Zomblog 04: Snoe (2 page)

I remember every detail about that boy. The way you could tell his hair had been curly, even though it was so caked and matted with filth, the piece of bone that stuck out from what remained of the left leg—which was missing from just above the knee. The fact that the entire right leg stayed intact and still had a leather boot practically grafted to the foot.

Jenifer gave me a spear and told me it was time that I learned how to put one down. I thought it would be easy. You hear about it or read my birth parent’s journals and think there is nothing to it. Pop it in the head and it’s done.

It took me three tries. The first time, I jabbed and my spear scraped down one side of its face. The second time, I stabbed it through the neck. I got so mad that I kicked it onto its back and stabbed it through the eye.

I remember staring at it for what felt like just a few seconds, but it was noticeably darker when Jenifer took my hand and led me home. I must have counted each of the nine remaining ribs a couple hundred times.

Anyways, it was sweet of Jenifer to come over and wish me luck. I am pretty sure she doesn’t do that for every single person who enlists in the EEF.

Sunday, June 3
^rd

My last day as a civilian—so to speak. I met with a few of my friends. (It is a bit creepy with how many ‘Sams’ and ‘Merediths’ I know.) We all went out to the corridor with crossbows, sat up on the barricades, and passed around a bottle of homemade blackberry wine while we took turns dropping shamblers with the crossbow.

The parents all hate it when we do it, but kids have been doing this for years. It is some sort of ritual. Nobody knows who started it, but for some reason, if you join the EEF, you come out here on the last day. You and a few friends drink a bottle and shoot the crossbow. The winner is the person who loses the fewest bolts. I remember something in my mom’s journal about her crossbow being fitted with the retriever reel. Of course, that is standard issue now. Nobody has bolts to waste.

I do have a guy that I like…but we already talked it over and decided that we will hold off getting serious until I finish my first tour. We almost ‘did the deed’ a few nights ago, but he was super sweet and it was actually Tim who put a halt to things.

That brings me to my sweetie, Tim Coatney. He was one of the kids rescued from that mansion where The Genesis Brotherhood had their base. He works the farms and is a very BIG boy. He has this baby fine blonde hair that I love to run my fingers through and arms that make the world disappear. I know that I am going to miss him, and I know that it is possible that some other girl will scoop him up when I leave on my first run.

As I lie in bed with my candle and this silly little book, I wonder if I will be able to keep it up. I actually lost it today…it was in the dining hall at the table where I ate breakfast. I am already wondering how my birth parents carried those damn things through all the crap they went through.

Monday, June 4
^th

I feel like I’ve been beaten with a really big stick. I hurt in places that I didn’t even know I could hurt. I thought I’d been so clever with my morning jogs and my secret workouts. Thing is…when it is just you, if a little fatigue sets in, you can call it quits or ease up. The only reason I’m writing this entry is to prove they didn’t beat me out there today.

Tuesday, June 5
^th

Didn’t think it was possible, but I hurt worse today. I made the mistake of asking what all the running and climbing and jumping had to do with being in the EEF.

Our little group had to load a bunch of rocks into our field packs and run Tower Hill. That is a big hill that all the old radio towers for the area sit on top of between The Corridor and Old Portland.

On the plus side, it got us outside the barricade…we even saw a few lone shamblers—no, we weren’t allowed to take them down—which for two of our team, were the first wild contacts. On the down side…did I mention the hill?

I guess now is a good time to say that we don’t see that many zombies close up these days. The Sunset Fortress Colony is deep enough behind the barricade that, if you don’t want to…you don’t have to ever see them. One of the guys in our team is from one of the Revelationist families.

The Revelationists are a religious group. They believe that we are living in the “End Times” or something to that effect. They don’t usually join the EEF, but this guy is the son of the pastor or priest or whatever they call themselves for the Sunset Fortress chapter.

They aren’t crazy like The Genesis Brotherhood; they just have a certain set of beliefs. We have most of the Old World religions represented—along with a few new ones. Nobody cares if you are Christian, Muslim or Revelationist these days. There are too many other problems. I guess it used to be a thing in the Old World. There are lots of things about that time that don’t make sense to my generation.

So, the thing about the guy who’d never seen a zombie before that made my day was the fact that he actually asked permission to get a closer look. All of us were waiting for our field trainer to bust his ass or make us all do more push ups. Instead, he stopped the run and told us all to take up defensive positions around the walker. Then, he escorted the kid down for a closer look! It was like he became human all of a sudden.

I watched them walk down to the thing. The trainer stayed with the guy—I think his name is Pete, but I am really not sure—and was talking to him. Then, when they got about ten or so yards away, the trainer grabbed the kid by the shoulders and turned him so that they were face-to-face before he said something that sounded serious by the tone, but that we couldn’t actually hear. After that, he just gave the kid a pat on the back and let him approach the zombie.

Of course, zombies don’t care what your religion is…they just want to eat you. As soon as it saw the kid, it started for him. I didn’t know what to expect and was sorta curious when the kid pulled a book out of his pack. He just kept walking backwards and I could hear that he was chanting something I just couldn’t hear it clear enough to make out anything. After a handful of seconds, he pulled out this long, heavy blade and split the zombie’s skull.

After that, the trainer was back to being a total jerk. He made us finish our run and acted like nothing had ever happened.

Thursday, June 7
^th

Yesterday we took an overnight trip out to a small stream where one of the farming teams has been spotting a few shamblers sniffing around the area. It is important to keep the farming areas clear; sighting a few zombies can be no big deal, but if it becomes a regular occurrence, it can mean the leading edge of a mob.

Mobs have been reported (if you can believe what some of the Travellers say when they pass through) to stretch on for dozens of miles. We’ve seen a leading edge arrive almost a week ahead of the main body once. The estimated number was over two hundred thousand.

Some of the older folks, like Mama Lindsay, say that the mobs are like cartoon snowballs. I guess, in the cartoons, snowballs were rolled downhill and became bigger than houses. I’ve rolled a snowball down a hill…it went about two feet and didn’t really do much of anything. Personally, I don’t get it, but there are a lot of things about the Old World that don’t make sense to my generation.

Supposedly, people used to sit at pee-sees and type all their conversations to each other. People would meet and get married without ever meeting each other! They could type things and people in whole other parts of the world could read it right then. Seems creepy.

Some of the old timers say that the reason the zombies wiped us out so fast is because everybody was so busy blogging, tweeting and Facebooking about it. They say that the zombies were at the door before anybody actually tried to act.

So, last night, I was on watch with Sam Simmons. (He is the Revelationist pastor’s son.) We saw a few coyotes, a bunch of raccoons and a skunk. Not one single zombie.

We broke camp at first light and headed back. This evening, the second training unit (who took over for us) just got back an hour ago. They made seven kills!

It is SO not fair.

Friday, June 8
^th

Graduation was this afternoon. Mama Lindsay presented all the graduates with their sword and crossbow. When she handed me mine, I guess it finally sunk in for her. I’ve been to lots of graduation ceremonies and never seen her show hardly any emotion at all, but today, she had a tear in her eye. If you know Mama Lindsay, then you know how rare that is for her.

We were all given our first assignments at the banquet. I will be travelling with a produce caravan to a settlement that just established itself outside of the ruins of Oregon City. They set up beside the river just east of the falls.

None of their farms are fully on line yet, but they have a bunch of fish, so we will give them some fruits and veggies and we get salmon. The kitchen is already planning something special when we get back. I’ve only had salmon twice…it is so yummy.

The wagons have all been loaded and are in line at the North Gate, ready for us to leave in the morning. I hope I can sleep tonight. I’m actually very excited about this.

I pulled out my birth mother’s journal and flipped through a few pages. She’s killed more zombies in a few days than I’ve ever actually seen. I guess since I’ve grown up my whole life knowing about them, I never gave them much thought. With places like The Sunset Fortress just up the line by the North Gate and Warehouse City as the last stop before exiting the West Gate, and all the little places in between along Corridor 26, this has just always been part of my world.

The last numbers I heard when Mama Lindsay was talking with Jenifer and a few others were that there are over eight thousand people living within the walls of Corridor 26. Almost nine hundred live around Sunset Fortress where I grew up. To me…nine hundred people just seem like so many. In my lifetime, I remember when dinner was served for the entire Sunset Fortress community in one sitting. Now it is done in three.

I realized the other night when we were out, just how used to the sounds of people around me I am. It was really quiet out there. I wasn’t totally ready for that. In the morning, I am leaving Corridor 26 for at least a week of that type of silence. Toss in the possibility of having to engage and kill zombies, and I just do not know how to feel about everything.

Saturday, June 9
^th

This evening we are camped in a handful of houses. I’ve never been in an Old World house before. There is so much to see and fiddle with that I think my brain is swollen.

We travelled over to an abandoned stretch of what used to be called Highway 217 according to the wagoneers. It winds through what were once hundreds of stores and shops. I can’t imagine how many people it would take to need that many shops. Some of the names were still readable on the buildings. My favorite was ‘chen Kaboodle’. I don’t know what it sold, but the name is funny.

We had very little activity since most of this place is occupied by individual tribes. Not everybody chooses to live in the protected zones. From what our squad leader said, most of the tribes are run by criminals who don’t want to live by rules, have to work to earn their way, or help anybody except themselves.

Did I mention that my class’s trainer is the ranking officer on this run? I thought it was going to be like training, but he is a totally different person now for some weird reason. He even pulled me aside when we had camp set up for the evening. As soon as I saw the cover of the book, I knew what he wanted.

I guess it was a popular thing in the Old World to ask for people to write their name on stuff…autographs. He had me sign on the page where it announced my birth. He seemed kind of embarrassed when he was asking.

So, I wandered around this house with a few of the wagoneers and a handful of other EEFers. The hardest part for me was the smell. It stank so bad in a few of the rooms that it made me gag.

How did people live with so much stuff? Every room had shelves and cabinets and closets full of clothes and all sorts of things.

I finally saw a computer. (I thought they were called ‘pee-sees’ because of how everybody used that term when they spoke about them.) How did people sit in front of those things all day? I also saw the biggest bed I’ve ever seen in my life. It took up over half the bedroom. The wagoneer said that king-sized beds were common. When I asked him if the whole family slept in it together…he laughed.

I saw one thing and asked if I could take it as a souvenir. So I have this really pretty picture frame. When I get home, I will put the picture that Eric Grayfeather drew of my birth mother in it. I don’t have any bad feelings for her. I can’t understand a lot of what she did, but I am grateful that she chose Mama Janie and Mama Lindsay to take me.

In the morning, we will be changing over to the 205 Corridor. It is just now being settled and has long stretches that are open to zombies. Also, it passes through some heavy woods, which make it doubly dangerous. Thick woods let zombies get right up on you according to the lecture portion of our training.

So…as I snuff my candle and snuggle into my bedroll, I can hear the occasional sound of the draft horses snorting. I can hear the whispering sound of footsteps crunching around as whoever is on watch walks past. And that is all. It is just too dang quiet out here.

Sunday, June 10
^th

I’ve heard a lot of people say “Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it” lots of times. Now I know what they meant. One of the reasons that I joined the EEF was because I wanted to get outside the walls of Corridor 26, The Sunset Fortress, and see what was out there. I wanted to see this world that makes the older folks get that look in their eyes when they talk about the past.