Tamberlin's Account (2 page)

Sep 28 1:21pm

I had raspberries and red clover for lunch.

It took forever to pull all the little pink blossoms out of the clover, but wasting time isn’t always a bad thing. It distracted me and my rumbling stomach.

I’m always nervous about eating things from outside—I’d never eat anything I didn’t recognize, even if I had one of those field books I wouldn’t take any chances—there’s no room for taking chances.

What bothers me is what touched it before I found it. I don’t know how this “sickness?” works, but if a dead person went through it wouldn’t necessarily damage the plant. It might just drip on it. Brush against it. I just think about that kind of stuff.

Would I rather starve? I don’t know what it feels like to come down with this—when someone’s bit or they get their fluids in us. In some zombie fiction even scratching and clawing will do it.

All I know is they suffer.

You suffer when you starve.

Call it stubborn or stupid—I’d take death that’s not an abomination to reality.

I want to clean my food. I can’t waste water to wash food. I don’t think I could drink the wash water after—would kinda defeat the purpose.

So what do
you
do?

It looked okay. Down it goes.

No hospitals. No doctors or nurses. No EMTS. Healthcare workers were the first to go because they were the first to see it. Somewhere in that Danse Macabre were the policemen and firemen and other emergency people, including the National Guard.

Odds are there are some of them somewhere, but I’m feeling a little bitchy about statistics right now. I go back and forth with the “I’m sure’s” and “I-can’t-really-know’s.”

How about this? I’m sure I’m not the only person left, even if I don’t have any proof. So that other somebody or bodies might know how to take care of medical stuff, but I can’t really know.

I don’t feel worthy of being the last.

Anyway, so I can’t really know.

Just like I don’t know what to call
them
. Ghouls, zombies, undead, draugr (maybe my favorite), maybe just dead? I’ll try to think of something unique.

I
am
sure what I am though—I’m living and I have no intention of joining their club.

Sep 28 1:33pm

Do you like this?

Busy Bodies.

Sep 29 7:28am

It’s so pretty, but it’s feeling like autumn—a little too sincerely today.

What’s pretty? The sunrise and everything it’s touching.

I wish I had a gun. There are 13, 14, 16 deer in the field across from me. I bet they have asshole looks on their faces—every one of them is watching me and knows I can’t do a damn thing.

I’m sure the people who lived around here had guns, but I’m not desperate enough, yet, to try and find out.

Maybe that’s not planning ahead, but I don’t want to get smoked by someone just trying to protect their place.

If you thought strangers were not to be trusted before—I’ve watched enough “end of the world” movies to be conditioned to worry that many people can quickly and irrationally degenerate into murderous, raping, feral psychopaths.

Realistically, we’re all scared, aren’t we?

 I haven’t killed a living person. What will I do if I met someone? What if they were good? What if they were bad?

How could you know? You couldn’t. So how could you take the chance.

It’s better to be alone—no chances—not even with plants—so why would I take a chance with a person? Even if I didn’t see anything, I’d
have to
know they were armed. Who wouldn’t be?

Their intentions? Anyone’s guess.

I never tried to contact that woman. Was she my neighbor? Hell if I know. Never met many neighbors. I didn’t trust strangers before.

Strangers with candy.

Damn.
Damn.

 I’ll say I couldn’t resist—what, that’s the first social warning we learn, right? Beware of strangers. How could they know how powerful the temptation of candy would someday be?

How tempting human companionship would be?

I remember when I just ached to have babies. The need was so strong, pretty quickly I started to research how to do it without “help,” because I was single. I’d never want to deal with a baby in this situation but I often dream of dealing with a man. It’s pretty realistic that I’ll die without having been loved by anyone but friends. Not the same thing, is it? There are a lot of things I’ll never know. Most of the time it’s not a big deal. When you’re horny—that’s a BIG DEAL.

I’m not, right now.

I’m a couple days from my period and the monthly surge of “Give me a man,
any
man” has subsided and fear is taking its place.

Busy Bodies are so aggressive when it’s that time of the month. They can tell. It’s been enough months now that I know—no coincidence.

Their eyes only have life when they sense life and they’re so fucking creepy—creepier then, but you know that. Don’t you? Maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You definitely don’t need to be told they’re creepy.

Oh shit—the deer just took off with a cloud of what looked like a thousand birds—there are
zom
Busy Bodies in the woods over there.

There’s a red fox crossing the road. It’s going to come right past me—it looks like it’s on fire.

Within ten feet. That was special. I’m going to hold onto that one. That memory. It looked right at me.

I’m inside now. The dead are coming fast.

The fox may have got me—when it got my dog barking. I’ve battened all the hatches and am now playing the waiting game. I can only wait.

I don’t know what’s working for other people, but I’ve moved all the cabinet doors onto window frames so I can close up shop quick and securely—I hope, securely.

Windows that make me particularly vulnerable and/or aren’t good “look outs” I’ve covered with doors, which means there are very few doors left to close between me and them, if they get in.

Adios bathroom door. Exit doors and my bedroom door are most important. That’s the best I can figure.

So I have a dog,

I’m not completely alone and that’s why, right now, I’m not desperate enough to take chances with strangers, but as you know that’s not even an issue for me right now. What
is
an issue right now is “killing” those busy bodies—because they’re not going to go away. Not when a meal is calling out—barking out at them.

His bark is high pitched now—doggie puberty—it’s much lower when it’s something living. This breaking, squeaking bark is the dog’s version of a frantic, hysterical scream, I think. But dogs are always doing a duty—so they move forward when they bark—or they brace their paws and stand their ground when they bark—but I’m convinced they still
have to
do these things when they’re actually terrified, actually screaming—if they’re  a dog that holds their ground, no matter how scared they are.

This thing that kept people from staying dead cost dogs that cower and hide and dogs on chains their lives.

I guess it has probably taken its share of the brave dogs too.

Its cost us a lot of heroes.

This dog is a brave bigmouth.

His well-meaning bark will be the death of me. If it is, I hope he can take care of himself.

Okay—I need to deal with this. These pieces of rotten crap will wander off if you hide well enough,
most
of the time.
But
the dog is going off- they’ll just stick around.

Every time is risky. I hate taking chances.

I’ll write again soon?

Sep 30 8:09am

Hi – in case you haven’t heard it in a while, how are you?

Don’t need to say things went well yesterday – I’m not going to get sick.

If I get bit, it’ll be the first and last thing I write that day. That’ll more or less sum up everything, won’t it?

I hate cleaning up. I’m really nervous about the right way to dispose of the bodies. Should I try to burn them? What if I breathe the smoke – for all I know that could get me sick. There’s no room for fucking up—so far just breathing their rotting flesh doesn’t make me sick in any way I wouldn’t expect it to.

I’m a little childish with my mess. I just hide it. Out of sight, mostly out of mind.

That’s cleaning up
them
.

Cleaning myself is another challenge. I got several leeches on me when I washed up in the creek the first time.

When I realized I didn’t have much choice but to use the creek or go dirty, I was caught off guard by some busy bodies because the cattails and reeds are like 8 feet tall where it’s deep enough to bathe. Okay, I
could
wash up in shallower water—I often do. But if I see someone before they see me and I’m in deeper water I could hide in a split second. I’ve never had to do that. I had a close call with the busy bodies that day… I’ve had a lot of close calls. They have surprised me too many times, but that was before the dog.

I don’t know what his name was, no collar, but now he’s Mr. Ages.

When I was little, he was one of my first favorite fictional characters.

I like rats. I have always like rats, mice… rodents. But mostly rats. I have been drawn to them since I was a child. I think I feel kinship to them. I have always thought about how we, humans, are so much like them. Our adaptability. How we thrive. What we are willing to do to survive. Probably a lot more like each other than most people would want to admit.

I hope you know
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
. If you ever have to shelter in a library maybe see if they have it. Robert O’ Brian.

I don’t know that a library could ever feel thoroughly “cleared”. Be careful.

I don’t know how it is for other people, but even with so few things to enjoy, with the way things are, I feel like someone’s slapping my hand and saying, “You’re never going to eat one of those again.”

They’re never going to write a song again. You’re never going to read a book by him again. Those people you loved—Hell, they’re never going to see a sunrise. ANY sunrise,
ANYTHING
again. I feel forbidden to enjoy anything too much. Sometimes at all. Regret and sympathy are probably the culprits—but I want to care that they’re gone. Someone needs to care that they didn’t make it, because they deserve to be missed. So sometimes I feel unworthy of being able to still have those things.

I feel a lot of guilt.

So, when I want to feel better and I think – well that murdering bastard is gone or that worthless piece of shit is surely gone too—I always, always, always end up in the land of:

Damn, I’m never going to hear a new song by this person. I’m never going to know if this person or that person is alive—I
want
them to be alive. Are they? Have they suffered? Are they dead? Some of the shows I watched religiously; books I always read—

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Anyway…

I’m one of those people who get desperately involved in the well-being of fictional characters. I’m no stranger to sobbing and my heart just hurting for people and creatures that never were.

When I was pretty little I, like most children, read or was read, the Winnie-the-Pooh books. I remember being stricken with a sense of loss and sadness and really, really felt that my stuffed animals had feelings and perhaps even lives. The first book I remember just making me bawl was the same book where my love of the end of days was born—in third grade when I read
The Stand
. Broke my heart.
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy has become almost a bible to me. In fact, it’s the only book I’ve kept.

It gives me a sense of not being alone in this. But even before the dead revolted, the book filled a void where faith in parents and family should have been. It made me wish I had a father like that.
Anyone
like that… Since all this started, that fictional father has been this real woman’s mentor.

And now I have the time to read it as often as I please. There aren’t a lot of authors like him anymore. If there ever were.

Video games and books particularly impact me because you spend more time with the people than in movies. Sometimes TV series have characters I’ve liked that much—but
few
. A lot of series, I think, ruin the characters when the stories last longer than their stories and the inspiration behind them, just because they are popular.

For me, I know that’s not true for everybody.  

Video games, most of the time, you’re getting someone’s story too, BUT you’re fighting with them, keeping them safe and “helping” the characters make their decisions.

I know that won’t ring true for people who think video games are a waste of time or for people who just don’t get into it, but I’d love to know I’m not the only one that was horrified when Agro died in
Shadow of the Colossus
or that cried themselves sick through the last battle in
God of War
where Kratos had to desperately hold onto his family to win.

Maybe I am the only one, now.

Anyway, it’s those things I miss and, on top of the people I loved and knew, were a whole shitload of people I
didn’t
know—maybe even their names—whose work made my life better. I think about what’s become of them.

That’s not even the weird stuff that I end up thinking about. I don’t think that’s weird at all. Its compassion, isn’t it?

Maybe compassion is weird. It was before, why wouldn’t it be now?

Oct 3 10:02am

I don’t know what state you’re in—

If you’re reading this sometime after this shit, maybe you are glad to have dates and/or times.

I’m sure most of us can’t help but let these little things go. There’s so much else to worry about, why keep time?

Time, I suppose, will take a hike when the battery in my watch dies.

To keep the days—it’s such a little thing, why stop? So we give up one thing here and one little thing there—I’m afraid of what that adds up to.

Besides, how can any of us think that each day doesn’t mean a hell of a lot more now than it did before??? Corita Kent said, “Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed.”