We’re going to try and stay in the tank and wait to move out until daybreak. Tomorrow should be quite some fun.
DAY - 92
It’s a wonder that anyone ever survived or was basically normal after being in the military and stationed fully in a tank battalion. It gets hot as hell in them, especially in the heat wave that we are facing here, and after hearing Lowe fire a tank shell - well, let’s just say that any of us are lucky to not have busted eardrums. I did notice that Camo wasn’t as affected by the heat. I still gave him several bottle caps of water, though. I’m not even sure how much a chameleon drinks, but he should have had enough.
It was at the edge of a huge cemetery that Lowe had fired the tank shell. The walls surrounding the cemetery were thick stone and looked to be well built - probably from back in the days when people really built things to last. But, hey, the hell with history. Lowe blew a hole big enough for two tanks to make it through the wall. As one would expect, ghouls came straight for us. They weren’t that many, though, and I didn't see that they had dug themselves out of the ground like in any usual horror film fare. These were apparently only from the above ground mausoleums and quite the recently deceased. That was comforting to find - that the nanotech had not found a way to regenerate the far, gone corpses or the ones six feet under. I never understood that about the zombie films anyway. Their eyes would be gone at that point, and they weren’t buried with fucking shovels, so how do they dig out or even what direction to dig to the surface? Sometimes I hope that George Romero and Tom Savini have survived this all like we have - so that they can have learned the new rules for the undead.
Before I could get out of the tank to start showing the ghouls my expert cutlery, Lowe slung us all around for quite a ride.
It seems that he much prefers grinding ghouls under the tank tracks instead of hand to hand combat. It was smarter. I have to give him that. I guess that I just like the assurance of the close up view of the deed getting done. Geez, that does make me sound like a morbid, sick individual.
It was no longer than an hour that we finally arrived at the armory. The good news is that we have plenty of fuel and shells for the tank. The bad news is that there are only Jeeps left in decent condition for further transportation, and as far as guns go, well, apparently those went along with whoever was stationed here. Looking around the outside, it seemed obvious that Lowe had taken his first crash course in driving the tank in a very literal fashion. All of the covered or cargo trucks were pretty much wrecks. We’re still staying here tonight, though. The building itself is still very solid and secure, as Lowe didn’t have to break in or blast anything before. We even found the keys to everything here after a short search around the place. We did find one ghoul to dispatch.
Ellen got the scare and even solid credit for destroying it.
Ellen was going to the lady’s room and got quite a surprise as she opened one of the stalls. Apparently, even in “ undeath, “ a lady sat stubbornly on the toilet waiting for the toilet paper to be refilled. At least I hope that was all of the problem. I’d hate to think of anything worse for being the reason. Ellen had been carrying one of the military knives Beth had been keeping up with and took to stabbing the ghoul’s head continuously. Fred was happy she was fine, but he really ripped into her about it, too. I also found a very detailed map of Salt Lake City - and I mean, detailed! I am very much going to be studying this map, if not stealing it. I can see a possible straight line to the island. I’m not saying it looks simple, but a plan is definitely coming together.
DAY - 93
Interstate 15 is pretty much the straight shot to the Antelope Island causeway. Lowe says that I-15 has some raised portions but that a lot of it is ground level and exits off into the more populated parts of the city. The ghouls may be at every exit or very well all over the interstate itself. That’s fine in keeping with my plans. I still want to lead them to the causeway and then strand them there. They can then roast under this summer heat.
By noon, I had found the yellow pages phone book for the entire city. In checking with the map on the wall (that is now rolled up and in the duffle bag with Camo) we were on our way, relocating to a major sporting goods warehouse store. It was only a matter of minutes before we came upon a nice sized plaza - a strip mall as they are commonly referred to.
The sporting goods store was right in the middle of the whole setup. We parked our two jeeps we have confiscated along with the tank as close to the front door as possible. We’ve of course taken more things from the armory with us as well - tank shells, C-4 explosives, guns, etc.
Lowe had a mind to dash for the knife counters and the back wall of machete’s, hatchets, axes and ammunition of sorts, none one of which we needed compared to the armory supplies, but he was quite excited about them. As soon as he got there, a ghoul in a camouflage ball cap stumbled towards him. It was as if he was coming for assistance, and Lowe treated him as such also. Lowe started grabbing particular knives he liked, saying things like, “ I’ll take this one, “ and then stabbing that knife into the ghoul’s chest. The man kept it up for a while. He’s insane.
The rest of us made runs for the more important stuff, though. We headed to the camping gear and snatched some propane bottles and grilling sets. Also in the boating gear area I grabbed several flares and a flare gun. The place also had beef jerky in huge cardboard box displays - a real nobrainer there. Lowe dispatched his helpful pincushion of a ghoul and finally thought to help us out. We were mainly there to gather things like backpacks and utility belts with sturdy pockets. We had plenty of guns already from raiding the armory but no holsters or wearable storage to help lug them with us.
Fred and Ellen started to look around in the clothing section of the store. There they found the rest of the ghoulish store employees. The ghouls were in the back area behind the shoe department and began stumbling out after them. I was just as fast as Lowe in dispatching the ghouls - Lowe with two machetes and myself with the katana. Ellen then slapped us both. She is starting to lose it in terms of dealing with things, but this particular meltdown was because she wanted something to wear, for once, that wasn’t stained with blood spatter. Fred grabbed her and held her as she began fighting him. It took quite a bit to calm her down. Ellen eventually just walked off and sat down in one of the tent displays. Beth punched me in the arm and gave me a smile. She then went over to sit with and console Ellen. Fred stepped to Lowe and I and began explaining that we needed to find a nice stable place before she started to really crack.
We’ve since decided that for now, this was just as good a hold as any. It’s very roomy, there’s one way in and out, and the back, warehouse doors are padlocked and/or security locked with no keys that we’ve come across yet. We’ve got ammo, various weapons and hell, w
e’ve even got pillows to sleep on - a first since we left the bed and breakfast.
DAY - 94
I still say that Ellen is losing it, but Fred says it’s more than normal for her to want to go shopping for clothes. I mean, yeah, I expect that of a woman, but damn. Maybe if it wasn’t a fucking apocalyptic setting out in the world or something important, like that? Still, though the appeal of new clothing eventually started sounding good to all of us. Better yet would be some showers, but the closest we’d come today was just finding bigger bathrooms. We did make it a point to get some deodorants and perfumes. Hell, we even bought a shitload of those scented candles from a Yankee Candle Store.
Pumpkin spice is the best and most appealing scent we could find. Maybe it’s just that it’s so strong a scent, too? The smell of a rotting Earth can be masked better for us now.
We started out by agreeing that we were leaving the tank to block the front, glass doors to the store. It kept us good and safe for last night, so it would suffice for a quick shopping spree, so we thought. The false part of that assumption was that it would be a QUICK shopping spree. Ellen, Beth and even Lowe treated it like a holiday and seemed careless as to how long we were out and about. Fred and I were paranoid enough for everyone, I guess.
By the time we had entered the third little store of the plaza, Fred and I began to recognize several tiny holes in the back walls of the stores. They were rifle shots we believe. We didn’t find that many corpses at all, though. It was obvious that the military types probably took a nice sweep of this plaza a good while ago. I’m hoping that the missing corpses mean the military are alive and well and doing research on all of the bodies. I’m also hoping those military types went straight to the base on Antelope Island. I really don’t want that place to be another dead end.
Time flies when you’re having fun, so they say. I don’t exactly remember any of today being fun for me. I worried my ass off, and I actually attacked a couple of mannequins out of my paranoia. I should have known better, as Camo never turned red on us. By the way, I made it a point to enter a huge pet store for him. That was the only place that we found ghouls of any kind. They were secured in their thick glass cases, though. I still told everyone to keep aim at anything that even remotely looked like it could get out. I wasn’t about to suffer from a damned kitten bite again. I got a shopping cart full of supplies and food for lizards. I’m keeping my current best asset alive and healthy. The worst problem I ended up dealing with all day was confiscating Fred’s flamethrower for a moment, and I roasted every fucking little critter in that store. The problem was that I burnt the whole damned building down, but luckily it was a store all to itself and not connected to any other parts of the plaza.
I’ve been studying the map of the city like crazy ever since returning to our sporty little safe haven, here. I’m still all for leading the ghouls in the area to an isolated existence. I’m also thinking that we could use as many diesel tankers on the causeway as possible. I could set one charge and explode them all at once incinerating every one of those fuckers we could corral.
My thoughts for now, though, we have various display tents that we can choose to sleep inside of, and I’ve found one for Beth and I. The windows zip closed, and nothing about the tent’s material is see-through. She and I both smell a lot better than lately as well. Let’s see what happens.
DAY - 95
We had trouble from the time we woke up. Ghouls had sought us out through the night. They were sniffing at the glass doors of the store, and although there were probably only twenty right at the doors, we could see a mass of them coming our way. We grabbed every firearm in the store and began loading them. Rifles, shotguns and handguns - we had them all loaded and ready. We carried canoes and tipped them over on the floor about ten yards from the doors. They served as sandbags would in a war and had it come to it would have been another barrier to stall the ghouls. Luck was barely on our side as our shooting began. It took several shots to separate the thick glass in the doors. Most of our shots there after were true and took the ghouls down, but we almost did ourselves in with the shots that went through the ghouls. Those shots were bouncing off the tank behind them and going in various directions. Among the many ricochets, we took out tires to both jeeps rendering them useless to us. We had no choice but to pile into the tank and make the best of it. Like before in the parking garage, Fred and I stayed atop the tank for a good while to keep the more nimble ghouls from climbing aboard.
I made a quick point to open the duffle bag and check Camo’s color. He was as red as he could be. I glanced at him continuously through the fight until his colors calmed and he began to blend back into the color of the bag.
Fred’s flamethrower is gone. He left it in one of the jeeps. He found several handguns and finally some of Lowe’s machetes to be his weapons of choice. After using a few shotguns, I took back to my trusted sword, but then I made my last swing when it went through a ghoul and in between the tank track.
The blade snapped in half and slung the handle from my hand in one quick motion. I think that’s what enraged me enough to start using some small hatchets that Lowe had also thrown atop the tank. Never would I have used a short distance weapon, but I was pissed. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Still, though, Fred and I both took care of the ghouls.
It wasn’t until about an hour later on I-15 that we realized the other problem we had created for ourselves. All of our shooting had put holes in the gas cans on the back of the tank - our reserve fuel for the tank. Lowe was shouting for us to find a place to get more diesel - a gas station of any kind because he hadn’t filled the tank all of the way. Fred and I urged him to push the tank as far as possible. We eventually had to exit back off of I-15, but it was into the business district and no immediate gas stations were to be seen. We ran dry just beside a huge national bank. Everything we’ve got for supplies and weapons are now inside the bank. We’ve gone over many scenarios about making a run for the next possible gas station already, but ghouls have been a problem here as well.
They came out of nowhere it seemed. You’d think they were just waiting to ambush us. As far as inside the bank, though, we found the only ghouls to be three people who had locked themselves inside the bank vault - the secondary, thick, glass door. They were pounding at the glass wanting to come after us. Lowe began preaching to them loudly and even in Latin before he finally opened the door to shoot them all in the face.
Tonight has set in incredibly fast it seems. We’ve spent much time exploring and scouting the entire bank. It’s a solid stone building and three stories tall. Every window in the place is thick and probably bullet proof. The alarms and security measures are still functional as well - we have sealed the place like the fortress it can be - metal gates, sliding metal blinds and all.
DAY - 96
I got to studying the three ghouls that had been in the bank vault. I’m thinking they locked themselves inside, starved to death and then when turned, they looked to have been chewing at each other for a short time. On the other hand, though, they were smarter than each one of us. Why hadn’t we thought about a bank being among the most secure places to hold up in?
Further exploration throughout the day brought us to a records/filing room in the basement of the bank. The room is about what you’d expect to see - very dusty, full of cobwebs and smelt funny. We soon found out why it smelled so weird as well. There is a small, circular drainage gate in the floor, way back in one of the far corners of the basement. Lowe said that it was probably the same problem he’d had times before at his church. The basements of the buildings in the area are pretty much built right atop the old sewer systems. Newer systems had long replaced them, but underground collapses and sometimes, even earthquakes had allowed salt water from the lake to flow freely into the old systems. The salt water, although quite a bit cleaner, it would sometimes give off that odor if it hadn’t been flowing so well. So, it’s the same as any other water if it sits still for long enough. A plan popped into my head as soon as Lowe was finished talking. I praised him for being so fixated on his sledgehammer like I was with my sword. I asked him for it, took in my hands, told them all that we now have a way out and possibly to the causeway, and I took my first swing down into the concrete floor beside the drainage gate.
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