Just the two of us...

Entry 003:

There were a few days in there that I really thought my last adieu would truly be forever…The blizzard has since ceased its assault, but flurries still ride the wind. And somehow, these flurries are more foreboding in their silence. The heavy snowpack is growing deeper by the minute and the lightening of the overcast sky wants to make me believe brighter days might soon come. But I know better than to fall for this optical trickery of Mother Nature! It’s been my experience that such lulls in a storm are really just the beginning of something far more intense than anything the previous wave had to offer.

This is precisely why I went hunting yesterday. Not only did I bag myself a couple rabbits and a squirrel (all of which are hanging over the sink right now, their blood draining into pots and pans), but I also managed to amass a great heap of twigs, sticks, and heavier logs of fallen limbs (I use the word “log” loosely; they’re logs only in relation to the rest of my bounty of firewood). But the grandest prize of all was eliminating a hefty number of the ghouls which have been ever-so-slowly advancing upon my cabin.

During this most satisfying phase of my expedition, I couldn’t help but think back to all my experiments in the early days. My winter experiments have always stuck with me the most as that was the first time I saw the effect that freezing temperatures had on ghouls. Whether freshly turned or old and rotten, anything below forty degrees Fahrenheit greatly hindered the movements of ghouls. And freezing temperatures stopped them dead in their tracks. Well, mostly anyhow; they moved nearly as slow as a glacier and posed as much of a threat as well. (It made perfect sense, but I hadn’t known – or thought to know – my enemy in such a way as to think about disabling them with cold…such a thought never crossed my mind before my first true observation of this effect.)

But again: that is another story for another day…

Let me first continue where I left off three days prior…or was it five? I can’t quite remember exactly right now; time’s funny out here…

Daisy Jane Lawless…that’s right…

Quite an exquisite specimen of the female persuasion, she was. Not really my type with her corporate career and matching mindset. Plus, she was obviously high-maintenance with her long, bleach-blonde hair (pulled back at the time, but no roots to speak of), expensive manicure, designer jeans and handbag, and all the glittering rocks and gold of unfathomable expense that adorned multiple fingers, a wrist, both ears, and her neck (the ridiculously large heart-shaped diamond pendant – which was ringed with emeralds and amethysts – hung on its dainty gold chain and sat perfectly between her voluptuous breasts)…not to mention the gas-guzzling truck with its ridiculous lift-kit and more bells and whistles than a clown car. (Seriously; climbing up into it was almost like stepping into an alien spaceship.) But – damn! – was she exquisite!

And though she came across as high-maintenance (and she was – trust me), there was something about her that screamed badass bitch. I say that not offensively in the least; quite the opposite, in fact. Badass bitch is truly one of the best compliments one can bestow upon such a woman – any woman, in my opinion. Her body language and demeanor spoke of valuable life experiences and a deep wisdom. Though young (she was in her early thirties, if I remember correctly), she had gained success through hardships and never giving in; always striving to be better than the moment before. I later came to find out, after some long and late conversations, that she had grown up dirt poor in a little town about sixty miles southwest of Little Rock, Arkansas. Her parents never encouraged or helped her and she paid her own way through college (computer sciences and business administration – masters in both) by working odd hours as a horse-groomer and stable girl. And that’s where she met and married her late husband; he was the rancher’s son. They found their way to Washington in the summer of 2005 when she got hired on by Microsoft. (They moved away from the hustle and bustle of Seattle so she could telecommute and her husband could have his own ranch.)

My first night with her, she explained how her husband, Roger Lawless, went MIA when they were swarmed at the farmer’s market…which was shortly before Yours Truly climbed into her truck (and began judging her – quite superficially, I might add). What struck me as peculiar was how she explained this to me. It was natural to discuss the circumstances of how we came to be where we were upon meeting; I think we both teared up when I told her of how all my close friends died that day and there was little I could have done to save them, hesitation or no. (She assured me repeatedly that their deaths weren’t my fault and that I shouldn’t shoulder the burden of that false shame and guilt.) But when she told me of losing her husband in the bloody throng at the market, I’d swear that her eyes didn’t even gleam with water, let alone loose a tear. Nor did her countenance waver; her account of the events was stringent and straightforward without the slightest hint of sorrow or longing.

Without having pressed her on the matter (I kept my own counsel for fear of upsetting such a gracious hostess), one might assume that their marriage had turned sour for one or more reasons. Perhaps unpleasant affairs were occurring behind closed doors (or maybe clandestine affairs – of a more pleasant, albeit adulterous, nature – were happening behind different closed doors). I didn’t take her as the submissive type who would allow physical or emotional abuse, but maybe he was an abuser – or a user – or a cheater – or all of the above. Or maybe it was her that was the user or abuser or cheater (or whathaveyou). Hell, maybe their marriage was a sham from the beginning. One can never really know; especially having known her so briefly. But, having never pressed the matter (as I’ve already stated), I can still only speculate on her absence of sorrow or longing at their sudden separation.

But, that’s enough speculation on the matter for one day…

For being a corporate lackey, she sure was handy with home remedies and nursing. She force-fed me fluids and soup as though I were sick. But she also worked my neck and bruised appendages with medicinal salves (by which I mean ointments with the curative powers of cannabis) and lotion (also medicinal). I remember the feel of her skin as she pampered my broken body; so soft, so gentle. Although, she was definitely rough when the time was right; the sensation was splendid, even when it hurt. She also instructed me to clean up, insisting that doing so would greatly aid in my recovery. “Doctor’s orders,” she had said with a wink and a smile. “It’s well water,” she explained in her sexy, southern drawl. “No need to worry about contamination.” (Some of the news stations were alleging that the water of cities all over the Puget Sound had been contaminated.)

So I followed her “orders” and used the luxuriously large master bath to wash. The shower itself was the size of my entire bathroom back at college, and was equipped with not only two heads, but also a spout in the ceiling that rained heavier globules straight down. It even had a damn bench in it! I’d never before showered in such an overly extravagant facility. (And never again since leaving her expansive estate.)

I was standing there, all fresh and clean, just letting the water wash over me when she popped open the door and flung herself at me. I had a brief moment of panic (and slight embarrassment), thinking that maybe she was attacking me. But her soft, luscious lips locked with mine and her firm, full breasts pressed against me – and I realized she wasn’t trying to eat me alive…After this epiphany, I acquiesced to her aggressively startling lust and just let it happen.

That is all I can say on the matter…

Once we were through with this bout in the shower, she told me to draw a bath and relax some while she cleaned herself up. I did as she said, but only after fetching a joint from my jacket. I thought, at the time, that it might ease the pain of my great losses that day, if only marginally. But being high only intensified my emotions and made me edgy (if not a little paranoid, as well, which is definitely no bueno when zombies are on the loose). Guilt and grief began to swell exponentially, and the bathtub began to feel too small. I felt restless and angry; angry with myself and with the world at having driven me to such failures as those that cost my friends their lives.

I leaned forward to drain the tub and douse the roach, but Daisy Jane snatched it from my fingers before I could. Her hair was wrapped in a yellow towel and she was stark naked. She sat down at the tub’s edge and said to me, “I don’t remember the last time I smoked weed.” Like a novice, she daintily held the roach to her scrunched-up lips (even her eyes were scrunched-up in anticipation), and she pulled weakly off the dying ember of the roach. The following scene was quite comical (and I briefly forgot about my troubles and paranoia): her eyes got wide, her cheeks puffed up, and she began emitting some sort of high-pitched inward squall or squeaky groan. And what made it all the more comical to me was this freeze-framed expression and the yellow towel; in that moment, she could have been a cartoonist’s caricature of herself, displaying shock and awe (or utter, boiling fear) with hair standing on end.

I didn’t laugh, though I may have smirked.

And then she spat out the weak plume of smoke in a fit of coughs and spurs. “Holy shit,” she said. “That’s good shit.” But she wasn’t done just yet; oh no, she smoked some more right away (thankfully, with dramatically less coughing and sputtering). I politely refused to partake in the remainder of the roach.

So that is all for now…I’m sure you’re wondering (if you’re reading) what else we did (and how many times). But I – just like the ghouls and the gators – must sometime eat. Though, unlike the ghouls, I must sleep, as well. And so I’ll return to this narcissistic memoir of mine in the next day or two. –Stay tuned!

again: past & present

Entry 002:

 

I think I almost died yesterday.

I attempted an excursion into the wild and nearly lost my way back to the cabin when the snow resumed its silent onslaught. And all I managed to acquire in my freezing four-hour journey was a measly bundle of sticks that were too wet to start a flame. After fending off the chills that I feared might kill me, I ate a cold can of chili and set about melting snow in a bucket. This was quite the undertaking, I might add; the cabin had little or no insulation and I had no way of heating it other than with my body. And, after staving off the deep freeze of my fruitless four-hour excursion, I had little desire to sacrifice any of my hard-earned warmth.

The bucket is still slushy…hardly melted at all overnight.

Needless to say, I wrote not a lick yesterday. But today, with the snow still swirling outside, I’ve elected to remain indoors, wrapped in my meager linens and clothes, pen and paper in hand. I’ll start a fire later (if the wood has dried enough, that is). But I’ll need to find more wood tomorrow or the next day. Otherwise, I’ll have to start dismantling the furniture.

(And, just in case you were wondering, the ghouls outside are little more than bloody popsicles; the blizzard has them frozen to the bone and they pose little threat to Yours Truly. But the blizzard is also what’s kept me in this shitty cabin; it’s nigh impossible to find my bearings and the nearest settlement is much too far to reach in this weather. If I survive long enough to attempt the trek, I’ll do just that. But, for now, I’ll remain indoors and suffer the howling cold and choked groans of the bloody zombisicles outside…)

Looking over my scrawlings from the other day, I am surprised to find that my writing hasn’t deteriorated all that terribly over the years. Though it’s a far cry from the prose of my college days, it’s still passable (and even legible! for fuck’s sake). Reliving the early days of the outbreak is not the easiest of tasks for me, but it feels important somehow. Maybe this is just what I am meant to do with my final days…maybe I’ll find peace before passing through the Gates and find myself in Paradise after all…if I’m not punished for my agnosticism, of course.

(I know, I know…it sounds like I’m recanting again. But it’s hard not to think or write – or talk to myself – of such things at this late stage in my life. It just feels natural to reference Paradise and Hell when facing death. After all, the existence of such places hasn’t been disproved yet…)

So let me now resume my tale (I’ll try to avoid becoming my own peanut gallery again…but I make no promises on the matter). I do feel as though, in my late-night delirium, I left out some important details. For instance: I failed to inform you that the parking lot was still full of cars, yet there were very few people – infected or otherwise – in the lot. Not that I saw, anyhow. One can only assume that most were staggered with infection at this point and hungrily roaming the campus.

I also failed to inform you that, as we blindly followed Jacob to his rickety, rusty van, we passed up my battered Subaru as well as Vivian’s old Volvo. My course through the outbreak could very well have been altered (for better or worse, we’ll never know) by simply splitting off. Or if Vivian had split off, maybe I would have followed her. Or maybe I still would have gone with Jacob and things would have been different in that way…But, as with everything in life, there were many alternate courses with a million different outcomes that I did not choose when I blindly – or instinctively – followed Vivian, who blindly followed Jacob, who went straight to his rickety, rusty van. Which, looking back on it now, begs the question: whose instincts were sharper at that point in time? I’d put my money on Jacob…

But if Vivian and I hadn’t blindly followed his sharpened instincts, he may very well have run straight over Tom when backing out of the parking spot. It’s quite a likely scenario since Vivian and I had to holler and shout before he hit the brakes, thereby sparing Tom’s life for at least a little while longer. Not like it would have made a difference to Tom whether he died then or later – but at least he wouldn’t have become a live, squirming lunch on a rural road near the forest. Maybe he would have just been a dead, flat breakfast for whichever ghoul happened upon him in the far back corner of F lot. But, since we were with Jacob at that moment, screaming in his ear for him to stop, he avoided squishing ol’ Tom right then and there. And so Tom climbed in through the sliding door and sat down right beside me.

Now I have no idea where or how Tom arrived when he did, all I know is that we damn near ran him over in the parking lot that day. Whether this meeting was fortuitous or not, one might try to inquire with Tom himself…but such would be impossible since he passed later that day. Who knows what would have happened to him had we not nearly run him over that day. Perhaps he would have survived the initial outbreak and forged some sort of life out of the aftermath. (Or maybe he would have died that same day anyhow – we’ll never know.) But the fact remains: he found his fate after nearly being crushed.

Anyhow…enough from the peanut gallery…

Tom was beside me on the short bench seat just behind the captain chairs of the driver and passenger (Jacob and Vivian). Other than that, all I can clearly remember is holding on for dear life and spitting obscenities here and there as we careened around corners and other cars. More than once, I was certain we would roll the top-heavy van with the way Jacob was skidding around some corners. But we didn’t. What finally ended our brief journey was a damn hatchback whose driver should have been paying more attention to cross-traffic. (Our speed may have played a factor in this as well…and maybe the blind corner…)

I still have some stiffness in my neck from the whiplash. It could have been worse, though; if I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt, I could have been ejected through the windshield just like Vivian. Although, since I had been sitting directly behind Jacob, I may have been saved by his seatback. (We’ll never know now, will we..?) Why she was in the front without a seatbelt at such breakneck speeds is – and was – beyond me. But hey, at least she died quickly and without the possibility of becoming infected. Her head was so thoroughly crushed upon impact that it looked as though she had been decapitated. That’s how fast we were travelling when the hatchback pulled out in front of us.

The aftermath of this wreck is a haze in my memory, as well. With such a vicious and sudden impact, my senses were overloaded with shock. My ears were ringing, my chest was constricted from the seatbelt (which also left a nasty mark across my midsection), and my arms and legs were throbbing after having smashed into everything in reach. My eyes felt as though they could have burst while my lungs were gasping desperately to recover from the seatbelt’s tight grip. And my neck…the impact rocked my head so hard that my chin struck my chest no less than three times. Add to that all the times it bounced off the headrest, I was a mess for quite a while. But, living through those first terrifying days, I had to muster all the strength I could so as not to let the injury hinder my survival.

And despite whacking my limbs on everything in reach, including the hard plastics of the door panel and center console, I had no other serious injuries. I was bruised in various places from the inertial jouncing, and my knee swelled up for a couple days, but none of that was serious. Not like the whiplash. Had this wreck occurred even one day prior, I would have been immediately hospitalized and the doctors would have advised me to see a chiropractor, a massage therapist, and begin physical therapy. And rest, of course. Take it easy, they’d say. Don’t lift anything over twenty pounds…and don’t twist or turn…or walk…and God forbid you try to sleep!

…maybe that last bit was a tad overboard. But you get the drift…

Since the wreck hadn’t occurred one day prior, I was forced to deal with the pain myself…and, if it had occurred one day prior, I’d probably be lunch meat by now. And we probably wouldn’t have been in such a position the previous day. In fact, we had been playing an unofficial “ghetto” round of Frisbee golf the day prior. (By which I mean that we roamed the campus while smoking spliffs and throwing our discs at whichever objects or landmarks we deemed to be the next “hole.” Each “hole” was chosen at random by the winner of the previous hole.) And after that, we all got so blazed that we couldn’t even fathom driving anywhere, let alone at breakneck speeds. (Such a term sends chills down my spine when I recall Vivian’s mangled, headless corpse…)

At first I wasn’t even aware she was missing. I was so dazed that I couldn’t figure out what had just happened. I’m not even sure I knew who was with me – or who I was, for that matter. And before any such information could return to me, the wreckage of our vehicles was surrounded by over a dozen ghouls; some were young, between the ages of eight and thirteen, I’d imagine; and some were adults, maybe early twenties at the youngest and up to the fifties, possibly, for a pair of them. I’m not certain where so many came from as we were on a rural road near the forest. The only conclusion to which I keep returning is a family gathering gone horribly wrong at the house from which the hatchback had been trying so desperately to flee.

As the shock began to wear off, I first noticed this alleged familial horde swarming all around us. Then I heard a muffled, distant shriek. This dampening of sound was magnified by shock and the persistent ringing in my ears and head. After a moment of recognition, I realized that the shriek and subsequent screams were that of a woman – and so I reached out for Vivian. My hand swiped at air, which drew my eyes into focus; after a long moment, I finally realized that she was not there. And then I spotted the blood-ringed hole in the spiderwebbed windshield. As far as holes in windshields go (in my estimation, that is), it was a rather large hole. Though, it would turn out that the hole was just the right size for a slender, young woman of Vivian’s exact dimensions to squeeze through at a rather unpleasant angle; head-first, kind of like Superman.

Alas, she did not have Superman’s super strength.

The shrieks I heard were not Vivian’s. Through the blood-ringed hole, I watched a number of the alleged familial horde rip a woman out of the hatchback by way of the smashed rear window. Another pair were pawing at her and the driver (deceased on impact, lucky bastard) through the other windows (which were also busted out). Another ghoul dropped out of sight somewhere between the vehicles. Later, I would discover that this one had bent to chomp on Vivian’s corpse.

The remaining ghouls were searching for entry into the van.

I’m not sure if Jacob was unconscious or just far too dazed and delirious (moreso than myself at the time, if such was the case) to react or mount a defense when the kid lunged at him through his own busted window. But when the kid – maybe twelve, give or take, and tall for his age – lunged through the driver side window, Jacob put up no resistance. He sure yelped, though, when the kid’s teeth sank into his neck.

For a while after, I tormented myself with the guilt of all my hesitations that day; hesitations that cost my friends and cohorts their lives. If I had reacted when I first saw the kid, I may have saved Jacob’s life – for at least a little while longer…maybe. But I hadn’t, and so Jacob became lunch meet for this infectious boy. After a morning of far too many instances of fatal hesitation on my behalf, the guilt would soon mount and render me nearly useless for days. The effects of this guilt still linger today; it’s why I rambled nomadically through all these years, never staying in one place long enough to repeat these fatal hesitations.

But there was once, early on in my travels, that I nearly allowed myself to form the relationships that could result in such hesitations. I stayed there for far too long – so long I even made friends. And of course, I left them, just as I did at every other way station along my nomadic route; quick and quiet like a sly mouse in the dead of night. But, my supposed readers (oh! my vanity; to think anybody will ever read this is quite laughable), that is another story for another day. If, of course, I survive long enough (and stay competent long enough!) to write such a story. With how longwinded I’ve become at a time when I should feel each tick of my clock that’s rapidly winding down, I may never get to that story. Or all the others that follow in all the years after.

I’m sure Tom was just as dazed as I was when he muttered, “Fuck this,” and threw open the passenger side slider. He was unarmed and uneasy on his feet – and I was sure the ghouls would flood the van after him. But they didn’t. He staggered out into the middle of the road, and before I could holler, he was tackled by four ghouls. The littlest of them went straight for the Achilles’ tendon; the eldest was ripping at his eyes and face. The other two (a man and woman who were possibly in their mid- to late-twenties), were on either arm. Another kid (this one was a girl with frazzled blonde locks and a blue fairy dress) dived straight for his stomach. Tom bellowed tremendously; he squirmed and writhed and continued to bellow until his throat was ripped out by the eldest and his lungs filled with blood.

I can even recall the terrible gurgling as Tom asphyxiated.

There was nothing I could have done to save him, short of yanking him back inside. But by then, the door would have already been open and the flood really would have come to take both our lives. Call me selfish, but I’d rather have his death adding a little weight to my guilt than to have been eaten like a sardine in a can.

Despite still having very little working knowledge of my enemy at this point, I had enough to know when to cut my losses. The battle here was lost, but I didn’t have to lose with it. I allowed my instincts to take over as I left Jacob behind to deal with his infectious attacker all on his own. (I had a feeling that he was already dead; I didn’t know for sure that the infection was transmitted by their bites, scratches, or fluids, but common sense told me it was…turns out that common sense was right.)

Most of the ghouls were feasting when I emerged from the van. The ones that were paid me no mind. All the others, which were just about half the total (the total was either seventeen or eighteen – I can’t remember exactly anymore), altered their course immediately. I took out the nearest aggressors with quick chops of my staff to the head.

Through my delirium, I’m surprised that I remember the following sequence so vividly: whirling from the first two strikes, I caught a third ghoul in the gut and spun around to level another that was apparently disinterested in feasting on Tom once all this ruckus began. I turned on a heel to run, but found two more in my path; I took the first out at the knees, kicked the other to the ground and brought my staff down hard on the first one’s head.

And now all of the ghouls became disinterested in their respective meals. I was alone and outnumbered in the middle of nowhere, all of my friends were dead, and I was armed with a bamboo staff. The van was totaled and I wasn’t about to boost a car with all the ravenous onlookers who wanted to eat my flesh, apparently. (Not to mention, I didn’t possess the necessary skills to boost a car…) What I did possess that they didn’t, was speed. And a lot of it; all the years of soccer and ultimate Frisbee were about to pay off.

Without running top speed, I lost them in less than ten minutes.

I slowed to a brisk walk with my staff clenched tight in both hands. My head was on a swivel, searching for danger in every quivering shadow and shivering bush. And just as I thought it weird that no vehicles were traveling down this road, the rumble of an engine reached my ear. I assumed it was a heavy duty truck…and I was right.

Standing safely to one side of the road, I watched it trundle around the corner. First thing I noticed was the bloodstained grille (upon closer inspection, I would notice bits of skull and brainmatter implanted in the chrome). And then I noticed that it was lifted – and blue – and a Dodge. Finally, just before it pulled to a stop beside me, I noticed a pretty blonde behind the wheel. She rolled down the window and looked me over.

I must have had a dumb expression on my face, because all she said was, “You’re gonna get killed just standin’ ‘round like that, kid.” She spoke with a gruff, yet sexy, southern accent. She rolled her eyes and leaned over to pop open the door. “Hop in,” she said. “I ain’t got all day, now. Bound to be more of ‘em on the way.”

So I climbed in with her – Daisy Jane Lawless, she said her name was; from Arkansas, she claimed. And I never found reason not to believe her. She was a gem. I’ll never forget her…for what that’s worth anymore…

 

Anyhow, I done wrote the day away, it would seem. Never did start that damn fire; just kept warm by using the linens as a tent to trap the heat. My hand is cramping, though, and I’m jittery from low blood-sugar levels. I’ll get back to you on the story of Daisy from Arkansas in a day or two – if I make it that long. But I must find food if I am to resume this exercise in narcissism.

 

Adieu…for now, and hopefully not forever.

 

In the beginning...

[past & present]

Entry 001:


As I stand here now, at the Gates of Hell, I find all my preconceptions dashed to the wayside. From the late-season blizzard to the choked moans and groans of the ghouls at my doorstep, I feel not heat, but the gripping chill of a gloomy fate. Add to that my dwindling supply of clean water, unspoiled food, insufficient linens and ragged clothes, all I feel is complete and utter cold. But all my life I was told that Hell would be hot. Or maybe it is, but the Gates are all cold…or at least this one is…

The path that brought me to this frozen Gate was long and winding with many backtracks, redoubles, and setbacks. And, with my presumed time running nigh, I feel the tug of this long-dormant urge to write my findings and recollections of life in the afterworld. For that is precisely what living in a world ravaged by this disease feels like: the afterworld; the afterlife. Or maybe it’s purgatory. Maybe there is a God, and He (or She or It – or Whathaveyou) is punishing me for my heathenous ways. After all, such a theory is not beyond the realm of possibilities anymore.

No, I haven’t recanted my agnosticism in the face of death. I’m just playing devil’s advocate to my own beliefs. I’m fairly certain that the scourge ravaging this nation is manmade and not an act of God. Though I have no proof, thus the possibility of purgatory…

So cold, this Hell I’m in. And though I toss around such euphemisms and theories as purgatory and the Gates of Hell, I know that this life is real, as is the New Earth Order (as some have taken to calling it). NEO, they say, is the world since the disease overthrew the life we all knew. In America, that life had been mostly sedentary. Many had likened our pre-NEO lives to zombies. But now, after having seen – and encountered – real zombies, I hope they’ve taken to eating their own feet. (Pun intended). For such an analogy is quite the exaggeration.

Though, in their defense, I should probably say: hindsight…

Let me diverge from my current situation to explain the circumstances – the backtracks, redoubles, and setbacks – that led me to this cabin in the woods; this frozen Gate

On a day when most people were enrapt by sitcoms or overblown dramas, I was studying and sparring with a fellowship of students at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. At first, we assumed the shambling horde to be an impromptu Zombie Walk. Some of my fellow scholars (I use that term loosely for a few of them) tried playfully to push them away.

I remember the startled scream with chilling clarity – even after all these years, the sound of it rings out in my sleep. It was the first of many such screams I would hear, but it resonated with such ferocity and depth that it will probably never truly fade. Though, from the inclement weather and other deathly threats outdoors, that resonation might just vanish once my body either withers or is eaten. (I wonder if such thoughts will torment me if I become one of them…food for thought…)

Maybe, if I hadn’t hesitated, then just maybe I could have saved a couple of them. But I did hesitate. And because of that, Donnie and Charles were also attacked. It wasn’t until the three of them were becoming a mid-afternoon snack for this pack of ghouls that I managed to act. And then Jacob, my sparring partner, jumped in at my heels. Together, we brained a half-dozen ghouls (this was when I noticed their discolored eyes and the network of blue veins that spiderwebbed their ashen skin). Once this initial onslaught was quelled, we (Jacob and I, plus the remainder of our fellowship) raced our three fallen friends to the infirmary.

Bad move on our part.

But, hindsight and all; if only we had known…

Having not known this would be a bad move, we found ourselves in a throng of shambling, bloody – and sometimes broken – ghouls. Later, after the shock and awe of this new disease wore off, people would begin calling them what they really were; zombies. But I still prefer ghoul; it seems less real and cheesy. And cheese is important these days. Important and rare. Especially when you’re all alone most of the time…

Charles collapsed in a fit of dry heaves and phlegmy coughs. And then he etched another memory into my mind’s eye: his vegetarian’s breakfast came up in one bloody, curdled mess to paint the walkway. From what I know now (and what any would-be readers of my gratuitously vein scrawlings should now know), half of the mess I saw that day was his stomach lining and chunks of his lungs. I’m pretty sure he asphyxiated before the throng closed in to finish him off.

At that point, we were surrounded; seven of us against an incalculable mob. Only three of us made it out alive; Vivian, the only female in our fellowship (call us old-fashioned, but "fellow" usually implies someone with the sexual organs of a human male); Jacob (he was, after all, far more efficient with the staff than I had been at the time); and, if you hadn’t figured it out yet, Yours Truly survived the mob as well. More would have survived had we been hardened (or maybe warped would be a more apt descriptor), as I am now. But our pre-NEO programming had been never to leave a person behind in battle. Three lives may have survived had we been cold, decisive fighters with a working knowledge of our enemy. But again: hindsight…

We raced across the campus, cutting around buildings and avoiding all possible aggressors, until we reached the parking lot. We didn’t even discuss our plan; Jacob was in the lead, so we blindly chased him to his rickety, rust-brown van. I doubt the others had a chance to recognize the influence of primal fear in the aftermath. But, having outlived them by what now feels like eons, I sure do. Instinct and adrenaline, fueled by such all-encompassing fear, brings you to another level entirely. It was as though we were connected on a nearly empathic plane. And through the fear, my senses were heightened.

Or maybe I was just crazy and paranoid. We may have just blindly followed the leader. But the primal fear most certainly ignited an even more primal instinct. In time, I learned to hone this fear and sharpen my instincts.

There I go again, rambling the day away in my lunatic way…I’ll come back to this in the morning. After all, it’s late and the day has been long…

A very important Preface

A very important Preface

[of a rather intriguing history…]

8

August, 2019 (or: 8 August, A.Z. 4:4; Anno Zombi 4 in the fourth, and final, season; summer). Nearly five years after the initial solanum outbreak, the scrawlings of a lone survivor are found scattered about a cabin in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The discoverers of these scrawlings, drawn to the remote site by trailing a seemingly endless train of ghouls, pieced the pages together over a period of six-and-three-quarters months. They as­cribed his name to the manuscript and slowly made copies, utilizing an old mimeograph to crank them out. The fate of these copies is currently unknown – but at least one remains…and that is the copy from which Yours Truly transcribed the entries of Eli Gibson. The fate of the pur­veyors of these copies is also currently unknown; last anybody was aware, they left on an errand to spread them amongst the sparse settle­ments of the region. But that was in the spring of 2020 – or A.Z. 5:3 ac­cording to the NEO (New Earth Order) calendar * – which was almost two years prior to this incarnation of this manuscript. In all likelihood, they met with an untimely, if not gruesome, fate. Such is the nature of the beast these days (no pun intended).

After the Great Cleansing (a national firebombing campaign that in­cluded the scouring of every city in the Puget Sound region), which took place at the tail-end of 2014, no physical records could be recovered. And with the eventual downfall of the vast stores of information that were once a part of the global network that was the internet, there was no alternative means of dredging information or records. (So much infor­mation that quite literally vanished into thin air…though, many have speculated that backups must exist somewhere. And they probably do… question is: who wants to find them?) So the only information available to us regarding the author of these memoirs is what we’ve read within them – what you will read within them. Regardless of any truths or falsi­ties or overexaggerations, there is wisdom to be found in his words. Per­haps this is why his scrawlings were salvaged. Or maybe the people who found these scrawlings just liked the story he had to tell.

The additional “aside” side stories included in this version of Eli Gibson’s tale are speculative fiction, based on individuals as described in his memoirs. They are accounts written by (or dictated by, in some in­stances) various survivors of the pandemic and subsequent Great Clean­sing. But, in the style of Eli Gibson, they all impart wisdom – wisdom of survival and folly, or honor and malice, or loss and gain. These asides were compiled, edited, and reworked by Yours Truly in an attempt to mimic Mr. Gibson’s unique style.

Though it’s not a survival manual, the life lessons of Eli Gibson – as well as the fictional lessons of every “aside” – should supplement your actual (and hopefully abundant) survival manuals quite well. That is, if you pay close attention to detail.

Read, prepare, and – as the saying went – “live long and prosper.”

If you don’t get eaten first, that is.

* The NEO calendaring system is specific mainly to the Pacific Northwest settlements. Other settlements around the country have adopted similar methods, but most stick with the standard Gregorian calendar.