Day by Day Armageddon

by J. L. Bourne

  Another option is to go back to “old faithful” Seadrift.

  Across San Antonio bay, on the western shoreline is another small town called Austwell. I figure we might as well check it out while we are gathering supplies, and food. I need extra batteries for the NVGs and some first aid supplies.

  John is recovering nicely and almost has limited mobility of his arm. The lacerations are healing but without stitches, he will have to take it easy for a while. Jan used duct tape to dress the wounds and keep them closed. Yet another use for it. William promised Laura that he would bring her back something from our trip. I suppose it was customary when William went away on business, to bring his little girl something back. I will do my best to make sure that happens.

  I really dread these outings, and wonder if there will ever be a time when I can walk freely again. I will continue making the shopping list tonight, and then, I will gas up the boat in the dark to avoid attention. I am going to try to be in the sack by midnight.

  March 13th

  0745 hrs

  Ready to leave. The equipment is loaded onto the boat. It has stopped raining, and the water is not as choppy. Left my Walther P99 with John, and Jan. Not much firepower left behind for them, but I don’t think they will need it. Our destination is Austwell, TX (Opposite side of San Antonio bay from Seadrift). Austwell is also a small dot on the map, hopefully indicating a small population of undead. This outing serves two purposes. One, to get William more comfortable with being among them so we can plan for a bigger picture. Secondly, to gather much needed supplies.

  We now have six souls in our little marina island (including Annabelle), and with two people, I estimate we can only gather maybe a weeks worth of food at a time. This means that we are theoretically forced out into their world once a week, which in my opinion is one time too many. I need to step out of the box with my shopping. Yes, the junk food, soup cans, and other things we have been looting are great, but the lack of vitamins and exercise is catching up with me. My metabolism has slowed down from lack of being able to run.

  Luck be with us.

  2233 hrs

  After leaving the marina and paddling out to “safe engine distance” we cranked it up and sped toward San Antonio bay. I could see birds in the air, and the smell of the open air was refreshing. Soon the Texas mainland was in plain view in front of us. Entering the bay was exactly like the two times before. After reaching the western shore, a few private docks could be seen. Up a small hill from each of them, stood a large house. I suppose the docks were for the owner’s boats, although I could see none tied up.

  We cut the engines and started our two-man rowing toward the shoreline. I sat and thought about how silly I would look to an onlooker if this had never happened. I closed my mind and continued to row, imagining that everything was normal.

  It was a complete mess. Windows were shattered, rats, trash, newspapers, everything was blowing around the dock and street. There was large parking lot in the asphalt area beyond the marina ramp. I could see five creatures surrounding a white compact car, and beating their rotting hands on the windows. I could not see inside of the car from this distance and angle. I assumed that there was definitely something in the car that the creatures were after, and an even further assumption would be that it was alive, whatever it was.

  Quietly, we rowed to the tie up point and docked the boat. I slung my empty pack on my back, put the pry bar in my belt, put some heavy plastic zip ties in my pocket and readied my weapon, then stepped into this new world. I didn’t look behind me, but I could feel William’s presence there. I could almost smell his fear. I was probably more afraid than he was. Scanning the area, we crept across the ramp to the shore, eyes trained on the small white Ford that was surrounded by the dead. As soon as I set foot on terra firma, I grabbed a fist sized rock on the shore, threw it as hard as I could, about twenty meters beyond the car into the windshield of a large black truck. It sounded like someone beat a snare drum when the rock hit home. The things instantly stood erect and started walking toward the area beyond the car.

  I told John to stay back and watch for them while I checked things out. I was almost on top of it. The car was an arms length away. I reached out to touch the hood, feeling its cold surface. I could see a figure with the seat down, lying in the driver’s seat. It was an attractive woman that looked in her early twenties. The car windows were caked with dried rot, and puss from the creature’s relentless pounding. Most of the windows were cracked in a spider web pattern.

  I put my face up to the window to get a closer look at the woman. She looked dead. I could see signs of extreme dehydration in her face. Her lips were dry and flaky. The creatures that were gathered here, were now preoccupied elsewhere. I called William over. I asked him how long it took for one to turn (I remember him telling me he had witnessed this before). He said that he had seen a man die in the street, as he watched from the attic of his home, and he turned within the hour.

  Nothing made sense. There was an open bottle of aspirin spilled out onto the passenger seat, and empty plastic water bottles strewn all over the car. She couldn’t have been dead longer than a day. I suppose the question I was asking myself was, why didn’t she turn like the others?

  In the back seat, I could see numerous fast food beverage cups, filled with what looked like feces and urine. She had been trapped in this car for what looked like a few days.

  Then there was movement. First her mouth gestured a weak yawn, and then her eyes started to flutter. I trained my weapon on her and told William to watch my back and keep a lookout in the immediate area. Expecting to see the familiar milky death orbs staring at me, I was surprised when she opened her eyes, and I could see the blue in her irises. She looked up at me in shock. To her, I was a strange man, wearing a mask, with a machine gun pointed at her. She looked behind her and around the car and with her lips only, said with no voice, “I’m alive.”

  I pulled off my mask and went to the door to open it. It was locked. She smiled and looked at me, and unlocked it. I took her arm and helped her out of the car. She stank worse than those things. Maybe it was the car. I had to support her as she walked. She was very weak and sore from being trapped in the car. Looking over my shoulder, I motioned William to follow me back to the boat.

  After reaching the Bahama Mama, I sat her down, gave her some water and some canned beef (my lunch). I told her not to eat or drink anything too fast. I didn’t have time to stay and chat. William had his instructions. He was to row the boat out twenty meters and drop anchor and wait for me. I was going shopping.

  As I stepped back onto the dock, I could hear William rowing the boat away from me. I reached the parking lot again, and I could see more than five in the area. I stayed low and followed the shoreline toward the town. No sign of life anywhere. No dog, cat, nothing. I didn’t even see any birds flying over this town. I was coming up on a group of buildings. I cut inland and walked toward what was the center of the small town of Austwell, Texas. After a few hundred meters of walking, I stepped through a clearing. I could see a Walgreen’s and a gas station.

  I doubt Walgreen’s had any food, but I was certain they had medical supplies. I crept up to the front door, sticking to the wall. This door was different in the way that it actually had chains holding the doors shut from the inside. There would be no way for me to get in without busting the glass, and attracting them. I walked to the back of the store. There was a drive up window for the pharmacy there. That side of the building faced the woods. There could be hundreds of them in there looking at me and I wouldn’t know it. I couldn’t feel them, but then again, I wonder if that sense still exists when it comes to their kind.

  There was a steel exterior cargo shutter door, probably for new shipments. Tried to lift it up. Locked tight. I really need to get a book on lock picking from the local library. Pulled out the bar from my belt. I placed the bar under the shutter underneath the keyhole. After a few minutes of prying, cursing, and sweating, I finally broke the lock. I che
cked my surroundings, noticing that I had garnered some unwanted attention one block away and closing.

  I attached my LED light to my carbine and twisted it on. It was dark in the cargo area as it was separate from the sky lit main retail part of the store. I shined the light into the room. I could only see boxes, steel shelves and various other normal things. I jumped up into the loading bay. Just as I started to slide the shutter door down, two of them rounded the corner and caught sight of me. I slammed the garage door type shutter down and immediately thought of a way to secure it. I held the shutter down with the bottom of my boot just as the first creature started beating on the metal. They would attract more. The plastic zip ties in my pocket would do no good, as I had nothing on the ground to secure the door to. I glanced over to the corner of the room where I found a mop and some nylon string. Walking over the corner, I kept my right foot along the lip of the door, and my left for balance. Grabbing the mop, I wedged it between the rollers that made the door slide up smoothly. Using the twine, I secured it in place. There was a heavy box on the shelf full of plastic bottles of mouthwash. I sat the box on the lip of the door where my foot was. This wouldn’t work forever, but it would have to work for now.

  After I was satisfied that the door would hold for at least a little while, I stepped into the pharmacy. Numerous pharmaceutical books lined the shelves. Picking up the Physicians Desk Reference, I scanned it for any possible useful information regarding medication. I would love to take this back to Jan, but it was a rather large book and would take up valuable backpack space.

  There was another book listing numerous antibiotics. Using this book, I grabbed bags of pills left in the pick-up bin that would never be claimed. Basically anything with a “biotic” on the end of it found its home in the plastic zip lock bag in my pack. Jumping over the counter, I landed on the main floor and immediately pointed my weapon toward a blind spot of the store.

  Looking up, I noticed that this store had convex observation mirrors, enabling easy view of most of the area. I checked the mirrors, and cleared the store, row by row. The creatures were still steadily banging on the back shutter door. I hated this. I felt rushed. Tylenol, hydrogen peroxide, bandages, band-aids, I stuffed them all in the big zip lock freezer back with the antibiotics. I saw some iodine on the shelf and remembered in Navy survival school that iodine worked as a water purifier. I tossed it in the pack. I was thirsty. I grabbed a warm bottle of water off the shelf and downed it. My pack was half way full. I passed the candy bar section and grabbed a chocolate bar.

  Opening it, I realized how long it had been since all of this started. The bar was long stale. No matter, I needed energy. On the toy aisle, I found a small teddy bear, and put it in the pack. After eating the candy, I started looking for my escape.

  I was at the main entrance doors. The chain was a standard, heavy steel chain. I didn’t want to walk in front of the doors, in case I had to use this way as a way out. There was no way I would get that heavy steel Master lock off without either shooting the hell out of it, or hitting it a hundred times with a fire axe. I grabbed some duct tape off the store shelf. Quietly, (not that it mattered over the sound of the creatures in the back slamming against the metal shutter) I taped up the bottom section of the glass door, making sure that I was not seen.

  It took a few minutes but soon the whole section was covered. Then, using the fire extinguisher from behind the counter, I bashed it outward. It wasn’t as loud as it could have been, but still too loud for me. Quickly, I headed back the way I came, through the wooded area toward the marina parking lot. I had been gone for over an hour. I ran through the woods. I was nearly sprinting. I could see the clearing ahead of me.

  There were two of them in the woods in front of me. I juked them and kept running. When I hit the clearing, my heart stopped. There were so many of them. I skirted the parking lot, avoiding attention. I had no choice but to make myself known. I ran out toward the dock and I knew that they saw me. Their orchestrated moans bounced off the water and echoed from all directions nearly demoralizing me into the fetal position.

  I was in flight mode. I called out to William. No sight of the boat. I kept running. —Still no boat. Looking back, I could see them all converging on the dock. No way out. I had ten feet of dock left and the things were twenty feet from my position. They were so hungry. They were rotted, putrid evil. In their frenzy, they knocked their fellow demons into the water —just to be the first to eat my flesh. I turned and ran.

  I dove into the water and started swimming away. I did the sidestroke for a full minute before I started treading water and looking back toward the dock. The dock was full of bodies, so full that many fell off from lack of standing room. There I was, treading water, alone. I kept imagining that there was something below the water tugging on my boots. I was terrified and accidentally swallowed some water down the wrong pipe and imagined how many of those things were rotting in the murky deep.

  Then came the hum of an engine. I still had all my gear strapped to my body, but it is surprising how easy it is to float if you just blow some air into your clothing. I waved excitedly at the boat. It was William. He saw me.

  The boat went to idle and drifted over to my position with the engine still running. I handed William my pack and my rifle from the water. I then pulled myself on board. William told me that the parking lot filled shortly after I left. He had no choice but to try and drive them away from the marina for my safety. I checked my backpack; only a little water seeped into the freezer bags. Not enough to hurt the contents.

  We headed back to John, Jan, Laura, and Annabelle. I was wet, cold and without the food I set out to get. If the boat had not shown, I don’t know where I would have ended up. I’m not sure how long I could have swam and would have undoubtedly been followed down the shoreline until I was too tired to swim any longer. Admitting defeat, my tired body would have been torn apart as I stumbled into the shallows —Into open arms.

  Ides of March

  March 15th

  1822 hrs

  I spent yesterday and today fighting off a cold from my recent swimming adventure and also cleaning and drying my rifle. Only in a world like this could a common cold mean a death sentence. It’s not bad, I just feel weaker than normal and a little fever. Jan advises against using any antibiotics unless in dire need, as she claims the body would get used to the medication and it would do no good in the future if really needed. Jan also tended to the new arrival, Tara. Tara had been trapped in that car for days. She was on the verge of dying from dehydration when William and I showed up. She was feeling better. Tara had made sure she stayed hydrated and in bed.

  I caught her looking at me a few times today. She didn’t catch me, but I did the same. She was attractive, and I am human. I overheard her conversation with Jan about how she got to the dock.

  Trapped in her house in Austwell, she saw an opportunity for escape. She made it to the marina and was spotted by three of them while looking for a boat to escape in. She had no choice but to seek shelter in the nearest unlocked car she could find. Tara was a marketing major at a local junior college. She commented on how none of it mattered and figured that her marketing career was now over before it started. Both women laughed at this.

  William and John took the boat out and caught ten fish yesterday. John was up to it and I figured some sun would do him good. Laura asked me how my trip to the store went. I told her it went fine, and that I was sorry I didn’t find her anything to eat. She said it was ok and that her daddy didn’t bring her anything back from the trip anyway. I remembered the bear. I gave it to William so he could sun dry it before giving it to her, as it got wet when I jumped in the water to escape the creatures. I told Laura not to be sad and that he had a present for her and he was just waiting for the right time to give it to her. She smiled and walked off to investigate.

  Raw fish isn’t my favorite entrée, but millions of Japanese can’t be wrong. Well, maybe there are a million of them left alive, I wouldn’t know. Once aga
in, my personal groundhog day is coming and I dread leaving again. We need a better life, and a better place to live.

  March 17th

  1833 hrs

  Around the table we were, like knights of old, discussing our battle plans. Jan, Tara, John, William and myself discussed at length all possibilities for finding a new place to live. An island strong hold has a certain mystique and attraction, however we ruled this out due to the constant need to travel to the mainland and scavenge. Where would a defensible position exist that was not near a major city?

  There was a large map of the United States on the wall in the gift shop. It had no detail, just rivers and state lines and capital cities. I pulled the map off the wall, and we all studied it at length. My own selfish reasons kicked in, and I suggested we take a boat along the coastline and cruise up the Mississippi river to find a suitable location (would be nearer to my parents). That was one option. William suggested we go by land to avoid the catastrophic effect of boat mechanical failure. John suggested sailing along the coast around southern Florida, and straight to the Bahamas.