 
Journals of the Damned

By GJ Zukow

Copyright 2012 by GJ Zukow

Smashwords Edition

# Journals of the Damned

Volume One

G. J. Zukow

##  Prologue

To whom it may concern,

I am submitting for your review two Journals, for inclusion into the Historical records of the Apocalypse, written by my mother and a close friend of hers. I have sent the original journals themselves, along with a transcript of them (included in the body of this message) and have included them as attachments (in standard form) for entry into the database. They are non-fiction, firsthand accounts of those dark days that occurred almost twenty five years ago.

My name is Katherine Lucile Kolkowsky and the first journal belongs to my mother. I'm eighteen years old and I realize that by the time she was my age, her life, and the lives of all who lived through those horrible times, were desperate periods of horror. The two journals cover the majority of the Apocalypse from the beginning, to within a few weeks of eventual collapse of the undead. They serve as a record of the times where the fate of whether humanity would become extinct or not, teetered on the edge of a great precipice. For just over a year and a half the corpses of our parents and grandparents were controlled by the single celled menace named Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni. My mother recently passed away and I found these tattered and stained books with the rest of her most prized and personal possessions.

The second journal belongs to a man who's name I've heard of before but my mother rarely (almost refused) to talk about. Her difficulty in talking at any length about him isn't due to any anger on her part towards him, it was due to it bringing back extremely grim memories for her. Mr. Phillips' journal ends shortly (only a matter of weeks in fact) before the animated cadavers of our ancestors ceased functioning entirely.

Now that we have begun to pick up the pieces of what was, I am donating these journals not only for memorializing those who died, but to honor those individuals who lived.

The recovery of all the knowledge we have lost is important, so are the personal stories and experiences of those that survived. Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni wiped away the old world and the new world we are building needs to include all of the human experience.

My mother's journal was lost when her safe house was over-run by the undead. She (to my understanding) never wrote a second journal after that, or at least I haven't found one if she had. The fact that she was able to recover both her old journal and the journal of her friend, and that she kept them, tells me that they meant a lot to her. Having read them myself I am glad I didn't have to experience any of those evils.

Thank you for taking the time to place these pieces of history into the official records. If you need to contact me for further information, please feel free to do so.

## Book One

Jannie's Journal

### Friday, August 17, 2012

My name is Jannet Marie Kolkowsky. I'm a senior in High School and I'm starting this journal for my creative writing class.

Although my name is Jannet, everyone calls me Jannie. People have always called me that, ever since I can remember. Even my mom calls me Jannie, so why my name is Jannet I don't know. I suspect my father is the one who actually named me and this is one of the ways my mother gets back at him for leaving us. Needless to say they don't get along very well.

I just turned seventeen last week. My birthdays have always been tied to the start of school, leaving me with sort of mixed feelings about it. This birthday was different. This birthday was the last time I'll have to be in school when it happens. I can't wait to graduate, finally.

Mrs. Johnson, who teaches my creative writing class, expects us to write at least three journal entries a week. I certainly hope I have something to write about. This journal is going to compromise twenty-five percent of my grade, but even now I'm struggling to find the words to write. Two hundred and fifty words per entry seems like a lot to me.

I really don't do very much besides go to school and (I feel) my life is pretty boring. Tourists come to Orlando, Florida all year round and I guess it's exciting for them. For me, a lifelong resident, I've done it all already. While Disney World and the rest of the theme parks are cool, they are way too expensive to ride the same rides over and over again while paying an arm and a leg for something to eat.

### Monday, August 20, 2012

Mrs. Johnson said that we can write about anything we want to in our journals. Seeing how this journal is not going to be private, as it has to be turned in for a grade at the end of the semester, I'm choosing not to write anything too personal. In a way that seems to defeat the main purpose, IMHO. I brought this point up in class today and Mrs. Johnson said the reason she wants us to write a journal is to get us in the habit of writing on a regular basis. Knowing that I don't have to write about my personal relationships, idle gossip or my dislike of Missy Cavenaugh and her stuck up friends actually makes me feel better.

Today I'm going to write about some lesser known and hardly reported world news. I haven't seen anything about the mass die-off of the rodent population in Asia on the local news. Even the national news and the news networks barely gave it two sentences in their broadcasts. CNN, Fox and all the rest prefer instead to endlessly talk about some stupid movie actors' marriage breakup. How Brad Pitt getting a divorce is going to affect my life I have no idea. The sudden and quick spread of the disease that is killing off almost all rodents does concern me though. It should concern everybody.

Forty percent of all mammals on the planet are rodents. The majority of people view rodents and their kin as nothing more than vermin, mainly due to their habit of eating the grains and seed that we also eat.

In medieval times people saw them as the bringer of the plagues and death. This view, while not actually accurate, (it was fleas that transmitted the disease to people and not the rodents themselves) still causes the rodent to be hated and shunned.

The importance of the rodent family in the ecosystem is critical. Due to their rapid reproduction they function as food sources for predators. Foxes, wolves, coyotes, hawks, owls, etc. all rely on the rodents for the main part of their diet. Without the rodent as a food source, all of these animals will also suffer starvation and they will die off alongside the detested critters.

The role of the rodent is also important because it acts as a mechanism for seed dispersal. Some seeds actually need to have their tough outer shell be partially digested in order to sprout. The rodents' droppings, after it has digested these seeds also spread the plants into the local ecosystem. Without rodents, many plant species will go extinct, causing starvation in any species that survives off that particular plant.

The final reason, (and the biggest reason by far) is their use as a natural method for calculating disease vectors. Mice are used in laboratories worldwide. For testing new medicines, genetic research, foods, make-up and the list goes on and on. This is due to the lowly mouse having a biology that is close enough to ours that we can directly observe the mouse and draw accurate conclusions about how what affects them will affect humans.

From what I've been able to research on the internet, just over ninety-nine percent of the family Muroidea (which includes hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats and many other relatives) get sick and die within forty-eight hours after exposure to whatever it is that is killing them. Rodents, such as squirrels, appear to get sick but quickly recover.

I found an online map of the spread of the disease and the epicenter seems to be in North Korea. In only a week it has spread to central and eastern China, eastern Mongolia, southeast Russia and all of South Korea. Disturbingly it also shows a possible airborne dispersal with the southern most main island of Japan and many of the islands around the Yellow sea and the East China Sea (including Taiwan) having been affected.

A South Korean news site had noted the fact that only three months previously the North Korean government had released an interesting (perhaps culpable) statement. The main point of the speech said that since the rich capitalist countries weren't giving them all the food they had required, due to the severe drought they had suffered over the summer, they had come up with a plan to eliminate the rats and mice that were eating what small amounts of grain reserve they had left. It was basically propaganda but it seemed to hint at them having genetically engineered something.

Nobody knows what is causing this yet and there is a huge apathy towards it. Nobody cares about rats and the general disposition seems to be that the rodent population will recover rapidly.

P.S. Mrs. Johnson, I hope I get some extra credit for the researching I did for this entry. I'm going to try to write about things that affect our environment. It's a subject I feel strongly about.

### Wednesday, August 22, 2012

I don't want to use this journal as my personal complaint log, but I do want to get something that's aggravating me off my chest. I live in the Pine Hills area of Orlando, just west north-west of Downtown. It's commonly referred to as "Crime Hills". I've lived here all my life and never noticed any real difference in the crime rate here, in Pine Hills, and the rest of the suburbs of Orlando. Excepting of course Winter Park, where all the rich people live and their property taxes can support more police.

My little sister had her bike stolen last night. Lucy, that's my little sisters' name, forgot to put her bike in the garage last night and left it lying no more than ten feet from our front door. In the morning it was gone. My mother, who works as a nurse at the Winter Park Hospital, has to budget for everything. I honestly don't know how she manages to be a working, single mother. Neither my, nor my little sisters father, contribute a single dime to help raise us. It had to be some low-life crack-head who stole it. Who steals a little girl's bike like that? It was just a child's bike (and a girl's bike at that), an adult or even a teenager would be too big to ride it right. Lucy sobbed until the bus came to take her to school, only stopping her tears when she knew the other kids would see her crying at the bus-stop. All my mom could do was admonish her for leaving her bike out. The whole thing pisses me off.

Enough of that drama. This morning before school and all night, ever since I got home from school, I've had to watch Lucy mope and whine. It sucks but she's going to have to learn that's how people are.

I've been following the rat die-off in Asia, the spread is unbelievably fast. Still nothing on the local news or the national news. Where before the big cable news stations barely said two sentences about it, now they say three sentences. The only reason they talk about it, I think, is so they can show a couple of pictures of a field of dead, rotting mice.

In the three days since I wrote about the disease, it has spread from the Ural Mountains to the Bering Sea. From Indonesia and the Philippines through India and into all the "Stans" (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and all the rest). Natural borders don't seem to do anything but slow it down for a day. It jumps mountains, oceans and seas like they were speed bumps. It has to be airborne.

Nobody who is looking into this knows for sure just how far it has spread in reality. By the time the rats and mice die, it means that at least forty-eight or so hours have passed. It means that the disease (or whatever it is), is actually two days or more ahead of the corpses. By now it probably has reached Europe and may have even reached the Americas.

Except for the handful of independent researchers trying to study this, nobody cares. In fact the consensus with most governments is that this is almost welcomed. The few people looking into this are saying that they won't even be able to figure what is causing this due to lack of money, labs and personnel for months. It may be a year or more, they say, before they can isolate and properly identify what is happening.

### Friday, August 24, 2012

I'm sure the people who rejoice and say, "Thank God it's Friday.", never went to this High School. Every class loads me up on homework, including yours Mrs. Johnson. A five hundred word short story, on top of this two hundred and fifty word entry, plus a couple of hours for each of my other five classes means at least another ten hours of work I have to cram in my weekend. This is on top of my having to take care of my ten year old sister. My mother works the afternoon shift and on weekdays it's not so bad, as I only have to watch and feed her for a couple of hours until she returns. Saturday's and Sunday's I have to watch her for most of the day, unless my mom lucks out and gets her single day off on a weekend day.

Lucy is still moody about the theft of her bike. She's been difficult and picky about everything, making me cranky. I hope she snaps out of it soon. If she keeps being like this for much longer I'm going to rip my hair out.

Some girl's my age talk about having a big family when they get out of school. I, however, don't plan on getting pregnant for quite a long time, if at all. I sure don't want to spend the next ten years of my life changing diapers and wiping snotty noses after having a litter of children.

So ends the more personal section of my journal. Now on to my continuing coverage of World events.

People are getting sick, manifesting flu like symptoms. The reports are coming in from the same places the rat death started. The new "Rat Flu" is following the same dispersal pattern and rapid spread as whatever caused the rats to die off. Hospitals and medical centers in South Korea and southern China are flooded with the sick. There is no news from North Korea, there is never any news from that country so it's not surprising.

Now the CDC has finally decided to start investigating. If they would have started investigating this sooner they would have had that much of a head start.

The local news has started talking about the Rat-flu now, mainly saying that it's the start of the flu season and to "Get your flu shots now." My question is how can I get a flu vaccination against a disease that nobody has identified yet. From what I understand vaccinations are only good against that single virus it was created for. Nobody has even isolated the thing yet and we don't even know if it's caused by a virus. But here the government is, once again, offering hollow words to placate the voters. Only the national news and cable news stations are speaking of the rat die-off and the new flu, but they speak of them like they're two separate things. I believe they're linked, just as many others around the world do.

Since the last journal entry the mass extinction of the rodents is steam rolling along. The rat plague is in Europe now, as far west as Belgium. It has shown up in Egypt and Australia. Currently the disease has ventured into Alaska and spots along the Pacific coast of Canada.

If the sickness spreads among humans like it has in the rodent population, (and all the evidence points to this), then this is easily going to be the most contagious disease in recorded history.

For all anyone knows, this new disease could already be here. We could already be infected. We don't know what the incubation period for this is. For all we know, we may have been infected up to a month ago. The bright side to this is that there are no confirmed deaths related to the mystery disease.

My prediction is within a week there's going to be a lot of students staying home.

### Monday, August 27, 2012

My mom had to put in extra hours at the hospital over the weekend, preparing for the influx of sick people that will soon arrive like a flood. According to my mom, every flu-season sends a ton of patients into the system and this one is going to be bad. The Hospital, all the hospitals, are bracing for a huge wave of individuals who are going to contract the new disease. From what my mom says, the new sickness isn't deadly but it is very contagious. The doctors expect that up to ninety percent of the population will develop the flu like symptoms. The very old and very young are at risk, as are those with compromised immune systems. They say there will be more deaths because of this, just like with any other flu but because this is so widespread, the numbers will be greater (but the percentage will be comparable to other flu strains).

The media has officially dubbed this strain the "Rat flu". The subject is suddenly all over the news now, driving a slight panic and causing cold and flu medications sales to rise dramatically. The CDC has named this new virus their number one priority. Although there is debate about whether or not this is actually caused by a virus. Within a week the CDC promises to identify this new strain and will then begin working on a vaccine. That means the first of the real vaccines will be available for the public by the end of next month. That may be too late. The disease is spreading faster than the rat die off.

The "Great rat death" is showing up worldwide now. It has firmly established itself in the new world covering all of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to the Mississippi river. South America and the eastern U.S. have isolated outbreak areas.

The spread of the infection no longer follows the outbreak pattern of the rat die-off. At first it did, but now it starts to rear its ugly head wherever the rodent death shows up. Does this mean the illness has mutated? Maybe. Maybe we are infected already, it could have silently spread around the world a month or more ago and it's just now manifesting itself. Either way, thank the Gods it's not a particularly deadly strain.

This may be something new, something never seen before. The evidence for this is the contagion isn't specialized or limited to one family or species of mammal. It is making all the mammals sick. Reptiles are immune to this it seems. No mammal, big or small, seems to have any real immunity at all. Animals all over the world are affected, catching the illness at the same time people do.

People are reacting strangely to this. Psychologists say it's the difference between the known and the unknown. Whereas before, with other flu strains, people could walk around thinking "I probably won't get sick." Now people are fretting about the fact that they almost certainly will get sick.

Everybody, including the kids in school are wearing latex gloves and wearing masks over their nose and mouths. Everyone is using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer and are generally trying to do anything they can to minimize their exposure. It seems, even knowing that all their precautions won't stop them from getting sick, they do it anyways.

Myself, I take a "come what may" attitude. If the fates dictate I will catch a cold, then there's nothing I can do about it. It's just a mild flu in humans. No biggie really. It's not the end of the world.

### Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The "Great Rat Death" and the "Rat Flu" have reached Orlando simultaneously. It seems as if everybody is sick except me. There's a lot of sniffles, sneezes and runny noses. Other symptoms include itchy, watery eyes, a headache and some coughing. The symptoms are generally mild, in most cases, and resemble an allergic reaction more than a virus.

Both my mother and my sister have gotten the flu. My little sister wanted to stay home from school as soon as she felt the first symptoms of the illness. All she has is a case of the "sniffles" (as my mom calls any minor cold), so my mom told her she still needs to go to school. It's not like Lucy is going to spread the disease to anybody else, because everybody else already has it.

"If I have to go to work then you have to go to school." Is, and always has been, my mother's mantra about staying home from school.

Besides, whenever Lucy runs a fever and has to stay home, that means I have to stay home from school also. Somebody has to watch her after my mom leaves for work around eleven in the morning to work the afternoon shift at the hospital. That somebody means me. Even on regular days Lucy gets home from elementary school before I do, but she spends the hour before I get home at old Mrs. Hoffner's house next door.

I think Mrs. Hoffner, who's in her late seventies, enjoys having some youthful company. None of her relatives visit her much, as most of her family lives on the west coast. I like the old lady but her house smells like the six cats she owns. The cats are what Lucy likes the most about staying there. An old shoestring is all it takes to keep the cats, and Lucy, playing happily until I come home. Lucy runs around, dragging and wriggling the shoestring, while the cats jump and try to catch it. Even Mrs. Hoffner is entertained by the antics. I sometimes wish I could be so content with such a simple thing as a glorified piece of string.

On the news the main stories are all about the flu. They talk about productivity being way down worldwide due to people taking their sick days off all at once. The stock markets are also down slightly, no surprise there. An interesting, slightly scary, news bit talked of how the vast majority of the lab rats (used for research) have died in their cages. Only those mice in highly secure and protected facilities (those with state of the art air and water filtration systems) have survived. The rats that have survived are those used specifically for research on highly communicable diseases (or military research into bio-weapons some say). The extreme safe-guards used to protect the outside world from them is the only thing that kept the outside world from killing them. Needless to say this may slow down the research into a cure.

My mother told me there's a lot of doubt amongst the doctors as to this being a virus. Some things just don't add up and every road to find the virus responsible for the outbreak has hit a dead end.

The CDC hasn't made much headway either, remaining quiet about what they have found.

The only silver lining to this dark cloud is being reaped by the big drug companies. Cold and allergy medicines are flying off the shelves. Drug stores, even the huge retailers like Wal-Mart and Kmart, can't keep anything on the shelves. Everything from aspirin to vitamins are sold out almost as soon as they get stocked.

The hospitals worldwide are stressed to overflowing with this non-life threatening epidemic. My mother used to get home around ten or so at night, but lately she's been getting home around midnight. One of her pet peeves about people doing this is that they should go to their doctor for stuff like this and not overflow the ER (which is meant for real emergencies, not a case of the "sniffles").

I'm just glad I haven't caught the flu bug yet. I'm knocking on wood hoping I don't catch it either.

### Friday, August 31, 2012

Everybody and everything, it seems, in the greater Orlando area is sick. In people the sickness is actually mild, with some variance (some people do seem to get hit harder, of course, running a fever and feeling extreme fatigue). There are some few of us that are naturally immune for one reason or another. The news programs state that less than ten percent of the population has escaped this virulent disease.

There's an underlying scent on the wind. There are literally billions upon billions (maybe trillions) of dead rodent corpses rotting around the planet. Where everybody was wearing masks to try and ward off the coming sickness before, now they wear them doused in colognes and perfumes to cover-up or overwhelm the stink. The smell taints people's view of reality, as if it's some kind of horrible omen of things yet to come. In a certain way it's true, this near extinction event for the rodents and their ilk will most certainly lead to further deaths. With rats, mice, moles and the rest of the food removed from many animals' diets, there will be another round of starvation and death. This cycle of death may continue for many rounds until the food chain sorts itself out again. For some animals it's a boon. Flies and insects who feed and breed in corpses are going to see their populations increase dramatically. It's also a feast for vultures and all those eaters of carrion.

To see just how widespread this horrible thing is, all one has to do is visit the local zoo. This contagion has hit the mammals hard. In people it's generally mild as I stated before, but in animals it's has a twenty percent death rate. Dogs and the canine family (and this includes foxes, wolves, coyotes, etc.), are immune as are all fish and reptiles. Primates, chimpanzees, monkeys and apes seem to be affected in much the same way as we humans.

In school so many students and teachers have called in sick that many of our classes have "doubled-up". Many of the same classes have been rolled into one, creating a slight bit of chaos. There's some talk of just cancelling school for the next week, which will cause an extension of the school year. I won't know if this happens until Sunday night, if the school board decides to do it, the local news will broadcast what schools are going to be affected (like they do with snow days up north).

On the bright side, and I'm sure there was a global sigh of relief with the news, the people who had gotten sick first (in the Korea's, China and most of Asia) are recovering. Thank the Gods that this thing only lasts about a week. With unknown diseases like this nobody knows what to expect. Now people's fears are greatly relieved, for the most part, knowing that this will soon pass. The animal deaths are sad but nature has seen this before. In a few days, at the most, people will have recovered and then we can get back to our normal, boring lives.

The CDC's latest report on the global epidemic was less than informative. They stated that this was not due to any virus. They have ruled out the origin of this modern plague as being due to any bacterial, mold, fungus or environmental cause. If they can rule out all those things, doesn't that leave the culprit to stand out by itself? It seems that they know what it is but are keeping silent for some reason. Surely there's a plethora of cadavers to dissect and examine. The general consensus is that the cause is disturbing and they want to wait until this has passed to release the news. The "internuts" and conspiracy idiots have proposed everything from aliens using bio-warfare as a preliminary attack to science gone awry and everything in between (including religious fanatics maintaining that this is a sign of the end times).

My mother (who works as a nurse) has told me that the doctors have quietly started treating this as some sort of parasitic infection. That news sounds unsettling to me. If this is true, that it's due to a parasite, then I can kind of understand why the CDC won't release this fact until it has passed. Just the thought of miniscule insects swimming through my bloodstream gives me the "willies". It's weird but my mother has informed me that our bodies are already host to a multitude of other foreign bacteria's and whatnot, symbiotically living in most cases, within us. Even though the doctors are treating this differently now, they still report no progress in stopping it.

Whatever the cause, I'm just happy that this thing, whatever it happens to be, is soon going to be over.

### Monday, September 3, 2012

Finally my little sister, Lucy, has gotten over her illness. It's about time too, her constant whining and complaining was seriously getting on my nerves. Almost everyone has either gotten over, or has almost fully recovered from the disease. The animals on the other hand, seem to have only gotten sicker.

School has returned to its normal routine, with any chance of cancellation being quickly squashed. Production is almost back up to normal in businesses around the world and even the finicky stock markets are up.

There's almost a celebratory feeling in the air now. When this new and unheard of pestilence swept the globe there was a feeling of fear and uncertainty. Nobody knew if this would be a death dealing disease or the mild annoyance it turned out to be. People are acting as if they just dodged a bullet. Maybe we have. All one has to do is breathe to realize just what this thing was capable of. The smell of death blows on the wind. The scent of all those unlucky victims rotting away is a constant reminder of what could have been, had the disease mutated.

The CDC released its findings this afternoon. It turned out to be just like my mother told me. The world just saw the birth of a new microbe. A single celled parasite never before seen. The Center for Disease Control said that while the parasite resembles Toxoplasmosa Gondii on the outside, the new parasite is completely different genetically. Toxoplasmosa Gondii is a common microbe that infects the brains of rats and changes their behavior significantly.

This particular parasite affects the behavior of its host species. The life cycle of the tiny parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii is unusual. Toxoplasmosa Gondii lives rats and reproduces in the intestinal tracts of cats. It is not only able to survive the cat's digestion process but requires it to reproduce. The single celled puppet master ends up in the feces of the cat and if other animals come in contact with the excrement it can cause the animal to become infected. In Infected rats the parasite makes its way to the brain and alters the rodent's behavior. Once the parasite establishes itself, the normally fearful rat becomes fatally attracted to the smell of cats and cat urine. The rats, if they aren't attracted by the smell of cats, certainly no longer fear being eaten by the cats and end up becoming dinner. The ingested parasites then make their way to the cat's stomach and reproduces to complete its life cycle.

Scientists and doctors know that humans can be hosts to Toxoplasma, too. People can become infected by its eggs by handling soil and kitty litter. In some places of Asia (where cats are still on the menu) poorly cleaned knives and cooking utensils can spread the organism. In most people, the infection causes no harm. Toxoplasmosis is a serious risk for people with AIDS. If a person's immune system is weak Toxoplasma can grow uncontrollably and the parasite can kill. Pregnant women are also advised not to handle kitty litter, and Toxoplasmosa Gondii is the reason why. The insidious organism can cause birth defects and spontaneous abortions (miscarriage). There are studies that have shown behavioral changes in humans, including slower reaction times and an increased risk of traffic accidents among infected men. There also may be links to schizophrenia, hallucinations and reckless behavior. In most cases, the parasite lives unnoticed in people's brains. Estimates range from a third to half of the people on Earth are infected with Toxoplasma.

Sometimes the more I know about something, the less I wish I knew about it. That is so totally messed up.

Onto the weirder news of the day. In South Korea and southern China there are reports of bat colonies just going insane, attacking villagers and any living creature they can find. Nobody has died from the attacks but their victims are covered with cuts and nicks from their small teeth and claws. The bats behavior turns increasingly violent, until they turn on each other, dying from blood loss due to their many wounds.

The fact that bats are related closely to the rodent family, coupled with the fact that this new parasite seems to be related to one that can change the hosts behavior (and normal thinking patterns) leads me to think that this is also the work of the new, still unnamed, parasite. I hope I'm wrong.

### Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni is the name of the new parasite. The meaning of the words come from Latin with Toxon meaning "bow" and Plasma meaning "shape of" or "disposition of", with the whole meaning of the word being "bow shaped organism". Mondus means "world" in Latin and Omni means "all" or "everything". The new name for the new parasite literally means "The bow shaped organism that covers the world". A committee of the CDC gave it this name, no particular researcher or scientist named it. I did some research of my own on the name and found that "Mondus" has multiple meanings, just as many English words do. Mondus can also mean "clean" or "organize" or "neat". The root of the word mondus comes from "to prepare, to outfit" in Latin. In the sense of the belief that the world was created from chaos comes the ordering of the world, hence its dual meaning. In that sense the name of the new organism could also mean "The bow shaped organism that cleans all".

Leave it to a U.S. government committee to be perfectly unclear in something as simple as assigning a name. They named it before they knew of the parasites effects in its adult stage. Maybe they weren't being unclear, maybe they unknowingly got the name correct after all. Maybe they got the name right but the meaning wrong.

There's a horrific wave of terror sweeping Asia and reaching into deepest Russia and the Middle East. The fast moving surge of death is following the same pattern and spread as did the "Rat Death" and the "Rat flu". It's as if the animal kingdom is rising up against all of nature, including mankind. Especially mankind. The human death toll is already into the tens of thousands. It's going to go global. There is no doubt on this. It will spread to the furthest reaches of the globe within the week. It will be here, in Florida, in no more than three days from now.

First comes the colonies of bats, flowing out of their dark roosts, attacking and trying to kill everything and anything that moves. This continues until they finally end up mauling each other to death after a day or two at the most. Then comes the squirrels, chipmunks, gerbils, hamsters, minks, lemmings and every other small, once timid creature.

The human death toll is greatest among the poorest and more remote peoples. Lightly built dwellings and huts serve as no defense from the attacks of the small maddened creatures. The insane critters slip through gaps, chew through thin walls and jump through open windows. No weapon can truly stop them. Small, fast moving targets are hard to hit even with automatic weapons. Even a sharpshooter, even if he killed an infected animal with every shot, soon gets simply overwhelmed or runs out of ammo. Whole villages are simply clawed and ripped to shreds by the enraged beasts. Only by taking shelter in solidly built, modern buildings can one be safe. Whole areas of countryside's are de-populated as the people rush into the cities to try and flee certain death.

Thankfully we in the U.S. have warning of this. People are reinforcing their houses, boarding up windows and doors as if a hurricane were on the way. Once again the huge corporations are making a ton of money, plywood and food stocks are almost completely sold out around the world. Nobody knows how long this will last. From observing the animals in captivity, like zoos, we find that once the blood-lust hits the infected animals they no longer show any interest in food or water. They mercilessly attack any and every thing until they die of thirst or starvation. Even pet food stocks are low as people prepare for the oncoming siege, both for themselves and their pets.

The ferocity is so overwhelming in the poor animals that even after they have brutally murdered their children and mates, the lone survivors relentlessly claw and bite at their confines, desperately trying to get to the zoo keepers. Those maddened creatures only stop once they die of blood loss, having turned their paws into bloody stumps of useless meat and having lost all their teeth from biting frantically at metal and glass enclosures.

The parasite has turned up in seals, otters, dolphins and whales. They, like the canine and ursine families, show no outward symptoms or behavioral changes.

Cats, primates, and just about every other thing, on the other hand, show signs of the sickness. There is endless speculation as to whether they too will go mad, only time will tell.

To me it's a final judgment from Pan and Artemis against mankind and its unceasing attacks upon their subjects.

If my religious beliefs in some way offend you Mrs. Johnson, please think on this. Is there only one star in the sky? Is there only one blade of grass? Where does anything exist by itself? All of the natural world shows where one thing exists, there are many. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Quantum physics has basically proven that there are also multiple realities and separate universes. Even your 'Holy Trinity' is flawed (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost), logically they are all separate beings with godly powers are they not? If they have such godly powers doesn't that then make them Gods in their own rights? Then you have your Satan, supposedly with powers over the people on this planet that rivals your God's own powers. So how can you logically state there is only one God when your own religious belief belays this. I view your God as if he's another version of Odin, of Zeus, of Ra. I'm not a Wiccan, but I do believe the Old Gods still walk among us.

It is to them that I pray we survive the next couple of weeks.

### Friday, September 7, 2012

I had no idea how many small mammals there were. Before I rarely noticed the squirrels, only seeing one or two at a time. Even all the rats and mice (which are now almost extinct, their putrefying corpses still taint the air), that once existed in their multitudes, I had only seen rarely when one of old Mrs. Hoffner's cats proudly trotted by with one in their mouth. Now since they have gone mad with blood-lust they seem to be numberless.

Here, in the suburbs, where mankind has replaced the natural world with concrete and asphalt, it's not too bad. Here in the Orlando area, the people greatly outnumber the squirrels and other small creatures. Out in the countryside, where large acres of farmland exist for mile upon mile, like most of Kansas, it's much worse. In the farmlands, the ranches, the wide open spaces of big sky country they outnumber people. In states like Oregon, Montana and the sparely populated states and territories of Canada, the animals driven to unending violence vastly outnumber people.

Small towns, farms and isolated homes are practically under siege. The assaults are constant and relentless. When they find someone outside of their houses they literally swarm that individual and bring them down to a bloody death. Hiding inside doesn't mean we're safe either. When the insane varmints see a human through a window they immediately start to crash their bodies into the glass until either they have mangled their little bodies into a broken heap or they break through. Once a window is shattered the beasts pour through in incredible numbers until everyone inside has been chewed, bitten and clawed to death.

The infected animals show a couple of odd and disturbing new behaviors (odder than their vicious hatred of humans I mean). The first of these abnormal manners is their unnatural preference to attack humans rather than other prey. If there any number of the parasite ridden creatures, even if they are in the midst of fighting each other to the death, they will abruptly stop and rush straight towards a man, woman or child. They will always attack a human before anything else. The general consensus on this is that the parasite has somehow "flipped" the animal's normal fear / aggression receptors, causing what they feared the most before to be what they now hate the most.

The second weird new behavior, and nobody has anything but speculation as to why, is that there seems to be some sort of (as yet unobservable) method of communication between the infected ones. This strangeness and unseen communication crosses between the animals even when they are from totally different species and orders. This has clearly been observed in a recorded case where one animal (a squirrel, in this case) had found entry into a house through a chimney. A group of weasels who were trying to chew a space large enough to crawl through, at the space between the bottom of a rear door and the floor, immediately stopped and eventually made their way to the roof of the dwelling and went down the chimney also. If that weren't enough, a veritable horde of animals then came out of the surrounding forest to follow those that had found entry down the chimney stack. A neighbor had been taping the scene from across the street (safe in her own house) and while there is no video of what, exactly, transpired inside the house, the sound track left very little for the imagination. Gunshots, horrifying screams then silence. The silence didn't last long as shortly after they had killed the family inside, they turned on each other in the close confines of the small house. The sounds, to me, of the mass of animals screaming and yelping in pain and anger as they ripped each other to shreds, was just as terrifying (if not more so) as the humans screams of fear and pain.

School has been cancelled, in fact everything has been cancelled. Only those services and industries deemed necessary are still open. Like the hospital where my mother works. The police, dressed out in full riot gear (shields, masks, shin-guards, padded black suits, etc., the works), stand guard with shotguns and those collapsible steel batons at the ready. They send a bus around, a prison transfer bus with metal bars around the windows and an interior cage, to pick up and drop off the doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel.

Cattle, horses, sheep and deer, while not outwardly affected by the parasite, are having a difficult time surviving this surge of brutality. The only things that are saving their lives is that the contaminated animals don't rush in to attack them like they do with people. That and their relative size and the power of their kicks and bites (compared to the small size of their attackers) ensure that the critters that do attack them do very little real damage (as long as it's just a single attacker, when they are attacked in groups the domesticated beasts still fall under the sheer weight of numbers.

My uncle David came by for a little while before things got too bad and dropped off an old M1 carbine. The anxiety on my mother's face was plain to see but she didn't refuse. Uncle David (my mother's older brother), was an avid hunter and had used this rifle for many years. He couldn't stand the thought of us being without some kind of protection so he gave our family this. It's fires .30 caliber rounds, and has a fifteen round clip. Along with the weapon he left us with a box of shells and a cleaning kit. He spent the whole day instructing us, including my little sister Lucy, in its proper use. A simple to operate, maintain and clean weapon that anyone from beginner to expert can use effectively. He also told us about safety and when not to use it. He said don't use it if the angle of the shot will put somebody's house in the line of the bullet, among other things. The bullet doesn't stop when it hits something small, it will continue until it hits something dense. I wish everybody knew that. There is sporadic gunfire going off, somebody let loose a shot that entered through the kitchen wall and lodged itself in the front door.

Lucy is scared almost to tears, especially after the armed caravan picked my mother up for work and left her here with me. Lucy isn't allowed to go over to Mrs. Hoffner's house any more. My mother invited the almost eighty year old woman to stay here for the duration of the madness but she declined. Lucy was banned from her house since the other day when one of the doddering old lady's cats clawed her. The scratch marks weren't deep but Lucy is afraid of them now.

Mrs. Hoffner apologized profusely, saying that the cat didn't want to be bothered because it's still sick, as all the cats around the world still are. I certainly hope that's the case, if not I fear for her life.

As I wrote this, there are new reports from the Ukraine concerning other, larger, animals going mad. There's a video on the news stations of a group of a dozen or so badgers ambushing a security squad. All around the world people are doing as we are, shutting down non-essential services and having armed guards protect the installations. The video was hard to watch. The badgers crept in close, using the beautifully trimmed bushes and foliage around the hospital as cover. In a group they rushed the five guards. Two of the guards got off clear shots with their shotguns but it seemed the majority of the pellets just bounced off their thick hides (the distance appeared to be only a little greater than ten feet and the shots were badly aimed, but badgers have notoriously tough hides) and the lead two badgers were only wounded. The blood thirsty animals leapt upon the first two guards, four went after the first guard and three went after the second. You could easily see the hesitation on the faces of the standing guards, they held their fire not wanting to hit their friends. After the momentary hesitation, upon seeing that their comrades were now flat on their backs (screaming and futilely struggling as the monsters rapidly and repeatedly bit and slashed open their veins), the remaining guards fired off their weapons, killing two of the insane badgers before being knocked down themselves by the remaining group of fangs and claws. The unprovoked attack was dreadfully quick, having been over with in less than ten seconds. The last guard fled inside the building, leaving his comrades to die. For awhile after having killed the four guards the badgers desperately tried to gain entry to the building, clawing and biting at the doors and walls insanely. When the badgers finally gave up on trying to get inside the hospital they set about viciously tearing each other to little pieces.

I can't write anymore today. I think I need to practice my aiming with the rifle my uncle David gave us. I have to be prepared to make the most of my first shot. If it comes down to it, I may only have that one chance.

### Monday, September 10, 2012

Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Hoffner, is dead. It happened at a quarter after eight in the morning.

Myself and my mother, creatures of habit that we are, still wake up as if Lucy and I have to get ready for school. There's no school today though. School may not open again for another couple of weeks. My body however (after almost twelve years of being conditioned to be awakened at a set time), doesn't seem to either know or care about whether it's a school day, holiday or weekend. My eyes flutter open and no matter how I may wish to fall back into my previously peaceful slumber, I can't. Once I'm awake, I'm awake for the day. Lucy on the other hand, can sleep anywhere at any time. I get jealous of her being able to sleep so easily at times.

While I was eating breakfast, and my mother was starting the laundry, there arose the distinctive howls of cats fighting. The awful screeching was loud enough to be clearly heard, even though it emanated from next door. I stopped eating then, listening nervously to the growing caterwauling as my mother came out of the laundry room. Lucy even got up and came into the kitchen, scared and tightly clutching her worn Elmo doll.

The screeching and hissing reached a crescendo, it sounded like all six of the old ladies cats were loudly trying to kill each other. I knew right then that the cats had succumbed to the parasitic madness. Before I could fully formulate my thoughts for old lady Hoffner's safety she started screaming.

The old woman's voice waveringly rang out, "Stop that! Bad cats! Stop fighting!"

I knew that was a very bad thing. I know for a fact she knew what the disease does to the infected. She should have just stayed away from them and called the police. The police would have sent one of the new animal control squads out to remove (and euthanize) them. Maybe she thought her pets love for her would overrule their insanity, maybe she thought it was just another cat fight unrelated to the insanity. Whatever she thought, she thought wrong and paid for it with her life.

"No! STOP! HELP!"

Then followed long inarticulate, pain filled screams.

My mother and sister ran towards each other, Lucy grabbing my mother tightly and crying while my mother shushed her and stroked Lucy's hair.

I, on the other hand, ran towards the door, thinking only of trying to help the old lady.

"Take the gun with you," my mom told me, pointing timidly towards it.

I grabbed the rifle and checked it as I made my way to the front door.

"Be careful Jannie," were my mother's words as I rushed out the door. I could easily hear both fear and concern in her voice.

I wasn't the only one running to help her. Mike McConnell's father had also heard her screams. Mike's dad was barefoot wearing jeans and a tee shirt and it looked like he hadn't slept well. He carried with him a wicked looking wooden baseball bat studded with long sharp nails. As we came to within ten feet of the poor old widow's door, the screaming grew louder. The front door opened almost instantly and old lady Hoffner crashed through the screen door. She stumbled harshly down the steps of her small front porch and ended up sprawled out on the sidewalk.

Through all of this, two cats managed to cling to her, hissing and biting her. The claws of the cats were dug in deep to her old and wrinkled flesh. They were raking their rear claws deeply and repeatedly, opening huge gouges in her flesh while they sunk their fangs into her. The elderly girl was covered in her own blood, liberally bleeding from a multitude of wounds. Her robe was shredded and deeply stained with blood. Although she struggled against her attackers, her defenses were weak and ineffectual. Mr. McConnell was reaching out to one of the cats, trying to tear it away from the old lady. Clearly he wanted to separate the cats from their victim as he didn't want to swing his nail-bat and accidently hit the woman.

That's when I heard one of the cats shredding the screen door. The blood-lust of the disease was clearly in its eyes. It managed to slash a huge tear in the screen and started to charge through the hole. The once loving cat's jaws and paws were stained red with blood and I instinctively raised the rifle and shot it. I was actually thrilled with the sound and feel as the weapon fired, liking the way it kicked from the recoil. The bullet flew true and violently punched the cat back through the hole it had rent in the screen door.

Mike's dad said, "Good shot," as he was yanking the dead body of the first cat that he had managed to pull from widow Hoffner off of his bat. The still twitching corpse had been penetrated by multiple nails following a crushing blow.

Mrs. Hoffner wasn't moving much at all as Mr. McConnell grabbed the second cat from her and flung it down. Before the cat could get up on its feet the bloody nail-bat was already swinging towards it.

A different cat had come running at full speed right through the hole in the screen door, obviously with deadly intent, to try and maul one of us. I had been watching Mr. McConnell finish off the second cat, and starring at Mrs. Hoffner. I couldn't risk shooting it, Mike and the rest of his family were in the line of fire. The cat was fast and I had to do something. I swung the rifle by the barrel like it was a baseball bat of my own and solidly connected with the crazed feline as it leapt at Mike's dad. It went tumbling to the ground where its skull was both crushed and impaled at the same time by the well wielded nail studded bat.

Once the danger had passed, my mother rushed over to poor 'ole Mrs. Hoffner. Lucy was wailing like I've never seen her, calling for our mom to come back inside with her.

"Go inside and close the door, Lucy," my mom told her as she started to try and treat our elderly neighbor's wounds.

Mr. McConnell and I however looked at each other and knew we had to account for the remaining two of the six cats. We entered the house, Mr. McConnell in the lead and we searched room by room until we found the last of the cats.

We found the mutilated bodies of the cats in the back bedroom. The corpses were horribly mauled with their guts and intestines pulled from their abdomens.

Mrs. Hoffner died in a pool of blood on her own front lawn shortly thereafter.

That was my morning.

My afternoon was spent coddling and reassuring my little sister. Lucy finally cried herself to sleep about an hour after my mom went to work. Honestly, I think she's more upset about having watched the "kitties" being killed then the death of our elderly neighbor.

The news is just filled with acts of violence. The feline family around the world has fallen to the single celled parasite. Bobcats, Lynxes, Jaguars, Leopards, Lions, Tigers and the common house cat have turned into maddened killing machines, along with every other member of the feline family.

There's one video in particular that makes me sad. There's a video from the San Diego zoo where a lioness's cubs are still young enough that they are still suckling. The cubs are clearly under the parasites influence and they start to claw and bite at their mother. At first the lioness's maternal instincts hold and she gives them small bites or slaps them away from herself. As the cubs become more frenzied a few start mauling each other. The lioness is clearly taken aback from this behavior and growls and harshly tries to separate the fighting cubs. When the maddened cubs turn on her again, they attack her in earnest. Only after she is covered with wounds and is bleeding profusely does she truly fight back. One after the other she is forced to kill off all four of her children in her own defense. After she murdered them, ignoring her own wounds, she licks them clean and lined them up in a little row, using a gentleness that could only be born from love. Now the once proud lioness just stares at them, nudging their cold bodies once in awhile, refusing to eat or drink.

In a follow up story the zoo keepers reported that they had to put down the once proud lioness too, as she also went into a blood-lust, going nuts whenever she spotted any living thing.

The great cats are terrorizing Africa and Asia right now. They stalk, kill their prey then immediately move on to their next victim. That's got to be a horrible way to die.

When is this nightmare going to end?

### Wednesday, September 12, 2012

In every neighborhood now, there are armed groups of men breaking down peoples doors and conducting room to room searches. It started out as a call upon the citizenry to assist the police who are stretched paper thin. The county deputized them to patrol and eliminate any infected animals in their local areas. Like a neighborhood watch, but with guns. The plan was that they could handle the overwhelming number of calls concerning a maddened squirrel or whatever, leaving the police to respond to the true emergency situations. In reality it turned into a drunken mob that has decided prevention is the best medicine. They go house to house and beat on the doors, demanding entry. If nobody answers the door, usually because they fear the group, they bash open the door and search for any sign of a pet. The mob doesn't care if the animal is sick or not, and in reality I doubt they killed very many infected animals (as all the cats and those creatures that were infected have already plainly gone mad). Sure they find the occasional ferret or cat or bunny that the owner has locked into a room or exiled to the backyard (mainly in the hopes that the illness will pass), but what they normally find are the pets that aren't infected. Like dogs, who show no sign of the parasitic infection. They break into people's houses and shoot any pets right in front of children who are terrorized by this act. Then they take the body of the dead pets and rudely toss them into the back of a pick-up truck to be burned later in great pyres. Better safe than sorry they say. Those who try to fight back are beaten severely. Those who defend their homes with weapons of their own are murdered in a hail of gunfire. Innocents are killed by stray bullets and wild shots. The authorities turn a blind eye to these crimes.

Whenever one of the mob even thinks they see a squirrel, they open fire, turning the area into a shooting gallery. Whenever any of the shooting starts we have to lie upon the floor and hope there are no stray bullets coming with our names on them.

Luckily, when the armed group beat upon our door, my mother hadn't left for work yet. She calmly let them in, making sure to keep a friendly smile upon her face (I know it was a false, strained effort) and made sure this unconstitutional search and seizure was at least conducted civilly. They carried with them an air of menace. We were all relieved when they left, and my mother is torn over the need to go to work or stay home with us. In the end though, she goes to work, leaving me to try and take care of Lucy. Lucy is not taking this well at all, crying and pleading with my mom to stay.

The hospital is almost overwhelmed with victims of animal attacks and gunshot wounds from stray bullets, on top of stress induced heart attacks and the normal medical emergencies. Before all this began she had normal eight hour shifts, now her shifts last at least twelve hours. Many of the doctors and nurses actually sleep at the hospital now, not only from a sense of duty but because it's actually safer there.

I haven't been able to watch the news much, mainly due to the fact that it sends Lucy into a panic. Instead what I try to do is keep cartoons and children's programming on, with the volume turned up in an attempt to cover up the sounds of gunshots and the ever present sirens.

When I do get the chance to watch the news it's when my little sister has finally, fitfully, fallen asleep. She doesn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time now. She also doesn't eat very much, even if it's her favorites.

What I do see on the news channels disturbs me to no end. Chimpanzee's, it turns out are incredibly vicious animals. When they go berserk they are not merely content to kill their targets, they mutilate them, biting off the fingers, hands, feet and even the faces of their prey. The violence of watching a troop of the infected beasts maul each other to death in an orgy of blood-lust actually made my stomach churn.

Whole herds of deer are seeking safety by wading out as far as they can into lakes, usually they go out so deep into the waters that only their heads are sticking out. They stay there until its night, then silently and cautiously creep to land to sleep. Exhausted they pass out near the shore, rushing back into the water at any sign of attack by the crazed creatures. They resume this behavior just before dawn breaks, only coming out of the water to try to forage (which doesn't last very long as some infected animal soon spots them).

It's not just the deer doing this either, bears, wolves and whatever hasn't been driven insane joins them in the relative safety of the water. It's an odd sight to see what are normally predator and prey both fearfully wading in the lakes and rivers side by side, no more than a few feet apart. It appears that the parasite causes an unnatural aversion to water in its hosts, like rabies (in its later stages) does.

Farm animals, free range cattle, sheep flocks, chicken and turkey farms, all of them are being massacred. Farms are being abandoned. Those farm animals, like the free range cattle and sheep that have no protection, are at the mercy of the blood-lust infected fiends (and sadly, there is absolutely no mercy shown). Whole herds of hundreds, sometimes thousands of head, are gone. The horses and animals that were penned up into a stable or barn found no respite from the continual attacks from the maddened smaller creatures. They get in through cracks, gaps and just plain poorly maintained and rotted wooden boards. They die from blood loss, infection or just plain old exhaustion from fear and no sleep.

Pigs have succumbed to the madness, and that really sucks. There isn't going to be any bacon in the grocery stores for a long time now. I am going to miss that.

Lucy is awake now and is desperately clinging to me. I need to reassure her and give her my attention.

I'm tired and I feel as if I've written enough for today.

Gods let this be over soon.

### Friday, September 14, 2012

The apex of the infection has passed. The maddened animals are starting to drop dead in their tracks. It had to come to this sooner or later, as the parasite ridden animals stopped eating and drinking in their insanity. One odd thing about this particular parasitic infection is the fact that most of the infected mammals should have died days sooner from thirst. Why this is, nobody is quite sure, normally things die after three to four days without water. It's been nine days since those critters that succumbed to the parasite first, namely bats and squirrels, finally started dying.

When the infected ones finally do cease their hold on life they do so suddenly. They don't lie down or try to hide away in their misery, instead they simply fall out of the sky or out of the trees. If they were in the process of doing something, like leaping to attack, they die in mid leap, crashing to the ground in a crumpled, bedraggled heap.

The whole world over, people are relieved knowing the madness will be finished in another week or so. There had been an ever deepening sense of futility and depression building, now there is a ray of hope lifting everyone's mood. Barring any new infections in the previously unaffected animals that is.

The CDC released a report on the status of the parasitic infection. They conducted thousands of autopsies and findings from multiple studies. The center has come out with a reliable and inexpensive method to test for the presence of the parasite in any animal. They have also come out with a complete list of which mammals are susceptible to the disease and which ones are naturally immune. According to the list, any animal that can be infected already has been affected. Unfortunately, the one thing we have all been waiting for, a cure, has been elusive. The infection is spread by a ridiculously minuscule egg. The eggs have a thick protein shell that protects them from sunlight and since they are so small and light they are air-born. The CDC is still researching the length of time that the eggs remain viable and the news is disheartening. In the two weeks they've been examining the eggs, they still remain capable of hatching the parasite. Once "The Madness" (which is what everybody calls it now) has passed, the eggs won't have anything left to infect. Then, even if the eggs are capable of surviving even for a month (which is the longest anyone believes they can survive), it will be practically meaningless. If there are any new outbreaks after this, the CDC says that they will be small, isolated cases and can then be dealt with like a rabies outbreak.

Through all of this the Army and National Guard have been providing security around the countries vital infrastructure. Power plants, both nuclear and conventional have to be kept up and running. One of their biggest jobs is keeping the interstates open. Some of the main arteries for the lifeblood of the country are our roads. The madness drove tens of thousands of animals to launch themselves at people who were driving down those roads, causing accidents and mayhem. Without the help of the military, constantly patrolling the vast miles of our interstates, breaking down or getting into a wreck is almost a death sentence.

Refugees from the country are pouring into the cities, overwhelming the already stressed support systems. Since all sporting events have been cancelled, most local governments have placed these people into the empty stadiums and arenas. Some of these people have basically lost everything, where once they had a turkey farm with thousands of birds, now they have nothing but long buildings full of mutilated and rotting flesh.

Harvest time for a number of crops should be happening right now but much of it will rot in the fields. It's going to be a race between when it'll be deemed safe to go back to the farms and the time it takes for those crops to go bad. It'll be a crappy harvest but it won't be devastating. The largest harvests will happen after this madness is predicted to pass.

Lucy is starting to cope with everything that's happened. She's still not the same girl she used to be and she still needs constant reassuring but she's starting to adjust.

As for myself, I have this nagging feeling that this thing isn't dying down like everyone thinks it is. It may be due to stress or fear but it doesn't feel like that. In my spare time I've broken down and cleaned the rifle a few times, to say the least. I practice getting into the three standard firing stances and regulating my breathing as I practice my aim. Actually, I think I'm obsessing over the weapon, but it does keep my mind from wandering too far into what the future will bring.

### Monday, September 17, 2012

The "Madness" has receded here in the greater Orlando area. The state government, following an assessment from the Florida National Guard and the U.S. Army, stated that the situation has stabilized in the major metropolitan areas. This is true for most of the country and around the world, except for areas like the Pacific Northwest. From the western border of Wisconsin to the eastern borderlands of Washington state and north of Colorado, the outbreak, while dying down, is still making it too dangerous for the inhabitants to return to their normal routines. Grocery stores in those areas are only open twice a week, for only a few hours to allow people to get food and supplies, all the while heavily armed troops guard and patrol.

Power went out in a lot of places around the country, mainly due to various everyday reasons. The electric companies had refused to send workers out to repair the lines unless they had some protection, leaving a lot of people to live through this nightmare without power. Sending repair crews out into the lonely night, or for that matter during the daytime, filled with blood thirsty critters would have been a death sentence for many. Now that the state Guard units and some of the Army have been freed up to provide that protection, they are busy repairing what they can. The rest of the Guard units and Army troops have now moved on to quarantining and eradicating the last of the menace from places like the Everglades and Yosemite National Park.

Work crews are going around and collecting all of the dead animal carcasses and burning them in huge piles. We, the citizens, are told that if we come across a dead body we are to call the newly formed "Animal Disposal Units" (A.D.U.) and not to touch them ourselves, even if the cadavers of the beasts are in our own back yards. The corpses just keep coming in by the truckload (literally), in an almost never ending procession to the burn yards. All types of animals from the bodies of infected possums to the huge carcasses of fallen cattle are all burned together. It is a smell that I will never forget. The thick black smoke hangs in the air and sticks in my clothes. The stench of it is revolting at times and at others it smells like someone is throwing a massive Bar-B-Q.

I asked my mother why the government didn't want us to go near the dead animals and she said it was probably just a precaution, there are a lot of diseases that can be transmitted and they just want us to be safe. I've seen how the new A.D.U.'s conduct their business and they come dressed up in the same outfits the N.B.C. (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) Army units use. The state of the art suits are a far cry from the simple shovel and plastic bags that the Department of Transportation workers were issued to clean up road-kill before the madness though. Something doesn't seem right to me and it's clear that my mother is as in the dark about this as the rest of the general population.

I try to talk to my mother about the parasites and their eggs, if they're still inside us, and she just completely shies away from the subject or changes it completely, ignoring me every time I ask about it. If I really press her on the subject she placates me by telling me she will talk to me later about it when Lucy is asleep.

Some places around the world suffered much less than the rest of us. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore and a lot of the Arabian Peninsula, having a smaller amount of natural wildlife, wasn't hit by the madness very hard. They did get hit by the vast numbers of people desperate to escape it though. In Hong Kong there were so many people fleeing from mainland China that every open space, alley or piece of concrete had become crowded with refugees. Some places in the world have, and are continuing to suffer, much more than us. New Zealand has seen is population cut in half. Much of New Zealand's people lived in isolated wilderness, existing pretty much as their ancestors had for thousands of years before them. Those people that lived in the remote parts of the world are gone now. Nobody can say with any confidence how many people have died so far. I've heard some estimates ranging from a couple hundred thousand (a ridiculously low number) to hundreds of millions and even more. Only time will tell what the death toll was from this global menace.

My mother got a day off today, finally. I know she must want to just kick back and catch up on her sleep. Instead, seeing how our refrigerator is low she decided to go shopping now that the stores are opening their doors again. Lucy wouldn't be left behind this time, even for something as mundane as grocery shopping. I must admit that I also wanted to go, just to get out of the house.

When we got to Publix, I was kind of taken back with the crowds of people. Everybody had the same idea, causing a run on practically everything in the store. The stocks were low on meat, milk, butter, eggs and everything in between. The employees were actually in the process of placing "Out of Stock" signs on huge empty areas of the meat section. When asked when they would get new stock to replace the things like hamburger and pork chops the answer was a sad one. The farms were ruined around the world. I hadn't realized the implications of that before. Everything used to be cheap and plentiful, at least here in the U.S. Now that the pigs, chickens, cows and everything else had been virtually wiped out it will take at least six months for things like chicken and eggs to bounce back and it might be years for beef and pork to be available in any quantity again. There was actually very little left in the warehouses and supply pipelines. Once that was gone, they would be gone for quite awhile. Fish, rice, beans, soy milk, flour, those things would still be around but the prices were surely going to climb. No more hotdogs and hamburgers for anyone for a long time. No more milk or butter. We'll have to deal with practically becoming vegetarians for the next few years. It's not really a bad thing, it'll be a much healthier diet for us all, but I know it's going to be a hard transition for a lot of people.

McDonalds, Wendy's and all those fast food franchises are going to go bankrupt. Burger King will have to change their name to Falafel King or something to stay in business, because they sure weren't going to be selling any burgers. This is on top of an economy that still hasn't bounced back from the "Great Recession". Restaurants around the world will close and all those people are going to become unemployed again, so soon after having finally gotten some kind of employment.

The madness may have passed but things were going to go straight to hell in hand basket.

### Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I have no idea where to start this journal entry. Everybody is trying to cope with what has just happened. The world has been turned upside down and people are trying to resume their normal lives, except our normal lives are almost a thing of the past. I'm not just talking about the terrifying acts of animal insanity or the extreme food shortage either.

I guess I'll start with telling whoever is reading this in the future, whether it's you Mrs. Johnson or my future self. That is if I live through this. Maybe this will go unread by anyone and collect a thick coating of dust or maybe a complete stranger will find this and add it to an historic collection of what it was like to live through these troubled times. For the first time in my life I am scared, I'm actually horrified at what the future is going to have in store for all of us.

The "Madness", for the most part has finished its "near extinction event" (the media's new catch phrase for the parasites uncontrolled destruction of over half the world's mammal species). The attacks are fewer and farther between now but they still happen.

On the television there is a new video of a vicious wolverine attack. In a small town up in Canada, north of Ontario (I forget the name of the little town), school had started up again, as it has here. The town hadn't, miraculously, suffered from the wave of insane creatures much at all. They were lax in their wariness and they paid for it. A group of parents were escorting and waiting with their children, (elementary school kids the same age as my sister Lucy), for the bus to pick them up and take them to school. It looked to me as if the parents thought that any animals wouldn't attack them solely based on the fact that there were adults present. Everything was going as it should have yesterday morning and the bus arrived on time. The children boarded, the parents stood back and waved. As the bus driver was talking to one of the mothers, he was holding the folding bus door open about half way. Before continuing upon his route a nasty, huge wolverine bounded out of a cement drainage pipe from the ditch next to the bus stop. It was obvious nobody was expecting anything like this at all, and none of them even knew what was happening until the parasite maddened animal ran up the bus steps and immediately went for the driver's throat.

The video is from the camera inside the bus and panic and pandemonium ensued. The driver's throat had been quickly ripped out and arterial blood was spurting in great gushes onto the mass of screaming children behind him. There was a mad rush for the emergency door at the back of the bus as the crazed thing finished off the driver who was dying fast. Both the kids inside and the parents outside went to the back of the bus and started hurriedly getting the children off the bus as quickly as possible.

One girl had somehow gotten her backpack tangled on one of the seats and fell down hard in the aisle. The little girl was screaming and crying as she yanked as hard as she could on the strap from her backpack that had gotten wedged between the upper and lower seat cushions. Just as she freed her backpack from the seat and it looked like she would be able to run to safety, the blood-lust driven beast went after her. The driver could do nothing but clasp his hands over his ripped open jugular in a futile effort to save his own life.

It was that same backpack that probably saved the girls life, when the wolverine jumped heavily on her and knocked her back to the floor. The parasite infected wolverine slashed its wickedly sharp claws and bit the backpack furiously, scattering pieces of it all around.

One of the braver parents, rushed up to the animal, past the weakly struggling driver, and actually pulled the beast from the little girls back. Snapping and wriggling forcefully, the hairy fiend turned, in a flash, to attack the poor, brave woman.

The young girl managed to escape but the brave woman, in her mid-thirties, quickly fell in the driver's blood. The animal showed no mercy. The maddened animal went for her face and throat and quickly delivered fatal wounds.

The remaining parents and children abandoned the helpless victims, fleeing the area as the wolverine sliced the woman's flesh to ribbons.

A neighbor heard the commotion and using a revolver, shot the wolverine repeatedly. The driver died, there on the bus while the woman died in the hospital shortly thereafter. At least the girl survived, without a scratch but minus a backpack.

So yeah, we still face the threat of attacks, even though most of the infected animals have finally died of thirst, starvation or bullets.

The first day back to my school was an odd and extremely uncomfortable experience. A mixture of fear and uncertainty hung in the air. Almost twenty percent of the students were absent and all of the normal joking and teenage energy was gone. The normal endless talking and bravado had been drained out of the students, replaced by a depressed silence. The sound of itching and scratching and relentless fidgeting was at times greater than the muted voices of the teachers' instructions. Every student, every teacher, except for a small handful of us, had signs of a rash. Most of the students and staff had headaches and some were showing signs of psychological trauma such as facial tics.

I, and everybody else, knew in our hearts upon seeing this that it had to be because of the parasite. It was easy enough to think it was the normal onset of a cold or allergies when you're at home with your family, but when you went into a public place like a school and saw that it wasn't just you and your family that had the signs, that it was literally everyone, then we knew. Although everyone was aware of the enormity of what this meant, it went unsaid. Nobody wants to speak of this, out of fear of what might happen, as if talking of it will make it real. Everyone is afraid that the parasite will do to us what it did to the animals.

My little sister is scratching her legs raw, only by covering her legs with calamine lotion does she cease the infernal scratching. My mother complains of having a headache and I catch her sneaking a quick itch when she thinks I'm not looking. They both have it. I don't feel any different, besides being scared and depressed, and I don't know what I'll do if I lose them.

I watched the news tonight, before I wrote this. There was a brief acknowledgement of the new symptoms showing themselves world-wide, they were downplayed and kept low key. When even the sensationalist media refuses to speak of the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room I know it's bad. Everyone is secretly hoping, praying, that this is a temporary last gasp of the contagion before it dies off. After all, most of the larger mammals have proven immune. There is a good chance that this will pass and we can struggle with what is left of the world.

I finally got some of my questions answered about the parasite from my mother. Getting that information from her was like pulling out her teeth with a pair of rusty pliers.

The closest anyone has found to a cure is not only temporary, it carries with it a forty percent lethality rate. The host has to be basically poisoned to such an extent that even with close supervision there is still the chance that the cure will be too much for the patient's system to handle. Even when the cure is successful the patient is reinfected that same day, as the airborne eggs are literally everywhere. The patient would have to be kept inside a tightly sealed and filtered environment until the eggs are biologically rendered inert. Only once the last of the eggs are no longer viable, that is once all of the contaminated animal corpses, droppings and etc. are disposed of will there be no more of the minute eggs in the air. It's not only that though. This may prove to be an impossible task. Humans are now carriers of the parasite and they are growing colonies inside us and reproducing. The infinitesimal eggs are being spread by us, through our feces, mucus and other bodily fluids. The whole population of the planet would have to be cured at the same time, and only once the other sources of the plague have been eliminated.

The headaches and itching are symptoms of the infection, just as I figured they were. Even though my mom tried her best to reassure me that there will be a cure soon, I am afraid. Even if they find the cure tomorrow how long will it take to mass produce enough drugs for the entire world?

If the disease stabilizes we will survive this. If the disease follows the path in us, as it has in the maddened animals, then we only have about two weeks until we face our own "extinction event".

### Friday, September 21, 2012

Nobody knows what's happening. The stress and sheer horror of the "Rat Death" and the "Rat Flu", followed quickly by the "Madness" had people near the breaking point to begin with. Now with the animal insanity over, humanity is facing a severe food shortage. Add to this the collapse of the fragile economy that had just started to grow again after the years long, world-wide recession. Top all of this off with a virulent unknown disease infecting everyone and shake well. It's a recipe for disaster.

Unemployment has just jumped to a staggering forty percent. This is going to be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930's. Stock markets around the world went into a downward spiral once the reality of the global extinction event started to hit home. Every fast food chain has closed its doors. Every restaurant has shut down. There's no butter or milk to even make bread. There's no eggs. Whatever is left, rice, flour, beans and fish are in extremely short supply. Grocery stores are practically empty, many are only open once or twice a week, what they do have stocked is being sold at hugely inflated prices. People are hoarding whatever they can get their hands on causing even further shortages and even higher prices.

A lot of the dogs, although they are immune to the parasitic infection, were decimated by the fear that they would go insane like the rest of the animals. Now, those people that managed to hang onto their pets are reporting that their dogs are being stolen. Undoubtedly they are being eaten.

So many people thought they were so much better than the animals. They treated the animals with absolutely no respect. Now the animals are gone and we can't survive without them.

Exasperating this is the new trend of illegally hunting any of the animals that survived for their meat. The deer and bears cannot simply swim out into the waters to escape men with rifles. The parasite dealt a crushing blow to the animal kingdom, and we are knowingly, going to give it the final death blow. It's sad to say that people are also trapping and eating blackbirds and robins and any other thing they can catch. How did that song go, "Three and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie."? We are going back to the dark ages.

It is a simple fact of nature that when the preys' numbers drop, so do the predators. The world has seen the rise of seven billion humans on the planet and decided it didn't like it. If the numbers of the animals we fed on dropped by ninety percent so will ours, by starvation.

Murder, suicide and the crime rate as a whole is on the rise.

People are rioting over food and just like every riot, the looting quickly spreads.

On the news today there was a video of a homeless man with a placard stating that the world was coming to an end. This isn't new or surprising in itself, in every city there is always that one guy, standing on his soapbox trying to warn the rest of humanity to change its evil ways. What is surprising, even for New Yorkers, was the reaction. A small crowd quickly gathered around him, heckling and then spitting on the poor, unwashed, unshaven old man in dirty clothes. Then the crowd set upon the obviously mentally unstable man. First one of the crowd delivered a sucker punch, then another person attacked him. When the confused old man tried to fight back the whole crowd literally set about beating him to death. Even after he had been knocked down and was bleeding and unconscious, the men and women of the crowd kicked and stomped him over and over.

The thin veneer of civilization is wearing away. I don't know how much of this is due to the natural stress and limits of the human mind and how much is due to the insidious influence of the parasite.

Speaking of (writing of?) the influence of the parasite, there are new symptoms to report.

Both my mother and my sisters' rash and itching have changed into small red spots all over their bodies. Thankfully, for Lucy, the intense scratching has died down but the red spots are a cause for alarm. The spots showed up yesterday and they seem to have doubled in size overnight. The spots show up black on the gums, the tongue, the whites of the eye and even under the finger nails. Many of the girls at school have resorted to wearing heavy make-up in an attempt to cover the spots.

My mother told me the reason for the spots is the result of the growing infection of the parasites within the host's body. The parasite is establishing itself along the central nervous system right down to the nerve endings in the skin and muscles, which explains the uncontrollable itching. The red spots are inflamed cells and burst capillaries caused from the single celled organism displacing the body's normal cells.

Lucy has fallen into a dark, depressed and frustrated mood that is hard to handle or cope with. My mom also tells me she feels aggravated and frustrated to no end too, but this may just be due to what is happening and not because of the parasite. I told her I don't feel anything but scared and depressed, almost the opposite of what she's feeling and my mom just stared at me like I called her the "c" word.

School is becoming a dangerous place. People are short tempered and openly hostile towards each other. At every break between classes there was a fight. The fights weren't really any more violent or brutal than any other fight, but the fact that there were so many is disturbing. Everyone seemed to look at me with open disdain simply because I wasn't suffering as they were. The three other kids I know that are also immune told me they weren't going to come to school anymore until this epidemic was over. I don't blame them. I wish I could stay home too, but my mother forbids it. If things get any worse though I'll just skip school and hang out somewhere.

My mother, Gods bless her, tried to reassure me as best as she could telling me no matter what happens, we will get through this. If we have to eat those little lizards that scamper around the yard (like the ones old Mrs. Hoffner's cats used to love to chase, catch and sometimes snack on, bless all their souls), then she would find a recipe to make the most delicious lizards I ever ate. I smiled when she said that and it felt like I hadn't smiled for a long time.

Gods let me smile again.

### Monday, September 24, 2012

Over the weekend those small blotches and spots that appeared all over my mother and little sister have blossomed into large scarlet colored patches. It's not just my family, it's everybody around the world. In some people the scarlet bruises grow faster, in some slower. Only the people like me, the naturally immune, show no sign of this progression of the parasitic infection. One Saturday morning the redness covered about ten percent of their bodies. On Sunday morning, twenty percent. This morning almost half of my sisters and mothers skin were bright scarlet. In the next twenty four hours their skin will be almost completely red, then they will die.

Last night my mother came clean with everything she knew about the deadly parasite known as Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni. Being infected herself, she also told me first-hand of the symptoms and their affects.

The CDC has had an abundance of corpses to autopsy, both animal and human. They have been able to isolate the parasite, extract its DNA and examine it in great detail. This new and lethal parasite didn't evolve from Toxoplasmosa Gondii, it was bio-engineered from it. It is the general consensus that this was the result of a government run program, initially interested in creating a more lethal version of the parasite to eliminate the local rat population. This is where the single celled parasite's new and improved egg casing came from. There are markers that show the genetic material that made up its DNA was compressed to an extent, having some seemingly unneeded "junk" sequences removed to make the eggs light enough to allow for the eggs to become airborne. This turned out to be a huge mistake. A lot of even our own DNA appears to be compromised of this "junk", but it serves as both a "filler material" and a stabilizing agent. While cells with much of the place holder material removed can still be capable of reproducing, this presents problems of its own after even a few generations. Apparently without any further clinical study this modified parasite was released into the wild.

The main culprit seems to be North Korea, but there is no solid evidence besides it being ground zero for the infection and a vague statement of an intent to attempt to stop vermin from eating their dwindling food stores. At this, the point of pointing fingers at the supposed culprit is mute, there is nothing that can be done about it now.

The organism did its intended job very well, literally wiping out over ninety percent of the rodent population around the world during the "Rat Death". Soon after the new version of the parasite was released into the local rat population it mutated. The previously removed filler DNA was picked up from a new source and replaced the missing material. This made it contagious to many other animal species.

When it made the transition to mammals it mutated again and became the behavior and mind altering pandemic that brought about the "Madness".

With such a huge new food source, and the ability for this unstable parasite to breed unchecked, when it hit the human hosts, it mutated into what we now recognize as Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni. Ninety percent of the human population had no natural defenses or immunities to this new plague. The ten percent or so of the population that is resistant to this deadly threat are only immune due to some, as of yet, unknown genetic quirk.

It was the parasite that caused the "Rat Flu". That was when everyone became infected. It was then that our fate was sealed.

"Why hasn't the government told us this?", I asked my mother.

"To what end would it serve to tell people that they were going to die raving lunatics in two weeks? You see how bad it's getting now, as people are filled with this growing fucking rage. Add on top of it the certain knowledge that they will most certainly die and they will figure it doesn't god damn matter any fucking more what the hell they do.", My mother's face was twisting hard to control anger that was caused by the parasite slowly eating her brain. She never swore like that before, at least not in any normal conversation.

As the parasite grows exponentially in its human hosts it sets itself all along the central nervous system, attaching itself to the nerves throughout the body.

In the brain it finds a home in the most basic parts of our minds and secrets a chemical that mimics the agent responsible for what we refer to as anger. As the parasite grows the mind becomes flooded with this chemical in an overwhelming tide of hate. All the while it destroys the rest of the mind causing eventual insanity, homicidal behavior, and then death.

Some early symptoms include headaches, fever, an uncontrollable itching sensation and the appearance of deep red spots. This is followed by an ever increasing sense of anger, agitation and the inability to sleep. As the severity of the parasitic infection grows, the most obvious indicator is the spread and growth of the small red spots. In the final stages there is insanity, violent and psychotic behavior and some reports of an uncontrollable craving for human flesh.

Then death. But it's not a restful death. The victims of the epidemic are just now starting to show up in the morgues. The dead are exhibiting a disturbing amount of regular twitching and muscular movement. This proves the fact that the parasite still lives within the corpses, and it is their actions causing the sporadic movements.

This morning, before my mother left for work at the hospital she told me to stay indoors, stay out of sight until this is over. She bluntly told me she and everyone else was going to be dead soon and it would be up to survivors like me to try and carry on. I cried and tried to hug her but she held me at arm's length.

"I love you more than I love my own self Jennie. You have to be strong. You have to live through this."

The tears flowed and I hugged her tight and didn't want to let go.

"Stop crying, it is what it is." She almost roughly, almost angrily broke my hug.

"Jannie, I would be crying right now too, if it weren't for this thing inside me. I can't cry anymore. I can't do anything but be angry. I'm so angry right now I'm afraid of hurting you and your sister so I'm going to go to work. Do you understand Jannie, I'm not leaving you because I love work more than you and Lucy, it's because I love both of you more. If I lose control I would rather do it there. If I end up losing control and hurting someone I would rather it were another infected bastard than one of you." The sound of her voice showed the strain she was under.

My mom told me she had been giving Lucy some strong prescription sleeping aids (which is why she slept until after my mother left) and I was to place some into her food to keep her under control until either my sister miraculously got better or died. I was to watch her, let her get something to eat, go to the bathroom, whatever, but as soon as she started to get where she was too much to handle, to sedate her. She reminded me children were quite capable now of picking up a knife and killing just as easily as an adult can.

No matter what, I was not to go to the hospital under any circumstance. The psych ward was full to overflowing with the insane. Most of the crazy ones were in restraints not just to protect others but to protect them from themselves. Some were so intent on ridding themselves of the parasites they were stabbing themselves, trying to dig into their brains to let the things out.

There were so many suicide attempts that most of the doctors (including my mom) have secretly agreed that trying to save them was a waste of time and resources. Suicides either go untreated and left to die or one of the nurses helps the cowards escape with a needle. Screw trying to save someone who was going to die within forty eight hours anyways.

They tried to do what they could, but for the most part the hospital staff was just going through the motions. The only ones they seriously tried to save were those who appeared to be immune. Then the doctors and nurses spared no expense to save those precious lives. There was some darkness about saving the immune. The immune became virtual prisoners and human guinea pigs for some of the doctor's experiments. The doctors and nurses desperately want to find a cure and the immune that are unlucky enough to fall into some of their hands become the subjects of vivisection and worse.

People were drinking poison, herbicide, insect killer and any other insane thing in an attempt to sicken and kill the single celled menace. Overdoses of every kind were being seen as the despondent attempted any and every means to rid themselves of the organism.

The dead, human and animal, are mandated to be burned by federal order in an effort to eradicate the parasite and its eggs. My mother and the doctors understand the reasoning behind that order but the secondary order bewilders them. It states that if the doctors and nurses are not able to perform a cremation on the corpses within 36 hours then a thin blade is to be inserted into the base of the skull where it joins the spine, severing and scrambling the lower portions of the brain.

From all around the city comes the perpetual sound of sirens, of gunshots and the heavy smell of smoke.

The news is filled with chaotic reports of riots, murder and acts of terrorism.

There is talk of the government declaring Martial Law nationwide by tomorrow night.

### Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Since my last entry my mother has gone missing, I killed Mike McConnell's mother then later that day I killed Mike. To top it off, that same night, last night, I buried my sister in the backyard.

All of that happened yesterday. I've spent the majority of today crying and sleeping.

I can't cry anymore. I've cried myself out for the rest of my life. I cried myself to sleep earlier and just now woke up again. Something inside me changed while I slept. I'm not sad or scared anymore. In fact, not only do I feel bereft of any real emotion, I kind of feel and odd excitement. I know it sounds macabre to find the apocalypse stimulating but I've always wondered what it would be like to live through the end of the world. At least I'm not going to die like an insane animal. If I can make it through the next week or so most of the danger will have passed.

It's three a.m. and the neighborhood would normally be almost dead quiet at this time but not tonight. Tonight the air is full of the sound of near and distant gunfire. Screams, some horrified, some pain filled and all colored with an uncontrolled rage, are sporadically heard. Uncontrolled and unfought fires dot the landscape, a heavy smoke drifts through the air like fog. Army and National Guard units patrol the streets in Armored Personnel Carriers and Abrams tanks.

There's an armed check point at the main entrance to the subdivision where I live. I don't know or care which branch of the military is manning it since the Federal Government ordered a severely strict Martial Law order. I've been watching them with a cheap pair of bird watching binoculars I looted from the now empty house next door where old lady Hoffner used to live. They have the Scarlet just as everybody else around the world has but only half as bad. Only half of the soldiers' skin has turned the deep scarlet, compared to the average citizen who is almost completely covered with the tell-tale coloring. Three times a day, every eight hours like clockwork, an officer comes around and hands them a pill. They are obviously under orders to take the pills, as they all take them together. The officer then has them open their mouths and ensures that the pills have been swallowed before they return to their duties. Their duties seem to be to kill anyone outside of their homes at night. To be caught on the street at night is an offense punishable by death. To be caught looting is an offense punishable by death. To be overcome by the disease is punishable by death. In fact everything is an offense punishable by death. When they kill somebody they just leave the body where it falls. After, that is, they put a round into the person's head.

As for the rest of the Federal Government, the President, Vice President and the leading members of the Senate and Congress and their families, nobody has seen them for almost a week now. The consensus is that they are holed up in some hermetically sealed, state of the art, secret, deep bunker somewhere, waiting for all of this to blow over. Probably they are undergoing the curing process that no one else could go through without being re-infected the same day. I don't know who they think they're going to order around when they finally pop their heads back out, certainly not me.

My mother never came home from her shift at the hospital on Monday night. I tried over and over again to reach her through her cell phone but the whole network seems to be down. With all of the chaos washing over the city I nervously waited for her return until Tuesday morning, thinking (hoping) that she had decided to stay overnight at the hospital until it was safer. I knew she would have at least called me on a hospital phone to check on us and let us know she was alright but when the call never came I called up the hospital myself. Something is very wrong at the hospital. The phone rings and rings, then gets placed into a message stating to use the voice mail of the person who I'm trying to contact. I tried doing that and left her a number of messages. I tried to get a hold of the switchboard operators, only to be placed into an eternal hold with easy listening music playing. It is extremely surreal to be listening to music meant to be calming while people are losing their minds and killing each other all around me. I spent at least an hour trying every extension and internal number I could, only to be met with unanswered rings leading to being placed on hold and then transferred to another department that goes into the same, unanswered loop.

When all of this dies down, when all of the madness that the Scarlet has brought with it finally ends, I will go to the hospital and find my mother's body and give her a proper burial next to Lucy.

Lucy had been getting harder and harder to control. Yesterday morning she was groggy from the sedation but she had enough appetite to eat. What she wanted was meat. Red meat. Normally she was never really big on red meat, preferring chicken or pasta. Macaroni and cheese with chicken tenders used to be her favorite meal, along with pizza and the junk food that most kids like. She was almost screaming at the top of her lungs for me to get some red meat for her and I promised her I would find her some for lunch and dinner. For breakfast she refused her favorite cereal with soy milk and even nixed my flapjack idea (basically just flour, water, baking powder and vanilla – the only ingredients we could get at the stores with milk and butter and eggs being gone) by throwing things at me. Instead I got her to eat some of the remaining (and precious) chicken soup. I felt kind of bad about spiking her soup with the sedatives. Her skin was about eighty percent red by then and her gums, fingernails and whites of her eyes were starting to turn black. I knew she would die soon, and decided that I would risk being caught breaking into Mrs. Hoffner's house to try to find a decent last meal for my little sister.

Mrs. Hoffner's house hadn't been touched by anyone in the two weeks or so since her cats opened up her veins. The county took her and the infected feline's corpses away, to be burned, and the house has been empty since. Her relatives all lived in California but with the animal madness, quickly followed by the scarlet, no one in their right mind would come across the country just to box her things up.

After I checked to make sure the guards at the check point weren't getting ready to do one of their random rounds of the neighborhood and surrounding area I jumped the fence into Mrs. Hoffner's backyard. I didn't take the rifle with me, thinking that if I were caught it would be easier to explain what I was doing in my neighbor's house if I weren't armed. While I will never make the mistake of going anywhere unarmed again, it may have saved my life. If the army guy's had heard a gunshot, especially so close to their check point, they would have surely responded. They would have investigated the gunshot just to make sure that nobody was shooting at them, which happens all the time. The parasite crazed populace goes after any authority figures first, especially police and anyone who was ordering them around.

The back door was locked, dead-bolted and had a chain on it. I hesitated for a moment not knowing how to proceed, I had never done any breaking and entering before. The windows had a simple clasp on the inside to lock the window so I threw a rock through it, un-clasped it and raised the window. The breaking of the glass seemed horribly loud to my ears. I prayed a little silent prayer to the Gods that the surrounding sounds of the turmoil of the world collapsing would cover or at least mitigate it. As quickly as I could I slipped through the window, knocking out the screen, and went straight for the kitchen.

I was in luck as the electric company hadn't shut the power off yet and her freezer was well stocked with all kinds of meat. I filled two shopping bags full of the now nearly impossible to get swag and unlocked the back door.

No sooner than I had opened the back door and was stepping outside when I sensed, more than saw, something being swung at my head. Instinctively I ducked back into the house as a nail studded bat hit the screen door, slashing the screen with its sharp nail points. I recognized that bat. The last time I had seen it, it was being wielded by Mr. McConnell. Today the bat was being used by Mrs. McConnell, a large, heavy set woman who had at least a hundred pounds on me and was practically pure red.

Mrs. McConnell rushed straight into the house before I could shut the door on her.

"Bad girl, you know you shouldn't be here."

The words came out of her mouth with a sinister malice in them, having slipped past yellowed teeth surrounded by black gums and a blackened tongue. Insanity clearly burned in eyes that were more like dark holes in her head, they were so black.

"I just need some food Mrs. McConnell," I said.

"Look," I continued, trying to reason with her. "I found some meat here, I'll split it with you and there's more in the freezer."

"Oh, yes, I found some meat here too." She said, raising her weapon.

I'll never forget the look in her eyes or her weird cackle as she swung the wicked spiked bludgeon at me. As I backed up I blocked it with one of the bags of frozen meat. The nails tore through the plastic bag and embedded themselves into a frozen pot roast. The bat got caught up momentarily in the bag, the meat and my yanking and backing away. It was then I saw the sheen of sweat that covered her. It was only due to her sweat slick hands that she lost her grip on the bat. Not losing a moment she bull rushed me. I was faster though and dodged out of the way. Without thinking about it at all I grabbed the bat and twisted it in my grip so the unentangled nails were facing her. She turned her bulk around to face me and go at me again and as she did I swung the bat, plastic bag and frozen pot roast still clinging to it. It was all so quick. Before she had fully turned back towards me I was swinging the nail studded bat at her temple.

It's still lodged in the side of her head, still with the (I suppose) thawing pot roast and shredded plastic bag hanging from it.

Looking back, I find it surprising that after I murdered her (in self defense) I gathered up the frozen meat that had spilled into a fresh bag. After all, it was what I went there for. Then I hurriedly, silently as I could, left the house and its new corpse and proceeded to cook Lucy a fitting last meal.

When Lucy woke up next she was past being controllable. At first she smelled the steaks I was cooking and her mouth watered so much she actually drooled.

There was another smell wafting in from somewhere though. I had noticed it earlier while she was sleeping. I couldn't place the meat being cooked exactly, it was familiar, yet somehow sickly to my nose. I thought somebody had decided to try and spice up some rotted meat of some kind, or maybe even a dog, which would account for the odd smell of it. I had hoped that my cooking would cover up the unusual smell but after barely a minute Lucy smelled it.

Her reaction to the smell was immediate. She snapped her head around and ran straight out the door before I could stop her. I grabbed my gun on the way out the front door and tried to catch up to her but she was quick. I have no idea how she could determine where the odor was coming from so fast but she made a bee-line right towards Mike's house.

Mike McConnell's house was the last place I had wanted to go. Having secretly killed his mother kind of puts a strain on conversation, not to mention the fact he turned out to be just as insane as his mother.

Lucy had started beating loudly on his front door and after a moment Mike, red faced and black eyed, opened the door. It looked as if Mike was going to yell at Lucy until he saw me. Then his attitude changed to one of all smiles. The smile on his face wasn't one of kindness. I had known Mike since he was a kid and this smile was hiding an ulterior motive.

"I want some Mike. Can I have some? Please Mike? I don't know what you're cooking but it smells sooo good." The words came out of Lucy's mouth in a hurried tumble.

"Sure, c'mon in Lucy," Mike replied a little too slickly.

"You can have some too if you want Jannie, There's plenty here." As he spoke those words he opened the door and Lucy almost ran into the house.

I had to follow Lucy. She was my little sister and parasite maddened or not I was going to keep her safe. Lucy went without hesitation into the kitchen and I could hear her getting a plate of something.

"Help yourself Lucy," Mike said smiling.

"Mmmm, it's so good," Lucy said with her mouth full.

I couldn't see into the kitchen and Mike was weirdly trying to block my way.

I asked him, "What kind of meat is that Mike?"

"Long pig."

Mike wasn't like his mother in his speed. It seemed as if his insanity granted him an even greater edge. In a flash he had stripped the rifle from my hands, throwing it away. He was in the prime of his life (if it weren't for the parasite), and he overwhelmed me in a second, knocking me flat on the floor.

Mike was grunting as he started ripping off my clothes. It was obvious he was intent on raping me. I couldn't believe how strong he actually was but once I got one of my hands free for a brief moment I jammed my fingers in his eye. The black orb burst and spilled a thick black fluid. He screamed then and reflexively reached his hands up to his face which gave me the break I needed to scoot out from under him and grab my rifle.

He was screaming obscenities at me but I didn't shoot him, I crushed his skull in with the butt. I made sure he was dead and went to check on Lucy who was oblivious to what was happening in the room next to her.

No sooner did I step into the kitchen when I realized what he meant by "long pig". His father had been sliced up rather crudely, blood was all over the room. Entrails and only Satan knows what, was hanging out of the trash can and I puked right there.

Lucy was gorging herself on the thigh meat of Mr. McConnell, and as I tried to gain control of my stomach, she smiled at me and kept eating.

To hell with it I thought, what is done is done. I let her finish her disgusting meal and it seemed to calm her almost back to normal.

I easily lead her back to our house and gave her some orange juice spiked with the sedatives. She had the meal she wanted. It turned out to be her last meal. I had hoped maybe she was craving human flesh for a reason. Like maybe there was something in it that would slow or stop the parasite. I have always believed that when your body craves a certain food it's for a reason. Now I think the cannibalistic craving is from the parasite.

Whatever, it doesn't matter, she died later that night and I buried her in the back yard. The grave isn't deep but there are no predators to dig her dead body up. Maybe tomorrow I can dig a proper grave for her and one for my mom (when I find her body). I want to lay them to rest next to each other.

The insanity is showing up on the news (or whatever passes for the news now). The newscasters themselves are infected. Fact and fiction are mixed together in some obvious craziness, like reports of the dead rising.

### Friday, September 28, 2012

I had no intention of writing in this journal again. It's clear now that there won't be any kind of school again for a long time, if ever. The teachers, staff and students are all dead or dying. In fact, the human race as a whole is dead or dying.

The rules of reality have changed. I keep having the insane thought that I'm trapped in a nightmare, that I'm actually still asleep in my bed and can't wake up. What is happening though is not a dream, this has to be real. By reading my previous entries and writing new ones helps my mind to accept the fact that this is real. Maybe I died from some sickness and this is purgatory. What else am I to think when the dead start clawing their way out of the grave?

As if the dead rising wasn't bad enough, the "Scarlet Madness" has driven half the world into war. The sun has been blotted out by ugly, thick grey clouds. The ash and debris fall like a light sprinkling of snow, most of it is the fallout from nuclear weapons going off somewhere. I know it's got to be radioactive to some extent. The air has an overwhelming odor to it, not just of fire and ash but of death itself.

A lot has happened since my last entry. Events started happening so fast it's hard to tell the real order, so I'll write them as I experienced them.

Television stations started going off the air one by one. The stations that remain broadcasting come in four varieties. The first variety of remaining stations is broadcasting endless loops of various Christian or other religious shows.

The second most prevalent broadcast is a feed from the National Emergency Broadcast System. The feed is nothing more than a black screen with scrolling text and the intermittent annoying alert sound every 30 seconds. The first time I read the text I didn't believe what I saw. Along with the standard warning to seek shelter immediately comes the constant reminder of Martial Law. That information didn't shock me. The dire warning to either burn the dead or to separate their heads from their bodies did. That and the blunt statement that the parasite will re-animate the infected host's body freaked me out. I didn't really understand what that meant until my little sister Lucy came back from the dead.

The third type of station broadcast is re-runs of comedies or children's cartoons. Watching those shows while the apocalypse rages right outside the door is surreal to say the least.

The very rare fourth type of station still has live broadcasts. Only two stations still broadcast, MSNBC and CNN. The MSNBC news anchor is showing the tell-tale signs of the infection. The man bleakly and almost sadly goes about reporting what he can to an empty studio. It's quite clear he knows he will soon die and be resurrected by the parasite. The CNN anchor woman seems to be immune, like me, and she talks to the camera man, who might be infected. The fear in her eyes is visible.

Even with the warnings, I didn't really believe that nonsense about the undead until this morning. I had spent most of last night downloading various survival guides like "The Anarchist Cookbook" and "The Poor Man's James Bond" and printing them out until I ran out of paper. I have no idea how long the net will stay up, some sites are already down. I fell asleep on the couch after stapling them into a makeshift book. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to read as much of it as I could. I don't know how long I spent reading, I only stopped reading to empty my bladder.

It was after I went to the bathroom and got a glass of water from the kitchen that I saw with some alarm there was someone in the backyard. I stared with disbelief at my sister, covered with the dirt of her shallow grave, standing and staring blankly over her excavated resting place.

My first instinct was to rush out there and hug her. My feet started to take me to the backdoor, of their own accord, before I realized it. This was a different world now, with different rules. My old instincts don't apply anymore and it took some mental control, but I made myself go get the rifle.

Part of me wanted so much for her to be ok. The crazy thought that she had beaten the sickness and I was guilty of burying her alive was going through my head. I knew for a fact that she was dead when I buried her. The fact that she was buried and covered with three feet of sandy soil for almost two days was a logic that I had to conform to. Even if I had buried her alive there is no way she would have survived without air for that long. As unbelievable as it sounds she had to be some sort of "zombie". The word "zombie" is a ridiculous word. I have a hard time just thinking that word but there is no other word for what my little sister had become.

As soon as I opened the backdoor, my dead sister turned towards me when she heard the door opening. I stood aghast as Lucy's body stutteringly took its first few steps towards me. Her gait was like the unsure steps of a child who had just learned to walk. Her eyes were blackened and slightly glossed over, vacant of any intelligence. Dirt from the grave clogged her nostrils and as she stumbled as fast as she could towards me she opened her jaws as if getting ready to bite me.

I shot her in the chest and the impact knocked her to the ground, dirt flying from her clothes. I still couldn't get it into my head what was happening, it was like I was dreaming this. Then my little sister got back up. There was no blood flowing as it should from the hole in her chest, just a thick black liquid dribbling out of the wound. She got back up and I could almost physically feel her hunger as she determinedly came at me again. No words came from her, no scream of pain or questioning of my putting a bullet into her. I had almost been transfixed by the horrible sight of my sister's undead corpse shambling towards me until it got almost within arm's reach. My M1 was pointing straight at her head and I had already shot her once but she either ignored or didn't recognize the threat the rifle posed. So I shot her again. In the head. Nasty black ichor and pieces of her rotted brains and skull flew out in a spray behind her, whipping her head back. She fell backwards and this time she didn't get back up.

I actually prodded her with my rifle making sure she was dead again before I re-buried her.

The men at the checkpoint are acting chaotic, often fighting amongst themselves. Whatever pills they've been taking only slowed down the Scarlet instead of stopping it. My pilfered binoculars, taken from Mrs. Hoffner's house, are low quality but good enough to make out that they only have a day, maybe two at the most, of life left in them. About once an hour or so it seems they let off rounds, shooting at what has to be other undead, parasite controlled bodies.

The reports from the remaining news channels both confirm that the U.S. is now at war with North Korea, China and at least three different nations in the Middle East.

We are at war with North Korea because they launched a massive attack on South Korea. They opened up their war with nuclear weapons, obliterating Pusan and Seoul. They also sent a nuke at Japan, aiming for the Tokyo area and Yokosuka with its huge naval base. The weapon didn't reach its target but still exploded over mainland Japan. The communist North Korean's flooded over the DMZ and are murdering everyone, military and civilian, alike.

China took the opportunity to reclaim Taiwan in a massive naval and amphibious attack. We have diplomatic and political obligations to Taiwan, our navy is fighting back trying to take control of the seas.

Israel was attacked by Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Iran started the war by launching a nuclear tipped missile at Jerusalem, according to the missile's flight path. The nuclear missile was shot down and actually exploded over Jordan. There isn't a whole lot we can do besides send our carriers and their accompanying fleets to engage the enemies.

Besides World War Three raging, everybody dropping dead from the Scarlet after being driven homicidal, food shortages and the dead rising with an uncontrollable hunger for human flesh, I've been given a particularly heavy flow this month.

I can't say how often I'll write in this journal. It may be daily or weekly. I'll write whenever I need to, whenever I feel I need to tell any future survivors what's happening.

Nobody has any idea how long the dead will walk the earth. I can't see such an abomination like that continuing for long though. Hopefully it'll last for only a couple of days, maybe a week. Until then I'm going to hunker down and survive as well as I can.

### Monday, October 1, 2012

Until Saturday I was glad the soldiers were manning the checkpoint down the street. Even though they were slowly losing their grips on their sanity, they had been doing an excellent job of eliminating the undead.

On Saturday afternoon the tank loaded up and drove off. This left seven men and their Armored Personnel Carrier on duty at the entrance to the subdivision.

In the beginning of the parasitic resurrection, the undead things rose up singly and their numbers were few. The first day the dead were scattered and easy to eliminate, once people learned to go for the head. Many of the newly risen dead came back inside their own houses where they died of the infection. While there must have been some that came back before that, they were rare. There appears to be a delay of around forty eight hours after normal death before the parasite can gain enough control over their host's dead body to make it obey their will. I'm going to consider last Friday, the day my sister clawed her way out of her grave, to be day one.

On the second day, those that had come back to walk the earth with their unfathomable hunger, started finding their ways out of their houses or wherever they had died. They stumbled through open doors, or in most cases, clumsily crashing through the larger windows of their living rooms. The numbers of the zeds (I'm going to call them "zeds" or "zombies" now, there is no other word I can use to describe them) increased dramatically, to what I guess is about ten percent of the population. Or what the population used to be, anyways. That was Saturday. I guess on Saturday the last of those affected by the Scarlet died.

On Sunday the numbers of the dead grew by billions.

That means sometime today, somewhere between seventy and eighty percent of seven billion people, or around five and a half billion zeds will walk the earth. If a full ten percent of the population is immune (and I know many of the immune were killed in the chaos before this) then there will be around seven hundred million survivors. A ratio of approximately eight to one. That doesn't seem so bad at first glance. But how many of the survivors are children that can't adequately defend or care for themselves? How many are still babies whose parents have turned into ravenous, cannibalistic, rotting corpses? How many are sick or elderly that are bed-ridden or can barely walk? I fear the real number of survivors that are capable of fighting back and surviving through even the next week is half that. That makes it more like fifteen or sixteen nightmares for every able bodied survivor. The numbers I am working with are rough estimates, there are no real statistics.

I'm not in my house any more. On Saturday afternoon the soldiers manning the checkpoint finally went berserk and started a rampage. They burned the neighborhood to the ground.

Remember how I mentioned the two remaining newscasters in a previous entry? Well, around four a.m. on Saturday morning the obviously infected newsman started going into odd, rambling speeches. He would vehemently make outrageous statements one second and the stop and apologize the next. He was losing his sanity on live TV. After one of those rounds, a long, extended rant, he got a strange look in his eyes and suddenly produced a chrome plated revolver. He stared into the barrel for a few moments and then, without a word to the viewers, shot himself. The feed is still being broadcast, his dead body sprawled back in his chair.

The second newscaster, the woman who appeared to be uninfected, got into an argument with the lone cameraman. The things the cameraman was saying to her were vile, disgusting things of a sexual nature. The woman started ordering the cameraman from the studio, to which the infected and now clearly insane man responded by rushing at the pretty but scared woman. The red faced man jumped over the news desk and grabbed her with both hands, one getting a fistful of her hair, the other going for her breasts. They only struggled for a moment when there came the roar of a gunshot, spraying the cameraman's brains and the back of his skull all over the studio. A piece of flesh from the dead man struck the camera lens and hangs there still. The unnerved woman got up and left the studio and soon after there was plainly heard more shots. I don't know if she escaped or not or what happened to her afterwards but the feed is still active, if a bit blurred from the gore on the camera. That happened on Saturday afternoon, just before the soldiers joined the ranks of the insane.

Saturday afternoon, before the Abrams tank left the checkpoint, a group of the soldiers started going into the nearby houses. There was no knocking, no announcing their intentions to anyone who may be still alive in the house, they just battered down the front door and forced their way in. There was always gunshots immediately afterwards, I guess from them finding the occupants either already risen from the dead or twitching and getting ready to. Maybe they had originally planned to start clearing the neighborhood house by house but that soon got way off track.

The soldiers had cleared four or five houses when they found a survivor. I was watching with my binoculars through barely parted curtains with great interest at their actions. I heard some shouting and then they brought someone out of the house. The person they brought out had to be like seventy or eighty years old and needed to be helped out. I recognized the old man, but never really spoke to him, I can't even remember his name. I could see no sign of the infection on the elderly guy. The soldier "helping" the old man outside was almost dragging him. They rudely and roughly, at the point of their guns, made the old man strip off his clothes.

I wasn't prepared for what they did next. I thought they would let the old man go when they saw he was clean with no sign of the parasite.

The soldiers started arguing with each other while the frail, stooped gentleman held his trembling hands as far in the air as he could. What they were arguing about I couldn't hear. As they shouted at each other, one of the soldiers walked behind the old dude and pulled out a large knife. The soldier didn't just cut the man's throat, with his left hand he hit and pushed the man's head back by forcing his stiffened fingers under the man's nose, compressing the bundle of nerve endings located there. The old man instinctively moved his head backwards and the soldier rammed the blade into that part of the neck just under and behind the back of the lower jaw, directly below the ear. The blade was long and sharp and it easily cut through arteries and muscle. When the knife was completely through the neck, extending out the other side, the soldier pushed forward on the hilt and sliced open the poor man's neck from the inside. Blood spurted out both sides of the old man's neck and before he could fall the soldier adjusted his left hand. He grossly stuck his gingers in the old man's nostrils and yanked back hard, breaking the old man's neck. The head loosely flopped against the back of the spine. Bladder and bowels let loose then and the body stood there momentarily, jets of bright red blood squirting.

The soldiers started shouting and pointing their guns at each other, and although I couldn't actually make out what they were saying, I knew at least what the killer was saying. The murderer had his arm's spread and the knife still out as if he were asking the other's if they wanted to fight about it.

That's when the Abrams tank packed up and drove off.

That's when I started packing up my backpack and a large duffle bag full of whatever I thought I would need if I had to flee. I tossed clothes, family pictures, food and whatever, including this journal into the bags.

When I was done packing I returned to the window and nervously watched the soldiers. When I saw what they were doing then I started practicing aiming my rifle at them, concentrating mainly on the brazen murderer.

As the blood covered murderer was dismembering his victim, the others started dragging looted Bar-B-Q equipment to the side of the APC and another shouted happily as he hauled a stash of beer from one of the houses.

Just as I was about to try my luck at shooting them before they had their evil little party one of the soldiers came out of the back of the APC and started screaming at the others. The argument ended with three of the soldiers giving him a nasty beating. They took his rifle and sidearm from him and when he got up he went directly into the nearest house. As the others laughed at the beaten and bruised soldier, who they assumed went into the house to pout and lick his wounds, the roughed up soldier put a different plan into action.

I watched and waited, deciding I would have a better chance to execute the murderers after they had gotten drunk and were sedated by the meal they were soon to eat. I had seen the effect the eating of human flesh had on the infected after watching my sister Lucy. They would be slow and almost numbed. It would be easier by far to start trying to kill the monsters later than if I started then.

In a few minutes there came the sound of an engine revving followed by the sound of screeching tires. All of the soldiers looked up in the direction of the noise.

In an instant a newer model Lexus roared into view (I recognized the car, the neighbor it had belonged to was really proud of it and had kept it meticulously clean and polished), driving straight towards those that had pounded on him.

One of the maddened soldiers couldn't run away quick enough and got hit. I could see both of his legs snap at the knees as his body and face hit the hood of the car, then the body bounced onto the windshield, spidering it before it flew like a rag doll over the car.

The remaining soldiers opened fire on the driver, spraying a hail of bullets into him. They continued to fire, stopping to reload, even as the car slowly rolled to a stop in someone's front yard. When the car came to a stop one of the group opened the driver door and unloaded a fresh clip into the obviously dead driver.

Good I thought, I only have five of them left to kill.

By the time the parasite crazed soldiers were finished with their hideous meal and were drunk and sleepy, nighttime was soon approaching.

I slid the window open a crack, not wanting to shoot through the window. The murderer, the one I wanted to kill the most was standing, smoking and drinking, laughing with one of his crew. One of the group was almost sleeping at his post manning the fifty caliber mounted on the APC. The rest except for the murderer and a buddy of his were somewhere inside the APC, probably sleeping. Through my binoculars I could see he was sweating like the pig that he was. I watched happily as he stripped off his body armor. This was the best time to take my shot and I did.

I was aiming for his head but my aim was off. The bullet hit him in the upper left part of his chest and he went down screaming. I tried to shoot his buddy too, but missed as he dodged into the APC. In no time the sleepy soldier manning the machine gun came awake and not knowing where the shot actually came from, just started spraying the houses randomly up and down the street. I guess the guy I missed told him the area I was in because he started firing at my house and the houses on either side.

Bullets were literally tearing the house apart and it seemed a miracle that I didn't get hit. I crouched and hid by the back door, getting ready to grab my stuff and run. It seemed like forever but after almost ten minutes the gunfire slackened and stopped.

I heard the front door to the house next to me getting busted in then, quickly followed by the sound of a grenade going off. I grabbed my stuff then and went into the bushes at the back of the house along the fence.

I heard someone shout "Burn them all."

Then there came the sounds of more breaking glass as they threw Molotov's into every house on the street, including mine.

I jumped the fence into the neighbor's yard behind us and managed to take one last good shot as they burned my house. One of the soldiers had made the mistake of stopping and taking up a position between my house and my burning neighbor's house, facing away from me. The soldier was close and my aim was true. His head exploded like a ripe melon. At least I got two of them. They will be dead soon anyways. Even if I didn't start the shooting, I know they would have continued their house to house search and would have soon found me anyways. Better to fight them when I had the best chance for survival than for them to sneak in my house at night and capture me.

Now I'm blocks away, hiding inside an empty house a friend of mine used to live in. I knew the place was empty before I broke in so I wouldn't have to worry about being eaten by a zed. The bank had foreclosed on the house and evicted them right before the animal madness had begun.

This place may be empty but it's not secure. I'm going to have to find someplace better to hole up in until the dead lay back down like their supposed to. I hope it's soon.

### Wednesday, October 3, 2012

How can I explain the sheer scope of the horror I have witnessed in the last few days?

The empty house I had found refuge in was bare. No furnishings, no food, no running water and no electricity.

I hadn't taken much food with me when I ran from the crazed soldiers. In all reality, there wasn't much I could take with me. Our cupboards weren't well stocked to begin with and most of what we did have required a stove. That night in the abandoned house, the only thing I ate was a single can of tomato soup. I didn't have anything to add to it so I ate it straight from the can. It didn't taste very good at all but I made myself finish the whole can before I tried to find a safe place to lie down for the night.

There were no curtains on the windows and any passerby, whether they be dead or alive, could look right in and see me. That was too great a risk so I made the bathroom floor my sleeping area. There was a window above the bathtub but it was small and opaque, anyone looking in would have to be an eight foot tall giant with x-ray eyes.

As night fell the weather dropped and a cold, light rain started to fall. It brought with it a dampness and a chill. I had failed to pack a sleeping bag or any kind of blanket so I improvised by wearing three layers of clothes.

I cracked the bathroom window an inch, not to let in fresh air but because I wanted to be able to hear better what was happening outside. With the bathroom door closed, and locked, I lay there trying to sleep, trying to figure out I should do next until I did fall asleep. Needless to say I didn't sleep well and when I did, I had unnerving dreams of my mother's and sister's ghosts.

It was well into the middle of the restless night when I noticed the occasional, unmistakable flashes of light from what could only be a lighter. It seemed to be coming from the house next door and when I listened I could hear the familiar sound of a little round striker sparking a flint.

I remember thinking to myself, "What kind of madness is this?", as the distinctive scent of someone smoking crack cocaine drifted in through the window. Not that I've ever smoked that garbage myself but the best place to find and buy drugs is at your local High School.

I crept up to the bathroom window and nervously glanced through the small opening. There was someone incredulously smoking the crap right next door. I could see the light from the lighter flash and burn for a few seconds at a time. A shoddily hung blanket haphazardly covered the window right across from me. It was foolhardy to say the least. There were gaps in the makeshift curtain and I could almost see the person as he struck the lighter. I saw the curtains move in the small breeze and realized whoever it was had the window full open, leaving me to wonder if I had taken shelter next to a crack house. I hadn't noticed it before, but now, I saw the yard was overgrown with weeds and miscellaneous junk was scattered arbitrarily around the property. The house's paint was peeling and most of the gutters were either clogged or hanging from the roof. It was obvious to anyone who knew what to look for that this was a drug house.

I wasn't the only one who had noticed the brief flashes of light. The street lights silhouetted the halting gait of what could only be the undead. At first there was only one who was drawn to the sight, maybe out of some kind of curiosity, I don't know what alerts them.

That's when a loud, haggard and rasping coughing fit echoed in the otherwise silent night.

In a heartbeat every one of the walking dead turned and started to converge on the house next door. I ducked down and listened alertly. The zeds are quiet. They don't moan or mutter for "Brains" as they do in those cheap movies. In reality they are almost silent, the only sound they make is the sound of their shuffling walk as they drag their feet through the grass or along the pavement. The falling rain, as light as it was, almost covered the noise of their approach. My senses were fully aware and quickly there came the sound of multiple pairs of feet dragging and thudding through the grass.

More flickering light, then another round of coughing. Every zombie in the immediate vicinity was converging on the house next door. The undead started banging relentlessly on the near dilapidated structure next door. They were pummeling and clawing with necrotic hands, attempting to get inside and slacken their unquenchable hunger.

I heard the crack-head next door swear profusely as the horde shattered the windows and ripped apart the ragged screen to the room he was in.

The deafening sound of a large caliber handgun boomed out, punching huge holes in not only the zeds he was aiming at, but also the house I was hiding in. It was all I could do to huddle in the cold bathtub, hoping no bullets had my name on them. Six shots were fired in quick succession, followed by what could only be the sound of the weapon's hammer clacking uselessly on already fired shells.

"Mother-fuckers get out! Get out! God damn you!", he hoarsely screamed.

Then came the distinctive sound of something solid smashing into a skull amidst the sound of more windows breaking. The undead had found fresh meat and the gunshots served only to call more of them to the soon to be served meal.

I risked taking a peek through the window then. A mass of the parasite controlled monsters had completely surrounded the house next door. The space between the houses was filled with the hungering horrors. Thank all the Gods that the fiend's attentions were focused on their prey next door, none had noticed me. I watched the horde as it poured in through the busted windows, mindless of the sharp shards of glass as it ripped open huge tears in their unfeeling, rotting flesh.

As the hungering dead flooded the house I heard the neighbor's back door slam open as the occupant tried to make a run for it. He didn't get very far, even though he was swinging an aluminum bat, there were just too many of them. I watched, transfixed by the terrible sight, as the undead dragged him down and mercilessly bit huge pieces of flesh from his body.

Just before the man disappeared from view under the mob of ghouls we made eye contact. He saw me and looked straight into my soul before he vanished, screaming, down the gullets of things that should not be. I still see his pain filled eyes. It is something I will remember for the rest of my life, however long or short that is. I will not die like that. Before that happens I will save a last bullet for myself rather than be eaten alive by the murderous living dead.

I could hear the zombies eating. They were ripping and tearing at the man's flesh, greedily feasting. With those hideous sounds in my ears I gathered up my things as quietly as a mouse and fled out a window on the side of the house opposite the massacre. It was clear of zeds on this side, away from the neighbor's house, all of the fiends were busy. It would have been suicide to stay there any longer. There were too many of the abominations. Too many, too close.

I got more than a block away before I started to come across more of the undead. I took refuge in another house, finding one that was unlocked so I wouldn't have to risk making noise by breaking in. I thanked whatever God or Gods that were watching over me, for the hundredth time that night, upon finding it empty.

I tried to sleep but couldn't. Not after what had happened. I looted what little food there was and in the morning found a set of car keys.

I had no desire to stay in a house with large picture windows. What I wanted to find was a castle with a nice big moat filled with alligators. I would settle for a solid building with boarded up windows, or preferably, no windows.

I couldn't carry everything I had for very long and decided to "borrow" the mini-van in the attached garage. I decided to scout the area for a suitable place to hole up in until the dead die their final death. I truly have no idea how long that will be. Surely it can't be too long. Even though the flesh of their unwilling hosts is dead, the parasites themselves are alive. They still have to be subject to the same needs for food and water as everything else, right?

I loaded up the vehicle and drove. I ran down and over a handful of the unliving things when I could.

The risen dead include young and old alike. From nightmarish babies in diapers crawling on all fours to elderly senior citizens hobbling, hunched over and unsteady. They wore the bloodied and tattered clothes they died in, some were dressed in nothing at all.

They shambled and staggered around singly, but that was actually rare. More and more the zeds seemed to gather together in groups, like some frightful mass of ants. Just like army ants, one or two are a nuisance, a group of them is a deadly threat.

Sometimes I had to turn around and find another way around a herd of the undead, I encountered them milling about certain houses and buildings or around blood and gore smeared spots on the ground.

Sometimes I had to back track around road blocks or accident scenes. Sometimes I was able to drive over lawns or through parking lots. For the most part I think it would actually be faster to get around on foot, if one could stay clear of the ravenous atrocities that is.

I did stop for a fully loaded, snub-nosed, gun black, thirty-eight "Saturday night special" revolver lying all by its lonesome in the middle of the street. The Gods put it in my path for a reason, I figured. I stuck it in my back pocket and almost forgot about it.

I had seen a couple of possible places to hide when I realized how close I actually was to the Winter Park Hospital. The desire to try and find out what happened to my mother came into me then, I found it impossible to ignore the urge. Unfortunately the closer I got, the denser the number of the undead became. There are only a few ways to get to the hospital and every time I got close I drew more and more unwanted attention to myself. Finally, depressingly, I had to abandon my quest to get to the hospital, there were just too many of them. Some part of me clung to the idea my mother was hiding somewhere in the hospital and I had to go and save her. I had to push that thought down and bury it deep. If she was alive still she would have tried to at least call me. I still have my cell phone and still all her cell phone does is ring and go to voice mail, which is almost full by now. Besides, nobody lived for long after catching the Scarlet. I knew in my head she had joined the unholy army of the dead, I had to convince my heart to abandon any hope to find her alive.

After doing nothing more than getting the attention of a large number of zeds, who eagerly lurched and swayed as fast as they could towards my vehicle, I returned to my search for a place to hide.

I came to another road block, this one with an up-armored Humvee in the center. Dead (truly dead) bodies littered the area. I was trying to negotiate a way around it, grimacing as I drove over rotting corpses when I saw a lone figure come up from the interior of the M114. The marine's face was a deep scarlet, his eyes black as the void and he checked the bolt on the mounted machine gun, ensuring a round was chambered. I saw him check to ensure the safety was off as he swiveled towards me. I punched the gas as hard as I could and ducked as far down as I could while still being able to see where I was going.

The machine gun spit fire and slugs at me. The bullets were hitting the back end of the minivan and were quickly punching holes up to the driver's seat. I didn't escape because I drove well or the minivan was fast. I didn't escape because the frenzied marine was a poor shot. I escaped because the minivan's rear wheels slipped and slid on a corpse's rotted guts and sticky-slick half congealed blood. The Minivan went into a skid and the arc of bullets went right past me, but not by much. I over corrected and almost lost control, fishtailing from side to side at high speed. I went around a semi, its bulk shielding me, finally escaping the deadly encounter.

I survived without a scratch, the minivan didn't. Within a mile smoke and steam started billowing from the engine.

Fate, the Gods, or destiny had decided where I ended up. As the vehicle started to die, a suitable building came into view. It was a strip club of all things. It would serve well though, solid masonry brick building with no windows and a heavy set of doors. It was set apart from the surrounding neighborhood and commercial buildings, with access to the freeway nearby and a noticeable lack of the undead.

I had no sooner checked the front doors, hoping they would be open, which they weren't, when I started around to the back. Before I could run around the corner I heard the front door open and someone from inside called out.

"Quick, come in here," a distinctly older male voice said in almost a whisper.

All I could see of him at the time was an expensive suit sleeve and white shirt cuff. The hand holding the door open belonged to a black man, that only meant that I couldn't tell from where I was if he was infected or not. I had my rifle and I had my pistol so I entered the darkened club.

The interior was dark, the only light shining was behind the bar. A lone neon Budweiser sign lit the interior. As the sturdy doors closed behind me, I paused, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

"Welcome to my club. Are you here to put in an application?", he laughed then, an almost good natured sounding laugh.

My eyes hadn't completely adjusted and I almost stumbled on a table while I followed him to the bar. He had stopped on the other side of the long bar, like he was going to wait on me and fix me a drink. I still couldn't see if he was infected yet and I leaned forward to get a better glimpse of his eyes to see if they had started to turn black.

That's when he flicked on the bright over head spotlights and strobe lights. The unexpected switch from darkness to intense light blinded me and I instinctively closed my eyes. He suddenly grabbed my M1 carbine way too easily from my grasp. He caught me completely off guard. That's twice someone had stripped me of my firearm in barely over a week. First Mike did it and now this crazed maggot. I have got to find a rifle with a strap or make one for this somehow, so I can wrap it around my arm and stop this nonsense. Nobody will ever do that to me again I assure you.

He laughed manically and I could hear him removing the cartridge and ejecting the loaded round. That was his mistake and he will never do that again, guaranteed. I didn't need to see him to know where he was, his laugh was loud and filled with madness. I simply reached into my rear pocket and shot into the sound of that laugh. The abrupt end to his laughter told me he was dead and I knew it before his body hit the floor.

I walked around the bar and put another round in his head just to make sure. He died with his eyes open, they were black globes. He was infected alright, even if he wasn't, it didn't matter. Pull a stunt like that and I will shoot anyone.

When the sound of the gun shots stopped echoing in my ears and my eyes were back to normal I saw another disgusting sight.

There were two stripper poles on a stage at the far end of the club. Both of them had an undead horror handcuffed to them. Dead flesh in heavy make-up and glitter strained against their restraints at the sight of my young, warm body.

When I walked up to them, to put them out of their misery, I saw open tubes of K-Y and used rubbers. The zombie strippers had the sheen of the lubricant on them, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the sick freak had been doing.

This place isn't too bad. There's a little kitchen well stocked with food. There's running water and even a small shower in the girl's dressing room. Electricity, heat, and even surveillance cameras. I should be OK here for the time being.

### Friday, October 5, 2012

I stood there and simply stared at what once were young women, who didn't appear to be much older than I. They were handcuffed to the stripper poles, the shiny steel cuffs had cut and sliced open their wrists. Having become the unliving monstrosities that they are now, the deep wounds went to the bone, if they felt any pain at all they didn't show it. The steel of the cuffs had carved through skin, muscle and tendon without a drop of blood spilling on the stage. I could plainly see deep black patches on their bodies where the blood that had been in their poor bodies had pooled and congealed when they died. Eventually I knew they, in their unceasing struggles to be free and devour the living, would end up cutting and separating their dead, unfeeling hands from their wrists.

I could have simply shot them in the head then but chose not to. I already had one mess behind the bar to clean up. I might have to stay here for a week, maybe more. I really didn't feel like having to clean bits of dead flesh, hair, skull and brains any more than I already had to. I figured I could take the opportunity to experiment with different ways to more cleanly kill them, silently.

To kill the first undead stripper, I searched for and found, a nice long skinny knife in the kitchen. I stood behind her, grabbing a fistful of her filthy black hair and pulled back on her head. It came to me that this must be nearly the same way the insane owner must have had his vile way with her dead body. Instead of holding a knife in his hand though, he must have wrapped it around her waist and pulled her back, using the nasty things handcuffed wrists for leverage. It was an interesting way to control the thing, to say the least. I, however, took the opportunity to slide the blade into the base of the skull, where the spine meets the head. It was gross, I could feel the blade scraping around on the bone of the spine and skull until I found the right angle to sever the spinal cord. When I did that the body collapsed but the head still snapped its jaws and the eyes still tried to track my movements. The body was dead but the parasite controlled brain was still active. I gritted my teeth as I reinserted the blade up through the small opening, where skull meets spine, stabbing into the remains of its brain. As soon as I did so, there was an immediate reaction, the eyes rolled spasmodically and its black tongue rolled and stuck out so that the jaws bit the end of it off. After a couple wriggles of the knife, scrambling and dicing that part of the brain, the eyes stopped and even the facial muscles slackened. Now I knew another way to quietly kill the things. I practiced my new skill on the second, working on my technique.

I found the key to the handcuffs in one of the pockets of the corpse behind the bar along with the keys to the strip club. I dragged the dead dancers to the large dumpster out back. It turned out to be a harder job than I thought it would be. I thought dragging my little sister's corpse to her grave (twice) was bad, but she weighed next to nothing compared to these grown adults. By the time I was ready for the third corpse, that of the man I had shot, I had to take a break. The large dead man had to weigh as much as both of the girls combined. Maybe I would just drag his body outside and leave it for the crows.

I saw a couch in the VIP room and almost collapsed into it. I felt exhausted, like all the energy had just drained out of my body. Whether it was from not sleeping well for the past few weeks or the stress or a combination of the two I can't really say. I just felt worn out, both emotionally and physically. I passed out then and fell into a deep, dark, dreamless sleep. I don't know how long I slept, there are no windows or clocks in the bar.

I awoke famished, hungrier than I had been in a long time. To my surprise and joy the club's freezer was well stocked with whatever I desired. This place had obviously been shut down since the animal madness swept the planet, when food was still abundant. I ate like a pig and when I was finished I slept again.

For all the good points the building had going for it, I found I was lacking even the most basic hygiene products. There was no shampoo or soap and I had failed to pack even a comb or toothbrush. I wanted a blanket or sleeping bag. I was going to have to risk going back out into the zombie infested world to do some looting.

I knew the area, I knew my best option was to hit up the Wal-Mart a couple of miles away at the most. I traveled light, just me and my weapons, on foot. On the way back, depending on how much I was carrying, I decided I could always try my luck and find a car to drive back in.

When I got outside things seemed to be more active than they were just a few days ago. Not in a good way though. There were more of the undead in the streets. There were more gunshots and distant screams as survivors found their house was no safe place to hide anymore. Thick black smoke from burning buildings billowed into the sky all around.

While none of the zombies were as fast as a living person, many of them were capable of moving at more than a slow shuffle. It seemed to take forever, hiding, waiting for a break and then dashing from cover to cover, avoiding the undead. At times I had to backtrack. Other times I had to shoot my way past small groups, drawing the attention of even more walking carcasses. Every time I had to use my weapon I had to go into a more circuitous route, taking myself slightly further from my destination, trying to lose the ravenous undead following me. Over fences, through backyards and around neighborhood houses I traveled.

I lucked out and came across an abandoned checkpoint, the soldiers who had manned it finally succumbed to the scarlet. Many of them lay twitching, a sure sign that they would eventually rise as mindless, cannibalistic horrors. I mashed their heads with the butt of my carbine and looted their cold cadavers. I found an M16, with a sling and a wickedly sharp bayonet attached to it. No one would strip my rifle from me again. I found some ammo for it and stuffed it into one of their backpacks. I didn't find as much ammo as I thought I should, I guess they had been doing a lot of shooting. There was certainly plenty of the dead sprawled around, evidently shot by the soldiers. There came a certain thrill when I found three hand grenades and I happily added them to the ammo. I was kind of disappointed, having barely filled a quarter of the backpack, when a group of zeds started getting close enough to spot me.

The Wal-Mart parking lot looked like a small war had been fought there. It wasn't much better inside. I quickly got what I needed, cramming all of it in the deceptive size of the military issue pack. I did have to take the cold weather sleeping bag out of its package and compress it to make it fit, but I got what I came for.

On the way out I came across an uninfected survivor, an older guy named Allan, who was rooting around in one of the aisles. He seems almost completely unaware of the situation. He's not the brightest person, in fact I think he's a bit stupid. Besides that though he's scared as hell and he doesn't seem to have a very aggressive personality. If it weren't for me he'd have been eaten for sure. He follows me around like a lost puppy. I think he's actually more afraid of me than the undead. That suits me just fine. At least with him I know I'll be the one in control.

I decided to let him stay here with me at the bar. I actually could use some help and as long as he stays cool I won't kill him.

### Friday, October 12, 2012

I no longer see the point of writing in this journal as often as before. I figure I'll write once a week or so, mainly to keep the boredom down, when nothing has been happening. If something does happen, breaking the endless tedium, I'll gladly write about it. Otherwise all I'll have to scribble down is a list of what I ate or how many times I went to the bathroom. Besides those small changes in my days, there is nothing different.

The hours creep by ever so slowly. It's gotten to the point that I hate looking at my watch to see what time it is. Sometimes I glance at my watch thinking a couple of hours must have gone by, when in reality, only a mere half an hour has passed.

There are multiple big screen, high definition television sets in the bar but they are all worthless. There is no programming, every station is dead. There is no radio here and I would love to have one, not for listening to music, that would be too risky. If I wanted to listen to some music, there is a D.J. booth here and a small computer loaded with MP3's. What I would want to do with a radio is to see if there are any remaining stations on the air.

The only thing to do here is eat, sleep, watch the outside surroundings from the security cameras or play solitaire on the outdated computer in the D.J. booth.

Conversation with Allan doesn't go far, he isn't really the talkative type. That's better than if he were the type that endlessly talked and talked though, especially if he were the kind of person that loved to yak about himself. I don't know how long I could stand being cooped up with one of those people that constantly blabber on, mainly about themselves, not being able to get a word in edgewise myself. Or worse, someone who was argumentative or always had to be right about everything. I know he was a cab driver and I know a bit about his history. While we don't have a lot in common, I don't get the sense that he is hiding anything from me about his past. Even though it's boring as heck here and there is a huge supply of booze, he's only had a couple of beers. Another good point in his favor. I can't stand drunks. He hasn't made any passes at me either. If he stays like this he won't bother me. If he starts acting stupid, there are no more cops or laws, I won't hesitate to kill him.

I had thought that by now, the parasites' controlling the walking corpses would have surely collapsed. They haven't. In fact there actually seems to be more of them on the street outside the club.

Outside the bar things have gotten real quiet. No more gunshots or screams. It's as if the survivors are either hunkered down, waiting for the dead to stop their unnatural wandering, secure in their shelters or have been over-run and devoured.

There are a lot of zeds outside. By now, the last of the people who were infected with the Scarlet have finally died of it. They have died and been resurrected by the abominable, single celled, parasite.

I'll write more when I actually have something to write about. Hopefully, the next time I write it will be to tell of how the zombies are dropping like flies.

### Thursday, October 18, 2012

The events of the past six days had fallen into a monotonous routine. However much I dislike the boredom, I find I hate having something to write about even more.

Allan has turned out to be halfway decent. He respects my privacy, allowing me the space I need. He spends a lot of his time cooking and screwing around in the kitchen. He's actually turned out to be a decent cook. When he's not experimenting with different recipes, he can be found playing solitaire on the old computer in the DJ booth.

I claimed the VIP room as my own private area, Allan didn't seem to have any problem with this. The couches and chairs in the VIP room are the most comfortable in the club. We dragged one of the over-stuffed couches into the main room, by the DJ booth for Allan to sleep on. He understood my being uncomfortable sleeping in the same room with someone who was basically a stranger.

I've spent most of my time in the manager's office, scanning the outside monitors and figuring out how to properly break down and clean the M16. There is a computer in the office, a nice new model, with a cable modem but the internet provider is down. I've set up our packs and duffle bag with stuff I gathered from the club, ready for me (us, I guess) to grab and go at a moment's notice.

It was sometime around four in the afternoon, while I was bored and idly watching the black and white monitors, when the sound of a car horn could be heard in the distance. It wasn't a continuous sound, instead it was a repeated, more on than off noise that became louder and louder. If someone was driving through the streets, blaring their horn, I thought it had because someone was trying to distract the undead. The loud, almost constant noise was sure to draw the attention of every rotting zombie in earshot. In the silence of the apocalypse, the noise carried much further and was sure to draw a large number of the monstrosities. There were a dozen or so of the zeds viewable on the cameras and every one of them immediately turned towards the clamor and started towards the sound as fast as their stuttering gait could propel them.

Allan, alarmed, came rushing into the office, desperate to know what was happening outside.

We watched, with ever increasing anxiety, as a Nissan sedan of some sort came barreling into view. The silver car's front end was clearly dented and beat up, obviously having hit multiple zeds that had crossed its path. I say obviously because the windshield was shattered and there, hanging half in and half out, was a horrid member of the undead. The animated, decaying, corpse's legs were both broken, flopping wildly as the driver ran into and over ever more of the things as he struggled to maintain control. The driver was fighting with the foul thing, it had grasped the steering wheel and was trying to pull itself through the shattered windshield to get at the driver. The car started swerving and careening around the road even more wildly than before and it suddenly drove straight into the strip club's parking lot.

"No, no, no." Allan muttered, barely audible, as if his words could stop what was happening.

There was a large awning over the main entryway to the club. It served as a valet point and an area where the customers could get out, staying out of any rain or inclement weather. It was held up by two large posts at the far end, each dressed to appear as if they were Romanesque columns.

The battered Nissan drove directly into one of those columns, spinning the car around. The column buckled and collapsed, pulling down a large portion of the awning. The zed that had been trying to claw its way through the windshield of the car flew out and rolled harshly through the parking lot, knocking over other of its vile kin as if they were bowling pins.

The driver, stunned and bleeding from a head wound, got out of the car and ran straight towards the front doors. A huge number of the walking dead had been alerted and were hungrily making their way to the very place we were hiding.

I was so wrapped up in watching the monitors that I hadn't noticed Allan leaving the room. I was furious when on the monitor I saw one of the front double doors open and the driver rushed into my sanctuary. Allan really pissed me off with that bone headed move, he didn't even ask me for my opinion before rushing off and letting this unknown inside. Not to sound cruel but the driver had drawn a horde of the undead to us like flies on shit. Thinking back now, and Allan reminded me of this, even if the guy had gotten eaten, there at our doorstep, there would still be an unholy swarm waiting for us. The difference I told him, was that now they knew there was flesh to be eaten inside. They will not stop trying to find a way in now. He humbled me with asking since when did it become morally justifiable to watch another human being die. Still, he should have at least told me what he was going to do, instead of just doing it.

The driver, a large (not fat) man of around thirty or so, went right to the bar and poured himself a couple of shots as soon as he saw the bottles. The blood was starting to dry and cake in his short blonde hair. He had to be over six foot tall by at least four inches and he was quite muscular. If the circumstances were different I might have found him handsome, if not for his age.

After a few moments (and a few shots), he told us how he had ended up here.

His name was David and he, his girlfriend and her son had been stuck in one of the Disney World resort hotels since just before the animal madness had hit. When the madness over-ran the animal kingdom almost all air traffic ceased. When air travel did resume there was a huge backlog of people desperate to get back to wherever it was they came from. Air fares went up drastically with the demand and he found it cheaper to stay at the hotel for another couple of weeks than to pay the grossly overinflated prices, content to wait until the prices dropped. Then the Scarlet came and changed everything. He had gotten tickets for him and his little family but when the day came to go to the airport it was way too dangerous to leave the hotel.

The last day they had gone outside of their hotel room they had spent the day at Disney World. It was there that he knew what the Scarlet would do (except for the whole dead rising from the grave thing).

While they were on the Haunted House ride, a ride that they had been on before, he saw something that wasn't part of the make believe. His girl and her son hadn't picked up on it, thinking that they had simply missed it the last time they had been through the attraction. While there certainly is a lot of sights crowded into the ride and it could have been something they had failed to see before, he knew it was too real. No amount of props or preparation could disguise what he saw. He was a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he knew what the dead really looked like (and smelled like). Instead of correcting his lover and her child's mistake, he let them believe what they saw was fake. He didn't tell them that some of the heads on stakes were real. He didn't mention the blood and dismembered bodies in some of the exhibits were real. Instead he kept his mouth shut until they were back at the hotel room and the boy was asleep. Then he told his girlfriend the horrifying truth.

By then both his girlfriend and her kid had started showing the red splotches that marked all of the infected.

When they finally died, he and another uninfected person (a hotel employee) dragged the bodies outside and dumped them into a drained pool. The pool, once filled with sparkling clear water was now a charnel pit, filled with a bonfire of the dead.

They could not find and dump the bodies into the flames fast enough. Soon the unthinkable had happened. Soon the dead got back up and hunted down those that had survived.

He and the hotel employee had hidden until their food ran out. Then they fought their way through the hotel, searching for keys to a vehicle so they could escape.

The hotel employee didn't make it, he got thronged getting into a van. He was pulled down screaming as the hungering dead ate him alive, bite by bite.

David had tried to make it to the interstate with the intention of getting into the mountains up north but found huge wrecks and mobs of the undead all over the roads. He was forced off the interstate to go around a huge pile-up. By using the city streets he had hoped to drive far enough past the wreckage and then get back on at another on ramp. He got lost instead. Not far from here, he had to drive around another accident scene and when he did, he found himself smack dab in the middle of a horde of the parasite controlled zombies. They swarmed his car and he had to run some over to get past them. One of the filthy dead things had gotten in his way and he hit it, only for it to come crashing through his windshield. The things dead hands gripped the steering wheel as it tried vainly to pull its mangled body close enough to bite him. He didn't want to stop because the dead were all around. The door wouldn't open, one of the zeds he had hit had crumpled the front quarter panel into the door and jammed it. He would have had to take the time to crawl out the window, and that extra time he feared, would be enough time for the undead to reach him. The monsters hand held the steering wheel in a vice-like grip, setting the horn off. He thought his only option was to drive on, hoping to be able to finally beat the zombies decomposing skull to pulp with his meaty fists or throwing it clear of the car by wildly swerving. Before that happened, the vile thing wrapped both of its hands on the wheel and the car went out of control, ending up a twisted heap mere feet away from the entry door.

The undead are pounding at the building and their numbers are growing. The doors are solid and sturdy, they look as if they will hold for a long time. I don't actually know if they will eventually give up or if someone else will come along and draw their unwanted attention away from us. I'm going to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

What worries me more than the zeds is David. I barely know the man and I'm not looking forward to having to get used to another person. He seems to have the attitude where he believes he should be in charge based on his physical strength. Maybe I'm mistaken. I hope so. Time will tell.

### Wednesday, November 14, 2012

It's been almost a month since I could write again. The reason I haven't been writing is David. David turned out to be a mean, brutish drunk. There were times I wanted, badly, to take the time to think and be alone with my thoughts, my writing in the journal provided this. There were a few times I could have done so in the past month but David kept me from it. He didn't physically stop me from writing but I know for a fact he was sneaking into my stuff and had been reading it. If I were to write in this journal, my feelings about the abusive alcoholic would surely be soon known and he would have eventually found out and made a big deal of it. He had already given away the fact that he had read the last entry when he accused me of being a "cold hearted bitch" who would have let him been eaten by the undead just outside the door. That and the fact that all my gear had been rooted through and shabbily replaced.

I had taken the precaution of hiding the thirty-eight, with its remaining four rounds, the handcuffs and the hand grenades inside the couch. I had tipped the couch over and ripped open some of the covering fabric and stuffed the weapons into the springs and padding. It's a good thing I did, David had soon stolen the M16 and carried it around with him at all times. He also managed to grab the small amount of bullets I had for the M1, leaving me with a weapon that was of little use besides being a glorified club. That left me with the useless M1 carbine and the weapons I had hidden.

I had confronted him with the theft and his arrogant reply was that he would let me have some ammo, "When, and if, the time came that they were needed. There was no way he was going to let a girl and an idiot cab driver have access to weapons."

I tried to get my things back from him when he passed out. David, even when plastered from drinking all day, is one of those people that are very light sleepers. He would come awake at the slightest movement or close sound, always thwarting my attempts to steal my stuff back. One of the habits he picked up in the Army he said, sneering at me when I was caught.

I briefly thought of secreting my journal with the hidden weapons but I knew he would notice its disappearance. I didn't want him to start searching for it and uncover the stash I had. I tried to take some comfort in the fact that he hadn't found out Allan had hidden his nine millimeter and I still had my backup revolver.

The first week or so, David, although he had been constantly drinking, had remained mostly quiet and reserved. After he had gotten used to the situation, and Allan and I had been lulled into a false sense of normality with him, he got worse.

It was then he stole my guns and his true nature became apparent. He drank morning, noon and night, all the time talking about himself and how he was a big shot lawyer before the apocalypse. No matter how much Allan and I tried to keep our distance from him he would relentlessly hound us, bragging about how superior he was. He had done everything and knew everything, in his own mind at least. No matter what our response was to one of his inebriated questions, he always made up some bull to top whatever we said. He was loud and insulting, threatening Allan with violence whenever he felt the least bit insulted or threatened.

However much we disliked him, neither Allan nor I had seriously considered murdering him. We still hoped the zombies, endlessly pounding at the doors, would soon collapse and we would be able to leave the club and David behind.

That started to change after week two of being trapped with the foul mouthed lout.

David had progressed to bullying Allan around, physically pushing and shoving him when he got mad. He treated Allan like he was his personal butler (or worse), ordering him to the point where he would dictate what Allan would have to cook for our meals. I could see the fire of hatred starting to burn in Allan's' eyes. I found some brief time alone with Allan when the drunk was passed out, making sure he still had his "nine". I also impressed on Allan the need for him not to kill David because I might have a plan to get us out of here if it came to that. A plan that required a living, breathing David.

David wasn't just harassing Allan, he was always hitting on me. The sexual innuendo's turned quickly into outright advances and rude statements of how he wanted to fuck me. I always took offense at the remarks and reminded him I was only seventeen and still a virgin. That just seemed to make him want me more and one night he started to grab me. The only thing that made him stop was a beer bottle to his head. He howled in pain and although there was no blood, he ended up with a good sized knot on his noggin. He got up, knocking over the table and Allan came running out of the kitchen to see what was happening. Before Allan could finish asking what was going on, David sucker punched him, knocking him out cold.

I attended to Allan, making sure to fuss over him, showing David he was doing nothing more than driving me and Al closer together and freezing him out.

David went and sulked over a fresh bottle of beer and finally kept quiet for once. I had thought that he had finally learned to quit being such an asshole but it didn't last long.

That night around three in the morning we were awakened by "Welcome to the jungle" by Guns n Roses. The intoxicated fool was playing the music full blast. Allan and I were horrified. As if it wasn't enough to have a couple of dozen or so of the hungering undead trying to beat down the doors to eat our flesh and brains, now there was going to be even more as every zombie for a block was going hear it and soon make their way here.

We were yelling and screaming at David to turn the music off and he laughingly mimicked that he couldn't hear us over the music. Allan tried to shut the computer off but David almost gutted him with the bayonet on the M16. Then David pointed the weapon at us until we backed off and he stupidly let off a burst of rounds into the ceiling to make his point.

He drunkenly laughed at us and finally turned the volume down, but not off.

"What the fuck does it matter how loud the damn music is you little pussies? Were trapped in here until we either starve to death or the fucking zombies bust in and eat us. The fuckers are already out there and they can't get in. Another handful of them ain't gonna make no difference.", his words came out slurred as he yelled at us.

"I can't stand listening to the muther fuckin' pounding and clawing at the doors anymore. It's driving me god damned nuts!", Spit flew from his mouth as he screamed at the top of his lungs.

What happened next was uncalled for. Allan had thought he was out of David's reach but when David quickly used the butt of the M16 to extend his reach he found he wasn't far enough away from the oncoming violence. Allan took the full force of the M16's hard butt straight on, busting open his lip. It didn't stop there and before I could react, David had hit him with the blunt end of the weapon repeatedly, administering viscous kicks to him when he went down. I rushed over and as hard as I could I pushed David off of the bleeding and unconscious body of Allan, only to have the M16 swung at me. David stopped though, spitting on Al before he sat back down in the DJ booth.

That's when I seriously decided that David would die soon.

For the following week, David seemed to have cooled back down. His ferocious attack on Allan seemed to let out some of his stress. Not once did David inquire about Allan's injuries, instead he stared at him with open contempt.

Luckily Allan didn't suffer any broken bones but his face was a swollen mass of bruises. That's when I told Allan we were going to get rid of David as soon as he healed up.

This morning Allan's face had finally looked almost normal. The pain was gone and all that remained from his beating are fading black bruises.

We would have to get out of here soon, the number of flesh eating ghouls outside was so great now that their mass was spilling into the side lot and they were starting to congregate at the rear door also. The noise of them was getting louder with every passing day. It was becoming impossible to block the sound of them out, no matter how hard I tried. Damn David and his drunken late night music, he had turned a bad situation into one where if we didn't get out soon we would be completely surrounded.

David's mood was cycling again, he was becoming the nasty, violent, drunken, bastard he was before. The warning signs were quite clear to me now, soon there would come the inevitable violent outburst. It wouldn't be long until he came after me.

I was taking my last shower, Allan and I were planning on leaving tomorrow. David's actions only forced our hands to leave sooner. We might have actually left him alive when we left, but not now. Now he was going to die a horrible death.

I was always apprehensive showering in the same building with David and had placed a bar stool behind the door to the performers (strippers) locker room to warn me if anybody entered. It was also standard procedure for one of us to place a stool in front of the door to let everyone know someone was using the shower. Besides, Allan would shout out a warning if David tried to come in, that was what we planned anyways.

He caught me unaware as I showered. He came at me from behind and wrapped one vile hand around my mouth as his other hand started exploring my body.

"I will cut you up in little damn pieces and feed you to the zombies outside if you fight me.", His breath was hot and foul, smelling of booze.

I was shocked. What the hell did he do to Allan. He must have done something to Allan, otherwise Al would have surely warned me of David coming in to rape me.

His touch revolted me and I tried to squirm away from him. He put his full weight into my back, pressing me so tightly up against the tile wall of the shower that I thought I would suffocate.

My mind was screaming in loathing at the thought of losing my virginity to a drunken rapist. As his vile hand forced its way between my thighs I instinctively fought as hard as I could.

I am sure now he had done this before, he easily had over a hundred pounds on me and effortlessly countered every one of my struggles to be free of him. I tried to bite the hand that was covering my mouth but then he gripped my windpipe and squeezed. Pain shot into my neck, causing my eyes to water. I found it was all I could do just to take a breath. He forced his feet between mine and overpowered my legs, opening them up wide and keeping me off balance at the same time.

There came a brief merciful moment when his hand left my groin. I was praying to the Gods that maybe he was reconsidering what he was about to do. I tried to scream as I heard him unbuckle his belt and the sound of his zipper being opened came horribly to my ears. The only sound I was able to make was a harsh rasping that made me want to cough, his grip on my throat was extremely tight and I thought he was going to break my trachea.

"Calm down you hot little bitch, just relax and lets' get this over with. You're going to like the feeling of my hard dick sliding in and out of your tight pussy."

I could hear the lust in his voice, his foul breath came in pants that assailed my nose.

"Be a good girl and make me come quick or I'm gonna fuck your tight little ass too." He said as he pressed his lower body into me.

Momentarily I felt the head of his prick trying to force its way inside me and I struggled against him in vain. There came a crazy thought into my head to go limp and let him do what he wanted just to get this over with as quickly as possible.

That's when a loud thump came from behind me and David let out a groan of pain.

"What the fu...", was all David completed of his next sentence, being interrupted by another fleshy sounding thump.

David's body went limp, his fingers slid loosely from my neck and I was finally able to get some air.

Allan was there, the side of his face was covered in blood. He started beating David with a piece of brass railing. The railing had been previously attached to the bottom of the bar, having been part of a footrest for those who stood while drinking and watching the showgirl's gyrations.

"He blindsided me and tied me to the foot rail. It was loose though and I got here as fast as I could. Are you OK?"

Allan seemed more concerned about me than his own wounds. It finally came to me that Allan was trustworthy when he glanced at my naked body but didn't let his gaze linger. His sight, almost embarrassedly, went back to the prone body of David and he started kicking it as hard as he could.

"I'm alright. Stop, don't kill him. We need him alive for now.", I said, as soon as I could talk again.

"No, we need to kill this piece of shit. There is no way we can let him live after what he did to us." The anger in Allan's voice was clear.

"Oh, he will die and he will die in a fuck-load of pain. We're going to use him as bait to get out of here. Drag this piece of shit to the main stage while I get dressed and if he wakes up, knock his teeth out."

We handcuffed David to the stripper pole on the big stage in the center of the club.

We gathered up all our stuff and took whatever we would be able to carry, setting it all up by the rear door.

When David awoke he was still drunk and stated screaming obscenities at us, demanding to know what we were going to do. We stripped him completely naked, not so much for the psychological effect, but because it was easier to go through his pockets and search him for what he stole from us. I think he figured out the basics of our plan when we turned on all the lights and shined every spotlight we could on him.

David started pleading and crying, begging for our forgiveness saying it was the booze that made him do those things.

I reminded David that we had pleaded before too, and he had laughed at us.

I feel absolutely no remorse for feeding David to the zeds as we made our escape.

I yelled "Now!", to Allan, signaling for him to open the front doors, letting the undead pour inside.

As Allan ran past David (who was wide eyed with terror, seeing what was about to befall him), the hungering dead stopped chasing Allan and went straight for David.

As David started to scream in the anguish of being eaten alive, I tossed one of the grenades out the back door. The blast cleared those few zeds from the area who were too slow to make their way to the front before we had to run past them. The explosion only killed a couple of the zeds, but it did knock the others down and stunned them long enough for us to escape.

David was still screaming as we hopped over the brick wall behind the club and made our cautious way to the deserted Firehouse where we are now.

We'll stay here as long as we can but there isn't much food here. At least we're free of David. I'm looking forward to being able to get some sleep again. There are no cannibalistic monsters beating down the doors here, the quiet is beautiful.

### Thursday, November 22, 2012

In the past week, here in the Firehouse, Allan and I have settled down into a routine of sorts. Without David around we are both much more relaxed, or as relaxed as any sane person can be when the dead scour the earth to devour the living.

The building itself is bigger than it looks from the street. The first floor consists of a large bay, now empty of fire trucks, and a reception room with a couple of small offices and a single restroom. The oversized roll up doors that give entry to the bay are sturdy but as an extra precaution I have locked them in place. I don't want either me or Allan to accidently hit the wrong switch (they're located right next to the bay's light switches) and have them unexpectedly open. The single ground floor window and the reception door have been covered with thick plywood. The second floor consists of a small kitchen, a little recreation room, a toilet and locker room with showers and a bunkroom. The single window on the second floor, in the kitchen, faces to the rear of the building. Although the kitchen window wasn't covered with plywood, it was a pain to get into. We had to climb up a drain pipe to the bay roof and lean over the side of the building to force the lone, uncovered window open and crawl through. The whole rear yard of the building is completely covered in pavement and fenced in with an eight feet high, razor wire topped fence.

I would have loved it if there were a fire truck in the bay. The pure size, power and weight of the thing would have made an excellent vehicle to drive in. I could run over the undead that were unlucky enough to get in my way with impunity. It would also be easy to push any smaller vehicle blocking the road out of the way.

As it is, this place has yielded up some very useful items. Bolt cutters, axes, and machetes to name a few.

When we first arrived the kitchen was almost bare of any food at all. We have since restocked the cupboards with whatever we could find in the neighboring houses. The surrounding houses provided slim pickings, requiring multiple forays into the abandoned buildings for what little we have now. The lack of provisions in the area showed how critical the food shortage actually was. Even if the Scarlet hadn't risen, there would have been massive death and rioting as the populace slowly starved to death.

In the rec room there is a big collection of DVD's which has, gratefully, given us the opportunity to enjoy some entertainment. The chance to stop our thoughts from endlessly dwelling on our situation has proved a godsend. We covered the kitchen window with multiple black garbage bags to keep any possibility of light from the TV escaping. I don't know how necessary it actually was to do that, but better safe than sorry. I even went so far as to go outside while Allan had the TV on to make sure there was no noticeable light or sound to alert any passersby, whether they be the living or the walking dead. We keep the volume way down, forcing us to sit close to the set but neither of us minds doing so in the least.

Allan and I have been taking turns going out on scavenging runs. There is a large map of the area in the bay, even showing the individual lots. We mark where we raided on the map, so that the person who has to go out the next day doesn't waste time searching a building the other had already looted.

Allan goes out, and he's obviously scared of doing so. He does anyways, just as I do. He'll go out and check out a handful of nearby places, coming back in an hour or two. I go out and spend up to six hours exploring, actually enjoying it. I find I enjoy being away from the firehouse and Allan not because I don't like him, but because I need to have a break from the close confines. How do I explain it? You know those couples that not only live together but also work together? That is not me. I could never handle that. I don't mind my own company and I need time to myself. They say familiarity breeds contempt but it's not that. Sometimes, after I've filled my pack with all that I can carry, I still don't go immediately back to the firehouse. Once, after seeing the lonely pictures and hubris of the lives of families now shattered and dead I didn't leave because I broke down in tears and cried. I didn't want anyone, especially Allan, to see me crying. I have to stay strong around others, letting no emotions escape and show how weak I really feel. Mainly though, when I take those breaks, I find I can more detachedly think about the situation and make plans if things change.

I've gotten pretty good at wielding the bayonet on the M16. I keep it nice and sharp and it does a good job of sending the undead to their final rest. I can thrust it through an eye socket, through the mouth or upwards under the jaw, forcing the steel blade deep through the skull and into the soft brain. So far I haven't had to fire a single round.

I came across what had to be an assisted living facility. Not a place for old people in their advanced age, more of a "half-way" house for those with mental problems. A place for those afflicted with schizophrenia, personality disorders and other ailments of the mind that didn't actually require them to be locked up in a standard facility. The fact is that those unfortunate people, while not suffering so badly as to be institutionalized, still needed help just to cope with everyday life. There was a ton of meds, which I didn't take, and rules posted on the walls. The paper work in a room turned office confirmed my thoughts about the house. The place was empty, not one zed was inside. That was a little unusual, the majority of houses seemed to have at least one of the rotted things inside. In a room on a second floor I found a makeshift altar of sorts. It kind of gave me the creeps. There were pictures of Jesus Christ and the Madonna hanging on the walls. The walls were covered with hand-drawn crosses and prayers and entries from the bible. There was nothing outwardly sinister about the room but it gave me the creeps thinking of someone desperately praying, while suffering with insanity, to a God that no longer cared.

Prominently displayed in the center of the little altar (a table covered with candles, rosary beads and necklaces with crosses and crucifixes), I found this single hand written page. I have placed it here in my journal, between the pages. I keep it because it touched something inside me. I became depressed for a while after reading it and it took some time for me to regain my composure before I could go back to the firehouse and Allan.

"Dear God forgive me of my sins. The demons have been hounding me, speaking filth and lies into my mind ever since I was thirteen. I know that they have been trying to get me to turn away from you, trying to get me to commit the sins that would lead to my damnation. I know, and ask your forgiveness, that I have blasphemed many times. I have fornicated and used drugs and alcohol. I have dishonored my mother and father and told many lies. I have stolen and broken most of your commandments. Please have pity on me, oh lord. I have struggled with the demons that constantly insult me and tell me things I should never hear. Nobody has ever believed me when I tell them the voices I hear are real. They think I'm crazy, but who wouldn't be insane with these wicked devils and their horrible whisperings?

At first I thought that what was happening was real, but now I know it can't be. The unseen ones, who have secret names, have been laughing at me and telling me that everything and everyone is dead. That you, the Holy Spirit, are responsible for this. I know you're not. I know that this is all an illusion. I know for certain that I died when I got sick before all of this madness started happening. I know I died and am in purgatory. It must be purgatory because there are no flames and the devils are still only voices. Thank you for not sending me to hell.

The hellish voices in my head have turned into the clamoring of legions. They are so loud and insistent that I can barely think. I know you want me to do this because the devils want me to hide from their minions and suffer in this house for eternity. I know they don't want me to face my fear and pay for my multitude of sins. I know that I will not be able to escape this purgatory until I give up my flesh and the entire world. I am so afraid of having to feel so much pain. I know Jesus suffered for days on the cross, leaving me to think, and be thankful for, the fact that I will have to face only a few minutes of agony. I will let the agents of Satan devour my flesh and leave its wickedness behind. This life has not been easy for me God. Please have mercy on my unclean soul. I am ready now. I am going outside now to sacrifice my sinful flesh and come to you pure, free from this world."

### Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I was so distracted by what I had done that I didn't realize some of the flesh hungry zombies had followed me back to the firehouse.

Almost as soon as I entered our sanctuary Allan knew something had happened. He asked me what was wrong and if I wanted to talk about it but I declined. We had both seen some really horrible stuff and he didn't press me when I said that I didn't want to talk about it.

I hadn't even finished putting away my gear and the assorted canned goods I had acquired when we both heard the sound of the locked gate in the fence being assaulted.

We both went out the back door to the paved training area and saw the handful of undead that had followed me. I apologized to Allan, who gave me a momentary quizzical look. Allan knew that whatever had happened had thrown me off, I had never led the undead back here before. There was only a handful of the abominations, we took care of them with pickaxes through the fence. We stabbed their rotting skulls with the sharp pick ends when they put their faces close to the fence, so that no others would notice them and join them in trying to break down the gate.

I may not have wanted to tell Allan what happened, not because he wouldn't understand, not because he would think less of me but because I feel full of guilt. I will eventually tell him what happened but not right now. Telling him of my mistake would feel too much like I was confessing a sin. Maybe what I did was a sin but it was an accident. My uncle's words about making sure nobody was in the line of fire before I shot keeps ringing in my ears. The thing is, I didn't know he was in my line of fire. I was only trying to help him.

I do feel a need to write this down in this journal. Sometimes it's like this journal is part of my secret heart. While I may not be telling another person what I feel, the Gods know. This is my secret confession.

In the past few weeks we had actually stopped going on our daily runs into the surrounding area, having already scavenged what we could. Allan no longer went out except for maybe once a week or so. I still felt the need to go out at least a couple of times a week, simply to break the monotony.

Today I came across a house that had been surrounded by a small mob of the parasitic undead puppets. I had entered the house across the street from it by means of a broken window on the back side of the house. After I made sure the house was clear I went and carefully checked the street side by peeking out through the windows and scanning the area.

I figured that there had to be a survivor inside the boarded up house, otherwise there wouldn't be a mob of hungering dead outside trying to break in. From where I was, the place looked like it would be breached soon. The upper part of the plywood boarding the main window was already gone and corners of the plywood covering the rest of the windows were broken off. I was sure I saw cracks in the flimsy wood covering the door and it seemed to bow and flex with the constant assault.

Silently I crept around the house I was in and made sure that the yard was fenced and I had a clear escape route for what I was about to do.

I had been wanting to get some target practice in with the M16 but hadn't been able to do much, being afraid to draw the attention of the ravenous dead. This time I wanted to draw their attention. If I was going to help whoever was trapped I had to kill or lead the nightmares away. I counted their numbers and found there were seventeen of them. There weren't any stray zeds that I could see, all of them in the area had been previously drawn to that house. My plan was to start sniping them through the large picture window in the living room. When they reached the window and entered the house to get me I guessed I would be able to pick off a few more as they negotiated climbing in. From there I would go into the back yard and pick off a few more as they filed through the back door. Then I would hop the fence and pick off more of them as they would inevitably, clumsily, fall more than climb over the low fence. If there were any more of the living dead and they continued to follow me I would run from them and make a loop around the neighborhood and come at them from behind, forcing them back through the obstacle course of fences, doorways and windows to get at me.

It worked like I planned. My first shot missed. They stopped assaulting the house and waited for another noise to figure out where the sound was coming from. I took two of them out before they pin-pointed my location. Some of the ghoulish walking cadavers started towards me immediately and I took them out quickly, only missing a few of my shots as they chaotically staggered towards me. Their speed, in that distinctive shambling gait of theirs, would be for me a slow jog. Some of the zombies almost hesitated in coming towards me, as if they were struggling to decide whether they should abandon the prey secured in the house for the prey in the house across the street. Once they caught a glimpse of me and my warm flesh they gave up on trying to break into the house and joined the rest of their brethren in trying to catch and eat me.

By the time I had to jump the fence there were only three of them left. The undead have almost no coordination and have huge problems with negotiating even simple obstacles. It was easy to finish the last of them off. My plan seemed to be going smoothly.

By the time I got back to the street, there were only two new zombies drawn by the gunfire. They were both coming to investigate the noise and they were still both a couple of houses away. It was good practice at medium range on a moving target. At no point was I ever in any real trouble but it was quite a rush.

I called out to whoever was in the house that it was safe now. Nobody answered, leading me to think at first that the zeds had converged on the house mistakenly or that whoever was holed up inside had died while they were trying to bust in.

A small window in the back was free from plywood. It was high up and it could only be a bathroom window. It was clear that plywood had originally been placed there but it had been removed. This was where the survivor or survivors had made his or her entries and exits. The window was locked from the inside so they still had to be in there. I yelled for the occupant to come to the window but I was met with only silence. I had risked my ass getting this far and now I had to know if there actually was someone in the house or not. I busted out the window and waited a tense couple of minutes, waiting for any sign from inside.

I crawled inside to silence, half expecting a wild-eyed, terrified person to point a gun at me and demand a good reason for invading his hide-out. Someone had been in here very recently, I could smell the still fresh scent of recently cooked food.

There was the body of a boy around thirteen or so, sprawled out and lying limp in the living room. An ever slowly increasing pool of deep red blood was soaking into the carpet. There was a bullet hole beside his nose, just below the eye socket. There was blood spray and bone fragments spread out in a fan like pattern directly behind him on the wall. There was no gun in sight, and it took a few minutes for me to figure out what happened.

The front living room window was shattered with multiple bullet holes. In fact the more I looked, the more holes I saw in the door, windows and walls. They came from me. There was a hole in the window just above where the plywood had been ripped apart from the zeds and shoe prints (matching the ones the kid wore) on a coffee table below it.

The boy, who should have taken cover at the first sound of gun fire, apparently had gone to the window to see what was happening. One of my missed shots had caught him in the face. My heart sank as I realized that instead of saving the boy, I murdered him.

His body twitched a bit and then he gurgled. He was still alive but he was bleeding fast. I didn't know what to do. He was going to die soon, in no more than a few minutes.

I held his hand and told him how sorry I was. I told him how I was only trying to help him and why didn't he duck down and hide instead of foolishly looking out the window in the direction of my gunshots. I don't know if he heard anything I said or felt me holding his hand as he died.

After he passed I put another round in his head, just to make sure he wouldn't rise up again. Then I raided his house for supplies and came back to the firehouse.

That was my day.

### Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas. I don't really miss Christmas with all of its blatant commercialism. The whole American Christmas thing was a convoluted, heavily religious, cover up of an ancient celebration of the winter solstice anyways. Midwinter. The longest night.

Being cooped up here with Allan is getting on my nerves. I get annoyed with him a lot. He says it's because were trapped here in close confines like this. I say it's because he's a dumbass.

We had decided it would be best for someone to be awake while the other slept. Not only does it cut down on the time we're forced to spend together, it also means that we we're much safer like this. Allan has the bunkroom to himself during the day and I have it for the night.

I'm not really depressed about it being the Christmas of the undead, I'm more depressed about the fact that my mother and sister are dead. At least Lucy is dead again. I don't know if my mom's flesh has risen from death, but I feel it must have. I feel guilty about not putting my mother's corpse to rest. I tried to make my way to the hospital again but there seems to be something happening on the streets. I keep wanting to go and find my mom's animated flesh and put her back in the grave where she belongs. It feels disrespectful for the parasite to use my mother's body, commanding it around, instead of letting it rest quietly as it should.

The local zombie population in the areas Allan and I had been active in is fairly low. It's a different story outside our zone. It was rare that I had gone into a building or house and there wasn't a zed, or two, inside. The surrounding blocks are thick with the undead. I hadn't been keeping count of how many of the horrid abominations I had eliminated, now the numbers are visibly clear. On this street alone there are twenty-one buildings. If I hadn't killed the occupants of those buildings there would be around thirty or so more of the beasts on the streets now.

The vast majority of the undead had come out of the buildings they had died in. They weirdly came outside and they started assembling together. They stand together, about ten feet apart, forming huge groups, like an animal pack. There must be something calling them together like that. It's unnatural, there may actually be some form of communication, but it's hard to tell. About a week ago the undead, walking ghouls had finished breaking out from whatever building they had originally died in. In the silence the sounds of the frantic poundings, as they beat down and through walls, doors and windows, was nightmarish. It was as if something was urging them together.

There's a herd of the hungering undead in every street now. The area around the hospital is completely overwhelmed with them.

The roaming herds of undead slowly make their random way around, sometimes forming up with other packs and sometimes small groups will break off from a bigger herd.

It's way too dangerous out there now to do much scavenging. We have enough food to last us months. It may not be for awhile until we can go out again but we won't starve.

There's something else that's worth noting. It's hot out. It's still in the nineties here even though we're almost through December. It's gotten cold for a few days here and there but for the most part it's been like summer hadn't ended.

I don't understand if the sudden stoppage of all the greenhouse gases we had been producing has anything to do with this. Mankind as a whole had been putting out great quantities of pollution and now it had suddenly stopped. There will absolutely be ramifications from that, hopefully they won't be very severe.

### Monday, January 7, 2013

New Year's has come and gone.

Allan spent New Year's Eve getting drunk, quietly I must add, and staring at the darkened TV set. He didn't turn the TV on, he just sat there and drank and looked at it. I know he's depressed. Later on, around midnight, he broke out some marijuana that he had picked up somewhere. It wasn't a lot and I joined him in smoking some.

I didn't drink any booze or nothing on New Year's. I never really liked the alcohol buzz. The weed was OK, it wasn't the same though. All it did was make me more paranoid. I kept thinking of how the last time I had smoked it was with a couple of friends. The experience was of getting high with friends and getting high now are worlds apart. It did help me to sleep better, but I don't think I'll be getting high very much from now on.

I've been doing a lot of sleeping lately. Sleep, eat, go to the bathroom. Once in awhile take a shower, and then back to sleep. It's a sign of depression and boredom. I don't remember dreaming anymore. I would say that I stopped dreaming but Allan says I haven't. He wakes me sometimes when I thrash around and start mumbling and talking in my sleep. He wakes me because he doesn't want me to start yelling in my sleep, drawing the unwanted attention of the hungering abominations. Allan has nightmares too, I've had to rouse him from bad dreams making sure we stay quiet. It's better I don't remember my dreams, good or bad. I've seen the affects of some of those nightmares on Allan and they can bother him for days.

The weather hasn't gotten any better. Six days ago there was a bone chilling cold snap. The temperature dropped below freezing for two whole days and was immediately followed by blistering heat. The wind is intense. Fierce gusts of wind blow in, alternating between hot and cold, coming in from opposite directions.

The zombies struggle against the cold. The cadavers the parasites now inhabit are no longer capable of generating any body heat. On that second day of the freeze, the animated undead nearly ceased in their movements. Most of them stood in whatever position they had been in, frozen. It didn't kill the parasites, unfortunately. When the cold snap passed I was depressed when they resumed their foul actions. It was bitterly cold out and I hadn't grabbed any cold weather clothes. I'm positive that it had never gotten this cold in the Orlando area for a long, long time. On the day the things practically froze I layered up on my clothes and Allan and I went outside and re-cleared our zone. It was easy to do, for the most part they were defenseless. Makes me think I should head up north somewhere, find a small town and clear it of the undead.

Allan and I worked hard that day, working almost from sun-up to sun set. We took the opportunity to do some more scavenging and there are two vehicles in the firehouse bay now. We now have a tow truck and a four wheel drive Chevy Suburban, all packed up and ready to go.

We may need them soon.

For one thing, the days after the freezing weather, a herd of over a hundred made its way into our zone. I'm almost convinced that they can sense our presence in the area. They moved in and have stopped in the street outside the firehouse. They don't know we're inside or they would be trying to get in. It could be coincidence, but my fear tells me it's not. It's as if they knew we're in the vicinity but they don't know exactly where we are. Every day more join them. The worst part of being trapped in here is the lack of vision. The downstairs office windows are boarded up and I couldn't look out of them if I had wanted to. The only other window in the building is here, on the second floor and it faces into the back lot. If I go outside and peek around the building to see how many have gathered I run a huge risk of being seen. The only view I have of the assembling horde is through a small opening at the top of one of the roll-up bay doors. The view is limited and hard to get to. When I do spy through the narrow crack the view is filled with the undead. There's so many of them outside now that they are starting to spread out around the fence, making it risky to even look out through the garbage bag covered, shattered window.

The wind is getting bad now. It's really strong. A hard, cold rain is pouring down. If it weren't January I would say a hurricane was bearing down on us. That's the last thing I need right now. There's a strange green tint to the sky, a bad omen if ever I saw one. Allan tells me a green tint to the sky means its tornado weather.

New fires have broken out, I can see and smell the thick black plumes of smoke rising up here and there. The cold brought on the automated response in many buildings central air units (both Allan and I jumped when the firehouse's heating kicked on). Furnaces and heating coils came on, unattended and ignored. Some have been damaged, blocked or whatnot, starting fires that quickly turn into little infernos that burn for days. The cold rain is smothering them, finally.

### Saturday, January 12, 2013

I am no longer in the firehouse. We had to abandon it.

My life seems to be filled with extended periods of complete and insufferable boredom. Followed by a few days of frantic and perilous activity where my life can end in agony if anything goes wrong. To be honest (and maybe there's something wrong with me), I get a huge rush from beating the odds. I haven't slept yet today, I'm still too amped from the past few days. Allan is the complete opposite, he prefers to find someplace to hide and live like a mouse, fearing to leave or go out until the fates force him. I don't feel sad about the events that lead me here, although I know I should.

The weather had gotten worse. Much worse. I'm not sure if there had ever been a hurricane in January before but this one was worse than any Allan or I had ever seen. The winds the hurricane brought with it were extremely powerful. The storm acted more like a huge, hundred mile wide tornado than any hurricane. It certainly wasn't normal. The whipping wind alternated between freezing blasts and hot currents of air.

Sleet and hail the size of golf balls, driven by the ferocious winds, came down for a time. The hail came down with such force that every window in every house, building and vehicle had been broken and shattered. The intensity and strength of the hard balls of ice also took out a number of the undead, bashing in the skulls of the undead brutes through repeated strikes.

When the storm first started in earnest, it was lead by an incredibly active lightning storm. Allan and I watched it through the lone window upstairs, awed by the thunder and flashes. It was an incredible show, arcs of pure electricity were stabbing down every other second for almost an hour. Fires from the strikes, whipped by the winds, quickly turned into block consuming conflagrations.

Then came the heavy rain, ending the fires. The wind built in intensity for two days, only dying down for an hour or so as the eye of the hurricane passed over us. By the time the storm passed two days after that, the whole of Orlando looked like a war zone.

The plastic bags we had used to cover the upstairs window proved no match for the winds no matter how much tape we used. The remaining whole pane of glass in the window didn't last long, being shattered to pieces during the hail. Through the broken window we watched first as trash and small bits of scrap flew through the air. As the storm escalated in intensity larger and larger pieces of rubble hurtled through the air. At first anything not nailed down flew in the wind. By the end of the second day, roofs, sheds and anything that wasn't solidly built cart wheeled and tumbled into things, creating more debris.

Something big smashed into the front of the firehouse on the second day, denting and pushing one of the bay doors out of shape. When whatever it was hit the building, it also cracked the wall and busted open the fence. We watched as pieces of lumber and shingles piled up along the back fence. Allan and I shared a little laugh whenever we witnessed one of the undead trying to struggle helplessly in the wind as it was roughly blown into the rear yard. The undead were beaten and impaled, stuck by the force of the wind against the back fence to be buried under ever more debris. It was dangerous just looking out the window by that time, nails and bits of junk were in the air, along with rain that hit so hard it actually stung. We retreated from the kitchen, avoiding the worst of the winds by staying in the bunkroom.

When the storm abruptly stopped, the air pressure changed. It was silent except for distant car and burglar alarms going off all over Orlando. The change was quick and we both came to the conclusion that we were then in the calm eye of the hurricane. We decided to go out and eliminate as many zeds as we could while they were still reeling from the storm. That and it gave us a chance to survey the building and surrounding neighborhood for damage. What I saw was bad, and it got worse. The bay door and wall were so damaged that if any of the undead had wanted to get through they easily could with very little work. There were undead all over the place, many with broken limbs that were incapable of doing anything but dragging themselves after us. Many seemed to have come through in relatively decent shape and we drove our axes into their skulls first. Half the buildings were without roofs and none had any unbroken windows. When the storm started back up again we packed up the Chevy Suburban with all our stuff. We both clearly knew that this place was no longer secure and we would have to leave as soon as the storm let up.

When the storm resumed it started back up where it left off. Sometime in the night of that third day the roof of the firehouse came off with a horrendous noise. It started with the corner over the damaged bay lifting up and banging around. The battered roll up bay door came off its mounting on the more badly damaged side and repeatedly bashed into the tow truck until it finally gave way and completely came off the wall. The wind now attacked the roof not only from the outside but also from the inside as the wind pressurized the bay and added an upward force. We witnessed, wide eyed, as the roof kind of curled up and in an instant it was gone. It hurtled into the back fence and knocked most of it down. The back fence was already leaning from the weight of the accumulated wreckage and the force of the wind, the roof hitting it finished it. The wind and rain quickly made the entire second floor unbearable so we were forced to take shelter in the offices below. Rain ran down the walls and pooled an inch deep. Not much later the electricity went out.

My original plan was to try to get up north where the winter's freeze would put the zombies into a frozen hibernation. Despite the fact that there might not be any electricity or heat. I decided that the chance to move about unthreatened by being eaten alive by the hungering undead for a few months added a better chance to survive than having to scrounge for firewood.

It wasn't difficult getting past the battered undead that got in our way. Since we weren't worried about drawing the zeds to us with gunfire we unloaded on them. They could shamble their ugly asses towards the sound as much as they wanted because by the time they arrived we would be long gone.

The level of destruction visited on the Orlando area was astounding. No building we saw had been unaffected. The rain had stopped and the un-natural heat had returned. Before the Madness struck, people had been worried about the Greenhouse effect. The problem of too much pollution and factories and power plants spitting out greenhouse gases has been basically eliminated. Now and for the foreseeable future, the weather would be in a state of flux. How the environment was going to work this out I can only wait and see.

The freeway was alternately empty and impassable. In some stretches there wasn't a car in sight, in others car upon car was lined or piled up in colossal accident scenes. There weren't many of the undead on the highway and those that were wandering around were easy to kill now that we could use our guns.

We were northbound on I-4 just past Sanford airport when we ran into a military roadblock. There were no soldiers, or anyone else for that matter, maintaining the roadblocks anymore. There were concrete dividers set across all lanes of traffic with a few National Guard trucks and a tank lined up behind them. A vast line of cars had been stopped here and all of them were ridden with bullet holes and were nothing more than burned out piles of junk. There was one lane on either side without a slab of concrete blocking it. The problem was that the northbound lane had a tank parked in front of it. Neither of us had any idea how we could move it out of the way. Our only option was to try to go back and find a break in the guard-rails that stopped us from driving onto the medium separating the north and south bound lanes.

We had to go back a couple of miles until we found an access point, even then we had to cautiously drive through and around the muddier spots of the unpaved medium, not wanting to get stuck in the muck.

Once we were back on pavement we quickly made our way back to the southbound roadblock. To our amazement as we approached we saw a beat up station wagon with a flat slowly trying to squeeze its way past the checkpoint towards us. The driver saw us as soon as we saw him and he stepped on the gas, scraping the side of his car on the confining cement divider to get through before we could get there. The station wagon was going through the gap at an awkward angle and the front passenger tires' rim was sending sparks on the pavement, making any fine control impossible.

When we stopped twenty yards in front of the opening in the roadblock the driver was stuck. He was frantically trying to go forward, then backwards, causing smoke to start billowing from his rear tires. Allan and I got out, fully armed and ready to shoot the driver. I didn't want to kill the driver, I wanted the idiot to get his car out of there. He had to get stuck in the worst place possible. Allan stayed back and covered me, keeping an aim on the driver as I approached.

It was tense and I was nervous as hell, I had no idea how the driver was going to react. I know he was scared, there were two fully automatic weapons pointed at him, he turned out to be more scared of us than we were of him. Meekly he came out of the disabled vehicle after I told him to get out. When the driver complied I wondered to myself how this man was still able to force himself to go on. His right arm was bandaged, his left arm was bandaged and in a sling. The bandages were dirty and stained with blood and puss. There were deep, dark circles around his eyes and his face was gaunt, like he hadn't eaten well for weeks. We checked him for signs of the Scarlet, he was clean of the parasitic disease. He was sick though, the wounds on his arms were deeply infected.

The driver of the dilapidated vehicle's name was Don. He was a middle aged man with balding grey hair who was on the verge of collapse. His demeanor wasn't threatening, in fact he pleaded and begged us for help. Even if he had wanted to harm us he couldn't. His only weapon was a forty-five with two rounds left and I had confiscated it.

Allan put the haggard man in the back seat of the Suburban and gave him some water and food as I tried to move the stuck station wagon. As soon as I got into the car I could smell the guy's infection. I never smelled gangrene before but I had a hunch that's what I was smelling. Try as I might, the vehicle was wedged tight and I couldn't get it to budge an inch. I even tried to push the station wagon out of the way with the Suburban but I ended up doing nothing more than crumpling the fender and busting one of the headlights.

I am a firm believer in providence and fate. I sat in the Suburban listening to what Don had to say while I was deciding what to do. It was an interesting coincidence that just as I had tried to go north, someone who had been there, someone who was trying to escape from there, ended up blocking my path. The tow truck would have helped greatly with the stuck vehicle but the tow truck had been battered by the firehouse's bay door and ended up being buried under half the cracked wall that finally came down when the roof was blown off. Too many coincidences for me to not believe that the Gods wanted me to take a different path.

Don used to be married. When he and his wife split up and ended the marriage, his wife took custody of their only child. His wife had moved to Florida to be closer to her side of the family while he stayed in New York. It wasn't a mean break up, they had simply fallen out of love with each other and drifted apart.

When the Scarlet swept through mankind he talked to them, trying to help as much as he could. He sent money and paid for a company to ensure that the house his little girl lived in was secure. The last time he had spoken to his ex, he could tell by her words she was losing her mind. He told Patty, his eight year old daughter, to stay away from her and hide someplace. His daughter was a good girl and did as she was told. The last time he had spoken to his daughter she told him her mother had gotten real sick and then she woke up a couple of days later and was trying to hurt her. He made sure she locked herself in the safe room (one of the expensive renovations he had paid for) until mommy went away. For awhile he hadn't heard from her and he feared the worst. When his cell phone rang again and the caller ID showed his ex-wife's number he immediately started to slowly make his way to Florida. The fact that he couldn't hear anything on the other end didn't sway him, the connection could be weak or any number of things could have happened where he couldn't hear his daughter's voice. His phone had rung six times since then, sometimes it was a single ring, sometimes it was an empty connection that stayed on for an hour. His daughter was trying to contact him. Only the living use cell phones.

I kept my mouth shut when I heard that, the undead never "go away". Once they sensed living flesh they would try to get at their prey until they ground their limbs to dust, battering them ceaselessly against whatever blocked them.

After the dead rose up, he found himself trapped in a small apartment. There was millions of the hungering undead all over NYC. He was on the verge of starving to death when miraculously, the harshest winter he had ever known spared him. He had the benefit of a thermometer he kept outside on the balcony. The temperature outside was on average, a crisp, negative twenty degrees below zero Fahrenheit, without taking into account the wind chill factor. The undead froze stiff at around ten degrees. That was over a month ago, he had been trying to get to his daughter ever since then. He followed I-95 (or at least tried to) as much as he could, often he had to leave the highway and take side streets around the bigger cities. All the roads and highways around D.C. were completely cordoned off. The road ways into every major city was an impassable parking lot. To make things worse, there was foot upon foot of snow on the ground. Snow drifts tower above his height, ten to fifteen feet high in places. There are no more snow plows to clear the roads. In most places he could only make guesses as to where the road used to be. When the winter storm hit, it engulfed the East Coast with such cold and snow that the sheer weight of the clinging ice snapped all the electrical power lines. There is no electricity, no heat, no water anyplace he went. Even if he could find a place with a wood stove or a working fireplace, just getting the wood would be dangerous. There is so much snow that moving around in it safely is an almost impossible task. The freezing cold only provided one benefit. It froze most of the zeds in their tracks. That is the only way he had escaped.

The snow didn't start to slack off until he got into Georgia. Then there was only a foot or two on the ground. That's where he almost got eaten alive. That's where he had awoken to two of the undead things biting huge chunks of his flesh off him. His left arm had been savaged, with the bone showing in multiple places. His right arm had been wounded too but the wounds weren't nearly as bad as on the left arm.

He had taken refuge in the first town he had come to that had electricity still. He was exhausted and so tired that after giving the place the once over and finding it empty he scrounged what food he could and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. It had been too long since he had experienced the warmth and a full stomach, he passed out more than fell asleep as soon as he lay down.

He made three big mistakes. The first mistake he made was not realizing that the abominable undead would follow him for miles, continuing on in the direction they had last seen their next meal. His second mistake was in believing it was still cold enough for the zeds to have been frozen into immobility. His third mistake was thinking a simple lock on the door would be enough to keep the things at bay. Those were unforgiveable mistakes to make when the dead walked the earth. Don was ignorant of some of the most basic facts of this new reality, much as Allan was when I found him. I got a lot of information from Don, enough information to realize that going up north now would be a real bad idea. Better to wait out the winter down here and then go up north in preparation for the next winter if I have to. Maybe I won't have to, maybe the zeds will collapse by then.

We agreed to help Don get to his daughter. As I drove, Allan did what he could for Don's wounds. The smell of Don's wounds was bad, really bad. The left arm needs to be amputated. It's a useless, mangled, shredded piece of rotting flesh that only brings him pain. The thing is, I fear that even if we amputate, it may be too late for him. He's feverish and the infection has spread past his destroyed arm. We gave him plenty of antibiotics and what we could for the pain. He might have pulled through but I think only a hospital would have been able to save his life.

We drove him to his daughter's house, a couple of miles north east of Ocala. On the way we not only had to deal with the broken down cars and a few stray zeds but we had to swerve and dodge around fallen palm trees and pieces of buildings from the storm.

When we finally arrived at the residence, a small, well hidden house set back from the road, Don bolted out of the car and started yelling for his daughter. I had to remind him to shut up, his voice would draw the undead to us. From the outside the house seemed to have weathered the storm well. The windows had been properly covered and the doors had new dead bolts installed.

There was no response from inside. It drove Don into a bit of a frenzy as he beat on the plywood covered windows trying to get his daughter's attention. He tried calling the house phone and as I looked around to see how I could gain entry I heard the phone ringing from inside the house. I knew what Don would find inside but I didn't say anything.

Don kept telling us that his daughter must be sleeping or she's still locked herself in the safe room and can't get to the phone. He was sure his ex-wife's risen corpse must still be inside keeping his daughter from the phone. He refused to believe that she wouldn't be found alive.

Don started asking for an axe to chop down the door when Allan pointed out that one of the rocks under the porch was obviously fake. It held a spare key.

I couldn't stop Don from frantically grapping the false rock and opening the door. He rushed right into the house even though I was trying to hold him back. He didn't have his weapon with him, I still had it in my waistband. I tried to tell him we need to go in cautiously but he paid me no heed. I shrugged at Allan, who shrugged back at me and we both followed Don into the house.

Allan and I walked in cautiously, making sure the rooms were clear but Don ran straight towards the safe room. In a sparse moment we heard Don screaming at his wife's animated corpse. He was calling her foul names as he beat her head into the wall. In Don's state I was surprised that he could, with one arm, overpower the walking cadaver and be beating its head into the wall. The ghoul stood no chance against the desperate need a father had for his child.

Don leaned on the locked door to the safe room and pleaded with Patty to open the door for him, telling her that daddy was here now and she was safe. He stayed like that even after Allan and I had made sure the house was clear and had dragged the remains of the zombie outside. When we returned Don was weeping, calling for Patty and then remembered there was a keypad he could open the door with.

It took Don a couple of minutes of searching to find it. He fumbled the code twice before he pressed the right keys. The door clicked and unlocked and Don practically ran into the room.

The outcome was predictable. Mommy's hungering corpse stood outside the door trying to get inside and eat her daughter. The daughter feared so much what was waiting for her on the other side of the door she stayed there until she either died of thirst or starved to death. I don't know which one killed her, my suspicions were confirmed as soon as the door opened and the smell of her small rotting body assailed my nose.

As for the calls on the cell phone, there was no living person dialing the phone. Patty's corpse had started to rot and decay many weeks ago. The phone hung from its power cord, having fallen off the nightstand. It blew in the warm air whenever the furnace kicked on. It twisted and swung around in the small breeze, occasionally banging into the nightstand. Randomly it hit redial and the last number called happened to belong to Don.

Don cried and we buried both his daughter and his ex-wife in the backyard. That night as we slept Don finally gave up his struggle and he died too. I think Don just gave up on trying to live. The infection he had was bad, but I don't believe it was bad enough to kill him at that point.

The house is suitable for our purposes.

Allan buried Don next to the fresh graves of the rest of his family while I brought our things in and set up our new place.

This is the complete opposite of what I had planned on doing. Hopefully this place will be the last place we have to hide in.

### Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I realize it's been more than a month since my last entry. To be truthful there hasn't been anything to write about for some time now, until today. I suppose I could have described the new safe house and the surrounding area before today but I didn't see the point. Even today's event may turn out to be nothing, simply a result of an over active and overly paranoid mind. Whatever the case may be, I'm bored and have nothing better to do, so I guess I'll do a little writing.

Most of the houses in this area are spread out. The amount of land each house sits on varies anywhere from less than an acre to ten or more acres. There's a relation between the age of the houses and the size of the land. The older the house, the more land it has. The bigger, and older houses, were built prior to World War Two, having the old style wiring and walls that are covered in slats and plaster instead of modern drywall. All of these older houses have the remains of barns, chicken coops, stables and in one case, an aged double outhouse. The newer the building the less land it has. The more recently built houses have none of the secondary buildings except for a large shed or unattached garage. There is one small subdivision in the area, consisting of around thirty or so houses, all of which sit on small plots (following the standard American suburban set-up). There used to be a large house, practically a mansion, with a surrounding wall and private gate that is now nothing more than ruins.

The two story house we're holed up in now appears to have been built in the sixties or seventies, having been renovated with some basic security upgrades. There's a single camera at the front door and all the doors and windows are hooked up to a security system. It literally took me hours of searching to find the codes for the alarm system. The doors have had additional locks placed on them and the safe room appears to have been built on a separate foundation slab.

The nearby town's small business section, along what most people would consider the main street, consists of no more than a dozen businesses and a single grocery store. A fire had swept through and destroyed the police station and township offices.

I haven't been able to scout or loot any of the small town's downtown buildings due to a large number of the undead. There are hundreds of them all over place. There is an old population sign with the towns motto "Welcome to the small town with the big heart." Just over a thousand people used to live here, now the former residents of the town wander around the streets in search of the living. Most of the walking dead seems to be centered around the small town's post office. I can't get close enough to tell if they're trying to get inside it or if they're just grouped close together around it, I can't even get a good view with my army issue binoculars. There may be survivors holed up in one of the downtown buildings but I can't be sure.

Most of the surrounding houses are empty, with the rare exception of the odd zombie that couldn't find a way outside to join its detestable brethren. This, to me, is another example of the undead grouping up into something like a herd. There must be some sort of basic communication going on between them. I would love to capture a few of them and do some research but that would be folly.

There isn't a lot of food left in any of the houses or buildings that I can get to. Allan and I have grabbed every scrap and morsel we could find but it won't last us more than a couple of months. I get the feeling that it's all been picked through and raided before we got here.

Lately I've been getting the feeling we're being watched. I don't like that one bit.

### Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Since all the windows have been boarded up there is no way to look outside. I briefly thought about taking the panels off of the second story windows but decided against it. The benefits of the covered windows are just too many now that that dead hungrily wander the earth in search of the living.

I found an access hatch leading to the attic in the master bedroom's closet. The space is small and confined, requiring one to crawl between boxes of old clothes and what I would call junk. The former occupants who stored the materials up here obviously didn't consider them junk, they considered them memories. I tossed most of it in a spare bedroom for more space. On either end of the low peaked roof there are ventilation covers with fans hooked up to the central air. I removed the fans and controls so I could open the ventilation slats (they look like metal venetian blinds) and look out. I have set up a watch post up there. I can only see east or west through them but it's better than nothing. I have a hunting rifle with a decent scope up there along with a set of night goggles I appropriated from the dead in my scavenging of Orlando.

I told Allan to maintain a watch during the day and I would take watch at night. Once an hour he goes outside, armed, and checks the perimeter with the binoculars to ensure nobody is spying on us. I don't expect Allan to find anybody during the day, it's the night when I expect they'll come. If our watcher would come during the day, openly, I would expect them to have better intentions. If my suspicions are true and they come at night, I'll know that their intentions are hostile towards us. The fact that whoever it is hasn't already tried to make contact doesn't bode well to begin with. Of course I could be imagining this, with all that's happened and the extreme amount of stress I've been under I could be over reacting.

### Friday, March 1, 2013

For two days we've been keeping watch and there was nothing. Allan seems more interested in playing with the X-Box than anything else lately, I can tell he doesn't think anybody has been watching us. I told him we needed to keep this up for a couple of weeks at least, just to make sure.

Last night, around three in the morning, we had a visitor. The boredom and the hour was getting to me, making me tired and lax. I almost missed her.

The resolution isn't the best, looking through the night vision goggles is kind of murky but I swear to the Gods that the woman who came out of the woods to check out the house was naked. She wasn't completely naked, she wore a shoulder holstered sidearm on each side and a gun belt. I couldn't really see if she was one of the "Reds" or not but she must have been. No one besides one of the insane would walk around buck naked in the middle of the night in March.

I was never able to get a shot off at her, she was quick and the metal slats impeded my view.

All I really saw of her was when she crept along the east side of the house where I was. My view, looking down, is horrible and I'm lucky I spotted her at all. She must have came from the north or south side, my blind sides, as I move back and forth between looking through the east and west vents. How long she had been on the property I could only guess, but now I knew without a doubt that we were being monitored and probably hunted.

This morning, as soon as it was light out I went and did a check of the exterior of the house. The softer ground under one of the attached garage's small windows held the slightest impressions of footprints. Footprints, not shoeprints. It took me a second to notice that all the screws, except for two, holding the thick wood over the window had been removed. The two remaining screws were loose, ready to be removed easily so she could get in whenever she had wanted. She had to have been there for some time, the screws were set very tightly. I heard no whine of a battery operated drill, nor did I see her carrying one, so she must have used a simple screw driver to remove them. I was pissed at myself for not spotting her doing that. At least I did end up seeing her, and I did catch what she had done before it was too late. If I hadn't seen her last night I doubt either Allan or I would have checked the boarded up windows for missing screws. We gave the house a good going over and searched the area for anything else amiss but found nothing. Allan wanted to fix the board back up but I told him not to. I wanted to catch the bitch in the act when she came back. I didn't want her to know we were on to her.

Tonight I'm setting up watch in the garage. She'll be back, I'm sure of it.

### Sunday, March 3, 2013

I waited in the garage for her return. The two car garage had both the Suburban we had brought with us and an older Cadillac, along with some assorted stuff the previous owner had stored here. I thought about taking the vehicles out and possibly stashing them next door or somewhere out of sight but decided against it. The reason I kept them in the garage was that I didn't know how much inspecting the parasite maddened woman had already done and I didn't want her to suspect that I was on to her plan. The bitch could easily have already scanned the interior of the garage, we had no idea how long or how many times she had actually been here. My plan was to kill or capture her once she crawled through the window. I would try to capture her alive and question her, then kill her when I was done. Either way I was going to put the "Red" out of her misery. I don't think she had actually been inside the garage, the screen was still intact and the window itself was shut, locked and alarmed. If she had found a way inside the door to the house itself was also always locked and alarmed.

I had Allan gather up our stuff, ready to move if we had to, and pack it into the Suburban. We honestly didn't know if she was alone or if there were others with her. This could have gone down any number of ways and I wanted to be prepared. I can't say that I planned for how the events unfolded though.

I waited throughout the night with my weapons and my night vision goggles, crouched between the vehicles. Again around three in the morning she showed back up.

Quietly, almost without a sound the plywood came off the window. The loudest sound came when she set the plywood down and it banged slightly against the house. If I hadn't have known she was out there I wouldn't have noticed her.

For the space of a few minutes there was nothing. I couldn't see her and there was no noise at all. My heart started racing and my adrenalin started flowing when I saw her, cautiously, peer through the glass and inspect the interior of the garage. I ducked down and waited for her next move, I didn't want her to see me and run off. After a moment I poked my head back up and watched as she cut the screen away. After that there came the unmistakable sound of a diamond tipped glass cutting tool scratching a hole in the window. Again, if we hadn't had known she was going to try to break in, we wouldn't have heard the small scraping sound inside the house. Another pause and then a suction cup was carefully placed on the window where the glass would be cut out. A quiet thump on the window, breaking the hole in the glass and it was done. The hole she had cut in the window was no bigger than a fist, I had expected her to cut most of the window out so she could wriggle through. Then I thought she was going to unlock the window and disable the alarm somehow but she didn't. Instead the plastic nozzle of a gas can was inserted through the hole. The can was tipped and gasoline started pouring out, running down the wall and pooling on the floor.

Her plan was to burn us out of the house in the middle of the night. Probably she would either try to pick us off or capture us as we would be confused and disoriented.

I shot at her, trying not to hit the gas can or the spilled gas. I had no desire to start the fire by sending hot lead into the highly flammable liquid. I couldn't go for a head shot as her head was behind the can from my point of view. I went for body shots. I shot through the wall of the garage and I knew I at least hit my target once when she screamed in pain and shock.

The gas can immediately dropped to the ground. I kept firing, wanting to kill the bitch as she ran away screaming filth at us. The crazy bitch started shooting back at us as she ran away, into the woods.

Allan opened up the back door and started shooting too but it was pitch black outside. All of his shots were going to miss, he couldn't even see his target.

I ran past him and told him to stay here and keep guard while I tracked her down and finished her.

The bitch had a head start on me. She also knew the area a whole lot better than me. Even though she was basically naked and wounded she still outpaced me as I chased her. She ran through bushes and nettles without care, ignoring the cuts and scratches she received. I kept firing at her, trying to kill her before she got away but the darkness, trees and distance between myself and my dodging target proved to be too much to fire effectively.

I followed her, catching momentary glimpses of her fleeing from me, for what seemed like miles. I had followed her to the outskirts of downtown when I lost her. I had to stop following her when I started running into groups of the undead. In fact I turned the corner of a building and almost ran into some of the undead abominations. I was almost positive the bitch had come this way. I had to shoot my way out of there. The undead were coming my way, having been drawn to the sounds of gunfire. Maybe she had dodged through a building, she must have planned for this, she lost me.

I was positive I had at least put one round into her. Hopefully it'll kill the bitch or at least force her into hiding for awhile.

I went back to the house and a nervous Allan as quickly as I could.

We made preparations and plans for the next day when it would be light out again.

There was no way we could leave a wounded and extremely dangerous opponent like her alive. Allan wanted to flee, find someplace safer. I was pissed and reminded him that there was no safe place anymore. No matter where we went there would be the infected who had been driven insane and the undead ghouls. I might have been too harsh with him. I could tell he was scared and upset too. I felt that we needed to make a stand eventually. We couldn't run away every time something went wrong. Even if we fled who's to say the crazy bitch wouldn't follow us. I'm sure that the bitch wanted to murder us just as badly as we wanted to kill her.

If the crazed bitch was using the hundreds of undead as a shield to hide behind, then I was going to have to take that shield away. I wouldn't have to kill all of the zeds, all I really had to do was to lead them away from the downtown area where she was hiding.

We kept a tense watch until dawn, watching to make sure she didn't come back. We loaded up the Suburban with all the weapons and ammo we had collected. We even went so far as to remove the rear bench seat and knocked out all the rear windows for better firing. I made up some Molotov cocktails with the gas from the Cadillac. If I had to burn the town down to get to the bitch, that's what I would do. It would serve her right, to burn to death, it's what she planned to do to us.

At first light we headed to town.

Allan drove as I took up a position in the back. When we got in range of the undead, Allan slowed to a crawl and I fired and killed as many as I could. When they started getting too close I hurled a Molotov at them and Allan drove out of range of them again.

The undead paid no heed what so ever to the flames of the ignited gasoline. They went right through the blaze, lighting themselves afire, in their single minded pursuit to catch and devour us alive.

Waves of them came after us. A lot of my shots missed or hit the filthy things in the chest or arms, doing nothing to stop them. Allan slowly drove through the cluttered and potholed streets as I did my best to kill as many as I could. A few times Allan found the way blocked by wreckage or a stray group of the animated dead and had to turn around and drive over lawns and between buildings to keep us out of reach of the hungering monsters.

Slowly we were leading them out of town. I had put so many of them back into the arms of true death that I had to reload all of my clips. It was while I was reloading that I tossed the majority of my Molotov's and the last of my hand grenades. Allan hit a deep pothole just as I was throwing my last grenade. The grenade was active, and I almost shit myself as I watched it hit the roof of the Suburban and tumble wildly around. I recovered it and chucked it out the side window just before it went off. I don't blame Allan for driving into the pothole, there is garbage and leaves strewn about the roads, covering up most of the holes to begin with. The live grenade bounced once of the asphalt and went off only a moment after I ducked down. Allan had heard my warning shout and had seen what happened wide eyed and mouth agape, he didn't need to be told to duck down. The rear tire blew out as shrapnel tore through it and peppered the Suburban with small holes. Thankfully the only wound I or Allan sustained was a shallow cut from a hot piece of metal that sliced open my jeans and grazed my leg.

It was past noon before we had finally led the undead from town. I had to reload more than a few times and we were now on our last clips. I had managed to kill off the vast majority of the undead, hundreds of them lay in the streets, some still burning from the Molotov's I had used. I felt good about the day's work so far, now we would go back into town and hunt the bitch down.

There were a few isolated zeds in town, most of them were incapable of walking. The stragglers crawled or dragged themselves along, easy targets.

As we approached the center of downtown the bitch started sniping at us from a rooftop. The first round hit me square in the chest, knocking the wind out of me and hammering me to the floor of the Suburban. The bullet proof vest I was wearing saved my life. Allan drove out of town, the blown tire's rim throwing up sparks as the bitch fired round after round at us. She was a lousy shot, thankfully, only hitting the Suburban once more before we were out of sight.

It wasn't until we got closer to our safe house that we noticed the thick black smoke. Without a doubt, while we had been leading the zombies out of town, she had been busy too. There was a knot in my stomach as I realized the smoke was billowing from our safe house. Whatever we hadn't taken with us was now burning. We had gathered our traveling packs but we left all of our food behind.

Allan once again wanted to flee and I told him he was welcome to. I was going to stay and kill the infested cunt. Allan decided not to leave.

Fine. It was a fight to the death, we already knew that. Now though the bitch made a tactical mistake. If she hadn't of burned down our house we would have surely returned to it and she would know where we were. Now she was going to have to find us again. This time she was going to have a problem. I knew where she was. I saw the flash from the muzzle when she fired at me. Even if the building she fired on us from wasn't where she was living, it had to be close. Now she was without her undead guards.

Now I am going to tend to my shrapnel wound and get some rest, then we will hunt the bitch down.

### Monday, March 4, 2013

I was exhausted from the hours long battle with the undead but there was still a lot we had to do before we could sleep.

There was still plenty of light left, it gave us the opportunity to set up a false hideout. I had already picked out a couple of back up buildings that would serve to hole up in when I had scouted for supplies. None were as good as the one the bitch had burned down, with its safe room. The most logical choice was a little storage facility named, "U Store It". The property was fenced in and the main office had a small apartment above it. It was fairly secure wouldn't be hard to defend but we wouldn't stay there. We did, however, make it look like we were staying there.

The Suburban, with its mangled, tireless, rear rim and the multiple bullet and shrapnel holes stood out like a sore thumb. It was easily recognizable as belonging to us so we parked it in plain sight, there, in front of the office.

I figured that the parasite maddened Red would come out again once night fell. Without a doubt she would search her town for any sign of us. Also without a doubt she would burn whatever building she thought we were hiding in. Allan and I talked about whether or not the other burned shells of buildings in the community were because of accidents or her setting them ablaze to force survivors out. Probably the latter.

The shrapnel wound was deeper than I had thought it was. It also hurt a lot more once my adrenalin stopped flowing. I did my best to stitch it up with a needle and thread from my sewing kit. It looks nothing like what a doctor would do but it closed the wound. It was an exercise in self inflicted pain, I hadn't thought a small needle could hurt so much.

We cleaned our weapons and took stock of what ammo remained. There isn't much left.

Our meal consisted of some rice we found in the caretakers apartment. There was nothing else to eat. All of our food was destroyed in the fire, along with our clothes, sleeping bags and everything else we had scrounged in the past months.

I made sure to turn on one of the apartment lights, ensuring a small amount of illumination will spill into the night. I wanted the insane bitch to think we were inside. We even went so far as to drag two of the zeds we wasted earlier, a male and female corpse, and placed them inside. We got a third corpse and laid it in just inside the entry gate and fired off a single round. The parasite infected woman was sure to hear the shot, clueing her as to our new location. Hopefully she would think we fired off the round because a zombie had gotten too close and we had to kill it. If she burned the building down she would find two smoldering corpses. If she thought we were dead it would be a lot easier to catch her off guard.

I also booby-trapped the door with my shotgun. I didn't like the idea of giving the weapon up, but if we were staying in the building we certainly would do something like that. There was always the off chance that she would be foolish enough to pick the lock on the door and try to kill us in our sleep, receiving a face full of lead but I doubt she would do that. If she did fire bomb the place she would come back to find the shotgun aimed at the door, as if we were actually hiding inside. My M1 carbine was out of ammo so I left it in one of the cadaver's arms.

After setting up the fake shelter we made our way to the charred ruins of the large walled piece of property in the richer and older part of town.

We will be doing the opposite of what we should. We will sleep outside, in a spot she had probably (according to her M.O.), previously destroyed. There are the well-cooked skeletal remains of four people here, more proof to me that the homicidal cunt did this. The night will be cold without a campfire but the brick wall around the property would keep any of the undead out. The single gate is ajar, and that's how we left it. To close and lock it might give us away, better it stays open. Most of the undead have been either killed or led out of town so the chance is slim any of the ghouls will wander in on us. Regardless, one of us will stand watch at night and keep an eye out.

I would love to be in the position to monitor the fake shelter we set up and see if it actually draws her attention. That's not a good idea, she will monitor the place before she strikes and I don't want her to accidently stumble across us. We'll know soon enough if the plan works, fire can be seen for miles.

We did all of that yesterday. Allan stayed up the whole night, knowing I was going to go out today and search for her. He should have woken me for my watch around four in the morning but he let me sleep. To be honest, I'm glad he did, I needed it. As soon as I finish writing this I'm going to go check on the fake safe house. Maybe move the Chevy, turn on a different light, drag the corpse away, and make it look like we are there. Then go look for her.

I'll give the plan a couple of days. In the meantime I will search for her lair during the light while she sleeps, she seems to be a night hunter.

### Wednesday, March 5, 2013

Last night, at around four thirty in the morning, Allan woke me up. As soon as my eyes opened I could smell what he roused me from my sleep for. The cold morning air was filled with the heavy scent of a building on fire.

There, on the far horizon, we could see the spreading glow of flames. We were too far away from the fire to see the building itself being engulfed by the fire but we both knew which building was burning. The parasite ridden and crazed woman had taken the bait and burned down our fake safe house. The glow from the fire started small and we watched as it grew into a huge bonfire that lit up the night. The storage bays must have caught on fire along with the office and small apartment. Great black plumes of smoke went up from the conflagration well into the afternoon. The fire still smolders as I write this, night will soon fall again, sending grayish trails into the sky.

Monday and Tuesday afternoon I cautiously made my way into town to locate the Red's lair. I had desperately wanted to scrounge around in the supermarket to look for food but I figured that was the one place she would be sure to keep an eye on.

All of the buildings I checked out had been broken into and looted already. Except for one. The Post office was locked and boarded up. That fact alone led me to believe she was hiding inside it.

How the infected woman had been getting in and out of the building before we had lead the undead way from town was a mystery to me. The hungry dead seemed to be thickest around the Post Office and there was no way anyone could have entered or left the building without being noticed and quickly surrounded by the monstrosities. Maybe there is an access tunnel or something under the building. Maybe she's not inside the Post Office at all, but if she's not, then why is there a relatively fresh blood trail leading into the rear door? Every other building in town shows no sign of habitation. It was also from the roof of the Post Office that she had shot me and would have killed me if it weren't for my bullet proof vest.

The only buildings I haven't been able to physically investigate are the grocery store and the handful of buildings around it. From what I saw of them through my binoculars shows broken windows and bashed down doors, it's quite clear that nobody is inside them.

I'll find out for certain soon enough. Sometime tomorrow the ruins of the fake safe house will have cooled down enough to approach. Not that I'm going to return to it, I expect the Red to do that. If I were her I would surely go back and see if there were any survivors and count the number of charred corpses. She is crazy though, driven by violent impulses and a murderous craving for human flesh.

If she returns to the building she burned down to see if she killed us or not doesn't matter. Allan and I will stay quiet and out of sight for another couple of days. Let the bitch think we're dead or have fled. Then she won't be expecting me when I kill her.

The only other thing I wanted to write about today is what Allan brought home for food. I came back from scouting the town last night, just after dark, to find Allan munching on dry dog food straight from the bag like he was eating potato chips. He just shrugged at me and offered me some when he saw my inquisitive look. He explained to me that when he was a kid they had a dog. Naturally, he had gotten curious one day and decided to see what the food they gave the beagle tasted like. It was dry, kind of bland and reminded him of cheap corn chips, minus the salt and with a hint of meat flavor. Those little bone shaped dog treats tasted mostly like cardboard and the chicken flavored dog snacks tasted like crap he told me. I think I'll take his word on that.

There wasn't much to be scavenged from the houses and food was food. The rice we had found was in short supply and there is no way we're going to light a fire to cook any up at night time. Dog food. Won't kill us or make us sick if we don't eat a lot of it at once. Cold rice and kibbles.

I have got to kill that bitch soon so I can raid whatever is left in the supermarket.

### Friday, March 7, 2013

It's done.

I killed her.

I spent the whole day waiting and watching silently from a small insurance office that had a good view of the Post Office.

I waited until the sun started to dip below the tree line, thinking that I should start making way back to camp. The rear door to the building opened up and I almost missed it entirely. The crazy woman's skin was completely red colored, I know this because she wasn't wearing a single scrap of clothing. The only thing she had was an AK hanging over her shoulder and a large gauze bandage on her left side from where I had shot her. Her thick black hair was matted and unwashed. She actually had a decent figure. She might have been pretty before she became infected. I'm sure she never expected to die like she did. She should have died of old age with a ton of grandchildren, instead of having her brains blown out the side of her head while she was otherwise "occupied".

She was too quick for me to shoot then, by the time I switched from the binoculars to the hunting rifle with the scope she had gone around the corner of the building. I tried to follow her through the scope but that proved impossible. I only caught short glimpses of her as she made her way inside the Publix. After about twenty minutes she returned carrying a basket full of what looked to be batteries. I didn't see her make her way back, the Post Office almost completely blocks my view of the supermarket. When I did see her again I only had a few sparse seconds to make the shot and in that time she quickly went back inside to safety.

So I waited. I waited for hours after dark before I made my way to the rear door of the post office. The door was locked again. I didn't have the tools to pick the lock but there was a gap between the door and the frame. Even in the slight moonlight I could see the latch. I was sweating like a pig in the cold night air as I jimmied the latch open with two thin steak knives I had pilfered from a nearby house.

As I opened the door I was more nervous than I ever remember having been in my life. My sweaty hands shook and I held the rifle so tightly in my hands that my knuckles hurt from the strain. I expected her to find me breaking in and wished I had a shotgun with me instead of the rifle. The rifle was unwieldy and I set it down to draw out my handguns.

I crouched there waiting for my eyes and ears to adjust to the interior gloom. There was the flickering of light and an odd moaning coming from a closed office at the other end of the mail sorting room. There was more than one person's voice in the moans and it unnerved the hell out of me. As I slowly crept closer to the room, I could make out, through the half open venetian blinds covering a large window, a whole wall full of television sets. I was momentarily stunned when my brain told me what my disbelieving eyes were seeing. There had to be twenty or so TV's in there and they were all hooked up to separate DVD and VCR players. All of them were playing a different show. All of them were porn. There was some really nasty stuff being played, of a bunch of different types. The mixed sound of moans and dirty talk was all blurred together and it sounded completely bizarre to my ears.

The woman was laying on some dirty mattress, legs spread wide, as she furiously rammed the largest dildos in and out her holes that I had ever seen.

I couldn't help myself from staring at her as she fondled herself and masturbated. It took me a minute before I remembered what I had come here for and raised my weapons and shot her through the window.

She died instantly. My first shot spewed her brains on the wall.

I entered the room and shot her again, making more than sure she wouldn't rise up from the dead to hunt me down after death.

I was embarrassed for the damned woman. I covered her body and turned off all the sets. At least she didn't die in fear or in any physical pain.

I was even too embarrassed to tell Allan how I found her when I killed her.

I did a check of the building and found some really disturbing shit. There were six pickle jars, without the pickles, stacked in the room with her. In the greenish vinegar there floated what could only be castrated male penises and balls. One set per jar. I have no idea what she did that for and to tell the truth I didn't want to know.

In the front lobby there was a dozen decomposing human heads set up along the counter. All of the heads were female and had fresh makeup applied to them. Lipstick, mascara and the whole nine yards, even their hair was done up nicely. I was creeped out to no end.

I would rather be dead and a zombie than have to exist in a state of insanity that drives people to do things like that. Killing her was a blessing in my view.

Now we've set up shop in the Publix, making it secure as we can. Thank the Gods I don't have to eat rice and dog food again tonight.

### Wednesday, September 18, 2013

I realize it's been over six months since I wrote in this journal. I had intended to write something occasionally, at least once a month but I really didn't have anything to write about. I could have made little entries here and there but I kept putting it off. The days blended into weeks and the weeks turned into months. What spurred me to write again was when I checked my watch and saw the date. It's been a full year since the first outward signs of the "Scarlet" started showing on people. A year since the parasite formed colonies in their human hosts and killed them. A year after the single celled plague named "Toxoplasmosa Mondus Omni" started resurrecting the dead flesh of its victims.

In a few weeks it will be the first anniversary of my mother and sister's and all of my family and friends death. And not just them. Ninety percent of everyone who ever lived died. Add the seventy percent of all the animals of the mammal order, and all the animals who starved when their food died or were attacked and the world seems a dead place.

Birds, insects, fish and reptiles are still around but I have yet to spot a single squirrel. I sometimes hear the barking of dogs but even that is rare.

The town is quiet. Allan and I are the only people here among the unused and abandoned buildings.

Occasionally there comes the undead to disturb our solitude. They come singly and in small groups. There hasn't been any problem in dealing with them besides lowering our stock of ammo.

Food is starting to get short. The "Red" I had to hunt down and kill had a huge stock of food stashed away in the Post Office, obviously she had looted the town and stored it for herself. The Publix, which normally would have held a huge quantity for two people to eat, held barely as much as the "Red" had gathered. The food shortage and supply problems that the parasite caused is to blame for that. As it is, we have burned through most of it. Not that we've been eating like pigs, just the opposite. We've been rationing our food but still in another month or so we're going to have to go out and do some scavenging in nearby towns for food.

On a side note, I searched and searched the Post Office and the surrounding buildings trying to figure out how the infected and insane woman had been getting past the horde of zombies. I still can't figure it out. There is no secret passage or tunnel, no way to go from rooftop to rooftop or anything like that. I'm missing something here and it bothers me from time to time.

We've taken residence in a rather large house, big enough so that for days Allan and I never even see each other.

I spend a lot of my time reading while Allan spends endless hours playing mindless games on an X-Box and a Playstation 3.

I get lonely. Allan may be a friend but he can't fill the void I feel. I think he feels the same way towards me. He hasn't made any advances sexually towards me, not that it bothers me. We're from different generations and if it weren't for the current situation we would never have even talked to each other except in passing.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels as if I can sense the ghosts of the dead all around me. It's not a threatening feeling, how do I explain it? It's as if they miss the world and the families they left behind. It's as if they still can't comprehend how everything ended so quickly and are saddened to see their flesh, which they left behind, still walking around with such a horrible intent.

### Thursday, October 24, 2013

I had a dream this morning. It was the absolute worst dream I have ever had in my life. I can't imagine having a more disturbing dream if I live to be a hundred years old. It was an omen. The day went bad before noon. I dreamt that I had died and had turned into one of the walking dead. The hunger I felt while I wandered the earth was relentless and overpowering. It was a vile craving for human flesh that could not be satisfied no matter how many people I assaulted and sunk my teeth into. My victims screamed in agony and begged God to save them, all I felt as I bit down on their soft flesh was how good the warm blood felt and tasted. The last part of the dream, the part that forced me to awaken from the nightmare, was by far the worst. I dreamed that I had come across a baby, still in its crib. I dreamed that I ripped open its belly with my teeth and proceeded to eat its internal organs. My hunger was eternal and even after I was full I still gorged myself on it. I ate all of the helpless infant, when it died and stopped its crying I only felt relief that the thing finally shut up.

I felt physically sick when I woke from the dream. I puked until my gut hurt from the strain and then I puked some more.

I know it was just a dream. I still feel horrified and guilty over it. I feel as though I have committed the gravest of sins just for dreaming such an evil thing.

Night is starting to fall and I still feel nauseous.

No longer are we still in that small deserted town. Now we're somewhere in Ocala after having been found and pursued by an infected band of murdering raiders. We barely escaped with our lives.

I spent the early hours of the morning eating Tums by the handful and sipping on some tea to try and quell my rebelling stomach. When Allan saw me he noticed the look on my face and asked me if I was O.K. I told him I had a cold or maybe a touch of food poisoning but I would be fine.

Food was the last thing on my mind but not Allan's. Our supply was almost exhausted and we had been doing some hunting to supplement it. I told Allan I was going to stay inside today and take it easy so I wouldn't be joining him on the hunt. We never had a lot of luck, the game was scarce to begin with. Sometimes we lucked out and caught a couple of small fish from one of the small lakes, grateful to catch anything at all. The main thing we caught were birds. Occasionally we got a duck but more often than not we ended up trapping crows. Every day we went out hoping to get a rabbit or even a deer but all we ever managed to catch were birds.

We always went out armed but we rarely shot our food. The noise drew too much attention to us. The damage that a bullet did to the small game wasn't worth it so we made Ojibwa bird traps and trap falls to catch our game.

As Allan went out and checked our traps I stayed inside and tried to wipe my dream from my mind. When I first heard the report of a gunshot I thought it was Allan. For a moment I thought he had come across something that was worth shooting but the sound was too distant and came from the wrong direction. There followed more shots, rapidly approaching town. It sounded like someone was driving into town, clearing the way of the undead as they came.

There really is only one main road into the town and if you blink while driving it you might miss seeing the town entirely. The grocery store, pharmacy, post office and the few burned shells of the remaining public buildings line the main road. If they were coming into town it would be by that road so I waited with the binoculars to see what was going on.

Shortly a Humvee, followed by a cube van and another Humvee rolled into town. Both the Humvee's had fifty calibers and armored turrets, both were manned. They stopped in front of the Publix and men quickly jumped out and went inside it and the pharmacy.

Survivors I thought. An organized group of survivors! I wanted to rush straight out and let them know I was here. I didn't though, however much I wanted to. Instead, I scrutinized them through the binoculars before I committed myself to approaching them. I'm glad I did. All of them showed the signs of the "Scarlet". They weren't red yet, they looked as if they had only recently been infected. All of them had the small red patches on their exposed skin. How that could be I had no idea. Had the parasite mutated? Had they been hiding in some secure facility that purified the air and kept the eggs out, only to be driven out by hunger to risk infection? How could it be that only within the past week or so had they been exposed to the deadly contamination?

Allan didn't have the benefit of my binoculars, nor did he have the self control to stay hidden and observe the strangers before rushing towards them.

Allan ran towards them waving his hands in the air and shouting wildly. I watched as Allan rushed closer and saw the lead Humvee's turret swing towards him. Those that were inside looting ran out as I heard Allan shouting to them that he was immune and uninfected. Allan slowed to a stop seeing the fifty caliber gun pointed at him.

One of the group yelled at the others to go back inside and finish getting everything they could, that he would take care of this. Allan stood there, uncertain now and hesitated for a moment until the leader of the group smiled widely and waved him over.

The only weapon I had in arm's reach was a handgun. I wanted my rifle but didn't want to leave and grab it, wanting to see how this would play out. I knew that any shot I made from here with the nine millimeter would probably miss. The most I could hope for, if I had to shoot, was to scare them and make them take cover.

Allan stopped in his tracks once he got close enough to see them clearly and then he ran. Immediately they started firing at him. They whooped and the boss man jumped into the Humvee as the fifty caliber spit fire and hot lead at Allan.

I couldn't tell if Allan was hit or not, he was out of my sight in no time. As soon as he disappeared from view the Humvee drove after him.

In our six plus months of living in the deserted town we had come across a number of decent vehicles. My favorite was a truck that somebody had spent a lot of time and money on. It had been modified with a nice lift kit and sported some big-ass tires on it. It had a manual transmission with four wheel drive and was capable of going almost anywhere. It was one of those extended cab models with a shortened, covered payload bed and a sturdy roll bar.

I had no idea where Allan would run to but I knew eventually he would come here. I grabbed as much of our stuff as I could and hurriedly started putting it all in the bed of the truck. All the time I heard the infected gleefully shouting between bursts of the machine gun fire. As long as they fired I knew Allan was still alive. As I tossed the last of our stuff in the back and started the truck I heard them driving down the block behind us firing wildly into the neighborhood. Allan burst in through the back door and shouted for me to get my stuff. I revved the truck and clicked the remote that opened the garage door yelling to Allan that I was way ahead of him. We were going to have to get out of town quick and I let Allan drive as he had much more experience driving than I had.

We had a small lead on the raiders, and a small amount of surprise I think. Allan drove like a mad man, over lawns and between houses as we made our escape. At first the raiders kept us in sight but they never got any good shots off at us. Allan chose rough ground and a winding path through the neighborhood, ensuring that the bouncing ride threw off the aim of our pursuers. They did manage to place a couple of rounds into the truck but they missed shooting us.

By the time we were out of the town itself and into the more dispersed houses we managed to keep out of their immediate sight but I knew they could still hear the sound of our engine. It was only because we knew the lay of the land that we did so well in escaping. We had spent months hunting and looting the town and knew the best way around. The raiders didn't.

We drove through an area that looked like it was firm ground but was, in reality, a boggy, muddy piece of land. The truck, with its wide, oversized tires designed for driving in the mud, drove through the marshy land with barely a problem. The heavy Humvee didn't follow us past that. In no time even the sounds of the machine gun receded.

We were still too spooked to get on a main road, not wanting to run into our pursuers again so we stuck to back roads. We weren't even sure which direction we were headed in and after about twenty miles Allan asked me how come the gas tank was on empty. It was full when we fled I assured him.

We were coming into a larger town as the engine started to sputter in its last gasps of fuel. When that happened we ditched the truck in the backyard of somebody's house, hidden from view of the street. I check the bullet holes on the truck and sure enough, there was a small hole where a slug had grazed the gas tank.

We were on deadly ground again. The undead ghouls were all around and as soon as we found a suitable place to hole up in we did so.

Night has come again and the darkness is forcing me to stop writing. Tomorrow I'm going to have to start the search for a better safe house and provisions again. We were almost out of food in the last place and would have soon had to do this anyways. I just don't like being forced into action. At least we escaped.

### Monday, October 28, 2013

Finding a better place to hide in turned into an impossible task. A legion of the undead have wandered in and surrounded us.

To make matters worse they know were in here. How, exactly, they know we're here I'm not sure. There were plenty of them around when we scavenged and looted on the first days. We were careful about not letting the flesh hungry zombies spot us, but with so many around I suppose it was inevitable.

The abominable undead claw, bang and tear at the house trying to gain entry. Since we were spotted and they know we're in here anyways we've been forced to demolish the interior of the house. Every spare board, plank and piece of wood has been hammered and screwed up to the windows and doors. No matter how much we fortify this place, eventually it will be breached. It's just a matter of time. I can cling to the hope that someone will draw off their attention or try to save us but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

We managed to gather some food, so at least we're OK on that front but it will not be enough for any protracted siege.

Sleep is hard to get with all the fear and sounds of the undead beating on the house. When we do finally close our eyes it's only because we are so stressed and tired that we pass out. Even when I do get some shut eye I can't sleep for very long. I feel like they will batter down our defenses soon.

If this is the end then so be it. I am determined to make a good account of myself before I go. I'm going to save a last bullet for myself after I kill as many of the damned monsters that I can. I've stared into the hollow darkness of the barrel of my weapon. I'm prepared for when the time comes that I may have to commit suicide rather than being eaten alive. I'm sure I can pull the trigger.

## Book Two

Allan's Journal

### 1

My name is Allan Russell Phillips. To my knowledge I am the last living survivor in the greater Orlando area. While I am sure that there must be more, holed up in some secure location, I have no knowledge of them. I wasn't always alone, there were others with me, but one by one all the others have joined the ranks of the dead. Most of them still walk. It's been just over a year since the Scarlet pandemic swept the globe. Even though it didn't turn people into "zombies" outright, the dead started rising just as the epidemic was receding. Cause and effect in my mind. Of course I could be wrong though, and if anybody (hopefully) in the future is reading this then they will have a better understanding of just what the hell really happened.

I'm not sitting down and writing this because I'm a scholar or a historian, I'm doing it because I want to leave something behind. Time is running out for me, along with food. Eventually I'm going to starve to death here.

I could try to find another place to hole up, but there are so many of them outside now. Sometimes I think the sheer weight of them outside will collapse the walls and they'll come busting through, so much so that I spend a lot of my waking time just ensuring the building is secure.

My paranoia has become so obsessive lately that I find myself doing nothing but checking the doors, windows and perimeter over and over again until I finally pass out from exhaustion. Even sleep is no longer any refuge, filled with horrible nightmares. Waking up from them is bad too. Most times when I awake it's in a paranoid delusion that they have gotten in and are about to find and eat me alive.

Writing this will, with any luck, take my mind off of the endless cycle of paranoia that has gripped me. Psychologically it may help to calm me, allow me to better come to grips with what has happened. Death doesn't particularly scare me, (no more than most people anyways) it's the walking undeath that does.

When I get to the final stages of starvation, and the end is for certain anyways, I'm gonna take my .38 and blow my brains out. Although I'm ninety-nine percent certain that I won't rise from the dead, I was never bitten, nor did I catch the Scarlet Fever, I will make damn sure that I won't come back as a zombie.

Until then though, I'll tell you my experiences, as I remember them, starting from when I first heard of the Scarlet Fever.

### 2

It was another hot and oppressively humid central Florida late summer day. I don't remember what day it was exactly, (even back then when things were normal it didn't matter too much to me what day of the month it actually was) but I do remember it was sometime in the latter part of August. I know it was in August because that's the height of the slow season for cab drivers.

The students from UCF and Rollins were for the most part, still on their summer break, having gone back home from wherever they came from. The "snow-birds", (who migrated from their homes up north to sunny Florida for the winter) hadn't even started to return. This was compounded by the fact it was the hottest part of the year down here, and it was also the rainy season. Nobody who knows Florida weather decides to spend their vacation in a hundred plus degree sauna. The rotten economy didn't help either, people without jobs don't take a cab unless they absolutely had to.

Anyways, it was around that time that I started to hear of a new flu going around, like every year. I really didn't pay much attention to it though. It seemed every year the CDC and the government blows everything out of proportion and issues dire warnings for people to get some new flu shot. Swine flu, Bird flu, blah, blah, blah. To most of us it was just another effort for the government, in collusion with the pharmaceutical companies to sell more product to the public.

This strain supposedly came out of North Korea, or so they speculated, as no news ever comes out of that crap hole except propaganda. The South Koreans were the first to officially report it, followed by the Chinese and then it rapidly spread throughout the whole of Asia and the rest of the world. The quick spread of the disease and the fact that about ninety percent of the population was affected by it was the most alarming aspect of it.

It was quickly dubbed "Rat flu" as the local rodent population always suffered mass casualties wherever it turned up (at the time that seemed like a good thing to most people. Nobody likes rats). In humans though, it was a relatively mild flu, with a short duration and, for the most part, people responded to it like it was an allergy (like dust or pollen). The symptoms lasted about a week or so, but unfortunately that was only stage one of the disease. As the Rat flu spread around the world, and then just as quickly died off, the government warnings for children and the elderly to get their yearly flu shots died off with it.

The CDC admitted that they still hadn't actually identified the virus, but they would continue to research it.

"Whatever," was what I and most people thought. It seemed that it was just another knee jerk overreaction, as there were no actual deaths related to it.

Soon after the Rat flu died off is when things started to take a really bad turn for the worse. First the animals went insane and then the disease entered stage two, and everybody who contracted the Rat flu automatically ended up with "Scarlet fever".

I'm going to stop writing for the day. I'm worn out and constantly tired now. I have to make sure the barricades are still holding before I can try to get some rest...

### 3

Last night was bad, really bad. It was by far the worst night of my life. Around 3:16 am, according to my watch, I was startled awake by the sound of a transformer or something exploding. There was a huge flash of light followed by numerous secondary explosions and I swear I could hear the electricity arcing.

I hesitantly made my way to one of the small windows, in what I suppose was the CEO's office here on the second floor of "Orange County Tool & Die". All the power was out. It was out as far as I could see. Granted, I could only see through a couple of small windows but it was pitch black out there. There was and is, no hope of the electricity coming back. The only light was a small glow to the west and I suppose that means whatever blew started a fire.

I think I broke down last night. I had never been afraid of the dark, even as a kid, but since I've been closed up here I've used the desk lamp as a night-light. That weak little patch of light reassured me that I was safe. Without it I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I kept thinking that they had breached my make-shift defenses and were shambling around downstairs, slowly working their way up the stairs to the offices here. I know now it was just the normal sounds of the building, all buildings have their own creaks and moans, but I was not used to this one's peculiar sounds. I was too afraid to actually go downstairs and investigate. No way was I going to go down there in the dead of night to face down the undead of the night. I huddled up in a corner of the couch and basically sobbed and pleaded with God, the Gods or whomever would listen to my sad little prayers to let me escape this prison.

It seemed like it took an eternity for dawn to break. When it finally did, I fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

It is now early afternoon as I write this. There is a heavy smell of smoke in the air. To the west, where there was just a small glow in the darkness last night, I can plainly see buildings burning. Oh god I hope it doesn't spread and come this way. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! I don't want to die!

I didn't pick this building to hole up in on purpose. At the time it seemed the most secure one I could get to, the old one having been over-run. Jannie died in that one. This one was close, the zeds were everywhere. A building made of solid construction blocks and steel doors. Windows only on the second floor where the rotting fuckers couldn't reach or look into.

I thought I could hide in here for a day or two and then move on. They must have seen me come in here. I swear there was only a couple that could have possibly even seen me come in here, but the next day they had literally surrounded the place. Every day there's more and more of them. How the hell do they know I'm in here? How the fuck are they growing in such numbers? Are they communicating somehow?

Dammit, I only have a few days worth of food left. I guess my options are limited now. I can hide in here until either I starve or die of thirst (the water went out last night too, no power to run the pumps to pressurize the water lines I guess), die by being eaten alive trying to escape or by burning to death if that fire spreads any further. Suicide may be a mortal sin but I think I'll risk hell after death rather than this fuckin' hell on earth.

I know I've gotten way off track here... I'll get back on track and write again about when the chaos started and the Scarlet fever brought down mankind after I check something out. I might be able to get out of here after all, if things go right for once.

### 4

I remember sitting in my cab at a BP station when things started to get weird. A squirrel literally started ambushing people. I first noticed it when it leaped out of a tree and started biting a middle aged, slightly overweight woman. She screamed hysterically as the "tree rat" viscously latched onto her head and just started to rip apart her scalp. As the poor woman screamed, she was practically running around in circles in the middle of the parking lot, flailing her arms. Every time she would try to yank the insane squirrel off of her head, the squirrel would bite a huge chunk out of her hand.

Everyone who saw this was completely taken aback, and initially everyone involuntarily backed away from her. My initial reaction was shock, my jaw dropped, and I watched the scene unfold mouth agape.

It didn't take too long before the disbelief of the situation wore off and a nearby older guy with graying hair, who had been pumping gas into a beat-up old Ford pick-up, ran to help her. His first attempt to grab the crazed thing failed, as the woman was by now completely hysterical and weaving around the lot. The guy rushed towards her again in his attempt to help, and at the same time the woman, who by now had blood literally pouring from her head and hands, stumbled right into him. They collided, but her rescuer managed to get a grip on the thing. The impact with the man sent her tumbling harshly to the ground while the mad squirrel came away from her head clutching a huge tangle of dark brown hair. I could see in the well intentioned guy's eyes a momentary pride that he had gotten the monster off of the woman. That look was completely erased in a sparse second as the squirrel turned on him. Pain showed plainly on his face as teeth and claws sunk into his hands. He added his screams to the woman's, who by now was sobbing while screaming. The rescuer, now victim, reacted by shaking his hands around wildly, throwing the creature to the ground.

The little hairy fiend hit the asphalt with a solid "thunk" and lay there momentarily stunned. The thing landed no more than a foot away from a burly guy who had just gotten off of a Honda motorcycle. A brief moment passed, and the squirrel from hell (wild-eyed and tangled hair all askew to begin with, now practically covered in the blood of its victims) started to twitch and recover. There was a small amount of panic in the biker's eye as he went to stomp the squirrel to death with his heavy boots. I could plainly hear the maddened tree-rats skull and bones breaking and crushing as the big, 300 plus pound biker repeatedly put some serious boot leather down, over and over again until there was naught left but hair and gore.

My Gandalf (the brand name of the computerized dispatch system) went off then, telling me I had a fare to pick-up. I left the scene, driving slowly away thinking this was an isolated case and would make a hell of a story to tell my friends.

How wrong I was. It wasn't an isolated case. This same scene was playing out all over the world, and it wasn't just squirrels going mad. Whatever rats survived went into a blood frenzy...and mice...and cats, both feral and domesticated...and raccoons, to name a few. Basically all the smaller species of mammals went hell bent for blood. Dogs, horses, cattle, things like that, they didn't go mad, but they also suffered the onslaught.

The crazed critters didn't just attack people, they attacked anything that moved, even each other. Over the next few days, as Mother Nature turned on herself in an orgy of violent, pointless destruction, everything practically came to a halt worldwide.

The American CDC and the British NHS both announced that the cause was due to some kind of new parasite. Stay inside until this was over they said.

This dreadful single celled menace seemed to lodge in its hosts' brain and shut down any serotonin production, while putting the aggression and anger centers into overdrive. The parasites eggs were transmitted into a new host through the saliva into the victims' bloodstream.

A mass killing of cats and hamsters and any and every other small pet ensued, adding to the death toll that was happening outdoors.

As humanity waited for the unbelievable, horrible act to play out, and the animal madness left, Scarlet fever strode onto the stage. There was already the smell of death and the rotting of flesh in the air from the billions upon billions of animals who died within the two, seemingly eternal, weeks it took for the infected ones to starve off.

I stayed in my apartment for those two weeks, until the wave of horror subsided. It hadn't completely ended, but I was broke and absolutely had to get back to work. I guess the same could be said for most people, as we tried to get back to some semblance of normality. Unemployment went down, as animal corpse collection, and elimination (mainly by burning the corpses) became a new career choice. Teams went out dressed in heavy riot gear and killed any animal they even suspected of being capable of being infected. The heavy black smoke of the burn piles and the constant sound of gun-fire added to my overwhelming feeling that I had somehow breached the walls of hell and had ended up in some obscure ring of Dante's Inferno.

That was nothing compared to what was starting up. The first symptoms of Scarlet, small red freckle like splotches, started showing up on everybody. Everybody except the ten percent, or so, of us that were for some reason immune.

I've got to go and check on the spread of the fire now. From the thickness and smell of the smoke, I think that the building next door has started to burn. It may be a huge danger, one that may roast me, but it may also be my savior if my plan works.

### 5

I did it! I made it out of there! This new place is good, and it's isolated, and it's got food! I'm going to eat. Then I'm going to get to work on making this place more secure. Then I'm going to get some rest. Somebody had already started on some fortifications here, now I'm going to finish them. There's also a hell of a lot of blood, blackened and dried, not only in the entry way but spread throughout the house. Oddly there are no bodies or, thankfully, zeds. Whatever happened here it took place possibly months or more ago. The place is abandoned now. More later.

Ok, I feel better than I have in a long time. It's abso-fucking-lutely amazing what a meal and some decent sleep can do for someone. Before I continue with what I remember with the rise of the Scarlet, I want to tell you how I got out of the tool and die shop.

There was nothing special about the shop, it was a standard set-up. Offices on the second floor, loading dock and machinery on the first. The loading dock had a sturdy metal roll-up door and although it bowed inward and shook and moved with the weight of the zeds trying to gain entry, it held quite nicely. There was a propane fueled Hi-Lo and an assortment of chain hoists and tools, as I suppose there is in every machine shop.

Until the fire started, I didn't think of any use for the Hi-Lo besides driving it out of there. That would be suicide, most of the zeds can still shuffle along quick enough to catch up to a slow moving Hi-Lo. I have to say though that they do seem to be slowing down. It's about god damned time too. After almost a full year they're finally starting to show some signs of true decomposition.

There was a small window, the old fashioned kind operated by a little hand crank, at the top of the stairs facing the burning buildings to the west. It wouldn't open more than a crack and the glass was the opaque kind that you couldn't see through. I used a sledge hammer I found in the shop below to bust apart the window. At the time I was mainly interested in just having a better view of the spread of the conflagration. It only took a couple of good whacks from the sledge to knock the window out.

The undead bastards immediately started converging on this side of the building. There were a bunch of them here already, but now they were just piling into the area. Their hearing isn't very good but they were already close enough to hear the window being shattered from the other sides of the shop.

(I have to comment on something though, as long as I'm writing. The zombies in the movies always either moaned or hilariously shambled around muttering "Brains..." In reality though, they never uttered a single intentional sound. Occasionally they will bump into each other, forcing putrid air out of their lungs and past whatever is left of their vocal chords, making a sound that's an odd cross between a sigh and a whimper. The multiplied chorus is completely unnerving when they group up in a "herd", packed close together and in large numbers. Combined with the foot dragging, they sound like some huge beast thrashing around in agony in the dirt and whining in its death throes. I guess in some way, that is exactly what is happening.)

I got pissed at the abominations and started throwing pieces of the window down at them. The pieces just bounced off, of course, and I started looking around for something heavier to drop on their heads. In a rage I started to destroy the surrounding wall, hoping to get a whole block of the construction masonry to come apart to crush some skulls. It wasn't working though, the sledge was just busting off fist sized pieces. I dropped the heavy hammer as the blaze swelled rapidly, engulfing almost the whole of the building that was merely ten to fifteen feet away from me.

Downstairs I found iron and steel and brass rods and bar stock. Not quite what I was looking for. The rods were approximately a half an inch in diameter and about twelve foot long. I briefly thought about making a spear with one of the pieces, but then something else caught my attention. There was a propane canister rack where the Hi-Lo was parked.

The full canisters were heavy enough by themselves to crush a zeds head by throwing it down on them from above. As an extra added bonus, I knew they could explode. I didn't have any idea of how to make that happen, nor could I find any flares or something to attach to them. I figured that I could toss them into the inferno raging next door, and that the flames would be hot enough to cause the canisters to fail and release a nice fireball. It was dangerous, bordering on insanity. I really knew nothing about if they would actually explode, or for that matter, how big the explosion(s) would be. There were six full propane tanks and I dragged them to the upstairs landing, setting them under the gaping hole in the wall where the window used to be.

It took no time at all before the building wall opposite me started to catch. The zeds seemed oblivious to the fire with some getting so close to the heat that the rags they wore started to smoke. I had to be sure my plan would work so I waited until the most opportune moment to toss those babies into the voracious crowd of undead below me.

The smoke started to become as thick as water and I could start to feel the heat of the flames. Small flames started to grow on some of the zombies' hair and clothing. It wasn't my plan to simply catch the horrors on fire, they would burn for some time before they stopped moving. Not to mention the fact that a flaming zombie horde is much worse than a normal zombie horde. The fire next door by itself may or may not light this building on fire, but a flaming zombie horde sure would. I wanted to blow a hole in the herd that I could run through and escape to freedom.

I went and quickly gathered my backpack and few possessions I brought with me, adding a few tools from the shop to it in preparation for whatever happened next.

Back upstairs the outside paint started peeling and I crouched under the partial wall to stay out of the majority of the heat. A couple of the zeds were actually alight now, but it seemed they didn't burn well for some reason (There was some kind of waxy coating they developed, or at least it appeared so. I never actually wanted to get close enough to one to give it a physical examination). After a brief few minutes I could hear the supports and ceiling of the structure across from me about to give way. Now is the time I thought.

I nervously heaved those propane canisters through the jagged hole in the wall and prayed they didn't go off until I got to a safe place (not knowing how big the explosion would be and also hoping that it wouldn't collapse this building on my head), if they even went off at all.

I was able to run and hide behind a huge CNC machine in the shop and as I was wondering how long it would take for them to explode, they went off. I heard the structure next door collapsing, followed by multiple explosions. They sounded huge to my ears as pieces of rubble and flaming debris wafted down around me.

I got up quickly, more than worried, and made my way through the ruins as fast as I could, hoping I didn't just sign my own death certificate. I initially was thinking I would have to go back up the stairs and risk jumping out the cavity I made in the wall, but when I got there, the wall was gone. The wall was gone not just by where the window used to be, but the whole west wall was gone. Small flames started up inside the shop and bright red embers were falling all around, both inside and outside the collapsed wall. The smoke was thicker the closer I got to the outside. I didn't see any standing zombies as I ran outdoors, through the burning wreckage, but there were pieces of them. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I looked behind me at the horde that I knew now was recovering from the shock-wave and detonations. Most were struggling to stand upright, having been packed so densely together they must have fallen like dominoes. A shit load of them were on fire, which pleased me to no end. The surrounding area was practically zed free, the ravenous undead had been driven by their hunger towards the Tool & Die shop where I was holed up. There were a few stragglers here and there, but they were much slower and clumsier now so I had no problem out running them.

My luck was good that day. I found a dirt bike right out in the middle of the road, just waiting for me to claim it. It started on the first kick and I drove it, off road, away from civilization. The bike ran out of gas on me on some dirt road. Only God knew where I was now, but it seemed clear. Following the lonely, now slightly overgrown, two track road, I came to this place. I cased it out from a distance and slowly, hesitantly, made my way towards it.

I've got stuff to do. I've spent more time than I thought I would writing this out. It does seem to be helping me though, so I'll continue the next time I get a chance.

### 6

Everybody was traumatized to some extent from what had just happened. The madness that swept the animal kingdom was finally waning. People the world over were just starting to timidly poke their heads out from their homes, like scared rabbits (I don't even know if there are any rabbits left) from their earthen burrows. Just because a lot of the population wasn't personally attacked by the marauding parasite controlled critters, didn't mean they didn't suffer loss or know terror. Children especially, were terrorized by what they saw on TV. Added to this, many were also in mourning over a beloved family pet that had to be put down or were frightened to death about going outside. The media was in full swing of their over-coverage, of course, endlessly showing animal attacks again and again. The twenty-four hour looping of some of the more violent and horrendous videos were only broken up by speculation and baseless accusations. The Army and National Guard units were still conducting sweeps in the more inaccessible parts of the nation, while trying to effectively quarantine the most remote and unreachable wildernesses.

The food chain was broken, and the natural order of things was truly screwed up. Nobody had any idea of what Mother Nature was going to do next.

I remember watching a particularly disturbing video in which a whole colony of prairie dogs was ripping the flesh off of a herd of cattle. The cows, which had for thousands of years been bred for docileness and timidity, seemed confused and unable to react to this new threat. The image of the fear and agony of these poor victims stays with me even now, creeping into my dreams.

I remember coming to the realization that our food supply was also dealt a heavy blow. Farms were abandoned and the countryside was quickly de-populated. In areas where the animals outnumbered people, the people fled to the urban areas. Even though the initial threat was on the decline, most people didn't want to go back out to the country until this had completely dissipated. There was talk of the government actually forcing people back to the farms. The U.S. was the bread basket of the world before the parasite and now whole states were without any living livestock. Produce was rotting in the fields. Once crowded chicken and turkey farms were open fields of decaying meat, having been ravaged by maddened squirrels, rabbits, cats, etc.

Famine wasn't the only thing we had to look forward to, oh no, there was more coming. The predators, those that survived being attacked by what used to be their prey, would start coming in force into the urban areas. A second wave of animal attacks was rushing towards us like a freight train (and we were tied to the tracks). Wolves, coyotes, bears, eagles, hawks, wolverines and every kind of animal that used to feed on the smaller animals were going to starve and they would do the only thing they could, they would add mankind to the menu. For the most part, people didn't (or didn't want to) think about what the near future held in store for them, although everybody knew. But that was still in the future, and that was what was going to happen if the Scarlet fever hadn't reared its ugly head. The Scarlet saved us from an agonizing slow death and granted us a quick and violent one.

When the Scarlet fever first appeared, it showed up as small freckle like, blood-red spots all over the body. Everyone knew this had to be connected to the parasites somehow. The government and CDC were trying to keep as close a lid as possible on it. Looking back, I'm absolutely positive they knew what was happening, and what was going to happen. I'm also absolutely sure they had no idea how to treat it though, otherwise they would have and they would still be alive today (maybe). Maybe it didn't matter. The CDC admitted that it was indeed a reaction to being infected with the parasite. In the beginning they (and every government on earth) tried to calm the populace, telling us that it would quickly pass and it would be ok. No other large mammal they said (and they were right in this), reacted to this in any other way than a mild cold or flu. They guaranteed that now that they knew what they were facing, that they would shortly have a cure. Top scientists were working day and night they said.

People were clearly on edge. Tempers were short and anger flared easily. Myself, I just put it down to all the stress people were under lately. Fistfights, brawls and a slight increase in the murder rate ensued. Completely understandable for what we were going through. It got so much worse though.

As the parasitic infection grew in its new hosts, the little red freckles became larger and larger. As the parasitic infection grew, people started acting more and more like the infected animals that had plagued them previously.

The people who were obviously suffering from the infestation openly started to hate the small percentage of us that were immune. It got to the point that everyone who got into my cab, upon seeing me, went into a spit flying rage at me for no reason at all.

When I watched some wild eyed, scarlet speckled teenager with a knife chase an older woman into rush hour traffic on Colonial Drive I decided I was done driving a cab for awhile. The teen's eyes were a deep blood red (almost black), I remember it clearly, there was no white left. The panic-stricken woman was chased into traffic and got hit by a passing motorist, who I'm sure didn't see the terrified woman at all. As the poor woman was thrown by the impact and lay in the middle of the street, the teen ran over to her and just started stabbing the injured woman over and over again. I don't even think she was conscious, thankfully.

I was even more surprised when the driver of a new Cadillac gunned the motor of his car and proceeded to run the teen down. The sound of the teens head busting open on the front grill was sickening. The Caddy just drove over him, dragging him about a hundred yards down the road and never stopped, he just drove away like nothing happened.

I wasn't making any money at all anyways so I decided to keep a low profile until this shit worked itself out in one way or another.

I once again retreated to my apartment, watching what I could stand of the news channels, but mainly sticking to reruns that had nothing at all to do with what was happening outside.

I remember the night they declared martial law nationwide. It was the same night I heard my apartment manager beating on my neighbor's door demanding the rent which was apparently only a week late.

"Open the God damned door and pay me my rent mother fucker!" were the first words out of his mouth.

I peeked out the small window in my door, pushing aside the privacy curtain to view the skinny, frail looking manager. His face was half covered in blood red blotches.

The manager was just pounding on the door with both fists screaming obscenities. I knew this was not going to end well.

"Get the fuck away from my door asshole.", was my neighbor's reply. It came out more like a growl than spoken words.

I knew my neighbor. He was over six feet tall and easily weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Normally he was a nice, easy going guy that got along with practically everyone. If he wanted he could crush the manager's skull with his bare hands and I feared that that was exactly what he was going to do.

"You're a week late and now you owe me a late fee fuck head. Get out and fuckin' pay me right now or get the fuck out right NOW!" he yelled. The manager's blood-shot eyes had a crazed look to them as he beat so hard on the door that his knuckles were bloody.

"You want me out you little douche bag? Go ahead and evict me then you little piece of shit.", was my neighbor's reply.

From there things just got worse and I won't bother to write what they said to each other. It wasn't like I was the only one who heard them. People were poking their heads out of their apartments, (and all of them had red blotches clearly visible on whatever skin wasn't covered) some adding to the chaos by yelling at the two to shut the hell up. Somebody must have called the cops because shortly sirens were heard in the distance, quickly getting nearer.

Police involvement was my neighbor's breaking point I think. He was on parole for gettin' drunk and assaulting someone pretty badly in a bar fight previously and I knew he thought he couldn't win and that he was going to jail. It didn't help my neighbors frame of mind one bit that the manager was crazily laughing at him now and taunting him, saying he was going to toss all of his shit out on the street as soon as the cops took his ass away.

The door to the apartment whipped open then and in the blink of an eye my neighbor had a shotgun pressing into the stomach of the apartment manager. My neighbor was wearing only boxers, sweating like a pig. His skin was so covered in those blood red blots that it appeared as if his skin was naturally scarlet colored, broken by white freckles.

With the shotgun pressing so hard into his stomach I thought it might actually spear him and come out his back, the manager was backed up into the hallway wall opposite the apartment door.

There were no more foul words spewing from the manager's mouth, as he was completely silent then. My neighbor was also silent as I knew he was trying to figure out how to control himself and not pull the trigger. The cop car pulled up just outside the main entry way to the apartment block, the blue and white lights flashing inside the hallway. My neighbor looked to the door where the cops were sure to enter momentarily, then he looked back at the manager.

The roar of the shotgun was deafening in the enclosed hallway. I backed away from my little window real quick then as the cops came in guns drawn. The last thing I saw as I recoiled from the shotgun blast was the utter disbelief shown in the manager's eyes as he tried to hold his guts in, which were spilling out from both the front and the back.

It turned into a shooting gallery then, like something from the old west. Multiple shotgun blasts and the sharp sound of police issue nine millimeter pistols rent the air. There shortly came the sound of automatics, with their distinctive, repeated quick-fire echoes as others joined in the murderous fray. I jumped in my shower, hoping that any errant bullets would be deflected by the metal bathtub.

After about half an hour the gun shots stopped. The sound of my TV, which I had left on one of the twenty-four hour news channels, was only marred by distant shots, screams and the occasional siren. I lay there wondering how long it would take for the Scarlet fever to run its course and if I could ration my food to outlast it. After an hour or so I heard the National Security Advisor issue martial law nationwide.

I knew they were hoping that the discipline instilled in the members of the armed forces would be enough to overcome the parasites insidious emotional control, but it was not to be.

At first it seemed to be working. Shoot to kill orders and strict curfews put a damper on the insanity that threatened to over-run the nation.

For a few days anyways. Even the members of the military were only human though. They just started mass murdering everybody they saw as their skin turned beet red. Then they turned on each other.

Someone once said that there were only three things that nature used to keep man's numbers in check. Famine, Disease and War. War because as man had no natural predators, he had to be his own. Nature was harsh and brutal, but it had decided that seven billion plus people were too many.

The last news I heard (the television and cable stations blinked off one by one) was that this parasite was a man made, bio engineered creation. The CDC showed proof positive that DNA from three separate deadly organisms had been spliced into this parasite. Mother Nature had not evolved it. Two of the bio-engineered gene strands were identified, but the third strand was an unknown. The third strand was a very specific thing that targeted the nervous system for some reason, but they had no real idea how it was supposed to help the parasite or what it specifically was meant to do. Fingers were pointing at North Korea, and almost as a final fuck you, North Korea launched a full scale nuclear attack on South Korea, obliterating Soul, Pusan and a number of other cities, even launching a few nukes at Japan before they crossed the de-militarized zone and literally slaughtered everyone in their path.

Pakistan and India went to war, they also quickly used nuclear weapons. Israel and most of the Arab nations went directly to nuclear war. Russia and China exchanged a limited number of nuclear weapons. Genocide and war became the norm for nations as all sense of humanity left all of humanity. War raged in the last few days in the sky, on the seas and on land. In the end I don't think it mattered who the men with the weapons attacked, as long as they could sate their blood lust. The only thing that stopped them was when the parasite finally ended up killing its host.

Then things went quiet. Like being in the eye of the hurricane. Quiet and still for good twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

That's when the dead, in their billions, started to rise.

### 7

It's been a couple of days since I last wrote in this journal of mine. I can't begin to tell you how much better it feels not to be hiding in some random building with a multitude of ravenous undead trying to get inside to devour me alive. I personally haven't felt this good since before this all began, over a year ago. Concealing myself and my every move, with nothing to do but wait for the seemingly inevitable, made time just crawl along at a snail's pace. For the past three days I've been passing the time, which has been flying by, fixing up the place and cleaning it.

About this place though, it has some real good features about it. It's sturdy, well built and isolated. The only real way to get here is down a now partially overgrown dirt road. Until you get to the drive way itself, you can't even see the house. The lack of visibility isn't due to the thick growth of the surrounding wooded area, although now in late summer that would normally be the case, it's due to being in a natural depression. Its sits on a small plateau in the middle of a huge, almost bowl like hollow. The roof of house and attached garage sits far enough below the upper ridge that even in winter, when the leaves have fallen and the lush vegetation has died off, that it still can't be seen from the surrounding area. About ten feet below the plateau, upon which the house sets, there's a lake. I think there's a natural spring that feeds it, as the lake actually feeds a little creek that runs off into the woodland. There's a little dock here, and a row boat, and there's actually fish in it. I think this building had been originally built before electricity and water were even invented. It has been expanded and obviously upgraded a number of times, but its origins are still observable, here and there. The pantry is also, surprisingly, well stocked.

There are also some things that kinda worry me about this place though. I actually spent two full days cleaning the gore and blood from this place. The blood trails start in pretty much every room and they all converged in the kitchen. There's an old style pump that can be used when the water main is out (which it is) next to a large double sink and a largish butcher block. I'm hoping that somebody came back here during the height of the madness and found some scared animals had taken refuge in the place, and that whomever it was (person or persons) took the opportunity to do some hunting. Meat is really a rare thing now. I'm not sure, but some of the dried blood looked like it was layered on top of each other, like the killing had been dispersed months apart. The butcher block, a thick hard wood slab, was covered in the dried gore and shows signs of repeated use. Smaller blood tracks went through the back door, across the dock to the lake itself. I guess if I really want to know what was butchered here, I could swim down to the bottom of the lake and look for the bones. I don't really want to know that badly though.

I keep getting this feeling to just take what I can and get out. I'm sure it's because I feel that this is too good to be true, what with the experiences of the last two years coloring my mind. I keep trying to tell myself that eventually luck would finally favor me, that eventually I would have to find a safe haven, but it still feels to me like this place is somehow haunted.

Enough of that for now. Tomorrow I'll resume my telling of what happened. Today I'm going to go fishing. I've seen a couple of nice ones jump out of the water and I've got a craving for some fresh fish. It's been so long since I had any real meat, let alone something fresh. Wish me luck.

### 8

It was my old friend hunger that made me leave my apartment. Until I found this place, hunger had been my constant companion. Always was I hungry, always I had to ration every scrap and morsel of food I found.

Even though I knew of the scene that lay just outside my doorstep, I wasn't prepared. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was the scent of rot and death. Inside my apartment it hung in the background but it wasn't overpowering like it was when I opened the door. I don't know if it was the strength of the smell that assailed me and made me involuntarily retch or the sight of my door and the surrounding wall. My door was covered in the blood and pieces of my neighbor's brains, dried and stuck firmly to it. Thankfully I hadn't much at all in my stomach, or it all would have come out instead of the thin dribble that did. What did come out landed right smack dab on what was left of my neighbor's head.

I had never really seen death this close up before, and the puke reflex had bowed me over, bringing my own face that much closer to his. What was left of his head was flattened, being just his face, lying there like a mask with a small hole in the forehead. Everything else that wasn't his face was, I suppose, splattered all over the walls and my door. I remember I had to force myself to close my eyes and regain my composure before I could continue. Now though, neither the sight nor the smell bothers me.

There were footprints in the blood, both coming and going through the scene, as if people didn't care at all. The apartment manager's body was gone, along with the shotgun that killed him, but to where I had no idea. I didn't care to linger but before I left the apartment I remember I made sure to lock my door. I never made it back to my old apartment, nor do I have my keychain anymore.

I carefully stepped my way outside and was grateful to be outdoors where the smell of death wasn't so cloyingly thick. The gray, muted quality of the light drew my eyes skyward. Dark heavy clouds covered the sun and the whole part of the sky. Pieces of ash and soot fell down like rain. The world was burning and I could smell it.

There was a dead cop lying in the parking lot. Whether he was one of the police that responded to the altercation between my neighbor and the manager I don't know. I do know that he had been shot in the neck and bled out soon after just by looking at him. He was clearly dead and I about jumped out of my skin when I saw his fingers flex and twitch. It didn't help at all that the cop spasmed as I was checking for his weapon. I didn't know at the time if it was rigor mortise or my imagination or what. Now I know that it was the parasites regaining control of the body. There was no weapon though, somebody had gotten it already.

I made my way over to the side parking lot thinking I would just get in my car and drive to Wal-Mart. Yeah, I nervously laughed aloud when I saw it. It was crushed under a big yellow school bus that had somehow ended up laying on its side across the top of the row of cars. So much for that.

My stomach growled, urging me to walk to Wal-Mart if that's what it was going to take.

My apartment complex wasn't really that far from Wal-Mart. It only took me about 20 minutes to walk there. As I was walking I don't remember seeing anybody or anything moving, except for the occasional corpse twitch. I do remember thinking that even if I had my car it would be worthless anyway. Autos and trucks were strewn around the roads and every intersection was an accident scene. Traffic signals were still changing from red to green and I caught myself actually reflexively waiting at one of them until the pedestrian crossing light flashed that it was legal to cross.

The Wal-Mart parking lot looked as though a major riot had taken place there. Burned out cars and trucks, a military troop carrier (I think it was a deuce and a half, the kind with the canvass covering the rear bed), a fire truck and two police cruisers were interspersed with decaying bodies of every age, sex and color.

The inside of the store wasn't any better. Every once in a while one of the dead would twitch and I hurried around the store getting what I could.

I had grabbed a camping backpack, one of the nicer ones that I would have never have been able to afford before. After gathering a bunch of other items from the camping section I made my way to the food isles. It was there, while I was stuffing Spam and chili and whatnot into my new backpack that I realized I was going to have to carry all this weight around with me as I had no car. I was lost in concentration, trying to decide what I wanted to carry with me on this trip, as I thought for sure I could make my was back here again, when I heard a mechanical click behind me.

"Stop right there...," said a distinctly female voice.

There was a hard edge to her voice and I slowly turned to face her.

"Put your hands on top of your head, nice and slow, or I won't hesitate to kill you." She said it nice and calmly, like she had said it more than a few times already.

The barrel of an M16 was in my face so I decided to comply with its owner's wishes. She was looking me over and I knew she was scrutinizing my face and skin for those tell-tale red marks to see if I was one of the infected. I was doing the same to her, noting that she could barely be out of High School, if she had even graduated yet.

"Lift up your shirt and turn around. Show me you're not affected and you can live." Her voice was steady and I had no doubt she wouldn't hesitate to murder me if I didn't do as she said.

"Ok, good...," she said as I finished turning around for her.

"Now drop your weapons to the ground nice and slow...One fast move...," she said as I interrupted her.

"I don't have any weapons." I stated nervously.

"What? Bullshit. Who the fuck walks around anymore without a weapon?" Anger was starting to tinge her voice and the M16 was being leveled into a firing position.

"I don't...I been in hiding 'til the shit blew over, now I'm just hungry...," there was a pleading tone in my voice as I tried to talk her out of shooting me.

"Turn around and place your hands on the shelf. I'm going to give you a pat down and if I find a weapon on you you're dead. If you don't submit you're dead. Do ANYTHING I don't like and you're dead." Her voice was flat and monotone.

Not wanting to be dead I let her give me a pat down. I could tell that it seemed incredible to her that someone would actually be running around the apocalypse unarmed.

Her stance changed a bit then, and I could tell she relaxed a bit, which made me relax a bit.

"Where the hell have you been hiding? The shit hasn't blown over, it's getting worse dumbass." She looked at me as if I was a retarded, red-headed step-child.

"What do you mean worse, the streets and the whole city's fuckin' empty except for the corpses." I thought there was some insanity lurking in the girl yet.

"Yeah, the corpses...You seen any of them twitching on your leisurely stroll here?" Her eyes narrowed as she spoke.

"Well, yeah, so what?" I replied. As I had stated before, I had no idea of what that twitching and spasmodic flexing was from. For all I knew it was completely natural.

"So what?" she asked in reply, and then let out a little dark laugh.

"That means the dead will rise shortly. That's so what." The words came out of her mouth with the sharp ring of truth to them.

It was clear that she believed what she was saying, but I thought she had lost her mind and started to back away, slowly.

"It's ok, just stay calm and let me go." I carefully picked up my backpack and continued to put some distance from her, slowly backing away.

Her eyes went cold as steel then and she raised the rifle and sighted down the aisle towards me.

I didn't know what to do so I spread my arms wide and stopped walking backwards from her to show her I had no weapon or intention of harming her.

"Get down dumbass!" She yelled at me.

That's when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I instinctively started to drop down like I was ordered as I turned to see who had crept up on me.

It was a close thing too. This horror that used to be a human being had started to grab me close and I could hear its jaws bite the air where my head was just a moment before.

I felt the hairs on my head swish as the bullets from the teen's gun whipped past me. The gunfire was loud enough to partially deafen me. Three shots to the undead things chest and shoulder knocked it back and flat on the ground. The slugs didn't stop it though, and now I was scrabbling back towards the person who I was previously backing away from. I swear the girl couldn't be more than nineteen years old by the look of her, but she easily stepped over me and put a couple of rounds into the nightmares face until it stopped moving again.

"C'mon dumbass, we need to get the hell out of here before more show up to investigate," she told me, with a snarl on her lips.

That's how I met Jannie.

The light is fading now and I don't want to waste any of the candles I have left, so I will continue again tomorrow.

### 9

For the past two weeks that I've been here, I've had these nagging feelings that something about this place is wrong. I kept putting it down to my nerves, past experiences, mental fatigue or whatever. Sometimes I would notice something out of place from where I left it before but I just ignored it, blaming it on a crappy memory. Then there was the time I was absolutely sure I had eaten the last can of asparagus (because I love asparagus and I know I counted them out and rationed them for myself), and then lo and behold there appeared another couple of cans of them tucked away in the corner of a shelf. Not to mention the blood, the layers of blood that I had laboriously cleaned.

I know when I arrived here I was down to about a hundred and thirty-five pounds or so, which is skinny as hell for someone a hair over six feet tall. I must have put twenty or so pounds back on, living the good life. Ha. Probably I was just being allowed to fatten myself up for the slaughter.

Dammit, if Jannie were here she would have raided the place and left on day one. She was only half my age but that girl paid attention to her surroundings. I hoped (and still do) she had gotten out of our last safe house alive, but I don't see how it could be possible.

I mentioned before how the building was solid and well built, but I didn't really go into details. I will now though. The windows are all triple pane with a clear sheet of thin material between each pane, making them bullet proof, hurricane proof windows that can be closed remotely. The walls are of a solid brick and mortise type, with steel reinforced bars. Even the ceiling is solid cement reinforced with rebar and drywall covering it. Apparently, the solid hard wood doors also have steel bars that can be slid into them, from the walls, and remotely too to boot. Where the electricity to do this is coming from, I have no idea as all the available outlets I've found are dead. I knew about the triple pane windows and I knew the walls were brick, however, I just this morning found out about the rest of the security features. I've found out that this place is well suited to not only keep people out but is well designed to keep people in.

Somebody spent a lot of money on this place before the world went to hell. That same somebody was probably planning for world war three to break out and being ready to hunker down and wait it out when this day of reckoning happened instead. That somebody is probably in a thick, deep, fall-out bunker under this house. That somebody has decided, for reasons I'm sure aren't for my benefit, to lock me in here.

I woke up really groggy, looking back I know I was drugged. I slept soundly, without dreams, for almost fourteen hours. Normally I sleep very lightly, waking at any small noise (being surrounded by the walking dead will do that to you), for no more than six or so hours at a time. It took quite a while for the cobwebs to clear from my brain, and as I noticed that all my shit was gone, my backpack, gun, even my boots, I wondered if I was still dreaming.

I remember leaving the bedroom window cracked open and locked in place before I slept so I could have a little flow of fresh cool night air. This was something I would never even consider in any other safe house, so it was worth noting when I did it. When I noticed it was closed and when the window would not budge open one bit is when I seriously started to freak out.

I ran into every room and tried every door and every window, while furtively searching each room for my stuff.

Until I walked into the kitchen. Then I stopped in my tracks. Then I knew I was being toyed with. My journal was lying open on the kitchen table, to the next fresh page. This page. This page that I'm writing on now. Placed neatly to the side of it was this whittled down, next to nothing but an inch left, small ass golf pencil.

When I saw that I went crazy trying to rip apart the ceiling and walls with my bare hands. All I did though was manage to break up some drywall and pull a few pieces of molding off the walls and tire myself out. I searched and searched but I still couldn't find any of my stuff or any possible hatch or hidden entry to a bunker. Even the pantry door and the damn cupboards and silverware drawers are shut tight.

Whatever. Fuck it. I'm not giving up. I know this was left out for me to write my own obituary, or last will and testament, or finish up whatever I had to say. Maybe the fucker wants to keep it as a trophy or something. I don't know. I'm writing because frankly, it gives me a chance to kill some time until whatever is going to happen, happens.

Hopefully I'll be able to write what the hell happens with this situation when it resolves itself. Hopefully I can either get the fuck out of here or kill the bastard who locked me in here, but accomplishing both of those goals would be best.

Been over twenty-four hours now and there's nothing but stillness and quiet. I thought whoever locked me in here would have attacked during the night but it was unnervingly eventless.

Forty-eight hours and I've tried repeatedly to find a way out of here. All I found were two cameras. They were extremely small and well hidden. I found one in the bedroom, embedded in some of the more intricate molding, looking like it was part of the carved scroll work. The other was behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I found that one when I started smashing the shit out of it. Even that was thick and reinforced. I don't think he (I'm assuming it's a he), will be expecting me to be armed with this nice, sharp, wicked, piece of mirror that I'm going to try and gut him like a fish with. I'm so tired now. That's his game then, to wait until I pass out. Time to play possum and draw him out...

### 10

If anyone is reading this, you surely noticed that there is a page torn out. I did that. The bastard wrote a bunch of foul shit in my journal, taunting me with his vile ramblings, as he took breaks from his torturing of me. You're not missing anything by not reading it. His childish scribblings were hard to read to begin with and what you could read was pure filth. Insane garbage of how he was going to enjoy torturing, raping, cutting me up and eating me (and not necessarily in that order). I have no doubt that he would have done exactly what he said he was going to.

As it is, he cut off both of my small toes and fucking ate them in front of me. He cut me multiple times (in some very sensitive places) and rubbed salt in the wounds. I'm in a lot of pain and it's going to take me awhile to heal up from this lunatic's assault. I had seriously thought that being eaten alive by the undead would be the worst way to go. Now I know better. At least with the zeds you bleed out and die within a minute, maybe two at the most. But this, this is so much worse. He worked me over for a day before I got loose and killed him. I don't even want to think about how long the fucker would have drawn out my death to satiate his hate.

Unfortunately, there isn't just the immune and the walking dead. There are also those who are carriers. Like the maniac who was going to torture me to death. The carriers are the ones whose immune system are strong enough to stop the Scarlet fever before it kills them, but not strong enough to beat it. They exist in that stage of the disease where their skin is a permanent bright red and their mind is utterly gutted. I'm sure it's a horrible way to exist, completely filled with rage and hatred. I know now that they are aware that their brain has been mainly eaten away, causing extreme insanity and delusions, driven by the parasite to crave the taste of living flesh and blood. While I do take pity on them, they are by far more dangerous than a hundred zombies.

This isn't the first time I've had to deal with a carrier. Jannie and I had our run-ins with some previously. I'll have the time now, since I need to recuperate, to tell you about her. But not right now. Right now I need to write about my day in hell.

I sat there at the kitchen table, not moving, pretending as if I were sleeping. I may have actually dozed off at some point, but it was a dreadfully light sleep. I had gotten used to the normal sounds of the house, and still I awoke at the slightest sound, waiting for a noise that was out of place. It seemed to take forever, my body was crying out for me to change my position. I was cramping up from the forced motionlessness and every small itch seemed unbearable. Then it came. A noise I hadn't heard before. A small creaking of hinges from the same bedroom I had chosen to sleep in all those nights. If I hadn't been so keyed up and waiting for such a sound I wouldn't have heard it. Then came a sound I could place. It was the closet door in the bedroom sliding open. That's where the entrance to the bunker was. I knew how much time it took to get from there to here and I strived to get up and get into position. I had wanted to get to the spot beside the doorway to the kitchen but my body wouldn't comply fast enough. I was nervous, stressed, keyed up and exhausted at the same time. My adrenaline was flowing and panicky sweat covered me. I stood up too quickly and my legs cramped up on me and I fell solidly to the ground.

As I was forcing my body to get back up and ambush the sadistic fuck I saw him coming in the doorway.

He was bright red, obviously he was a carrier, naked and just covered in filth. I smelt him then and his scent was overpowering. They say that demons are proceeded by the stench of decay and shit, but they could have nothing on this guy. His eyes and fingernails were completely black and no cloven hoofed devil could be as terrible a sight as him. I fully expected him to try and tackle me or physically assault me, if that is, he didn't try to put a couple of ounces of lead in me. I had my makeshift knife, made out of the painfully sharp piece of mirror, ready for the physical attack. Even if he shot me I still thought I would have the time to slice open his gut or jugular if he missed or if I got the drop on him.

What he did though I didn't expect. He tasered my ass. His black gums showed as he laughed manically while he shocked me repeatedly. With my body going into spasms from the electric shocks from two separate taser guns, he quickly hand-cuffed my wrists to my ankles, effectively hog tying me. He screamed obscenities at me as he beat me so hard with the butts of the tasers that they actually broke on my skull. Then I passed out as he beat me unconscious.

When I awoke I was tied spread eagle and naked to a gore encrusted work bench. I knew I was in his private bunker as I had never seen this room before. There were no windows. The light was from a flickering fluorescent light fixture, one bulb wasn't working and the dim, almost strobbing, quality of illumination from the single remaining bulb lent itself well to this nightmare.

I don't care to write down what he said exactly, or for that matter, what he did to me. What he said were vile ramblings and bragging about how I wasn't the first to fall into his lair. He was bat-shit crazy it was true, but he was also telling the truth. I found five severed heads in his freezer. Two adult males', a teenage male, a middle aged woman's and a little girl's. They were in there along with some pieces of meat I will bury as soon as I can. Enough of that. I don't want to get into what he said he did to them, and how he planned to do all the same evil shit to me.

His anger and insanity either lead him to overconfidence or he just plain overlooked the fact that the strap holding my left hand down wasn't nearly as tight as it should have been. With every slice and hateful torture he committed on me I pulled with all my strength on that loose leather strap. The pain he placed on me made the pain in my left wrist seem like nothing, so I worked that strap until I knew I could break it easily. I just couldn't break it while he was in the room with me. The torture seemed all the more worse knowing I could break at least that bond and smack his infected ass upside the head whenever I wanted. It took all of my composure and will not to.

Finally though, after he fuckin' masturbated himself over my bleeding and mutilated body he went into the door-less adjoining room to sleep. After lying down for about twenty minutes giggling and talking to himself he finally slept.

The strap gave way easily then. I was nervous that he would hear the sound of me undoing the restraints but I'm sure he had learned (even relished) to sleep with the crying and sobbing pleas of his other victims in his ears.

He is now going to be sleeping for the rest of eternity. There is no chance of him coming back from the dead either. I picked up a ball-peen hammer, which I am absolutely sure he was planning on using on me, as it was on a shelf along with some of his other "tools". Then I slowly crept up on his foul ass and manically beat his skull and head into a bloody pulp as he slept. I think I laughed like I was insane (and maybe I was) and uttered vile things at his corpse, as I literally beat his body into an unrecognizable mass of meat.

Tomorrow I've got some digging to do. Body parts and a body to bury. Tonight I need to rest.

### 11

It took me most of the day to dig a proper grave for the dead. I didn't want to bury the carrier's body with his victims, but I did anyways. Even though the ground is mainly sand here, using a shovel was another experience in pain.

The bastard who cut my little toes off was no surgeon. The bone is exposed on what remains of my right small toe and is plainly sticking out, with the skin around it having shriveled and turned black. What's left of the toe on my other foot isn't any better, with both of them giving off the putrid odor of infection. I have tried to bandage them as best I could but with any amount of walking they weep a sickly mixture of puss and blood. I need to find a doctor (good luck with that) to have them properly amputated. There is a small amount of medicine and pain-killers in the bunkers stock and I'm hoping that it will be enough. If not I'm going to have to go back into town and find a pharmacy and find something stronger than the penicillin I have now. Maybe I'll be able to find a doctor's office or something where I can get a hold of a Grey's anatomy book or something so I can operate on myself if it comes to that.

I'm so depressed right now. What is the point of all this struggling to survive in a world where there is nothing left? My outlook is bleak. I can stay here and hope that my feet, which are swollen and red with a deep blackness spreading from the severed digits, miraculously get better. Or I can force myself to hobble slowly, with each step bring fresh pain, into town. There is a decent collection of weapons here, if there aren't a large number of zeds in my way, I could probably fight my way through. In my condition though, not being able to run, if there's more than a handful I'm just going to be zombie bait. To stay here I'll surely die, but to try to get to town I'll only probably die. For what though? Even if I do heal and get better what for? To eat canned and freeze dried food for the rest of my life? To bear loneliness as my only companion? My .38 looks to be a viable option. I think the only reason I've made it this far is because I'm a coward. I only carry on in this life because I'm afraid of death.

I did have the time to investigate the bunker. There's a whole pantry fully stocked with canned and freeze dried food. One room, the main room I guess, is full of monitors and a couple of computers that control the security for the house and shelter. There's the small bedroom, of course, well stocked with plenty of DVD's and a couple of books. A small kitchen and a tiny bathroom with a shower are also down there. I don't know what the original purpose of the torture room was, it was possibly an exercise / utility room as I found some weights and what's left of a now destroyed tread mill. The place is a complete mess though, with broken and shattered stuff scattered all over. The place stinks to high heaven, being covered in filth and blood and God knows what. Gonna be a huge project to clean it up, I'll wait to do that when (and if) I'm healthy again.

I had to do some serious investigating to find out where the electricity was being generated from. Remember how I told you there was a small stream that flowed from the spring fed lake? Well it seems there is a cleverly hidden water wheel under some large carved and hollowed rocks in the stream. I was actually standing on top of the covering stone before I noticed that the water swirled oddly around it. The constant flow of electricity is such a blessing.

Even though this place is fairly isolated, it isn't free from zeds. While I was doing some of the digging I was occasionally swearing and bitching from the pain my feet were giving me, forgetting all about the current state of the world. The damn thing had stumbled to within twenty feet of me and I hadn't heard it. I was so absorbed in the task at hand and my pain that I didn't hear the things clumsy crashing through the brush towards me. It was a close escape, one that was due more to luck than anything else. I couldn't limp away from the horror any faster than it could shamble towards me. I placed the grave away from the house. As I went down the slope that leads to the lake and the house itself I tripped and slid down the embankment, almost ending up taking a swim. As I got up, the zed came crashing over the ridge and it also fell and went head over heels down the steep slope. I got out of the way as fast as my painfully swollen feet would let me, narrowly avoiding the things outstretched hands as it rolled right at me. Thankfully it didn't have the coordination to stop itself from going into the lake. I know that if this had happened six months earlier it would have caught me and quickly made a meal of me. Time was finally decaying them as it should have a long time ago.

The undead clearly can't swim, but they don't drown either. It splashed and struggled to get free of the muck and silt that hampered it. Slowly it ended sliding further and further down into the lake. The water is really clear in the lake and I was surprised as a veritable swarm of fish, both large and small, surrounded it and start taking tiny pieces off of it. I was worried that the monster would find a way out of the lake eventually and I would have to keep an eye out for it until God knows when, but the fish were taking care of that for me. When it finally disappeared into the depths, the last thing I actually saw wasn't the zed itself, it was the school of fish that were slowly, methodically eating it. I think I'll stop putting fish on my menu for the time being.

For the next few days I'm going to concentrate on getting together my equipment and weapons for my foray into the nearby town.

### 12

Another pain filled two days has passed. Agony is now a familiar friend. I've almost forgotten what it's like to feel normal.

I decided to get my ass in gear. The sooner I get my feet taken care of, I figured, the better a chance I have at surviving.

It was the pain that spurred me into action, or the hope of being able to be rid of it anyways. My right pinky toe isn't as bad as my left. The right toe seems to be sheared off cleanly, almost at the joint, while the left is a jagged mess with the remainder of the bone sticking out. I have to try and amputate both of them as best as I can.

After I had packed my gear up into the ol' backpack I went about choosing some weapons from the "Reds'" cache. (It was Jannie that introduced me to the slang word to reference the infected ones.) Along with my snub nose .38 I grabbed up a sawed-off shotgun and an AK47. Both the AK and shotty were considered illegal, but what cop was going to arrest me? The shot gun was illegal because it was sawn off just before the pump, and used with buckshot it makes a nice room clearer. Even if the shotty don't kill a zed outright, it'll definitely knock a group of 'em back and down so I can shoot their fucking asses in the head with the AK. The AK was modified to fire on full auto, highly illegal. Plenty of ammo and clips. There were other guns there to choose from, but I didn't want to load myself down with a bunch of stuff. Besides I thought, if this wasn't going to be enough firepower then I would probably need a tank. That and the fact that every step brought a huge jolt of pain to begin with.

I padded my feet as much as I could, even using a pair of the Red's work boots that were three sizes too big for me. I started by filling them up with rags and cotton balls to lessen the shock of walking.

I really hadn't thought about the lack of a vehicle here. I found a key chain with some car keys and there were oil stains on the driveway and in the garage, but there was no car. There was doubtless a car or truck hidden somewhere, the crazy bastard had more than likely stashed it somewhere nearby. I hadn't seen anything of it in my explorations of the immediate surroundings. I'm sure the fuck hid it in some remote location, camouflaged of course, to keep his prey from being able to easily flee. Instead of taking the time to wander around the woods aimlessly in the hopes I spot it, I could just save myself some time and head on over to a neighbor's house. One of them was sure to have a car I could find the keys to or hotwire or something.

Nature was quickly reclaiming what was left of the now unused dirt road. Saplings and brush were growing in it. In some places I could only determine where the road used to be by looking at the relationship between the old growth of the forest and the shorter, younger growth that was taking back the road. In another year or two the road would doubtlessly be completely obliterated and impossible to find. As I trudged along, the pain in my feet grew worse and worse. By the time I reached the nearest neighbor my left foot, especially, was screaming out in pure agony.

With an amount of relief I saw the house had an attached garage. Even if there turned out not be any car there I was glad I at least found a place I could rest up and check the status of my feet before moving on. I had only hiked about a mile and a half, but by the time I reached the front door I was huffing and puffing and covered in sweat.

I beat on the door, the banging seeming loud and out of place here, and waited for a minute or two, gauging the area to see if it attracted anything. Nobody answered the door, I would have been surprised if anyone did. Nothing came crashing out of the forest trying to eat me either.

The screen door was locked, as was the front door behind it. Even in civilized times locks only serve to keep honest people honest. Not that I was a thief or anything but locked doors are only a nuisance to me now. A quick slice with my nice sharp bowie knife (also allocated from the dead Red's bunker) gave me access through the screen door to unlock it. A quick strike with the shotgun's butt shattered the decorative window placed, conveniently, in the center of the hardwood front door, allowing me to simply reach in and unlock it.

After I entered I closed the door behind me and waited. I waited not only to let my eyes adjust to the gloom of the house, but to listen for anything unusual. It seemed all clear. My feet were howling in pain but I decided to make a speedy search of the house before I got caught unaware from any crazy shit that might happen. There was an underlying scent of rot hanging in the house, but I didn't consider that anything unusual. The house had been closed up for the better part of two years now and it would be only natural for the smell of the rotting food and consumables to linger in the enclosed space.

There was a nice family portrait hanging above the fireplace mantle. Two beaming parents and their healthy child. My stomach turned a bit as I recognized the little girl in the picture. Her parents I'm sure I've never seen before. I know the face of the little girl though, I buried her head just the other day.

A wave of anger mixed with sadness rose up in me and I sat down on the family couch and softly wept for a moment before moving on.

My suspicions about the child were confirmed and explained a bit when I searched the kitchen.

On the refrigerator door was a hand written note, in the girls own writing.

"Dad, I don't know where you are and it's been a week since you came home. I hope you're OK. Mommy's upstairs and I'm afraid of her. She got the Scarlet real bad since you left. She didn't move all day yesterday but I had to lock her in the bedroom because she tried to hurt me today. I'm going over to Mr. Kolinsky's like we discussed. Please come back. I love you, Kimmy."

My eye's teared over again and it took some will to halt it. I knew now how the little girl ended up in the bunker. Her father had, in all probability, died in the insanity. Mommy though was a possible problem, I couldn't account for her and she could very well be upstairs still. Which she was.

I wasn't sure undead mommy was going to be found upstairs though. I had made a lot of noise and that always alerted the zeds. The undead never worried about being stealthy and clumsily bumped or bashed anything that got in their way.

On alert, and as silently as I could, I crept step by step up the stairs, heart pounding, feet throbbing, waiting for any sign of danger.

All was quiet as I spied the bedroom door that must contain mom. The door itself was solid, not like most of the interior doors in a lot of houses. Most houses nowadays have those cheap hollow doors that you can punch through in, at the most, a couple of swings. These people must have had some money as most of the items in the house were of quality. Still, there was evidence someone, or something I should say, tried like hell to bust out. The door itself was intact but the frame had started to come away from the wall, cracking the drywall and plaster around it. It's a god damned good thing the zeds are so stupid. Just by looking at the knob on the door I knew all the bitch had to do was simply turn the lock on her side of the door. That and actually turn the knob itself.

I listened but I didn't hear anything. I tried the door and it was indeed locked from the inside still. There was one of those holes in the knob, one that was designed so that you can sick a coat hanger end or one of those funky jimmies in the hole to pop the lock. It was no big deal at all to grab a metal coat hanger from the hallway closet, unbend it and go back to the bedroom door. It took only a second to pop the lock and the door swung open.

Mommy was there, desiccated, emancipated, shriveled and stinking. She was sitting on the floor with her legs splayed and her back propped up against the bed.

I took a quick look around the bedroom from the doorway and was wondering what, if anything, I could gain by scavenging the room. I had decided to come back later when I had looked after my feet and searched the rest of the house. I would leave this room for last, or completely alone, out of respect for the dead.

Almost on cue as I thought about respect for the dead, the corpse started to slowly reanimate. It started to get up at a snail's pace, haltingly, stutteringly. Old dried muscle and flesh straining to rise to devour the flesh of the living. This was a first for me, I had never known a zed to shut down and go into a comatose state before but, I suppose, a year is a long time to be inactive.

"Go back to sleep." I told it as I drew my gun and laid her down permanently.

Found a nice Hummer2 in the garage, half a tank o' gas. Started on the third crank. Raided the house and loaded it up.

I'm taking a break to write this before I head out. I don't know what the near future holds. I feel like just giving up. It would be so easy to just lie down and die. Let the dark, peaceful nothingness engulf me and take me away from all this pain.

### 13

I'm holed up here at Walgreens. I'm writing this while the meds I took kick in. I lost my watch somewhere. When I lost it I don't know. For all I know the crazed Red stole it from me and stuck it up his ass. I'm going to need one for these meds. I don't want to accidently OD on this shit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yelled.

Damn I yelled.

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

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

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

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

Just thought it was funny.

I am so stoned right now.

I'm trying to use this to stay focused.

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

Anyways, where was I?

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

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

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

I told you I was depressed, stoned and writing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gotta piss.

Drank a shit load of water, so thirsty.

Place seems quiet.

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

Gonna pass out again.

### 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stepped and slipped a bit as I was getting into the Hummer. Looking down I knew what I stepped in. The cooling system had a leak. Green, viscous liquid had pooled under the engine. Checking under the hood was going to be a problem, the hood was crumpled and buckled so I didn't even bother to look.

I briefly mulled over whether or not to go and at least check out the situation and decided it really wasn't a good idea.

There was the scent of change and hope in the air. The zombie terror was waning. People who had been cooped up for years had a serious case of cabin fever by now, I'm sure. Now that the lifeless, parasite controlled hosts were showing signs of weakness it was a good time to start thinning out their numbers. Absolutely the gunfire could be the sounds of somebody's last stand, a do or die situation, having run out of food or water. Be that as it may though, it wouldn't serve me or those that might be needing rescue for me to go staggering with my bad feet into the ass end of a herd and end up needing to be rescued myself.

I turned the key and the Hummer grudgingly turned over. With a nasty clanking and grinding the engine voiced its displeasure at me. Momentarily I considered turning the key off and searching for another car. There was no guarantee the Hummer would start again, and no guarantee I would find a car I could drive. Batteries died, gas either evaporated or went bad in the tank or you couldn't find the keys or I couldn't hotwire it, etc., etc. I could easily spend hours trying to get another ride and not have any luck. The bunker was only a couple of miles away, easily walkable if not for the fucking flesh eaters of bad feet. As long as the H2 was still willing, so was I.

The damn Hummer broke down and finally quit. I let it slowly roll to where I am now, the last of the antifreeze being blown out as steam through the broken radiator. The smoking heap rests just off the road in the parking lot of this little restaurant / gas station / market.

On a good note I broke down within sight of the dirt bike I used to get here the first time. The dirt bike was simply out of gas and I was in the process of siphoning the tank of the H2 when I heard the sounds of the pack.

Dogs.

I heard a pack of them nearby barking and yowling like the wild animals they've surely reverted to. All the small dogs were dead so this had to be a pack of some of the bigger and more vicious (since they had survived this long) former pets. They seem to be getting closer. For a while it sounded like they had chased something down and were in a frenzy.

I had almost gotten the gas I needed from the tank of the hummer. As I grimaced and spat out the residue of the gas from my mouth for the twentieth time, a large mongrel of a dog slowly crept towards me.

It kept its distance, for the time being, waiting for the others in the pack to join it and decide what to do about me. Head lowered, fangs barred and growling, it slowly inched towards me, pausing occasionally to let out a rough bark to alert its motley companions.

Within a few short minutes its companions showed up. That's when I decided I had to get to shelter.

The front door to "Dmitri's", as a faded blue and white sign proclaimed, was deceptively sturdy. It took repeated bashings with my shoulder and the butt of the gun to bust it open. I didn't want to completely destroy the door, I wanted to be able to shut out the dogs after I broke in.

Rottweilers, Pit bulls, German Shepherds, Dobermans...unkempt and hungry. It was a huge pack and they were running around the building excitedly. They kept jumping up on the windows and throwing their starving bodies at the door trying to get at me.

The main windows started cracking and the door won't stay. The AK is out of ammo but the shotty and my .38 are going to remind these bastards and bitches why we were (and still are) their masters.

When I bashed the market door in I busted it up a bit. It still closed but just barely. It surely wouldn't hold up for even one good smash by one of those dogs and I knew it. I hurriedly crammed and kicked stuff into the jam and between the bottom of the door and floor. Hoped to make some ad hoc door stops.

One of the dogs, a huge and natty haired Great Dane charged the door then, testing my makeshift repair. I did a horrible job, with just that one blow the door bulged and almost came open.

The barking and baying was ringing in my ears, so loud I could barely hear myself think.

I did the only other thing I could do in such a short notice. I pushed a nearby shelving unit, full of old and moldy magazines, behind the door to add some weight to help block the door. I'd be lucky if it held more than ten minutes under any amount of determined blows, and it turned out I was right.

I took refuge behind the cash register counter and as predicted, the door gave way. It was momentarily stopped by the shelf behind it but that didn't stop the hungry pack for long. As soon as the first dog had partially pushed through, two more of the motley mongrels were busily, excitedly, struggling to force themselves and the first dog through.

I almost felt bad about blowing the first dogs head and shoulders to hell. My first shot got a bite of some of the dogs that were behind that sack of meat, squirming their way in behind it. The barking and howling stopped momentarily, the only thing I heard was the pain filled whines of one of my shotguns victims.

Almost felt bad that is.

The dogs milled about unsure of what to do then. More than likely they had been chasing down and eating undead stragglers for the past year. Can't really see there being much else to eat. I'm sure they remembered, to their horror, what a boom stick was. I'm sure of this because when everything went to hell with the animal madness, people abandoned and then hunted them mercilessly. Generally anything over a hundred pounds was safe but nobody stopped to try to weigh a damn animal before they shot it. Then with the insanity of the human madness, I'm sure they learned that it was a bad thing to even be near a human.

The veneer of civilization has been completely peeled away, we have all reverted to savages. When once we fed dogs, now we feed on them. I knew if I lived I was going to gut and dress those dead dogs. I've learned to like the taste.

The pack was working itself up again then. Getting itself ready to make another go at me. The door was open and the shelf was pushed out of the way. I could see them taking quick glances at me and moving quickly away from the now buckshot peppered door. A Pit bull with one eye missing and drool dripping from its yammering jaws busted out the previously cracked pane window.

That's when I fired my second shot. More or less just aimed at the open doorway, hoping to either get a lucky shot and knock down another one or scare 'em away. Either would have worked.

As soon as I fired I felt an enormous pain in my left shoulder. Some god damned walking stiff was gnawing on me. Dead, cold hands and arms gripped me with a vice like quality, knocking the shotgun out of my hands.

I didn't have time to even think about reconnoitering the store before the group of famished canines attacked. Fucking batshit world. The flesh eating prick of a zed was just tearing a huge gouge in my shoulder. It was an agony to fight off the withered claw like hands while it was eating me alive. I unholstered my .38 as it greedily, repeatedly bit into me. My first shot didn't kill it. It knocked it back however and I was free of its grasp.

Just barely in time too. The dogs saw us fighting and had breached the door. I let loose another shot at the zed, hitting him in the chest as I ran to the nearest interior door.

The pack zoned in on the zombie as I slammed the door shut behind me. Thankfully this door had a lock on it and was in good shape. It was dark as hell in the room and I hoped I didn't just lock myself in with another of those lumbering terrors. I could clearly hear the pack satisfying its hunger with the body of the zed that tried to make a quick snack of me.

While the animals were tearing apart their meal I was able to quickly check out the back room by the small flame of my lighter. Old storage and cooler access room. More importantly it was zed free. I stayed quiet and took care of the jagged hole in my shoulder as best I could. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness in here I found it wasn't too bad. Plenty of light spills in from the space under the door for me to see. Been a couple of hours now since I heard them run off. Gave me time to get off my throbbing feet and scribble this down. There's still a whining coming from outside from one of the wounded mutts.

I guess now I'll go and put the wounded fur-bags out of their misery.

Then finish gassing up the dirt bike to tow the Hummer and my swag back to the safe house.

### 15

When the "Rat flu" made its debut on the world stage, killing off the vermin by the billions, no mammal was safe. The infinitesimal eggs of the parasite came out in the animals' urine, feces, sweat, blood and saliva. They were light and resilient, excellent qualities for airborne transmission. Bites and deep scratches from an infected animal injected not only the eggs of the parasite, but the parasites themselves. It took time for the eggs to grow into adults who then multiplied at an exponential rate inside their hosts. The body reacted to the egg infestation as if it was pollen or another irritant, causing slight flu like or mild allergy symptoms. The eggs quickly hatched, becoming young, single celled invaders. The immune system of most mammals, including humans, didn't react strongly to the new invaders once they hatched and were few in number. But once the number reached a "critical mass" then the body went into overdrive in a fight for its very survival. It was this period of the contagion that was dubbed "Scarlet Fever". Red and itchy splotches appeared all over the host's body and high body temperatures of a hundred and four plus degrees Fahrenheit weren't unusual. Once the parasite established its foot hold it rapidly spread along and throughout the host's central nervous system and the most basic parts of the brain.

I know I've stated before that I was immune and that I never caught the Rat or the Scarlet but this bite pressed my body to its limit. I have gone through a shit load of injury and infection in the last couple of weeks. More than likely my immune system was already stressed and was slow to react to this new danger.

The disgusting wound festered and swelled. At first it seemed like it was a normal reaction to any wound. Then hole in my shoulder started to itch like a mother and small red freckles started popping up around it. I broke out in a fever and I gobbled massive amounts of drugs that I looted from the drugstore.

That damn thing tore a big chunk out of my shoulder. My whole left arm is weak now, any real weight brings massive pain.

For three days I lay in complete misery wondering if this massive injection of eggs and adult parasites inserted directly into my bloodstream would overwhelm and overcome my weakened system. To survive the airborne phase was one thing, to survive a direct bite was another. I personally hadn't seen it happen to anyone before. What I mean is I hadn't seen anybody escape from just a single bite. Usually when someone got themselves into a situation where they got bit, they got eaten.

I overcame it though.

I have a lingering headache now, it gets less painful day by day. It was a close thing.

My feet are doing better. The emergency surgery I performed upon myself seemed to do the job. They still hurt a great deal, and every bump and miss-step sends shocks of curse word laden pain through my body, but they seem to be healing well.

I plan on just holing up here for the next couple of months, waiting out the rainy season while I fully regain my strength.

### 16

It's been a long hot summer and dry fall. It's now the beginning of December and I don't remember it raining since before I started this journal. That changed today. Today the heavens let loose with a heavy downpour. It started raining around noon and it's still pouring now as night falls.

I've spent the last couple days cleaning and bringing some sense of order to the chaos of the bunker. It's a complete second house, bigger than the upstairs "real" house. The bunker is also filthier than the upstairs was. I don't even want to think about the refuse filled room that is the bunkers bathroom.

I'm sure it was a pain in the ass getting all this stuff down the hatch that seals off the bunker. I know getting the garbage and stuff like the foul mattress out of here sure was.

The false floor in the closet has a rung ladder set in the side of a concrete wall that leads down to a room just large enough to fully open the kind of a hatch that you would expect to find onboard a naval ship. Beneath the hatch there is a set of stairs that are almost straight up and down that go down into the bunker itself. I had to take breaks from just dragging up the grimy, blood and gunk covered clothes and accumulated trash he had down there. Even though there is a small washer and dryer set down there, amazingly, it looks like he just wore whatever clothes he had until they almost rotted off of him (kind of like what I've been doing, but he had no excuse to not wash). A lot of shit down there is just battered and broken, including every dish and glass. That damned soul of a carrier must have vented his rage on whatever was at hand when he had nobody to torment.

At the end of the last couple of days I had my own private bon fire getting rid of all that refuse. I threw junk that I knew wouldn't burn in there too, hoping to at least purify with fire any contaminate left on it.

Dug the burn pit well away from the house, not that zeds are attracted to fire, but because the extended drought had caused a lot of the vegetation to just dry up. I didn't want to accidentally start a forest fire that would engulf my new home.

On one of my breaks from my custodial duties I decided to try and see if the "Red" had indeed stashed a vehicle somewhere around here. He did. He had an expensive but reliable Land Rover with four wheel drive stashed away. He dug a trench with one sloping side (to drive the Rover in and out), covered with plywood, which was itself covered with topsoil. It was overgrown with weeds and plants and I didn't notice anything special about it until I was standing right on top of it. When I did notice something unusual it was because the ground seemed to give way slightly when I walked on it and it had a bit of a bounce to it. I jumped up and down a couple of times and I heard a distinct crack of splintering wood. I kicked the dirt around to see what was buried and there it was. After a year or so the plywood had started to rot. Getting the layer of sand and soil off of it enough to drag the plywood aside took longer than I expected.

Some dry-gas and a fresh charge to the battery were all I needed to get the Rover running. Took it out for a spin to the neighbors. The house where Kimmy used to live. Raided it for clothes mostly but also grabbed a good bed and some clean, fresh sheets. Nothing about the house had changed. The dead woman in the bedroom was still, thankfully, dead. One day when I go back I should bury her. There are other houses scattered here and there and I should go scope them out too. I've got plenty on my to do list as it is, so that will have to wait.

What was notable though while I was there was the distant sound of gunfire that I could hear coming from the direction of town. I swear, but I'm not sure that I heard someone yelling through a bullhorn. For a while the gunfire and yelling (I couldn't make out what was being said) seemed to be coming closer to me. The ruckus appeared to taper into silence at the cross road where I almost became zombie chow. I don't have any clue as to what's happening back in town, but I am worried. I'm going to have to stay low for a couple of more days here, at least another two weeks, before I've healed up. Then I'll go and check out the town.

It's raining like hell now. I'm not going anywhere until it stops. Knowing central Florida though, it could be weeks or even a month before that happens.

No matter how much I clean down here it still stinks. I know I'll eventually get used to it but damn. I'm going to have to go to town just to load up on air freshener and shit.

As I sit here writing this, there is a large monitor that flashes the feeds from the security camera. The light is fading rapidly and on one of the outside feeds I thought I saw movement.

A lone zed is wandering outside. Can barely make him out between the night and the rain. One isn't a problem. Tomorrow I can evict his undead soul from the planet. Tonight I can't do anything about it except stay quiet and catch some shut eye.

On a side note, I have been taking Zoloft for my depression, and while it does seem to help (a little), there is no getting past the fact that if I weren't depressed by my fucked up life I would be insane. I'm also using sleeping pills to help me fall asleep. The sleeping pills don't stop my nightmares but without them I can't seem to shut my mind off enough to doze off.

### 17

When I awoke this morning, the first thing I did was to check the three outside monitors. It was still raining slightly, which didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the number of walking, decaying corpses that seemed to be slowly moving to the west. I was expecting to have to go and silently crush an undead skull or two, even a handful of them with my sledge hammer. A small number of them are manageable, but there are zeds all over.

There's a dog pack following the swarm. The grainy black and white monitors don't have any sound, but I don't need to hear the spectacle taking place outside. In the early morning, before the swarm became too thick, I spotted a number of mangy, flea ridden curs weaving in and around the slow moving shamblers. I watched them take one down and quickly devour and rip it to pieces. At times they seemed to actually play with their food, rushing up on one and knocking them down from behind. The dreadful, animated undead have a hard time struggling back up from any prone position and the dogs, being much faster, would grab one by the arm or leg and shake the limb around like it was some rotted chew toy. They tugged and shook until the limb came apart or was pulled from its socket completely. The pack seemed to actually be enjoying themselves, making a great game of it.

As the day progressed the swarm became thicker and thicker. Once the numbers of zombies became too great the dogs ran off and I haven't seen them since. There are so many of them out there now, all slowly moving towards the gulf coast. Each zed seems to be following the zed in front and around them. I have no idea why they act like this, blindly following each other in groups like this.

The clumsy bastards keep stumbling and falling into the lake. As the swarm of bastards became a densely packed herd, more and more of them come over the rise and roll down the steep slope to disappear into the now murky water.

There was something that was disturbing me about the zeds themselves though. I figured out what was different about them. Before the rain the corpses were starting to look more like the mummies you see in museums, all desiccated and leathery. Since it started raining though, the fuckers seemed to have been revived a bit. The rain moistened and softened the dead flesh. Just a week ago the vast majority of them struggled just to move around it seemed, but now they appear to move around much easier and faster. Damn it all to hell. It's as if the parasites were on the brink of dieing from thirst, if that was possible. Even if the dead flesh of its host didn't need water any longer, I'm sure the parasites themselves need it to survive.

The zeds are in various states of decomposition and undress, with most wearing nothing but tatters of clothing. Some walked, some crawled and some dragged themselves around with one clawing arm attached to a partial torso. The demons have no regard for any others of its kind, crushing and trampling any who get in their way.

I'm safe here, underground in this modern bomb shelter. I can wait for a long time until the herd passes.

### 18

Been two days since my last entry. The water pump overheated and shut off. What water it had been giving was tainted and dark. It gave the odor of death and I know it was contaminated. I hope it shut down because the filtration system got clogged. I pray it was due to something I can easily fix once the herd moves on. I have some bottled water so I'm not in any immediate danger of going thirsty.

I crept upstairs to the house to check on the old fashioned hand pump in the kitchen. It may have been that the hand pump was a back up to the automated water supply but I found a flaw in the system. It seems that the water supply for the hand pump and the modern electrically driven pump got their water from the same source. That source had to be from the lake.

The curtains, drawn tight across the triple pane windows, showed the shadows of the wandering undead outside. I pumped the lever to the hand pump as quietly as I could, praying that the hungry dead just a foot away didn't hear me. I don't think they heard my efforts, thankfully, but the pump was dry.

When I returned to the bunker the generator quit. The electricity switched off and went into battery backup mode. It won't last for long. I kept the lights on only as long as it took me to find out what happened. The water wheel, which acts as the electricity generator, has a main panel in the utility room here. Something is jamming it. I shut it down knowing that the only way to get it running again is to go outside and manually clear the obstruction. It has got to be a zed or detached body part that has clogged it.

The situation outside is unbelievable. The once clear, spring fed, lake is now an overflowing mass of writhing, grasping corpses. As body upon undead body goes into the lake they make a horrible mash of those that are beneath them. All are grasping, struggling, and clawing their way out of the steep sided depression. The water churns and quickly turned black. It's now a thick viscous soup of rancid flesh. They climb over and on top of each other in their struggle to escape while more and more are added to this scene. All the time more fall in and they rip each other to pieces like they're in some hellish meat-grinder.

The small dock, even though it was sturdily built, has been destroyed. Grasping and groping for purchase they pulled and wore down the wooden posts at the end of the dock first. The dock collapsed and the monsters seethed over each other using the docks wreckage to make their way out of the depression. The dock is completely gone now. Pieces of stray planks resurface every now and then, breaking the surface momentarily, only to be pulled back down into the writhing mass. Flotsam on a sea of death.

If they keep coming I fear wondering just how deep the zeds will pack themselves into this depression. The roof of the house is actually lower than the rim and if the zeds keep coming, the house itself could possibly disappear under decaying flesh.

The lake is a nightmare scene taken straight from hell. The quality of the air itself now is horrible. The air, and it's not just the air in the bunker but all the air inside and out, smells of rot and decay and disease. A foul miasma of filth and death. The odor is so strong that I retch unless I keep a towel soaked with cologne around my face.

No way can I leave now. I'm trapped here. I can deal with the lack of electricity but eventually water will become a problem. Sanitation is going to be a problem. Toilet don't flush, of course, but I can't just open up a window to empty out a make-shift chamber pot. I sure as hell can't go do my business outside either. This situation is going to get rather bad rather soon.

The herd does seem to be slowly moving on. They move a mile or two an hour on average. There must be a hundred thousand of them in this herd. Easily. Florida had a population of over eighteen million before the Scarlet. It seems like most of them are coming to my house to visit.

Nothing I can do but wait it out.

### 19

It's taken about a week for the herd to move on. During the thickest core of the undead mass I could hear them even through these thick walls. Their constant stumbling and bumping into each other, forcing fetid, rancid air past the remnants of vocal cords causes them to emit a truly terrifying sound (especially when its multiplied by the tens of thousands). The relentless sound of legions of rotted and foul footsteps endlessly trampling over everything in their path, including their slower comrades. The disturbing sounds of a multitude of grasping claws randomly pounding and grasping the building. Added to this is the horrible splashing and thrashing of the things struggling to escape the now rancid pit that was the lake.

I've caught myself talking to myself and even having small arguments with myself. Whenever I became aware of my verbal outbursts it was with horror. I never realize when it starts, but when I catch myself doing it I fearfully wonder if any of the ghouls outside heard me. Then I huddle in the darkest corner of the bunker and fret that they know I'm in here. I've picked up the bad habit of chewing my nails. I don't know when that began but my nails are gnawed down to the point they start to bleed. I seem to slip into this verbalization of my thoughts without realizing it. I think I'm going slightly mad. The boredom is a palpable thing now. The few books and magazines down here are useless, having been written, torn, scribbled over and covered with unknown stains. I haven't even thought of peeking outside through the curtains to watch the legion of the undead march by.

Trapped here, with the smell of the death and decomposing flesh and the addition of the smell of my own unwashed body, is almost unbearable. Additionally, I've added to this is the odor of my own excrement. I started using the freezer that had once held the remains of Kimmy as my chamber pot. The freezer closes still, but it doesn't stop the smell from escaping. The reek is overpowering and I'm constantly nauseous.

I have to get the fuck out of here. I've got my trusty backpack and a sturdy duffle bag all packed up and ready to go. I haven't heard anything from outside for a full day now, except the cawing of birds. No water or electricity isn't the reason I need to flee so badly. It's the stench. The stench is laden with the taint of disease. The lake, even though the natural spring that feeds it is clean and clear, won't be safe for swimming, fishing or drinking for a long time. I know it's a festering hole of infection. I think I remember reading how people used to poison wells and water supplies with dead bodies. This is beyond that, way beyond that.

I'm going to go up and peek outside soon. I wanted to put down my thoughts in the journal beforehand because it does a lot for my grasp on reality and helps me order my chaotic mind. I need to steady myself and not screw up and let some passing dead fucker see me and call down the horde on me.

### 20

The sight that greeted my eyes needs to be written down. I thought I would never see a vision worse than the hellish lake of churning bodies but I was wrong. My nightmares are going to be worse now, of that I'm positive.

The multitude of the damned was gone. I peered out the front window long and hard for any of the undead. Only a few scattered crawlers were left, all busily heading westward, towards the coast. It's a complete mystery to me why the hell they group up in such a huge mass like this and start, seemingly aimlessly, heading off in one direction or another.

I grabbed my .38 and my shotgun and gathered up some weapons for quiet killing. The sledge hammer and a sharp hand axe was all I needed though.

The house's driveway was the only gentle slope that led away from the natural depression that formed the boundaries of the lake. It was here that those of the zeds that escaped the lake continued their unholy pilgrimage. It was here that I dispatched the first of the handful of crawlers.

A nasty partial torso being dragged along by rotted and broken hands. The skull had most of its flesh gone and stringy strands of filthy long blonde hair hung from it in small patches. It had to be a mercy for it to be finally sent to rest when I crushed its head with my sledge. There was no way to tell if it had once been a man or woman when it was alive. The tissue on its chest had been worn away and only broken ribs showed.

I had been more worried about dispatching these isolated monsters than my actual surroundings though. Overlooking the lake of the damned I killed those few that seemed to have a chance of escaping, easily dispatching them and kicking their rank bodies back into that abyss of zombie stew. The waterline had risen with the sheer mass of the zeds that had tumbled into it, sending the foul dark water with its chunks of unrecognizable body pieces to just below the back doorway. A sickly oil and filth cover the surface and haphazard limbs form an unnatural dam that partially blocks off the stream.

When I was sure that there were no more stragglers is when I finally focused on the landscape around me.

In all of human history, with the multitude of its forsaken battlefields, could any site match the utter dreadfulness. Body parts, tattered pieces of clothing, trampled ground and felled trees. Every living thing had been trampled into the mud. Not one blade of grass nor bush or shrub survived. Not one sapling stands. Large trees and palmettos, having stood for decades in the sandy soil, were knocked down. Those trees that still stand have been stripped of their lower limbs. Everywhere the soil has been mashed into a muddy soup from the rain and the tens of thousands of uncaring, unfeeling feet. Mixed into this carnage were pieces, chunks and sometimes whole limbs. One arm and hand sticks up from the mud, clenching and writhing as the body it is attached to tries to lift itself out of the mire after having been driven deep into the earth during the undead's slow stampede. In every direction, as far as I could see was a nightmare.

If the devil were real, he would love this place. He would turn this into his summer home. I can see him reclining on a fold up chair. Admiring the beauty of a sunset as it slowly descends over the anguish of the lake. Sipping a tall, cold glass of despair from the ruins of the dock. Smiling at the earth covered with mangled body parts. Breathing deeply the stench of rotting human meat.

Oh God, I don't know where that came from. I don't know why I wrote that. I have got to get away from here. This place is cursed. If I go to hell after I die, I fear I will be chained to this place.

For all of its horror, some things enjoy it. A huge murder of crows, fat and healthy looking, has landed and is walking amongst the carnage. They walk around and selectively eat the pieces of once human flesh they find the most delectable. There is such an availability that none have to scrabble or fight for a meal. The numbers of the murder are as the numbers of those they follow. In the past year their food supply has grown and so has their children. The crow never really competed directly with man for food. Insects, lizards, snakes, berries and seeds were what it always had. Sure, they would raid a farmer's field occasionally, necessitating the need of a scarecrow. Usually I saw them by the side of a road or highway pecking at some unfortunate piece of road-kill.

While I went around and finished off the undead laggards I could feel the black crows cold, black eyes watching me. More than once I would spot one starring directly at me, like they were just waiting for me to drop dead so they could feast on flesh that was fresh. More and more of the black birds flutter down to join the feast. The multitude of their caw's sound like a deranged laughter in my ears.

I can hear the distant sound of barking. I don't know if it's the same pack I tangled with before or if it's a different one altogether.

I don't care though. I'm packing up the Rover and driving the fuck out of here now. I keep getting the feeling of someone walking across my grave and the hairs on the back of my neck won't go down. If I stay here surrounded by this madness I will soon completely loose the tenuous grasp that I currently have on my sanity.

### 21

The Rover hadn't come through unscathed by the horde. It was still drivable, although it had been dented up pretty badly and had all of the passenger side windows smashed. The sheer numbers of the herd, banging into the vehicle, as it broke like a wave around a stone in a fast flowing river, had actually pushed it off the driveway.

Driving down the dirt road I passed the neighbors house again.

The last time I had been at the house, except for the broken glass on the front door, it had been in good shape. Now it's basically in ruins. It's still standing, but all the windows are shattered, the doors are gone and even a lot of the aluminum siding has been stripped off. It was in the direct path of the massive horde that swept through, and all around the landscape was a shambles. As I idled slowly past the property, one of the undead must have heard the sound of the Rover's engine.

I actually stopped the Rover and was going to wait until it got close so I could shoot the asshole in the head. The walking corpse belonged to a very overweight guy in life. The zombie was clad in the remnants of what had to be a pair of jeans, torn and tattered. He was wearing only one shoe and sock on his left foot and as he ambled out the broken living room window he got about five feet and stopped. Then it tried to come at me again and abruptly stopped again. The unfeeling corpse tried over and over again, each time more violently than the last but it kept stopping after about a mere inch or two. It looked like there was a leash around its waist or something and if that were true than that meant that a living somebody had tied it there.

I stopped the Rover and slowly, cautiously approached it. I laughed out loud at the stupid thing and put it out of its misery with my "nine" when I realized what had happened. There was a jagged gash in its side and back. Old, blackened, stringy intestines had spilled out and had gotten wrapped around something inside the house.

I drove past "Dmitri's Gas-N-Go" and noted it was in as bad of shape as was the neighbor's house had been. There was something new here though.

An older model Dodge Ram pick-up truck was overturned in the ditch.

I had to check it out. I don't even care about not caring about the zeds anymore. I had already started swerving for the fuckers in the road. Not away from them, screw that, towards and over them. I find it damn hilarious to run over their stupid asses. I don't care if the zeds hear my gunshots or not. I won't be here by the time they arrive anyways. As long as it's not a herd, it's not a bother.

Lot of blood in the cab of the truck. Somebody bought it. Crap had flown out of the bed of the truck and was strewn all over the area. Standard stuff you'd expect any survivor to have, canned goods (which I grabbed a few of), clothes, and some loose ammo. I didn't grab any of the ammo as it was the wrong type and caliber for what I had. While I was rooting around I did notice that there was baby diapers and formula lying about. That kind of made me sick to my stomach.

I hadn't thought about children at all really since the world went to hell. Not until then.

I mean, sure, I can completely understand what is almost certainly bound to happen between a man and a woman who are stuck in close confines for a long period. Either their gonna kill each other of fuck each other's brains out. I never had sex with Jannie, I never even tried to get into her pants. I think my sex drive died with the world. Besides, I thought of Jannie as more of a daughter than a possible mate. Not everybody is like me though. Just killing the overwhelming sense of boredom for fifteen or so minutes by having sex is a good enough reason for most.

Still, I have my questions. If both the parents are immune does that mean the offspring will also have that immunity, or is it still going to be a crap-shoot of random genes that give immunity? If the baby isn't immune when will it get sick, before or after birth? I certainly hope it's the latter, because if it's the former then that's a horror that I don't want to think about.

Went into the gas station looking for some wine I remember seeing from before. I normally don't drink wine, but none of the beer is good anymore. All the beer skunked up over a year ago.

Inside Dmitri's was a blood spattered bull horn. I remember how I thought I heard some gunshots and someone shouting through one before the horde made its way past the bunker. Behind the counter where I made my stand against the dog pack, someone else had made a last stand. Weren't much left at all. Just a few pieces of bone and clothes ripped apart by ravenous teeth and claws amidst a dried up blood stain. I know it wasn't animals that ate the poor bastard though, the undead did it.

Poor son's 'o bitches probably ran into the herd and got forced off the road. The unlucky sod that ran in here probably used the bull horn to try and distract the horde away from his girl and child. Didn't work though. He should have ran and left 'em for dead. I would have. I certainly ran out on Jannie when the shit hit the fan. Sounds cruel, but I'm still alive aren't I? Aren't I? Maybe I died a long time ago and am in some ghastly purgatory. Doesn't matter I guess. Either way I still got to deal with this.

There were a dozen or so unbroken bottles of wine and I took them all. Did some drinking and driving that day. Actually, I got drunk and stayed drunk for almost a week. Today is the first day I haven't been hitting the bottle, except for some hair of the dog to ease the hangover I have.

It was weird where I ended up driving that day. Maybe subconsciously I wanted to come back here to see if I could find any sign of Jannie. Maybe see if she really died or escaped. I don't know the reason, but here I am, back in Ocala.

I drove here drunk and was having great fun taking pot shots at zeds by the side of the road and running over the ones in the road.

The low gas light came on and I decided to hole up in what looked to be a decently secure bar. I chose a bar because I was four sheets to the wind by then. The booze was calling out for more booze to join it in my stomach. Got tired of wine, I wanted some real hooch, I wanted to get so drunk on some whiskey I would forget everything.

And I did.

I at least didn't bust through the front doors in drunken stupidity. I climbed up on the roof and chopped a hole in it with my axe and sledge.

Ah, I got to go answer the door. Some damn dead fuck is banging on it. Been having to go up on the roof every now and then and kill them off. I'll write some more once I take care of these unwanted visitors and get something solid in my gut.

### 22

I don't know the exact date, but I'm positive I'm about two weeks into December. The weather is definitely changing. Along with the cooler air comes the incessant rain. It rains every day, sometimes it's a light drizzle, usually though it comes down in sheets. It may not be for another month or so that the rain starts to slack off. Living in central Florida without an air conditioner is almost unbearable. I have no idea how anybody lived down here before electricity. While I'm thankful for the reprieve from the hundred plus degree heat, the rain just cranks up the humidity.

This bar is no bigger than a hole in the wall. The trailer I used to live in as a kid was bigger than this. The hole I chopped in the roof just happened to be directly over the woman's toilet. After sticking my head down the hole to look around to make sure it was clear I jumped on in. Landed with one foot in the bowl and gave myself a soaker. Luckily whoever used the can last had the decency to flush. Now with all the rain the little drain in the tile floor overflows and half the bar gets flooded. The ratty old carpet squishes whenever I walk on it and I've been sleeping on the pool table. Nothing to eat here, except a couple of cans of cherries in syrup. Everything else has gone bad.

The only thing interesting about this place is what was behind the locked door to the manager's office. I knew something was dead behind that door when I approached it. I've gotten to the point now, after having been around the dead for so long, that I could tell it was the smell of old death. The walking abominations, although dead, have an entirely different smell to them than rotting corpses. I can even tell how long a body has been decomposing, and this one had been there for quite awhile. The manager had done himself up right by eating the barrel of his gun and pulling the trigger. If you ask me it actually takes a lot of guts to wack yourself and go hurtling into the unknown void. If I weren't so chicken shit afraid of dying, I probably would have joined him a long time ago instead of living out this nightmare. Someone once said that life was misery and they sure got that one right. The old guy used an old military issue forty-five, the kind the armed forces used before they switched over to the nine millimeters. The clip was full, except for that one round. I thanked him for the weapon, closed the door and haven't bothered the room since.

Every day I have to go up to the roof and kill off the undead that are drawn here. It's a viscous cycle of me killing them and them hearing the gunshots and wandering over from whatever the fuck they had been doing, causing me to have to go out and let off another round of gunfire.

Last night's sky was amazingly clear. A billion stars sparkled and shone in the sky. There were no clouds and the visibility was perfect. There was no light pollution from the thousands of streetlights and neon signs since civilization fell. The complete absence of manmade noise left only the sounds of nature. Before the world ended I could never get away from the sounds of civilization. Even when I went camping miles from the cities I could still hear the distant sounds of the endless traffic on the highways. For a couple of hours I just laid back and really enjoyed the night sky with all its wondrous visions.

Of course even that didn't last long. Something huge streaked across the sky, leaving a burning wake of debris. From west to east it plummeted. It was no mere satellite that was breaking up in the atmosphere above my head, it was much bigger than that. Pieces broke off of it, causing multiple smaller pieces of comet like wreckage to follow in its wake. It could only be the International Space Station falling out of orbit. I certainly hoped those astronauts and cosmonauts who had manned it had escaped before it fell from the sky. I can't see them surviving up there for this long with their limited food supply. They must have gotten into their Soyuz capsule a long time ago, but I'm sure they waited until the very last day to do so. I don't know how much they knew about what had happened down here, but I figure they didn't survive too long after they got back to earth. From what I understand, spending any extended amount of time in the absence of gravity means your muscles atrophy. After a couple of months in space, those who return can barely stand and need help to even walk. Hopefully they came down in some isolated countryside where the unholy zeds wouldn't have quickly run them down and devoured them as they desperately tried to crawl away.

My time here is just about over. It's getting about that time to move on again. I'm going to have to go on foot from now on. The Rover's out of gas and there's no likely replacement for it in sight. Of the three cars in the area, two of them have flat tires from just sitting here so long. The third one is nothing more than a burned out shell.

I'm not that worried about it though. Even with the rain rejuvenating the zeds somewhat, they only way they'll catch me is if I do something stupid. I have more to fear from my fellow humans than them. I'm gonna try and work my way to a mall or camping store. I'm in serious want of clean socks and underwear, among other things.

### 23

Man, I just love this big-ass fire axe. Found it lying next to a fire engine. I was already loaded down with my pack and the heavy sledge hammer when I came across the scene. Made the decision to drop the sledge in favor of the heavy duty axe. It's got a nice sharp blade and an ergonomic fiberglass reinforced handle. Just perfect for chopping zombie heads or smashing down doors. Still keeping my hand axe with me, just in case.

There are scattered zeds all over the place, but very few notice me. The jostling of my pack makes more noise than I do. Those staggering corpses that do notice me are quickly put down. The axe bites deep, slicing through skulls with ease.

Only once did it get stuck from an overhand swing, mainly due to it being driven so deep 'cause of its weight. I had to stand on the fucker's chest and brittle ribs snapped as my foot actually entered its chest cavity. Black ichor and rotted flesh oozed, covered and seeped into my shoe as I wriggled the axe from its disfigured face.

I spent what seemed like an eternity running as silently as I could from building to building, furtively peeking around corners and planning the best way to move around. While I made my way to this already looted shopping mall, I noticed the numbers of the undead bitches were somewhat thinner than they normally were.

I quickly found out where they were. I hadn't spent any amount of time in Ocala before the Scarlet, (even after having lived in Florida for twenty years, the first time I had been here is when Jannie and I fled the infested suburbs of Orlando) so I was basically running blind. Being holed up in that death-trap I never did get around to doing any sight-seeing. I spotted a huge horde surrounding what had to be the city jail. I damn sure didn't get close enough to see what building it was exactly, but any jail in any city always has the same look to it. The horde didn't notice me at all, all of their hunger was directed at the building down the street. To me that means only one thing. Other people. Whether they were still alive inside that place was another question altogether. The zeds would single-mindedly try to gain entry into wherever there was living human flesh until they turned to dust. I knew from personal experience that they would not give up until they were destroyed or finally gained entry and ate the living alive. Even if they gained entry and found the starved occupants dead they would still feast, such is their craving for human meat.

It was with a guilty comfort that I realized that the majority of the walking dead had their attention directed at someone else. Having been surrounded by the ghastly things I knew how terrifying it was.

The strip-mall that I came to had been looted already, with every one of the stores having their doors and windows smashed. By the number of head wounded corpses I knew other survivors had been here since the ghoulish parasite took over mankind. There was the odd monstrosity around, but they fell quickly and quietly to my axe. The jail wasn't far from here so I dreaded to use a firearm.

As I suspected, almost all of the food and water was gone from the Winn-Dixie. More proof someone had made repeated forays here. It would take a semi-truck to get all of the missing canned goods out of here at once. The back office to all the shops had been busted open also, though that may have actually happened during the riots and insanity.

I found some camping gear and a tent along with the new socks and underwear I had originally came here for. Some nice new boots too. Most of the camping gear was untouched...guess nobody wants to go camping during the apocalypse.

Since there was no secure place inside the pillaged stores I set up the tent on the roof of Winn-Dixie. The grocery store had an access ladder back in the dock area. I had never seen one of the undead cannibals have the co-ordination to climb a ladder, so I figure I will be safe. Besides, now I can see the surrounding part of town easier. Keep an eye out in the direction of the jail.

I'm going to light up this can of Sterno and eat some Raman noodles before it gets dark. Can't risk a fire at night. Sleeping on the roof, even in this one man tent, means no flashlight to write by either. Been awhile since I had something hot, even if it is just simple noodles and instant coffee.

### 24

The roof doesn't drain properly, even after I tried to clear the drainage spouts and grates. Grass, weeds and even a small sapling have taken root on these flat roofs. I had to go inside the docks and find some pallets to put under my tent. I couldn't just haul them up the ladder, the hatchway was too small for the pallets. Finally had to go around and scavenge up some rope to haul them up here.

I almost became zombie chow while rummaging around the stores for an adequate length of rope. Damn "sleeper" woke up and tried to eat me for breakfast while I was distracted. Fucking things...It's hard to tell, with the rot and decay of the dead, which corpses are actually dead and which corpses are still undead. The cannibalistic ghoul was that of a boy no more than ten years old or so. It really sucks to see someone so young die so violently, but by now I was used to it. Besides, there were many much younger. There were many much younger than him that I had buried this very axe in their rotted faces, deep into what was left of their grey matter. For the future I'm just going to have to preemptively start crushing the craniums of any corpse I come across.

What had caught my attention was a portable battery operated CD player. The packaging hadn't been touched since all hell broke loose and I almost didn't even notice them. I was actually looking at some cable wire and thinking how I might be able to tie enough of them together to reach the ground from the roof. As soon as I saw the CD player I was like a child in a candy store, oblivious to the fiend lying only a few feet behind me. I was having a hell of a time, even with my bowie knife, trying to open the stupid plastic packaging.

The foul ghoul had risen to its knees and reached out with a cold, fetid, clawed hand and grasped my thigh like a vice. It grabbed a hold of me with an iron grip and dug its filthy nails in deep. I let out a horrified shout (I probably sounded like a scared little girl) and instinctively tried to jump away. It was that jump that caused the vile thing to miss biting a chunk out of my leg. It was also that jump that ripped open my jeans and allowed my flesh to be harshly dug into by its nasty nails.

I could see the undead things reaction to the smell and sight of my warm, fresh blood. The evil, dead, beast that once was an innocent child, seemed to double the speed of its actions. I did what I could. I drove the Bowie knife into its skull damn near to the hilt. Thick black blood flowed from its wound and it staggered from the blow. Normally a maiming like that would have put the thing down permanently, but every now and then I run across a zed that is more resilient than the others of its damnable kind. Even with eight inches of steel buried in its brain, it didn't loosen its grip on my leg one iota. I had to chop the damned things hand off with my axe and then pry open its fingers. I was nauseated as I felt old, infirm, rotted flesh squish onto my hands as I struggled to open its clawed fingers. The strength of these things is amazing. Never in life would a ten year old boy have such strength. The parasites couldn't feel the pain of their hosts and worked the dead's muscles like the strings of a marionette. If more than one of them grabs you it's all over.

The crawling corpse shook like it was having an epileptic seizure, then it stabilized and came at me again.

"Fuck this bastard." I thought and brought my axe down squarely on the rotted things neck.

No medieval executioner could have done a better job. The things head separated cleanly from its shoulders and rolled away.

The body collapsed but the lifeless head still moved. Black orbs for eyes, covered with opaque milky cataracts, still rolled in their rancid sockets, keeping its gaze locked on me. Yellowed and rotting teeth surrounded by blackened gums still snapped violently, hoping to tear open my flesh. A horrible mucus coated, blackened tongue still writhed, waiting to taste its prey.

I picked up the head by the handle of my Bowie, as it was still lodged firmly through its right temple, and firmly ground my boot heel into what was left of his face as I pulled the blade out. After a few hard stomps, which resulted in some satisfying crunching and a goodly spray of black blood and brain matter, it finally ceased its futile grasp on undeath. Even though the zombie was a child, any morality or pity any normal person would have felt was misplaced here. Guilt and sorrow is out of place when dealing with the undead. I felt bad about the situation, but not about killing a mindless automation. Even a toddler in diapers, once it joins the ranks of the undead, is a deadly foe.

Afterwards, I found a crap load of batteries, they're old and the charge on them isn't what it used to be, but they work. I haven't listened to any sort of music for a long time. Literally. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I've got a shopping bag full of old CD's, all grabbed from the bargain rack.

The wound in my thigh, while painful, isn't deep and I poured enough hydrogen peroxide into it to kill anything.

I can see a three story building in the distance, a couple of blocks away, that's closer to the jail and its waiting horde. It should provide a much better vantage point to observe the jail. Tomorrow I'm going to try to make my way towards it and check it out. I hate the idea of having to clear a building by myself, but if I can I will.

I thought I saw a light from inside the jail house last night but I can't be sure. It was just a fleeting moment that I witnessed it. I could be mistaken but I still have to find out, if there's other survivors I have to know.

I really need to find some binoculars. I think I can just barely make out the ruins of the Tool and Die shop I escaped from when I started this journal. If I can get over there I can figure out where the safe-house that Jannie and I holed up in until the mass of undead overcame our defenses was. I have to find out if she survived. It's becoming a fucking obsession with me. Maybe, hopefully, the three story building will give me a better view.

The days are getting shorter and I'm going to enjoy my CD player tonight. Tomorrow I head out.

### 25

I made my recon to the big building in the distance. It didn't turn out to be what I thought it was though. In fact the whole thing was an exercise in futility. The only good thing that I got out of it was a pair of decent binoculars. I write this now tired as hell. I had to spend the night underneath a dilapidated mobile home in some trailer park. Needless to say I didn't sleep for shit. I was finally able to make my way back here to the Winn-Dixie. I left the tent set up here in case I ever came back this way, never thought it would be so soon though.

The closer I got to the building that was my destination, the denser the zeds got. I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of how many of the monsters I killed, but by the time I reached the building my arms were tired from swinging the axe.

The whole thing of it was that the building I was trying to get to was closer to the Marion County Jail than I thought it was. It's hard to judge the distance from this roof top with all the trees and power lines blocking my view.

The building turned out to be some sort of huge factory where they built modular homes. The undead got so thick as I approached it that I knew more had spotted me than I could kill. There was an APC and an Abrams tank parked in front of the building. If there weren't so damn many of the fucks I would have loved to try and loot them, at least see if I could grab the fifty cal. off of one of them. Thank God the main doors were left unlocked. I ducked in and locked the doors behind me. A number of the lethargic, shambling corpses were following me and I had no faith in the strength of the glass double doors to hold them back for long. I found myself in a foyer with a second set of double doors that led into an office area. I locked them too, meaning until they broke through them I may have possibly locked myself inside with no other way out. Nothing else I could do though. I was counting on such a big building having some other exit, mercifully I was right.

There were two putrid cadavers that I had to put down before I was able to explore the office area fully. One of the undead was in battle dress and I grabbed his sidearm and what ammo he had on him after I split open his skull. I ended up needing it. The other was some unfortunate secretary or something that could barely even walk, she was hampered by having her nasty panties around her ankles. Whether the soldiers had raped her before they put a shotgun shell through her chest or her flesh had rotted away to the point where the elastic band on her once pink flowered undies couldn't hold them up any longer, I don't know, and I had no intention of lifting her skirt. I was searching for a stairwell to get up to the second floor when I opened a door I thought would lead to it.

As soon as I cracked open the door rotting arms grasped it and violently flung it wide open. I had no recourse but to pull out my shotgun and start loudly blowing their heads into little chunks. The first ones I killed were soldiers. There wasn't much ammo on them but one of the soldiers did have a nice set of binoculars. They came at me so packed together I was able to kill two at a time with most of my shots. More came through and I started to sweat about how many were in there. I backed away as I fired and when I ran out of shells I just dropped the weapon and pulled out my "nine" and the "nine" I had procured from the first soldier I had encountered. After about a good dozen soldiers, another dozen or so civilians came through in a rush. The odd thing about the civilians was that they all had their hands tied behind their backs. They all, except for the few that were missing one or both of their hands, had been tied with those plastic zip ties.

I knew that all the shooting would undoubtedly attract more zeds to the area. Fuck it though, they already knew I was in there, and once one knew, another somehow senses the first has found prey and soon there was a horde at the front doors.

The door I had opened finally swung shut on its own accord, as there was a break in the zeds coming through. The gun smoke was thick, hanging in the air like a cloud as I reloaded.

I could hear banging on the main doors and felt if I stayed in the office area I was soon going to be kibbles and bits for the pack. My only chance of survival was to go deeper into the rabbit hole. Others were starting to thump on the door in front of me. The zeds are too stupid to figure out even the simplest door knob so I was, for the moment, safe.

Doorways, especially those with self-closing doors were excellent places to fend off a number of the undead ghouls. The restricted area meant that only a few (or one fat bastard) could come through at a time. The self-closing mechanism served to shut the door any time there was a gap in the group, unless one fell in the doorway itself and blocked the door from closing. Even if one met its final death in the doorway, it served to slow down or trip up any that were stumbling in behind it.

I could hear the glass on the first set of double doors shattering and knew I had very little time left. Re-armed I kicked open the door and let the next wave walk into my zone of fire. There weren't so many then, and the dead (truly dead now) corpses laying in the hallway hampered their progress towards me.

As the door shut itself again, more crashing came from the entryway and there came the sound of fists on the second (and final) set of doors. I reloaded as quickly as I could, fumbling a few rounds into the gore spreading across the grey carpet.

I almost slipped and fell into the gross black blood and chunks of decayed flesh and bone as I hurried to the door.

Once past the door, as it slowly closed behind me, I heard the shattering of glass. It would take them a while to figure out where I was now and how to get to me if I could stay quiet. As the smell of the place assaulted my nose I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom of the factory. My ears picked up the sound of halting and unsure footsteps coming from deeper within and I spotted two remaining zeds. The remaining pieces of shit were in sad shape, both were missing their eyes and it looked like most of the bones in their arms and legs had been splintered and broken. It was with a silent ease that I put them down.

The factory had been turned into a killing field with most of the machinery and building materials pushed to one side of the building. The building itself was fuckin' huge. It was easily as big as, if not bigger, than a football field. There really was no second (or third) floor, and no real way to get up into the rafters easily. Cranes and hoists were on tracks overhead with only a couple of metal framed catwalks crossing it.

There was a metal rung ladder further back that lead up to the catwalks and as I approached it I saw a mass of bodies covering the back half of the factory floor. There had to be a hundred or so people, all killed execution style, lying on top of each other. Mass murder had taken place here, more than likely committed by the military, but what the crimes were I can't say. All I know is the victims all had their hands bound. They were from every age group. Young children sprawled out amongst the elderly and every age in between.

Some fucked up shit indeed happened here. Oddly though, and I wonder what it says about my growing lack of empathy, all I could think of was how glad I was that they had all been shot in the head. If they hadn't of been, there would be no way my now slim reserve of ammo would last long enough to kill 'em all.

I finally made my way up to the highest point I could get to and was able to peer out the opening of an industrial size fan facing the jail. Length-wise along the building were dirty plexi-glass windows for letting in some sunlight (at least when the building was maintained and clean) but they were on the wrong sides.

The high, razor wire topped fence surrounding the jail was only a couple of hundred of yards away, just past a thin row of trees. From what I could make out the fence was still standing in the area that I could see, but there was an almost solid mass of zeds on the other side of it. Somewhere there was a breach and the zeds had poured in. They were packed in there and most of them were facing in my direction. If it weren't for that fence they would all be coming over here to investigate the gunfire. Disturbingly, it reminded me of pictures of Hitler's concentration camps. From such a limited view I couldn't tell if there were any living souls in there or not.

However much I wanted to stay there and observe the jail I knew it was too dangerous, with zeds both inside the building and out.

I spotted a more than one exit and as I was deciding which one would be best to use I spotted a pallet of mineral spirits along the wall. I rolled one of the drums over to the mass of executed bodies and opened it up, letting the liquid soak into the carcasses which were no more than clothes and bones. I rolled another over to the door where the zeds who had followed me into the building were now pounding and let it empty itself under the door as best as the conditions would allow. The last two I just kicked over in the center of the building and watched as it spread over the cracked concrete floor, wetting the shit load of wood and other flammables stacked all along the walls.

Not only would I get some satisfaction in killing zeds, making a diversion and cremating those who should have been buried a long time ago, I would also be letting any survivors in the jail know somebody else was in the area. I just had to figure out a way to communicate with them.

I opened the exit door and checked the area out for zeds. Finding that the majority of them were mindlessly trying to cram themselves into the factory through the front doors, I lit a piece of cardboard on fire and tossed it into the ever spreading pool. The mineral spirits caught fire all in a rush and before the exit door could fully close I was running my ass off. Before I ran five feet the vapor lit up and exploded.

The plexi-glass windows along the top of the building blew out and pieces of plastic rained down around me. I got up and laughed as I thought of how I seemed to be in the process of burning as much of Ocala to the ground as possible.

The sound of the gunfire, then the loud as hell explosion attracted every dead mother fucker for a mile. I wasn't really counting on that, I just wanted to do some damage to the herd that had gathered at the building.

I made it about a half a mile away and across the street into a trailer park when I started having to swing my axe again. In no time at all another group had spotted me and I ran around and even through the wreckage of one trailer, to try and lose them.

I was momentarily out of sight of the first herd when I spotted another group up ahead of me, blocking my way. I was screwed, big time.

The trailer I was hiding behind had a plastic skirting around it and I knew if I couldn't get out of sight quickly I would be surrounded and devoured. I would definitely take a shitload of them with me but my run in with the horde at the factory left me low on ammo. It wasn't easy but I forced myself under the skirting as quietly as I could.

I spent the night terrified that they were going to discover me at any moment. They staggered and stumbled around only a few feet away from me, with only a thin plastic shield to protect me from them. I tried to remain as motionless as I could stand, and when I had to finally take a piss after holding it for hours I was freaking out that they would hear my zipper slowly being opened. Then after rolling on my side and relieving myself, only to have it run back towards me and soak my pants, I sweated bullets hoping they wouldn't react to the smell of human urine.

Sometime around ten in the morning the majority of them had moved on past and I felt it was safe enough to make my way back here.

On my way back I decided to try to locate the burned out building I thought was the tool and die shop. Turned out to be the dilapidated and scorched ruins of a different building entirely. The whole excursion was for nothing but a pair of binoculars I guess.

The factory is still burning and sending up great plumes of thick black smoke.

I got to figure out a way to contact those inside the jail, if there is anybody holed up in there.

I'll spend tomorrow mulling it over in my head and finally get around to writing about Jannie. I know I've been putting off writing about her because of the guilt I feel. I also have been secretly hoping that she's safe inside the jail. Still got to figure out where the old safe-house was in relationship to where I am now and search it.

Ah, places to go, things to see and zombies to kill. It' always something.

### 26

It has been raining all night and all day. It comes down in great, massive, swollen drops and when the rain slows down it still comes down in the form of a fine mist. Welcome to sunny Florida. The sky is a dark grey and black mass of roiling lightning speckled clouds that blot out the sun. Thunder cracks so loud that it shakes my tent. There is no way I'm going to venture out in this. The overcast heavens and the unrelenting rain do nothing to help my state of mind. There's only so much that Zoloft can do to help my depression. While my tent is above the rushing flow of water, on its platform of wooden pallets scavenged from the grocery store below, the gusting wind forces fine droplets of water inside the tent and the moist air makes everything damp.

If this storm turns out to be the front end of a hurricane then I'll have to barricade myself in one of the houses in the area. Not really wanting to do that. I've developed a sense of claustrophobia about being enclosed in any structure I guess. I feel so much better, even with the pouring rain, being outside where I can see the sky and actually look around me and see the trees and the grass. Being pent up in that accursed bomb shelter, and the number of buildings before that, I never even saw the sun or the stars for most of my stay in them. Not to mention that in the end, the security they provided was a false security. Maybe if this were Europe, with its castles and fortresses, would I feel comfortable being locked inside.

That first day I met Jannie was the first day the stark horror of this new reality hit me. As I followed the seventeen year old high school student with long dirty blonde hair out of the Wal-Mart I felt as if I were caught in a dream gone hideously wrong. Making our way as quickly as we could, past and over twitching and slowly re-animating bodies, we exited the store.

Just outside the entrance a brunette in a blood soaked sundress shakily and slowly had been resurrected by the insidious parasite. All the telltale signs that she was dead were plain to see, signs that I would come to recognize instantly. The lurching carcass was as pale as snow, the only color on her skin was a deep blackness that covered the left side of her lower extremities. I came to realize that was where what blood remained in the corpses' body congealed after death. The cadaver was missing its left arm below the elbow and the torso and once attractive dress was riddled with large caliber bullet holes. The orbs of the eyes were as black as jet and as it barred its teeth it showed the blackened tongue and gums.

Without missing a step Jannie smoothly raised her weapon and unloosed an accurate burst of automatic weapons fire. The thing in the sundress's head snapped back as the top of its skull and the majority of its brains were ejected in a thick spray. It was then that a ball of fear started to knot itself in my stomach. Here was a girl, who's pretty blue eyes held a coldness that could seemingly freeze a glass of water with a glance. This fucked up world had changed a schoolgirl who should be in a cheerleader outfit into a hard as steel killer.

I turned then and wanted only to get back to my apartment when an Abrams tank rolled into view, callously running over the dead, straight towards us. The way back to my apartment lay past the tank and I was completely unprepared for what happened. The tank opened up on us, spraying the area surrounding us with its fifty caliber slugs. The first burst from the tank missed, but not by much, sending pieces of shattered brick and mortar from the wall of the Wal-Mart behind me, to stingingly strike me. I stood there frozen, flabbergasted that this could be happening.

"This way dumbass." She shouted at me.

Jannie roughly grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, ripping it in the process, dragging me in the opposite direction than I had wanted to go. I was off balance and as we rounded the corner I fell flat on my face. Whoever was operating the tank was mercilessly firing the machine gun and chunks of the bricks that made up the corner of the building were being turned to dust just feet behind us.

I got to my feet and I ran after Jannie as fast as I could. There was a momentary silence as the tank stopped firing. In a second, two at the most, the fleeting silence was gone as a huge explosion rocked the Wal-Mart. Even though we had ran beyond the building the explosion still knocked us down. A cloud of rubble, dust and burning pieces of Wal-Mart stock plummeted on and around us. The bastard was serious in his rage and started shelling the store.

Once we were well away from the berserk tanker, who now seemed content to reduce Wal-Mart to a smoking ruin, Jannie abruptly turned around.

"You can stop following me now."

"I'm not really following you," I stammered, "I just don't know what to do."

"What you should do is go back to where you came from and stop following me."

Her voice had a firm, steady quality to it and the barrel of her M16 raised slightly in my direction, adding a subtle hint for me to leave now.

"But you're the first sane person I've seen in the last couple of weeks. What the hell has been really going on. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you." The words came out with a pleading tilt to them, almost embarrassing me.

Her mouth opened to answer me, but before the words could come out we both saw another of the newly risen coming at us as fast as its jerking legs could propel it. There were no visible wounds on the undead marine, so I could only surmise that he had finally succumbed to the parasite and died of the infection, only to arise from his short rest. Jannie wasted no time in placing a few new holes in his head. As soon as the corpse hit the ground she ran towards it and stripped the sidearm and body armor off.

"Here, you're going to need this." She said, handing me the handgun.

"Thanks." I told her, feeling slightly subdued that a girl had to get me weapon.

Feeling the cold weight in my hands I realized I had never held a gun before in my life.

"Grab whatever ammo he has on him." Jannie told me as she adjusted her newly acquired body armor.

I had no want to touch the corpse but damned if I was going to balk at rummaging around the dead man after she did. I wanted to prove I actually did have some balls, even though my stomach disagreed with the act of corpse looting.

I was in the act of stuffing the extra clips into my pockets when some crazy bastard started shooting at us from inside one of the houses.

Jannie looked at me hard, trying to judge my character in that split second as rounds went wide and missed us by a mile.

"Come on, I know someplace safe." She said with obvious reservation.

We ran through backyards and over fences, staying away from the streets and open areas as much as possible. Smoke, fire, screams and gunshots could be heard all around as we made our winding way to the back entrance of a strip club.

I was curious as to what we were doing here as she pulled a set of keys out and unlocked the back door. We quickly entered and she locked the door behind us.

"A strip club?" I asked her, motioning around with my hands. I wondered if I had accurately judged her age. She definitely had the body and the looks to make a good living here. The odd look on my face clued her into what I was thinking. She wasn't stupid by any means.

"Yes, a strip club, and no, I didn't work here."

She was all business as she walked away from me through the kitchen area past the coolers and into the club itself.

"If you'll note there are no windows. The front and back doors are heavy duty and the walls are construction block. There are monitors in the office for surveillance. Plenty of food, bathrooms, and even a shower in the women's locker room."

Shouldering her rifle she stopped behind the bar and grabbed a carton of orange juice.

"Fuck with me even once and you're going to end up like this prick." With one hand she pointed at a dead man with the left side of his face missing as her other hand lifted the carton to her lips.

I'm guessing she saw the look of concern cross my features, and after she had taken a deep drink she explained further.

"The prick's little head did the thinking for the big head and he tried to rape me. I guarantee you if you try it will be your death."

Whether or not she had actually killed him, or if it was for that reason, I don't know. She may have been bluffing just to keep me in check. There can be any number of ways she got a hold of the keys but I really wasn't concerned with that. I had a ton of questions that were busting to spill out.

"Help me get this corpse to the dumpster, then we can talk."

That was Jannie. A cold, hardened murderer in a schoolgirl's killer body with even deadlier instincts.

Damn I miss her.

### 27

Today was an interesting day for two reasons. The first, and to me the most important, is that I was able to locate the old safe-house that was over-run. The one where Jannie and I were hiding until the zeds battered down the fortifications. The second reason is I saw a group of survivors looting a store and driving off in a working delivery truck.

The day started on a good note to begin with. By the time I awoke, the rain had stopped, the sun was burning brightly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I rigged up a clothes line and hung everything up to dry. Refusing to go back into a confining building and lock myself in it provides a few (minor to me) disadvantages. The worst of "Urban Camping", as I like to refer to it, is you're more exposed to the elements. Fine with me.

I was stripped down to my skivvies and boots, waiting for my clothes to dry out, brushing my teeth, when I got a couple of ideas almost all at once. I was splashing around in pools of water and using bottled water to brush with. Seemed like a huge waste of resources to me. I knew there were buckets and containers in the shops below and I decided I would go grab them and use 'em to collect the rain water. The only problem would be trying to keep the shit-load of mosquitoes and other bugs out of the water. If I could keep the nasty insects out of the water supply to begin with I wouldn't have to boil it first. I was standing there, on the roof of Winn-Dixie, idly brushing my teeth in my boxers, while starring at the abandoned houses behind the strip mall. Bingo, I thought, I can cut the screens out of the windows and layer them over the tops of the buckets to keep the bugs out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She had escaped!

If she was still alive was another question entirely.

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

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

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

### 28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There came a rustling from the plastic trash can sitting next to the counter and I became curious as to what animal could have gotten into this closed up house. There was no animal in it though. The re-animated, desiccated children's heads were in there, gnashing their teeth and wriggling around feebly at the sound and smell of fresh delectable flesh, my flesh, in the room with them. I hesitated then, it was upsetting and I swallowed hard at the sight before I drove my axe into their small skulls.

Here is the note verbatim that was pinned to the couch:

"To whom it may concern;

I am not a murderess. Even though I killed my husband it was in self defense. With all the madness and insanity that has engulfed the world I cannot take this anymore. I'm in fear of losing my mind and losing control like all the rest that have become infected. This is my suicide note. I swallowed every pill in the family medicine cabinet, sleeping tablets, pain-killers, birth control, everything. I ate hundreds of them. Do not resuscitate me. Please let me die. I can't go on without my family. My poor children. They were everything to me. My loving husband of eleven years had gone insane from the parasites and had killed and gutted my darlings like they were deer. I awoke this morning and came down stairs with the smell of my husband cooking some strange but mouth-watering meat. When I found him smiling slyly and offering me a plate of my babies for breakfast I screamed in horror and then he came at me too. So I killed him. I killed him and I know it was the infection that made him do it. We were all infected. I can't come to grips with the fact that even now, knowing what the smell is from, I still want to eat it. We were all going to die anyways but dear God why like this? Forgive me. Forgive my husband."

After reading the suicide note I should have felt something more but I'm numb now and that worries me. Only the brief twang of sadness at the sight of the contents of the garbage and that was all I felt.

I left the way I came in and went about my way.

I reached the old safe-house, which turned out to be not so safe, and searched it again for clues. On my second tour of the house I found a spray painted note on the inside of the closet that she had blasted her way out of. It read:

"Fridays 12 - 1 dumbass"

" As long as I can"

"Don't die"

"J."

I don't know why I didn't notice it before, although it was written on the back of the broken closet door. I should have spotted it before though.

I checked my watch and cursed it. It was a cheap plastic kid's watch with some idiot cartoon character on it and no day or month even, just the time in am or pm.

It didn't take me long to find a pawn shop. It was easy to spot, there were still sun faded signs hanging in its smashed windows stating boldly that "We buy GOLD" The store had been looted before, with all the jewelry cases (that assuredly held the afore mentioned GOLD) shattered and empty. The cabinet that had obviously held expensive watches had also been robbed but there were still a few that had been missed. I lucked out when I spotted a stainless steel kinetic model that had a battery backup. I slipped it on my wrist and noted it said today was Wednesday. Excellent I thought, if Jannie is still around it gives me a day to prepare to meet her.

While I was admiring my new found watch and giving it a shake or two to energize it I heard the UPS truck again. As soon as I heard it I knew it was the same truck that I had spotted raiding the pharmacy. For a moment I stood there, inside the pawn shop listening as the truck came closer, it sounded like it was coming right down the street towards me.

I was about to go outside and flag it down when unexpectedly a thirty something year old man in worn blue jeans and worn blue jean jacket ran into the store and dove for cover behind a shelf. We were both surprised and we both instinctively pointed our weapons at each other.

The guy's weathered and bearded face somehow matched his clothes. He raised his left hand, palm towards me and said "Don't shoot! Get down! Don't let them see us!"

He wasn't shouting, in fact he was almost whispering but his voice was tinged with fear. I did as he asked, keeping him in my sights as the UPS truck sped past the shop. After the noise of the truck's engine had dwindled off into the distance he visibly relaxed. But not a lot. We were still in an uncomfortable situation with each of us ready to kill the other.

His name was Steve, and I can't remember what was said word for word, so I'll just write down the gist of the conversation.

Steve had lived in Ocala all his life and knew the area well. He gave me a brief run down on the town's current situation.

When the dead started to rise from their brief slumber the last surviving police and members of the military, along with the few surviving city government officials took refuge in the most secure buildings in the city. The county prison. That's who's trapped inside now, not Jannie. I was glad to hear that bit of news I tell ya.

There came a separate faction in the city, a drug addicted group of the infected who've sickly named themselves the "Red Death". It turns out that meth slows the progression of the parasites down to a crawl. They sadistically prey upon and eat any of the immune they come across. With the help of the last of the law they had been basically confined to the fortified junk yard on the south side of town. Somehow they found a way to lead a horde to the prison and knock down the fences, effectively giving those holed up there a life sentence with no chance of parole. I'm sure the meth-heads found the irony appealing. Since then they've terrorized the remaining civilian population. They come out of their garrison to loot ingredients to "cook" more methamphetamine and search for fresh meat. If I thought the infected were bat-shit crazy to begin with, now the world has to deal with drugged crazed, parasite infected addicts who need the drug just to live. After a year and three months they've only now reached the point where the red spots cover around three quarters of their skin. Not good. Not good at all. On the bright side their anger and insanity should soon cause them to start turning on themselves. But how long would that actually take? Six months? Another year? What will actually kill them first? The meth or the infection?

I asked him about Jannie, about seeing a blonde teenage girl around town and he laughed.

"How could I not notice a fine looking thing like that running around?" Steve winked and laughed again.

"Yeah, she's still alive. She's holed up with another girl. Where, I don't know, she's a slick one. I've tried to follow her but she always manages to lose me." He confided.

He wasn't hiding by himself. From what I could get out of him he was hunkered down with a couple of others and there were scattered groups here and there around the city.

I asked him about the possibility of joining up with him and the other survivors to which he told me that may not be possible. The others of his group would want to vote on it first. He went on with other excuses but I understand. To be honest, it hurt my feelings to be turned away.

All in all, it was a decent day. I'm going to make preparations for meeting back up with Jannie. I'll write again before I leave.

### 29

I'm writing this now, waiting inside the old safe-house. Waiting for Jannie to arrive. God I hope she shows up. If not I will come back here every Friday and wait. For as long as it takes. Until I hear word she's dead, or I'm dead.

Had a hard time sleeping last night. I read some of Jannie's journal but didn't get past the first couple of entries. I couldn't concentrate enough to get into it, that and I never was a reader. I left with the intention of getting here at least an hour ahead of time. Only got here 15 minutes early due running into packs of the undead blocking my path.

One pack almost killed me. It happened almost right on the overgrown lawn in front of this house. I got too excited about finally arriving here. As I jogged out of the backyard across the street to this broken-down, old safe-house, I ran right past a group of five furiously famished zeds. In the street right in front of my destination I battled them. I heard the shuffling of footsteps behind me and turned quickly. They were almost upon me. I had the time to swing my axe and kill the bastard that was closest. His animated corpse was quicker than the rest, in better condition, probably due to having gobbled the flesh of the living more recently than the others. The swing of my axe bit deeply into his skull, almost decapitating him at the line between the upper and lower jaw. Unfortunately, when he fell, the axe was wrenched out of my hands and stuck in the foul corpse. Using my guns was out of the question, I was too close to want to draw a herd here. I yanked out my hand axe and with two quick successive blows I took out the second. The third one, a nasty thing with half the flesh missing from its face, pearl white bone glistening in the morning sun, grabbed a hold of my right arm with both of its clawed and gnarled hands. I kept backing up towards the house trying to keep it off balance as I switched the axe to my left hand. I had to repeatedly rain blows on its rotted head (not being very good at using that hand, always been a righty) and keep walking backwards using the zombie as a shield against the two that were now within arm's reach. Finally I split open its skull and it collapsed, causing the larger of the remaining two lifeless monsters to stumble and fall. That left the animated remains of a pre-teen to put down, knowing it would be a minute or so before the fourth zed got shakily to its feet. From that point it was easy.

My arm is bruised badly and aches but besides that I'm OK.

I brought some of those "Orlando Magic" flags that people used to attach to their cars windows and crammed them in place along the weathered railing that goes around the front porch. I put them there to let Jannie know at a glance I was inside. I'll stash them here and re-use them every time I stay here, waiting for her.

I hear somebody...I think Jannie's arrived!

The following is written in the hand of a different person.

My name is Janet but everyone calls me Jannie.

Allan was a good friend. He was for the most part honest and generally loyal. Those are two hard qualities to come by in these times. He was one of the few people I got along with and that counts for a lot when you're locked up inside in close confines for extended periods of time.

His body will be buried. He deserves that at least.

It was his fate to die I suppose and he played a hand in his own undoing. Smarts wasn't one of his qualities but I don't want to speak bad of the honorable dead. At least the cruel Gods spared him from being eaten alive or having his corpse desecrated.

I was making my way here, as I always do on Fridays, planning on reaching the house I have set up across the street and two doors down by about twelve-thirty. I always watch the old safe-house from there. It's secure and I have an excellent vantage point to watch the comings and goings. I heard through the small grapevine that he had resurfaced. I was looking forward to meeting back up with my "dumbass" friend.

I need to tell you that after reading this journal of his, that I will keep it with my other treasured possessions. I'll keep it right next to mine.

I can't believe he had actually found my old journal. I had searched the house repeatedly for it with no luck. I thought it was lost forever.

He was killed by one of the "Red Death" hunting squads. Of the four that killed him and were about to take his body back to their unholy lair, only one escaped. I had my dealings with them before, had killed a handful of them before but now it was going to be my personal goal to kill them all.

I heard the sound of the UPS truck earlier that day. I heard it enter the neighborhood somewhere and shut down. I know how they operate and knew that this meant they were dispatching a hunter-killer team to look for food. As in food, I mean we survivors. If they were on a raid they wouldn't often shut down the engine, they would keep it going 'till they got what they wanted and drove off again.

The infected bastards, for all their drug-addicted, parasite addled minds, were very proficient at raiding.

The parasitic colony in their cursed bodies also gives them another, huge advantage. Once the colony of single-celled leeches reaches a certain mass in their host, other colonies no longer see it as a possible food source. Once the "Scarlet" is visible over around sixty to seventy percent of their body, give or take, with its red splotches, they can run through the zeds with impunity. Some have said that the large swarms, or herds, have at the core of them a "Red" or two that have fully been taken over (but their immune system is such that those carriers of the infection stave off actually dying).

I had barely reached my post when I heard gunfire coming from the old safe-house. I scrambled as fast as I could to the unboarded upstairs window and got into a firing position.

I heard the UPS van's engine start up again and knew it could only be coming here to make a pick-up.

It was plain to see why the Reds had found him. Allan had stuck a stupid number of those idiot car flags on the porch railings. One would have been sufficient. One in a window, on the inside, and I would have easily noted it and knew what it meant. That and there were fresh killed zeds almost on the front lawn, uneaten by stray dogs, insects or the always hungry birds.

I thought Al might be alive yet and my hopes were dashed when the van drew up. Immediately one carrier got out the back and took up a defensive position at the rear of the truck. Just as quickly one from inside the house, who I noted with some happiness was holding a bleeding arm, took up a position on the lawn by the front of the truck.

When I saw one of them dragging out the body of my dumbass, who I recognized in an instant, I fired a shot from my AR15 and blew his neck out. It wasn't my best shot as I was aiming for his head. Anger had flared and tainted my aim. My next shot was better.

None of them actually knew just where that first shot had come from and they momentarily froze, giving me time to send a bullet into the Red's right eye who was at the rear of the truck.

Then the van driver started to yell for his wounded ally as he revved the engine and started to duck down.

I missed completely with my third shot, aiming for the wounded bitch who I thought was running back to grab Al's corpse. Instead he grabbed the weapon and walkie-talkie from his throat less buddy who had bleed out fast and nothing could save his life. The soulless fuck dodged and weaved and immediately went out of sight, the van blocking my view. The next I saw of him was his furtive hand reaching for the head-shot gang member's weapon and my forth shot removed half of it, fingers flying away in a spray of blood.

The delivery van sped off then, and I was able to get one last burst off. I had a nice angle, being up on the second floor, and could see the driver as he practically drove from the passenger side floor. I'm sure I placed a round in his ear and one in his shoulder.

The van started to careen wildly, taking out a mailbox and I was hoping it would crash so I could finish the last one off. It wasn't to be though. I suppose the wounded piece of shit grabbed the wheel.

I emptied the rest of my clip in the back end of the now bullet ridden van and watched as it drove manically out of sight.

I didn't have much time to grab Al's corpse before the wave of ravenous undead arrived from all the noise. I fireman carried his corpse to my post, hoping he was still alive but he was gone.

He died on Friday, January 3, 2014.

You will be missed Al.
