by GJ Zukow
Christmas of the undead, I'm more depressed about the fact that my mother and sister are dead. At least Lucy is dead again. I don't know if my mom's flesh has risen from death, but I feel it must have. I feel guilty about not putting my mother's corpse to rest. I tried to make my way to the hospital again but there seems to be something happening on the streets. I keep wanting to go and find my mom's animated flesh and put her back in the grave where she belongs. It feels disrespectful for the parasite to use my mother's body, commanding it around, instead of letting it rest quietly as it should.
The local zombie population in the areas Allan and I had been active in is fairly low. It's a different story outside our zone. It was rare that I had gone into a building or house and there wasn't a zed, or two, inside. The surrounding blocks are thick with the undead. I hadn't been keeping count of how many of the horrid abominations I had eliminated, now the numbers are visibly clear. On this street alone there are twenty-one buildings. If I hadn't killed the occupants of those buildings there would be around thirty or so more of the beasts on the streets now.
The vast majority of the undead had come out of the buildings they had died in. They weirdly came outside and they started assembling together. They stand together, about ten feet apart, forming huge groups, like an animal pack. There must be something calling them together like that. It's unnatural, there may actually be some form of communication, but it's hard to tell. About a week ago the undead, walking ghouls had finished breaking out from whatever building they had originally died in. In the silence the sounds of the frantic poundings, as they beat down and through walls, doors and windows, was nightmarish. It was as if something was urging them together.
There's a herd of the hungering undead in every street now. The area around the hospital is completely overwhelmed with them.
The roaming herds of undead slowly make their random way around, sometimes forming up with other packs and sometimes small groups will break off from a bigger herd.
It's way too dangerous out there now to do much scavenging. We have enough food to last us months. It may not be for awhile until we can go out again but we won't starve.
There's something else that's worth noting. It's hot out. It's still in the nineties here even though we're almost through December. It's gotten cold for a few days here and there but for the most part it's been like summer hadn't ended.
I don't understand if the sudden stoppage of all the greenhouse gases we had been producing has anything to do with this. Mankind as a whole had been putting out great quantities of pollution and now it had suddenly stopped. There will absolutely be ramifications from that, hopefully they won't be very severe.
Monday, January 7, 2013
New Year's has come and gone.
Allan spent New Year's Eve getting drunk, quietly I must add, and staring at the darkened TV set. He didn't turn the TV on, he just sat there and drank and looked at it. I know he's depressed. Later on, around midnight, he broke out some marijuana that he had picked up somewhere. It wasn't a lot and I joined him in smoking some.
I didn't drink any booze or nothing on New Year's. I never really liked the alcohol buzz. The weed was OK, it wasn't the same though. All it did was make me more paranoid. I kept thinking of how the last time I had smoked it was with a couple of friends. The experience was of getting high with friends and getting high now are worlds apart. It did help me to sleep better, but I don't think I'll be getting high very much from now on.
I've been doing a lot of sleeping lately. Sleep, eat, go to the bathroom. Once in awhile take a shower, and then back to sleep. It's a sign of depression and boredom. I don't remember dreaming anymore. I would say that I stopped dreaming but Allan says I haven't. He wakes me sometimes when I thrash around and start mumbling and talking in my sleep. He wakes me because he doesn't want me to start yelling in my sleep, drawing the unwanted attention of the hungering abominations. Allan has nightmares too, I've had to rouse him from bad dreams making sure we stay quiet. It's better I don't remember my dreams, good or bad. I've seen the affects of some of those nightmares on Allan and they can bother him for days.
The weather hasn't gotten any better. Six days ago there was a bone chilling cold snap. The temperature dropped below freezing for two whole days and was immediately followed by blistering heat. The wind is intense. Fierce gusts of wind blow in, alternating between hot and cold, coming in from opposite directions.
The zombies struggle against the cold. The cadavers the parasites now inhabit are no longer capable of generating any body heat. On that second day of the freeze, the animated undead nearly ceased in their movements. Most of them stood in whatever position they had been in, frozen. It didn't kill the parasites, unfortunately. When the cold snap passed I was depressed when they resumed their foul actions. It was bitterly cold out and I hadn't grabbed any cold weather clothes. I'm positive that it had never gotten this cold in the Orlando area for a long, long time. On the day the things practically froze I layered up on my clothes and Allan and I went outside and re-cleared our zone. It was easy to do, for the most part they were defenseless. Makes me think I should head up north somewhere, find a small town and clear it of the undead.
Allan and I worked hard that day, working almost from sun-up to sun set. We took the opportunity to do some more scavenging and there are two vehicles in the firehouse bay now. We now have a tow truck and a four wheel drive Chevy Suburban, all packed up and ready to go.
We may need them soon.
For one thing, the days after the freezing weather, a herd of over a hundred made its way into our zone. I'm almost convinced that they can sense our presence in the area. They moved in and have stopped in the street outside the firehouse. They don't know we're inside or they would be trying to get in. It could be coincidence, but my fear tells me it's not. It's as if they knew we're in the vicinity but they don't know exactly where we are. Every day more join them. The worst part of being trapped in here is the lack of vision. The downstairs office windows are boarded up and I couldn't look out of them if I had wanted to. The only other window in the building is here, on the second floor and it faces into the back lot. If I go outside and peek around the building to see how many have gathered I run a huge risk of being seen. The only view I have of the assembling horde is through a small opening at the top of one of the roll-up bay doors. The view is limited and hard to get to. When I do spy through the narrow crack the view is filled with the undead. There's so many of them outside now that they are starting to spread out around the fence, making it risky to even look out through the garbage bag covered, shattered window.
The wind is getting bad now. It's really strong. A hard, cold rain is pouring down. If it weren't January I would say a hurricane was bearing down on us. That's the last thing I need right now. There's a strange green tint to the sky, a bad omen if ever I saw one. Allan tells me a green tint to the sky means its tornado weather.
New fires have broken out, I can see and smell the thick black plumes of smoke rising up here and there. The cold brought on the automated response in many buildings central air units (both Allan and I jumped when the firehouse's heating kicked on). Furnaces and heating coils came on, unattended and ignored. Some have been damaged, blocked or whatnot, starting fires that quickly turn into little infernos that burn for days. The cold rain is smothering them, finally.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
I am no longer in the firehouse. We had to abandon it.
My life seems to be filled with extended periods of complete and insufferable boredom. Followed by a few days of frantic and perilous activity where my life can end in agony if anything goes wrong. To be honest (and maybe there's something wrong with me), I get a huge rush from beating the odds. I haven't slept yet today, I'm still too amped from the past few days. Allan is the complete opposite, he prefers to find someplace to hide and live like a mouse, fearing to leave or go out until the fates force him. I don't feel sad about the events that lead me here, although I know I should.
Sleet and hail the size of golf balls, driven by the ferocious winds, came down for a time. The hail came down with such force that every window in every house, building and vehicle had been broken and shattered. The intensity and strength of the hard balls of ice also took out a number of the undead, bashing in the skulls of the undead brutes through repeated strikes.
When the storm first started in earnest, it was lead by an incredibly active lightning storm. Allan and I watched it through the lone window upstairs, awed by the thunder and flashes. It was an incredible show, arcs of pure electricity were stabbing down every other second for almost an hour. Fires from the strikes, whipped by the winds, quickly turned into block consuming conflagrations.
Then came the heavy rain, ending the fires. The wind built
