Zombie Apocalypse Survivor
by Jason R. Thornton
Copyright © 2010 JASON R. THORNTON
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Zombie Apocalypse Survivor
Copyright © 2010 JASON R. THORNTON
Zombie Apocalypse Survivor
Days Notice
We have truly had many days to fix things up before the zombie plague hit us. It's been all over the news. It started overseas and then hit the West Coast. The military and police were all mobilized to stop it, but the plague keeps moving west. The White House claims that their efforts are slowing it down, but I personally don't think it would have made a difference. If anything, all those people manning barricades and the kill squads running around probably helped draw the zombies west.
I went early to stock up on supplies at the stores and I'm glad I did. It seems like everyone had the same idea and was grabbing anything and everything that they could. It was a very hectic experience, but I heard later that shopping became real nasty as the zombies got nearer. There were fights and a few murders. There was extreme price gouging. There were limits placed on how much food someone could buy. Towards the end there was just no food. There are quite a few people that aren't doing anything to prepare for the zombies. They are just waiting for the government to come along, to bring them their zombie food pensions and personal National Guard protection squad.
Even more people have already fled for the mountains. My neighborhood is super quiet now, since it seems like well over half of my neighbors have left. It makes me laugh to think of what it might be like in the mountains right now; Jim Bob with his 4 ton Chevy 10 cylinder power stroke diesel and 40 foot camper parked right next to Bill Bob in his 3 ton Ford 8 cylinder turbo charged truck and his 34 foot trailer, right next to 15 other red necks in a campground designed for a compact car and a tent. Maybe they've each staked out a mountain top and built a sandbagged bunker with their high powered 30-06 rifle ready to fend off zombies and raiders alike.
Personally, I'm going to sit tight and see how things go. I've boarded up the windows. I built a frame of 2×4's and 3/4 inch plywood that I screwed into the window frames from inside the house. I didn't want the outside of the house to look like a fortress. I wanted to avoid drawing attention from the living.
I'm all set and ready to go, sitting up in my attic, over the garage. I've set up a comfortable living pad. It used to get extremely hot, but I increased the ventilation and put up insulation to keep the heat at bay. I'm still able to watch the news coverage over the air and read it from the Internet. Hopefully power, telephone and Internet won't be affected.
I'm quite happy with myself, quite glad that I had time to prepare. I couldn't imagine being caught off guard like they were on the East Coast.
First Contact
It's 3 am and I have heard the zombies for the first time. I was having a dream about them, zombies, when they opened their mouths in my dream and screamed. The screaming continued as I made that awkward transition from being asleep to being awake. I slowly realized that someone was screaming from outside of my home.
My next door neighbors hadn't left. They were trusting in the police, the military or angels to keep them safe. It sounded like Carla, my neighbor's wife. A door slammed shut and Carla's screaming stopped. That's when I heard them, the zombies, for the first time. It was a low bellowing moan. It was followed immediately by more moans from further off. Then came the noise of breaking glass, more moans, and more screams.
I smelled them shortly after, the putrid meat smell. I've smelled a dead man before and I almost puked that time. I had to get in close to that dead man, to dig a key out of his pocket. He was already bloated and had only been dead a few hours. It was nasty. Thankfully the smell of death isn't too strong up here in the attic.
The screaming from next door has stopped and so has the moaning.
I can't sleep so I checked the on-line news. They report that the zombie plague has already spread all the way to the West coast, hundreds of miles past my location in the attic.
More of the first night
I still haven't slept much. It has started to get light outside, but I can't see anything that is happening outside since I have no windows, either in the attic or in the house. I guess that's one drawback to boarding up all of the windows. All night long it was crazy. I heard moans, screams, cars screeching and honking, pounding, glass breaking, and gun shots. I don't remember hearing any sirens.
Earplugs
I managed to get some sleep as the morning wore on. I put in earplugs.
It is quiet outside now, though I still catch the smell of rotting flesh every few minutes.
The major news outlets are reporting hordes of undead have massed outside of their studios, or to be clearer, the stations still transmitting are reporting that. One station still transmitting isn't reporting anything. They have a life feed from inside their studio. Everyone is dead and stumbling about on the set
Many of the bloggers are still going strong with their postings. Someone with a remote wireless hook-up in the mountains has posted that the situation in there has become scary. This person says the zombies can travel freely through the mountains and that the pickup trucks and camp-trailers don't make a good defense against a zombie attack. It also sounds like there are too many people trying to hide out from the zombies in the mountains. There is also a lot of rifle fire to draw the zombies in and a lot of stray rounds.
I have nothing better to do than to keep quiet. I wish I could see what's going on outside.
The neighbor kids and missing work.
This morning I woke up to scraping noises just outside of the house. The scraping just continued and continued without pause. Finally I decided to figure out what the noise was. It was a real pain in the butt, since I had to belly crawl to the very edge of the roof line and shove my face down onto flattened cardboard boxes laid down over the insulation so I could peer down at the side of my house.
There below me, looking like any other kid was my next door neighbor's daughter, little Suzy. She was sitting in the dirt and overgrown grass right next to my house. Her pretty brown hair was done up in pig tails. It was quite a contrast from her bloated purple skin. The ends of her fingers were now bare bone from scraping against the siding of my house. She just kept scraping and scraping. I really don't know what will give out first, the vinyl siding or her delicate little bones.
I've been coming down from the attic a bit. It's dark in the main part of the house, but I need to stretch my legs and take care of my bodily functions. I'm glad the toilets still flush. I've also gotten some good exercise on the stationary bike, without the distraction of having to go to work.
What about work? It seems weird to me that I just stopped going, but I don't feel a bit guilty about it. Even the few days before zombies were roaming my neighborhood streets, I wasn't feeling the list bit bad about quitting. It was nice not having to worry or think, “Oh no, I'm late and going to get fired.” I especially don't miss having to pretend that I care about the customers. That's one of people's biggest flaws. Always wanting
things their way, especially us Americans, pampered and self-centered. Every one of us has at least one car, a television, a music player, a roof over our head and food in our belly…and we tell ourselves that we're poor and neglected.
Nope, I don't miss it and I hope when the zeds clear out, that we, the survivors, have a lot more common sense. I hope. Too bad we're a flawed species and won't ever have common sense.
I'm sure I'll miss the company and challenges of interacting with living people, but for right now, I'm going to enjoy my break.
Flu
I've been sick for the last couple of days. Puking up my guts in a darkened house all alone is really miserable. I don't how I got sick, but I hope that it wasn't from a bad can of food. I'm feeling a little better now, just a little weak.
The few bloggers that remain, report that the mountains have become a nightmare. My joke about 'mountain top forts' seems to be the one example of a safe place in the mountains. The valleys were over-run as the ranks of zombies swelled with the bodies of freshly killed. Some of those were killed by the undead and some were killed by overzealous survivors shooting indiscriminately at anything that moved. They are also saying that food and water is becoming an issue, since the zombies have scared off all of
Zombie Apocalypse Survivor: The Original Story Page 1
