Zombies! Rising from the Dead (14 page)

As
for me right now things aren't too bad. I still have electricity,
water and heat I know sooner or later it will go out but I am going
to utilize them all I can while I still have use of it. I also have
peep holes cut in each corner of the house so I can see out and watch
what these things are doing. I feel like I am a prisoner in my own

home
.

Day Seven

I have a radio and the TV is still working for now. The Emergency
Broadcast Channel has been up for almost a week now. Up until a few
days ago there were still live news broadcasts and updates, I guess
things have gotten worse because one day I got up and there was
nothing
;
nothing but a blank screen and a generic E.B.C signal with
an automated message. The last update I saw before it all went was
from some doctor working with the CDC.
It looked as though they had
been moved into a bunker or something. That's the last live broadcast
I ever saw. It’s all just repeated Emergency Broadcast recordings. I
haven't been able to get any news from the outside in days. I have no
idea what’s going on, when or
if
aid will ever come. I am preparing
for the long haul.

Day Eight

I watch these things as they shamble across the grass, a lawn I used
to be so proud of and worked so hard on. I don't think they know I am
here,
I've been quiet, careful not to make any sound. The house is
deftly silent, so still in fact that I find it a little disturbing.
It's as if everything around me has gone to sleep, waiting for the
day when it will be safe to waken once again. I don't have much that
I can
do;
all I do is sit and listen to those things outside. I
can
read some when I'm not distracted, luckily I have lots of books
around me,
book
s
I always intended to read but never got around to
t
hem. Now I have nothing but time; talk about solitude!

Day Nine

This whole mess started with a meteor in case I haven't told you. The
radiation caused dead tissue to ‘wake up’. Putting it bluntly dead
people started coming back to life; well not life exactly, but they
weren't exactly dead anymore either. It’s not like in the movies, not
all of it anyway. We had some run-ins with them several days ago
before all hell broke loose. These “things” are just reanimated
corpses not really people by any stretch of the word, but they still
present a very real danger.

Day Ten

Talked to Rick today, I try to talk to him once a day on the radio
it helps keep our morale up. He is with Amanda a few miles up the
road at his place; but I told you that already. These things are all
over the place. Rick told me he had about fifty in his yard; too
many to try and make a run for it at this point. They're okay for now

though
, so I’m not too worried at this point. My
only concern is his
house doesn't have the natural protection that mine does. I have
counted about forty of these things myself. They come up to the doors
and the windows sometimes. I can hear them shuffling on the front
porch, they scratch at the brick, making a sound not much unlike
finger nails on a chalk board. At night it can be very unsettling,
sitting there in the darkness with only those things to listen to.
Every bang, every scratch,
and every
creak of the house....well, you
can't help but think that it's one of them finally breaching the
defenses.

Day Eleven

I usually write in my journal late at night, when I have nothing else
to do and can't occupy my mind with other distractions. It helps to
drown out the constant sound of moaning and clawing. I can't go

around
with the lights on, light is tricky, it seeps in and out of
the most unlikely places; sound carries further too.

I hate the
nighttime, I can't do
anything
. I can't listen to the radio, can't
watch a movie or move about the house. All I can do is sit here in
the corner of this darkened hallway with only a tiny, single candle
to light my way as I write, the soft, mellow glow of the candlelight
is
strangely comforting to me in these hours. Any type of electrical
lighting is out of the question...too bright, they might see it and
be drawn to its source,
they
would know I was here for sure then.

It's just after midnight now; I'm going to try and get some
sleep, Good
Night.

Day Thirteen

Didn't write yesterday, just didn't feel much like it, I get that way
sometimes. Who's going to read this but me anyhow?
Every day
that goes
by is more mundane that the last, if these things don't get me the
isolation could.

I spent today rechecking every last door and window
in the
house;
it just couldn't get
any more
secure than it is. I
caulked around the seams to help block out
more
light,
it helps with the

Sound-proofing
to.

Day Fourteen

These creatures, as I call them, well they are
real
people
;
or
were
real people.
Once
they were
caring mothers,
devoted
fathers,
loving sons and
daughters.
T
hey had jobs, homes and lives of their own. Now they are reduced to withering piles of flesh with bloated
bellies and heads
full
of rotting flesh; not much reward for a life of
hard work
and sacrifice
is it? It just seems wrong. I believe in God and I
believe that when you die your soul goes to a place, be-it heaven or
hell, but there is a scientific aspect to it as well in that what
biological material
is
left behind after the soul departs is something
we have to deal with in the physical world. The body is left behind,
a body that has seen its own share of happiness, sadness, joy and
disappointments
;
all that time
and history leaves an imprint of its own.

I've seen some shit in the last week or so and I'm telling you that
when you die
it
isn't over, there's more to it that we have yet to
fully understand.
These damned things seem to have memories, why the fuck
would they be gathering at houses? When Rick and I were coming home
that day we saw one and it looked right as us, it
knew
we were there.

Day Fifteen

My house was built on the slope of a hill with the front of the house
at the top of the hill before it starts to descend, with the rooms in
the back of the house unreachable from the ground unless you come in
through the basement and up the stairs. I took advantage of that
natural protection that afforded me, see with the rooms so far up off
the ground the creatures can't see in those rooms, so I can have the
curtains open and sunlight can get in; I just have to be careful at
night and not use candles near those rooms. Anyway, I have built a

small
garden with tomatoes, peppers and potatoes all planted, it's
not much right now but I'm going to add more into it later. It's a
bit of a mess what with tubs and plastic canisters filled with dirt
everywhere you look. I figure when the
p
repackaged food runs out this
will be all I have
to fall back on. If this stuff doesn't
grow
I'm fucked. Right now I have so much food stockpiled I have months before it
becomes a major concern. I have a well which will be good for a
while, but when the electricity fails the pump will stop working, I
have lots of water stored up, but water is not something I can really
replace, so that's a major problem, the one saving grace might be
rain water and melting snow runoff when the winter comes.

Day Sixteen

I've been watching these things for days now through the peep holes I
made in the
doors;
it really makes you want to vomit. Some of these
things are decades old and some look as though they died yesterday. A
few days ago one of them was stumbling around in the yard and its leg
snapped right in half . . . just broke, clean in half! It fell to the
ground but just kept on going. They eat whatever they can get their
hands on, I got up yesterday morning and when I looked out the hole
one of them had its face covered in blood and fur. In its hands was
the carcass of a house cat that had been unlucky enough to cross its
path, it must have been sick or something, how else could it have
caught the thing? The monster just stood there with the cat’s body
in its hands tearing at the flesh with its rotted teeth, the blood of
the poor thing dripping down its chin.