Zombies! Rising from the Dead (17 page)

I
think the majority of undead around my house are these “Lurkers”. They don't leave because somehow they know that houses are where you
find people. I've noticed Lurkers skulking around the corners of the
house, standing motionless behind trees and shrubbery; even standing
idly behind my truck. It’s almost as if they were waiting in ambush,
purposely trying to remain hidden. I think it was a Lurker that got a
hold of that unfortunate cat a few days ago.

Day Thirty-Three

Okay, so yesterday and the day before I covered Creepers and Lurkers.
Today it's the ones that concern me the most. I call them “Walkers”,
and for good reason. Walkers are fresh bodies, luckily I haven't seen
many of these them though; of the sixty or so I have been able to
count, only two of them fall into this category.

I think Walkers come
about in several ways, perhaps the recently deceased that hadn't
gotten the chance to be buried and simply
woke-up.
Some could
be victims that succumbed to their wounds; there are so many
possibilities it can be hard to know for certain. Walkers warrant
extreme caution don't get me wrong they’re still dead and as such

they
are limited. They still have fresh biological material, with
most of that matter only in the earliest stages of deterioration,
even muscle mass is still fully intact making them move quite
readily. It's unsettling because they seem to be alive in a sense.

They are no doubt the fastest and smartest but they decompose fast,
quickly falling into one of the other two categories. The Walkers
make
m
e think...they really seem to be right on the fringe between
life and death. It makes me wonder if somehow this radioactive
material could have a practical
application.
How many loved ones have
I lost to cancer and disease? Maybe the radiation
could serve a
positive purpose? I don't know, say a cancer victim finally losses
the battle to the disease; but once the patient is dead the disease

dies
along with them right? What if this material could be used to
reanimate the patient minutes or hours later? Wouldn't they
completely free of the disease?

*
Days thirty three and four are missing, this was when Rick calls me with a serious problem and I ended up not writing for a few days as I had other pressing demands which you will read about here.

Day Thirty-Five

We have a problem . . . its Amanda. She has been rationing her
medication for a while
now,
it's the stuff she takes to prevent
rejection. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but she's an organ
recipient and she has to take medication every day. Rick says she
has enough to last another week or so but that's. This is really
bad, without that medicine she will start having problem almost
immediately. I have been so busy thinking of myself and
my
situation
that I hadn't given it any thought. We are going to have to do

something
quick. I don't like this at all but we have little choice.

We aren't going to sit here and watch her die
.
I refuse to let those
damned things claim another life.

Day Thirty-Six

Rick's getting ready to go. The closest drug store that will have
Amanda's medicine will be in Panatauk. There's no other choice, it
is either this or watch Amanda die; and that's not an option. She has
enough to last another three maybe four days, but that's it. I told
him to do his best to prepare Amanda, we can't leave her behind no
telling what could happen while we are gone; no it's safer if she
just comes with us. We are leaving tomorrow and I am scared as hell.

Day Thirty-Seven

Today is the day. This may be the last time I ever write in this
journal again,
we are leaving. The odds are certainly against us.
It's
thirty
miles to Panatauk. All we can do is
take
it a mile at a time.
I pray we make all the right decisions. I want to say this to whoever
may find this journal, if you have come here looking for food,
shelter and safety and find this place deserted you can assume I am
dead and as such I will have no further need of the provisions here;
and you are welcome to them. Do whatever you want, take whatever you
need. There is food in the pantry and there is water in the basement.
You are welcome to whatever you find, I hope it helps you.

Read this
journal, there
are some useful observations in it; learn from our mistakes.

God Bless.

*My journal ends her
,
.
I did not take it with me. It wouldn't matter anyway, not like I had time to write while we were on the road. I am going to try and reconstruct the events that followed over the next several days as best I can. Please read on, I am going to backtrack a bit, overlapping the last few days of my journal. As I read back through it I realized that some of it was a bit vague and required additional detail.

Chapter 6:

Murphy's Law

“Bruce, hey Bruce you there?
I was in the gardens when Rick called out over
the radio. I had been tending it pretty regularly and expected it to yield vegetables soon. I was
on the other side of the table, watering the vines. I ran around the makeshift planter’s box to the
other side of the room.

Picking up the radio I blurted, “
Hey, yeah I'm here...everything okay over there?”

“No, it's not, its Amanda, she is running really low on her medicine.”
His voice, along
with his anxious tone told me he was serious.

“
Uh
, what the fuck
am
I supposed to do? I'm surrounded…”
I
said in a scolding tone
.

Dammit, couldn't he have told me sooner this was going to be a problem?
I thought to myself.

“She's been taking half doses and stuff, we've been trying to ration it as best we can, but
it's not going to happen, she's already been getting sick. We have to do something man, she
ain't
go
ing to make it if we don';
I really need your help!”
Rick was talking so fast
I could barely understand the words
.

“Okay, okay”
I whispered
,
“alright...just shut up for a minute okay!”
I need
ed
a
moment to think.

“How much medication does she have left?”
I questioned.

I heard him rustle about as he turned and spoke with Amanda. She was far from the radio
when she answered, but I could tell that she didn't sound so hot. Her response was muffled so I
couldn't make out all of what was said, just that she sounded weak.

A moment or two later Rick responded.

“She has about three days left if she takes full doses”,
he replied.

“Okay listen, I need a little bit to think, just...”
I took a deep breath
and ran my hand
through my hair.
“I'll call you back in about
thirty minutes okay? We will figure something
out.”

“Okay thanks”,
Rick knew what he was asking. He knew as well as I that we were most
likely going to die, with our chances of coming out of this alive slim to nothing.

Closing the door to the bright, almost cheerful garden room I walked into the still darkness
that was the rest of the house. I pulled a chair out from under the dinner table. I sat there staring
up at the ceiling with my arms outstretched in front of me as if I were praying; and I won't deny
that I wasn't. For twenty minutes I just sat thinking, thinking and listening to those damned
creatures
outside.

It pissed me off it was a situation that could have been avoided
.
A
s I
re
considered
the situation
I
realized it wasn't anyone's fault. There was nothing Amanda could have done. My god, it had
all happened so fast that we barely had time to get to home before the shit hit the fan; it was
that
quick. It was just one of those things, but it still didn't make the idea of dying
any more
acceptable or appealing.

I knew there had to be a way to do this without ending up as fodder inside the belly of a
rotting corpse. The problem was getting out of the house unnoticed and getting to Rick and
Amanda. I ran various scenarios through my mind, soon an idea started to emerge. I knew my
house, where I could go and where I couldn't but Rick's was a different story. I knew his
house but could only guess at its present condition. He had twice as many of those damned
‘things’ to deal with as I did, if his estimates were accurate. It really didn't matter, no matter
what we did it was all going to be risky and the longer we waited the worse off we would be. I
decided to go ahead and call Rick with the plan I had come up with.