Dark Recollections

by Chris Philbrook

  Rather than go through the mudroom area, I opted for walking around the garage outside. It was getting chilly now that the sun had been down and gone for a bit, but it wasn’t cold at all. I kept the gauge at my shoulder, and peeked slowly around the back corner of the garage. In profile, lit without any glare from inside the window, it clearly was a dead guy. Well, mostly dead. One of the freshly risen.

  I crept across the backyard very quietly, and made it to within about 12 feet of the zombie, but I accidentally punted one of Danielle’s toys right at the fucking Zombie. I think it was a little plastic play set for a farm or something. Weebles went everywhere as the barn silo bricked off the dead guy’s head.

  Hey if anything, I’m funny.

  The zombie pervert turned abruptly and made a lunge in my direction. I popped off three shots in rapid succession at him and ended his ass quickly. Note to the uninitiated: Aiming with a shotgun is a relative thing. It’s like horseshoes, close is frequently good enough. One of the three shots hit him in the neck I think because his head just vaporized off his shoulders. I got a bit of warm spray to the face, which made me retch a little. I grabbed a shirt or something off the laundry line in the yard to wipe my face. Grossness anywhere else I think I can cope with, but keep the gore from my mouth, seriously, it’s fucking nasty, and completely un-fucking necessary.

  Filth off my face I made my exit, stage right. I’m not sure, but I think that zombie must’ve killed Dwayne. (the dog, not the basketball player) Makes sense at least. I have no idea where he came from of course, nor will I ever, but I find myself trying to make sense of this shit as time passes. I do have a LOT of spare time to kill. The mind wanders.

  So that was John and Dorothy’s place. Empty save for a few bits of food, some extra shotgun shells, one pervert zombie, and a dead dog.

  Next stop: Steve’s place.

  More on that cluster fuck in the next entry Mr. Journal. Stay safe.

  -Adrian

  October 20th

  I’ve been laughing about this since I left off on the journal a couple days ago. After the quasi-debacle at John and Dorothy’s I left for my friend Steve’s place. Steve actually lived near where I lived in town. It was more or less downtown a little closer to the center than my place, so I was worried about the condition of the world there. How shitty would downtown be? I would soon find out.

  Aside from the story: Tuesday was solid, nothing happened here on campus, and today was good too. It’s still kinda damp and cold out, but the rain has subsided. Feels like it’s getting a little warmer out.

  So the drive to Steve’s place was something like 6 miles from John and Dorothy’s place. I got back on the state route heading towards town and was sort of surprised at the lack of traffic. Well, the lack of traffic heading in the direction I was going. Cars headed east were practically tailgating at 80 miles per hour but heading west it was dead. That stands to reason though as heading east dumped them onto the interstate which would take them either to the more populated areas or up north where it’s pretty sparsely populated. I ran the stop sign at the end of their street btw, which kinda bothers me to this day. Foolish risk really.

  The drive to Steve’s apartment was smooth. No traffic accidents, no bullshit. One of the things that I actually had to laugh about was I finally figured out to turn off the goddamn CD I had playing and turn off the radio. Don’t get me wrong, I had been kind of enjoying my end of the world day to the soundtrack of Eminem, but I needed info now. I listen to the radio so infrequently it just didn’t occur to me that I had a media option to listen to. When I did listen to the radio, I usually listened to NPR, so when I switched, that’s what I got.

  I forget the exact details, but the radio reports were really bad. I guess things had gotten dramatically worse since I had last watched the boob tube or checked the internet. Hospitals were flooded during the day with people who were sick or injured, or who thought they were sick. Of course it took some hours to get things sorted out, and in the meantime, lots and lots of people got bitten or killed outright. That spread the disease. With the medical infrastructure totally fucked within 8 hours, things went from bad to worse. In a non-stressful environment there are shit-tons of car accidents, work accidents, home accidents etc. Imagine how many extra accidents happened that day, and in many cases from the sounds of it, no ambulances arrived to help? And if they did come, they probably took you to an epicenter of the plague or whatever you want to call this.

  If you haven’t figured it out by now Mr. Journal, shit was terrible by this point. Little to no medical care to be had anywhere. Hospitals and clinics were unsafe, as were the body collection areas they tried to set up. NPR said something like 5,000 plus cases of bite attacks were reported in New York State that afternoon alone. Can you imagine the fallout there? It had to be exponential.

  I listened intently the whole drive to Steve’s place. I was really hoping to find him there. Not only to make sure he was safe and good to go, but also I was hoping to drag him along to the school as a fellow “survivor.” He’s a helluva guy to have around. If only for comedic purposes.

  Downtown was amazingly sedate. Very few cars moving around at this point and a lot of darkness. The street lights were still on, and all the businesses were still lit, but I think those all operate on automatic lights. That or whoever was there went “peace-out” and left everything on. What was dark though were the house lights. A lot of the houses were boarded up, and a lot were probably empty. I also imagine a lot had their lights off to avoid attracting any attention. The thought of all the people huddled up in the dark was fucking creepy.

  Steve’s place is in one of the handfuls of small apartment complexes in town. We have weird ordinances here that prevent apartment buildings over two stories, so there aren’t many. We do have lots of old multi-family homes instead. Anyway, Steve’s place consisted of 4 brick and shingle buildings, arranged in a square with a central parking lot just off a street that’s perpendicular to Main Street.

  Each building had a single entrance with a central hall and stairway linking all four apartments. Steve’s place was on the second floor of the building closest to the street. Honestly, if Steve could block off and secure the central doors on the first floor, his place would be sweet to hole up in. Pretty secure.

  When I pulled in I scanned the parking lot for movement. It was well lit, and I could see maybe a half dozen folks putting shit in their cars frantically. Seemed pretty safe all things considered. I pulled right up to the curb in front of his place and got out. I took the shotgun with me.

  I hit the buzzer for Steve’s place but there was no answer. I hit it again and waited another minute or two, but zilch. This was normal for Steve. Steve’s couch was his close, close friend and often you had to text him to get him to answer his buzzer. His priorities were a little different than most you could say. He always figured fuck the doorbell, everyone he knew that was coming over would text him anyway. Random doorbells were probably Jehovah’s Witnesses, or girl scouts trying to sell a product that wasn’t a piece of ass. Hence: no interest, and thus no answer of the door.

  Pretty luckily though, one of his neighbors, a cute chick that I think he originally moved into the building to try and fuck came out just then. She blew right past me like I was a fucking lamp. No eye contact, no hello, nada. Women. End of the world and I can’t even get a phone number. I wonder if Steve ever got to fuck her? Seems like a little bit of a waste if he didn’t.

  Anyway I slipped inside after she left and went upstairs to his place. I found a note taped to his door, carefully handwritten with a little smiley at the end of it. I kept it, and here it is, in all its glory. (Spelling and grammar errors are original, and all courtesy of Steve.)

  To whom it may concern,

  If you are reading this you are either concerned for my well being or are about to loot my house. If the latter be the case have at, I left my broken laptop on top of my bed and that’s about as good as its gona get for you. If you fal
l under the categories of being concerned for my well being have no worries, I’m on top of my game.

  I’ve always wanted to have the playing field leveled and for better or worse this whole end of the world thing has done just that. So I figure while everyone else is panicking or hiding or just shitting there pants I’m going to go get the Benz I always wanted. I’ll be occasionally coming back into town to check on my parents at the “Davis Family Compound.” Who would have thought that my father’s ludicrous paranoia would have set him in the perfect position to survive the end of the world? I am never going to hear the end of it from him.

  Anyway since cell service is gone I finally have a reasonable excuse to use a CB Radio and can be reached on channel ten around noon everyday if you are in my vicinity.

  Much Love

  -Steve

  Lols.

  Off to the school I went.

  -Adrian

  October 25th

  10 fun zombie facts for the uninitiated!

  1) Zombies are almost entirely silent save for the noise they make while shuffling around. Use your vision and sense of smell to notice them!

  2) While slow moving, they never seem to tire. Running and frequently taking right angles seems to allow you to escape them. They do NOT corner well. Great on the flats though.

  3) Only wounds that damage the brain seem to drop them for good. Aim for the head or neck with your firearms or melee weapons. Remember, circling a single zombie works well. They turn around for shit.

  4) They are weaker than you, and are unable to pull themselves up. If you can change elevation, they usually cannot continue their pursuit. This also works if you can trip them. They frequently lay there for seconds trying to figure shit out, and then it takes them time to get upright. Plenty of time to either kill them or flee.

  5) Zombies appear to have excellent hearing. They are attracted to movement as well so if you can be quiet, and stay very still, there is a good chance they will not notice you!

  6) Zombies only eat the flesh of their victims so long as they are moving around. Once the person is dead and stops moving, the zombies stop eating, and pursue their next victim. Watched this happen several times now, and I’m not sure what the deal is.

  7) Zombies do not bleed. They ooze a thick, blood like goo.

  8) Zombies trip on just about anything in their way. If you can put obstacles in their way, most of them cannot wrap their decaying heads around how to get past it quickly. Eventually they will figure it out, but if you can get out of their line of sight and out of their hearing range, they’ll give up, and meander elsewhere.

  9) It seems like they tend to hang out wherever it is that they died. Some wander about, especially if they hear or see something go by. What this means though, is that where people died there are huge concentrations of the undead. Hospitals are like irradiated zones for danger.

  10) Lastly but not least, zombies don’t seem to be decaying at a normal rate. Not sure why, but it seems like once reanimated if they stay that way for any substantial length of time, say a week or more, they just kinda mummify. If you kill a freshly risen body though, it decays as normal. I think the Zombification factor may build up some form of preservation effect. Not a scientist, just taking a stab in the dark.

  -Adrian

  October 27th

  What a weird day. It’s hot out, and it’s almost November. The thermometer on the tree outside says it is 72 degrees. Normally not what you would consider hot but the humidity is really uncomfortable. I am really missing air conditioning right now.

  Today is Wednesday. My last meaningful entry was last Wednesday, so I’ve been slacking. Of course I only set out to put occasionally entries into you Mr. Journal, but I guess I’ve been enjoying getting all these memories out. Well, that and putting down some of the everyday details I am experiencing here on campus. It’s actually been helpful in keeping myself more organized I must say. I definitely have been more cognizant of the passage of time, amongst other things. Not sure what I feel like talking about right now really. I know I’ve got a lot left to write about in terms of the trip to get to the school here “that day” but I am not sure I feel like writing about that. Maybe. Let’s take a “stream of consciousness” approach and see what my fingers type out. Maybe I’ll get there.

  This past week has been uneventful. The weather has been shitty since my last entry so I’ve been both down in the dumps as well as unmotivated to do much. Otis has reaped the benefits of me being inside though. He’s gotten a pretty excessive amount of attention this week. I haven’t achieved shit around campus otherwise. I do two patrols a day now where I walk around the buildings and check the bridge to make sure no zombies or stragglers are wandering about. All week I saw nothing. I really think this was a great choice to hole up in, even if I almost died hardcore trying to get it safe to live in.

  Ah fuck it, you win, I’ll tell more of that story.

  Alrighty then! I think it was around 7:45 or so when I finally got out of Steve’s place and headed out of town to the school here. As I said before the houses were all dark, and the roads had calmed themselves down to a nearly empty point. I made good time down the side streets and finally out to the outskirts of town towards the school. I did make one last quick pit stop at the second to last convenience store going out of town. (not the one I just got the gas from, one a few miles away from that one.)

  I hit the gas pump and topped off my tank. Fortunately the automated atm charging dealie at the pump was still working so I didn’t have to go inside. The clerk watched me with intent worry the whole time I was pumping. She was just a little girl really, maybe 18 years old. She kept her eyes peeled on the road the whole time, and she scrammed when a car pulled in for her. I think I might’ve weirded her out because the whole time I pumped I held the shotgun and stood vigilant. What a different world just a few hours of nightmare can create right?

  So once topped off I got back in and skedaddled. I passed a few more cars than would be considered normal on the road that leads directly to the school here. You can always tell when there’s a shift change because the employees and parents are always coming and going at the same time. It’s like a school of fish, moving in concert at all times. This time though it was all expensive snooty cars booking it out. Easy guess was that the rich parents who shipped their kids off to the school were picking them up to take them away. I couldn’t make out all the plates in the dark, but a few I did see were from out of state.

  So up until that point my assumption had been that campus would be a quiet place, where I could set up shop pretty easily that night. I could not have been much more wrong. I remember crossing the bridge to get into campus and saw half a dozen cars parked at the admissions house. In the little yard I could see maybe ten folks all gesturing frantically, clearly agitated and alarmed. I pulled my car over, grabbed my sword and .22 and got out to check out the situation.

  Amy, one of the admissions women was trying to calm down about 8 parents. I took a roundabout path to come up sort of behind her so I could not only back her up, but so I could also hear better what was going on. It was hysterical. I guess these parents couldn’t find their kids. Anyone who has ever worked at a school, especially a private school knows that missing kids are a big deal. I was listening intently while scanning the campus surroundings. Everything was a nightmare. I could see at handful of cars all clearly crashed into random places. A few crashed into the sides of buildings, a few into guardrails, and a few into parked cars. Not sure what caused the crashes but you can use your imagination to figure that out.

  I could see other cars zipping through the campus getting the fuck out as fast as they could, nearly hitting other cars and some students and staff doing the same thing. It was a solid minute though of silence before I realized that everyone had stopped talking and was staring at me. Amy had turned to face me and the parents were giving me the stink eye. Rich fuckers.

  Amy’s comment got a laugh out of me. “What the fuck hap
pened to you?” I remember just shaking my head confused at her. I had no idea what she was talking about. She was kind enough to point out my current blood soaked clothing and generally disheveled appearance. I remember looking down and being shocked at my own appearance. I was fucking covered in zombie goo. I had streaks of blood all over my sweatshirt, my jeans, and apparently my face. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror all day. You know, in retrospect, it might’ve been the fact that I looked like a blood-soaked, shotgun toting maniac that the girl at the gas station was weirded out. Live and learn I guess.

  I shook my head at her and told her it wasn’t very good out there. I think I told her I had had a “long day.” The parents look mortified, and Amy not much different. She filled me in as the parents started to build up speed and fervor in their yelling again. From what she had gathered school had started as normal that day. (incidentally, “that day” was a Wednesday) As the first few hours went on, school officials realized shit was going down, and entered into lockdown mode. The kids were sealed into a few of their classrooms with their teachers, and the campus was more or less shut down. Locking the students into classrooms caused a few problems that were unexpected. A few of our kids were diabetic, and had insulin reactions or “sugar attacks” as my grandfather used to call them. One of our kids had epilepsy, and apparently he had a seizure due to missing some meds. These problems just compounded everything making it a very rough place to be.