Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

  Rhonda walked in about 20 minutes later dressed for work and vigorously rubbing a towel in her hair to get it dried off. She found John standing still in front of the TV.

  “You going to stare at the TV all day or do you want to go jump in the shower so you might actually be on time for work once?”

  John looked over at her with an incredulous look on his face, “Babe, check out the TV. This is what all the stations are showing. I’m thinking we are not going to be going anywhere today.”

  Rhonda took a closer look at the program John had turned on and noted it was a bureaucratic looking man talking about a Global epidemic which required everyone to stay indoors. The man had Tom Brokaws hair but not Tom Brokaws easy method of delivery. The words were coming out forced, the man obviously reading from the teleprompter.

  “Repeat. There is a virus of unknown origin that is spreading globally and has definitely been reported in the majority of the large cities in the USA. The virus appears to be extremely contagious and appears to be spread quickly to anyone in close proximity to someone who is infected. The CDC is investigating the outbreak and has dedicated all possible resources both internally and externally to finding the source of the disease and working on keeping it from spreading. Repeat. This is a national emergency. You are instructed to stay in your homes and avoid contact with anyone outside your immediate family. All travel plans should be considered terminated at this point. All mass transit systems have been shut down by order of the President. All military service members are asked to report to their duty stations for further instructions. All civilian authorities and emergency personnel are asked to report to their respective assignments to help maintain the peace and enforce the curfew. Repeat. For those of you just joining us there has been a global outbreak of a virus which is extremely contagious and spreads via proximity. This means that being near someone who has it is an extremely high risk. It has not been ascertained the exact means of transmitting the virus. Be safe. Stay inside your homes and do not leave unless requested by authorities. Repeat. This is an emergency.”

  Rhonda looked over at John who was now staring at her.

  “Are all the channels like this? Just repeating the same info over and over again?”

  John nodded in the affirmative.

  “Have you checked the internet?”

  Rhonda was pulling out her Phone even as she spoke. Going to the web she saw that the address you normally type in was being replaced with one going to emergency.gov which basically showed the same information the broadcast had been relaying. No matter what website she tried to go to she kept ending back up one the emergency.gov page which told her to stay calm and shelter in place while waiting for further information.

  She let out a shriek and dropped the phone when it started emitting a high-pitched squeal recognizable as the emergency broadcast noise. Picking her phone back up and looking at she showed John where an Amber Alert looking message was now sitting on her phone screen asking her to please refrain from using her phone for calls as this would block channels that may be needed by emergency services.

  Ignoring the warning Rhonda scrolled through her phone until she found her sisters number. Pressing the call button just earned her a message stating that all lines were busy to please try her call again later. She tried a few more numbers in her phone before giving up. She sat the phone on the table and looked over at John who was also busy trying to make calls and not getting anywhere. Then he waved at her and said “Try texting, it just worked with my dad. He says he loves us and that they have the emergency channel on every station as well.”

  Rhonda quickly sent text messages to her best friend / sister and to her mom, dad, and a couple of longtime friends as well. She used the same message to each, “We love You. Please be safe. We are just seeing the emergency channel on everything. We will be staying home though this. Please let us know how you are.”

  She received back a couple of similar replies then set the phone down on the table and looked over at John. “What should we do?”

  John looked back at her, “I am thinking it is pretty obvious the government has no idea what we should do. I don’t have a clue what we should do. I’m thinking I would like to take a look around and see what is going on but I’m not real excited to take a step outside the house knowing if I get near someone I may be breathing in some weird Virus. The way they are blocking everything is freaking me out. A lot. I Love you honey.”

  Rhonda walked over to their pantry, she shook her head up and down in the affirmative as she verified they had plenty of food and bottled water.

  Looking back behind her at John she said, “I say we lock the doors, close the shades, and watch that guy on TV as he keeps talking without actually saying anything. If nothing else at least we don’t have to go to work.”

  That started a couple days of them in the house steadily eating through their supplies as they got reports from the news caster that did not give them any more info other than for them to stay in their homes and shelter in place. On the second day, they heard a bunch of gunfire in the distance. This definitely had the effect of keeping them stationary. Rhonda had her old lacrosse stick and John had unscrewed his pool stick to give him the bottom half to use as a club but neither of them were optimistic about these doing them any good.

  On the third day, after a restless night, the power had gone off overnight and they woke up sweating in their bed. The temperature in the house was steadily rising as they attempted to get information out of there smart phones and other devices before finally just shutting them down to conserve battery. After that first day, text messaging had been cutoff as well. As Rhonda wandered into the kitchen she heard a dog barking outside and a loud moaning noise. Walking over to the window she looked outside in time to see a man grab a small Yorkie looking dog and slam it against the wall. The man started digging at the dog’s stomach and trying to claw out the insides it looked like while the dog still was moving around and yelping.

  Rhonda ran to the door and threw it open intending to yell at the man and get him to drop the dog. As soon as she had opened the door the man had dropped the dog and stared right at her with bright red eyes and veins sticking out all over his face and neck. The man grunted and started running straight at their front door. Rhonda let out a yelp and jumped back and slammed the door shut. Trembling she reached up and got the deadbolt and the chain fastened in place just as the man slammed into their door. Still trembling she watched as the door shook from the man pounding on it.

  Meanwhile John had run out into the room with his boxers on. Holding up his cue stick like that was going to somehow help in this situation. The door stopped shaking and John stared at Rhonda mouthing “What is going on?”

  Rhonda just made a shushing noise and stood there trying to hear where the man had gone. She slowly backed away from the door and over towards John.

  The window she had been looking out of earlier cracked from something hitting it. John moved towards it with his half a pool stick held behind him like a baseball bat. Rhonda ran to the kitchen and pulled open the utility drawer to grab the biggest knife she could get at. Meanwhile the glass shattered and a hand came in ripping the curtains out of the way as the man tried to pull himself into the house. Shrieking and screaming in frustration the man pounded on the other window while his blood was running everywhere from the slashes he had gotten in his forearm while breaking through the window.

  The front door creaked again as something hit it. More shrieks and yells were coming from outside. John grabbed Rhonda by the hand and drug her towards the glass sliding doors leading to the patio at the back of the house. Sliding the doors open he pushed Rhonda to get her going and they both started running for the weeds in the field that bordered their home. Behind them they could hear screaming and crashing as their home was invaded. John pulled Rhonda to the right towards their neighbors fenced in yard. He picked her up and used the adrenaline pumping through him to throw Rhonda over the fence, following
directly behind her as fast as he could get over.

  Hidden for the moment behind the tan panels of the fence they started moving towards the back of the neighbor’s house. They saw Glenn, there neighbor for the last few years, come to the door and then saw the pistol in his hand. He pointed the pistol at them and mouthed “Sorry, but you need to go somewhere else.”

  Screaming and moans were now getting closer to the neighbor’s yard as more of the pursuers started showing up to see what all the noise was about. John led Rhonda around the side of the house right as a few of the people with the bright red eyes and bulging veins landed in the neighbors back yard to have a look around. They must have noticed Glenn almost right away as there were some loud yells followed by the sound of bodies crashing into the sliding glass door. The sound of the pistol and shattering glass brought even more of the creatures and it was hard to hear Glenns screams of pain over the sounds of his house being ripped apart. The creatures started showing up from all different directions. Miraculously none of them happened to look around the corner, where they lay between an old rusty Carrier air compressor and the gate to the fenced in backyard.

  They lay there for a day in the mud with bugs crawling on them. Scared to move, both still wearing the clothes they had gone to bed in. Listening as the creatures tore through the house then gradually either left or got quiet. As they lay shivering in the early morning hours John decided to go have a look around. He motioned for Rhonda to stay where she was and he got up, brushed off his boxers, and slowly moved around to the side of the house where he looked to see if he saw anything or anyone in the backyard. By the moonlight he did not see anything. Moving his head out a bit further he was able to see where Glenn had been standing and he was pretty sure he saw bits of Glenn scattered around the broken-down door. Still not seeing any motion he signaled Rhonda to join him and they both headed towards the back of the yard.

  John poked his head above the fence and did not see anything so boosted Rhonda over and they both started moving back towards their house. John had Rhonda stay outside while he went in to grab the car keys and some pants. A few minutes later he got slammed up against a wall by one of the creatures who had been asleep on the floor. John hammered on its head with the pool cue until it dropped to the floor but he heard noises now coming from the bedroom. Grabbing the keys, he rushed outside and rushed Rhonda around the house and bodily threw her into the car as soon as he had the door open.

  Ignoring her pissed off looks at being man handled he slammed his door, turned the key and accelerated in reverse out the driveway and onto the road. Driving quickly, he scanned around, noting the chaos of the scenes unfolding everywhere around him. Houses were on fire, sounds of gunshots filled the air, people with red eyes were running full speed here and there chasing people down. A few of them peeled off to chase the car John was driving. He accelerated to a faster, but still manageable speed, heading towards the only place he could think of where they may be able to hide out for a bit and get some supplies together. After a brief ride across town they pulled in at the plaza he worked in, parked the car on the side of the store and he pulled out his key and let them into the store he managed.

  He closed the door to the Vape Store after him and Rhonda were both inside and they made their way to the back office to sit down and relax for a little after the traumatic events of the day.

  Entry 11: First Impressions

  As I walked around the corner of the vape store I saw the door in front of me close. Wondering if I had finally found survivors I walked around the store to the front window and started to look in. I saw a man and a woman, both half naked, walking towards the back of the store. As you can probably guess from my last entry it was Rhonda and John, luckily they did not have a gun since they both jumped about five feet in the air when I whisper yelled, “Hey!” If they had a gun I am pretty sure there would have been a lot of lead coming in my general direction.

  They had walked over towards the window to see who had yelled at them and after ascertaining that I did not have bright red eyes and a hunger for their flesh they invited me in. The conversation between us got a lot less awkward when I handed Rhonda a pair of shorts and gave John my last clean pair of jogging pants and a fairly disgusting t-shirt. He cringed a bit as he put it on but he had to appreciate it. It had to have sucked running around during the apocalyptic times in your boxers.

  We settled into the back office of the place and passed around a bag of Cheetos and a little bowl of chocolates John had sitting on his desk. They also had a couple crates of water in the back so we were able to hydrate a little bit. Considering all the running around and fear and the circumstances it was a nice meeting. They let me know about what they had seen on the TV and how their phones had acted crazy and gone to the government page without letting them see anything else and I told them about my time in the apartment and the escape. I glossed over the poop bucket and some of the other less glamourous aspects of it as I am sure they did not fill me in on every detail of theirs either.

  Talking out loud with other people about what was going on made it seem even crazier. It is one thing to think the word ‘Zombies’ or ‘Killer Smurfette’ and to get a vision of it in your head and quite another thing to try to say that word out loud to other people. As we all sat around feeling safe for the first time in days, John revealed they had a cot in the back the owner kept folded up for naps. Evidently the guy liked to party and then sleep the day away in the store while John took care of making him money.

  John offered it up to me first and after me saying they should have it etc. etc. etc. I finally relented and went and sat down. I pulled my phone out to get an entry going in My Zournal when Rhonda saw me and asked if I had a signal. I told her no which led to her asking me what I was doing which led to me admitting to both of them I had been keeping a diary of the event on my phone that I had taken to calling “Zournal.” Expecting laughter, I was surprised when both of them starting nodding their heads and agreeing it was a smart thing to do. Still blushing for feeling like it had come out like I was a 15-year-old girl keeping a diary, they had asked if they could read it and I had shrugged and handed it over to them.

  Unable to sleep while they scrolled through my deepest darkest secrets of the recent past I lay there wishing I had not felt it so important to write about the poop pan and the drinking of pubes. When they were finished, Rhonda walked over and handed it back to me then gave me a big hug. Then for some reason we both started crying, John walked over and stared at us like we were crazy before he lost it and grabbed Rhonda and I could see he had some tears flowing too. It was weird to try and capture that feeling in this journal but just seeing other people and the simple act of talking and sharing our stories had impacted us all a lot. I think we had all thought we were going to have to suffer through this alone and now it was looking like other people were hanging around we just had to find them.

  I shoved the phone back in my pocket and lay down on the cot and fell into a deep sleep.

  Entry 12: Now What?

  We all ended up sleeping through the night and into the next day. On recollection, it would have been smart to have posted a watch but I think we were all too exhausted to think about it. The events of the past week having emotionally and physically drained us all to the point where some serious sleep was needed. When we did finally all wake up it was to a world that was still dark and dreary. A vape house with a busted window and a humid moldy feel to it. Houses sitting around in Florida, even in the winter, can’t survive long without AC before smelling like the inside of a shoe after a nice long jog.

  I finally walked over to where they had made a bed on the floor out of boxes and packing materials and sat down at the desk in the small office to wait for them to wake up. With a rustle of paper and cardboard John had woken up first, nodded a good morning to me and headed for the back door to take a whiz. We had previously agreed the guys would do it this way while Rhonda was using the toilet in the building since she would b
e in a much more precarious position outside if spotted than we would be. I heard John finish and quietly close the door before walking over to where I was at.

  John pulled over a crate and sat down with his back against the wall. Once he had settled in he looked over at me, “Sleep good?”

  I looked back at him, “I think that may have been the deepest sleep of my life. Running scared for days really used me up. Thanks again for giving up the cot. How was your hobo bed?”

  John laughed at the Hobo bed comment, “It was good. Better than getting caught by those things. I know what you mean about the deepest sleep of your life. I’ve been constantly beat down since this thing started. Now I am just wishing we had power since we have some Keurig’s in here and I would kill for a cup of coffee.”

  The thought of coffee made me salivate and I may have actually let out a whimper. It sounded that good. It was also a stark reminder that such little luxuries may be unattainable for the foreseeable future. I’ve seen cowboy movies and such where they sit around a pot on a fire and it somehow makes coffee but I have no idea how that works. The ways I know how to make coffee all involve either buying it somewhere or a coffee maker that plugs into an electrical outlet.