by TW Brown
I’m thinking of putting the pen and paper away. What am I keeping track of all this for? Who knows. Sometimes I think I keep track of what’s happening out of habit. I guess I’ll see when we start clearing that twenty-seven mile stretch of highway in a few days. But for now, I’ve got a puppy tugging on my sock.
a preview of Zomblog III
coming August 2011
Friday, January 1
Happy New Year.
Two years ago, Samuel Todd started a blog. He had no idea the world was about to die. Within a month, the dead were walking the earth. Seven months later, he was dead and I was pregnant.
In the past two years, the world has changed dramatically. Humanity holds out…mostly in small pockets of survivors who cling to each other in desperation and try valiantly to create something resembling something we all knew. Others have taken advantage of the lack of authority figures. Wreaking death and chaos wherever they go. These people prey on those deemed weaker. In many cases, that means women and children.
Make no mistake, nobody is innocent anymore. In this world, you kill to survive and you do it without hesitation…or you die. A few months into this whole drama, somebody told me that the estimated ratio between the living and the living dead had exceeded 13000:1. I’m sure that number is much bigger now.
The walking dead show no sign of just falling down. There was hope that, when food became scarce, they would just wither away. They haven’t. What has gone away is almost any source of fuel, transportation, power—electric, battery or otherwise—and ammunition. Like the Romans, Vikings, and Knights of the Round Table, we battle hand to hand. In that sense, we have devolved.
The walking dead travel in singles and small groups, but they’ve also coagulated into larger groups that sometimes number in the thousands called herds or mobs. If they get on the trail of something (usually one of us) they pursue with a mindless determination. That is a blessing and a curse. You can ditch them if you’re clever, but if they trap you somewhere…suicide is the quickest and easiest way out. They don’t tend to leave once they have you trapped. Zombies do not feel frustration.
A few more things about the undead. They must suffer massive brain trauma to be put down. Their bite is the normal way for them to pass on the infection. Although, like any other blood-borne illness, open wounds and contaminated blood are a bad deal. The good news is that this contamination is not one hundred percent. There have been cases where individuals have survived an attack and have not turned. Nobody knows how or why, and medical science has gone the way of central air-conditioning. Even after all this time, their stench gives them away. They’re slower moving than the rising tide, and have been known to make an unsettling sound that is likened to a baby cry. They don’t freeze or become immobile in the winter, at least not in any of the winters I’ve experienced. I couldn’t tell you about places like Alaska or Siberian.
A few months ago I set down my journal. The journal I took over when Sam died. Honestly, I didn’t expect to pick it back up. However, I’ve found a therapeutic outlet in my life to be blatantly missing once I stopped writing. I’ve found I needed the catharsis of putting pen to paper.
I will not bore you with the mundane events of the past months. Actually, I’ve spent most of it recovering from a wicked ass-kicking after going heads-up with a cult of lunatics that happened to include a young girl who, at one time, traveled with me. I’ve been living in a mansion-turned-fortress for the past few months. Had I been writing in my journal it would have read mostly something like this: Woke up, stupid dog peed on the floor again, watched a group leave on a supply run again, couldn’t help…again.
Get the picture?
However, I’ve been getting better. I’ve rehabbed until I’m as close to a hundred percent as I can be. As I’ve gotten healthier, my desire to get out in the mix again has grown. I don’t do well being confined. It’s one of those things you never learn about yourself until an extreme event occurs. Like, would you return the bag of money that fell out of an armored truck? Would you rush into that burning building to save a helpless stranger? Or could you stay monogamous and happily married?
I’ve decided to strike out for Las Vegas as soon as I feel the weather will allow me. Until it was deemed a waste, and the radio here was shut off—when wind and solar become your only source of power, you are forced to prioritize—we used to pick up an occasional message from somebody who claimed to be in Las Vegas. What’s more, they claim to have electric power. I need to see for myself.
I’m not sure if I’ll travel alone or not. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone in a while. Maybe they think I’ve learned my lesson. Maybe they think I will learn to be happy with this new life. I think I understand how Lewis and Clark, Christopher Col-umbus and Neil Armstrong felt. Sitting here…not knowing isn’t an option.
My name is Meredith Gainey, and my New Year’s resolution is to see Las Vegas for myself.
* * * * *
