Journals of the Damned

by GJ Zukow

throughout the night with my weapons and my night vision goggles, crouched between the vehicles. Again around three in the morning she showed back up.

  Quietly, almost without a sound the plywood came off the window. The loudest sound came when she set the plywood down and it banged slightly against the house. If I hadn't have known she was out there I wouldn't have noticed her.

  For the space of a few minutes there was nothing. I couldn't see her and there was no noise at all. My heart started racing and my adrenalin started flowing when I saw her, cautiously, peer through the glass and inspect the interior of the garage. I ducked down and waited for her next move, I didn't want her to see me and run off. After a moment I poked my head back up and watched as she cut the screen away. After that there came the unmistakable sound of a diamond tipped glass cutting tool scratching a hole in the window. Again, if we hadn't had known she was going to try to break in, we wouldn't have heard the small scraping sound inside the house. Another pause and then a suction cup was carefully placed on the window where the glass would be cut out. A quiet thump on the window, breaking the hole in the glass and it was done. The hole she had cut in the window was no bigger than a fist, I had expected her to cut most of the window out so she could wriggle through. Then I thought she was going to unlock the window and disable the alarm somehow but she didn't. Instead the plastic nozzle of a gas can was inserted through the hole. The can was tipped and gasoline started pouring out, running down the wall and pooling on the floor.

  Her plan was to burn us out of the house in the middle of the night. Probably she would either try to pick us off or capture us as we would be confused and disoriented.

  I shot at her, trying not to hit the gas can or the spilled gas. I had no desire to start the fire by sending hot lead into the highly flammable liquid. I couldn't go for a head shot as her head was behind the can from my point of view. I went for body shots. I shot through the wall of the garage and I knew I at least hit my target once when she screamed in pain and shock.

  The gas can immediately dropped to the ground. I kept firing, wanting to kill the bitch as she ran away screaming filth at us. The crazy bitch started shooting back at us as she ran away, into the woods.

  Allan opened up the back door and started shooting too but it was pitch black outside. All of his shots were going to miss, he couldn't even see his target.

  I ran past him and told him to stay here and keep guard while I tracked her down and finished her.

  The bitch had a head start on me. She also knew the area a whole lot better than me. Even though she was basically naked and wounded she still outpaced me as I chased her. She ran through bushes and nettles without care, ignoring the cuts and scratches she received. I kept firing at her, trying to kill her before she got away but the darkness, trees and distance between myself and my dodging target proved to be too much to fire effectively.

  I followed her, catching momentary glimpses of her fleeing from me, for what seemed like miles. I had followed her to the outskirts of downtown when I lost her. I had to stop following her when I started running into groups of the undead. In fact I turned the corner of a building and almost ran into some of the undead abominations. I was almost positive the bitch had come this way. I had to shoot my way out of there. The undead were coming my way, having been drawn to the sounds of gunfire. Maybe she had dodged through a building, she must have planned for this, she lost me.

  I was positive I had at least put one round into her. Hopefully it’ll kill the bitch or at least force her into hiding for awhile.

  I went back to the house and a nervous Allan as quickly as I could.

  We made preparations and plans for the next day when it would be light out again.

  There was no way we could leave a wounded and extremely dangerous opponent like her alive. Allan wanted to flee, find someplace safer. I was pissed and reminded him that there was no safe place anymore. No matter where we went there would be the infected who had been driven insane and the undead ghouls. I might have been too harsh with him. I could tell he was scared and upset too. I felt that we needed to make a stand eventually. We couldn't run away every time something went wrong. Even if we fled who's to say the crazy bitch wouldn't follow us. I'm sure that the bitch wanted to murder us just as badly as we wanted to kill her.

  If the crazed bitch was using the hundreds of undead as a shield to hide behind, then I was going to have to take that shield away. I wouldn't have to kill all of the zeds, all I really had to do was to lead them away from the downtown area where she was hiding.

  We kept a tense watch until dawn, watching to make sure she didn't come back. We loaded up the Suburban with all the weapons and ammo we had collected. We even went so far as to remove the rear bench seat and knocked out all the rear windows for better firing. I made up some Molotov cocktails with the gas from the Cadillac. If I had to burn the town down to get to the bitch, that's what I would do. It would serve her right, to burn to death, it's what she planned to do to us.

  At first light we headed to town.

  Allan drove as I took up a position in the back. When we got in range of the undead, Allan slowed to a crawl and I fired and killed as many as I could. When they started getting too close I hurled a Molotov at them and Allan drove out of range of them again.

  The undead paid no heed what so ever to the flames of the ignited gasoline. They went right through the blaze, lighting themselves afire, in their single minded pursuit to catch and devour us alive.

  Waves of them came after us. A lot of my shots missed or hit the filthy things in the chest or arms, doing nothing to stop them. Allan slowly drove through the cluttered and potholed streets as I did my best to kill as many as I could. A few times Allan found the way blocked by wreckage or a stray group of the animated dead and had to turn around and drive over lawns and between buildings to keep us out of reach of the hungering monsters.

  Slowly we were leading them out of town. I had put so many of them back into the arms of true death that I had to reload all of my clips. It was while I was reloading that I tossed the majority of my Molotov's and the last of my hand grenades. Allan hit a deep pothole just as I was throwing my last grenade. The grenade was active, and I almost shit myself as I watched it hit the roof of the Suburban and tumble wildly around. I recovered it and chucked it out the side window just before it went off. I don't blame Allan for driving into the pothole, there is garbage and leaves strewn about the roads, covering up most of the holes to begin with. The live grenade bounced once of the asphalt and went off only a moment after I ducked down. Allan had heard my warning shout and had seen what happened wide eyed and mouth agape, he didn't need to be told to duck down. The rear tire blew out as shrapnel tore through it and peppered the Suburban with small holes. Thankfully the only wound I or Allan sustained was a shallow cut from a hot piece of metal that sliced open my jeans and grazed my leg.

  It was past noon before we had finally led the undead from town. I had to reload more than a few times and we were now on our last clips. I had managed to kill off the vast majority of the undead, hundreds of them lay in the streets, some still burning from the Molotov's I had used. I felt good about the day's work so far, now we would go back into town and hunt the bitch down.

  There were a few isolated zeds in town, most of them were incapable of walking. The stragglers crawled or dragged themselves along, easy targets.

  As we approached the center of downtown the bitch started sniping at us from a rooftop. The first round hit me square in the chest, knocking the wind out of me and hammering me to the floor of the Suburban. The bullet proof vest I was wearing saved my life. Allan drove out of town, the blown tire's rim throwing up sparks as the bitch fired round after round at us. She was a lousy shot, thankfully, only hitting the Suburban once more before we were out of sight.

  It wasn't until we got closer to our safe house that we noticed the thick black smoke. Without a doubt, while we had been leading the zombies out of town, she had been busy too. There w
as a knot in my stomach as I realized the smoke was billowing from our safe house. Whatever we hadn't taken with us was now burning. We had gathered our traveling packs but we left all of our food behind.

  Allan once again wanted to flee and I told him he was welcome to. I was going to stay and kill the infested cunt. Allan decided not to leave.

  Fine. It was a fight to the death, we already knew that. Now though the bitch made a tactical mistake. If she hadn't of burned down our house we would have surely returned to it and she would know where we were. Now she was going to have to find us again. This time she was going to have a problem. I knew where she was. I saw the flash from the muzzle when she fired at me. Even if the building she fired on us from wasn't where she was living, it had to be close. Now she was without her undead guards.

  Now I am going to tend to my shrapnel wound and get some rest, then we will hunt the bitch down.

  Monday, March 4, 2013

  I was exhausted from the hours long battle with the undead but there was still a lot we had to do before we could sleep.

  There was still plenty of light left, it gave us the opportunity to set up a false hideout. I had already picked out a couple of back up buildings that would serve to