Zombies! Rising from the Dead (15 page)

Day Seventeen

I've said it before
these things have memories, something left
from their former lives
, some basic memory or instinct remains, familiar
patterns of behavior carved into the brains after years of
repetition
;
nothing else could explain it. They know to gather at
homes, they recognize people and they still have the desire to eat.

They keep on multiplying and multiplying, I didn't think they knew I
was here but I'm starting to second guess myself; why else would they
still be here? Wouldn't they have moved on by now? Maybe they can
sense me, smell me or something. There has to be
some
reason why they
don't move on, Rick tends to agree. Rick keeps in constant
contact
with me. He keeps Amanda isolated, away from doors and windows,
pretty much everything. He is trying to make things as normal for her
as he can. I know if she saw one of those things that would be it,
she would lose it. I have no idea how he is managing to deal with all
this. At least I don't have to worry about anyone but myself.

Day Eighteen

I wonder about Frankie
every day
. It pains me to think about what may
have become of him. Rick and I both have tried to contact him to no
avail. The last time either of us spoke to him was almost twenty days
ago now, not a single word since. The last we knew of he was held up
inside his store, I fear for him. Thinking about his place there in

Panatauk, what with the location and layout and all, well I have
serious concerns as to whether or not he has survived.

Day Nineteen

The days grow long. The television spews weeks old Emergency
Broadcast Warnings, the radio is nothing but static, I am alone.

Rick and Amanda are the only living souls I have contact with or
have heard from, I don't think there is anyone else.

Day
Twenty

My mornings are all the same....

I get up around 5 in the morning, have a quick look around. On the
days when I sleep in the bedroom I listen with my
ear to the door to
make sure nothing got in overnight. If I sleep at all it’s only a
couple hours at a time. I sleep so lightly a pin drop would have me
at attention . . . flashlight and shotgun in hand. Nonetheless I
listen at the door before opening it,
then
if I think I'm in the
clear I venture out.

Every morning I make sure no beams or boards have come loose during
the overnight hours, shortly after my rounds I peer outside to see
what the creatures have been up to during the night. Once
I'm
convinced everything is secure I radio Rick and check on him and
Amanda. We talk for several minutes
then I sit down to breakfast.

I am saving the processed foods for last, waiting till all the
perishable commodities are exhausted, some might disagree with my
strategy for any number of reasons, but my thinking is meat,
fruits

and
vegetables don't last indefinitely, sooner or later they sour or
spoil
. It's amazing how little the human body truly needs to survive.

Most people would drink a whole can of Coke in a matter of minutes
with narrowly a
thought;
I
can make a can last for almost three days
by rationing.

Any given morning I will have two to three ounces of
juice or soda. My breakfast usually consists of half a piece of bread
with a little butter sometimes I splurge and have a quarter of a pop
tart
;
it's not living but it
is
survival.

After twenty days isolated here I have lost ten pounds, never before
did I think my overweight status would come in handy. At 5'3 I
weighed 185 pounds, by government standards I was overweight if not
obese, but regardless I would be considered heavy for a short fella.
I could easily lose forty pounds without suffering any ill
effects;
you see evolution wants us to be fat for times of famine and strife.
If I had gone into this weighing say, a hundred fifty, I would be in
seriously bad shape by now
.
I will never dispute
Mother Nature
again,

she
know
s
best.

Day Twenty-One

I have seedlings! My garden is beginning to sprout and I considerably
relieved. I should have some ripe vegetables in a few
weeks’ time
. I
want to plant more, but I don't have any potting mix or soil. I am
thinking about going down into the basement and breaking up a patch
of the concrete floor in the arcade room so I can get to the dirt

underneath
. I think eating is more important now than a game of
billiards, but still I am very excited!

Day Twenty-Two

My situation hasn't changed, those things are still out there, they
can't get in and I can't get out. I estimate that there are around
sixty of the damned things out there now. They huddle all about the
house, walking around my vehicle and driveway just lumbering about
with no real intention or goal; yet they remain. Rick insists there
are almost a hundred or so around his place, Rick is prone to
exaggeration and I truly hope he is exaggerating now; I
pray
that he
is.

Day Twenty-Three

I have been trying to figure out where all these things are coming
from. How can there be so many out in the middle of nowhere? It's not
really a hard question to answer when you think about it. After all,
in a five mile radius of my home I can recount five cemeteries that I
know of for certainty, and no telling how many more lay scattered
about the country side, forgotten. These lonely places are left to
wither, due to neglect and the slow passage of time until they fade
from all thought and memory; till scarcely they are known to have
existed at all. How many of these solemn places sit quietly on
grassy hilltops with only the wisp of trees swaying gently in the
summer breeze to give hint of the final resting place for so many?

The dead
outnumber
the living twenty to one. You spend seventy-five
years living on this planet, the rest of that time you spend as a
corpse.
I
n reality you spend a lot more time dead than you
do alive. We have mummies thousands of years old still turning up in
the modern day, still perfectly preserved. Is it really no wonder
that there would be so many of these things roaming about?
It can take decades, if not hundreds of years for a body to turn to
ash, and with embalming techniques such as they are today it could
take even longer; but it begs another question. These things are
supposed to be buried six feet under in steel crypts, how the hell
are they getting out? I figure the funeral industries to blame. Just
like any other business (and it IS a business) there is corruption,
shortcuts taken in an effort to minimize expense and maximize
profit.
Who knows what type of underhanded deeds take place behind the closed
doors of a mortuary? The very industry itself is
taboo;
no one wants
to think about their own mortality, so they stay as far away
a
s they
can from anything dealing with death. It's a free pass for the
dishonest who would take advantage of the grieving.

Ano
ther thing is the burial vaults. T
hey look great on the outside
but how often does the grieving family of the deceased take
the
time to
examine them
?
My
guess is never. How well are these things really constructed? It’s all for show, to make the body look respectable and
dignified for the ceremony, but fuck, they make these things knowing
that they will spend the rest of eternity in the ground. No one's
going to see it
ever
again, so who the hell cares if there's a
hairline crack on the inside of the lining or a weld that isn't a

hundred
percent perfect? Who's going to notice that shit when they
are busy blubbering over sweet Aunt Mabel and checking the list to
see who sent flowers and signed the guest book. Even at the end of
life it's all about the spectacle.

Who knows what other corners are cut? Maybe they don't always bury
the bodies six feet under
,
who's to say? How many are buried in
P
auper's graves in plain wooden boxes? How many unmarked graves?
Murder victims? Shit like that. The possibilities are endless. For
every dead fucker who
was
buried properly I bet there are half a
dozen others that weren't. No wonder there are so many of these
damned things up and roaming about. Makes we wonder if the ones that
are sealed nice and tight in their coffins are just in there clawing
away; trying to force their way out.