Journals of the Damned

by GJ Zukow

bullets from the teen’s gun whipped past me. The gunfire was loud enough to partially deafen me. Three shots to the undead things chest and shoulder knocked it back and flat on the ground. The slugs didn’t stop it though, and now I was scrabbling back towards the person who I was previously backing away from. I swear the girl couldn’t be more than nineteen years old by the look of her, but she easily stepped over me and put a couple of rounds into the nightmares face until it stopped moving again.

  “C’mon dumbass, we need to get the hell out of here before more show up to investigate,” she told me, with a snarl on her lips.

  That’s how I met Jannie.

  The light is fading now and I don’t want to waste any of the candles I have left, so I will continue again tomorrow.

  9

  For the past two weeks that I've been here, I've had these nagging feelings that something about this place is wrong. I kept putting it down to my nerves, past experiences, mental fatigue or whatever. Sometimes I would notice something out of place from where I left it before but I just ignored it, blaming it on a crappy memory. Then there was the time I was absolutely sure I had eaten the last can of asparagus (because I love asparagus and I know I counted them out and rationed them for myself), and then lo and behold there appeared another couple of cans of them tucked away in the corner of a shelf. Not to mention the blood, the layers of blood that I had laboriously cleaned.

  I know when I arrived here I was down to about a hundred and thirty-five pounds or so, which is skinny as hell for someone a hair over six feet tall. I must have put twenty or so pounds back on, living the good life. Ha. Probably I was just being allowed to fatten myself up for the slaughter.

  Dammit, if Jannie were here she would have raided the place and left on day one. She was only half my age but that girl paid attention to her surroundings. I hoped (and still do) she had gotten out of our last safe house alive, but I don’t see how it could be possible.

  I mentioned before how the building was solid and well built, but I didn’t really go into details. I will now though. The windows are all triple pane with a clear sheet of thin material between each pane, making them bullet proof, hurricane proof windows that can be closed remotely. The walls are of a solid brick and mortise type, with steel reinforced bars. Even the ceiling is solid cement reinforced with rebar and drywall covering it. Apparently, the solid hard wood doors also have steel bars that can be slid into them, from the walls, and remotely too to boot. Where the electricity to do this is coming from, I have no idea as all the available outlets I’ve found are dead. I knew about the triple pane windows and I knew the walls were brick, however, I just this morning found out about the rest of the security features. I’ve found out that this place is well suited to not only keep people out but is well designed to keep people in.

  Somebody spent a lot of money on this place before the world went to hell. That same somebody was probably planning for world war three to break out and being ready to hunker down and wait it out when this day of reckoning happened instead. That somebody is probably in a thick, deep, fall-out bunker under this house. That somebody has decided, for reasons I’m sure aren’t for my benefit, to lock me in here.

  I woke up really groggy, looking back I know I was drugged. I slept soundly, without dreams, for almost fourteen hours. Normally I sleep very lightly, waking at any small noise (being surrounded by the walking dead will do that to you), for no more than six or so hours at a time. It took quite a while for the cobwebs to clear from my brain, and as I noticed that all my shit was gone, my backpack, gun, even my boots, I wondered if I was still dreaming.

  I remember leaving the bedroom window cracked open and locked in place before I slept so I could have a little flow of fresh cool night air. This was something I would never even consider in any other safe house, so it was worth noting when I did it. When I noticed it was closed and when the window would not budge open one bit is when I seriously started to freak out.

  I ran into every room and tried every door and every window, while furtively searching each room for my stuff.

  Until I walked into the kitchen. Then I stopped in my tracks. Then I knew I was being toyed with. My journal was lying open on the kitchen table, to the next fresh page. This page. This page that I’m writing on now. Placed neatly to the side of it was this whittled down, next to nothing but an inch left, small ass golf pencil.

  When I saw that I went crazy trying to rip apart the ceiling and walls with my bare hands. All I did though was manage to break up some drywall and pull a few pieces of molding off the walls and tire myself out. I searched and searched but I still couldn’t find any of my stuff or any possible hatch or hidden entry to a bunker. Even the pantry door and the damn cupboards and silverware drawers are shut tight.

  Whatever. Fuck it. I’m not giving up. I know this was left out for me to write my own obituary, or last will and testament, or finish up whatever I had to say. Maybe the fucker wants to keep it as a trophy or something. I don’t know. I’m writing because frankly, it gives me a chance to kill some time until whatever is going to happen, happens.

  Hopefully I’ll be able to write what the hell happens with this situation when it resolves itself. Hopefully I can either get the fuck out of here or kill the bastard who locked me in here, but accomplishing both of those goals would be best.

  Been over twenty-four hours now and there’s nothing but stillness and quiet. I thought whoever locked me in here would have attacked during the night but it was unnervingly eventless.

  Forty-eight hours and I’ve tried repeatedly to find a way out of here. All I found were two cameras. They were extremely small and well hidden. I found one in the bedroom, embedded in some of the more intricate molding, looking like it was part of the carved scroll work. The other was behind the mirror of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I found that one when I started smashing the shit out of it. Even that was thick and reinforced. I don’t think he (I’m assuming it’s a he), will be expecting me to be armed with this nice, sharp, wicked, piece of mirror that I’m going to try and gut him like a fish with. I’m so tired now. That’s his game then, to wait until I pass out. Time to play possum and draw him out...

  10

  If anyone is reading this, you surely noticed that there is a page torn out. I did that. The bastard wrote a bunch of foul shit in my journal, taunting me with his vile ramblings, as he took breaks from his torturing of me. You're not missing anything by not reading it. His childish scribblings were hard to read to begin with and what you could read was pure filth. Insane garbage of how he was going to enjoy torturing, raping, cutting me up and eating me (and not necessarily in that order). I have no doubt that he would have done exactly what he said he was going to.

  As it is, he cut off both of my small toes and fucking ate them in front of me. He cut me multiple times (in some very sensitive places) and rubbed salt in the wounds. I’m in a lot of pain and it’s going to take me awhile to heal up from this lunatic’s assault. I had seriously thought that being eaten alive by the undead would be the worst way to go. Now I know better. At least with the zeds you bleed out and die within a minute, maybe two at the most. But this, this is so much worse. He worked me over for a day before I got loose and killed him. I don’t even want to think about how long the fucker would have drawn out my death to satiate his hate.

  Unfortunately, there isn’t just the immune and the walking dead. There are also those who are carriers. Like the maniac who was going to torture me to death. The carriers are the ones whose immune system are strong enough to stop the Scarlet fever before it kills them, but not strong enough to beat it. They exist in that stage of the disease where their skin is a permanent bright red and their mind is utterly gutted. I’m sure it’s a horrible way to exist, completely filled with rage and hatred. I know now that they are aware that their brain has been mainly eaten away, causing extreme insanity and delusions, driven by the parasite to crave the taste of living flesh and blood. While I do take pity on them, the
y are by far more dangerous than a hundred zombies.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with a carrier. Jannie and I had our run-ins with some previously. I’ll have the time now, since I need to recuperate, to tell you about her. But not right now. Right now I need to write about my day in hell.

  I sat there at the kitchen table, not moving, pretending as if I were sleeping. I may have actually dozed off at some point, but it was a dreadfully light sleep. I had gotten used to the normal sounds of the house, and still I awoke at the slightest sound, waiting for a noise that was out of place. It seemed to take forever, my body was crying out for me to change my position. I was cramping up from the forced motionlessness and every small itch seemed unbearable. Then it came. A noise I hadn’t heard before. A small creaking of hinges from the same bedroom I had chosen to sleep in all those nights. If I hadn’t been so keyed up and waiting for such a sound I wouldn’t have heard it. Then came a sound I could place. It was the closet door in the bedroom sliding open. That’s where the entrance to the bunker was. I knew how much time it took to get from there to here and I strived to get up and get into position. I had