Zomblog

by T. W. Brown

It seems strange…but today actually seemed… normal.

  Friday, May 23

  Good days never seem to run in pairs.

  Derrick Arndt, Greg Chase, Larry Bonn, Trent Blake, and I are en-route to the ridge that Tim has kept the lookout post stationed. Late last night, Snoe’s rescue team snuck into Opportunity in an attempt to rescue those folks at Wal-Mart.

  Tim reported a flash and a huge fireball that rolled skyward. Something big blew up. Just prior to that, Snoe radioed that she thought she heard vehicles fire up in a nearby building and was on her way to investigate. Nobody has heard anything since. To make matters worse, the first relay station—we have six set up to keep contact between Tim and Irony, sorta like the kid’s game “post office”—lost contact with Tim less than an hour after he made that report.

  We should reach Tim’s station just after sunset at the rate we are able to travel. I can actually see a time when travelling on foot is going to be faster than by car. One of the main roads we have been using has been totally blocked by a huge landslide. I think all the melting snow is the chief culprit. Whatever the case, the roads are definitely facing extinction in some of these hilly regions.

  Saturday, May 24

  Opportunity is on fire. The entire town seems to be burned or burning. It appears deliberate. From our vantage point, it looks like there are at least nine blast sites where, in some cases, city blocks are almost leveled. One such area is right by where the Wal-Mart used to be.

  Zombies by the thousands are radiating out in every direction, moving away from the multiple infernos. Interestingly, it has sent a wave of them back west into the Spokane Valley. Many of them are actually on fire. That is setting off grass fires in places. I’ve sent word back to Irony. While I do not think that fire is an immediate threat, we will have to watch this unfold for another couple of days.

  My team that will head for the compound near Noxon and Trout Creek is going to postpone for a few days. Initially, Grace was going to replace me with Perry, but Meredith objected and Perry flat out refused. He’s not getting past what happened to Scott and Sasha. Not that I blame him. Still, his new mindset can be dangerous at best and infectious at the worst. I hope he will be okay.

  Sunday, May 25

  Radioed back to Irony this morning. The five of us want to at least search the outskirts of the area near the Wal-Mart for any signs of our people. Our response came back in less than thirty minutes. Grace was emphatic.

  NO!!!

  We’ve been told that a new team is being sent to relieve us. Both Trent and I are on the expedition to the Noxon Com-pound. Grace wants us back so we can gear up and be gone by June 1st.

  So, today we will simply wait and watch…and hope.

  Monday, May 26

  Today is the first time I considered just openly defying Grace’s requests. I’m not alone. Even Derrick climbed into the deuce-and-a-half begrudgingly to return to Irony.

  The fires are starting to burn out down in Opportunity. Sadly, we saw no signs of a living person either in the city or as part of the exodus.

  It was Greg who made another interesting obser-vation as we were leaving. There is no movement in the direction of Spokane. We were certain we would see aircraft at the least. Perhaps even the helicopters and their dangling human lures. But…nothing.

  Tuesday, May 27

  Back in Irony.

  No time to rest as we load two of the deuce-and-a-halfs with tools, supplies, and of course, weapons. We will leave on Saturday following the map I made on the way back from the last trip. The roads are roundabout, but at least we’ll be able to ride versus hike.

  Still, it should take a couple of days to reach our destination. Once we get there, I expect we will be busy securing the perimeter. Ten of us should be enough to perform the tasks needed to create another haven like Irony.

  The team will consist of me, Meredith, Antonio Rosillo, Trent Blake, Caren Pilgrim, a late thirty-something, copper- haired, freckled, former pizza joint manager with one of the most happy-go-lucky attitudes you could ever hope to meet all bundled into about five-feet-seven inches and a hundred and sixty pounds. Bill Steiner, a six-foot-plus, two hundred and fifty pound slab of meat with hands the size of a large pot-roast, he was actually some minor league pro-wrestler who went with some sort of Frankenstein’s monster gimmick. Roy Haines, a mid-fifties, average guy who doesn’t talk much, but happens to be one hell of a mechanic. Shannon Wizer, a no-nonsense gal who was a cop in Boise and an army reservist who did not one, but THREE tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and happened to have just returned to her “civilian” job a week before all this began. Jimmy Mitchell, at nineteen, he is the youngster in our group, at five-two…he is also the shortest. Jimmy was really just drifting through life before all this, but it seems he has a real knack for shooting with amazing accuracy. Last is Kyle Danson, a television news anchor, also from Boise. Looking at him, you would expect some sort of stuffed shirt prima donna. I don’t know anybody who works harder on keeping the buildings repaired and the fencing in place where we use it. It seems he worked part-time construction in college, but spent his childhood growing up on a ranch. Once we reach the new compound, he’ll actually be the one spearheading the efforts.

  We all have sat down to get better acquainted. Grace said that we should plan on being no quicker than a month on our set up if things go perfect. We all know better than that. So, she believes we should get to know one another since we will be trusting the other nine with our lives.

  Everybody wanted to know more about Scott and Sasha. Meredith and I told them what we knew which was little more than what was already common knowledge to the adult population of Irony. Still, I believe it strengthened everyone’s belief that zombies are just a fraction of the danger out there beyond the idyllic bubble that is our little community.

  Saturday, May 31

  Just as we were saying our farewells, the radio message came. Tim returned to the lookout. He, Snoe, three survivors from Opportunity, and five of the combined fifteen members of their teams are returning to Irony! Wish I could stay...details were sketchy. But at least we left knowing some of them were safe.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6

  Sunday, June 1

  Back in the wilderness.

  Today felt like summer. Driving through the church-like silence of the woods reminded me of camping trips with my folks when I was very young. Of course, I wasn’t sitting in the cab of a deuce-and-a-half with a rifle resting between my knees and a pair of pistols under each arm in quick-draw holsters.

  Roy Haines drove most of the day. He’s not very talkative so it was quiet except for the droning snarl of the big engine that propelled us along the increasingly harder to navigate roads. Three times we were forced to stop to move a fallen tree. Twice required the motorized cable winch.

  We may not have slowed to the pace of the wagon trains that settled this country two hundred or so years ago, but the express lanes don’t exist in the back woods. It made me wonder how much of our nation’s infrastructure took care of all the mundane things that we never gave a moment’s thought to.

  Still, it beats walking.

  Tomorrow is when things will start getting dicey. We will leave the relative safety of the logging and forest service roads for a paved and most likely populated route. It is the only way to get the big deuce to our destination.

  Monday, June 2

  Nothing that happened today can bode well for anything resembling a future of peace and the chance to rebuild humanity. Of course after today…who can really know what is worth saving. And strangely enough, those of us who remain are now more determined than ever to get to the Trout Creek area and clear the compound.

  But where to begin…how to begin with what exactly happened today as I sit here on the charred remains of one of the deuce-and-a-halfs and watch Roy checking out the other deuce to make sure it’s going to get us safely to our destination.

  We woke up, and I mean all of us, to the bloo
d-curdling scream that can only be a person being eaten alive. We’ve all heard it enough. Friends. Family. Adults. Children. Men. Women. When the pain and terror reach that point as a person is being devoured alive by the undead, often times it is impossible to tell if it is man or woman. Adult or child.

  Instinctively I grabbed a long blade and both my holsters carrying my loaded .45 Colt semi-automatic pistols. All around me, those that had bedded down in the back of my deuce were similarly engaged when the first set of blue-gray hands reached through the flap of canvas at the rear. I had no time to shout a warning as those hands grasped Antonio who was on his knees trying to find his baseball bat in the nest of blankets he’d been sleeping in.

  Those hands grasped the collar of his shirt and yanked back cracking his head hard on the metal tailgate. Then his body lifted and seemed to slither backwards through the gap in the dark cloth much like an alligator propelling itself from a muddy bank into the water.

  Kyle was closest and dove for Antonio’s leg, missing by a hair. More hands were now clutching at and pulling away the canvas covering of the cargo area. I heard a pair of shots fired and quickly guessed them to be in the direction of the other deuce.

  All of this was in the first five or ten seconds from the scream that woke me and the others.

  Kyle yanked the canvas with the ‘brrrrrap’ of velcro tearing away. It was like some sort of ghastly magic trick. Appearing to be at least five deep and as far as our view allowed left and right, zombies were pressing against the rear of the big truck. The only thing saving us this very moment was how high up the clearance of the deuce sat. But, with hands slapping and clawing at the sides as well, I knew they had to be thick out there. It would not take long for them to start climbing in, and all of our combined ammo in the weapons we held wouldn’t make so much as a dent in their numbers.

  In the cargo area of the deuce with me were Caren, Meredith, Bill, Kyle, and Jimmy. Of course Antonio had been with us, but the hunched over knot of zombies identified his current location, or what was left of him anyways. Shannon, Roy, and Trent had the other deuce. One of them was supposed to be on watch. My guess is that whoever was the owner of the scream is who got the day started. That left eight of us—hopefully—to deal with this and try to get out alive.

  Caren was scrambling up the back side of the cab, slicing through the burlap overhead with a long buck knife and pulling herself up using the support above her head. Just that quick, everybody was scrambling to follow, mostly in an every-man (or woman)-for-themselves mode. Nobody jostled or pushed another aside. It was just a simple case of each of us knowing the consequence of stopping at this particular moment to be a hero.

  Bill was the last to pull himself up with Meredith and I grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and hoisting. The scene that greeted us was truly horrifying.

  We had pulled well off the remnants of the road we intended to take, but those damn things had found us. They were pouring through the woods and had our three vehicles totally surrounded. I could see Roy and Shannon in the front seat of the other deuce staring back at us in total shock. The hummer sat empty between us and them.

  Jimmy suddenly yelled something about having an idea. Before long he had handed us everything but a long sword he had strapped to his back and a pistol on his left hip. He reached up and grasped an overhanging branch from some monstrous pine tree and began working his way to the trunk. In a moment he had climbed up and his eyes were on a tree only a few feet away. But, and this is where I was thinking he had lost his mind, it was much thinner. In fact it couldn’t be much bigger around than my leg at the thickest part of the thigh. Most of the nearby trees were similarly young and less sturdy.

  We all watched, even Roy and Shannon were leaning forward, necks craned and straining to see what the hell the kid was doing. On yeah, and the zombies were in a tizzy. All his movement had them interested and agitated.

  Then…he jumped.

  The zombies were like a crowd at a fireworks display. Instead of “ooo’s” and “ahhh’s” there was a ripple of moans and snapping teeth. Arms reached skyward, almost in unison, reminding me of that scene in Close Encounters where the Frenchman asked the crowd of desert dwellers where the sound and light came from and they pointed straight up.

  He caught the thinner pine which swayed violently. Climbing just a bit higher, Jimmy began rocking back and forth. All the while, the zombies are going crazy below. Then he reaches out and grabs the next tree. Tree by tree he moves away from us, bringing practically all of the hundreds of zombies that had surrounded us.

  That allowed Roy to get the deuce moving and Meredith to dash for the Hummer. In no time we had bashed or decapitated the stubborn remnant that remained between us and our goal of getting into the cab. Bill remained in the back, the idea was to drive to a spot where Jimmy could jump down. I got the big deuce rolling and followed the “path” that Roy was making through the zombies who were now torn as to which meal possibility to pursue.

  Bill slapped the roof of the cab, signaling me to stop. I heard a thud as Jimmy landed in back and then gassed it again to break out of the ever-thickening ring of walking dead. In seconds that seemed agonizingly slow we were out on what passed for a road.

  Roy had opened about a good fifty yard lead by the time we rolled out of the trees and was hard to see through the rooster-tail of dust in his wake. We were driving faster than was sensible, but, at that moment, fear and adrenaline were pretty much in charge of the show.

  He still says he never saw the three men until they were right in front of him waving their arms frantically. He also says, and I believe him, he wouldn’t have slowed down the slightest in light of recent events. The men dove out of the way at the last second and came up shooting.

  As we rounded the corner, we were just in time to see the deuce swerve and then roll up the embankment on the left and flip onto its right side. Three men were in a line and, as they walked side-by-side, began pumping rounds into the incapacitated vehicle.

  Whether it was how focused they were on shooting, or the noise from their guns, they never had a chance to react. I think one of them just started to turn his head when I plowed into them with my deuce.

  That was also the almost exact same moment that the other deuce exploded.

  I slammed on the brakes and we skidded to a stop. The heat from the flames made it impossible to approach much closer than ten or twenty feet for a moment. Then the rounds in back started to cook off. All of us had gotten out and were just standing in the road like gawking idiots when shots began popping like popcorn. We dove back behind the protection of the truck until it stopped.

  Of course by then we had the leading edge of the zombies we had left behind shambling up the road towards us. They were spread out enough that we were able to dispatch them without drawing guns…not that our location was likely any great big secret.

  Bill and Jimmy along with Kyle took care of the zombies. Meanwhile, Meredith and I inched as close as we could to the burning deuce. It was Meredith who spotted Roy’s legs on the far side of the upside-down vehicle. We raced around to the other side. The deuce was sitting on its hood now, laying crossways blocking most of the road. The explosion had helped flip it the rest of the way over and deposit it smack dab in our way.

  Unfortunately, Shannon had not managed to crawl out. I tried not to look, but I could see her body in the flames. Roy later told me he had shot her when he couldn’t get close enough to save her and it was clear she was not going to get free.

  We have no idea who those three men were. We’ve seen no movement, living or otherwise since the ordeal. After a vote, we decided unanimously to continue on.

  We will move tomorrow. Everybody was pretty worn out from events. Plus, we buried Shannon and planted markers for Antonio and Trent.

  Tuesday, June 3

  Some sort of insane storm is pounding us today. It started before sunrise with a freakishly heavy rain. After about twenty minutes it was gone and the sun ros
e bright and hot. We got rolling, and in no time were forced to stop at a huge wash out. It looks like a scoop of hillside was unceremoniously dumped on the road. Going around is not an option. There is a steep drop on the right side and an incline on the left. All we can do is back track.

  Three more of those thunder and lightning riddled down-pours have come and gone as we tried first to dig out a path. That was fine until we unearthed a rock almost as big as the Hummer, which by itself might have been capable of getting over the blockage. The deuce has no chance. Next we back tracked. We finally reached an offshoot road that seemed to go in the right direction. Only it came to an end at some huge clearing that looks like some serious logging activity was taking place…back when that mattered.

  There was no signs of activity and the vote is to camp here tonight. None of the heavy equipment is of any use, but there is a trailer. We’ll bed down there for tonight as these storms continue to roll in about an hour and a half apart. At least we can stretch out a bit and dry off. We’ll try again tomorrow. We just seem to be lacking a lot of heart.

  Wednesday, June 4

  What I saw this morning still has my blood running cold.

  I was the first to wake up as a beam of sunlight came through a frosted window and pierced my eyelids. Very quietly I slipped from Meredith’s arms and put on my shoes and socks. Tip-toeing around the others, I carefully and quietly opened the door.

  I was grabbed suddenly; a rough hand was placed over my mouth. Huge arms turned me and I was face-to-face with Bill Steiner. He brought his hand away and quickly mimed the index finger to the lips in the universal sign for “be quiet”. Then, he placed his hands on my head and turned me so that I could see the huge open clearing.

  A steady stream of undead was trudging through the brush, branches, and stumps. Imagine every busy sidewalk scene you’ve ever seen of rush hour New York, now multiply it by about ten!