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.