Alone No More (10 page)

It occurs to me tonight that almost every plan I make hinges on something I know fuck-all about. 

How many people are left? 

 I don’t know. I haven’t the goddamn foggiest idea, and wouldn’t even be able to hazard an educated guess. When the television died it seemed like there were still a lot of people around. Billions served so to speak. After the radio stations faded a week or so later, the reports made it sound much more grim. As in perhaps only a billion of us left. Math isn't my strongest subject, but that means about 6 out of every 7 people died, give or take.

Some areas of the world seemed to be faring much worse. Africa for example was wiped out almost immediately. They’ve always been on the razor’s edge for health anyway, and when this hit, they went downhill in a hurry. No infrastructure, shitty transportation resources, a general lack of secure locations, etc. I don’t know the exact details, but I recall the radio people saying Africa was bad, from what they could glean.

America and Europe, and most of Asia though… I just don’t know. All I can worry about is here though. America has a shitload of guns, tons of securable locations, solid infrastructure, decent healthcare, good media for communication, and plenty of food in the pipeline to maintain a large surviving population for some time. We also have huge tracts of arable land to grow food on after society has stabilized.

This is all assuming there are enough survivors to even establish some form of society though. It’s really hard to gauge what’s going on because I am so secluded. In a small town that’s off the beaten path at a private school that’s even further off the beaten path my intelligence on survivors is somewhere between slim and none. So how many people have survived? Where are they? Are they hungry? Starving? Have they reformed some kind of shitty government right down the street? 

No idea. These are the things that keep me up at night. That’s not entirely true. 

I think about Cassie a lot too. Some nights when it’s cold and I’m feeling more lonely than usual my mind gets to wandering and I inevitably go full circle and come back to her. Recently it’s been worse than normal too. 

Remember that black fancy car I saw drive by me the other day? The one with a couple of people in it? The one with the redhead in it? 

Cassie was a redhead.

You have any idea how much that tears my ass up inside? Is it her? It could be. The color of red was about the right shade. Of course this could be my memory fucking with me. Being very selective about the details it wants to recall. It’s entirely possible the girl in the car had brown hair with red highlights, and my brain thinks of Cassie, then equates that with red hair, then I see the girl, then I think red hair, then I think; holy shit, that was a redheaded girl; it was probably Cassie.

Sigh Mr. Journal.

This is going to bother me. As I was thinking in bed last night with Otis sitting on my chest keeping me warm I was debating doing a stake-out. I mean literally sitting in one of the houses on the side of the road down there waiting to see if they drove by again so I could get a good look at them. You realize how stupid an idea that is Mr. Journal? It would be an enormous waste of time and energy likely for nothing.

The rational thinker that I am tells my idiot self that if Cassie were in fact alive, and had made the trip all the way out here, she would’ve come to the school looking for me. I took a lot of stuff from the house, which she would notice, and I always told that if the world ended, I would hole up here. So if that is her, it means she doesn’t care about finding me anymore.

Ouch. Just fucking ouch.

I don’t want to think about that. It’s bad enough that the undead are roaming the streets, let alone having to think about my girlfriend abandoning me up here. 

Ouch.

I wonder if that IS her and she’s pissed at me because she thinks that I abandoned her. 

Ouch.

Sitting here typing this entry is just causing me emotional pain and distress. I need a new frigging hobby. One that involves me not wishing I were dead. This sucks.

It isn’t her. It can’t be her. She would’ve come here first if she was in town. Even if she was furious at me, she’d come up here at the very least to beat the shit out of me and let me know she was furious at me. She’d kick both of my balls up high enough to pass for earrings. I know that much.

That makes me feel a little better. Curious that the idea that getting my balls kicked up to my neck is a comforting thing nowadays. What a world Mr. Journal, what a world.

Cassie, if you’re still out there, I love you. Always will.

I am feeling a little under the weather tonight. I think something I ate for dinner isn’t agreeing with me. I got that... Squishy feeling downstairs like I’m going to be spending some time on the shitter in a bit. Getting a little warm, and there’s a light film of sweat on my brow. All signs point to diarrhea. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. More likely, I’ll shit all over that bridge when I get there.

Having discussed my digestive issues, I’ll recap you up on what happened earlier today. I cleared three more houses on Jones Road today. Took me forever, which usually means good things. As I said before I’ve already cleared three houses on Jones, and today I did three more, which leaves three left, one of which is that huge ass farmhouse which I’ve got a great feeling about. Old houses are usually great places to find useful stuff from an older era. We’ll see what it brings in a day or so I guess.

The three homes I cleared today were all relatively small by this neighborhood’s standards. Maybe 2,000 square feet. Still out of my price range, but much more reasonable homes. There were several great finds in these houses too, which is pretty awesome. None of the homes had any zombies in them, which was great. Found another dead pet though, a cat, which sucks. Makes me think of Otis.

One house had two items of note worth mentioning. Beer. Lots and lots of beer. Now after my single experience turning myself into an emotional wreck since the end of the world, I am not going to drink any of the beer. I’ll save it for barter should I ever find other living people. Not sure how long it'll keep for though. The other item that house had in it was a shotgun. Another Mossberg pump action 12 gauge. It’s a hunting model, only holds 6 shells, but it is in very good condition. They also had 8 birdshot shells, and 18 buckshot, which is a nice shot in the arm for my dwindling shotgun ammo supply. (How many times can I fit the word “shot” in a sentence you think Mr. Journal?) Hopefully one of these houses will have some 9mm ammo, because that’s starting to get into the red zone. The same house also had some extra gun cleaning supplies, which is always useful. There’s got to be more houses up here with weapons in them. Got to be. The new shotgun is going on the shelf for now. My current shotgun holds 8 shells, which is sort of a big difference if the shit hits the fan, plus it has a little shell holder on the stock which allows for less fumbling for ammo if I’m in a hurry. Devil’s in the details as they say.

One house had a single awesome item, but it was a pretty awesome item. They had a small gas powered electric generator. Well, it’s not that small. It’s a 16HP generator, which is enough to power one of the small dorms. It looks more or less brand new too, which is another big bonus. They had it set up in their garage likely in the event of a power outage in the winter. It would just need to be plugged in to the electrical system at the school and bam, juice to a new building. Add this generator to the wood stove that I want to get up there and we are seriously looking like a success story in the making.

The third house had the dead cat. The third house also had a few bags of cat food. Guess that’s how that works right? Otis lives another day at the expense of another kitty’s life. Sorry bub. Same house also looked like the home of a hoarder. Useless bullshit piled ceiling high in every corner. It was clean thankfully, but amazingly cluttered. They had a lot of really great books that I took. I always took the internet for granted. The last few months it has occurred to me that “Googling” how to do something isn’t a fucking option anymore. If I don’t know how to do something, then I fucking don’t know how. There are no more easy solutions Mr. Journal. These people had an old school encyclopedia, which will be useful.

Great haul earlier. Really pleased. The generator and the shotgun make it a total victory. Add to that I got a bunch of good consumables as well and we’re looking like champions. Really happy.

So yeah, just had the shits. Of course you can’t understand the passage of time because in your world Mr. Journal this is just the next sentence. No time has passed for you! But for me I just nearly soiled myself. Jesus that was terrible. Smelled like someone set a corpse on fire after they took a shit on it. Fucking terrible. It was like evil cement sausages. 

Colorful, aren’t I?

My guts are killing me. I hope I’m not getting sick. That really worries me. I think I’m going to get some water and lay down Mr. Journal. See if I can’t lazy this thing out of my guts.

-Adrian

December 5
^th

Mr. Journal.

I am hurt badly. 

I don’t know what to do.

-Adrian

December 6
^th

I finally out of pain enough to make some sense. I tried to write yesterday, but it was all a goddamn jumble. Right-click delete. As it stands, the Percocet I’m on right now has me a little loopy, and it’s taking me forever to write this out. I’m at that happy period of time with Percocet where I’m not feeling much pain, but I’m largely still coherent. Really stoked the old couple above the gas station had some in a pill bottle. Hooray for the little things.

I am hurt. I was hurt yesterday afternoon during my house clearing on Jones Road. I’ll get to that in a few minutes. First, I’ll explain how I got to my injury. Hopefully I can finish before the pills knock me the fuck out.

As you might recall, the night of the 4th I came down with a case of the Turkish trots. Mr. Journal if you are unfamiliar with that expression, it means powerful diarrhea, typically in a vibrant green color. I think it was food poisoning. I was up late that night off and on the toilet, so sleep was basically nonexistent. However, by dawn I had shit myself empty, and after rehydrating myself I was much better. 

I should’ve stayed in the dorm yesterday. 

I left early this morning with a full belly of food and high hopes for a quiet day. I feel like I’m falling behind on my stated goal of having these houses cleared by the 14th. The sooner I get these houses cleared, the sooner I can start trying to find people. I am definitely not going to make my Dec. 14th date now. Not happening.

There were three houses remaining on Jones Road. Two pretty normal houses, both good sized, and the final huge ass farmhouse at the end of the road. I’ve been itching to get into that farmhouse for days now to see what could be inside it. Frigging place was huge and I just knew there’d be a lot of good stuff inside. I was right about that at least. Of course that wasn’t the only thing I found at the farmhouse.

The first two houses I did were great hauls. Nothing equipment wise that’s new, but there was a really good amount of food and stuff, which I was more than happy to remove. I finished clearing those places by about 1 in the afternoon, and both houses were totally empty of anything sketchy or dangerous. I guess that’s the calm before the storm. I loaded the truck up with the food, and ran it back here before I tackled the farmhouse. Turns out that was a really fortunate choice on my part. I got it all inside here to sort out last night, but it’s still sitting there untouched. I’m having a hard time getting around right now, and it’s not going anywhere anyway.

God I feel so vulnerable.

The farmhouse is on a slight raise at the edge of a field. There’s a typical farm style post fence running around the majority of the property. Maybe 4 or 5 acres of clear land I think. They had 3 or 4 cows, and it looks like 2 horses. I can’t be sure because the animals were pretty much devoured. Their smelly ass carcasses were in the far edge of the field away from the house. I only saw them when I went into the barn when I started to clear the area.

For some reason I forgot to honk my horn. I’ve only skipped honking the horn once, and that was when I was clearing the cape the other day that I was pretty sure was empty, or filled with zombies. I can’t be sure either way, but I’m thinking if I honk my horn earlier today, I’m walking around fine tonight. Fuck me. This is what cutting corners gets you I guess.

So I parked the truck next to the house where the previous owner’s cars would’ve been parked. There was a gravel driveway right there, plus it was next to the gate for the fence. I was so goddamn giddy to check the place out I didn’t clear it quite as thoroughly as I should have. I gave the outside of the house a quick walk around, then headed straight to the barn to see what was out there. I saw the animal bodies on the grass and double checked them to make sure they weren’t sheltering any zombies. All clear. 

The barn was pretty good for stuff. Biggest thing was a small tractor. I left it there because right now I have no use for it. Come spring though it will be awesome when I start to plant crops. Assuming I make it to spring. Assuming I make it to Christmas. There was also a bigger gas powered chainsaw in the barn, which I did grab.

I let myself into the house via a back porch. They screens were all still open from the summer months, and it was really cold. The back door to the house was wide open as well, which told me no one was here. If there were people living here, they wouldn’t have left the back door open in 25 degree weather.

I cleared the bottom floor of the giant ass farm, then for some reason decided to clear the basement. I can’t say why. Just decided to do that next. Easily the creepiest basement yet. 10 out of 10 for sure. The house had to be 200 years old and the damp, dark, cold cellar was straight out of a horror movie. There were no windows either, and once I got down stairs I switched to the Sig and my new Maglite instead of the shotgun. I couldn’t safely clear the cellar holding the shotgun and the flashlight. Despite giving myself a complete mind-fuck in the scary ass basement, it was empty. I perused down there for a few minutes and found a pretty decent supply of canned food. Gotta love farmers and their need to stockpile food. Salt of the Earth, those people.