The Dead Lands Diary Vol. II)

by S. David Staggs

  I thought of all the safe houses we set up all over the county. The Hutt for example, that sheltered us for a time in the bitter winter. Then my mind wandered to our home outside of Hiram. How it was destroyed by those damn Bolters. How Tim sacrificed himself for us to get away. And then a sudden thought hit me. With trying to survive all those months after, I just didn’t think about it. Yes, I know he was likely torn apart, but he had also been infected. I imagined him somewhere off in the woods he ran to as a Stagnant. What if he was just sitting out there rotting away, waiting for an occasional animal to wander within range? The thought got me off of my couch, disturbed, and out the door heading to Reggie’s.

  Reggie opened his door and looked dumbfounded at my expression. I asked him he wanted to go for a drive. He agreed despite being confused and clueless.

  REGGIE: The breeze is nice. So glad spring is here, ya know? Rolling along with the windows down.

  ME: It is. It brings a little peace of mind and clarity.

  REGGIE: So?

  ME: What?

  REGGIE: Where are we going?

  ME: Wasn’t sure you’d want to come if I told you first but you’re the only one I wanted with me for this.

  REGGIE: I feel honored and fuckin’ tricked at the same damn time. It’s very fuckin’ conflicting. Ugh, where are we going? Am I gonna get shot again? Cause my arm is finally feeling better. Just level with me, Jack.

  ME: You’re not gonna get shot. I was just thinking earlier…about how Tim saved our asses that night.

  REGGIE: I try not to think about that night. What brought that on?

  ME: I just got to thinking like, what if he’s still there? What if he’s infected out where he ran and we just left him in that state?

  REGGIE …I never thought of that, man. The only fleeting thought I had was he was, well, you know…nothing left to turn? Gosh that sounds horrible, I don’t know how else to say it.

  ME: About the only way you could put it. I thought the same but then I thought what if he was intact enough to be a Stagnant? I have to know. He wouldn’t want to know he’s out there like that.

  REGGIE: I have to know, too. Thanks!

  ME: I know that was sarcasm, but mine isn’t…thank you, Reggie.

  REGGIE: Don’t mention it, man. You’re like my brother. I’m with you on everything.

  [the remains of our past home came into view through the still dead trees. The long drive overgrown with weeds]

  ME: This brings back some memories…

  REGGIE: It’s eerie being back here. Just park at the end of the driveway and we’ll walk across through the field and woods.

  ME: Read my mind.

  REGGIE: So many memories. Good and bad.

  ME: Yeah.

  I parked and we stepped out. I looked down at the old remains of the house. Brush was growing up through the blackened wood.

  We made our way across the street and into the high field. We were mindful of the tall grass and the potential for Stagnants to be laying around. Thankfully, the whole way was clear. I pointed ahead to the area we had last seen Tim run in that night. Seemed like forever ago.

  A few yards into the woods we stopped when we heard some shuffling. A few more yard ahead we could see an infected on the ground. It was gone from the waste down and was trying to turn itself in our direction. It only had one arm to do this and was extremely slow. I recognized what was left of the shirt, though. A yellow shirt now darkened with dirt and long ago dried blood. Soon we saw his face. He was recognizable. Barely.

  His hair was patchy and skin leathery. It looked up at us and in the emotion I wasn’t even thinking about the Dead Call. But it never came. It just looked at us. The mouth opened and chomped at the air but no sounds emitted.

  Reggie sighed and we began to approach. Once closer I saw his throat was gone. Either from decay or from being torn out that terrible night. I felt like a horrible person. All this time he’d been here like this. He was infected and then ran to save us. Ran to a terrible and painful fate and here he was. Like this. I let him stay out here like this and hadn’t even thought about it till all this time later. I felt like breaking down and Reggie knew it. He slapped my shoulder and said he gets it. I knew he felt it, too. He said what mattered was we were there now. It took awhile, but dust settled and we came back here for him.

  I walked up and got down on my knees next to him. He pushed himself up on his one arm and looked at me, still trying to bite at me. His arm was starting to buckle. He was weak and hadn’t fed in quite some time.

  I placed my left hand on his head and he tried to turn up at my arm to bite. I push his head down slowly and to the ground. I held the side of his face and reached for my knife. I told him I was sorry…I thanked him and kept apologizing. Finally, I plunged the blade into his temple and he went limp.

  I broke and sobbed by his rotting corpse and Reggie knelt beside me. I felt I was half crying cause of Tim and half because of the stress of the war and it being over.

  We weren’t actually expecting him to be here. I had hoped he wasn’t. Therefore, we didn’t bring shovels to bury him. For that we returned later and Jim, Kelly and Ben accompanied us. He is there near the wood line now with stones around his mound. Ben had crafted a cross from some wood Alan had in the barn. He etched his name into it carefully. It was nice.

  A week went by and now it was time to deal with one final matter: Victor.

  **

  Victor was eccentric and very open. A very straightforward man with little concern to speak his mind. He seemed even to have little concern about his situation. For such a ruthless man, he was surprisingly mannered to me.

  Mind if I sit and talk with you?

  Just to pass time? Are you this bored?

  No. I’m just curious to get to know you a little bit.

  Why? We both know you’re all going to kill me, right? So what’s the point in getting to know me? Stop beating around the bush already.

  I would just like to hear your side of things. How it got to what happened. I want to know who you are and why you did what you did?

  Why I did what I did? Hmm. As in what? Be specific if you want to talk, please.

  Well, let’s start with just you. Victor…?

  It’s just Victor.

  Okay. Where are you from?

  Kent.

  Always from this area?

  Yep.

  What did you do before?

  Nothing special. Manager of a retail store. And yourself?

  Mall security guard.

  [nods] nothing wrong with that. Guess neither of us are special. Lose people?

  Yeah. Haven’t we all?

  Of course.

  Who’d you lose?

  My wife. My son.

  Oh. I’m sorry.

  Janet and Lance. Married five years…kid was four. We lived not far from the campus and we just watched everything fall apart through the window. Then they set up that refugee safe zone. I knew that was a bad idea…and I was right. I just wanted to get them out of there. We made a break for it. Gathered some essentials like water and some food, got in the car and headed toward Ravenna. We only got a mile or so before it was just pointless. Cars everywhere, coming and going alike. Then, horns started going crazy up ahead. And we saw the dead. They were running down the street toward us. Climbing cars and running between them. Many were bypassing cars and others stopped when they’d spot movement inside a vehicle. Breaking the windows and pulling people out. My wife and I crawled into the backseat and stayed down with our son between us. He was petrified and his mother had to keep him calm, so as not to cry. We watched them run past…growling and screaming. We also heard the screams of people. It went on for hours. After maybe, I don’t know, four or five hours we looked around. It was quiet as far as we could tell. We heard screaming further behind us at the safe zone. I crawled up front and told them to stay in the back. I looked around and started the car. I pulled to the right and drove onto the sidewalk and past the deserted
cars. I looked in the mirror and saw two runners gaining ground. I floored it and my wife and kid shouted. She looked out the back window and yelled for me to go faster. And then one rushed from the side somewhere and into the street. I was looking in the mirror and didn’t see it. I hit it and it rolled quickly up the hood, up the windshield, cracking it, and then off the side. I lost control of the car. I sideswiped a telephone pole and skidded into a veterinarian clinic. Right through the front of it…through the glass and into the little lobby or waiting room area. We were jostled and disorientated. As I was pushing my door open…it was a little jammed, as I was trying to get out, I heard the back window shatter. I heard my wife and child scream. Shrill screams then…things just came through the window clawing. Biting. Started pulling them out and tearing them apart. I watched my wife and four year old kid be clawed and eaten alive.

  Anyway…I stayed locked inside the back of the clinic for days. Eventually, the water I found ran out. Some snacks had been there, but then it came down to animal food. I ate it, I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to go out there. But, the day came when I had to [sigh].

  When I finally unlocked that door and walked out into the lobby area, I stared at my car for a long while. The blood in the back. From behind the car I could see my wife’s dead arm. It wasn’t moving and I didn’t see my boy. I walked over and, bracing myself, went around the car. Those beasts had completely destroyed her head…no reanimation. I walked out into the cloudy morning. I remember it was cloudy. I walked up the street toward Ravenna. For what purpose, I have no idea. Guess because it was where we had been heading anyway and it felt like the way to go. I took no caution whatsoever. I didn’t care if some of those things saw me. Maybe it’d be the same ones that took my family and I’d join them. Maybe it would be my own son. The way I was at that moment, I wouldn’t have stopped him from killing me. I don’t think. Anyway, after a mile maybe, I found my kid. He was face down on the street and not moving. I ran toward him and slowed down…wasn’t as if he was okay. I saw him shredded by those things. I could tell he’d been dragged down this street while being torn apart. His head was split from presumably being dropped or thrown. He never turned. I sat down in the road by him and lost track of time. In shock, I guess. I was stirred out of it from something shuffling behind me somewhere. I turned and saw one of the fast ones, but it wasn’t running. Had a busted up leg it was dragging. I stayed sitting but turned in it’s direction. It reached the sidewalk and stepped down onto the street and lurched at me. I remember smiling and waving it over to me [laughing]. I was ready. Then some guy came jogging over with a baseball bat and clubbed the thing to death. In a matter of speaking. He asked me, how’d he put it…if I was “fucking crazy?” Yeah, that was how he put it. I just kinda nodded and said, yeah…probably. He shook his head and reached his hand down to me. I was conflicted as to if I should take it or sit there and wait for the next dead guy or gal to show up and finish me off. I took his hand and he pulled me up. He saved my life, even though I didn’t care, so I thought I’d take his company for a bit at least. His name was Harry. You know him, since one of your people put an arrow through his neck.

  And he put a bullet in one of my people’s face.

  Yeah, I saw that [laughs]

  That amuses you?

  It all amuses me. As we closed in on town we ran into two guys that worked for me at the store. Duke and Will. Also dead as you know. We found a few other guys in the building that became my home. Over time we began to put up some defenses. Small walls at first that we gradually built onto. Other people crossed our path and some joined us and we welcomed them. Others kept on their way and others tried to take from us and we killed them. After some more time, we got to thinking how nice it would be to have more people…some came along and stayed, but after awhile the ones that just wanted to stop by on their way somewhere us got on my nerves. Expecting some free supplies to help them the rest of their way, as if resources were everywhere around us. No, if they wanted something they were going to work for it. I don’t know why the others started looking to me as some kind of leader. Maybe because Duke and Will were already used to me telling them what to do and they just went along with what I was saying. The others just followed as well and the rest is history, as they say. Some people did really good work, helped us out a lot with setting up more walls and digging gardens and the such. So, eventually, I decided I wasn’t letting them leave. In fact, we were going to find more. Some came along and I knew they could work directly for me while others would be slaves. They got fed and had shelter so they can’t complain that much.

  More than half of them are malnourished, as we speak! So yeah, you fed them well.

  They’re alive, aren’t they?

  And the ones you killed? Or got infected? You couldn’t just let them go if they weren’t working to your expectations??

  Why would I just let them go when they could serve other purposes? Infected on the walls were a good defense and deterrent. Heads on pikes, too.

  The first winter…after it all happened. My friends and I caught a glimpse of your so called retreat. We saw the heads and it certainly deterred us.

  See?

  We started referring to you people as the “Head Hunters.”

  [laughing hysterically] That’s rich. I like that. Harry would have gotten a kick out of that.

  Yeah, good ole’ Harry. The man that likes to hit women.

  Yeah…he wasn’t always the nicest. I made sure he was punished for that. I didn’t tolerate that. My my my, you saw plenty watching us. Girls name was…Beth was who got hit, yes?

  Yeah. She’s fine, too. I’m surprised you know any of their names.

  I knew some. Not personally, just from hearing others talk and watching interactions from my window.

  Why’d you keep Hank as one of your men?

  Hank? I don’t quite know that myself. Such a nervous boy. I’m sure you could tell. So…you didn’t kill one of them?

  Not him. The rest are all dead, but Hank didn’t want to be there…we could tell before he even stated it himself. He knew you were a monster and he told us all about you. All he knew anyway.

  I’m not shocked at all of him jumping ship. Predictable for someone like him. Monster? I ain’t that bad, ya know…

  You pushed a man to his death from the top of your building!

  [laughing] Hank tell you about that??

  What do you think?

  In front of everyone, the guy spit in my face! I had little choice but to make a strong example out of him in front of everyone so they knew better than to pull even the slightest with me. He brought that on himself! I should have taken his friend and tossed him, too. He just had that look in his eye. And alas, he killed how many of my men when you attacked? I don’t know. I didn’t have many left to begin with. Listen, I didn’t care. I lost everything!! My life was gone. Part of me died with what I lost. I didn’t take much value in others.

  After what happened to you and your family, you’d think maybe you’d want to actually help others instead of enslave and torture!

  You’d think. I didn’t.

  Harry should have let that thing kill you in the street. Many people would be alive.

  Would they? How do you know? Maybe they’d have already been killed by the dead or shot and killed by someone else. And maybe you’re right…maybe some would be alive. Maybe all! Who knows. Maybe they would have ended up finding your group instead.

  Perhaps they would have. That would’ve been great. Instead they found you. Or you found them.

  Yep. Maybe Harry should have let me die…I sure didn’t ask for his assistance. Speaking of which…when are we getting this over with? Kill me already, cause this is getting boring. Why drag it out and beat around the bush? You will vote and you will kill me. Let’s get to it.

  We are. Tomorrow.

  Fantastic. Do I get a last meal??

  We haven’t even decided your fate.

  [laughs] oh, please. You know what i
t will be as well as I do. And it will be unanimous!

  Actually, I know of one person here that would actually vote to just keep you locked up. At least one.

  Well, they shouldn’t. No point.

  Hank told her the same thing.

  [laughs] Oh, I’m sure he did. You go now…talk to your jury or whatever it is. I’ll see you tomorrow. Look forward to this charade.

  **

  That evening all of us, minus Larry and Ray, who were guarding Victor, gathered in Alan’s home. I told them every detail of what Victor told me.