Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

  We came out into the parking lot and there were Zombies streaming towards us from all directions. I kept it floored and aimed us at an exit. Without looking back, I yelled for Reeves, “Hey Reeves, fling a couple of those grenades out the window. I’m thinking the noise may get them moving towards the Grenades and away from us. Worse case it blows some of them up. Just make sure you toss them far behind us.”

  Reeves yelled back, “On it. Yell out if you think you’re going to need to stop or make a sudden turn or anything. I do not want to drop this thing in the floor or something by accident or have it go off too close to us.”

  I continued to drive towards the exit and about thirty seconds later there was a large explosion behind us and some stuff banged off our back window.

  “Maybe throw it even further from the car next time.” I deadpanned back to the soldier in the backseat. We were all feeling a bit giddy from our seeming reprieve from an almost certain death. We were hurtling towards the exit when our reprieve ended.

  Streaming into the plaza in a large mass. A metric fuck-ton of Zombies were stampeding towards the source of the noise. Unfortunately, we were currently the source of the noise. I glanced in the mirror at Reeves then over at Ginny. Both of them looked like I felt so I did not see a lot of advice forthcoming.

  I allowed myself a second of calm. I then snapped back to the reality of the hundreds or thousands of Zombies who were streaming in through the exit to the plaza from the main road. I assumed they were the remnants of the ones who had taken down Captain Miller and his men and maybe even more who had shown up on hearing the sound of all the gunfire from their last stand. Evidently they had been hanging out close enough so that they were able to sprint back here on hearing all the noise the Humvee was making then my brilliant idea to toss out a grenade. Basically, sounding a giant dinner bell.

  I thought about stopping the Humvee and hiding under ponchos again. It had worked before. These Zombies looked pretty deliberate though and would defeat us just by sheer numbers and weight probably so I did not want to bet on that working in this case. They seemed to be focused primarily on coming in through the exit to the plaza where the road met the plaza. I did not see more than a few coming in through the edge of the plaza where there were some trees, bushes, a sidewalk then the road.

  I pointed the Humvee towards an opening in the trees on the far side of the plaza and started dodging cars and Zombies and random crap as I drove for what would hopefully be our salvation. The line of Zombies turned and streamed after us, falling behind pretty quickly but if we did not make it through the median we were pretty much screwed. Especially since I was driving about fifty miles per hour straight at a bunch of bushes and little trees and whatever other stuff happened to be hidden from our view at our current angle.

  “Seat belts on?” I yelled out the question.

  “Yes dad.” Reeves and Ginny both answered. Smartasses.

  I realized mine was not on. I realized I had no time to try and get it on. Oh, well. We hit the curb, followed by hitting a small tree, then part of a bench, then going over the sidewalk, through a small drainage ditch and out onto the main road. That would have worked but as I tried to turn the wheel to the right to stay on the road we went off the road and into another ditch followed by a bunch of trees and weeds. We came to a stop with the Humvee tilted sideways on a bunch of saplings, the saplings then broke and we slammed to the ground. I tasted blood in my mouth from where I had either bit my tongue or where the blood was running out of my nose from slamming into the steering wheel.

  My search for the source of the blood dripping into my mouth was cut short by Ginny yelling, “Drive!”

  I am pretty sure I had somehow managed to add another concussion to my medical file. I looked past Ginny and saw that the Zombies were now already on the street and starting to get to the Humvee. I floored it. We went nowhere. I realized my foot was slamming down on the brake pedal. I probably should not be driving. Why were they letting the concussed guy be the driver? With no time to figure out who was better off to drive I switched my foot to the correct pedal and floored it again.

  The Humvee shot forward, knocking several Zombies back into the ditch they had come across to get at us. We went through the ditch and bounced onto the main road. Keeping the accelerator pegged down we barreled down the road heading South East towards 95. Looking up ahead I could see a massive pileup on the road so I slowed down. It did not look like there was going to be an easy way around this one. We pulled up to where the last car was sitting and looked on both sides of it and there were already cars stuck on both of sides it that had obviously been trying to make it around.

  We knew we only had probably about fifteen or twenty minutes before the faster Zombies would start catching up. Still human and breathing, but the virus made them endurance athletes who could run forever while still letting loose the occasional random scream. Reeves had already opened his door and gotten out. I followed suit and Ginny jogged around and joined us on the driver’s side. Reeves had pulled out our packs and was passing them out. Shrugging into mine and then helping Ginny get hers on I took another look up ahead. We had made it to the intersection with I95 and it was a complete cluster. Cars were smashed into each other all over the place. Corpses were scattered around on the ground. There was an overpass up ahead and above it I saw a big sign for a warehouse store.

  I started to follow Reeves towards the overpass and the warehouse store when I had to stop and puke. Definitely another concussion…

  The three of us got moving. Melee weapons in hand and rifles and pistols also at the ready if needed. We were all very hesitant to use the firearms as they made noise. Noise was bad. Shooting one was kind of counterproductive if for every one you killed, the noise attracted fifty more of them. Some Zombies did see us as we were headed for the overpass. The ones who were capable of movement came out of the mass of wrecked vehicles where they had been doing whatever it is that Zombies do and ran at us singly for the most part. Reeves and I took turns putting them on the ground and finishing them off. Him with an aluminum baseball bat and me with the sword. Every swing had to be full force and dead accurate. After the first few my arms felt like lead and my wrists were killing me.

  Neither one of us were used to it or comfortable with it. These just looked mostly like normal people with serious circulatory issues and horrible red eye who hadn’t showered in a few months. It was haunting. They would scream and come at you and you had to swing for their heads and swing hard enough to put them down. This meant we were denting in skulls. They came fast so if you missed you were screwed. Every time I hit one it took a bit of life out of me. The adults I could deal with but having to put down the kids was hard.

  Reeves got us past the stalled-out cars and started jogging in the direction of the large warehouse store with Ginny and I tagging along behind him. I made sure to bring up the rear and to keep looking behind me to see if anything was coming at us. I stopped occasionally to deal with threats but nothing too strenuous physically. Emotionally and mentally it was a trip through hell. It hardened me.

  I was beginning to think my legs and arms were going to fall off when we finally made it under the overpass and into the plaza where the store was. We continued moving towards the store with Reeves leading and Ginny in the middle with me playing rear guard. We were running, by the light of dawn starting at this point, towards the main entrance to the store. I heard a loud hiss behind me to the left so I turned around and braced myself.

  What appeared to be about a ten-year-old little girl turned Zombie was coming straight for me. Her eyes were solid red and crust was falling out of them as she ran towards me. She was making a loud hissing noise as she came. I got into my standard batter’s box pose with the sword and waited for her to get close enough for me to swing. That was one of the freaky things about them. They did not dodge. Once she was close enough I took the swing, connecting solidly with the side of her head. My sword kept going on the follow through as I
dented in the side of her little head and ripped off a big patch of skin and hair. She collapsed on the ground with blood pooling up all around her head.

  I stood there staring at the little girl whose head I had just bashed in laying on the ground until Ginny ran back and tapped me on the shoulder to get me out of my daze and indicated I better get moving. Reeves had slowed down to wait as well while I took out the Zombie girl. I noticed two zombies were motionless on the ground near him as well so evidently he had been keeping busy while I dealt with my internal drama.

  I pointed at the two Zombies and gave him a look and he shook his head for “No, I didn’t kill them.” Then shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had no clue who had killed them and then pointed towards the front of the store where I now noted there were probably around fifty to sixty bodies spread out around the front entrance. As I was taking this in, the front entrance opened and a man dressed in some sort of skin tight suit waved us towards him. At almost the same time, we heard the sounds of a large group of the Zombies approaching. Taking that as a sign to hurry the hell up we made a wild dash towards the doors.

  Entry 28: Buy in Bulk

  As we dashed towards the doors we were able to tell the guy waving at us was wearing a wetsuit. He was tall and looked to be about forty or fifty years old. Somewhere in that range anyway, he had a beard with some grey in it and had salt and pepper black hair. Gangly and tall, but looking like he could handle himself in a bar fight if the need arose. He had pushed open the door that normally would have opened automatically as you approached the front of the store. As soon as we were through another man came out, looked us over quickly, then went to help the tall guy push the doors closed.

  Reeves and I went and lent a hand as well after setting down our weapons within easy reach. By the volume of the sounds coming across the parking lot it seemed like the mob that had been pursuing us may have made it over to where the traffic jam began on the other side of the overpass. I was hoping they’d lose interest at that point and go into their standard meandering state. Once we had the doors closed the tall gangly guy wiped some sweat off his forehead and introduced himself as Barry and the shorter stouter blond guy who had joined us was Hank.

  Barry whispered some directions to Hank before moving back over to take his spot in a comfortable looking recliner positioned so he could see out but not be easily seen from the outside. I noticed he had a radio clipped to his belt with an earpiece going into his ear as well. Hank also had one on, although the earpiece had fallen out and was just dangling at his side at the moment.

  Hank looked at us and stage whispered, “We don’t know you guys but we’ve got plenty to eat and drink in this store so don’t see much need at the moment to turn people away. Why were you guys running around in daylight anyway? You do know that you can move around a lot safer at night, right?”

  He was looking at us like we were morons so I answered him, “We kind of got stuck moving in the daylight this time. We’ve definitely experienced that night time is the best time to move if you want to live. How long have you guys been stuck in here?”

  Hank just nodded and motioned for us to follow him, completely ignoring my questions. I assumed that was probably the orders Barry had given him to not give us any information until they had a chance to vet us. Which was smart. We could easily have been part of an advance group for a raiding party, trying to feel them out and uncover their weaknesses so the rest of our group could come in and take over. Luckily for them and us, we weren’t so we did not have to deal with that kind of stress! All we were being vague about was that we had a hummer with some extra weapons and supplies sitting on the other side of the traffic jam. No need to lay out all our cards before we even anted up.

  Hank marched us through the warehouse. He had a flashlight with some red cellophane or something wrapped around the end of it and secured with a rubber band. The whole place was eerily quiet and we sounded like a herd of elephants walking down the empty aisles. Hanks light occasionally lit up enough of the area so we could tell there was more than enough supplies to keep a very large group of people fed for a very long time. Not to mention all kinds of other survival gear and supplies. Plus, about an acre of pretty much useless electronics. A pretty strong aroma of spoiled food hung in the air which ruined the otherwise fairly pristine environment we were passing through.

  Hank walked us into the offices where the employee areas were at the back of the store. In this area, there were some battery powered lanterns and other random devices giving off enough light to see by. There were cots along the walls and I’d say a good six or seven of them had people laying on them covered in sheets. It felt like it was about a thousand degrees in there. Hank walked up to a door towards the rear of the area where everyone was laid out sleeping and tapped lightly on the door.

  A woman in a Sherriff’s Deputy uniform opened the door. She was a little on the short side, petite with black hair. Possibly a little bit Asian or maybe Latino, I couldn’t really tell in the light. I figured her name may give it away if we she ever told us what it was. She mostly was just standing there looking each of us up and down. I took a moment to reflect on what she must be seeing and tried to put myself in her shoes.

  Reeves was still wearing mostly his camo uniform with combat boots and the large rucksack on his back fit his uniform well. He had his M16 slung over his shoulder and his baseball bat in his hand. His uniform had some mud and Zombie blood and a few other stains it was best not to think about too long but overall he was fairly presentable. Like most of us he was sporting a starter beard. He probably also stunk, but at this point pretty much everyone and everything seemed to stink so that was no longer something I thought anyone noticed anymore. “Stink” was relative, and their store smelled worse than we did with the huge amounts of meat and fruit and such that was rotting away.

  Ginny looked tired but definitely scrappy. She had on camo pants, hiking boots, and a black T-Shirt with a sketch artist picture of Minnie Mouse blowing a kiss on it. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail and she looked like her rucksack was making her stand in a permanently leaning forward position to maintain her balance. She had her shotgun in her hand, it looked like at some point the strap had evidently broken on it. She had blood and gunk all over her as well.

  I looked and felt like a picture of a hippy serial killer they found after years of searching hiding out on the Appalachian trail or something. I had on maroon jogging pants that were slightly too big so I had the drawstring pulled real tight on them, a pair of jungle boots, a grey T-shirt with a picture of Darth Vader on it and a green zip up hoodie covering it all up. I was sweating, I pretty much had not stopped sweating since the day the power went off. I was sure I stunk, I was starting to get a bit of dandruff, and I had a beard going that was annoying the hell out of me and leading to constant scratching. I had a web belt on I had grabbed from the supply closet at the Publix we had just run from with Reeves 9MM shoved into it and I was holding my sword in my right hand. My ruck sack felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds and I was pretty sure I had blisters all over my shoulders.

  I did not know how Reeves and Ginny felt after our run over here but I was definitely not in shape for the ironman apocalypse. Try carrying a big ass rucksack, jogging with a sword, swinging the sword at crazy people trying to kill you hard enough to kill them before they have a chance to touch you, all after spending the previous day and night being beaten by guys with guns. At least I had not gotten a concussion yet today so I had that going for me. It was still early though.

  I guess just to break the awkward silence Ginny stuck her hand out and said, “Hi. I’m Ginny, this is Reeves and the guy in the bozo pants is Steve.”

  I knew my pants probably looked stupid but I felt ‘Bozo pants’ was a bit rough. Especially as the Sherriff was fairly attractive in a ‘first female in my age bracket I’d come across in a while’ way.

  “I’m Ann.” The Deputy Informed us as she shook Ginny’s hand a
nd then Reeves. “Welcome to our circus.” She continued as she shook my hand and grinned quickly at my pants. “Why don’t you guys come into my office and take off those packs and we’ll have a bit of food and you can catch me up on how you’re doing in all this awesomeness and I can let you know what we’re doing here and we’ll see how this can work out for everybody.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I said and walked into the office with all the dignity I could muster while mentally making a note to figure out where the pants were in this store and get a new pair as soon as possible. Deodorant and an electric razor would also be welcome additions to the ruck sack. It’s not like those would make much of a difference to the weight of the damn thing.

  Ginny and Reeves followed me in and Ann came last, closing the door behind her after a quick word with Hank. Ann turned and looked at us then motioned towards a bench and some little fold up style chairs that we took and sat down in after putting our packs against the wall and leaning our weapons against our packs. Not being super trusting people anymore we all sat so as to be able to get quickly to our weapons.