Journals of the Damned (Book 2)

by GJ Zukow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Ammonia kills the Undead!

  Book Five

  Lance’s Journal

  16 October 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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