The Zom Diary (4 page)

     I have just used the AK and I know it is working, so I replace the round I shot, grab another two banana clips taped together opposite from one another, and check out the swords.

      Ninety-nine percent of the swords are knock off samurai katanas.  There must have been one of these in every college kid’s closet in America.  I have tossed the cheap ones, and kept a few that are sharp, stainless steel with real grips.  I select one that feels right and examine the blade.  I am not a swordsman, but chopping off the head of a slow moving zombie with four feet of razor sharp steel isn’t rocket science.  Plus, I’ve had lots of practice.

     I set my gear on the green couch in the big room and pick out a boonie hat to round out the outfit.  I eat some spare avocado and venison, polish off my lemonade, and call it a day.

     In my bed, I think about what the town must now look like. Selma.  I haven’t been out that way in over two years.  Not very pleasant that last time.  Deserted, mostly.  It begins to rain.  I sleep horribly.  The sound of the rain keeps me awake until very late.  It makes me nervous. The drumming of the rain can drown the tell tale scratching and thumping of unwanted guests.

     When I do awaken, my eyes feel dry and tacky.  It has stopped raining at some point, and by the position of the line of rectangular sun patches on the wall/roof, I can tell it is later than I hoped.  I had planned to be on my way as soon as it was light out.

     Oh well.  I regard the open space to my right.  I sometimes count the beams and boards of my cavernous digs. I let the ladder down and climb down listening tentatively for noises.  I hear none. Dressing in the gear I set out yesterday, I munch a pear.  My pack is almost empty.  I figure that it will be a short trip, and if I find anything worth keeping, I want room for it.

     I heft my pack, sliding the scabbard of the sword between the tie-downs on the left hand side of the pack.  The spare clips go into the mesh pouch on the other side.  I clip on my belt pouch and rummage around a bit.  I like having food at hand.  I have also rolled a couple joints for the walk.  I leave my glass pipe on the table next to the neatly stacked bars of soap.  It is a good looking batch.

     I peek through a knothole about halfway down the door and see a clear coast.  Time to go.

     I pick my way through the trees following the trampled path left by my Chinese visitor.  My right arm rests on the top of the AK slung low from my shoulder and swaying lazily as I walk peering down at the grass.  I am glad for the boonie hat’s wide brim which keeps the morning/early afternoon sun from my eyes.

     About a quarter mile from the barn, the zombie’s path breaks from a straight line and zigzaggs off to the south.  Apparently, something caught the thing’s attention at that point and brought it toward the barn.

     I peer over my shoulder back the way I have come.  The slope of the hill hides any view of the farm, and I had no big fires yesterday.  I am starting to worry that any “undead” within a quarter mile of my location will start to home in on me.  Not good.

     So, this fellow had been tracking north and apparently caught my scent, turned and trudged more or less in an arrow straight line for the barn.  Well, he hadn’t come from town.  That only left points south… nothing there.  I frustrate myself with this speculation, there is no way to know.  Well, as long as I am out here, maybe I can still poke around a bit, maybe check the town.

     I walked out that way on the road a week or so after Bill’s house burned down.  There were abandoned cars everywhere, some smoldering ruins of houses, but mostly just a sense of abandonment.  Some houses were boarded up, as if people meant to return, while others had doors wide open, possessions strewn about, and there were bodies, of course.  Again, not all of the houses were empty.

     On the edge of town I had passed a small ranch-style house.  As I approached, I saw at the window a jerking, moaning fiend smeared in blood, slapping scrabbly stumps at the thick panes of the front door, painting them red.  Passing quickly by, I had heard thumping and the sound of furniture sliding on wood floors.  Turning back, I regarded the figure again.  This time it was at a back window slapping and smearing more and more blood; mouth agape as if straining to catch a drop of rain to cure its thirst.

     That stuck with me and had been as much of the town as I’d wanted to see.  After the first couple of zombie “crowds” that found their way to the barn, things had quieted down.  There had only been about two thousand people in town.  I figured most had left before things got really bad, heading wherever the news had promised safety or instructed them to go.

     Now, three years or so later, my curiosity has awakened.

     I pass through the dried out and dying remains of one of Bill’s less successful experiments in the west acreage.  Really, of five hundred or so acres, only the test crops close to the barn has been producing well since irrigation failed.

     I come to an old dirt road, the boundary between Bill’s and his neighbor’s land.  The brush is doing a nice job of reclaiming the road—mostly blackberries and soft woods.  I am still headed west, a few miles from town, when I stumble upon my first sign of civilization.  It is a small brick ranch completely overgrown by small trees and scrub.  I am upon it so quickly, I don’t have time to consider whether to track around it or not.  I simply part some underbrush and step almost right into the front door.

    It is past noon, and, since I am bushwhacking to town, it will take me longer to get there.  I decide to check the place out, maybe spend the night.  I circle the place once.  Its shape forms an “L”; the long rectangle being the house and the foot, a garage.  The windows are intact and sun bleached drapes hide the interior.  I peer in the garage window and behold a nice looking SUV and an empty spot for another car.

     I pause to consider.  Is anyone home?  Is it worth looking to find out?  I decide to try the front door.  It is locked.  The same is true for the slider out back.  I circle back to the garage and try pulling the door up.  It slides up about two feet, then stops.

      I drop my pack and unshouldered the AK.  I slide under the door, bringing the gun; leaving the pack.  The SUV looks new covered under about an inch of dust.  I take a rag and hesitantly swipe a clear patch on the passenger side window.  Empty.  It looks like the back seats were packed with supplies.  I check the safety bringing the lever down and drawing back the bolt.  I feel better being ready to go at this point, guns blazing.

     Part of my mind says that if anyone were home, they would have come at the sound of the garage door.  Caution wins out, however.  I climb the three wooden steps to the garage door and try the handle.  The handle is locked, but the door has not been shut completely, and it swings open at my cautious pushing.

     The smell is that of a musty basement or old books yellowed with age and spotted with mold.  Must and mold.  I pass the laundry room and a sunny cheerful bathroom.  Walking further, I pass through the kitchen.  It is open to the living room, and that is where I see him/it.

     The recliner is facing the kitchen, and, as I walk in, I see his head turn and his eyes open. He’s sitting there completely still save for his head which follows me.  He is remarkably dead.

     He doesn’t stir or blink his eyes as I bring the rifle to bear. The expression on his face, presumably frozen there, is that of utter sadness.  He raises one hand, palm up, with gaping wrist, and makes a noise that sounds like, “Muh”.

     I put one round through his forehead and instantly regret the noise it makes.  Crap, that thing is loud indoors!  I raise a hand to my ears to check for blood.  They ring as if the bells of a cathedral had struck. No blood.

     I step wide of the seated zombie, now resting with his head blown back and pause to look at a family photo on the mantle.  Yes, that was him.  A quick search tells me that his wife and daughter are not in the house.  Maybe they have made it somewhere safe.  There had been room for two cars in the garage.

     I poke around some and find cans of crab meat that look like they might still be good.  Also some corn and green beans.  I carry them to the garage and open the car door.  I find mostly camping gear and perishable stuff:  rice, boxed Ramen noodles, bottled water.  Mice have chewed into boxes and fouled a lot of it to the point where I don’t want any of it.  Except the water, it is clean.  I drink two bottles.

     I put the cans of crab meat and those of veggies in my backpack and slide the garage door shut on my way out.  I find a tree growing next to the house and climb to the roof.  I walk over to the “L” where the roof angled together and lie down; head on backpack with my AK on my belly.

     The ringing in my ears is passing and the sky is lovely.  It looks clear, so I decide to sleep on the roof for the night safe from the roaming hands of the dead and images of the musty crypt below me.   I am not hungry.  

     I light a joint and chastise myself for feeling sorry for all these people’s stupid sad stories.  Lots of families have died apart from one another, and the dead are far from the troubles of this world. I sit watching a hawk ride thermals in the afternoon, almost evening, sun.  I smoke, I sit, and I start to feel better.  The roof is warm even shaded by overgrown trees, and the light and green leaves and fresh air cheer me.  I pull a paperback out of my backpack that I’ve purloined from the house and read until dark, smiling to myself.  Life isn’t all that bad, dude.

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     I sleep and I dream that I am swinging in a hammock made from people’s tattered clothes.  I lie there in the hammock, and a man dressed in a white jacket and black tie brings me an umbrella drink.  He’s familiar somehow, the one from the living room, I decide.  Black liquid runs from the hole in his forehead and makes a spreading stain on his left shoulder.  I nod politely and sip at the drink as he walks away.  The sound of waves softly crashing on the beach and receding follow me into wakefulness.

     Something is not right.  My eyes snap open and I regard a deep blue early morning sky. There is a slight chill to the air, and I almost think I can see my breath before me.  The fogginess begins to lift from my mind and I remember the sound of waves.

     Sitting up, my back stiff from sleeping in the valley of the roof, I hear a noise.   It sounds like soft swishing of grass, as if someone were walking below me, only multiplied several times.  I hold an oath in the off chance that the group below me are of the living breathing variety, and stand, slowly
.

     Below me stands the figure of a man, completely naked, his skin the color of old nickel.  His eyes are on me:  yellow milky affairs with grey pupils.  His tongue is curled down to his chin and his teeth look sharp and white.  Next to him is a woman in a dress, scraggly patches of wavy black hair and a hooked nose that looks slightly crooked.  On and on, surrounding the house on all sides, perhaps a dozen ragged and horrifying figures, arms raised as if to the sun, daring me to jump.  I gather my thin camo jacket I’ve been using as a blanket.  I don it now taking my time.  I sling my half empty pack and check my Avtomat-Kalashnikova 1947.

     Breakfast consists of some fruit leather and a few sips from the canteen.  Yesterday afternoon’s joint is this morning’s roach, and I light it pulling greedily, as the sun warms my legs and face.

   I walk carefully over to the front of the garage and wait patiently as my new friends assemble on the cracked black top of the driveway.  It is holding up pretty well, all things considered.

     When I see that my friends have assembled, I look down upon them and smile: “Welcome!  And good morning.  As you may have heard, class has been cancelled indefinitely.  I see that you, like myself, have not been discouraged by this fact, and have been drawn here by a longing and desire to fill your minds with knowledge.  I think I will call this lesson, The Fall of Man.  There, yes?”

     I point at the naked man, his hands raised and eyes locked on mine, an almost joyous expression on his face.  “A question?”

     I look down at the AK and check the safety.  Safety first.  Always.  I slide down the lever on the right hand side, consider muttering some awful one liner and settle on not spoiling an otherwise sublime moment.  Crowded as they are before me, aiming is optional.  Still, I take aim and count fourteen head shots.  I feel like an over industrious feline leaving one hell of a door step offering.

     The rest of the morning is rather uneventful.  I walk and enjoy the smells of the trees and grasses; the sharp smell of strange weeds trampled underfoot.  I marvel at how well the earth is doing at healing itself of the wounds dealt by humanity.  Houses stand, overgrown.  I imagine another few decades and these will be completely gone.  Even now, as I walk up what once was a quiet street just outside of town, I can see the blacktop bleaching grey and grasses poking through cracks at either side.  How long before this is consumed?  The climate here is near Mediterranean; virtually no chance of frost.  Rains in the winter here cause the earth to run, to flood in places, to erase more of our waste--to cleanse.

     I tramp along at a nice clip.  I assume that I have attracted most of the stragglers in this area.  I come to a “T” intersection now which connects the main road I have been avoiding to the street I am on.  I am only a few hundred yards from Main Street now; the town being just over the next rise.  What I behold in the distance makes my heart beat faster.  Where I have expected ruin and emptiness, I now behold a…stockade, a fence constructed of junk.