The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (2 page)

I nodded. “I believe that. And,
Jimmy?”

He looked down at me. He knew what was
coming. He expected it, and that was the only reason I was going to
say it. I knew better than to correct Jimmy V. There were a lot of
woods up here. They did go on forever and they probably did hold a
lot of lost people. I may be slow but I'm far from
stupid.

“
Please don't call me
Candy,” I told him.

He smiled. “Don't be so
goddamn nice about it.
Don't call me
Candy,
” he rasped, a dangerous edge to his
voice. “Look 'em right in the eye.
Don't
call me Candy
. Put a little attitude in
your look. A little
I can fuckin' snap at
any minute
attitude. Let me see
that.”

I Put my best street face
on. The one I had used growing up on the streets in Syracuse. I
knew that
I can snap at any minute
look. I'd used it many times.
“Don't call me Candy,”
I told him in
a voice that was not my own. My street voice,
“Just don't do it.”

“
Goddamn right, Doll,”
Jimmy told me. “Goddamn right. Scared me a little there. That's
that street wise part of you.” He took my head in both massive
hands, bent and kissed the top of my head. “I will see you on the
eleventh,” he told me.

I nodded. I let the Doll remark
go.

I followed Jimmy out the back door past
Don who nodded at me and winked. Don was an asshole. Always hitting
on us when Jimmy wasn't around. But Jimmy was his uncle. I was
employing my best selective perception when I smiled at him. I
wondered if I would ever get used to him. Probably not, I decided,
but maybe that would be a good thing. Of course, it didn't matter.
I never saw Don again. Or Jimmy. Or anyone else from that
life.

I said goodbye to Jimmy V,
crossed the parking lot for the last time and drove myself home. I
parked my rusted out Toyota behind my Grandparents house, and
twenty-four hours later my world,
everybody's world
, was completely
changed.

Candace ~ March 2nd

This is not a diary. I have
never kept a diary. They say,
never say
never
, but I doubt I will. I have never
been this scared. The whole world is messed up. Is it ending? I
don't know, but it seems like it's ending here. Earthquakes,
explosions. I've seen no Police, Fire or emergency people all day.
It's nearly night. I think that's a bad sign. I have the Nine
Millimeter that used to be my Father's. I've got extra ammo too.
I'm staying inside.

Candace ~ March 3rd

I lost this yesterday; my little
notebook. I left it by the window so I could see to write, but I
swear it wasn't there when I went to get it; then I found it again
later on by the window right where I left it. Maybe I'm losing
it.

There are no Police, no Firemen,
phones, electric. The real world is falling apart. Two days and
nothing that I thought I knew is still here. Do you see? The whole
world has changed.

I got my guitar out and played it
today. I played for almost three hours. I played my stuff. I played
some blues. Usually blues will bring me out of blues, but it didn't
work. It sounded so loud, so out of place, so... I don't know. I
just stopped and put it away.

Candace ~ March
4
^th

I'm going out. I have to see, if I
don't come back. Well... What good is writing this?

Candace ~ March
5
^th

The whole city has fallen apart. I
spent most of yesterday trying to see how bad this is. I finally
realized it's bad beyond my being able to fix it. It's bad as in
there is no authority. It's bad as in there is no Jimmy V. I hear
gunshots at night, all night. And screams. There are still tremors.
If I had to guess, I would say it's the end of the civilized world,
unless things are better somewhere else. I have to believe that.
Power, structure, it's all gone. I mean it's really all gone. This
city is torn up. There are huge areas that are ruined. Gulleys,
ravines, missing streets, damaged bridges. The damage costs have to
be in the billions... And that's just here. There's me and my
little notebook I'm writing in, and my nine millimeter. I've got
nothing else for company right now.

I've got water, some peanuts and
crackers. How long can this go on? What then?

Candace ~ March 6th

I've decided to leave. I can't stay
here. There was a tremor last night, and not one of the really bad
ones, but even so I was sure the house would come down on me. It
didn't. Maybe though, that is a sign, I told myself. And scared or
not, I have to go. I have to. I can't stay here. Maybe
tomorrow.

Candace ~ March 7th

The streets are a mess.
I've spent too much of the last week hiding inside my apartment.
Most of my friends, and that's a joke, I didn't have anyone I could
actually
call
a
friend; So I guess I would say most of my
acquaintances
believed my
grandparents were alive and that I lived here with them. They
weren't. I didn't. I kind of let that belief grow, fostered it, I
guess.

I planted the seed by saying it was my
Nana Pans' apartment. You can see the Asian in me, so it made sense
to them that she was my Nana. But I look more like I'm a Native
American than African American and Japanese. It's just the way the
blood mixed, as my father used to say. But Native American or
Asian, they could see it in my face. And this neighborhood is
predominantly Asian. Mostly older people. There were two older
Asian women that lived in the building. They probably believed one
of those women was my Nana, and I didn't correct them.

I can't tell you why I did
that. I guess I wanted that separation. I didn't want them,
anyone,
to get to know me
well. My plan had been to dance, earn enough money for school -
Criminal Justice - and go back to Syracuse. Pretend none of this
part of my life had ever happened. Some plan. It seemed workable. I
wondered over what Jimmy V. had said to me. Did he see something in
me that I didn't, or was he just generalizing? It doesn't matter
now I suppose.

My Grandmother passed away two years
ago. The apartment she had lived in was just a part of the building
that she owned. Nana Pan, my mother's mother, had rented the rest
of the building out. The man who had lived with her was not my
Grandfather - he had died before I was born - but her brother who
had come ten years before from Japan. They spoke little English.
People outside of the neighborhood often thought they were man and
wife. She didn't bother correcting them, my mother had told me.
Nana Pan thought that most Americans were superficial and really
didn't care, so what was the use in explaining anything to them?
Maybe that's where I got my deceptiveness from.

I had left the house as it was.
Collected rents through an agency. For all anyone knew, I was just
another tenant. Of course Jimmy V. had known. He had mentioned it
to me. But Jimmy knew everything there was to know about everyone.
That was part of his business. It probably kept him
alive.

So I stayed and waited. I believed
someone would show up and tell me what to do. But no one did. I saw
a few people wander by yesterday, probably looking for other
people, but I stayed inside. I don't know why, what all my reasons
were. A lot of fear, I think.

There have been earthquakes. The house
is damaged. I went outside today and really looked at it. It is off
the foundation and leaning. I should have gotten out of it the
other night when I knew it was bad. It's just dumb luck it hasn't
fallen in on me and killed me.

It doesn't matter now though. I met a
few others today, and I'm leaving with them. I don't know if I'll
stay with them. I really don't know what to expect from life
anymore.

I'm taking this and my gun with me.
Writing this made me feel alive. I don't know how better to say
it.

I'll write more here I think. I just
don't know when, or where I'll be.

~Downtown Watertown~

He came awake in the darkness, but
awake wasn't precisely the term. Alive was precisely the term. He
knew alive was precisely the term, because he could remember dying.
He remembered that his heart had stopped in his chest. He had
remembered wishing that it would start again. That bright moment or
two of panic, and then he remembered beginning not to care. It
didn't matter. Nothing mattered. And he had drifted
away.

Now he had drifted back.
But drifted was not exactly right. He had slammed back into himself
where he lay on the cold subbasement floor where he had been
murdered by a roving gang of thieves. And he knew those things were
true because he remembered them. And he knew they were true because
he
was
dead. He
was
still
dead.
His heart was not beating in his chest. His blood was cold and
jelled in his veins. He could feel it. Some kind of new
perception.

He lay and watched the shadows deepen
in the corners of the basement ceiling for a short time longer, and
then he tried to move.

His body did not want to
move at first. It felt as though it weighed a ton,
two tons
, but with a
little more effort it came away. He sat and then crawled to his
knees.

In the corner a huge rat stopped on his
way to somewhere to sniff at him, decided he was probably food and
came to eat him. He had actually sat for a second while the rat
first sniffed and then began to gnaw at one fingernail. Then he had
quickly snatched the rat up with his other hand, snapped it's back
in his fist and then shoved him warm and squirming into his mouth.
A few minutes later he stood on shaky legs and walked off into the
gloom of the basement, looking for the stairs and the way up to the
streets.

CHAPTER TWO

Journals and Diaries

Mike ~ March 8th

I debated with myself about how to
start this. Isn’t that stupid? Not whether I should start it. I
guess that means that I have some hope that I am not the only
one.

Actually, I know that I’m not the only
one. I’ve heard gunshots more than once. I’ve heard a dog barking
as well. And I’ve seen several dogs, cats, squirrels, etc... I’ve
also heard what sounded like a car or a truck, but I couldn’t
figure out where it was coming from. Everything is so quiet; it
could be anywhere.

The sound of the river drowns things
out. Even so, I haven’t seen any other people. None. And, I’m
getting ahead of myself again.

I have no idea what has happened, even
here in this town. It doesn’t really matter either, except to tell
you, whoever you may end up being, what happened from my point of
view, I guess. Maybe it’s the same for you. Maybe writing this out
is a waste of time. But, it keeps my mind off shit, you
know?

So, I wondered where to start? Today?
Last week? Just start, I guess...

I have heat, food, fire. And I’ve
finally gotten myself moved into this cave, so my mind is more at
ease. But, again, I’m getting ahead of myself. It started for me
last week on the 2nd of March. Only six days, but everything here
has changed.

I was having a few beers, watching the
coverage of the world countdown party; hey, it was supposed to be a
joke, right? And, supposedly, we had a few months to go. It was
supposed to be one long countdown party. One minute everything was
fine, and the next the power was out.

Then the first quake hit...

I made it through that night and… two
more quakes? Aftershocks? Who knows? I was just trying to get
through to the morning. Phones were out; Sirens everywhere; No
power. But, the closer it got to dawn the less noise there was. The
sirens fell off. The rain started hard, and then the lightning
came. A thunder and lightning storm in the middle of
winter!

It was spooky, and when morning finally
came, it didn’t make much sense at all. Almost everything I could
see in every direction was flattened. The streets had cracked open
and had become rivers. The temperature was higher than it should
have been. But that didn’t last.

By noon the rain stopped, and I kept
expecting to see someone. Emergency workers… Power Company…
Somebody. Even a neighbor. But I saw no one at all that
day.

I guess as serious as it was, I wasn’t
taking it seriously. At least not the first day. I was still
thinking rescue, help, it’s on the way. This is the most powerful
country in the entire world. Help is coming. So I sat on my ass and
drank beer and ate bologna sandwiches and chips, staring out at the
street from my front porch, which was perched on the edge of a
twenty foot rain gully.

Just before dark, the real quake hit.
It had to have been stronger than the previous ones. It felt like
it anyway.

I barely jumped off the
porch before it fell into the gully. Scared the hell out of me. It
wasn’t long after that when darkness settled in and I knew I was in
trouble. Something in the whole structure of the house was damaged.
Every aftershock made it dance, sway around me. It was also now a
two foot drop down to the ground since my porch was gone. And I
didn’t dare leave, because I had no idea what it was like outside.
No Streetlights. No Moon. No starlight.
No
starlight, none!
Then the storms came back,
and the air turned back to cold.