Journals of the Damned

by GJ Zukow

February 20, 2013

  I realize it's been more than a month since my last entry. To be truthful there hasn't been anything to write about for some time now, until today. I suppose I could have described the new safe house and the surrounding area before today but I didn't see the point. Even today's event may turn out to be nothing, simply a result of an over active and overly paranoid mind. Whatever the case may be, I'm bored and have nothing better to do, so I guess I'll do a little writing.

  Most of the houses in this area are spread out. The amount of land each house sits on varies anywhere from less than an acre to ten or more acres. There's a relation between the age of the houses and the size of the land. The older the house, the more land it has. The bigger, and older houses, were built prior to World War Two, having the old style wiring and walls that are covered in slats and plaster instead of modern drywall. All of these older houses have the remains of barns, chicken coops, stables and in one case, an aged double outhouse. The newer the building the less land it has. The more recently built houses have none of the secondary buildings except for a large shed or unattached garage. There is one small subdivision in the area, consisting of around thirty or so houses, all of which sit on small plots (following the standard American suburban set-up). There used to be a large house, practically a mansion, with a surrounding wall and private gate that is now nothing more than ruins.

  The two story house we're holed up in now appears to have been built in the sixties or seventies, having been renovated with some basic security upgrades. There's a single camera at the front door and all the doors and windows are hooked up to a security system. It literally took me hours of searching to find the codes for the alarm system. The doors have had additional locks placed on them and the safe room appears to have been built on a separate foundation slab.

  The nearby town's small business section, along what most people would consider the main street, consists of no more than a dozen businesses and a single grocery store. A fire had swept through and destroyed the police station and township offices.

  I haven't been able to scout or loot any of the small town’s downtown buildings due to a large number of the undead. There are hundreds of them all over place. There is an old population sign with the towns motto "Welcome to the small town with the big heart." Just over a thousand people used to live here, now the former residents of the town wander around the streets in search of the living. Most of the walking dead seems to be centered around the small town's post office. I can't get close enough to tell if they're trying to get inside it or if they're just grouped close together around it, I can't even get a good view with my army issue binoculars. There may be survivors holed up in one of the downtown buildings but I can't be sure.

  Most of the surrounding houses are empty, with the rare exception of the odd zombie that couldn't find a way outside to join its detestable brethren. This, to me, is another example of the undead grouping up into something like a herd. There must be some sort of basic communication going on between them. I would love to capture a few of them and do some research but that would be folly.

  There isn't a lot of food left in any of the houses or buildings that I can get to. Allan and I have grabbed every scrap and morsel we could find but it won't last us more than a couple of months. I get the feeling that it's all been picked through and raided before we got here.

  Lately I've been getting the feeling we're being watched. I don't like that one bit.

  Tuesday, February 26, 2013

  Since all the windows have been boarded up there is no way to look outside. I briefly thought about taking the panels off of the second story windows but decided against it. The benefits of the covered windows are just too many now that that dead hungrily wander the earth in search of the living.

  I found an access hatch leading to the attic in the master bedroom's closet. The space is small and confined, requiring one to crawl between boxes of old clothes and what I would call junk. The former occupants who stored the materials up here obviously didn't consider them junk, they considered them memories. I tossed most of it in a spare bedroom for more space. On either end of the low peaked roof there are ventilation covers with fans hooked up to the central air. I removed the fans and controls so I could open the ventilation slats (they look like metal venetian blinds) and look out. I have set up a watch post up there. I can only see east or west through them but it's better than nothing. I have a hunting rifle with a decent scope up there along with a set of night goggles I appropriated from the dead in my scavenging of Orlando.

  I told Allan to maintain a watch during the day and I would take watch at night. Once an hour he goes outside, armed, and checks the perimeter with the binoculars to ensure nobody is spying on us. I don't expect Allan to find anybody during the day, it's the night when I expect they'll come. If our watcher would come during the day, openly, I would expect them to have better intentions. If my suspicions are true and they come at night, I'll know that their intentions are hostile towards us. The fact that whoever it is hasn't already tried to make contact doesn't bode well to begin with. Of course I could be imagining this, with all that's happened and the extreme amount of stress I've been under I could be over reacting.

  Friday, March 1, 2013

  For two days we've been keeping watch and there was nothing. Allan seems more interested in playing with the X-Box than anything else lately, I can tell he doesn't think anybody has been watching us. I told him we needed to keep this up for a couple of weeks at least, just to make sure.

  Last night, around three in the morning, we had a visitor. The boredom and the hour was getting to me, making me tired and lax. I almost missed her.

  The resolution isn't the best, looking through the night vision goggles is kind of murky but I swear to the Gods that the woman who came out of the woods to check out the house was naked. She wasn't completely naked, she wore a shoulder holstered sidearm on each side and a gun belt. I couldn't really see if she was one of the "Reds" or not but she must have been. No one besides one of the insane would walk around buck naked in the middle of the night in March.

  I was never able to get a shot off at her, she was quick and the metal slats impeded my view.

  All I really saw of her was when she crept along the east side of the house where I was. My view, looking down, is horrible and I'm lucky I spotted her at all. She must have came from the north or south side, my blind sides, as I move back and forth between looking through the east and west vents. How long she had been on the property I could only guess, but now I knew without a doubt that we were being monitored and probably hunted.

  This morning, as soon as it was light out I went and did a check of the exterior of the house. The softer ground under one of the attached garage's small windows held the slightest impressions of footprints. Footprints, not shoeprints. It took me a second to notice that all the screws, except for two, holding the thick wood over the window had been removed. The two remaining screws were loose, ready to be removed easily so she could get in whenever she had wanted. She had to have been there for some time, the screws were set very tightly. I heard no whine of a battery operated drill, nor did I see her carrying one, so she must have used a simple screw driver to remove them. I was pissed at myself for not spotting her doing that. At least I did end up seeing her, and I did catch what she had done before it was too late. If I hadn't seen her last night I doubt either Allan or I would have checked the boarded up windows for missing screws. We gave the house a good going over and searched the area for anything else amiss but found nothing. Allan wanted to fix the board back up but I told him not to. I wanted to catch the bitch in the act when she came back. I didn't want her to know we were on to her.

  Tonight I'm setting up watch in the garage. She'll be back, I'm sure of it.

  Sunday, March 3, 2013

  I waited in the garage for her return. The two car garage had both the Suburban we had brought with us and an older Cadillac, along with some assorted stuff the previous owner h
ad stored here. I thought about taking the vehicles out and possibly stashing them next door or somewhere out of sight but decided against it. The reason I kept them in the garage was that I didn't know how much inspecting the parasite maddened woman had already done and I didn't want her to suspect that I was on to her plan. The bitch could easily have already scanned the interior of the garage, we had no idea how long or how many times she had actually been here. My plan was to kill or capture her once she crawled through the window. I would try to capture her alive and question her, then kill her when I was done. Either way I was going to put the "Red" out of her misery. I don't think she had actually been inside the garage, the screen was still intact and the window itself was shut, locked and alarmed. If she had found a way inside the door to the house itself was also always locked and alarmed.

  I had Allan gather up our stuff, ready to move if we had to, and pack it into the Suburban. We honestly didn't know if she was alone or if there were others with her. This could have gone down any number of ways and I wanted to be prepared. I can't say that I planned for how the events unfolded though.

  I waited