Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

  Approaching the Publix, I started trying to think of a plan to get into it if the doors would not open. I was hoping I’d just be able to slide the doors open and walk right in. That sounded way too simple to be a part of my life though. I figured a couple of shots from the shot gun would be effective in opening the door. I’d need to get in and grab supplies and get the hell out in less than a minute though if I followed through on that extremely loud plan.

  Like most of my plans, it turned out I did not get to follow through with any of the things I had thought of. As I walked up and started looking at the glass doors a man in a camouflage uniform with a facemask on appeared on the other side of the door pointing an M-16 at my face. He motioned for me to put my weapons on the ground and I slowly complied. Two other men appeared and pushed the doors open. The first man came out, slapped some kind of tie wrap handcuffs on me and marched me into the store.

  Entry 25: Paperwork

  Tie wrap handcuffs hurt. They put my hands behind my back and out them on me while still sticking the gun in my face. They perp walked me into the store and turned me to the right where we ended up in the Customer Service manager’s office for the store. At the desk was a man I assumed was in charge based on the fact that he was sitting at a desk and everybody else was busy trying to look professional.

  He looked up at me and pulled out a notebook. “What’s your name? Last name then first name please.” He stared at me expectantly.

  “Steve Hankel sir but do you have – “

  He cut me off, “Stop right there. Once you’ve answered all of our questions we will do our best to answer yours. My me are saying they took you for a looter the way you were approaching the store. Is that correct?”

  “No sir, I am not a looter, I was coming to look for supplies for a friend who is injured.”

  “So you were coming to steal medical supplies from our base. Where is this friend of yours and how many others are with him?”

  I was thinking fast. I didn’t think this was an ideal place for Gunny and Ginny but Gunny needed medical help and I did not see how that would happen with me zip tied in here and them out in the parking lot. Before I could say anything, Ginny was marched into the room with her hands clenched behind her.

  “Where is Gunny?” I asked, earning a nasty look from the officer at the desk.

  “They took me and went to get a stretcher for him.”

  “Both of you quiet down. We need our questions answered and we’ll be able to see how we can help you. First, is this your whole party? Just the three of you, total?” asked the officer.

  “Yeah, it is, when are you going to untie my freakin wrists, I can’t feel my hands.” Ginny was not coming across as respectful as I was.

  “Well, you don’t seem to be symptomatic. Your ‘friend’ has a broken foot so we have him in the back with our medic checking it out. We have your hands tied to protect you and us, in case you haven’t noticed there are a lot of crazy ass people running around out there trying to eat people. We’d prefer not to have that going on inside this lovely grocery store we currently call home.” The officer slid three clipboards across the desk.

  “We are going to put you in an office now and expect you to fully answer the questions written on each page. We need to know who you are, where you’ve come from and where you were going. We need as much of your medical history as you can give us. Information is power and we’re trying to collect as much as we possibly can. Also, in case you haven’t figured this out yet. We are currently hiding, cowering, skulking in this store. We’re still alive because of noise and light discipline. We expect you to do what you’re told, when you’re told and to do it quietly. Do you have any further questions? If not, then I expect you to complete the forms and then plan on sleeping through the day tomorrow and we can reconvene tomorrow night to review the forms.”

  Ginny said, “I assume you’re planning on removing the handcuffs or do we put the pens in our teeth to write with? When do we get to see our friend?” I noticed she was avoiding admitting to being related or using the term ‘Gunny’. I didn’t see why but figured she was a smart cookie so I’d just follow her lead on that for now.

  The officer stood up. He was about six foot something, gaunt and skinny, with a very military looking crew cut. He did not seem amused by Ginny’s response. “You will address me as either ‘sir’ or Captain Miller. You will go to the space provided and complete the paperwork you have been given. We will provide you with food and protection. We are helping the guy you arrived with in your stolen military Humvee. When we have him bandaged and drugged up, we will place him in the same space you are in so he can complete his forms. If you have any additional questions, they can wait until tomorrow night. Reeves, Johnson, please escort our guests to the holding office and remove there handcuffs once you have them secured.”

  The third soldier went and sat down to talk to Captain Miller while our escort of Reeves and Johnson walked us over to the back of the store. We saw several other soldiers and about five to ten people dressed in regular civilian clothes. The soldiers ignored us for the most part except for one who took a long look at Ginny. The people standing around in civilian clothing quickly looked away from us as well. It looked like everyone was involved in quietly organizing the supplies from the shelves.

  The soldier took us into the back of the store and into a room that had several cots setup in it and had bottles of different disinfectants.

  “There is no running water so washing your hands with soap doesn’t happen too much. We’ve all taken to wearing these masks as much as possible and trying to sponge ourselves and our stuff down with disinfectants as much as possible. You’ve seen what’s out there. Our goal is to not let that get in here. So, you need to sit down, disinfect, answer the questions on those notepads and then we’ll come get you when the Captain is ready to see you again. We’re going to lock you in this room for now for everyone’s protection. We don’t know you so we have to be careful. Now turn around, one at a time, the girl first, walk backwards to me and I’ll snip those cuffs off of you and you can get to it.”

  With that Reeves took out a large knife and waited. Ginny backed over to him and he sawed off her cuffs. Then he did the same thing for me.

  “Hey. Where do we pee and when do we get our stuff back?” Ginny asked Reeves as he was sawing away at my cuffs. I kind of wished she would leave him alone while he had the huge knifes in my wrist area. I was wanting him to focus.

  Johnson pointed at a bucket in the corner that had been rigged up so you could pull down a towel for some privacy. “When we come get you tomorrow you’ll be expected to take it out back and dump it. We’ve got some carpet deodorizer sitting next to it in case you decide this is a convenient time to take a dump. Please use the deodorizer. I don’t want to get sick when I open the door tonight to let you out.”

  With no further advice for us, Reeves and Johnson walked out of the room. We heard the sound of a padlock being locked up on the other side of the door. Nothing much to do now but work on our assigned forms and wait.

  I was in the middle of trying to remember what blood type I was when we heard the pad lock being moved around outside. I went ahead and checked ‘AB+’ as it sounded vaguely familiar for some reason and patiently waited for the door to open. Ginny was up and standing in front of the door from the first sound we had heard.

  Reeves opened the door and popped his head in. “Back up please, we’re bringing in your friend and he’s currently out for the count.”

  We backed up and Johnson and another soldier we had not met yet carried in a stretcher with Gunny laying on it. As they brought the stretcher in I saw the one soldier’s eyes roam over to Ginny again and remembered him as the one I had caught staring at her earlier. Reeves saw the look I was giving the other soldier and he turned and glanced at the man and saw where his eyes were.

  “Mackenzie, eyes front, don’t want to trip over anything and drop this guy. Let’s sit him down on that cot over in
the corner.”

  Mackenzie snapped his eyes to the cot and him and Johnson continued carrying Gunny over there and transferred him carefully onto the cot from the stretcher. Ginny rushed over to help and I noticed Reeves moved Mackenzie out of the way so that Mackenzie would not be standing too close to Ginny. Once they had Gunny slid in they put a couple pillows under his one foot so it was hoisted in the air. Someone had done a decent looking job of a soft cast on his foot.

  Reeves looked over at us once he was done, “Medic said to just let him rest as long as he can. Once he wakes up he’ll be in pain so he gets two more Oxy. He’ll still be in pain after that but his Oxy ends at two pills and then he’s on Tylenol for as long as it takes for his foot to heal up. Probably be a week or so at least before he should try walking on it. The medic doesn’t have an X-ray or anything so all he could do is guess how bad the fractures are and try to push everything together and then wrapped it and made this cast out of what he could find in the store.”

  “Tell him we said Thank You! I was worried we would not be able to find anyone to help us out with this. Thank you so much!” Ginny gave Reeves a hug and a big smile.

  Reeves said, “Hey, no problem, that’s our job is to take care of you guys. It’s why we get paid the big bucks. Besides, you remind me of my sister. Try to get some sleep. Also, make sure you have those forms filled out for the Captain. He really likes paperwork, guess that’s why he’s an officer.”

  The soldiers left and we went back to our forms. Ginny finished hers and her grandpas before I had mine completed. She grabbed mine, started rattling off questions to me, and eventually mine was completed as well. We checked on Gunny and then both went to our bunks and went to sleep. I pretended to stay asleep as Ginny awkwardly went and used the bucket in the corner of the room. Although I couldn’t resist telling her to “make sure you shovel in a lot of that carpet deodorizer!”

  Well worth the pain from the pen she flung at my head. She was crazy accurate at throwing stuff.

  Entry 26: People are the Real Monsters

  When I woke up, Gunny and Ginny were both still asleep. Gunny was moving and mumbling a bit in his sleep so I figured the medicine was probably wearing off and he was going to be in for a world of pain fairly soon. I got up and found the two Oxy pills and a bottle of water. Hoping to spread out the pills, I took one pill out of the bottle and left the other in it. With pill in hand I nudged Gunny a few times until he woke up. He gave me a wild look then settled down after he recognized me.

  He looked at me then started looking around wildly, “Where’s Ginny?”

  “She is over there on the cot, asleep, no worries, your foot is wrapped and everything, but the medic says it is going to hurt for a while and he doesn’t have a clue if it is going to heal right or not. He donated a couple Oxy to your cause so if you’re done freaking out about Ginny I was thinking you could go ahead and take another one and go back to sleep for a bit.”

  Gunny, who had visibly relaxed once he saw Ginny, looked up at me and nodded. I put the pill in his hand and he lifted it up, put it in his mouth then snagged the water bottle I held out to him. He said, “Thanks.” Then he rolled over and went back to sleep. Within about a minute he was back to snoring.

  I felt someone staring at me so I turned around and saw Ginny had woken up and had been watching mine and Gunny’s exchange. She reached out for the water bottle and when I handed it to her she took a long swig, rolled over, and went back to sleep. I appeared to be the only one who couldn’t relax while locked up in a back-room, in a grocery store, during an apocalypse. I did some entries on my phone for a bit and then lay back down and tried to rest in the red glow from the battery powered military green lantern we were using for light in the room.

  It turns out even though my mind was not tired, my body was still exhausted from the crazy trek to get us here and within a few minutes I was back asleep as well.

  I woke up when I heard Ginny let out a yelp. I rolled over and saw that two of the soldiers had come back in the room and were over by her bunk. One was reaching down for Ginny and the other one was looking around the room and saw me staring and starting to get up. He pointed his M-16 at my face and told me in a high-pitched voice to, “Roll over and go back to sleep.”

  Even though I had seen the M-16 recently from that angle it turns out you never really get used to it. Regardless, my concern for Ginny overcame my fear of the man aiming the weapon at me and I blurted out, “Ginny, what’s up? You ok?”

  “This freakin perv is trying to grope me in my sleep!” Ginny yelled back across the room at me. Then I heard a smack and a cry of pain from Ginny. I stood up and started moving forward, intending to see what was going on. The soldier pointing the M-16 at me reversed his grip on it and used it to hit me in the face. It hurt. I fell backwards and landed on top of some cots and started trying to get back up again. The soldier put his foot on my chest and hit me in the face again with the butt of the rifle. My head was swimming at this point but I heard Ginny yell for help again so I reached out and tried grabbing the guys leg to throw him off me. He hit me in the face again.

  I could taste blood now. The room was spinning and it was getting real difficult to breathe and think at the same time. The soldier turned the rifle around so it was once again pointing right at me. I heard Ginny yelling across the room and some more smacks from over there. Then I heard what sounded like a lion’s roar.

  Caught off guard, both myself and the soldier holding me down looked across the room. From my angle, with one eye starting to swell shut and my brain having been bounced around in my skull a few times all I saw was a blur as someone jumped on the soldier who had been trying to get to Ginny. The soldier holding me down rushed over to help and stumbled backwards a few seconds later with the grip of a Kabar sticking out of his chest.

  I struggled to my knees and saw that Ginny had gone to the corner of the room, it looked like she was trying to wrap a blanket around herself. The soldier who had been molesting her had his back to the wall and his sidearm out and pointed at Gunny. Gunny looked fierce. Gone was the old man who had been lying in the cot on pain killers. In his place was a man who had spent most of his life on the field of battle. A warrior who had waded through blood and bullets and the corpses of his enemies. Gunny had a look on his face that made it obvious he did not give a fuck. He was there to kill and that was what was fixing to happen. He was focused intently on the man I now recognized as Mackenzie. Mackenzie looked like he’d realized he had made a serious mistake.

  I looked down at the soldier laying there with blood seeping out of his chest and wondered how the hell Gunny had managed to sneak a big ass Rambo looking knife into the holding cell while he was unconscious. The guard had taken my freakin key chain with my nail clippers on it away from me. Mackenzie started talking, “Old man. You’re screwed. You just killed one of our men. The Captain is going to have you hung. Lay back down or I’ll just go ahead and drop you right there and save us the effort of finding a rope and shit.”

  Gunny hissed back, “You’re fucking dead. I‘m going to rip your throat out and throw you to the Zombies you little worthless maggot.”

  From the corner Ginny spoke up, “Pampa, just go sit back down before he shoots you. I can’t lose you.”

  “Don’t worry Ginny, this little bitch ain’t going to pull the trigger. Are you boy?” Gunny stared at Mackenzie with eyes that were devoid of human emotion. Gunny’s stare was what I imagined a reaper looked like when he came to collect your soul. There was no sympathy, no room for excuses or last requests, it was over. As he talked Gunny moved closer to Mackenzie. Gunny had his hands balled into fists and I saw a glint in one of them that I assumed was a razor blade he had also manage to sneak past the guards. While unconscious. That is truly badass.

  “SIT DOWN!” Mackenzie screamed the command. Gunny jumped to the right as Mackenzie pulled the trigger then I saw him dart in close to Mackenzie and punch him in the throat.

  Mackenzie fell b
ackwards onto his knees; blood was pouring out of the slash in his throat from the razor blade Gunny had clenched in his fist. Mackenzie pulled the trigger twice more then fell over and gurgled something before becoming still.

  I continued to stumble and crawl my way over to Ginny to check on her. She said she was fine and we both went to see Gunny, who was laying on the floor next to Mackenzie. As we got closer we could tell he was not laying in a normal position. I jumped over to him and felt for a pulse and rolled him over to check him. There was blood all over him. It looked like one of those last shots, or maybe even the first shot, had managed to hit the old warrior and he was now off on his way to Valhalla.

  Ginny just stood there for a bit with a look of disbelief on her face. Then she sank to her knees slowly and put her head on her Pampas chest and started sobbing. I stood there helpless. Not knowing what to do. Then there was a bright flash of light and some more pain as I was thrown to the ground, again, followed by laying there for a second as, once again, someone shoved a freakin rifle barrel in my face.