Tamberlin's Account (9 page)

Worse things I could do with my time.

Most days I take out my photos and spend some time on the importance of remembering.

Nov 3 1:49am

I parked by a couple of broke down/abandoned vehicles. Car's almost out of gas. Making sounds like "Gug" "Gug" "Gug" and the fuel light's been on for a while. Didn't want to wander around in the dark. Have had the nagging feeling that I am not alone.

Will take care of it in the morning.

I wish I knew where I'm going to end up so I knew to head there.

Lewis Carroll wrote, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

I guess that’s okay, as long as it’s southbound.

Nov 5 9:53pm

While the sun was setting I couldn’t see anything on the hillside, even though it was jet black against the hot yellow light.

When twilight cast that reality blurring bluish gray half night over the everlasting unfamiliar I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.

But when night fell I was certain, below the faintest whisper of smoke was a distant campfire. A fire so small and far away it twinkled like a star.

How I wonder what you are.

Nov 6 4:26am

I found a busy body in a hatchback about 15 minutes ago. My flashlight caught the movement before I heard it thumping inside. Mr. Ages’ bark sounded like bad brakes, getting louder and fast as we approached.

The busy body inside was pacing like a tiger in a cage.

I didn’t want to think it then, but I am willing to write it now—based on the items I could see through the glass, sleeping bag and pack, flashlight, hiking stick, and a baseball bat, I think he was just like me.

There was a roll of duct tape amongst the possessions and some of the sheets he’d taped up on the windows were even still up—in the front, where he apparently never wandered.

I saw a bite on his arm, but he was half-dressed and I couldn’t see any others. All the other wounds were just from his flesh rotting.

He didn’t stop moving, but he did move faster. Somehow his dead eyes never left me, even as his path forced him to turn his back on me. I must have been seeing things.

Nov 7 8:20pm

Another early morning. Yuck.

But I was too nervous to stay asleep.

I watched the sun set from an overpass. Watched the three dimensional world transform into silhouette.

All too soon, with impossible speed, the night engulfed the day in perfect, tar thick darkness.

It was at this point when I saw the UFO. Its silvery pot pie shaped mass floated toward me over the trees, making sounds a child would make for a ghost, only higher. Its movements were as realistic as fake boobs.

…

…

…in other words—nothing happened today worth writing.

Nov 8 4:51pm

I caught myself feeling good today. We were just walking and that’s exactly what it felt like we were doing. Just walking. That at any driveway I should sense we were home and go there.

I realized I was singing to myself,
Crossroads
by Matisyahu, like in his
Acoustic Sessions of Spark Seeker
. And somehow—I found perfect harmony with the world—as is. His work can make a person feel that way.

Anyway, it was…….uplifting.

How can I describe how amazing it felt to feel, if only for a moment, that everything was normal?

Good Lord.

I took so much for granted.

Nov 14 9:34pm

The moonlight struck every hump of the rolling and rising country road before me. Only for that moonlight did I see the thriving nightmare pour over the greatest of the hills.

A slow moving wave ate up the black top still shiny from an earlier rain shower. I imagined it like a tsunami—a wall of death that was definitely moving faster than it looked.

I shrugged on the strap of my bag and held it on my shoulder with the hand that unconsciously took up the hammer.

Mr. Ages looked up at me anxiously and I pet him.

I felt the handle of the screwdriver tap my wrist when my hand settled at my side.

Rising from the bottom of the hill nearest to me came something like a man whose entire flesh was the off color of a bad bruise. More than blood, a pus-like fluid quivered like cold fat on the mouth of every wound. The flies were so dense I could see them in the dark. I could hear them where I couldn’t see them.

Half a dozen more were coming over the next hill. They were coming out of the woods. A head, neck, shoulder, and arm were all that was left of a woman coming up along the ditch. Her organs and entrails made crude tentacles behind her, like some kind of sea witch. This other one, maybe it was a man before, but it was only a creature of protruding and splintered bones and shredded flesh now.

None terrified me as this closest rotting thing. I felt like I was facing down the Horseman of Pestilence. I almost fainted and that scared me so bad I became alert like God had slapped me.

There was no way to win this.

Shit.

This one. This horrible One. Something told me I couldn’t—maybe
nothing
could stop him.

I wound my arm and hand into Mr. Ages’ leash so he’d have to break it off before I’d lose him. I didn’t say anything, because I was afraid they were already too aware of me. That one I know saw me. The damn thing looked right in my eyes.

Can the dead see?

I led Mr. Ages off the road and started running. The tall wet grass quickly soaked me. It was cold. I was shaking, but it had nothing to do with that. To my left I could hear them crunching through the woods. I heard the disgusting sounds they make. I smelled them everywhere.

Mr. Ages started making high pitched yips. Without thinking, scared shitless, I snapped at him to shut up—and not quietly.

My shoulder bounced off something soft. It made a guttural sound.

I heard hooved things running.

It was so fucking dark in the woods.

I felt like I was running forever.

The forest puked me out in a field. There was a farm and beyond it another road.

There were several buildings on the property, we ran to what was probably the old farmhouse, an abandoned building that sat amongst a heap of junk.

I had to break out a small window to get in. I hoisted Mr. Ages through it. Nothing but pigeons and spiders had been anywhere near this place in years.

There was a small loft with a ladder. I drug the poor yipping mutt up there and brought the ladder up behind us. I took the leash’s end and wrapped it around his mug and then crushed him with my body to keep him still.

It might not have been the first to reach the farm, but the first busy body I knew of eventually found the window. I saw its silhouette block out the moonlight. It stuck its head through and stuffed its head, on what looked like a too-long neck, through the space.

We lay in the thick smell of mildew and listened to the dead passing us by. The one at the window didn’t move. It just made this “Awwwwww” sound all night on what could have been one breath, if they breathe.

I “killed” it this morning.

When we finally went out, all that was left was a somewhat trampled field.

We walked toward the next road.

On the fringe of the woods opposite us, beyond another small field, there was a zombie. Even from this distance and without my contacts in or glasses on, I knew which one it was.

I hate to even write it.

Like bringing him up will conjure him. It makes me sick to even thinking about him out there. Like a huge spider in your house that you’ve tried to kill, but it manages to drag itself into a vent or something and you don’t know if it’s hurt enough that you don’t have to worry about it coming back. Wondering where it is and what it’s doing and when or if you’ll see it again.

Never would be too soon.

Nov 28 7:09am

It's been hard to find a good place to sit and write a little. I'd run into some bad weather—as if I just turned down the wrong road.

Freezing rain put about 1/4 an inch of crystal clear Unmanageable on everything.

Okay, I had to look back; I forgot what I'd last wrote you. Wrote me?

So you already know my car wouldn't start—even when I got it some gas. Of course, I can't hotwire cars. So we've obviously been walking since then.

It hasn't been great because of the barking, but at least he doesn't seem to do it if they aren't close to us—like outside of 500 feet.

I wish I had better shoes. Well—there are a lot of things that I'd have if I could.

Right now my heart's with a baked potato with real butter and a sprinkle of pepper, a rare steak smothered in mushrooms, caramelized onions, and a bowl of vanilla ice-cream with pineapples on top and on the side. And a beer that's so chilled it has frost on it.

In some ways travelling on foot is great, but I yearn to go faster. I feel like I'm late to be somewhere or maybe I feel urgent to get somewhere and make it mine.

I've decided if I can make it halfway south I will have the best chance to make a go of it. I need to avoid "real" winters.

I think I stand a good chance of being able to squirrel away some seeds since all this started around the beginning of June.

Maybe it didn't for other people.

Who knows what other people were told was happening. I guess the real question is when it became real for each of us.

I'm sitting at someone's kitchen table. I did some significant damage breaking in—so I can't stay long. I needed to rest and needed a chance to sort out my thoughts.

I talk to myself and Mr. Ages too much—so much that I worry. I don't know anything about psychology, but I find myself muttering about what I'm doing when I don't have any reason to talk.

When I don't talk I'm stuck in here where all this writing comes from.

I worry about when I tremble like I'm cold—and I'm not.

Blood sugar?

Are my nerves giving out? My sanity?

Am I lucid enough to know if something’s wrong? Can you worry so much about going crazy that you do?

Am I a boiler that needs to vent and won't? What do I vent? How?

Sometimes I feel like I'm going to break down. I'll think I'm fine—I'm not thinking about anything at all and then I can barely walk and then I can't breathe and I'm somewhere between sobbing and puking.

And I lose time. I lose miles. My mind leaves me on auto pilot.

Every time I regain control, Mr. Ages is standing there, against me. Worrying –I don't
imagine
that he worries.

And he gets sad.

He gets sleepy. He can be playful—sometimes he's so nuts it’s like a caffeine crab has clamped on his ass.

He's feeling this, just like me.

He's lost just as much as us—everything he knew. And, like me, he probably doesn't know what happened to whoever he loved.

On the bright side—I'm living it up.

Do you know how long Slim Fast stays fresh? A long time. And it doesn't need refrigeration.

There are four cases in the pantry and two bottles in the fridge. 34 bottles.

I also got a bunch of vitamins and I'm boiling water on the barbeque out front to make noodles. Macaroni and cheese if the powder packet is still good—I'm gonna eat it no matter, but I
thought
I checked it.

I have three more boxes of that and some oatmeal.

The couple that lived here must have planned to wait it out. They had it barricaded pretty well. There are public notice fliers for going to the nearest “Relief Station”. But I can't imagine that they'd leave this for some unknown. I wonder what happened to them. Janice and Mickey Wright. They have a lot of pictures on their walls.

They are probably in their 50's. They look like nice people. Stuffing my face with their food—I can’t help but like them. No pictures of children, but a lot of cats. I haven't seen any, but Mr. Ages will eat well on their food.

I can't stay because of what I did to the door. I'd have to seal it off to keep it closed. That's no good.

After the noodles are done I’ll do a half assed job making it secure so I don't have to worry about anything coming in while I'm eating.

I need to find a way to move all this stuff, because the water from the park is heavy enough. I don't want to leave any of this. There'll be hell to pay first.

I took a deck of cards.

I was hoping for a rifle.

I can hear Mr. Ages crunching on dry cat food. I'm writing at a kitchen table in a cute little one bedroom house. If the windows weren't boarded over—neatly, I think I should point out—this would have a very "normal" feel to it.

When the water boils I'm going to have a cup of instant coffee with sugar—I hate dried creamer.

I already went through the caffeine withdrawal—I don't know if I really need to get into that again, but I'm going to.

I'm very willfully falling off the wagon.

Tonight, I hope everyone's doing this well.

Nov 29 6:46am

Mankind can do just about anything. We could adapt if God flooded the world. We could adapt to anything God might have done to the world that 150 years ago would have devastated mankind.

Is this the length God had to go to?

Is this a way to start over for us, as a species—I am content to think that.

Then maybe I don't have a reason to worry about the people I love.

Maybe this is Armageddon.

Maybe all the pieces of shit are dead and snatched away to Hell because there's nothing to debate.

Maybe all the really good people have gone ahead because God
knew
they were good, without a doubt.

Maybe with everyone that's left there is some doubt about where we belong and we're being tested to see how we really rate.

I accept the challenge. I need something to work toward. There are a lot of things I felt I had to do that I'm not happy about.

I don't want to live this and then go to Hell too.

Do you believe in a higher power?

Do you believe in God?

I do.

With how fucked up things are, I wouldn't take any chances. What's the harm?

But I wonder how many people of faith or otherwise are having doubts they never had before.