by Rob Fox
We decided to stay in that building one more night. Tomorrow, I will post the letter she wrote. Tonight we are going to rest as much as we can. Zombies that move as fast as she did scare the hell out of me. I need to try to clear my head and prepare for what we may face in the near future.
Day 66
The girl’s note, written on the back of an OSHA poster:
"To whoever finds this,
“I am going to die soon. I know this because I have been bitten by one of those things. I have decided to lock myself in this room so I cannot hurt anyone. For a long time, it has only been my boyfriend and me. We have been surviving on anything we could find. Since the outbreak began, we have been in this damn theme park, hoping someone would come rescue us. Day after day, week after week, we had been waiting for someone to come help us. Two weeks ago, my boyfriend Shaughn went for help; he never came back.
“I went looking for food a few days ago and came across a group of those things. I fought them off as much as I could, but one of them bit me on my leg. I got away, but I know what happens when you get bitten. I saw my family change right before my eyes. Now I guess I am going to be joining them. I don't know how long I have left.
“It has been two days since I got bitten. I feel really bad. My mouth is so dry, and my stomach feels like it is being ripped apart from the inside. My head has never hurt so bad, either. I am so cold. I am going to put on this stupid animal suit. Hopefully, it will help warm me up a little.
“I don't know how much more I am going to be able to write. My hands are cramping up so bad. I have been vomiting all night and all day, even though nothing comes up except for some blood every now and then. I never thought it would end like this. I was going to be a lawyer. I miss Shaughn.
So cold. So sick. Won’t last much longer. Things are getting dark.
“I hear people in the other room. I must be hallucinating now. I think I'm going to sleep for a little bit now."
She must have changed right after we arrived. Poor girl. We will never know her name.
Day 67
We were awoken early this morning by the sounds of explosions in the city. The explosions rocked the walls and knocked things over throughout the room we were in. It felt like a big earthquake that just would not end. I ran over to the door to see if I could see anything going on outside. When I looked outside, large pillars of black smoke were rising from the heart of the city. From behind the building flew five jets directly towards the city. Once they were right at the edge of the city, they all let their rockets fly. Three large buildings were destroyed within seconds! Five more jets roared above us, heading in the same direction.
Tonya let out a yelp of happiness. She yanked Cole up and began hugging him. Dustin patted me on the back. “It’s just about over, buddy!” he kept saying to me. A great relief swept over me; it will all be over soon. This is the first I had seen the military since all this began. The military to the rescue! I don’t know why, but I feel like everything is going to be okay now. Those zombies are fucked now! The U.S. military, the best the world has ever known, is about to open up all hell on them.
We sat back and watched them destroy the city I had once loved. All day long, they have been bombing the city. It’s the biggest fireworks display I have ever seen. Every two of three minutes, five more jets come in to drop their payload on the city. Tonya made a large sign on the roof so one of the jets will know there are survivors on the ground. I am sure they will be heading this way to come get us.
From up on the roof, we have been laughing at the zombies we feared the past couple of months. These poor bastards have no idea what is going to happen to them. My bet is that in a day or two, the ground troops will sweep through here, blasting any undead creature they see. They will rescue us, taking us to their secure base. Yeah, everything is going to be just fine. Hahaha! I bet Darcy is sitting at the base now, waiting for me to arrive. I know she isn’t expecting me, but I know she will be so surprised seeing me step off the military helicopter. We have made it! We have survived! Things are definitely going to get better.
Day 68
The explosions are still going on. No one slept much last night due to the light show. Every few minutes, another wave of attacks would come bursting overhead. It looks like the planes are getting closer to us, though. I am sure they have seen us by now. Today, a helicopter flew really close to us; I could see them looking down at us. We have been celebrating most of the afternoon. Every time a bomb goes off, we cheer. Some zombies have made their way to our location. I'm not sure how many there are, but we're not worried. The ground troops will surely come get us very soon. Ah! Even as I am writing this, I see three helicopters making their way towards us. This could be it! This could be the day we are rescued!!
The helicopters are circling our position. They have waved at us! We are saved!
OH CHRIST! They are shooting at us! Dustin has been grazed with a bullet. Why? Why would they do this to us? We are survivors. I have to get somewhere safer than this place. The bullets are coming through the ceiling.
Day 69
Things have gone from bad to worse. Dustin is hurt pretty badly. The bullet ripped through his right arm. We bandaged him up with some old rags we found laying around in the costume room. He is hurt, but I think he will be fine. None of us knows what is going on. The military is supposed to be on our side! They are supposed to be here helping us!
We made our way out of the building last night, moving quickly over the ripped apart bodies of the zombies. As we stepped over the bodies, they were still moving, trying in vain to bite us as we passed. It was hard to see, but I remember kicking a severed head across the street like a soccer ball. Cole slipped on a pile of intestines. As he was getting up, the body attached to the intestines began making its way towards him. All that was left of the body was the upper torso and a few organs. Cole jumped up, kicked the half zombie in the teeth, and leaped over him. We all ran as fast as we could the rest of the way through the theme park.
As we got to the far end, we helped each other over the fence and down into a sewage drain. We followed the drain as far as we could until we came to an opening directly in front of a large subdivision. Just as we emerged from the drain tube, two jets unloaded their ammo on the theme park, reducing it to a pile of burning rubble, ash, and twisted metal.
We ran towards the nearest house to catch our breath. As we turned the corner to move towards the front of the house, we could now see the city in all its burning glory. The sight of the city is more than I can describe. I remember seeing a movie when I was a kid about what a town looks like after a nuclear war; this was worse, much worse. The sorties the military flew on their bombing runs had taken its toll on the city. At one time, there were so many skyscrapers, you could not see the sky. Now, where we are, just over a mile away from downtown, we can see no skyscrapers. The whole area is covered by smoke and fire.
We all sat with our backs against the front wall of one of the houses. No one said anything. We all just sat and watched the city burn. I felt sick. The zombies want to eat us, the military wants to kill us, and the city is a desolate wasteland. Just when I was beginning to think things couldn't get any worse, it began to rain.
Day 70
The rain continued on throughout the night and into most of today. Thankfully, the air strikes have stopped. We found some shelter in one of the houses in the neighborhood. The house is a nice brick five-bedroom home crammed right in between two other houses. The houses look just the same, like so many other neighborhoods located on the outskirts of the city. From the pictures hung around the house, this was a family of four. The perfect little family: Mom, Dad, and the son and daughter. They were probably lawyers or something similar. All the house was missing was the little picket fence.
After we checked out the house, I called a meeting; we needed to figure out what we were going to do. There was little debate about whether or not we should go ahead and make our way through the city. We have t
o get as far away from the city as possible, and the only way to do that is to go back the way we came or head straight through. We decided to go straight through and take our chances on the burning city. The way I figure it, most of the zombies will be blown to pieces because of the blasts, so it should be the safest route. I am also hoping the military will decide to bomb somewhere else since they have already destroyed the city.
We gathered some supplies from the house and planned on heading out first thing in the morning. I am hoping we can get pretty far tomorrow. All we have to do is make it to the other side of the city and then about fifteen more miles and I am home. I hope I have a home. There is an Air Force base less than two miles away from my home.
At this point, I am not even sure why I am going home; it has been seventy days. Darcy would have run out of food by now, if she survived the initial wave of the undead. I have little hope of her being alive. I guess it is this gut feeling I have that she is okay. Hope for her being alive is the only thing I have to live for. It is what I have been fighting for.
Tonya just came into the room to tell us that she saw someone walking along the side of the house. I now see him also. He is looking in the windows of the house right beside us. He just turned and is looking directly at me. Friend or foe, I guess we will soon find out.
Day 71
When the stranger looked at us in the window, he saw me looking directly at him, so he ran. Dustin, Cole, and I all ran after him; if he was military, he would tell the others where we were. Cole, being the skinny kid that he is, got to him first. He kicked the stranger’s feet out from under him, causing him to flip head over heels before coming to a stop. We surrounded the guy, ready to pounce if necessary. I could tell he was scared; I could also tell he was certainly not military. He had dyed black hair and black fingernail polish on, though most of it had been scratched off. He kept begging us not to kill him.
Once we got him calmed down, he shocked us all by introducing himself as Shaughn. He said he had to get back to his girlfriend that was waiting for him at the amusement park! We didn’t know what to say; how do you tell someone his girlfriend was turned into a zombie, so we killed her? We said nothing about her.
Shaughn told us what it was like in the city before the military strike as well as the conditions on the other side of the city. He told us about the hundreds or thousands of zombies that were covering the streets in the city. He said he made it through the city (just barely) and made his way to the Air Force base, where armed guards are posted inside the fence with instructions to kill anything that approached. He told how he watched soldiers open fire on an unarmed family that was trying to get to safety on the base. He said after seeing that, he knew it was time to head back and to stay far away from the base. He decided to go around the city instead of taking a chance on going through it again. Had he gone through the city, we would have been nothing more than burning flesh right now. After talking for about two hours, he said he needed to see if his girlfriend was alive or not, so he left. We let him go without telling him of her fate. I don’t know if it was the guilt of killing her or the fear of what lies ahead that silenced us.
We have a hard decision to make. What a horrible time for a dilemma.
Day 72
We decided to go ahead with our original plan and make our way through the city and head towards my house. We all agreed that we would avoid the military base at all costs.
Traveling has been slow today because of the destroyed terrain. The city looks so alien now with all the buildings destroyed and on fire. We only made it a few miles before we had to stop for a break. We found an old convenience store that looked to be mostly intact and decided to stay here for the rest of the day. The only zombies we have seen today have been severely wounded to the point of only being able to crawl around. The ones we came across we would destroy and put out of their misery. The whole place was covered in soot and ash as far as the eye could see, which, because of the ever-increasing smoke, wasn't very far.
From the room I am in, I can see what used to be a bus station. All the windows have been blown out and the roof has caved in. You can see three or four dead people/zombies lying under the rubble, their hands burnt and broken. The smell of the burning city is enough to make even the strongest stomachs turn inside out. I don't know if it is the smell of all the burning flesh or the smell of all the rotting corpses; hell, it is probably a combination of both. In order to block the stench, we have all tied rags around our faces so we all look like bank robbers from the Old West times. Great, now we're playing cowboys and zombies!
In the background, we can hear helicopters flying around. I am thinking our best bet is going to be to find somewhere underground, maybe a sewage system. Anything to get us off the roads (or what is left of them). If there is even a sewage system anymore. If I listen even closer, I can just barely hear the faint unmistakable moans of the living dead. Though the sounds are faint, they seem to be getting stronger as the day goes on.
Machine gun fire can now be heard off in the distance. From the sounds, it seems to be coming from the helicopters. Part of me is happy for them taking out as many zombies as they can, but the other part hates them, not knowing if they may be taking out survivors. The helicopter does not sound right. It sounds like it is having some mechanical troubles.
Oh! The helicopter crashed. There was a loud explosion that shook the building we are in. Dustin wants to go check it out, so it looks like we are going to head that way. If nothing else, maybe we can find some weapons.
Day 73
We didn't have any trouble finding the downed helicopter; all we had to do was follow the ball of flames. When we arrived at the crash site, it was hard to determine what was helicopter and what was building. The copter crashed into a destroyed office building, breaking apart all the way to the ground. As we got closer, we could see the pilot hunched over the controls, his head almost completely removed just above the mouth. A metal rod from the building impaled the co-pilot. We quickly removed a few weapons we found laying beside the copter and had begun to head back to the convenience store when we heard a few cries for help. We had no intention of helping—these people had tried to kill us just a day or two earlier—but Tonya, being the caring person that she is, could not just let them die, no matter what they may have tried to do.
The first person we came to was a soldier laying about fifty feet away from the downed craft. He was laying face down in on the ground, and both arms looked to be broken. He was very bloodied but alive. Dustin and I carefully turned him over onto his back. His nose was broken, and he was missing his front teeth. As we began checking him for any additional injuries, I felt a hard piece of metal jam into the back of my neck. From behind me, I heard a man’s voice telling me to get the hell away from him. I turned to see a soldier wearing full chem gear, gas mask and all, holding an M-16 to my throat. I tried explaining to him that we were just trying to help. He was not listening to me or he did not care; either way, he was not budging. I threw my hands in the air and backed away from the hurt soldier.
Less then two seconds after I backed away, a white hand flashed out from under a downed wall. The hand grabbed the downed soldier and yanked him halfway under the wall. The soldier began to scream in agony and pain.
Dustin grabbed the soldier by the shirt, pulling on him as hard as he could to get him away from the feasting zombie. He pulled one really hard time, and the soldier came sliding back out. Only this time, it was only the top half of his body. The soldier behind me yelled in anger, pulled a grenade from his belt, and lobbed it toward the wall. As the grenade hit the ground, we all ran. Everyone except Dustin. He just stood by the wall, holding the now-dead half soldier in his hands. The grenade exploded less than two feet away from Dustin. The grenade scrap metal ripped through Dustin's body and destroyed half the downed wall.
With the sounds of the explosion still ringing in my ears, I looked around to see Tonya crying and running towards Dustin's lifeless body. Cole w
as lying on the ground beside me, his eyes wide with the shock of what had just happened. The soldier looked down at Cole and me as he stepped over us, heading towards the wall. When he got to the wall, he pointed the M-16 down and began shooting where the zombie once was. He glanced back at Tonya and Dustin and then turned towards a pile of rubble on the other side of the downed helicopter. As the sound began returning to my ears, I could hear the horrific sounds of the undead approaching. I scrambled to my feet, helped Cole up, and then went to help Tonya. She was holding Dustin’s limp body in her arms and rocking back and forth.
"I am sick of all this death," she said over and over again. I tried to calm her down as best I could. I assured her I would do my best to shield her from anymore death. I lied. I had to; we had to get out of there and in a hurry. We all three made our way quickly back to the store. As I was closing the door behind us, I scanned around to make sure no zombie eyes had seen us make our escape.
Looks like another night of silence. Silence other than the occasional scream and quick burst of machine gun fire.
Day 74
The screams and machine gun fire tapered off late last night, until it was nothing more than machine gun fire; then nothing. We are not sure which was worse: the noise or the lack of. We had every intention on heading out today, but we changed our minds when we saw the number of zombies that passed by our little shelter. We lost count after about two thousand. It looked like an undead army marching into battle. At first we thought they were wandering around with no place to go, without a direction, until it dawned on us that they were all going in the same direction the entire time. I wonder what they could have been going after.
