Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

  “That’s using the old MOS! Whatever the hell that is keep doing it.” I looked around the room. “Ok, I think we’ve done enough gabbing for right now. What I think – “

  I was interrupted by the radio going off. We all got to hear the shaky voice of Barry saying, “The creaking noise is getting louder and I just heard glass crack I think.”

  I pressed the talk button, “Thanks Barry, stand by and let me know right away if you hear it again.”

  Looking around the group I went ahead and did my first set of emergency orders issuing. “Ann, please take Ginny and get everyone woke up, but quietly, and start working on the ‘bug out bag’ idea Ginny was talking about. Everyone needs water, food and a weapon at a minimum. Then comes extra clothes, first aid, ponchos or whatever else sounds like a good idea. Reeves, garb a couple of guys and go very quietly try out the garage door idea. I need to know what the loading dock area looks like. Hank, let’s go relieve Barry and check out what it is looking like up there now.”

  We all filed out of the room and pulled off to go our separate ways. Ann gave me a quick kiss before heading off to round people up to start putting together the bags. Reeves, of course, managed to be standing right there and provided some brief kissy-kissy noise sound effects and a comment about “Takes kissing up to the boss to a whole new level.”

  I asked him why he was still standing there instead of doing his job. He said he was waiting for his good luck kiss from the boss. I told him to STFU and get the gate and try not to get us all killed by being an idiot. “Now you’re starting to sound like an officer!” he managed to get out before I walked away.

  Hank had thought the exchange was pretty hilarious so I told him not to encourage Reeves. We both got serious again as we opened the door to move onto the warehouse floor. The creaking was obvious now even from way back here in the back. My radio went off with a status report from Barry and I waited until he was done to hit the talk button and let him know we were on our way to his position.

  When we got there Barry was not in an easy reclining position but rather standing straight up and staring at the front of the store. “It keeps getting louder. I haven’t heard anything else break but there is a lot of creaking and groaning coming from the wall.”

  “Yeah, that don’t sound good.” Hank chimed in. “Think we should try and get a closer look or think that may be pushing our luck?”

  “You guys stay here.” I said, “I want to go check it out. I’m going to leave my flashlight turned off and move slow so it may be awhile. I’m also going to turn my radio off for now. I’ll turn it on if I see something I need to let you know about right away.”

  That said I went ahead and clicked the Walkie to the off position and headed towards the front of the store with my flashlight turned off and my sword in my hand. I used the sword to slowly sweep the area in front of me as I moved forward to make sure I was not going to run into anything. We had attempted to keep the main aisle free of any kind of debris for exactly this reason. So, that when needed we could walk it in the dark to go look out the doors without being seen. Judging from the lack of light coming from the front of the store the sun had gone down. Which made sense since it should be past 8PM by now based on the last time I had checked the time. Of course, time had kind of started losing its meaning in here.

  I kept moving steadily towards the front of the store. Pretty much in total darkness but it looked like some light was up ahead so there must be a moon out or something. I kept down the path, occasionally getting too close to the side of the aisles but the sword I had in front of me kept me from bumping into anything too big. The closer I got to the doors the less it sounded like it mattered if I made noise or not.

  I finally reached the first set of doors and I carefully peeled back the towel we had hanging there to try and get a peek of what the outside looked like. At first I thought there was nothing out there then I realized the uneven wall I was seeing stacked up against the doors was the actual Zombies. Some were pushing on the doors and walls and a lot of the other ones looked like they had slipped into that come like state they go into at night. The ones pushing on the walls it looked like they were struggling to pretty much keep from getting crushed by all the ones who were leaning towards the front of the store. I had seen enough.

  It was bad but I didn’t think it was an insurmountable issue. It didn’t look like they were trying real hard to break through the doors or anything. I started on the way back, once I had been going for a bit I turned the radio on. I hit the talk button, “Hey Hank, can you flash the light so I can see where you are at. I’m on my way back and visibility is pretty much zero. Front doors seem secure for now.”

  Hank came back, “Flashing light now, you may want to hurry boss man. We’ve managed to rile up a bunch of the Zombies out back.”

  Well, crap. “Ok, on my way.”

  I met up with Hank and Barry, leaving Barry to continue to watch the doors I took Hank with me towards the back space. As we got closer we could hear what sounded like a whacked out Heavy metal drummer beating the crap out of his drums, during an intense lightning storm, while firing an M-16 inside a barrel. I may be exaggerating a bit but it was loud. We got into the main room and it was pandemonium. Clint Vass, one of Hanks neighbors, was standing off by himself looking pissed off and chagrined at the same time. It wasn’t a good look. The twins were screaming away but I figured that didn’t much matter at this point.

  I found Reeves, he looked pissed. I walked up to him, “What happened?”

  “I went and grabbed Clint to help me pull up the loading dock door. I figured we’d take our time and move it up about an inch every few minutes so that we didn’t make any noise or anything. I grabbed the chains and started pulling and had Clint lay on the ground and look out to see if he could see anything. So, he’s lying there, I’m slowly pulling up the chain, the door is coming up. He slides a little bit closer to the door to try and see out. Evidently he thinks he can see something. It turns out here was a bunch of the Zombies standing right there in the loading dock area, doing the trance sleep thing they like to do.”

  Reeves paused and took a deep breath. He looked over at Clint. “So numb-nuts over there sees the Zombies standing there sleeping and he it scares his pansy ass and he screams like a little fucking girl and all the Zombies snap awake and start trying to climb through the opening. I slammed it down and got it secured before they got in but slamming it down pretty much woke the rest of them up so now we’re freakin surrounded and the ones in the back may eventually get the ones in the front excited and if they get excited enough I don’t think thick glass doors and a couple stacks of Kibbles is going to keep them out for long.”

  Well, crap. “Ok, awesome, shit. Surrounded by thousands of killers and we’ve got what, like maybe two hundred rounds between all of us? We’re not going to shoot our way out of this.”

  I needed time to think so I told Reeves to make sure all of the backdoors were secured and to try and shut everybody up and keep any light from escaping. I headed over to where Ginny and Ann till had a line of people shoving stuff into Jansport bags and duffels. It looked like a sad version of a PTA night where they’re loading up school supplies for the poor kids. Instead of pens, pencils, and the exact right kind of folders teachers have to have or the world will end this PTA had a load of more practical items.

  “You guys Ok?” I asked Ginny and Ann.

  “We’re holding up. Everybody here pretty much wants to kill Clint, not even joking around, everything was pretty much silent and then we heard him scream. Reeves says Clint sounded like a little girl, I personally thought it sounded like a cat getting raped. Either way he was loud and not very masculine and we all hate him now cause those freaks outside don’t seem like they want to let up on banging on the doors this time.” Ann took a breath. “But the bagging is going great. We were able to get pretty much everything we needed from the pallets back here in the back. Ginny came up with most of the inventory so I’ll let
her run through it while I take some more time to sit here and pack bags and give Clint mean looks.”

  “Ok then, I agree with Reeves on Clint sounding like a little bitch.” Ginny said it loud enough to be clearly heard by everyone above the dull roar of the doors shaking and being beaten. “You said the priorities were weapons, water and something else. Neither one of us remembered any of the other things you told us except first aid and umbrellas.”

  “I never said anything about umbrellas.”

  “Well, good thing we decided that was a stupid idea and didn’t waste any time looking for them then.” Ginny pulled one of the completed bags over and held it out to me to hold. It was pretty heavy but not crazy heavy. I could see throwing it on my back and still being able to run. “We put these together as kind of your last resort bag. It’s got six bottles of water in it wrapped up in a hoody to keep you warm. A bunch of vitamins, Band-Aids, aspirin, and a couple of cans of soup. We also found a bunch of tool chest collections so each bag gets a secret toy surprise weapon as well. This one has a hammer, come of them have big screwdrivers, basically whatever we could find and fit in the bag. We wrapped all that up in a blanket to help you stay quiet, one of those little fleece ones they sell for you to throw on your couch.”

  “What are you putting in the duffel bags?” I asked.

  “Pretty much a bunch of other crap we found that wasn’t good enough to make the backpack pile. Mostly more water, food, clothes and blankets. All the medicine is up front by the pharmacy except for the stash we have here which I am going to personally carry around in my backpack so no one decides they want to chill out on a bottle of Oxy.”

  “Sounds good, let’s hope we don’t end up having to grab these and run but if we do your guys work may very well have saved our lives.” With that I gave Ginny a hug and kissed Ann, hearing kissy-kissy noises in the background I refused to acknowledge. Seriously, at some point these people are going to need to grow up. I headed towards my next meeting.

  “Clint, can you walk with me for a second?”

  Clint came over and immediately started trying to apologize, “I’m sorry, I freaked out. I’ve never been like that before. I didn’t see them at first then when I moved to get closer I could kind of tell what they were and then the one I was looking at opened its eyes and reached for me. It scared me. I don’t even remember this scream everybody is beating on me for.”

  “Don’t worry about it. But remember next time you are in a similar situation, fear gets you killed out here, noise gets you killed and everybody around you killed. I have no idea how you can possibly try to control an involuntary scream but figure it out. Meanwhile I’d pretty much ignore all the BS from everyone else. They’ll be using it as a joke and laughing about it once all this noise and the fear of death calm down a little bit.”

  Clint said thank and apologized again as my Walkie hissed to life.

  It was Barry, who had just reported in a few minutes ago, weird for him to be reporting again. Loud enough for everyone to hear standing around me he came across the radio.

  “The doors are shattered. Run.”

  Entry 34: Rock and a Hard Place

  What Barry didn’t know is we couldn’t run. We had no place to go. Zombies were beating on the loading dock doors and now they were also pouring in through the front doors. I started looking around and noticed the fork lifts sitting around that we had been ignoring since we got here.

  “Hank!” I said his name loudly and he showed up in front of me as if summoned by a genie. “Can you get a forklift going and start putting pallets of stuff in front of all the doors?”

  He looked at me, started to say something, then thought about it for a second and just nodded, rushing off to find the keys and get the forklifts in motion.

  I looked around to see who was near me. “Ann, Ginny, can you two make sure everyone has one of those packs on their back and a weapon of some kind in their hand? It may come down to us fighting our way out of here.”

  Ann handed me a pack then helped me shrug it on and fastened it up on me. I had my pistol in its holster and my sword in my hand. I held the other Walkie in my other hand. I depressed the talk button, “Barry, where are you? Have you made it back here yet? We’re planning on sealing up the doors and need you in here before we can do that.”

  Barry came back, “Sorry boss, I got cutoff and climbed up a couple of shelves to escape. I’m hunched down behind a bunch of boxes full of AC filters now. I’ve got my light turned off but I can hear them all moving around below me. They honestly don’t seem super revved up except for a couple of yells and screams here and there they’re just kind of shuffling around in the dark. Maybe they’re just planning on using this place as a den?”

  Crap, sounded like Barry was stuck but at least he was alive. I hit the talk button again, “Ok, go ahead and turn the volume down on your radio so you don’t attract their attention. We’re penned in back here so if you don’t hear from us you’ll be on your own. Keep your radio by your ear and try to follow what we’re doing though as we may need your help to get out of here and I’m going to try and figure out a way to get you out of there too.”

  “Thanks Boss, standing by.” Came back Barry’s whispered response.

  Hank turned on the electric forklift and picked up a pallet of diapers I’d been walking around for forever now and set it down in front of one of the smaller doors leading to the main warehouse. He wheeled the forklift over to where I was and pointed at one of the gauges. “I’ve got about an hour maybe with this lift before the batteries die then there are a couple of other ones I can try. What are the priorities here?”

  I thought about it, “Any place you can think of that has weaker doors than the rest should be the first ones to be shored up. The places where the loud banging is coming from the most definitely needs to be shored up. We need a way out of here too so please try and figure out what you think the best way for us to escape would be. Also, Barry’s stuck out there on a shelf behind a bunch of air filters so be thinking about where the hell that might be and how he can get out too.”

  Hanks nodded and spun the control on the forklift around to move himself over to the next pallet which he picked up and started moving towards the loading dock doors. Those doors were vibrating visibly from the beating the Zombies were giving it from the outside. Hank wheeled over towards it and while lowering the pallet it caught on the door and fell the last couple of inches making a loud smack when it hit the floor.

  The ‘smack’ caused a chain reaction. The Zombies at the loading dock freaked out and started beating twice as hard and screaming their heads off. This noise was loud enough to be heard by some of the Zombies who had wandered towards the back of the store so they freaked out and started hammering on the doors and walls leading to the warehouse as well.

  I saw Hanks face fall. I figured it was because of the loud noise he had just made. It wasn’t. “Swinging doors lead to the deli!” he yelled out before putting the proverbial pedal to the metal on the forklift and skidding out of site with the forklift high beams on.

  What the hell was he talking about? The pounding was making it increasingly harder to think. I saw Brenda was huddled in the corner with her two young kids. I tried to figure out what a swinging door by the deli meant. Vince evidently figure it out first as he started running in the direction Hank had disappeared. I hit the talk button on my radio.

  “Hank, what are you talking about with the deli?”

  Hank came back, “Swinging doors leading out to the warehouse for the butchers and such to easily push stock out onto the floor since they push meat carts and stuff all the time and have their hands full a lot. It’s full of rotten meat and nastiness so we have all been avoiding it. There was a lot of nastiness there so I’m not sure it ever got locked. I’m headed there – “

  The radio transmission cut off. I stood there in indecision for a few seconds until I heard the screaming and yelling from down the corridor. I yelled for everyone to turn of
f their lights and get in the shower room. Then I ran over and grabbed one of Brenda’s kids and ran for the shower room with a kid tucked under one arm and my sword out in front of me. The yelling was getting a lot closer. I ran into the shower room and practically threw the child onto one of the chairs in there before turning around and running back for the door.

  I stuck my head out to look around and didn’t see anyone else coming who looked like they were part of our group so I slammed the door shut and locked it. About five seconds later the beating began on the door. This time you could tell the Zombies were serious about beating the door down and I could feel the frame vibrating as more and more of them piled up on the other side to beat on the door. I looked around at all the faces. Everyone was staring at me like I had some kind of idea on how to get out of this. My leadership had basically lead us all into a small room which was fixing to be breached at which point we were all going to die. I looked over at where Brenda was sitting holding her kids and I pulled myself together.