Day by Day Armageddon (4 page)

  The news isn't even broadcasting live anymore on TV. It's obvious they are controlling the broadcast remotely because all you see are street corner cameras that are only connected to the world through the www. Oh, and the tickers on the screen keep rolling by showing government shelter centres. Half of it is misspelled and hastily typed. One camera of particular interest was a traffic camera pointing at a random interstate in California. It showed those dead bastards trapped in their vehicles with their seat belts still on trying to scratch and moan their way out. From the looks of it, they died in an accident and came back only to be stuck in a car with no motor skills to unfasten the seatbelt. That makes me feel better, because if they can't un-click the belt, they can't turn the doorknob.
It wary,
Phones down, Internet up… why? I think it's because most of the lines dealing with the Internet are buried or satellite. All the phone lines are above ground.

  The sun is out. It's getting hot indoors. I don't want to run the air conditioner out of fear of the noise it will make. Electricity is Intermittent. Water pressure is failing. I'm keeping the tubs filled up as I drink water. I'm not risking a shower or bath because I will have I'd drain the water to do this and I might lose total pressure. Using a bucket and sponge to take a bath. Trying to shave every other day to keep my morale up. The same news keeps Hashing on the screen. No reporters in two clays. I'm trying It) establish a routine as to maintain sanity. In the early AM, I am walking the perimeter before the sun rises as to avoid attention from those things. Later in the AM, I am working out by doing basic calisthenics.

  I had a real scare this morning. A cat had jumped my fence in order to avoid being killed by one of those things. I didn't think much of it until the cat had ran off and jumped the fence opposite the side it came in on. That's when the thing that was pursuing it decided it wanted to keep up the chase. I could only see its hands as it groped over the fence feeling for the cat. It just kept cutting itself on the broken glass that I had glued there a few days earlier. I guess these things have no fear of pain.

  I think it got angry because it started beating on my wall. I could hear the thuds from the other side. Let it thud away I suppose because it's going to take a lot more than that to tear down my rock wall. There are four or five of them in that area now. They are shambling around. I get a feeling they sense I'm here, but 1 cannot be sure. If it gets too bad, I will have to deal with them. I was thinking I might get my stepladder and some of my reserve kerosene and put it in my pesticide sprayer. I will climb the ladder and spray them down then light a match and burn them to death, again. It's much quieter than shooting them I suppose. At least this way I will be able to get a good look at one of them. I'm off to make preparations for this.

  I cannot begin to describe how disgusting these things look. I am a believer now. They are certainly dead and certainly want me to be dead with them. I quietly went to the garage to get my kerosene, ladder and sprayer. I set the ladder up first. Went over to the section that I thought they were at. 1 could hear footsteps near where I placed the ladder.

  I wanted so bad to see, but I was scared to look. I went back to the garage, and picked up the rest of my death squad gear. 1 could have easily shot them, but I don't want to make the noise, or waste the ammunition. I filled the sprayer up and climbed the ladder. First rung… I could see the tops of three of their heads… second rung, they noticed my presence and this awful gurgling moaning sound erupted from one of them. Sounded like, well I don't know what it sounded like. I got to the top of the ladder and there were six of them gathered around my position on the opposite side of the wall.

  I pumped the canister to get pressure to the sprayer and doused the bastards with kerosene. They were fucking pissed, or hungry, or both, I don't know. I lit a match and threw it at the closest one, no dice, didn't ignite. I repeated this three more times as these vicious things kept clawing at the wall trying to get to me. Finally on the fourth attempt one of them caught fire. I knew I had to stay there on the ladder so I could make them bump into each other and spread the lire.

  Finally when they were all up in flames, I stepped down from I he ladder and put away my gear. I could hear the popping sound of burning fat for the next two hours. I'm glad it had rained for the past few days, or 1 wouldn't have even thought about doing this. I really ha vi- to start malting a backup plan in the event I get SNAFU'ed here at my house.

  1. They feel no pain.

  2. They want
to
fuck me up.

  3. Fire re-kills them.

  4. Not sure about weapons fire yet

  The sun is quickly going down. From my laptop web cam, I can see numerous figures up the street gathering around another house. I wonder if someone is alive in there. I hear birds going crazy in that direction. Not sure what the deal is. I hope if someone is alive in there, they have the common sense to stay quiet, because I really don't want to find out how gunfire affects them just yet. I don't want to be a hero today. I miss the world already. I miss flying. I miss being a naval officer. I guess I still am, but I'm not sure if there is even a government around to recognize my commission. I sharpened my knife to a honed perfection today. It was sort of a relaxation technique. Also cleaned my carbine, although she didn't need it. A visual inspection was made of all weapons.

  The solar panels are running efficiently. I dread going on the roof to clean them, because I'm sure I will be spotted. I should do it at night. That's a ways off. I heard the sound of a helicopter today, didn't take the chance to go outside and look even though those things can't spot me from ground level. Maybe they can smell me. It makes me wonder what senses they lost or gained from dying and coming back. I think it probably took longer than normal for the ones that I burned to die, as compared to a normal human.

  I saw the caps of the flames from my house over the wall stumbling around for at least three minutes. The average human would collapse from pain in less than thirty seconds, I would guess. When it gets dark, I am going to use the LASER sight on my pistol to try to signal the house up the street. At least that way the creatures won’t see the signal, only the recipient will, if they exist, or are even alive.

  Using my pistol LASER sight, I made the attempt at signalling the house that the creatures were gathering around. At first I just aimed the "dot" at every window and shook it around. After about five minutes of this, I saw the faint glow if a flashlight in the upstairs window. Whomever it was started flashing the light. "Dit-dit-dit-da-da-da-dit-dit-dit." It was SOS in Morse code. I learned Morse code a few years back at a military radioman school I attended and was pretty good at visually interpreting and pretty shitty at interpreting it through audio means.

  This time I was in luck. I grabbed a pencil and some scratch paper (bills that I will never pay) and gave the Morse code signal that I was ready to copy. The things weren't reacting to the other person's flashlight, so I decided to use my L.E.D. light because of the 25 hours of battery life, unlike my pistol laser sight. I started to copy the Morse. At first it was slow going because I had to signal him/her to repeat the signal. I got into the groove after a couple of sentences.

  I told him my name and that I was OK also. I also told him to be quiet, the things like sound. He understood. Not bad communication for being a hundred yards away. He signalled and said that his house was secure and that he had a plan to make communication faster, but it would wait until tomorrow. I asked him what the plan involved, his reply was

  I told John that I sort of understood. He signalled that it was time for him to get some rest. I let him go after that. That was over an hour ago and I still cannot fathom what he intends to do with a rubber band, a small radio and a slingshot. 1 can't think of a sling shot big enough to propel a hand held walk & talk one hundred yards to my house and even if it could, it would break into a million pieces if it did make it over here. I guess at least I have something to look forward to for tomorrow.

  I woke up at 0605 and went to look out the upstairs window. Sat there for a minute with my light and then began to try and hail John, I kept flashing my light at the window. No answer. I started thinking the worst. I just sat there for a few minutes sad, knowing that in half an hour, it wouldn't matter anyway because the sun would be loo bright for us to see each other’s flashing signal. That was when I saw him. I saw movement on the roof, the silhouette of a middle-aged man in a plaid button up red and black shirt and jeans. I grabbed my binoculars ran back and started flashing my light.

  The sun was starting to shine so I was not sure if he could see the light trying to compete with the sun's brightness. He looked my direction and waved. Then he held up this long green elastic looking thing and what looked like a short stubby metal coffee thermos.

  He then proceeded to wrap one end of this band around the chimney and the other…round his exterior allied fan, forming a primitive sling. He put the thermos in the sling and started walking down the other side of his roof, out of my sight stretching the green looking band. It seemed like a long time. Finally, I saw the band snap upwards, then less than a second later, when the sound caught up, I heard the snap.

  The thermos that John had cradled into the band was shooting at a trajectory that would put it roughly somewhere in my yard. The ten or fifteen un-dead that were shambling around John's house took no notice as John's package sailed to its target. I heard a loud "thank" as the thermos hit one of the stepping-stones in my yard.

  The package had made it over 100 yards inside the perimeter of my fence. Not without cost though. The sound was loud and two of the things turned from John's house, as if they heard it and started walking in my general direction. I wasted no time and immediately put my gloves and mask on and grabbed my pistol. 1 didn't feel it necessary to bring the rifle for a front yard expedition.

  I made it to ground zero in less than fifteen seconds, picked up the dented thermos and ran back inside waving at John. He could see me and I could see him, but the things could see neither of us from our positions. When I got inside I opened John's package and found two packages of eight triple 'A' Duracell batteries, and the following two items: a note from John, and a two-way radio.

  (It also came stuffed with packing foam peanuts).

  The corpses finally made it to my general area, but the sound of the impact was so brief they had no idea what specific area to go to. I loaded the batteries (takes 4 AAA) into the two-way radio and put the ear bud on. John was already trying to get me on channel seven. We talked for a great while. He told me that he used his wife's yoga resistance band to slingshot the thermos. We both laughed at that. I was afraid to ask him about his wife so instead I asked him if he had lost anyone in all this, he simply replied, "I think everyone has."

  I didn't go any further. I asked him what his plans were, and what his supplies looked like. He told me that he was still formulating it plan of survival and a backup of escape, and that he had plenty of food and water. He also told me that he had a semi-automatic.22 rifle and a couple bricks of ammunition. Hell, that's more ammo than I have.

  I asked him why all of them were gathered around his house and he told me that it was because of his dog, she started barking at a group of them so he had to muzzle her. I asked what kind of dog he had, and he told me that he had an Italian greyhound (tiny version of regular greyhound) named Annabelle. I was jealous of the companionship he had. My busy Navy schedule kept me from getting a pet, because I would deploy at odd times. I told him that 1 had another friend named John back at the squadron. He said that we should conserve battery power and think of something useful to chat about in the evening and that he would be back on at 1800 sharp. I agreed and we both signed off.