Day by Day Armageddon (5 page)

  1.
Supplies:
status good

  John was on the air and ready at 1800 just like he said. We spoke about our current situation and came up with theories of how it began. I asked John if he knew if bullets could kill them, he didn't. I told him about my little campfire yesterday and he told me he saw the fire after they had succumbed and wondered what happened. He finally broke the news to me about his wife. His son was away for college at Purdue when all of this hit. His wife was a victim of one of those things.

  He said she was bitten on the arm and infection set a few days later, and there was nothing he could do. He started to cry, (I could hear his tears through the tinny transmission of the 2-way) and I tried to change the subject, he said "I had to put her down, it hurt like hell, but I had to." I told him not to think about this and try to keep his head in the game for the time being. He agreed and we kept talking.

  I told him that I had seen numerous postings from survivors all over the United States on the Internet, but none from our allies overseas. He asked me to read them to him, I did. I told him that one survivor was in southeast Texas, so that means that he and I weren't the last survivors here. I read about the survivor from New York, and John told me in a distant voice that he had family there. We both went off the air for a couple minutes to get our road atlases.

  We got back on and started to discuss escape routes should this area become infested and uninhabitable. He suggested the Alamo because it's only a half a day's walk from here. I told him that I thought it would be suicide to enter the city now. I suggested that we "borrow" a sturdy vehicle and head east to the Gulf of Mexico and find an offshore oilrig.

  John said that his power had been flickering on and off in the past few days and he wasn't sure how long it would hold. John found a generator in his basement, but he told me he refused to use it unless he had to, because it might be audible outside. We decided not to waste too much battery power on these two-way radios. I only had three other sets of triple A's.

  I tried the CB radio on every channel, only static. I'm hungry.

  
Thought:
I still have my XM satellite radio in my truck.

  
Satellite = no lines to catch on fire.

  If the uplink station is still operational someone could uplink from the www, and transmit.

  I will go out tonight and get the radio and UHF antenna.

  John and I decided that if we needed to talk to one another we would be at the window at the top of the hour to flash our lights. We decided to make a deal to go to the window and check on each other every hour, until we signalled it was time for bed (5) Hashes. No light means no need to waste our two-way radio batteries. Cheeked my XM radio. It seems to work fine, unfortunately every station that is active is playing a constant loop. Some of the news channels are broadcasting stories and news from last week. Old news. I will continue to monitor when I can. I checked the CB radio again. I could have sworn that I heard the faint signal of a human voice. I called out and tried to get a response, no joy.

  Looking out the window, I see at least a dozen fires in the distance, and every now and again, I think I hear gunfire. I imagined for a moment that it could be the last survivors in the big city. I bet it is a war zone there. I feel dirty, but I just don't want to waste the water. That reminded me to check the water pressure. Still some left. I haven't left the confines of my domicile for five days, I think, (sans the bonfire and slingshot incident). It feels like a month.

  I wonder how other countries are holding up. I bet Eskimos and some of the small islands in the Philippines aren't really affected by this. Lucky bastards. I wonder if the walking dead are cold to the touch. That would lead me to believe that they don't generate body heat therefore they are much like a snake. I theorize that if it gets very cold, they may slow down. Tomorrow is Sunday. No church for me tomorrow. I guess he wasn't bullshitting about the "Omega" part. It's almost midnight, so I'm off to give my (5) flashes to John.

  Woke up this morning to no power. I was around 0730. At 0800 sharp 1 went to the window to signal John. He was already there. He told me that the power went out last night at about 0330. I slept right through
it.
I don't know what it is. But I have just been able to sleep a little better since I met John. I guess it's the feeling of not being alone. Being in the military, I never got a chance to make many close friends, because I would always be moving soon. That was the case here. I had this house built because I thought it would be a good investment and because I knew I would be here for a couple years.

  John said that he really didn't need any power to do anything. He had a propane cooker and plenty of water. I told him that I was using solar power with deep cycle submarine batteries.

  My broadband connection is running through the buried cable lines, and it still seems to be unaffected. There is also power to the phone grid because when I pick the phone up, I get the quick busy tone telling me the switchboards are down, but the lines are not out. I told John that I would be back soon and that I had to go to the garage to switch from the power grid to my own power supply (wouldn't want the power surging back on and damaging my battery banks).

  After I switched power to solar/battery, I got back on the horn with John. He asked if there were any new survivor entries on the online forums and I read them to him. People from all over the US were sounding off. Some sounded bleak, others sounded hopeful. I guess reading the survivor's entries to John was sort of an outlet. John and f discussed travel. I told John that I could fly. If I had a way to get an operational aircraft, we could make it pretty much anywhere in the US, as long as we had the charts so that I could find airfields with fuel. We were both getting cabin fever and it showed. We were just thinking of excuses to leave this dead place.

  Gunshots outside. It's too dark to see John's house without the streetlight. Turned my radio on and waited for a few minutes. I was sure John was in danger until I heard him crackle in. "Don't worry, I'm safe, I had to shoot some of them because they were starting to pile up onto each other and form a human ladder." I asked him how they were affected by the shots. He said that he shot twelve of them in the head using only the moonlight at close range and killed them. That's good news. I know that those shots are going to attract more of them, so I will be sleeping extra softly tonight. Suggested to John that he be ready at first light to kill twice as many as he killed today.

  I can't really sleep as I keep thinking about all the people left alive and struggling to survive. A woman in Oklahoma is trapped with her children, and asking for advice on the online message boards. What grief it would bring me to find out that my advice doomed someone to being destroyed by a crowd of those things? I know that if I was in a situation, trapped, with the un-dead increasing in numbers daily around my perimeter, I would have no choice but to leave. I'm thinking of short-term safe havens as we speak. Water towers, train cars (with roof exits), roofs of buildings with limited roof access come to mind. I just wouldn't want to be somewhere surrounded with no way out. If there are any prisons or military facilities, I might choose those. They are defensible if, and only if you can clear them out. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my situation could become much like hers quickly if I don't stay in the game. I don't feel it prudent to give others advice, as I am no expert. I just hope that we all survive. There doesn't seem to be much chance for most of them.

  Situation, dire… John and I woke up today and started communicating on the two ways. What I saw out the window was almost too much. It was 0700 hrs and there were approximately one hundred of those things on our street forming a human moat around John's house. I grabbed my carbine, checked its action, holstered my side arm and prepared for battle. I donned gloves, hood, and flight suit, and John's radio with ear bud. John had no idea that his previous efforts to clear them out would lead to so many following the noise here. I told John to stay put and I un-barricaded the back door, stepped through and jumped my fence.

  Taking careful aim with my weapon, I started aiming for the nearest ones first, or the ones on the outside of the circle, thinking that this may slow their pursuit down as they trip over their slain brethren. I only had four magazines, that's 116 rounds. I shot round after round into the skulls of those things. One would think that it would bring instant death. This was not the case. Even some direct hits didn't hit the brain, but skirted along the outside of the skull only to pass through on the other side. For every ten I shot, I only killed eight or nine.

  The lumbering mass of ghouls chased, me, tripping over the corpse-laden ground. I had no choice. I had to flee. I ran for blocks only to find more of them. I knew this was a dead place. I could feel it in the air. I was being hunted. The nearest immediate shelter I could find was a gas station. My body was full of adrenaline. I knew they would consume me. I climbed a pipe on the side of the gas station wall and mounted the roof.

  I could tell by the moans and movement in the distance that I was a dead man, living on borrowed time. I had around thirty rounds left (one magazine and some change). So I decided to take one out of the magazine, and save it for myself. I started shooting. Trying for headshots. Hitting some and missing more, the fog of war was taking my aim.

  That is when I heard my savoir. I caught glimpse of a car coining from the direction of my street. I kept shooting. The car took notice and headed my direction. It was John. He haphazardly pulled his car around the side of the gas station. There were five of them closing in. I took three of them out before I ran out of rounds. I had to go for my sidearm. I quickly jumped down from the roof, walked up and killed the last two at point blank, executioner style. A dark brown mist invaded the air behind their skulls. I stayed clear of it, fearing infection, and jumped in the car with John. We skipped shaking hands and John asked me if I wanted to go home. I told him that if we went back there, it would only lead them to us. He agreed. That was when I came up with the plan. I asked John if he could part with his car. John smiled and said, "What's your plan, sailor?"

  I told John to keep driving. Those things were following us. I navigated him to a place not far from our homes. I asked John what type of music he had in his car. He was a conservative man. Looking through his CDs, I found what i was looking for. It would be perfect for the job. We made it to the place, a large parking lot next to a rundown factory. We parked the car and I told John to keep it running. I put a CD in, rolled the windows down and opened all the doors. I turned everything on, even the wipers. Then I turned the volume up as loud as it would go without blowing the speakers. John and I grabbed our weapons and headed to a safer rally point a quarter of a mile away from his car.

  The
"Marriage
of
Figaro"
was filling the air of the parking lot and surrounding area. The mass of the un-dead finally rounded the last corner and came into plain view of the car. Their shambling pace quickened as they saw what their glazed white eyes wanted them to see. They surrounded the car, and took it over. John and I wasted no more time, as soon as we knew our plan worked, we headed out.

  On the way home, I told John that I wasn't sure that even
they
could survive that music. He laughed and we kept moving. We saw a dozen of those things as we made our stealthy way back. None of them saw us. A half a bottle of whiskey later, here I sit. Staring at the bullet I saved for myself…Is life worth living?

  I have re-gathered my thoughts, and recovered from yesterday's catastrophe and this morning's hangover. John and I have decided that its better we stay in separate houses because it's "Never good to put all of your eggs in one basket." We don't want both of us dying because one house is under siege. The events that transpired yesterday really hit me hard. I almost died out there. If John hadn't found me or had chosen not to, I would have spent days up there dying of dehydration, listening to the moaning of the dead, until I decided to end it.

  There must have been five hundred dead swarming the car when John and I left it there, in the parking lot. Last night, lying in my bed, I could hear the faint sound of Mozart in the distance when the wind blew just right. I can't hear it now. I can only imagine how long it took for the car to run out of gas on idle, and the battery to drain from everything that I had left on. The streets are clear now, but there is no way to know for how long. When the sound stopped drawing them near the car, I am sure they spread out again. It's only a matter of time until the law of averages puts them back here.

  John and I talked. Last night before we left each other to our solitude (after the Figaro incident), John ran inside and handed me a few more packages of batteries for the 2-way radio. I could tell he wanted to talk. It wasn't until today that I got around to it. John knew I was messed up. Today, I got to know him a little better. John is an engineer (explains his wacky plan with the yoga band). He has a Master's in mechanical engineering from Purdue. Told me that he worked for Execu-Tech.