Journals of the Damned

by GJ Zukow

find someone outside of their houses they literally swarm that individual and bring them down to a bloody death. Hiding inside doesn't mean we're safe either. When the insane varmints see a human through a window they immediately start to crash their bodies into the glass until either they have mangled their little bodies into a broken heap or they break through. Once a window is shattered the beasts pour through in incredible numbers until everyone inside has been chewed, bitten and clawed to death.

  The infected animals show a couple of odd and disturbing new behaviors (odder than their vicious hatred of humans I mean). The first of these abnormal manners is their unnatural preference to attack humans rather than other prey. If there any number of the parasite ridden creatures, even if they are in the midst of fighting each other to the death, they will abruptly stop and rush straight towards a man, woman or child. They will always attack a human before anything else. The general consensus on this is that the parasite has somehow "flipped" the animal’s normal fear / aggression receptors, causing what they feared the most before to be what they now hate the most.

  The second weird new behavior, and nobody has anything but speculation as to why, is that there seems to be some sort of (as yet unobservable) method of communication between the infected ones. This strangeness and unseen communication crosses between the animals even when they are from totally different species and orders. This has clearly been observed in a recorded case where one animal (a squirrel, in this case) had found entry into a house through a chimney. A group of weasels who were trying to chew a space large enough to crawl through, at the space between the bottom of a rear door and the floor, immediately stopped and eventually made their way to the roof of the dwelling and went down the chimney also. If that weren't enough, a veritable horde of animals then came out of the surrounding forest to follow those that had found entry down the chimney stack. A neighbor had been taping the scene from across the street (safe in her own house) and while there is no video of what, exactly, transpired inside the house, the sound track left very little for the imagination. Gunshots, horrifying screams then silence. The silence didn't last long as shortly after they had killed the family inside, they turned on each other in the close confines of the small house. The sounds, to me, of the mass of animals screaming and yelping in pain and anger as they ripped each other to shreds, was just as terrifying (if not more so) as the humans screams of fear and pain.

  School has been cancelled, in fact everything has been cancelled. Only those services and industries deemed necessary are still open. Like the hospital where my mother works. The police, dressed out in full riot gear (shields, masks, shin-guards, padded black suits, etc., the works), stand guard with shotguns and those collapsible steel batons at the ready. They send a bus around, a prison transfer bus with metal bars around the windows and an interior cage, to pick up and drop off the doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel.

  Cattle, horses, sheep and deer, while not outwardly affected by the parasite, are having a difficult time surviving this surge of brutality. The only things that are saving their lives is that the contaminated animals don't rush in to attack them like they do with people. That and their relative size and the power of their kicks and bites (compared to the small size of their attackers) ensure that the critters that do attack them do very little real damage (as long as it's just a single attacker, when they are attacked in groups the domesticated beasts still fall under the sheer weight of numbers.

  My uncle David came by for a little while before things got too bad and dropped off an old M1 carbine. The anxiety on my mother's face was plain to see but she didn't refuse. Uncle David (my mother's older brother), was an avid hunter and had used this rifle for many years. He couldn't stand the thought of us being without some kind of protection so he gave our family this. It's fires .30 caliber rounds, and has a fifteen round clip. Along with the weapon he left us with a box of shells and a cleaning kit. He spent the whole day instructing us, including my little sister Lucy, in its proper use. A simple to operate, maintain and clean weapon that anyone from beginner to expert can use effectively. He also told us about safety and when not to use it. He said don't use it if the angle of the shot will put somebody's house in the line of the bullet, among other things. The bullet doesn't stop when it hits something small, it will continue until it hits something dense. I wish everybody knew that. There is sporadic gunfire going off, somebody let loose a shot that entered through the kitchen wall and lodged itself in the front door.

  Lucy is scared almost to tears, especially after the armed caravan picked my mother up for work and left her here with me. Lucy isn't allowed to go over to Mrs. Hoffner's house any more. My mother invited the almost eighty year old woman to stay here for the duration of the madness but she declined. Lucy was banned from her house since the other day when one of the doddering old lady's cats clawed her. The scratch marks weren't deep but Lucy is afraid of them now.

  Mrs. Hoffner apologized profusely, saying that the cat didn't want to be bothered because it's still sick, as all the cats around the world still are. I certainly hope that's the case, if not I fear for her life.

  As I wrote this, there are new reports from the Ukraine concerning other, larger, animals going mad. There's a video on the news stations of a group of a dozen or so badgers ambushing a security squad. All around the world people are doing as we are, shutting down non-essential services and having armed guards protect the installations. The video was hard to watch. The badgers crept in close, using the beautifully trimmed bushes and foliage around the hospital as cover. In a group they rushed the five guards. Two of the guards got off clear shots with their shotguns but it seemed the majority of the pellets just bounced off their thick hides (the distance appeared to be only a little greater than ten feet and the shots were badly aimed, but badgers have notoriously tough hides) and the lead two badgers were only wounded. The blood thirsty animals leapt upon the first two guards, four went after the first guard and three went after the second. You could easily see the hesitation on the faces of the standing guards, they held their fire not wanting to hit their friends. After the momentary hesitation, upon seeing that their comrades were now flat on their backs (screaming and futilely struggling as the monsters rapidly and repeatedly bit and slashed open their veins), the remaining guards fired off their weapons, killing two of the insane badgers before being knocked down themselves by the remaining group of fangs and claws. The unprovoked attack was dreadfully quick, having been over with in less than ten seconds. The last guard fled inside the building, leaving his comrades to die. For awhile after having killed the four guards the badgers desperately tried to gain entry to the building, clawing and biting at the doors and walls insanely. When the badgers finally gave up on trying to get inside the hospital they set about viciously tearing each other to little pieces.

  I can't write anymore today. I think I need to practice my aiming with the rifle my uncle David gave us. I have to be prepared to make the most of my first shot. If it comes down to it, I may only have that one chance.

  Monday, September 10, 2012

  Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Hoffner, is dead. It happened at a quarter after eight in the morning.

  Myself and my mother, creatures of habit that we are, still wake up as if Lucy and I have to get ready for school. There's no school today though. School may not open again for another couple of weeks. My body however (after almost twelve years of being conditioned to be awakened at a set time), doesn't seem to either know or care about whether it's a school day, holiday or weekend. My eyes flutter open and no matter how I may wish to fall back into my previously peaceful slumber, I can't. Once I'm awake, I'm awake for the day. Lucy on the other hand, can sleep anywhere at any time. I get jealous of her being able to sleep so easily at times.

  While I was eating breakfast, and my mother was starting the laundry, there arose the distinctive howls of cats fighting. The awful screeching was loud enough to be clearly heard, even though it emanated from next door.
I stopped eating then, listening nervously to the growing caterwauling as my mother came out of the laundry room. Lucy even got up and came into the kitchen, scared and tightly clutching her worn Elmo doll.

  The screeching and hissing reached a crescendo, it sounded like all six of the old ladies cats were loudly trying to kill each other. I knew right then that the cats had succumbed to the parasitic madness. Before I could fully formulate my thoughts for old lady Hoffner's safety she started screaming.

  The old woman's voice waveringly rang out, "Stop that! Bad cats! Stop fighting!"

  I knew that was a very bad thing. I know for a fact she knew what the disease does to the infected. She should have just stayed away from them and called the police. The police would have sent one of the new animal control squads out to remove (and euthanize) them. Maybe she thought her pets love for her would overrule their insanity, maybe she thought it was just another cat fight unrelated to the insanity. Whatever she thought, she thought wrong and paid for it with her life.

  "No! STOP! HELP!"

  Then followed long inarticulate,