Journals of the Damned (Book 2)

by GJ Zukow

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

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

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

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

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

  Saturday, March 8, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Friday, May 17, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Friday, June 20, 2014

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

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

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

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

  Saturday, June 21, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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