large buildings became makeshift detention facilities. When those parasite crazed people, confined in close quarters, started mauling, killing and cannibalizing each other I turned a blind eye to the mass executions. It didn't matter anyways. We were all marked for death in a matter of days.

Someone blew the interstate bridges that served as the single lifeline to the Keys. Whether a group of the immune had taken it upon themselves to try and secure the island chain or it was simply the result of a school teacher turned terrorist by the parasite I have no real clue. I hope it's the former and not the latter. If the Keys could be cleared of the infected and the undead it would be a good place to ride out the apocalypse. Isolated, tough to get to, with warm weather and plenty of fish to live off, a group could survive there indefinitely.

In and around the Ocala area, the immune had started seeking refuge in the Marion County jail. Whenever they came across someone who was free of the parasite they invariably took them there. I wanted so badly to join them but they would never let someone such as me anywhere near them. Even though I and a few others had found a way to greatly inhibit the parasite within us they refuse to help us. They not only refuse to help us they try to kill us whenever they so much as see us. Those selfish bastards will pay one day for turning their backs on us. They may control the jail and sheriff's complex, sitting behind their razor wire topped fences but we control the rest of the city. How dare they abandon and try to murder us simply because we're sick. If we could group together to find a permanent solution to the parasite, like we should, there wouldn't be this bad blood between us. Now it's an us or them mentality and they have no idea what they're dealing with. Enough of that subject for now.

Just as the dead started to rise from their all too brief slumber I ran out of Dex. In between avoiding or fighting off the risen dead I searched desperately for medicinal speed, diet pills, cold or allergy med or anything that contained what I needed to keep my body from becoming completely colonized by the Omni.

In the short time I was out of Dex and the time I ran across Joe and his friends the disease had advanced significantly. My triple and quadruple doses had kept the Scarlet from spreading to no more than ten percent of my body. In three short days without it, another ten percent of my skin turned that horrible deep red.

I had been taking the Dex for a week and in all of that time I hadn't slept once. When it wore off I fell into a bottomless slumber that lasted almost eighteen hours. I only remember dreaming once in that time. The dream wasn't outwardly violent or threatening but it terrified me. It still terrifies me.

I was in this dark, lightless void, trapped with no way out. After some time, my eyes adjusted to the blackness and I found I was in a room with no doors or windows. The small, confining room was littered with the wreckage and ruins of everyday life. Everything I saw had once been something nice but now everything was smashed, broken into unusable pieces. The floor was covered in debris and as I sorted through the trash, looking for anything usable to help get me out, I sensed another presence. A bottomless chill crept into the air and as I watched a concentrated, purple light practically crawled into existence. As I watched, a form took shape within that cloud of amethyst light. The most beautiful and delightful feet, legs and calf of the most gorgeous woman took shape in front of me. The woman materializing in front of me was the single most desirable thing I had ever gazed upon. Upwards my eyes went, following the curves of her body, lingering on her perfectly shaped ass and voluptuous hips. A lust was born within me greater than I had ever experienced in all my life and as I gazed upward upon her, past her navel and her well sculpted abdomen, my desire for her grew even greater. Her breasts were full and firm, her neck was fair and her lips were demanding my full attention. When I peered into her face, and her eyes, her true nature came to me. She was completely bald but that wasn't what frightened me. Where her hair should be, all around her skull, there were eyes. Hundreds of small, lidless eyes. Those eyes stared and rolled around and when they focused their terrible sight on me I lost all hope. When she spoke to me it was as if she had a thousand voices, her words were like hundreds of last breaths, thousands of them even, all rolled into one, forming the words she uttered to me.

She tempted me with her body, driving me mad with desire all over again. Then she kissed me and claimed me for her own. When she did I felt as if I had turned to stone. I could not break the gaze of her many dreadful eyes. They seemed to bore into me and the fear I felt then was the greatest fear I had ever, or will ever, feel in the whole of my life.

Without exception, every one of us here at this backwoods campsite we now call home has seen her. She is our new Goddess. We are forbidden to speak of what she has told us, her words are mysteries that only we are to know. In some part of my mind I know that this may be nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the single celled monsters inside of me. The shared dreams may not be a visitation from a God but merely a shared psychosis, made real in our minds by a shared fear and desire to draw together in some common ground. In the end it doesn't matter though. Most here feel God himself has abandoned us. Do men create the Gods or did the Gods create men? Chicken and the egg if you ask me.

All we can do now is try and live as long as we can, hopefully we will stumble upon a cure. We already have clues to defeating the Omni, but I'll write about that later.

I was rooting around in a CVS or a Walgreen's, I don't recall which chain store it was actually, frantically trying to find some meds that had the vital ingredient I so desperately needed. I had been popping a few of this and a little of that, cramming what I thought would help into my rucksack. While trying to read the infuriatingly small print of the list of ingredients the sound of a fast approaching vehicle drew closer. I dropped what I was doing and started making my way to the front of the store, hoping to spot the survivors before they drove past.

They didn't drive past though. Tires screeching they pulled directly in front of the store and two of them got out and came into the store whilst the third man got out and stood guard against the undead that would soon be making their way towards the sounds.

There was a standoff that ensued, consisting of myself trying to hold my ground against two armed and infected men.

I don't know the name of the first man that came inside the store that day. He never left it. He was a big burly guy with the clear signs of the parasite upon him. His skin was more red than white and his eyes and even his tongue had started to blacken. I estimated that he was over fifty percent overtaken and his actions showed it. The other man with him was more like I am, infected, but still less than a quarter of the way on the road to death.

I've come to know the second man, his name is Joe Russel. He's become a friend of mine. The driver / lookout that day disappeared a couple of weeks ago; I have no idea if he's alive or dead. There's a steady small core of people here, others come and go. Groups come to trade with us for what we have here. What we have here is a very large kitchen. The top dog here is the cook. We all call him "Master Chef". While we make our own runs for supplies to cook with, other groups also bring us the raw ingredients to trade for the life-extending drug.

I was slowly backing down the rows in that pharmacy, aiming to keep the two in front of me as each of them would move to flank me. Joe had been trying to talk the situation down, still sane and not willing to die that day, seeing and respecting the uniform I still wore. The fat man kept agitating to kill me, his words interspersed with an odd facial tic. I got the sense from Joe that he was exasperated with his compatriot, that the fat man was more of a liability to him and the group than anything else. When the fat man raised his weapon too quick for my liking I set a round into his forehead. Joe didn't return fire, he held up his arms instead, his fingers spread away from the trigger of the pistol he held. The lookout was yelling at Joe to find out what was going on and at the same time telling him to hurry the fuck up, the zeds were coming.

Joe was nothing but chill, as cool as a cucumber. He knew, like I did, that nobody with the infection was still walking unless they had some notion of how to hinder the parasite. Neither of us knew of carriers at that time, neither had seen someone still alive after the Omni completely claimed a person.

I sensed Joe figured it a good trade, the crazy fat man for me. In no time he explained what they were here for. They were here for the same stuff I had come in for.

The lookout started firing off rounds then and when Joe offered me the chance to help them, and possibly join them, I took the chance. I'm actually glad I did.

In a few minutes we had grabbed everything in the store that was on Joe's list, including not only the cold meds but matches, rubbing alcohol, iodine solution and an odd assortment of items. When the driver yelled to us that it was time to go, that the undead were getting too many and too close, we left. We didn't go directly back to the camp then. Joe directed us to a number of other stores.

As we worked together, Joe sized me up and I tried to do the same to him. When I first heard what the hell all of the ingredients were actually for I almost got pissed. The first thing that went through my mind was these guys were looting stores to cook meth. All of my old conditioning rose up inside me and I instinctively thought they were criminals that I should arrest or kill right there on the spot. That thinking was from a world gone by and I realized it. All the old rules were gone and this new world would have new rules to go along with it. A good soldier has to adapt and change with every situation. If meth was now a medicine then I had no problem with that at all. Hell, if I had to eat elephant shit to keep the damned parasite within me under control, then I'd be waiting with a plate under an elephant's ass for that hot, steamy goodness.

When I first joined the group it was a disorganized mess with everybody basically doing whatever they wanted when they weren't carrying out Chef's orders. All of that has changed since I've arrived. Now there is some semblance of order. Watch schedules and work details have been instituted. Chef also laid down a few basic laws, with the maximum penalty for any infraction being death. Our camp is out in the middle of the boondocks. Master Chef had been using the spot for his clandestine cooking for quite some time. There was at first less than a dozen refugees in our group, all infected to some degree and all except me had been using meth for quite some time. The core of the group seemed to consist mainly of Master Chef and his more loyal customers. It was immediately apparent to me that the only reason that the camp hadn't been over-run already by the cannibalistic dead was due to the location of the camp, not any inherent defenses. That gave me a use to the group. They had no idea how to set up an effective perimeter and secure the area.

Up until this point the meth-heads had been stringing barbed wire, razor wire, chicken wire and anything else they could scrounge to make a half-assed barricade to hold off the few undead stragglers that found their way to the camp. The wall of trash around the camp, at that point, really only slowed down the isolated zeds. Any real threat of more than a handful of the beasts would surely cause the makeshift barricades to fail, that's where I came in. First of all I set up a watch schedule and with Master Chef's approval we instituted a death sentence upon anyone who was found sleeping at their watch post, with no exceptions.

The second thing I worked on was the defense of the campsite itself. I didn't have to search very long for a backhoe and a bulldozer, we had more trouble with the damned zeds following us around than anything else. With the bulldozer I directed the clearing of all the trees and brush from around the camp for almost fifty yards. A good clean fire zone was mandatory. Once that was complete, and no fuckin' zombies could sneak up on us I had the men create a ten foot deep trench all the way around. The dirt from the trench I had them pile up on the outside, creating an almost ten foot high berm with the help of the bulldozer. The dirt berm served not only to break the line of sight of the mindless zeds but also made it difficult for them to get to us. If they managed to drag their dead bodies over the berm they would then come over the top to tumble into the deep trench. The trench was carved out with vertical sides, far enough down so that there was no way for the bastards to crawl out of it. Once in the trench they were simple to eliminate. Simple, yet it was effective. It would take a lot of the undead to fill that trench up to where they could crawl over each other to get to the campsite.

By the second week of my taking over the defenses I was directing the others on setting simple wood and log fences on the camp side of the trench. We used the fallen trees from when we cleared the area, along with all the miscellaneous wire that had been strung around haphazardly from before. There wasn't enough wood to create a palisade to surround our camp but that wasn't my intention. If there were so many undead attacking us the trench became filled, the fence would serve mainly to slow their progress down so we would have the time to kill those who got through our defense or give us time to abandon the camp and flee.

The entrance itself was the weak spot. I wanted to make a drawbridge of some kind but that was a bit more difficult to actually create. What we did instead was to set up gates on each end of the entry road and set our vehicles (cars, trucks, bulldozers, etc.) in between them to completely block the area between the fences. There was no room for the undead to traverse that earthen ramp to our camp, instead they would be forced down into the trench.

There was only one building (if you could call it that) at the campsite. An old, worn and dilapidated one room building that was built a long ass time ago. It was in that building that the Chef kept his "kitchen". It was also where Chef stayed. The rest of us lived out of tents or lean-to's around the huge bonfire that invariably got built every night.

The first serious wave of undead that found us had come out of the ruins of the scattered buildings and homes around us, here at the farthest outskirts of Ocala. The defenses I had set up worked like a charm for the hundred or so of the zeds that came at us. We barely had to fire any shots at all, instead, once they clumsily stumbled into the trench we poured gas on them and lit 'em up. I was proud of how it ended up working on that first real test.

To celebrate our victory, the next day we all went to "church" and sampled the latest batch Chef had cooked. Then we went and burned down all the buildings in town nearest us after raiding them. I don't know if it was necessary to burn all those houses and shops down but it sure was fun.

Even though the meth does a good job of slowing the parasite breeding within us, we still feel the anger and agitation it causes in its victims minds. It is always there, brewing and simmering just below the surface. Watching the buildings turn into blazing little infernos and killing all those zeds was a good outlet for our violent desires, not just on an individual level, but for the group as a whole. The violence allows us to release some of that pent-up hostility.

When we raided the buildings we made sure to make plenty of noise and ruckus to draw the attention of as many undead ghouls as we could. When they followed us back to our defenses we made a sport out of shooting them as they came over the berm. For two days and nights the zeds came at us. Every dead fuck for miles around was drawn to us from the constant gunfire like moths to a flame. By the time it was over and the area was cleared of zeds the trench was half full of rotting cadavers. The carcasses lying in the trench blazed and then smoldered for days. The charred flesh of the dead sent up thick black plumes of smoke for so long that the smell of burning flesh is permanently scorched into my nostrils.

### 20 October 2012

It's been four days since I last wrote in this journal. Not that it matters, nobody but myself will ever read this.

Life seems unreal. Like I'm trapped in some nightmare dream turned reality. The parasitic infection, the drug use, the walking dead, all of them lend themselves to the unreality of my reality. Writing and then reading what I have written in this journal seems to place reality in a more concrete state for me.

The last four days have been busy for my infected companions and me. Everyone has been living out of tents and shoddily crafted shelters, getting by without electricity or running water. The only reason we're here is because this is where Master Chef had set up his kitchen. Before the fall of civilization Master Chef was forced to practice his clandestine profession out here, in the middle of nowhere. Now things have changed. The Chef decided it was time to look for someplace more appropriate.

After two days of recon work we narrowed the possible candidates for our new HQ down to three buildings. The first building we considered was a large property, formerly used as a supply depot for one of the supermarket chains. It came with both a warehouse for dry goods and a separate, huge, refrigerated warehouse. Although there was plenty of property, surrounded by a tall barbed-wire chain-link fence and it had its own generator, it proved too close to other (uninfected) survivors. The warehouse had been raided more than once, even though the stocks were low to begin with. While it still held a lot of food, the gate and doors had been busted down and small groups of people were drawn to it like flies to shit. When the team sent to survey the site got shot up by a well armed group from the county prison, we decided the zone was too hot. Not only would we have to worry about hungry survivors constantly trying to break in, once the immune found out there was a band of the infected using the site they would surely try to exterminate us (and not bargain with us) for what paltry foodstuffs remained. All the traffic to and from the site also meant that there were plenty of undead cannibals roaming about. If we could take, secure and hold the property we could make it work but Chef didn't like it.

The second site was a High school. The main thing it had going for it was its location. The main thing it had going against it was its location. Centrally located it was close to everything. The school didn't have its own generators for when the electricity will ultimately fail (just a matter of time before that happens) but that can easily be remedied by bringing some generators to the site. The site was in the middle of a large residential neighborhood and the zeds were going to be a huge problem. I looked over the property and my opinion was that it would take too long to secure. Chef decided the same.

The third place turned out to be very nice indeed. We've finished moving everything here and everyone is much happier indoors, out of the weather. The place was, and still is, a large auto junkyard. There are rows upon rows of cars, along with tons of old machinery. There's a generator already here for electricity, along with a gas station across the street that has diesel fuel. The property includes an auto repair shop, complete with welding equipment and a load of tools. The biggest surprise is the fact that property also has an old working well in addition to city water. The junkyard isn't located near anything really, in fact it's a bit isolated. Tomorrow Chef wants us to start on a new trench and berm system set up like I had built before. Shouldn't be a problem.

All in all, the past four days have been both good and bad. Good because we found an excellent new base and bad because we lost two men. The first man died of his wounds from the gunfight at the warehouse. There's no doctor here and my skills as a medic only go so far as to keep a soldier alive long enough to see him in the hands of a corpsman or safely evacuated.

The second man was caught stealing some of the "sacrament" during the move. (We have taken to calling meth the "sacrament" as it is what we take at "church". Why we have taken to calling our group meetings 'church' is mainly due to Master Chef passing out the smoke like a priest handing out wafers and wine.)

I wasn't particularly happy about Chef deciding that I would be the enforcer of his laws, although I well understood them. There could be no way that we could let someone steal the life giving meth from us. The meth is life at this point, as necessary for survival for us infected as food and water. As it is, we only have enough of the sacrament to barely keep the parasite crawling inside of us at bay. Once every four days we go to church. It's not easy at all. The first two days after smoking is good, the high is there and the parasite goes into recession. The next two days before we smoke again and the insidious single-celled menace starts to reassert itself.

It would be best if we could smoke every other day but we just don't have the supplies yet. Some of the others here want to smoke everyday but that's because they were addicted to the drug before the Omni raised its evil head.

Master Chef had told everyone, repeatedly, that stealing from him would result in death. Chef is the only one who knows how to cook. Chef holds all the power here. Nobody here will go against him, nobody wants to be cut off from the sacrament. Chef called church and gave me the responsibility to not only execute, but to publicly torture the thief. I may have killed plenty of people in battle but I had never tortured anyone before. At first I had a hard time listening to him scream as I skinned him alive. At first. After a few minutes, when his warm blood covered my hands and arms, I found the experience somehow exciting. I am mortified at how I enjoyed mutilating the man. It has to be due to the parasite's influence. I have no other way to explain, to myself or others, why I felt the way I did. Anyways, the thief's head is now impaled upon a fencepost while his desecrated body is hanging like some awful spread eagled scarecrow attached to the fence itself.

### 24 October 2012

It was the seventeenth of September when I first noticed the symptoms of the Omni. It seemed everyone, except a very small minority, showed signs of infection. The government issued meds I and my men took worked with limited success, reducing the rate of the parasites breeding within us, but only barely. The 'sacrament' does a hell of a lot of a better job, but still it seems every morning when I wake up I find some of the red blotches have either grown or a new scarlet spot has appeared. When I first joined this ragged group of infected survivors I was around thirty percent dead. After almost a month since being here the infection has slowed to a crawl. Today, a third of my body is covered by the splotches. I'm further along the path to death than some here and less infected than others. Everyone here now (except Chef, whose skin shows twenty percent coverage) has between thirty to forty percent of their bodies covered with the damnable tell-tale signs of the parasite.

Securing the area around our new home has turned out to be tougher than any of us had thought it would be. The junkyard is on the outskirts of town and when we initially scouted the site, the numbers of the undead were few. On the first day, when our caravan of trucks and cars rolled in with all of our equipment and supplies, we tried to be as quiet as possible. Immediately after arriving we set out with axes, swords and sledge hammers to eradicate the walking monstrosities as silently as possible. There weren't a lot of them then, just a few handfuls of isolated stragglers. It was the sound of the engines and the commotion of unloading our possessions that drew the zeds to us. There must have been hundreds of them that came out of the surrounding area in the next couple of hours. The property is large, all of it fenced in, and the hungry dead staggered to us from every direction. The fence held under the weight of the famished horrors, the chain links only bowed inwards slightly where the mass of decaying abominations was densest. For hours we stabbed them through the fence and still they came. Somebody started spraying them with gasoline and lighting them on fire. The ravished undead kept coming and coming. Singly and in small groups they kept being drawn here. They shambled and dragged their broken and rotting carcasses for miles, drawn by the sound of our engines previously and the sounds of our struggles currently.

They came for three days. A relentless stream that has only recently slowed to a trickle. So many of them have shown up that we must have killed over a thousand of the things. There has come a consensus amongst us that the zombies must be somehow calling out to each other that there was living flesh here. Surely there could not have been this many undead in the area when we arrived. There was certainly not this many of the beasts around here when we scouted the location.

This morning before 'church', Chef told some of the others to start armoring up our bulldozer and backhoe so the operators will be secure from the zeds that will almost certainly come out of the woodwork when they go out to dig fortifications. The fortifications around the junkyard will easily take two to three weeks to complete. The job at the campsite only took a couple of days but that site was far smaller than this one is. My job will be to provide additional security for those operating the heavy equipment. I had to go out and find a suitable vehicle to guard them from.

We decided that while it would be much easier to shoot any of the undead that found their way to us, the sounds of the gunfire would travel further than the sounds of the machines. There was no way any of us would go and stand outside the compound armed only with melee weapons to keep back what could be another horde of undead. Instead I found a tracked APC in good condition that I will use to simply run over and grind to mincemeat any undead that wanders into the area.

On another note, I am noticing some peculiar behavior in many of my comrades. Not just the increased hostility nor the disturbing dreams, I've noticed something else.

There are a number of women here with us also. The number of women to men isn't equal, only approximately a quarter of our numbers belong to women. Whether the lack of females is due the parasite killing off their sex easier than men or if it's got to do with the psychological makeup of the individual I can't comment. What I can comment on is the affect the Omni has on the human sex drive. The parasite doesn't increase the sex drive itself, instead stimulation that leads to an orgasm seems much more pronounced. Honestly, I don't know if the strength of the orgasm is increased or it only seems like it because it provides some relief from the constant pain and discomfort the infection causes in all of its victims. As a result there are a couple of girls here that have turned to providing sex as their contribution to the group. For some, any respite from the ravages of the parasite within us is a valid excuse to engage in wanton sex acts. Chef is going to have to step in and create some sort of rules concerning this activity at some point soon. I actually caught one of the men playing with himself while on guard duty. I beat the hell out of him as a warning to all that there would be no dereliction of duty, no matter the reason.

Chef will have his kitchen up and running again in a few days. While some of us work on our defenses, others will be going out on supply runs. Once this problem with the walking dead calms down we should end up sitting safe and secure.

### 28 October 2012

The work on the fortifications continues. The noise of the machines we're using travels much further than any of us expected. The constant background noises of modern life are gone now. Even in the small hours of the night, before the world turned into a nightmare, I could still hear the sounds of traffic on the freeways miles away. Now the entire world is as quiet as a grave. Gone are the accumulated sounds of cars, trucks, sirens, factories, televisions, airplanes, pets and children. I had never really noticed how loud our modern lifestyle had become. Now I notice its absence. I feel the void of sound greatest at night. The stillness unnerves me.

Those first few days when we moved in brought the unwanted attention of the majority of the walking dead into our immediate vicinity. Now that sound seems to travel so much further, the undead ghouls come to us, singly and in herds, from miles around. For hours there will be only a handful of the wanderers to deal with, then out of seemingly nowhere a herd of up to a hundred of the abominations will appear.

Once the zeds hear and start into the direction of any unnatural noise (and by unnatural I mean any man made noise) they don't stop until they find the source. We don't work on the defenses at night time, but that doesn't mean we can't stop constantly guarding and patrolling the perimeter simply because the sun has set. Most of the undead that slowly drag their broken and battered corpses here have been walking towards us for days. They lurch towards us at all hours, morning, noon and night.

There came one mass of undead that actually threatened to knock the fence down. The largest group I had seen yet shambled their way to us at three o'clock in the morning. Even though it is hauntingly quiet the dead make little noise. They came from the east, approaching that side of the compound that hadn't yet been fortified. With their silence and the cover of darkness they reached the fence before any of the night-watches spotted them. When the watchers finally found them and raised the alarm, I think it was mainly due to the sound of the fence being rattled and shaken by the mob of the dead. There was way too many of them to deal with using our melee weapons. The APC I had been using to run over the zeds during the day was running on fumes, until a scavenging team comes back with some fuel for it (like a freaking tanker truck) it's useless to us. I saw no other option but to authorize the use of firearms to keep the horde at bay. The gunshots would alert more of them to us but how many more could still be in the area I thought. Not that it mattered, really. If we didn't start putting them down quickly, they would have breached our defenses.

The dead are still coming, drawn to us like flies to shit. Their numbers have dwindled somewhat but until we've completed our fortifications and things quiet down here they will keep coming. There also seems to be some migration of the dead, with groups of them always on the move from one neighborhood to another. We will never be completely safe until the damned things finally collapse and die their final death.

Joe happened upon a sad piece of zombie shit that was almost a joke. The thing that had once been human was gone below the waist, guts and entrails dragging in the dirt behind it. It only had one arm and one eye but it dragged itself relentlessly towards its goal. Secretly I freakin' admire the sheer tenacity of the parasite and its desire to acquire fresh human flesh. The things will not stop. They show absolutely no fear. Joe captured it and tied it up in the back of the junkyard like it was some kind of demented watchdog. In no time others had gone to look at it. They stared at it, at first. Then they teased it. Then they made a sport out of throwing rocks at it, betting on who would get the killing blow in. When Chef found out that someone had brought one of the monstrosities onto the base he didn't get mad, instead he saw an opportunity to learn. Suitable subjects are going to be rounded up and kept inside cages, once we get them built, to be used as guinea pigs. We not only need to find out what their weaknesses are, we need to find a way to cure the parasite before it turns us into one of them.

On a side note, Chef has decided that since the immune regard us as nothing more than crazed killers, that there shall be no peace between us. I, personally, understand the unaffected survivor's fear of us. Everybody else that they have seen that had been suffering from the Scarlet had tried to violently kill them...and worse. I don't think that the immune have any idea that the madness that overtakes its victims won't truly affect us until the later stages of the disease. For the most part everybody here is still sane. It's a shame they can't get over their fear and try to help us.

The main group of uninfected survivors has taken to using the jail complex as their permanent base. That gives us a bit of an advantage over them, we know where they are but they don't know our location. For the most part the recon and scavenging teams have been trying to keep their distance from them but some limited fighting still erupts. The competition for the scarce supplies left within the ruins of the city are going to be contested hotly. Right now there is still a lot of usable materials out there but within a couple of months the resources are going to run low. There's an inevitable war that's brewing. As soon as we get our fortifications done here, we're going to turn our attention towards them.

### 4 November 2012

Seven days since my last entry. The first three days since my last entry went by as usual. The last four went by with a bit more excitement. My primary concern was getting the defenses in place. The one exception to the new routine was when Master Chef gave Joe, who is the only person here that I can really call a "friend", the job of being his supply officer. Joe and a couple of others and I had decided to celebrate the occasion by getting drunk. After partying 'til past dawn I had barely slept more than an hour when Joe shook me awake.

Seems Joe's first day on his new job was also going to be the day of his first test. Along with Cook's authority, came the responsibility. One of the two man recon teams were two days into their standard three to four day runs. The last that Chef had heard from them they had come across something that he wanted dearly. Cell phones still work around here and they're easy to find. (Most networks are still running here, and very few of the majority of people who use cell phones lock them.) That team had failed to check in for more than twenty-four hours with a tanker half full of anhydrous ammonia. Chef wanted that stuff for cookin' and while he wanted the team to be safe, the missing team was secondary.

The influx of new people here has pretty much stopped. The only other survivors we run across are way too far gone for even us to handle. I've come to the realization that we're just like the bastards in town. We kill those who are infected on sight also. Only the cannibalistic, walking dead kill both the infected and immune indiscriminately and without prejudice. Joe only had two men that could go out with him but he needed one more. Four people would be needed, one for our truck and one for the tanker. If the lost team could be saved they would do whatever they could to rescue them but Joe wanted to prepare for the worst. Chef wanted me to be the fourth man, he wanted to ensure someone who knew what he was doing, when it came to killing, would be there. Joe was in charge, after all it's his command and I had no problem with it. Since we would be gone and we would miss church, Chef gave us all a ration to take with us. Chef also gave Joe two additional doses for the missing men if we found them. Chef didn't care if we gave into temptation and smoked it early. Church day would still be every four days and every hour early we took it meant an additional, (ever worsening), hour before we could smoke again. Chef also wanted the doses back, unless there was a damn good reason, if the MIA's weren't found.

The last time Joe had heard from the team they had been somewhere in western Georgia. In an hour we loaded up an older Humvee and were on the road.

The recon teams go out for four days at a time, three times in a row and then get a four day break. I actually have to admire the skill it takes to negotiate the road system, which is at times cluttered with broken and mangled auto wrecks or has become complete gridlock of abandoned vehicles. One could be driving an open and deserted road one second only to rush upon the charred and burned out wreckage of a multi car pile-up. Or a fuck load of the living dead. Gas was the only real thing we planned on stopping for until we reached the area where the men went missing. If we came upon something worth checking out we would mark it on our map and come back for it later.

Both of Joe's men opted to smoke their share that night after we stopped to gas up the vehicle. Joe and I shared a look over what we thought was a bad choice but he let them have their share early. They also were the ones elected to drive through the night while Joe and I chilled in the rear; the two wouldn't be able to relax very much anyways.

As soon as we got within ten miles of the lost tanker's last known position, we found that none of the cell towers worked. Nobody had any bars on their phone and making a call was impossible. While it was a bad thing, it could also prove to be the reason the missing team couldn't check in. That or the team was dead. In either case it was a good place to start seriously searching.

We found the tanker. A water main had broken, it was still gushing water when we arrived and it probably still is. The run-off went under the road and weakened it. The road appears to have collapsed when the weight of the Peterbilt and its heavy cargo crossed it. The truck and tanker weren't in bad condition, however it would require more than a Hummer to get it out.

Barely had we gone more than a few more miles, mainly in search of a tow truck, when we found a huge mob of the undead surrounding a gas station that sold diesel and had, doors wide open, a tow truck on the lot. We spotted the mob from far enough away that they paid us no heed. The ravenous undead were focused intently upon the station, even though they must have heard, however slightly, the sound of our engine. The fact that the parasite controlled corpses were so intent on something meant that they sensed live food was tantalizing close to them.

Joe asked me what I would do and I told him if we can't kill them then we'll have to lead them away. The road kept going past the station, into the unknown ruins of some little town. Joe decided to go around the gas station, out of sight of the undead so they don't get drawn to us and possibly trap us, to scout the other side. Knowing where he would lead the ghouls would be a boon and it's a good thing he chose to scout ahead. Just past a sharp turn in the road we came upon the horrible remains of what could have only been a slaughter. A dozen vehicles, including a school bus, were strewn, burned and bullet-ridden, in front of an impassable road block consisting of a tank and concrete dividers. The concrete barriers went right to the tree line on both sides of the road, making driving into the wooded and hilly terrain an impossible task, although it appears more than one person had tried. So we back-tracked to where we were before. The only way to lead the zeds away from the site would be to go past the tanker we were sent to get. We couldn't shoot at the zeds while they were anywhere near the tanker, and if we valued the stranded teams lives we couldn't do much shooting around the gas station either. Actually, it would have been easier to abandon the men but we had to get that tow truck. We would have to search for another day or more to find another tow truck and that would've meant that we would all be late for church with the time it would take to travel back to our lair.

It really wasn't hard at all to go driving towards the gas station, firing rounds off and killing those zombies that we got safe angles on. Horn blaring and yelling at the horde of over a hundred while shooting them, we saw one member of the trapped team jump up on the roof waving his arms and yelling at us. We had to get very close to the zeds to get their attention, by that time we had easily killed two dozen of them and would have killed more if not for the building being in the line of fire. We hadn't seen hide nor hair of the second man and we knew he could still be inside, trapped somehow and being kept from getting to the roof. Until I saw the gas station up close. Every one of the big glass windows had been smashed in. There was easily another hundred or so of the undead inside the store.

In the time it took us to start leading them away from the station we took out another couple dozen of the shambling horrors, getting in some good target practice. As we slowly rolled past the truck and tanker, with its load of liquid ammonia, we had to check our fire. Then something odd happened. The undead, the whole mass of them, stopped short of the tanker and wouldn't get past or even near it. It was like they hit some invisible wall that they would not cross when they got to within twenty-five feet of it. It became a turkey shoot, with the zombies lurching towards us then reeling back, like waves lapping on the beach. They wouldn't leave the area because they saw fresh meat and they wouldn't advance past a certain point, leaving us to blow apart their skulls with relative ease. A number of them had started to make a staggering, circuitous route around the tanker but we were all decent shots (we've all had plenty of practice) and they all quickly fell. I have no idea what's going on with the zeds acting like they did, but I know it has something to do with the ammonia. Chef is going to explore this weird behavior as soon as he can with some of our captured testing subjects.

There were only a few stragglers and crawlers left and when we actually got inside the station our thoughts were confirmed. One of the team had been captured by the inhuman abominations and his blood had congealed over the floor, walls and shelves of a storage room.

Ken, the survivor, told us how in the dark of the night, as they were approaching a station they knew had diesel fuel from previous trips, the road below them gave way, bringing the truck to the state it was in now. Almost as soon as they had done a little raiding of the store and gassed up the tow truck the huge wave of dead had come at them from the moonless gloom of the surrounding woods, almost getting to them before they could hide inside the store. Ken's partner had tripped over some spilled jawbreakers and slammed into the ground hard. The amassed and combined weight of the undead had almost immediately shattered the cheap windows as Ken dragged his unconscious buddy towards the rear storeroom. The door was locked and in the time it took for Ken to kick down the cursed thing the zeds were upon them. Ken told us of how he barely escaped into the room, how he could only pray that he could find a way out before the monsters finished their frightening meal. At least the poor man was unconscious, not suffering in pain as merciless teeth and claws ripped him apart. Ken thought his time was up, finding the door was shattered beyond use, unlockable and barely closable.

As the nauseating sounds of the undead beasts, gorging themselves on his friends flesh, filled his ears his eyes adjusted and he saw a ladder leading to an access hatch in the roof. Of all the luck, this was locked too but such locks weren't designed to stand up to a desperate man who put everything he had into breaking it. In the end, the lock itself didn't actually break, it was the hatch. Ken waited upon the roof, desperately hoping we would come save him. He had been unable to use his cell phone to call for help because of the lack of working cell towers.

After the rescue, Joe had his two men drag the truck and tanker out of the break in the road while the rest of us smoked the sacrament. It was obvious to all of us the additional spread of the disease on Ken since he hadn't smoked for just that one extra day. When you live with this parasite for any length of time you know what to expect, any additional spread of the disease, no matter how seemingly slight, is easily and quickly noticed.

Even with the loss of the man's life, Chef considered the rescue a huge success.

### 13 November 2012

There are thirty three of us here now. We now have instituted a morning muster and things are finally starting to get organized around here. All of us are tainted by the corruption of the parasite that lives within us. In the past nine days since I last wrote, the group lost two men and one woman to ammonia poisoning. Those three damned souls we lost were the only casualties the group had suffered since we lost that man in the gas station up north.

The ammonia we brought back from Georgia has proven to have amazing properties wherever the undead is concerned. The liquid ammonia is difficult to work with, it's cold as hell and evaporates quickly. Even the fumes are toxic. The difficulty we have with the extra safety precautions we go through handling the freezing liquid is a small price to pay for the benefits it provides. The undead refuse to go anywhere near the stuff. I had some men go out and spray a swatch of it around our camp and it served better than a thick masonry wall. The liquid was sprayed six days ago and it shows no sign of weakening in strength to where the hungering horrors are able to ignore it. I suspect that one application may last until it rains, washing it away.

One of the very first things that happened when we got back from Georgia and told people about the odd behavior of the zeds, was experimentations on them. If the unholy beasts get sprayed with a shot of the freezing liquid ammonia, undiluted, they die almost immediately. Lesser concentrations of ammonia kill in accordance with its strength. Amazingly, even ordinary household cleaner kills them. You have to spray the hell out of them but once coated with Windex the dead will finally collapse in forty hours or so.

The knowledge of how to easily wipe out the abominations that mindlessly crave our living flesh is almost too good to be true. The accidental way we uncovered this secret makes me wonder just how many other survivors (both infected and immune) know it. The murderers holed up in the prison haven't figured it out yet, they still have to keep their perimeter clear with firearms and hand weapons every day. Nobody here is going to tell them either.

Since the ammonia deals so effectively at killing the parasite in the undead there has come a lot of things people are doing with it in order to eliminate the vile parasite inside of themselves. There became such a rush to get some ammonia that Chef had I set up a guard to watch the tanker and put a stop to it. Any further experimentation with the ammonia has to be approved by Chef himself now. Pretty much anything that could be tried has been tried, resulting with three deaths already. Between him needing some of it for the Birch reaction and its use against the zeds, Chef was worried about making it last as long as possible.

Before we regulated the ammonia's dispense, people had been showering with different dilutions of it in water, sometimes causing burns and coughing. Some people swore that it helped with the infection but the effects were short lived. I, of course, gave myself a shower with a twenty five percent solution in the same hopes. My experience with washing my body down with the solution didn't make me feel any better, unfortunately. I think that the ammonia reacts much differently with dead, animated flesh as opposed to living flesh. The body can deal with some amounts of ammonia naturally (since it is in our atmosphere and we breathe in some of it all the time) and the infection may be too deep inside of us at this point to be affected. Since some say it helps a little to shower with the solution, Chef hadn't stopped it but instead limits the practice to a small shower once a week.

Not soon after the depressing lack of results from showering with the toxic substance, someone tried exposing themselves to the fumes by huffing it. As soon as the guy took in a quick, deep lungful he passed out. That man recovered but others were desperate too. It was quickly discovered that inhaling the vapor can cause coughing, shortness of breath and burns to the mouth, throat, sinuses and lungs.

One person had locked herself in a closet, stuffing the cracks with rags and attempted to give herself some prolonged exposure to the chemical. After a couple of hours she emerged again, in absolute agony and unable to get any air into her scorched and burned lungs. It took that woman three days to die, all the while in complete misery.

That didn't stop anyone from trying something else though. I understand the mindset, faced with the choice of a slow descent into what is already a living hell and certain death, to die trying to cure one's self seems an attractive alternative, especially if it works (or if you survive).

A day later we had another ammonia poisoning related death. One of the guys, someone whom I knew, whom had worked for me, had taken to putting ammonia in everything he drank. In his water, his beer, whatever. He had been trying to ingest the ammonia, trying to get it inside of him without it burning his lungs and killing him. He died in complete agony also. It took him two days to die.

The last death we had from people trying to use the ammonia to save their lives was just the other day. We found his corpse with a needle sticking out of his arm. The crazy bastard tried to main-line some of it, like it was heroin and it killed him within minutes.

Other than that, the day to day operation goes well. Now that we have a way to keep the undead at bay, the work on the fortifications proceeds easily. We don't even need to use our guns against the undead very often now either. All it takes now to thin the population of dead cannibals is a few brave men with spears. The zeds hate coming close to the scent of ammonia, giving us excellent opportunities to stay out of the reach of their grasping, necrotic claws. Our new ultimate weapon against them is a toy squirt-gun (one of the big super-soaker ones) filled with a fifty percent solution of ammonia and water. The fifty-fifty mixture isn't strong enough to drop a zed in its tracks in most cases but it does kill 'em within a day or so.

### 22 November 2012

I can feel the effects of the parasite growing within me. The insidious organism is wreaking havoc with my emotions. With every passing day, the anger and agitation builds inside of me. It's like a seething cauldron of pure hate boiling just below the surface. It isn't just me, everyone here feels it. Along with the anger and restlessness comes an odd and disturbing craving. We've all seen what the craving makes the infected do. Before the apocalypse caused the collapse of civilization we all saw our family, friends and neighbors brutally murder each other in a frenzy of violence. Then, horrifically, we all witnessed what the contaminated did to those they killed, they ate them. Now the craving is among us. It's not an overwhelming desire yet but eventually it will be. As we all sat down to our thanksgiving feast, everyone of us silently wished there was something else on the table besides turkey and ham.

In October a third of my body was covered by the damning Scarlet. Even with the meth slowing the colony of the single-celled menace named Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni from breeding inside my body, it still grows. Each week it advances another full percent. In a month's time another four percent of my skin turns blood red as the capillaries burst. At this rate, in less than sixteen months I will die after being driven insane, only to rise as one of the ghoulish undead.

Chef, who is the least infected of us, has had another visitation by the dark goddess. He has ordered the building of an altar to her. He gave the decree to all of us as we finished our meal and before we started drinking in earnest. None of us were surprised by this. All of us have dreamed of her. Whether she is real or not is a moot point. Many here have started to become fanatical in worshipping her image. Some believe, I suppose, out of desperation that there is at least one god that looks after her children, comforting them in their fears of an afterlife or a hell. Myself, although I have dreamed of her unholy beauty, still feel that the shared visions of her are more of a psychological nature than the goddess actually being a reality. The altar, as commanded by Master Chef, must be large enough to perform sacrificial rites upon. It also needs be built without the use of nails or glue. The materials of the altar can only be built with certain materials. Human bones and skulls, barb and razor wire, weapons that have drawn blood. The top of the altar must consist of a single smooth piece of slate or black marble. Within a central hollow of the altar there must be placed seven still animated heads of the undead. The building of the altar is going to be difficult, to say the least, with those restrictions in my eyes. Chef gave the responsibility for the construction of what will eventually be the dark lady's temple to two of the women. Master Chef has given himself the honor of being the High Priest with the two chosen women being given the honor of becoming the Goddess's first High Priestesses. The large auto repair bay is going to be the site of the new temple and no one besides those three are allowed inside of it, excepting for certain occasions, upon threat of death. The two women Chef had chose to be his priestesses are also the hottest of those taking refuge here. Both of the girls are young with one still in her teens and the other barely twenty-one or so. I have no doubt that some of Chef's 'rituals' will end up being nothing more than some sort of sex act with them.

With the completion of our ditch and ramparts for defense we are still making continual improvements. I have started setting up some of the surrounding buildings as sentry posts. The ammonia keeps those buildings outside of the perimeter free from the undead and our reach will soon include all of Ocala.

Whenever a patrol from the prison comes within our zone of control, our men snipe at them mercilessly. We have killed a number of them but they keep coming back with an ever increasing level of arms and vehicles. The immune may outnumber us but we have an ace in the hole.

The APC's we use run on diesel, one fill up of their fuel tanks takes ninety-five gallons. The gas station across the street from the junkyard ran dry of diesel weeks ago but we have come across plenty of diesel tankers since then. The big find came from a private airfield on the southwest edge of Ocala. A full tanker truck of jet fuel was just sitting there, waiting to make its final delivery. While the vast majority of Abrams tanks used by the US military are multi fuel capable, being able to use kerosene or gasoline of any quality, JP-8 (Jet Propulsion fuel, grade eight) is the preferred fuel for these beasts. It takes almost ten gallons of the stuff just to get the turbines started. I may have been trained in the basic operation of an Abrams but I never received the specific knowledge of how to maintain, configure or repair them. The tools and methods to switch the engine over to run on regular gasoline are unknown to me and I didn't want to risk fucking up an Abrams when I need it the most. Now I don't have to worry. Now the people who need to worry are the immune who stupidly try to murder us on sight.

Since I last wrote in this journal we have suffered two more casualties in the ongoing battle with the immune. One man was killed outright, while the second man still convalescences from his wounds.

Two more refugees have joined us, one man and one woman. Chef knew them from before the world went to hell in a hand basket. Seems they had been addicted to meth since before all of this started and when their local dealer had been murdered, they simply helped themselves to his remaining stash. It's only due to luck that they are still alive at all, they had absolutely no idea that the drug slowed the progress of the Omni, they simply wanted to stay high as fuck before they died. They had run out and she had remembered Chef's number, calling him in the middle of the night hoping he was still alive and was still dealing. By the time they reached us here they were also around forty percent covered in the Scarlet, just as we all are.

The guy she came here with wasn't very good at controlling himself where the emotional chaos of the Omni was concerned. Soon after arriving he got into a heated argument over nonsense with the woman and started to beat the hell out of her. The girl is young and pretty, the rest of the men here definitely want to keep her around (if mainly for sex) and they quickly turned on the man and beat him to death, there on the spot. Nobody stopped them, it was almost therapeutic for them to give vent to the anger inside and unleash it on another living being. I personally could care less that the man was beaten to death, since Chef didn't care either nobody was punished for the act.

One man killed, one woman gained. Our numbers remain the same.

### 13 December 2012

My dreams are nothing more than nightmares at this point. That is, when I can find sleep. The constant agitation and latent anger, not to mention the drug use, makes it unbearably difficult to fall asleep. When I do, perchance, happen to find solace in unconsciousness, the dreams I endure are more real than any waking reality. I mostly find myself back in Iraq, reliving the worst day of my life. Only within my dreams the enemy will not die. The face of every man I killed comes back, accusing me of murdering them and determined to repay me in kind. My weapon clicks hollowly upon an empty chamber, having fired every single round into the bodies of those that have come back to haunt me. Mine enemies laugh at me then, a cruel, hard, mocking laugh that chills me to the core of whatever soul I have left. Then they attack me with teeth and nails, devouring me alive and I feel every single wound. The agony wakes me from my all too brief slumber, into this nightmare I call reality. I have never experienced such pain in any mere dream before, it must be due to the parasite's influence. It's getting to the point I fear sleep. I know I'm not the only one having these problems, many here awake screaming bloody murder from their horrific visions. When the others tell me of their dreams, many speak of an unrelenting violence broken only by the dark lady's promises. For the others, it's their conversation with the goddess that causes them to awaken, screaming and thrashing.

We lost another man today. It was due to his own carelessness that he ended up dying. His death serves as a warning to the rest of us to stay ever vigilant. He and another man had taken up a position within one of our scattered safe houses, maintaining a watch on this city and the comings and goings of the few uninfected that still remain. The two had cleared the house and laced the entryways with ammonia but they failed to spray around one single window. The dead still hunger for our flesh and they will not cease in their efforts to get to us whenever they can. Through the window it came at them, heedless of the sharp shards of glass that sliced open its rotting flesh. Where one zed finds a meal others follow, it's almost like they emit some sort of communication between themselves that we (the living) cannot hear. It was something unexpected and the thing caught them off guard. (I have noticed that those of the undead that have recently fed show much more vitality and speed than those of the ghouls that haven't partaken of a mouthful of human meat). Before the two realized that their perimeter had been breached the cannibalistic beasts were upon them. One of the men had suffered a huge wound in his bicep, having been bitten mercilessly by one of the monsters. Although they escaped and made their way back to the base, the nasty wound the man received caused his death. The man's wound festered, the skin around the jagged hole in his upper arm immediately turning scarlet. He died from the massive injection of the single celled parasite and it minute eggs. No amount of ammonia wash or meth could do anything to stop the rapid progression of the disease. Within two days his skin was completely stained by the scarlet with his tongue, gums and the white's of his eyes turning as black as coal. In the end he died a raving lunatic, such as we all will, and I personally put him out of his misery with a double tap to the back of the head, not just to kill him but to keep him from rising again.

There are thirty-two of us left.

### 22 December 2012

Last night was the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. It was this night that the High Priest and his Priestesses have declared to be the High Night of the Goddess. Christmas, nor any other holiday for that matter, will ever be celebrated again. The old gods have deserted us and aligned themselves against us. The High Priest has told us the name of the new goddess. Her name is Yama-Kali. Yama-Kali is death incarnate. Yama-Kali is here, on this earth, to eradicate the men who have turned to the ways of the demons and destructive forces. She has but a short time on this earth and within that time it is her job, and the job of us, her disciples, to wipe out the evil that mankind has become. We will serve her, whether we wish to or not, in life and in death, such is the power she wields.

The altar to Yama-Kali is a monstrosity of a thing to behold. It is almost a thing of wonder to gaze upon. No nails or glue or any fastener is used in its construction. Only bones supporting more bones, held in place with barbed and razor wire form its base. Upon the top is a single slab of the blackest marble, taken from the altar of another god that has abandoned us. Channels have been carved into the dark stone, draining the blood of our sacrifice to the chamber below, inside of the altar itself. Seven still unliving heads are within that hidden chamber of the altar. When the blood poured down into the chamber the severed heads squirmed and struggled to lap up the blood, tearing and shredding what remained of their blackened tongues and lips upon the barbs and blades of the rusty wire in their eagerness to satiate their hunger.

We had found and taken a small group of three survivors that had been hiding in an abandoned restaurant. To the High Priest's delight, (no longer are we to call Master Chef by that name...he now demands to be called High Priest) one of the uninfected turned out to be a twelve year old girl. Whilst the other two adults, a man and a woman, were subjected to whatever we wanted to do with them, short of killing them, the child was untouched. The child was anointed with ammonia and kept clean and pure. The two adults however were subjected to all manner of physical abuse, including prolonged raping. The child was the high sacrifice held at 1:12 am.

At dusk we sacrificed the first of the adults, a woman who screamed and cried, dying badly. The priestesses removed their rags of clothing and covered themselves in her blood, the color of the blood is the scarlet that will cover us all. The priestesses adorn themselves with the entrails of that first sacrifice, making a short skirt of human skin, held up by a belt of intestine.

Of the three, the child actually died the best, even though she had suffered the worst tortures of all three of them. With barely a whimper or moan she took the depravations of the complete removal of all of her innocence's and the following dismemberment of her small living body. We took this as a very good sign and afterwards her head was placed upon a pike at the entry to the temple to honor her. Then with the end of the ritual, the temple turned into a drunken, drug fueled orgy with the priestesses opening their bodies to anyone who desired them. A feast was prepared consisting mainly of the meat of our first sacrifice and it was unbelievably tasty.

At daybreak we cut out the heart of the last sacrificial victim, who begged and pleaded to unlistening ears for his life to be spared. The man turned out to be the weakest of the victims. I was glad when the High Priest finally cracked open his chest and sliced out the still beating heart, ending his degrading whining.

With all the struggling and desperate pain filled thrashings of our sacrifices the altar stood firm, without any signs of weakness. The priestess hands and lower arms had been cut and sliced open in their work but they showed no evidence of pain or regret at having been ordered to build it, only pride.

Over forty percent of my body is now covered by the scarlet and I fear forty percent of my sanity has fled.

Our numbers still stand at thirty-two.

### 13 January 2013

Happy New Year bitches. For most of us, the infected ones, this will be our last year on this fucked up spinning ball of mud we call Earth. Some few of us will see a couple of months of the next year but then that's it.

I have noticed a marked difference in my mental state between when I smoke the sacrament and when it starts to wear off. I have my greatest moments of lucidity immediately after breathing the fumes of the holy crystals into my lungs. It's almost as if there are two people within my mind, the still sane person who comes back out after smoking and the emotionally driven beast that reasserts itself the following day. My guilt over the abominable things I have done when the meth wears off, the worry of my assured soon approaching death and my fear of the other damned souls here weigh upon me when I regain my senses. Some have begged the High Priest for additional doses, only to be refused. Teams are sent out scouring the state in a desperate search to find every last drop of whatever ingredients are left. I swear to the Dark Lady that we have raided every Wal-Mart, Kmart and every other such store. Now we concentrate on the smaller stores, the Walgreens and small pharmacies. If we can get the raw ingredients to cook with, the High Priest will give extra sacrament. Having to share the life prolonging drug with so many people the quantity needed is actually quite a lot. It takes a shit load of diet and cold medicine to make even the smallest batch.

And now for the weather...the weather is as fucked as we are. With all the shit happening, nobody had been paying any attention at all to the climate. The temperature has been well into the nineties all through December and into January, well above what the thermometer should read. On January first the mercury fell into the teens and stayed that way through the third. It was an insane cold snap that caught us off guard, forcing us to scramble for heat. The freezing winds came in and practically froze the ravenous undead in their tracks. The walking dead cannot deal with the cold, having no discernible metabolism to generate body heat.

Seeing the effects the cold of winter brings to the undead brought the idea that we should relocate up north either now or when the spring comes. Unfortunately, to move up north now would be an impossibility. Our search teams tell us there is no way to get past southern Georgia, the snows are so deep. The further north they go, the thicker the blanket of snow and the colder it becomes. There is no more electricity past Atlanta or so and the temperature is well below zero with winds so bitter frostbite sets in within minutes to exposed, living skin. High Priest nixed the idea for now, when the spring thaw returns then he will consider it again. Not only will we need to find a suitable place to call our new home first, we will need a reserve of the sacrament before we move to make up for the cook time we will lose.

The cold snap only served to start numerous fires. More than a few neglected heating systems kicked on automatically, starting fires that quickly engulfed whole buildings. With no one to fight the small fires, the flames quickly turned into inferno's that engulfed whole blocks. The fires burned and smoldered for days, only being extinguished by an extremely powerful hurricane that came at us from somewhere in the Atlantic. As soon as the cold departed, the heat returned, seemingly hotter than before.

Between the eighth of January and the eleventh, a storm of such strength as I have never seen before, steam rolled into Florida. Rain, wind and hail created a swatch of destruction from one coast to the other. Very few buildings were left undamaged, including ours. The section of the building that had once been used as the junkyards offices (the section that had been turned into a makeshift barracks for the women) collapsed under the storms furious assault. The only bright side to the weird weather was the fact that it eliminated a butt load of the parasite controlled corpses that wander the land.

Once the hurricane passed the temperature returned to its abnormally high heat. With all the humidity in the air from the tempest it feels like I'm being basted and roasted in a huge damn oven. The weather has gone as mad as the rest of the world and I'm sure that the greenhouse gasses and the sudden stoppage of their production (with the fall of civilization), combined with the nuclear weapons that had been detonated in the last days of the madness have caused it.

We lost two people since my last entry and another hasn't been seen for at least two weeks. One guy had been complaining bitterly of the constant itch of the parasite and had been using a bottle (at least) of calamine lotion, aloe or whatever he could find each day. His scratching and itching of himself became a compulsive habit and he was always seen scratching himself raw. He ended up digging his nails into his flesh with such vigor that blood flowed from his self inflicted wounds. He scratched the skin off of his arms, legs, chest and face (in fact every part of his body that he could reach) and I swear he even ripped into his muscle tissue in his madness. Even before he ripped open his jugular and bled out he was an ugly mess to behold. Dried and caked blood covered his scabbed and scarred body; I don't even think he realized what he was doing to himself. For the most part we left him alone as there was absolutely nothing we could do to help him. He died alone, nobody wanted to be around him and his compulsive, insane behavior.

The other confirmed death was that of a woman. She was flakey to begin with, being unstable mentally. She was more than fifty percent covered in the scarlet (more than I am) and had been raving on and off of voices and whispers in her head. Before she ate the barrel of a revolver she had tore so much of her own long blonde hair out that she was practically bald, with only patches of hair left clinging tenuously to her scalp. She took the easy way out, the coward's way, so we dumped her body to rot in the ditch along with the remains of the zeds that we had destroyed.

The missing man, who either went AWOL or was murdered (as he wasn't well liked by many of the group), I still keep on the rolls as MIA. If he remains MIA for another month then I'll officially count him as dead and remove him from our lists. Unless of course, we come across his body or he shows up somewhere.

Our numbers stand at twenty-nine present and accounted for with one MIA.

### 28 January 2013

Six days ago the guerrilla war between us and the immune heated up. Those bastards started booby-trapping isolated stores where they had seen us looting previously. Obviously there a few among them that have had some military training since the traps consist mainly of claymore mines activated by tripwires. While I don't believe that they actually know the reason for the seemingly odd choices of supplies we scavenge, none of us here want them to figure it out. Two men were lost in an instant, having been blown to kingdom come when their team went out to scrounge for more cooking ingredients. The casualties were of course regrettable, without a doubt they will be revenged. High Priest thinks the immune are getting too close to figuring out what exactly we're raiding for. It's plain to see that they have taken note of where we're going even if they don't know why.

Five days ago I started an impromptu course teaching a few people on how to create improvised explosive devices. Finding the explosives is easy, there are shells packed with high explosives in many of the tanks left over from when martial law was declared. For three days I drilled and drilled the three men on how to dismantle the shells and extract the explosives. Then I showed them how to craft simple remote detonation devices made from garage door openers and cell phones. My best student, Jerry, caught on quickly and shows an aptitude for creating the explosive packages. He's also a bit of a firebug to begin with. He's quite the pyromaniac, always tending to the bonfire in the junkyard and starring endlessly into the flames depths. I placed in him charge of the newly created team, confident in his abilities.

By the end of the training I was certain that our new bomb team would wreak havoc on the enemy. Yesterday came their first real test of their newly learned skills and they passed with flying colors.

The uninfected had started to wise up and had started to daily draw off many of the abominable undead away from the prison grounds. The tactic of shouting, firing off their weapons into the zeds and the simple fact that the flesh craving monstrosities would follow any living soul for miles is now general knowledge. Every day they have to clear their perimeter and there are really only a couple of routes they can take to draw off the hungering dead. The team planted the IED on one of those routes and simply waited for the day that the enemy used it. The timing was perfect, the blast actually lifted up the APC and sent it tumbling, in flames, to lie broken and burning by the side of the fresh crater. One of the enemy was lucky and survived the blast and impact. Even though the team eagerly chased him through the streets he somehow made it back to the safety of the prison. Hopefully the wounds he sustained will soon kill him too. In a way it's fine one of them got away, having a survivor report back to the rest of his comrades will further serve to unnerve them.

The war is on now. C'mon at me bro, I got plans for you. Our enemies will soon fall. I'm actually excited by the chance to put my Abrams into action. I'm going to run through them like grain through a goose.

On a side note we found the remains of the MIA. There wasn't much left of him, we identified his body by one of his tattoos. His mutilated and mangled body was found stuffed into the trunk of an old, rusty, junk car in the back of the lot. Every bone in his body had been shattered, somebody must have continued pummeling his body long after he died. So thoroughly had the corpse been beaten that the only thing holding it together was muscle and what unbroken skin remained. Even though the Omni had resurrected his broken body it was in such a mangled state that the thing could do nothing but uselessly squirm in its confinement.

We number twenty seven souls under Yama-Kali's control.

### 3 February 2013

Victory. I love it. It's always good to be on the winning side. The city is now under our complete control. The vast majority of the immune that had holed up in the prison are dead. Whatever survivors remain are trapped in their buildings, surrounded by a legion of the undead.

This morning, before the break of dawn, the High Priest blessed us while the Priestesses gave us the sacrament. We have been planning this battle for a week. The life extending medicine was given a day early, our heads would have to be as clear as possible.

Almost fifty percent of my body is covered in the cursed scarlet. Many of the infected here are further along than I. A few of those people are showing early signs of schizophrenia, mixed with an overpowering sense of anger, both from the insidious parasite and a sense of their own impending doom.

There is an old man here (the old bastard is seventy-three years of age), with the most advanced case of us all. The old bird is a tough one, He's still capable of puttin' in a hard day's work but it's obvious the disease is starting to take over his mind. He's gotten a slight facial tic with his eye going whenever he gets stressed now and he told me, in confidence, that he can 'hear' the parasite 'whispering' in his brain. His body is more than sixty percent covered in deep, big, red blotches and small dark spots are starting to become apparent in his mouth and under his nails. In another month or two we're either going to have to kill him or exile him. We'll probably kill him though, Can't have a madman running around that might decide on trying to kill us in his insanity. There's enough of that already.

I've gotten off track, it's was only eighteen hours ago since I smoked and already my concentration is failing. Along with the madness and the scarlet comes a slowly building craving for the taste of human flesh. I try to fight it but I can never be free of it, it is always there. For the most part, the rest of those here have stopped fighting the terrible desire, giving into it and relishing the hunger. We literally killed dozens of the enemy, their bodies will not go to waste around here. One of the men who works for Joe used to slaughter and clean pigs, he was a natural at butchering the bodies of the fallen human 'cattle'. Cuttin' people up was surprisingly like slicin' up a fat porker he explained to us, it was hilarious when he told us that's why some cultures that practiced cannibalism called humans 'long-pig'. Those cannibal cultures chose to hunt their fellow man, we however are driven to it against our will (at least at first). I may fall to the temptation like the rest have. Yama-Kali knows I feel guilty about it now, I did have some of the mouth-watering meat at the celebration tonight but it was almost a mandatory thing with everyone taking at least a ritual mouthful. There seems to be calming and sleep inducing effect with the parasite inside of us when it gets the meal it desires. Those who eat their fill of it later fall into a deep, restful sleep. Makes me jelly, I haven't slept well for weeks.

Our lives are measured in months in the best case, in the worst scenario it's measured in days. No matter how I fight it I will become one of my fellow cannibals. The only question is how long I can survive without losing my mind to the point they kill me. The old man may have the most advanced case but all of us are barely a few months behind him. I can see most of us hitting that critical stage of no return at about the same time. I'm just going to try to stay by Priest's side and do whatever I have to do, to ensure both his and my survival.

I'm off track again. The only casualty we suffered was the pyro that blew himself (and the surrounding houses) into pieces. Whatever, I trained others to replace him. One less prick to worry about. All he had to do was use one or two of the munitions to destroy the electrical substation that routed power to the prison. Dumbass used way too many, obviously not realizing just how huge the resulting explosion would be. Either that or he decided to go out in one glorious gout of flame, ending his miserable life in an instant.

The explosion was the opening act of our deadly play, for the next act we rolled 'hot' into the enemy compound.

We caught them completely off guard. I had thought they would have tried to build defenses like we had. Turns out they hadn't done anything that we feared of while planning. It got my blood flowing, being in combat again, no matter that the enemy couldn't fight back for shit. That's how it's supposed to be. Hard fought victories are grand but easy slaughters are so much better. Blowing apart the more important buildings, with the enemy trapped inside, did a lot to help satiate my anger (that and cutting them in half with machine gun fire). The tanks main weapon is a thing of destructive beauty. The smoke, fire and death it dealt out was astounding and merciless. The fact that they had working back-up generators showed they had done some planning at least for the eventual loss of electricity. Their efforts didn't matter, as soon as the accompanying APC radioed me that the lights were still on it took me no time at all to figure out which building provided the power. With my steel dragon's wicked breath I mangled the Detroit Diesels and the whole building that housed them. There may still be survivors inside some of the buildings but they aren't going to be able to get past the thousand or so zeds we filled the compound's grounds with. That was act three, it commenced directly after we gathered up the bodies of the long-pigs and gutted them.

With the entails and leftovers from the carcasses of the long-pigs we made a trail to where a huge herd of hungering undead had been rounded up previously with the help of ammonia. Zombie rustling we call it, it's a sport that a number of us had gotten proficient at. Between the undead's fear of the ammonia and their greed for the fresh flesh it was easy to control the herd. Once we packed the grounds full we locked the gates behind them. Ain't none of them gettin' out of there even if they lived through our attack, if they do we'll be back and lay waste to them again. If there are survivors and we have to go back again to finish them off, it will only result in new meat for us. There are always more storage freezers to be found scattered around with the detritus of the world's collapse. For now, all our freezers are full.

There are twenty-six of us.

### 16 March 2013

There's a boiling anger inside of me, inside of all of us here. Every day, the anger gets a little bit stronger. I find even the slightest problem or disappointment aggravates the hell out of me, tempting me to lose control and lash out. I think it's only because of my military discipline that I can control myself so well, the others here have a much harder time of it. In the past month there have been a lot of fights, a lot of bickering and snide remarks, so much so that we've had to institute a penal code for the greater offenses. Since physical altercations have become so common, the penalty is a simple lecture to the offenders to remind them that the anger they feel is due to the subtle influence of the Omni (as long as no serious injury results). When someone gets carried away in their aggression and actually injures another to the point that they have to be taken out of their work detail, then they get punished. High Priest holds a court, with the Priestess in attendance, and acts as both judge and jury. The offenders brought before him for justice are subject to anything from a few lashes of the whip for small harms, to execution in the case of murder. I feel the High Priest is wise in this, a public whipping serves as an effective deterrent for both the offender and the rest of the men. Twice now we've had to discipline violent behavior with ten lashes and hopefully we won't have to start publicly executing anyone. It fell on me to administer the punishment, and it's actually an honor. To be trusted enough by the High Priest to carry out his mandates shows his trust in me. Not to mention I get the chance to relish the feeling of a satiated anger by drawing blood.

Over fifty percent of my body has turned scarlet, just like everyone else. The High Priest, his Priestesses, Joe and myself had a long discussion on our largest personnel problem. We all know full well that with the scarlet comes the madness and all of us will be affected by it. No longer can we just simply execute someone just because a certain amount of his skin has turned the deep, damning red. Where we used to preemptively eliminate someone who reached seventy percent coverage, now we don't. The old man I wrote of earlier, the one who has the most advanced case, is still with us, although under the old rules he would be worm dirt by now. The old man is holding together well, still capable of maintaining control mentally, albeit his facial tic has gotten much worse. When the time drew near that I would normally have had to put a couple of slugs in his head, the group as a whole started rumbling about the practice. All of us are getting near that point and we would have a mutiny on our hands if I actually had executed the old guy. All of the men here see themselves in the old dude, all of them fear being murdered for no other reason than that they are suffering from the Omni. The consensus was turning into fleeing the compound before I came for them, or trying to overthrow the High Priest and risking trying to manufacture the meth themselves in the next couple of months. Or they would try to just kill Joe and me and try to somehow force the High Priest to cook for them, turn him into a slave instead of the leader. So we changed the rules. None will now be eliminated simply because they have reached a certain percentage of coverage. Now we will wait until the madness turns them into a clear and present danger to the rest of the group. When everyone can agree that the person must go, then we will execute them. Publicly. Ritually. Painfully. Let the men have a chance to prove they can control themselves, let them have the hope of a chance they can live a few shitty months longer. It's all we really have left, a few months, a year at the most. Then those who lose control we will brutalize in front of everyone to serve as a lesson to control yourself or die horribly. Nobody is forced to stay here though, they can leave at anytime they choose. Of course, nobody will. To leave the sacrament behind will result in death in only a few short days.

Only once in the previous weeks has anything of any real excitement happened. I had taken a squad on a patrol into Jacksonville to check out the Navy bases there. We had barely gotten into Duval County when our Humvee blew its transmission. As the disabled vehicle clattered and slowly ground to a halt the four of us noted with some alarm the area was thick with the undead. I knew, as soon as I heard the harsh grinding, there was no hope of affecting any kind of repair. We had to find another working vehicle, on foot, as quickly as possible before we were overrun by the dreaded abominations.

The walking dead numbered in the dozens, scattered around the roadside with dozens more following behind us as they were drawn to the sound of our passing. The path to our left seemed basically clear, with buildings just beyond a thin stand of trees and brush that had grown untended since the end of civilization, so that's the way we went. We proceeded as quietly as we could, resorting to clubbing and bayoneting any of the bloodthirsty bastards that got in our way. The plan was to get into the subdivision and circle around to lose the unwanted attention of the undead but what happened was something else. Once past the first row of houses and buildings a scene of absolute destruction greeted our eyes. The whole area was nothing more than the charred and burned out ruins of what used to be a middle class neighborhood. Every building for what seemed a mile around was reduced to rubble and there in the center of the destruction laid the broken remains of a commercial passenger jet. The jet was so mangled and scorched that even though I couldn't tell what type it had been, I knew it had to be one of the larger models. The place was a hotbed of undead activity, crawling with zeds. We had unwittingly fled from the frying pan right into the fire. There were too many of them to melee our way past the horrors to escape to freedom, we had to start unleashing automatic weapons fire just to make a path through them. The gunshots drew even more of them towards us and it soon became apparent that if we didn't find some sort of shelter soon there would be no chance of surviving.

By the time we found a suitable place to hole up our ammo was running low and panic was starting to set in. Behind a tall chain link fence was our salvation where we could hole up until we could either figure out a way to escape or wait for rescue. The numbers of the undead in the vicinity was more than I had seen in a long time, they were everywhere. I had no real problem scaling the tall fence to escape the grasping hands and teeth, negotiating obstacles while carrying a full pack and all my equipment had become second nature for me. The other three with me weren't used to this kind of exertion at all. One man had somehow gotten his weapon stuck in the fence as he was desperately trying to climb his way to safety. Before I could yell at him to just drop the damn thing, the unholy beasts got a hold of him and dragged him screaming into a maelstrom of gnashing teeth. There was no possible way anyone could save him, so I ended his pain with one of my few remaining rounds from my last clip. More and more of the parasitic controlled cadavers were swarming the area and as I started running towards the building I saw something that startled and terrified both myself and the others with me. A man, completely naked and covered in filth came from the mass of undead and roughly pushed aside the walking horrors around him to feed on the corpse of our fallen brethren.

The signs of the scarlet were all over him. His skin was completely red, his eyes were the blackest orbs I had ever seen and when he saw me staring in disbelief at him he laughed nastily at me, blacked gums and tongue horrifying me. None of us had ever seen someone still alive after fully succumbing to the scarlet before, this was something completely new and petrifying. I raised my weapon to kill him but I had fired the last of my rounds off without knowing it when I put the dead man out of his misery. The other two men with me were out of ammo also and to make matters worse, it was the fallen man who had been carrying the extra ammo in his pack. Not only was the carrier still alive, the undead considered him one of them, actually seeming to defer to him. The only insight I have gained into this phenomenon came after I had returned safely to our base and talked to that old man, but I'll write of that later. Got to keep this on track.

The building was boarded and quite secure, it was obvious once we started looking for a way inside that someone had put quite a lot of effort into fortifying it. It was only once we started trying to break down the defenses that a window on the second floor opened and a white haired and bearded man threw down a rope ladder.

Once inside it was plain to see that the portly fifty year old man who let us in was having second thoughts about his act of kindness. Just as we had never seen someone who had been completely taken by the scarlet still breathing, he and his younger friend had never seen anyone suffering from the scarlet and not dead yet. I swear I could smell their fear even though both of them held shotguns on us.

With all the stress and shit that had been going wrong that day I was getting pissed at the old guy's attitude. He and his friend kept pointing their damn shotguns at us and started trying to tell me and my men what to do. When the old geezer started yelling at us after I told the men to search the place for any ammo or spare weapons I lashed out. I found it too easy to smash the butt of my weapon into his face and shut his hole up. The younger man stood shocked for one brief moment as his companions teeth flew from his bloody mouth. In that second, one of the men disarmed the boy, right on cue, easily taking his weapon away before the unconscious body of his friend fully hit the floor. The problem with the immune may have been temporarily solved with their subdual but a larger problem was brewing.

The carrier had moved on from his feast of the dead man's raw flesh and I watched him as he went around the fence line, pushing and shoving the undead out of his way. I thought he would climb over the fence and enter the facility but he didn't. Instead he seemed to inspect the lock and chain securing the main gate, then he ran off. I breathed a sigh of relief when his reddened back turned towards me and he fled but it didn't last long. The insane, scarlet stricken man returned all too soon.

As soon as my remaining men reported that they had found the pair's weapon cache the scarlet covered bastard returned. As soon as I saw him make his way through the mob of the undead towards the gate I knew something bad was going to happen. When he reached the chain and produced some bolt cutters I fired the shotgun at him, wanting to kill the shit before he cut the lock. The two idiots had loaded their weapons with buckshot instead of slugs, expecting close in fighting I suppose. I was severely disappointed when my shots were for nothing, the buckshot didn't have the range to have the slightest chance of even wounding him. The weapons cache turned out to be a rather dismal affair with only a few revolvers and a couple of old ass bolt-action M1's being their complete store of weapons. Furiously we loaded up the weapons and got ready for the assault that came at us. As soon as the carrier opened the gate, a wave of hundreds of the abominations rushed through as fast as they could and quickly surrounded the building.

There were more of the hungering cadavers outside, now heedlessly trying to smash their way in the building, than we had ammo. We made every round count, getting at least one kill, sometimes two, with every shot. Still they came at us, more and more of the unholy, rotting things coming out of the surrounding neighborhood and we fired until we were down to our last rounds again. During this whole time, even though I was desperately looking for the carrier, he was nowhere to be found.

The carrier may have been crazed from the parasitic infection but he still retained his ability to be clever. While we were busy trying to keep the zombies out, he had gone around to a side of the building where we couldn't see him. When we did, at last, find out where he disappeared to, it was when he pried open a fire escape door from the outside and let loose a horde of the undead into our sanctuary. He was letting the zeds be his shock troops, soaking up all our ammo.

The whole situation became untenable, we were fighting a retreat through the building and all the while the two immune were screaming at us. The old man's bloodied and ruined mouth was in my ear, with the young man crying and pleading for us to give him a weapon or let him free. It was all too much for me, the anger welled up inside and I shot both of them in their kneecaps so they couldn't run away. As far as I can see, it was a life or death situation, I have no qualms about what I did to save my life. We tied the victims up and offered them as a sacrifice. When the monsters got a hold of the two it gave us plenty of time to escape. With their screams still piercing the humid air we used the rope ladder to escape from another second floor window. As we were fleeing on the opposite side of the building where the least amount of the undead were, I caught my final glance of the madman as he rushed into the building to join the feast.

Once away from the nightmarish neighborhood, we easily found new transport and decided to call the mission a failure. I will go back to Jacksonville again, I'm sure there's a ton of goodies on board all those abandoned, rusting and horror filled ships.

Daily life is becoming a walk on a tightrope and in the coming months life is going to turn those dangerously thin pieces of twisted fibers into the razor sharp edge of a sword.

We number twenty-five.

### 18 April 2013

I don't really care about writing in this journal of mine anymore. Today I'm using it as more of a distraction than anything else. I've got this damn song running over and over and fucking over in my head. For two days now it has just kept playing in my head over and over and over. It's not even a good song, I never even liked it when I first heard it. It mocks me. A headache accompanies it. With every repeat of the damned song my head hurts slightly more. I know it, and the other mental problems I am experiencing, are due to the parasite boring into every cell in my brain. Still, if I ever find any member of the group 'Katrina and the Waves' I'm going to torture them to death for as long as possible. I'm in the middle of a fucking nightmare horror turned reality and "I'm walking on sunshine" just keeps playing, in its entirety, louder and louder in my head.

As far as I can tell, somewhere between fifty-five and sixty percent of my skin has turned the deep scarlet color that marks my doom. There's an accursed list of symptoms that I, we, are currently experiencing.

I'm hearing whisperings, voices, I really don't know how to describe them. Sometimes it's an abrupt shout in my ears and I have turned around to yell back at the person screaming at me, only to find myself alone. Other times the utterances are nonsensical sounds that I can only describe as whisperings. The whispering is unsettling, for some unknown reason I can almost understand them. The whisperings don't seem to be in English or any language I've ever heard before. I think I can almost hear the whisperings of the parasites themselves as they communicate with each other inside of my skull, at least that's what I fear they are.

Along with the insanities come uncontrolled and sometimes violent muscle spasms. Out of nowhere a leg or arm will start moving around, contorting and flailing completely against my will. Other times I get cramps so bad my muscles lock up and contort into painful positions. Everybody has to go through this shit. It's almost unbearable. I can't stand it.

As the Omni overtakes my mind it brings on extremes in emotions that sometimes quickly passes but usually seems to linger. We go from anger to sadness to everything in between in the space of an hour or two. It has become a madhouse with people preferring to isolate themselves, often locking themselves into rooms whenever the emotional chaos comes over them.

Old and forgotten memories sometimes play themselves out in my head, just like I'm experiencing them in real life with every minute detail, sense and feeling rushing back, it's like I'm actually there again. Sometimes these memories are sweet, other times they are replays of bloody fighting that only increase the seeming reality of my vivid and fright-filled dreams. These things can only be because of the Omni activating and testing out the various regions on my mind. It's no fucking wonder everyone who is infected goes mad.

The old man, whom I've written of before, finally lost it. We most certainly would have killed him if he had shown violent behavior, but luckily(?) for him he went into a fetal position and started ranting and raving in between heavy crying jags followed by crazed prayers to Yama-Kali or any God that would listen to his pathetic mumblings for mercy. The priestesses took him, experimenting on him before he finally dies and faces the resurrection. In his crazed state he was babbling on about seeing through the many eyes of the undead and he was losing his soul. His life is forfeit anyways and if the priestesses end up murdering him in their search for a cure, then so be it.

All the women here have been converted to the worship of Yama-Kali now. There's five of them here now and they have a gained a lot of power. I at once despise and hate them and at the same time I do whatever they tell me. They are filthy things, never showering or bathing or doing any kind of personal hygiene. They ritually cover themselves in blood and dirt, it is caked on so heavy that pieces of the dried gore fall off of them like rain whenever they move around. Their once long, beautiful hair is either shaved completely off or is caked with muck. Their stench is horrible but every time I catch a glimpse of their naked flesh I get hard and submit to anything they ask of me, just to have sex with one of them.

I know I have fallen from any kind of morality or decency. It is what I am now, I have to find some way to accept what I have become. Those who can't cope with what they are commit suicide. This reminds me of something at once horrible and hilarious. I have to write this down, I haven't laughed in so long, none of us have, and even though I know any sane reader will find no humor in the act it will show the insane influence of the single celled bringer of madness. One of our members could no longer take the pain and confusion and the ever growing madness within him. Right in the chow hall he produced a nine millimeter and ate the barrel, blowing the back of his skull all over the wall behind him. Joe went to drag the body away to be dumped in the trench outside when his hand entered into the now hollow cavity that had once held the dead man's grey matter. Joe found that he could manipulate the empty skull through the cavity and the hole in the back the corpse's throat, making the corpse a puppet. He sat there and did the funniest routine, using the corpse like a ventriloquist's dummy. Oh, how we laughed. It may have been sick but it was the best laugh any of us have had in a long time. Freakin' hilarious.

There are twenty-four of us left.

### 14 June 2013

Acceptance...it took me a long time before I finally fully surrendered to Yama-Kali. It was by no means easy. The more I fought against what I have become the harder my life became. It is easier now. I have abandoned all my misgivings and guilt. The constant battle I was waging against these new emotions and desires, the nagging guilt that was eating away at my soul, the undue stress I had placed upon my own shoulders is gone now. It was a revelation, a divine, simple realization that if I am to survive any longer I had to make peace with what I am. Now since I have given myself completely to the Goddess I am able to take some happiness from life. The simple pleasures that I can take, I take. No matter if the things that I am driven to do was once the domain of the criminally insane, that kind of thinking is from a life that passed a long time ago. The lion does not lament the fact that he kills the gazelle for his dinner; instead he relishes the fact that he has hunted well and can enjoy his feast. It is the same with me. It is the same with all of us here. Those that futilely fought against their overwhelming desires have either fled or killed themselves.

There came other changes within me that heralded what I have become. My sense of taste and smell has completely changed. I can no longer taste sour or sweet things. Eating candy now tastes like I'm merely eating bland flour. Everything except meat has lost all of their flavors, with the taste and smell of human flesh being almost like ambrosia. Long Pig, of course, is the ambrosia of the Goddess, and I can revel in its subtle nuances now. It's as if all the capacity to detect other tastes and smells have transferred themselves to one specific craving, the craving for the meat of the uninfected. When I eat now I swear my taste buds are so attuned that I can tell what my meal had for its last meal.

The priestesses had no luck finding any cure for the parasite while experimenting on the old man. They injected and pumped him so full of drugs that by the time he died he was nothing more than a comatose pile of old, worn bones. They gave him everything from penicillin to herbicide before he died but nothing worked. After he died, two people fled our compound, preferring to face their death and resurrection on their own instead of being the next possible guinea pigs for the priestesses. The experimentation may continue or it may not. Even the High Priest has undergone the changes, he has wondered aloud to me that since our cases of infection are so advanced, what would possibly cure us at this point may in fact also kill us.

The priestesses have started consolidating their control over the High priest. Those bitches have one commodity that is always in demand here. They use sex as a weapon to control us and they are doing a very good job at it. High Priest has started teaching them how to make the sacrament, something he would never teach us. I guess it's a good thing though, all of us are experiencing memory loss and if anything were to happen to the High Priest we would all be damned to death in a matter of days.

The only other thing I want to note is the sever lack of rain we've been experiencing here in Florida. I don't think it has rained once since the hurricane rolled through. We had actually started a vegetable garden months ago but nothing can grow now without constant tending and watering. Needless to say we've had a lot of other shit on our minds and the garden got quite neglected. Fuck the tomatoes and corn, lol, we're cannibals now anyways.

The whisperings and voices in my head have abated somewhat. I am convinced now that the whisperings are indeed the communications of the parasitic colony inside me. Sometimes I can 'feel' another infected soul when they come near...I can almost 'hear' the colony in their head whispering. I can almost believe that the undead, parasite controlled, walking cadavers are also aware of it. The things are exhibiting a strange behavior around us now, they no longer try to eat us with the enthusiasm they used to. Initially, as always, they come rushing towards us but then when they get close to us they stop and almost act as if they're confused. I can imagine them thinking to themselves "Where's the fucking beef?" The monstrosities are still dangerous towards us, for the most part, but some of them are starting to ignore us.

I still have that meme running through my head. "I'm walking on sunshine" is such a crafty tune that I often, unaware, find myself humming it. It doesn't bother me anymore, if that's what my mind wants to do I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the music.

Being cured or not no longer concerns me. In fact I would rather come back as one of the undead than to have my brains forcibly removed from my skull when I die. At least then I would still live on in some form.

There are twenty-one of us left.

### 12 August 2013

I had forgotten all about this journal I had started so long ago. There are gaps and missing days in my memory. I re-read these pages and some of it I do not recall in the slightest. If these pages weren't written in my own hand I would swear that this journal belonged to someone else. Reading and writing is becoming more difficult with each passing day. The concentration required to process these symbols and make sense of them brings on headaches. I will try to remember what I have started here, try to place down my experiences for any who read this after I'm gone but I can make no promises.

The progress of the infection grows within me. The black dots have started to appear on me. Dark blotches grow under my nails, in my eyes and are slowly covering my gums and tongue. The only benefit the obsidian brings with it is a lessening of the pain. I think my nerve endings are dead or dying now. Small injuries that used to be painful are barely noticeable now. I've found that I cut myself, sometimes deeply and I don't notice the wound until I see my blood dripping down. My libido, on the other hand, seems to have increased. I am constantly horny and become fully aroused at the drop of a hat. Sexual acts ease the torment of my abused and infected nerve endings, providing the only natural relief from the parasite that I know of. Violence, sex and the devouring of human flesh is all I really think of now. The constant agony inside my skull has muted itself into a dull roar that can now be managed effectively with some Oxycodone or other narcotics.

Bad Habits...The insanity the parasite brings with it causes all of us to harbor bad habits. Nothing so mundane as smoking or drinking though, those aren't bad habits, lol, those are pastimes here. I'm talking about things like my constant efforts to control my mouth from talking to itself or belting out a chorus of some inane song from decades past at the most inopportune time. As long as these new behaviors aren't violent (towards each other anyways) we all do our best to ignore them. All suffer here. The habits are different in each one of us here. One man masturbates constantly, so much so that the rest of us laugh at him and joke about how long it will take before he yanks it so hard he'll rip it off at the root.

Another man, who always had a nail biting problem, is slowly and methodically eating his own fingers. The habit he had of constantly nibbling his nails down to the quick slowly evolved into ragged, bloody edges where he would keep chewing. Then he chewed his nasty fingers until the nail came completely off and still he would gnaw. Now he has bitten three of his fingers on his left hand down to the first joints and he just keeps doing it.

One of the priestesses likes to cut herself, slicing ever deeper into her own flesh. From what I can get from her is that the only way she can tell if she's not one of the undead herself yet is the fact that she can still feel pain. Every day she cuts herself, everyday she cuts a little deeper as the parasite kills our nerves and replaces it with the numbness that only the dead are comfortable with. One day she will cut too deep or nick an artery, and then she won't have to wonder if she's truly dead or not because she will be.

Hunting has gotten so much easier since our undead brethren have taken to ignoring us. I know the parasitic colonies inside our bodies are aware of each other, the walking dead no longer see us as food. I think I'm finally starting to understand the whispering communications of the Omni.

Food, and by food I mean people, is getting harder and harder to come by. The uninfected hide from the world like the mice they are. We spend a lot of time just patrolling the surrounding cities and countryside, looking for any signs of prey. A lot of times we spot them as they go on supply runs and then we track them down and capture them. Since the undead pay no attention to us anymore we are able to attack without warning, taking our victims completely by surprise while they sleep. We have developed two rather successful methods of drawing our meals out of their reinforced safe-houses.

The first method is crude, yet effective. Once we locate the house, building or store the survivors are hiding in we wait until we think they're asleep then we light it on fire. If there are no large amounts of the undead outside the prey always runs outside to escape the flames. Once they run outside we like to kill them as silently as possible so as not to alert the others still trying to flee the burning building. Occasionally, some fear us much more than the flames and they try to hide in the building, hoping the fire will pass over their little hiding spot. That doesn't work, we make sure of it. The result of that is simply a Bar-B-Q for us. Very tasty.

The second method is more dangerous for us. When we go to 'Plan B' it's because the food is either very well barricaded, there are a ton of the undead around or a combination of the two. We have no desire to feed the undead; we strive to feed only ourselves. If the undead are too great in numbers they get the meal when we light the refuge up and the immune come running out to escape the searing flames of death. With Plan B we silently search and locate ways into the structure and then, with entry gained, we enter and assault the enemy as quietly as possible. I like to slit their throats and feel and taste the warm arterial spray.

Our numbers are down since my last muster. There are seventeen of us left.

### 24 October 2013

Things are falling apart. It is becoming very difficult to organize anything. Everyone here is completely preoccupied by their own miseries and insanities. The only thing that brings us together are runs for either food or supplies for our sacrament. I can no longer really order anyone to do anything anymore. This place has turned into nothing more than an insane asylum, one where the inmates rule the grounds. Everyone stays apart from each other, finding some semblance of privacy away from the mental problems of their comrades. Sometimes, like now, I have brief patches of sanity that only reminds me of what I lost. This old junkyard has been turned into a nightmare infested horror. Everyone here deserves their upcoming death for the crimes we have committed. The dark, black, spots of creeping death are a constant reminder that we have, at the most, maybe four months left to survive.

The raw materials to make the life extending meth we so desperately need are becoming scarce. The sheer amount of cold, diet and allergy pills needed to keep all of us here alive is forcing us to go further and further from the Ocala area in our searching. To tell the truth, when someone dies or leaves the group I give a small sigh of relief, every death brings one less person to have to supply with our ever dwindling meth. It's not just the pills we need either, we need to gather everything from matchbooks to fertilizer for some of the recipes. Sometimes it's a good thing, like when we find a stockpile we missed before, or when our wanderings bring us the opportunity to hunt. Sometimes it's a depressing series of mistakes and blown opportunities that only reinforce the uselessness of all our actions. Like today.

Today turned out to be a very bad day indeed. The morning started off poorly with people constantly arguing and bickering back and forth to no end. I wanted to shoot them all just to shut their holes. Each successive day takes us longer to get organized. The tension between the men is palpable, tempers are short and voices flared up the whole damn day. It was like babysitting a bunch of insane brats. The once tight knit group that we had is fraying. I honestly don't know how long we can continue as an organized team.

Our search for supplies and food is also getting tougher day by day, forcing us to go further and further afield to find anything. Our caravan drove for the whole morning without finding anything until we came to some small little town out in the middle of nowhere. According to the notes on our recon map, the town had never been properly searched before due to an overwhelming number of undead wandering around. The undead no longer try to eat us anymore, recognizing, I suppose, the burgeoning colony of parasites within us. The detestable undead are picking up the annoying habit of following us around, tagging along like unwanted guests. No longer are the rotting and putrid things a deadly obstacle, instead they now annoy me, like unwashed and unkempt stray dogs hoping for a handout. The good side to this is that if the numbers of the hungering corpses were so thick before that even we couldn't get past them, nobody else could either. That's what I thought anyways. We all went into the town hoping to find ingredients, and maybe some long pig for dinner but all we came away with was cans of beans and shit.

As soon as we entered the township I knew things were not going to be as I expected. The streets and fields around the town were littered with the corpses of hundreds, if not thousands of what were once the walking dead. This was a first for me, seeing the remnants of such a large herd. Whoever did this knew their tactics and their prey fairly well. I was almost excited at the prospect of getting into a gunfight with a foe that could clear an area of this size, especially if they turned out to be some of the immune, which they did.

Almost immediately as we rolled into town and parked our caravan in front of the towns one large shopping center some guy actually came running up to us, shouting and yelling how happy he was to see other survivors. Until he got a look at us. Then I had to laugh at the look on his face once he realized his grave mistake. Although I did find the resulting chase exciting, while it lasted, it ended bitterly. The middle aged piece of meat knew his way around the town, he dodged, swerved and ran between the buildings and houses expertly, making it difficult to run him down or shoot him before he could flee. Of course, he wasn't alone. Before we got the chance to locate and isolate him, some hot little bitch in a fuckin' monster truck picked him up. They were good, they had done some homework on their area. They drove like, well, like they were fleeing a pack of demons (lol, which I guess they were). Through and around backyards and empty lots we chased them in our Humvee until we came to what appeared to be an open field. The wide expanse must have been a damn swamp before the drought hit central Florida, 'cause just under the surface was deep, thick mud. The truck our prey fled in had big, oversized, ridged tires on it, perfect for muddin'. Our up-armored Humvee, however, sank to its axles and got bogged down so badly that we had to abandon it. Between the bouncing around of the vehicle and the slow degradation of our eyesight, I don't think any of us did anymore more to the truck than put a few new ventilation holes in it.

It sucked when our meal got away, it sucked even more when we found the town's stores had been reduced to almost nothing. We didn't get anything we needed, or even wanted really.

The rest of the day went like that. The only good thing I found was some Oxycodone, without which I would have developed a nasty migraine from all of this reading and writing.

Fifteen of us are still alive.

### 11 December 2013

There are only a few patches of unblemished skin left upon me. Over ninety percent of my body is now covered in the abominable markings. The majority of the once pale skin covering my bones has turned the deep, scarlet color of infection. Whatever hasn't turned blood red has instead turned as black as night, my fingernails, tongue, gums and the orbs of my eyes are now clear evidence that I am no longer human.

My sight, which had had been blurring badly previously has started getting confused. When I close my eyes I still have some sort of sight. I don't know how to explain it but it's like I can see out of the myriad of the unblinking black orbs of all those undead around me.

I can communicate through unspoken words, in base pictures in my head, with my undead comrades. I can see through their eyes and feel what they feel. Mainly all they feel is hunger. An overwhelming hunger that is their sole drive. At once I wonder if I've gone mad and then I laugh. Of course I've gone mad. I just don't know if my second sight or my contact with the other colonies in the minds of those dead corpses is real or not.

Sometime in the beginning of November the power went out completely in central Florida. I don't know which nuclear power plant had been supplying electricity to the area for so long, but whichever one it was has finally had its connections severed to the outside world. We have generators to provide our own energy. Any survivors that have their own generators finds that using them at night is a sure way to bring the "Red Death" upon them. Such is what the immune have started calling us, the "Red Death". I like it. It means the enemies of Yama-Kali within our reach know of us and fear us (as they should).

Master Chef, the High Priest of Yama-Kali or whatever the fuck he wanted people to call himself is dead. One of the priestesses got carried away with her insanity and bit his cock off and fucking ate it while giving him head. She took it down deep and bit it off in one quick motion, right at the base. Master Chef bled out in only a few short minutes, howling in agony. The remaining priestesses of Yama-Kali gave her a vicious and brutal death that lasted for three days before she succumbed to the prolonged torture. Some of the excessive torment doled out to her for her crime was plainly a show to the rest of us that the priestesses had no sympathy for the bitch. That fuckin' cunt killed our best chance to continue cooking, although the priestesses assured us that they know the recipe for the creation of the sacrament. There is some small stockpile of meth built up for us, but it won't last long. Things are falling apart at the seams, time is short for us.

The eyes of Yama-Kali are all around me. I know, I can instinctively feel the presence of every single mother fucking undead bastard (and anything else, like us, that has become a housing for the damnable colonies of the Omni) for twenty yards or so. Even when I close my eyes I can still see through the Goddesses dark orbs. The eyes of the Goddess are like mine, black as obsidian, except hers are beautiful. She has a thousand eyes on her skull and all of them have deep purple lines and sparkles within them. So beautiful. I can see the same faint purple markings within our own irises and even in the eyes of the recently undead. Fascinating.

I'm not sure but I think there are only around a dozen of us still hanging on.

### 4 January 2014

The end of our group came today. Everything had begun slowly sliding into chaos months ago but today it came to a head.

Reading and writing has become too difficult for me. This may be my last journal entry. I have tried to read this old journal of mine, to try and remember who I was so long ago. I tried to read but the words swim away from me and hurts my mind trying to decipher my shitty writing. I have some memories left to me, but most of my life is wiped clean by the parasite. Only Yama-Kali remembers me.

A few of those here went to sleep one night and then woke up dead. When my roommate died and resurrected himself I felt it immediately. I wakened from a deep sleep a couple of days ago, only to greet the walking corpse of my friend when mine eyes opened. He, and all of those that had a more advanced case of the infection, have died in their sleep and have been brought into the everlasting arms of Yama-Kali. They know no more fear, no more pain, no more guilt, only the fathomless hunger. One day Yama-Kali will take me into her embrace fully and then I too will know peace. Peace punctuated by an insatiable hunger.

Yesterday half of my remaining men were ambushed and murdered. Joe was one of those casualties; I'll pay you back, brother. Besides myself, as I write this, I have four men left. There were three priestesses still alive, until a few hours ago, before the 'kitchen' exploded. Now the worshippers of Yama-Kali have died without even the blessed resurrection, the Goddess turning them into lumps of charcoal for their failure. The fire burned so damn hot before we could put it out we feared the flames would spread to the temple. Miracles abound as the Temple was untouched.

After Joe's return he barely lasted an hour before he died from what should have killed him instantly. I don't think Joe was ready to die yet. I'm ready. Bring it on bro. He swears the guy they killed on the hunt was, had to be, set as bait. He said that he remembered the kill as being one of those that had gotten away from us before, "In that big ass truck with the big ass tires that got us stuck a while back." He never mentioned if the girl were there or not, at least her never saw her. If she had been the shooter then she was pretty fucking good with her weapon. Anyways, at least we finally killed the idiot who tried to greet us while we looted his town. Now I got to track down that girl. That'll be fun when I catch her.

Once we put out the fire, the five of us who remained immediately went to the emergency stash of the sacred crystals. The amount left could barely keep one man alive for a mere month. The batch the devotee's of Yama-Kali had been brewing up, the batch that exploded, was more desperately needed than we were led to believe. No one else here knows how to cook, any directions or recipes were lost in the inferno. Damn those bitches. As soon as I saw how little of the sacrament was left, as soon as we all saw how little was left, everyone had the same thought cross their minds. I saw it in their eyes. Without hesitating I drew and fired. I killed three of them with point blank shots to the head in a bare second before they could react. The last man had no weapon with him and although he begged for his life, begged me to take the meth and leave, I put a bullet in his face anyways. I am positive that they would have done the same to me had they gotten the chance. Screw them, they were nothing but fucked up cannibals and murderers anyways.

I am the only one left.

### Tuesday, January 15, 2014

I don't remember when I smoked the last of the meth. I do remember binging on the last of it but I thought I saved some. I tore through everything and searched everywhere in the hopes that I stashed some small chunk of the crystals but I haven't been able to find any yet. I am still alive, completely covered in scarlet. I should be dead by now, I guess I'm a carrier. I have only vague memories of how I spent the past weeks. All memories more than a day or two old blur into a mix of dreams and hallucinations.

I'm hot, I feel like I'm burning up inside. The fever boiling inside of me along with the heat and humidity of summertime in central Florida causes me to run around almost naked. It's just too damn hot for clothes. The only item of clothing I can stand to wear is a pair of cargo shorts. I need pockets to hold what I have to carry with me but that's not the main reason I'm still wearing them. The main reason I wear anything at all, to be brutally honest, is to keep my balls from bouncing around all over the place and to keep my pecker from getting scratched up on the myriad of things I have to climb over or through. Some of these damn vines that grow here have those fuckin' little thorns all over them, scratching and piercing my junk. If it weren't for those reasons I'd be running around naked as a blue jay.

There was one hot little vixen priestess that hadn't actually died in the inferno of the lab. I found her naked and cold corpse wandering around the base, I didn't see any outward signs of wounds on her delectably cold skin so I can't rightly say how she died. All I know is that I dressed her beautifully cool and pale flesh in some naughty lingerie and I keep her in the temple. She serves me well, always receptive, never complaining as I slide into her. Her ash white skin is a comforting, soft and cool pleasure. When I'm inside of her it's like my cock is inside a velvet air conditioner.

I can't believe I just wrote that. I actually had to check myself while I was writing, forcing myself back into reality. It's just another example of my madness I guess. Here I am, writing about hot zombie luv instead of what I planned to jot down.

I saw that little bitch again, the one that killed Joe, the one that keeps getting away from me. Yesterday I spotted her, I'm going to spend a lot of time with her when I catch her. The things I'm planning on doing to her makes me shiver with anticipation. The little cunt caused an inferno at the prison, burning up the majority of the undead that we crammed in there months ago. When I saw and smelled the smoke I knew where it was coming from right away. That bitch is going to die for trying to free any of the pigs still hiding in those buildings. I shot at her yesterday, three times in fact, but the range was too far for my failing eyesight and she got away. I tried to follow her, oh how I tried.

These damn zeds keep following me around and getting in my way. They remind me of lost puppies and they're goddamn annoying. I can't go anywhere without them trying to tag along. No matter how many of them follow, I will hunt that tasty girl down if it's the last thing I do.

### Saturday, January 18, 2014

Somebody had the balls to try and spring survivors from the prison. Little good it did, I killed and took the long pig that tried to leave. Better he should have stayed inside and starved to death instead of running outside to die and become meat for my dinner. I'm almost positive it was that fuckin' girl that cleverly melted the locks off those doors to effect her failed rescue. Once again she got away from me, fleeing north into the city.

I didn't care, I had decided to harvest any other pigs that were still trapped in the ruins. It was a good thing I did. I didn't find anybody else to eat but I did come across the body of some damned Doctor that had died months ago. Incredibly the fucker had discovered the secret of ammonia. In fact he left a god damned journal of sorts, detailing his experiments upon the undead and some unlucky carrier. The fuck had written all about what ammonia could do all over the blasted walls of the building. When I saw that I took the journal, which now rests on the altar to Yama-Kali and set the whole building afire. Then I came back with the tank and used the last of the shells, turning the whole of the place to rubble, dust and smoking ash.

The Goddess would not be pleased if her secret ever got out. I'm sure to be rewarded by her holiness for my quick action. To celebrate I am going to start a harem, why limit myself to just the one priestess when I can have a bevy of girls to satisfy my desires. Then I'm going to get good and drunk and break the new girls in. Then I'm going to hunt that bitch that keeps sticking her nose in my business.
