Dark Recollections (24 page)

Little Tommy, strapped firmly in his seat was almost none the worse for wear. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he sat still, face down on his chest, oblivious to the death of his mother two feet in front of him.

The senseless driver of the off-road specialized truck did not escape unscathed. His vehicle was larger, and tougher, and took less damage in the crash, but his situation was not good at all. The truck’s lifted suspension was driven upwards at strange angles by the impact with the lower car driven by the mother. Something had given way and drove its way into the cab, crushing both of his legs against the dash, pinning him firmly. He screamed in pain incessantly until he was hoarse.

The man sat there sweating profusely, beating his airbag down, lamenting his broken legs, searching around the scene of the wreck for help.
 
After what seemed like an eternity he saw the woman driver, the idiot as he called her, finally come to in her car.

“Hey! Hey! Call for help, I’m all fucked up in here!” He yelled as loudly as he could. He smacked his hands repeatedly against the cracked windshield of his truck. The woman looked dazed, out of sorts, and was bleeding from cuts all over her face.

“Lady in here, over here you stupid bitch!” He winced in agony and smacked the windshield again. He had to close his eyes and shut out the pain for a bit. When he finally opened his eyes he saw the woman had pushed her car door open, and was dragging her feet, slowly walking over to his side of the truck. His hard breathing started to slow as he finally felt some form of rescue coming to help. He rested his head against the back window of the truck for a second, then gathered enough strength to put a shoulder to his door. It protested briefly, but eventually popped open with a shriek of bent metal. The hurt lady picked up the pace and came around the front of the car near the fender, and reached at his door.

The pinned driver finally looked up at her and saw her face, and her eyes. All her color was gone. Her teeth and gums were torn out and open, leaving a bloody pulp where her mouth should have been. Her eyes had gone milky, hazy, and she clearly was not in her right mind.
 

“Ahhh!” He screamed and tried to wrench the door away from her outstretched hand. It was too late though, she was around it and coming in the cab at him. He pushed as hard as he could, he even punched her as hard as he could multiple times through the pain of his destroyed legs, but no matter what he did, she kept coming back. The fought this struggle for what felt like an eternity to the driver, until eventually his punches stopped pushing her back, and she was on him, ripping, biting in a savage silence.

Even with her ripped apart face and mouth she bit at him and tore his flesh with success. The driver’s hoarse screams came to a gurgling end as his throat was torn apart by her jagged, broken teeth. He clawed at her, pushed her away, but his strength was gone. His fight was over.

Stacey’s undead body continued to tear bits of flesh away until he stopped moving. He twitched a few times and with a savage instinct she tore into his body again until it stopped moving again. Finally, after a somewhat sad, confused moment, Stacey’s undead body slowly turned away, and began to shamble down the street towards the house she had been heading towards while still alive.

Tommy, her beloved six year old son that looked just like his father, sat in his car seat, in the back of the wrecked SUV, still unconscious.

November 17
^th

I am the man with the plan. More accurately, I am the man, with a draft for the plan. I was going to put off starting the plan until another entry or two, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I think better when I’m talking to you Mr. Journal. Thus in this entry, I will lay down the basic ideas for how I plan on increasing the population here, and making amends for my greatest sin, leaving Cassie to an unknown fate. As I shared in my semi-drunken entry a few days ago, I think helping people will give me some closure, and give me purpose in life.

All philosophical mumbo-jumbo karma bullshit aside, I need to also figure out a way to do this without getting myself killed. Getting killed would totally defeat the purpose. Plus dying would suck ass.

Alrighty. So here are some bulleted thoughts that have formed the basic plan. These are still discussion points at this juncture; they aren’t necessarily set in stone. Bullet points first, followed by in depth explanations. Oh yeah, here’s one thing else: I’ve made the assumption that the best course of action is to stay here on campus, and use it as my “home.” All people wishing to receive my help will be moving here.

• I must secure the campus further.

• I have to get some wood stoves up here to alleviate the dependence on gasoline and fuel oil.

• Additional food and supplies must be procured *or* I need to wait until I can get a garden/farm up and running.

• I need to secure the outlying structures headed into town of zombies. (this also potentially satisfies the additional food clause)

• I need to ensure that my own home, Dorm E, is safe not only from zombies, but from human intruders.
 

• I need to establish a form of communication that will allow me to speak to and vet (read: spy on them) people before I actually meet them.

• And finally, I need to establish a set system of government/rules for when and if people come here.

That’s a lot to go over. Let’s share my thoughts on each point.

I must secure the campus further. What I really mean by this is finding a way to make the back end of the campus fortified. Granted, the school is very much like an island, but really it’s more of a peninsula. The bridge crosses onto the peninsula more near the tip, so the back end of the campus is still crossable on land. Now the river cuts the campus territory across that area, kinda forming the island, but there’s nothing stopping a wandering zombie from wading through the shallows and onto campus. It’s already happened several times. I’m thinking I build a sturdy rock wall, or maybe find lumber, and slap up some simple walls. I can get 2x4’s and screw them tree to tree, then attach plywood to that. That’s likely enough to hold off a few strays until spring when more sturdy fortifications can be built. I’m not looking for Fort Knox here. I am also wondering how I can make the bridge more fortified. The two vans I have parked in a staggered V formation are great, but it’s not perfect, and someone with a good sized truck could easily push them out of the way. Not sure on that solution just yet. I think a drawbridge is a little beyond my engineering capabilities.

This point also covers making more of the dorms secure. There are a lot of ground floor windows that are currently exposed, and a zombie walking on to campus could easily smash a window, and be inside in seconds. This increases the importance of finding a substantial amount of lumber for reinforcement purposes.

Wood stoves. Gotta get em. At least one for Hall E, or alternately for a Hall with no electricity. Understandably I can make it through at least one winter without a stove, but if I get people in here before or during winter, I don’t want them in Hall E with me, and they will need heat. I need to find at least one wood stove, preferably several. I think a good way to find them might be to cruise around the farmhouses up here and scour the places with chimney or stove pipes visible. Now getting a giant woodstove back here… that’s another problem I’ll have to deal with. I’ve got the trucks for it. I just don’t know if I can lift one all by myself. Plus I need to figure out exactly how to install one, which may require additional materials.

Food, supplies, and/or a garden. Ideally I’d like to get people up here before winter. However, it’s already the 17
^th
of November, and we had spitting snow the other night. It won’t be long before the road out of here is impassable. Blessing and a curse really. Zombies won’t be able to get up here, scavengers like me won’t be able to either, but the downside is I can’t leave for shit either. One idea for that is to plow the road myself. There’s a plow attachment for the trucks down in the grounds keeping barn area for the trucks. But a plowed road is a pretty obvious sign of human life, and I think it’d be better to just plow the roads here on campus if I do that at all. I think there is a small plow somewhere for the ATV too.

Road situation aside, I need to get more food, and more supplies. I know there’s a lot of food inside all these houses up in the area. I found a bunch just in the little apartment above the gas station, and that was a home for just two little old people. Some of the houses up here are 2,500 square feet or better, and housed 3 to 5 people. Assuming even a few of these houses have full cupboards, I’m literally just miles away from months of food. Other than the food issue, I need to find additional consumables. Toilet paper, soap, dishwashing detergent, ammunition, shoes, clothes, etc. More than anything else though, I need to find medicines, and books about how to use them. God forbid I get a cut, or an infection, or the flu. I have ZERO antibiotics, and I know fuck all about which ones to take for what.

I really don’t want to think about this, but I am pretty sure I will have to go back into town to hit one of the pharmacies. Ewww.
 

Soo… assuming I don’t get supplies, or I find out I need to wait for spring, then I should just wait to get seeds in the ground. If I do that, I think I am more or less prepared. It would be great if I had some fertilizer type stuff, which may require a trip to the garden center where I got the seeds “that day.” That also could be a shitstorm of a trip though. Oh, and despite the fact I am trying to be less reliant on gas, I need a lot more gas. I will need it, until I don’t need it. Does that make sense Mr. Journal?

Secure outlying houses/buildings of zombies. This ties directly into the finding supplies part. I really want to clean out all the houses within a mile or two of the dead inside or around them. If I can clean them out of zombies, get all their usable supplies, and then lock them down, it’ll mean there’s a drastically reduced chance of wandering zombies heading up the road to here.
 
It will be dangerous. But you know what? So is crossing the road. Not so much because lately there’s a chance I’ll get hit by a car, but more likely that I’ll get mauled and eaten alive by a handful of the undead. It’s not like the good old days anymore kids. All we had to do then was walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

I need to secure Hall E from intruders. I really feel like I’m zombie proof here. All the doors are heavy duty, doubled up on both entrances, all the lower windows are secured with sturdy wooden barricades, and I’ve got the one deck secured well. My worry now is if someone alive comes up here with a ladder, they’re in as easily as 1-2-3. Gotta figure out a way to make sure that new people can’t get in here without a bitch of a time. Call me paranoid, but I’m more worried about being shot by the living, than I am about being eaten alive by the dead.

I am thinking about totally blocking off all the first floor windows and leaving just window slits/gun ports. Possibly using cement to do it, or even brick if possible. I can always use the second floor windows as vantage points should I need to kill things outside.

Communication system to vet potential “roommates.” I’m feeling clever here. Now my first thought was to simply paint up some huge ass signs, and leave them all over town. “Hey assholes, safe place to live at the end of this road.” That kind of shit. What I realized almost immediately, is if I did that I was giving away my greatest asset. Solitude.

By telling people where I am, they can come here, and take the place from me. Well, the fuckers can try. Anyway, I realized before I told ANYONE where this place was, I would want to feel them out first, preferably from a distance.

Enter Steve’s letter. I had completely forgotten about it, but Steve said he was going to get a CB radio, and check it every day at noon or something like that. So I thought about it, and realized that was a frigging great idea. I could leave CB radios in a couple places around town, with huge ass signs that said, “use this CB at such and such a time to find a safe place to live.” That way they could radio me, we could talk over a day or two, then if I felt good about it, we could arrange a meeting elsewhere. If that went well, then I could lead them back up here and see what happens. If at any point in time I got a bad feeling, then I simply cut ties and tell them to go fly a kite. Worst case I’m out a CB, and maybe a sign. Sounds good right? I think it’s a helluva basic idea to keep myself safe, and allow me and a bunch of total strangers to establish some relationship before I give them the farm. I’m thinking I can even set up the CB radios in pre-cleared safe houses with water and minor supplies as a gesture of good faith, and to impress people. After all, if they need to wait to radio me, I want them to be safe during that time.

So the last part is really complicated. Once I get people up here… how do we run the place? Do I run it and tell everyone else what’s up? I was the first here, I got the place safe, and no one else knows better than I do?
 
If they don’t like it they can scram? How do I establish laws? Is it a democracy? Do I simply take a U.S.law book from the library and grandfather it in as the same old, same old?

The nice guy in me that has almost always done the “right thing” in his life says we should establish an immediate democracy by majority, and bring in every law that was on the books from before. It’s familiar, everyone feels valued, and I won’t have to shoulder the moral and legal burden of being quite literally King Shit of Turd Mountain.

The pragmatist inside me says fuck everyone, you’re the boss. You know better than anyone else who shows up what to do, and your judgment is better than theirs. We follow simple common sense laws for the meantime, and I can always take advice if needed, and ignore advice if needed.
 
My chief worry is this scenario: I “rescue” a family or group of 5 people. I tell them we’re a democracy, and everyone has an equal vote. The first vote we cast is that they immediately are in charge, and they tell me to get the fuck out. Well that ain’t fucking happening Mr. Journal. That motion is not getting carried.