The open road...

  Entry 005:

 

I have no idea how long I’ve been here any longer. Ever since the blizzard resumed its assault of my cabin, I’ve lost all feel for time. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I eat, and sometimes I pace in a feeble attempt at staying warm. I don’t dare go outside, so my excrement has started to mold and fester in and around the overflowing toilet. I’m afraid to go back into the closet of a bathroom for any reason. I think my bladder might explode and poison my bloodstream. I wonder if I’ll come back as one of them if I should die in such a fashion? Hmmm…probably not.

Also, I’m down to my last slivers of food. Quite literally: I have two slivers of meat, roughly four inches long apiece, and neither of which is wider than my slender pinky. If the blizzard doesn’t let up soon, I may be forced to die of starvation – or resort to autocannibalism. Neither prospect sounds very pleasant.

I’ve resorted to dismantling more of the scant furniture for firewood. I don’t even sit on the couch anymore; I sit on the cushions while the frame is awaiting further annihilation. But the flame hardly warms the place, it’s so small anymore. So I’ve taken to curling into a ball by the fireplace and angling the raggedy blanket like a parachute to catch as much heat as possible. It doesn’t work so well. But at least I have a source of heat to melt the snow. It works quite well for that. Though, the water refreezes rather quickly when taken away from the flame. It’s a wonder I haven’t frozen yet.

I’ve never remained indoors for such an extended period of time. Everything drags. The daylight, though short by the season, drags on forever. The darkness at night, though, lasts an eternity beyond that. The nights seem endless, and I expect to expire with each night that passes. But somehow I don’t. I’m not sure if this is a miracle or a hellish purgatory as I await judgment by the Universe (or by whatever god that runs this Universe). Maybe I have expired, and all that I now experience is just a perceived eternity that’s riding the coattails of my brain’s final electrical firings. This seems quite unlikely, though, as all my senses are still in fine working order. At the moment, this is quite unfortunate, since most of my sensory input has become quite unpleasant as of late.

And because I do believe I’m still alive and “well” in this pitiful cabin, I guess I shall continue the story of how I came to be where I am…

I had just left the home of Mister and Missus Roger Lawless, the perfect on paper couple that had decidedly imploded over time. And now, the residence of the Lawlesses was overrun by flaming ghouls that were burning the place down by simply walking indoors. Roger had killed his lovely wife, a woman with whom I had been intimate. And he had tried to kill me as well, but I bested him at his own game, and subsequently beset his home with these flaming ghouls. I was gazing back at the house when Daisy Jane’s damnable luxury car decided to take control once again.

The brakes locked up, the tires squealed. I tried to goose it and spin the wheel, which only sent me into a spin that I was not able to handle with my lacking skills. The rear bumper clipped a ghoul before slamming into a stalled sports car. The impact sent me skidding across both lanes and backwards into the roadside culvert. Zombies were all around me. I tried the gas, but the wheels just spun on the damp earth.

One of the ghouls crashed into the passenger door. Another neared the driver’s side. When it was a couple steps away, I flung open my door, knocking it back onto its ass. I grabbed my things and raced around its groping arms, circling up onto the road.

I hadn’t even made it a quarter mile from the damn property entrance before I wrecked! What a doof! Technology be-damned! And in this quarter mile (or less) there were probably a hundred scattered zombies. I’m still impressed with my skills at evading and attacking during my escape. The entire passage is a haze of dips and dives and lunges – my whirling staff, the spilt brains, the reaching, bloody hands were all just a blur in my vision as I raced through their ranks. I must have killed an army of them in my escape.

Eventually, their numbers thinned and I was no longer braining one after another. When I was free of any immediate pursuit, I leaned against a tree, panting. My staff was bloody and chipped, but held its general shape quite well. (Props to bamboo.) I wiped the chunks of graymatter onto a nearby fern. The remaining stains would have to wait for a greater respite; a number of ghouls were still on my trail. My rest only lasted a few minutes.

When I could breathe with some normality again, I resumed my journey down this oddly deserted, yet gruesomely packed, stretch of rural road. I kept to the middle as much as possible, scuttling quickly around any obstacles. (I’m also sure that my knuckles were stark white from gripping the staff so tightly, though, at the time, I was not conscious of this.) Alternating between a slow jog and brisk walk, I lost my pursuers in less than a mile. I kept this alternating pace for another mile or so after losing them, mindful all the while of remaining silent (i.e. not allowing my long feet to audibly slap the still-damp pavement).

I may have been fit at the time, but two miles was still a good jaunt, even at relatively low speeds. So I stopped for a breather, leaning against another tree. But I was quickly driven off by yet another zombie. Damn things were everywhere! How’d it spread so fucking fast? (That, I still don’t know for sure…) Being as it was just one ghoul, I started off at a brisk walk. It tripped after me, falling into a culvert. I shook my head, saddened by the diminished, if not non-existent, observational skills of the infected. (One must remember that, at the time, I was still learning the true scope of the disease’s effects on its victims.)

Eventually, I found the end of the road; it came to a T-intersection. I was far too exhausted to make up my mind right then and there. And the grove across the street looked awfully tempting. So, for whatever imaginable reason, I decided to tromp through the foliage and climb an expansive Aspen. The limbs were plentiful, and I easily found a suitable cradle in which I could rest my travel-weary body. And it was there that I slept for a short time.

 

The night has come, and I cannot feel my fingers any longer. Perhaps I will freeze tonight…If so, then my tale will go verily untold. I hope this is not the case, for these scribblings of mine are all that keep me sane. Although, I probably won’t care about my sanity if I freeze to death tonight…

Anyhow, farewell for now – and hopefully not forever.