I winced as I hit him but kept on going as the others were closing in on me in the narrow confines of the checkpoint. Seeing open road in front of me I gunned the engine and the Humvee shook and rattled its way forward. I swerved around a parked pick-up truck and headed on down the road. Looking at the fuel gauge on the Humvee looked like I was fine for a bit. I had picked one of the ones that was enclosed and did not have the mounted gun on the top. The pain in my hand as I gripped the steering wheel reminded me of the cuts I had gotten. I looked down at my leg where it had been cut and saw that my pants were fairly soaked in blood. I needed to find somewhere to crash and recoup. I also needed to raid some supplies somewhere. The bag I had kept to grab if I had to ditch the Xterra, or any other car for that matter, held the bare necessities as I had wanted to be able to quickly escape a situation while carrying it and the sword. I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road after about fifteen minutes of steady driving.
Reaching into the backseat, I grabbed the bag and opened it. I threw the t-shirt out the window I had wrapped my hand in and shoved a big white sock over my hand instead. I pulled up the socks and squeezed a bunch of sanitizer into the sock. My head hit the ceiling and I was crying from the pain almost instantly. The pain went away in a few minutes and I figured if it hurt me that bad it must really be taking care of the germs…
I knew I needed to change pants as well but I figured that would have to wait as I did not want to leave the protection of the Humvee to give myself the room to stand up and easily change my pants. I definitely was not going to try changing them in the Humvee and get caught by a bunch of Zombies with my freakin pants around my ankles. I settled for squirting some hand sanitizer in the area of all my cuts and rubbing it in through clenched teeth in each case. I had no idea how you caught the Zombie virus or whatever but I did not want to take too many chances running around with open wounds.
I used up the last of the hand sanitizer I had with me and threw it out the window as well. I had thrown random medicines from the last house I ransacked into the bug out bag and I dug through now until I found a bottle that was labeled “Hydrocodone”. There were two pills left and it had expired over a year ago but I went ahead and popped one in my mouth. If my hand started hurting much more I did not see how I was going to be able to drive so it looked like I would have to trade alertness for dulling the pain. I added finding some antibiotics to my ever growing mental “list of stuff I need to avoid death”.
I don’t know if the Hydrocodone kicked in super-fast or the adrenaline from running earlier finally faded away but in another 5 minutes or so I was completely zonked. I also figured I did not want to be approaching I-95 in the daylight in a Humvee. The highway would be packed with cars and who knew what else. I knew there was a big subdivision coming up on the road ahead so I wanted to avoid that as well.
I saw a turn-off advertising “pick your own strawberries” and “paint ball birthday parties” next to a dirt road turn off from the main road. I went ahead and turned right on the road and started driving down it. I saw an old run down barn off to the left and did not see any motion around it. I pulled the Humvee around to the back of the barn, got as comfortable as I could, turned off the Humvee to save on Diesel, it did not take me long at all to fall asleep. Hydrocodone is a wonderful thing!
Entry 21: Rude Awakening
I woke up with a stiff neck and the parts of my body I had cut on the fence feeling like they were on fire. Judging by the sun and how hot it was getting it must be around noon. I pulled out my phone and confirmed the time, checking for the millionth time to see if there was any sort of signal and there still was not. I’d started thinking of the phone more as an electronic diary and flashlight than as an actual communications device. The phone had a full charge since I had placed it on the dash before going to sleep and made sure the solar charger was plugged into the power port on the phone.
Since it was daytime I did not dare to start the Humvee back up so I resigned myself to sitting in the hot car for the majority of the day. I went ahead and popped the remaining Hydrocodone and got out of the Humvee to take a whiz. Standing outside I took the opportunity to look around a little bit more. I was in what could easily pass as the middle of nowhere. A long road had brought me here to an opening in the woods where a dilapidated looking old barn was standing in the middle of an overgrown field. I wasn’t sure where all the paintball activities and strawberry picking happened but it must be even further down the road from where I was now.
Feeling the bright sun beating down on me and feeling sweaty and grimy in my ripe smelling clothes I thought for the millionth time how nice it would be to just get in a shower then get out and put on clean clothes. The burning sensations in my cuts worried me that I might be getting an infection. I was pretty sure I had gotten a tetanus shot when I enrolled in College as part of the physical stuff they made you do. I just wasn’t very sure what exactly a tetanus shot did for you. I felt like I should be safe if I stepped on a rusty nail which should be similar to dragging yourself across barbed wire with who knows what stuck to it. I was still planning on slamming the first Z-Pak or bottle of Amoxicillin I managed to come across just to be on the safe side.
I got back in the Humvee, got myself situated and settled in to ride the sweet wave of Hydrocodone bliss into another napping session. Despite the heat, the pain, and the general crappiness of everything I dropped off again pretty quickly. Drugs are great.
I woke up and saw a grizzled old wrinkly guy with skin like leather, a crewcut, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth staring at me. He tapped on the window again, which is what I am assuming woke me up in the first place, and motioned for me to open the door. Without really thinking about it I reached down and opened the door for him. I got out to say hi and a wave of pain and nausea hit me and I fell forward onto my knees and then went ahead and just collapsed on the ground. I looked up at him to try and tell him I was not infected and started puking, followed by closing my eyes and passing out on the ground in front of him.
When I woke up next I was lying in a bed in a small room wearing nothing but a clean robe. I also felt cleaner than I had in days and it felt like someone had bandaged me up a bit. I had a momentary panic at not having my sword and bug out bag but the old man in the chair pointed at the corner of the room and I saw what looked like a small pile of my stuff including the sword and bag. I noticed he had a pistol sitting in his lap and looked like he’d be pretty comfortable using it. I held up my hand with the gauze wrapped around it and pointed at him with my other hand.
The old man nodded, “I drug your ass here from the barn when you passed out. I wasn’t sure if you were passing out from the Sickness or if you were just messed up from all those cuts you had all over you. “
I hurried to assure him and his large pistol that I was not on the verge of turning into a veiny violent cannibal, “I got this running through the wire fence they put around the roadblock. Cut the shit out of myself in about five places but I guess you saw all that while I was passed out.”
The old man nodded and inhaled deeply on the last little bit of his cigarette, sucking it down to the butt he got up and walked over to the window where he flipped the little glowing ember out in to the night. He stared out a bit before looking back at me, “I was hoping that is what the deal was. You looked sick as hell but you were not all veiny like the rest of them infected crazy sick m-fers are. I took a risk but I’m hoping it pays off with you. Based on you driving that Humvee and carrying around that sword I can tell you at least have some brains in your head. There’s also the fact that you’re not blue…”
Trying to drag my eyes off the barrel of the gun which he had waved around while talking and to express his points better I stammered out, “So what are you calling the infected people?”
“Mostly I’m just calling them the infected veiny crazy blue m-fers. Question for ya, how’d you know to keep the sword dull?”
I stared at him like he had just sprout
ed a full on horn out of the top of his head. He stared right back at me for a minute or two.
When he finally did start talking it was less than complimentary, “Son, if you don’t sharpen the blade you don’t risk it getting stuck in bone. That way you can just bash heads to your hearts content and not lose your weapon. I’m going to take a few steps back and assume you just had no clue how to sharpen it. Am I right?”
I nodded with a chagrined look on my face.
He continued digging into me, “What gave it away is when you told me the story about how you got cut. Special Forces, SF, operators carry around special Kevlar blankets they can throw over that wire to get over pointy stuff. They do not walk around with their kids blankie and think throwing it over concertino wire is going to work. Who would ever think that? I just assumed you were hauling ass in the dark and ran into it. You know, they make those Humvees so that basically any idiot can drive them.”
His last sentence seemed to crack him up as he stopped to laugh a little bit. Then he noticed the sword in the corner and really lost it, I saw him wipe away a tear he was laughing so hard.
“Pampa!” a young woman had opened the door and come running into the room, “What’s wrong?”
The man, mental note to ask him his name, stopped laughing and barked out, “Regina Taylor, I told you to stay outside and not come in here no matter what!” Even though he was yelling at her, it was impossible not to see the way his eyes had lit up when she had come into the room. Although, when he looked over at me his eyes revealed that my life expectancy may have just diminished greatly.
“Hey Regina, I’m St-.”
I was cutoff abruptly as the girl whirled around and pointed a large pistol at me. The look on her face was fierce. I had not been OK with the old man pointing a gun at me and was definitely not Ok with her doing it. I was planning on really letting her have it. Just as soon as she was not pointing a gun at me anymore.
“I don’t care who you are. My Pampa is too valuable to risk his life for some nobody who drove up here exposing our hideout.”
Trying a different tactic, and making sure my bathrobe was firmly tied I looked over at the old man, “Should I call you Pampa also or do you have a different name?”
“For your information his name is ‘Gunny’. Only I can call him Pampa. You can stop screwing around with your robe to. I helped him undress you and get you cleaned up so you don’t have any secrets. By the way. Not impressed!”
At the girls’ words, I felt like I turned abut 50 shades of red and ‘Gunny’ came close to a heart attack, snorting loudly out of his nose when she had said ‘not impressed’.
“Anyway,” I continued thorough their giggles, “I’m Steve, I want to say thank you for saving my life and cleaning me up. I truly appreciate it.”
“I guess... snort... ha... you’re not going to try the … cold water excuse?” With that brilliantly executed witticism Gunny fell back into the chair. Although I did notice with Regina in the room he had carefully put the pistol over on a nightstand after pressing something on it, I assumed the safety mechanism.
“Have you guys been drinking? Take any pills you found in an abandoned medicine closet?” I asked as this was getting a bit out of hand. Also, not really seeing why the size of my, very cold water doused mind you, manly unit was such a hilarious topic of conversation. Especially by a little teeny bopper looking girl and some old ass creased face dude.
This seemed to settle them down and they finally stopped laughing. Gunny looked at me and asked what my story was. Seeing as how they had saved my life and bathed and dressed me I figured I pretty much owed them whatever they may want. I nodded towards my bag and asked if they had saved my phone.
Regina looked at me with excitement in her eyes, “Yes, it is in there but we have not been getting a signal for weeks it seems like. Does yours still work? It looked like a regular iPhone. I snagged your charger and used it to get mine charged up again. When I looked at yours I did not see a signal at the top or anything though?”
Woah. Sorry to have to kill her enthusiasm and the look of excitement in her eyes, “No, nothing like that, I’ve been using my phone to keep a diary since this thing started. I figured the easiest way to tell you my story would be to read it to you.” I figured by reading it to them I could skip most of the embarrassing parts without them ever knowing.
“Oh, so you want to skip the embarrassing parts and the parts where you mass murdered people. No thanks, hand it here and I’ll read it out loud.”
Regina held out her hand and I sighed and handed her the phone after I unlocked it and pulled up the Diary App. I really needed to stop writing embarrassing things in there. I don’t know what is wrong with me sometimes. Like I just realized I seriously documented these two clowns making fun of my crotch measurements. Although I did make sure to get the cold-water comment in there for whatever random person is holding me hostage and reading this now.
Regina disappeared into the hallway and came back dragging herself a chair. She sat down and looked over at Gunny and asked him if he was ready to hear a masterpiece of modern literature. Gunny pretended to try and turn the TV on before nodding yes. Regina had been silently scanning through it already evidently as she looked up at me and asked if I needed to go to the bathroom before we got started.
“I can go find you a poop pan.”
This was going to take a while.
Entry 22: Regina and Gunny
After much tear inducing laughter provoked by the brilliant prose contained in this “masterpiece of modern literature” Regina and Gunny began to question me. Other than some jokes at my expense as the had gone through the diary they had seemed to stay fairly interested. As the Gunny put it, “It’s not the History Channel but it may just be the most entertaining thing we’ve seen since that squirrel tried to steal some of our supplies and ended up falling off the roof. Stupid squirrel.”
As random as that comment was and despite all the questions I had for him about the squirrel and why they had found it so amusing I chose to keep my mouth shut and listen.
Gunny looked over at me, “Thanks for sharing your story. Horrible what you’ve gone through but I think it is going to be a fairly common story in this new world, at least for a little while. One of the big things we don’t have right now is any kind of idea of what the hell is going on. I think you’re going to maybe prove to be worth the bandages we put on you. Now, we’ve read what you’ve written so far but tell us again. What do you think is going on?”
I looked at him. I’d obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this. As the reading of the ‘Zournal’ painfully reminded me, most of the time I had been on the ‘run’ so far I had spent stationary. Sitting on that toilet for days, hiding out in houses and in my apartment, I had plenty of time to think while being miserable and wondering when I was going to cough too loud and cause a horde of Zombies to descend on me. Thinking of coughing, I cleared my throat and started thinking out loud.
“They are blue and veiny and obviously demented and sick. They eat anything living except for each other as far as I can tell. They go into sleep mode at night and are more active during the day. I call them Zombies but they are still living people as far as I can tell. They shrug off pain when you hit them and keep on coming. They’ll run right in front of a car. They stop eating on someone after a few bites once the person stops moving.”
Regina and Gunny were both staring at me and hanging on my words with interest. It dawned on me they may have not had as much exposure as I had to this mess. Pulling my thoughts together I continued.
“They’re not Zombies in the literal sense of the word in that they are not dead. I think they’re super sick people who have some kind of disease, virus or whatever, that causes their metabolism to go into overdrive which causes the vein thing and the red eye thing. Assuming it also causes the brain to get whacked causing the cannibalism and the general craziness. I’m thinking when they caught the virus it made them go to bed and tr
y to sleep it off as I’ve seen more Zombies in pajamas and robes and their underwear than I’ve seen in regular clothes. I know we need to avoid making noises. Noises get them riled up even at night. “
“Good stuff.” Gunny gave me a brief smile. “All of that sounds pretty accurate and was about where I stood on it. I think I can make even a few more guesses based on what I know so far. I think the virus is a man-made bio-weapon designed to clear out the population to allow someone to come in and easily take over the country. I’m saying that because in combination with everyone getting sick and turning into a ‘Zombie’, since you love that term so much, the emergency notification channel went off the air, the internet got blacked out and everything went dark. That should not have happened. Maybe it only happened in Florida but who knows. As to the enemy I guess we’ll find out eventually, aliens, the Chinese, Voodoo masters form Haiti, who knows, the important thing will be knowing that something is coming so we can prepare and be ready to do what it takes to survive.”
Zournal (Book 1): It All Started Page 9
