Zomblog (6 page)

Today we moved every single trailer portion of the shipping truck fleet still in this complex out of the fence. We parked them as close to the outside of the fencing as we could. Meanwhile, five guys drove forklifts with stacks of wooden pallets to jam under the trailer rigs.

Of course the sound carried and some of the zombies in the woods came out. But we had total coverage with a dispatch team. Tom said not to use guns because that sound would carry better than the trucks we used would. I don’t have any idea if that was true, but he was so convincing that nobody argued.

He also had a group paint: “WE ARE ALIVE” on the roofs of all the big, long warehouses. Everybody was so busy that, for just a few hours, we almost forgot.

Just before we put the last rig in place, we drove all the personal cars and trucks to the parking lot out front and parked them in the first row. All the cars have the keys in the ignition and are loaded with a ‘survival kit’ that includes a first aid kit that would’ve made Erin proud, two cases of bottled water, a water pitcher with a filtration system (my idea!), a hefty supply of non-perishable food, flashlights, batteries, CB radio (I didn’t know they still existed), flares, five-gallon gas can (empty) and assorted weapons (bats, axes, machetes).

I “inherited” a car from somebody that used to work here. I guess Tom had every locker opened and gathered all the car keys they found and then matched them to the cars in the lot. The rumor is that Tom worked security here and had to “take care of his co-workers” when this all started.

We might have created a bit of a problem. This morning, sunrise revealed that those things are about four or five deep…all the way around the complex.

During the watch shift last night, I was walking my section of the fence with Scott and Samantha Anderson, nineteen-year-old twin brother and sister who look like models for a Norwegian ski resort brochure. Everybody takes a shift at night except the children (currently defined as fifteen and younger). You work in threes so that you can send a runner for help if need be. All last night we could hear them. The mewling and gurgling sounds they make kept getting louder. We thought it might just be a trick of the wind. Then, when it started to snow, things quieted down a bit. By the time our shift ended, we had a couple of inches of snow and the noise had almost vanished.

I was awakened to the sounds of the complex in a tizzy. Everybody was running to the office building which is the tallest structure in the complex. From the fifth floor (which is the top) you can see all the way down to where the highway passes. But more important, you can see the entire area surrounding the fence. You can’t actually see up against the trailer rigs, but you can see that there was a mob of zombies all the way around us!

At first we thought they might all be frozen. Tom and a couple of others came back and informed us that, while they seemed a bit slower to react, they were still very much active and aware. Also, there are just too many to dispatch.

Our noise yesterday obviously drew them. I told Tom what I noticed about their behavior and how if one (or more) start after something, others follow, whether they know what it is they are chasing or not.

From the vantage point of the fifth floor, we can see singles and packs heading this way from every direction. Eventually their approach was blocked from sight by the trees. Only time will tell as to how many of those things will fall in line like lemmings. Hopefully they’ll get distracted in the woods.

* * * * *

It is almost sunset. The snow has turned to rain. There are thousands of them now and we can hear the moaning even if you are inside the buildings. That noise can only be drawing more of them.

The good news is that the barricade of trailer rigs is holding just fine. They don’t have much leverage, and are squeezed in tight. Each one seems to know that a meal is in the vicinity. But, and this is a plus once we talked it over, they are like dogs inasmuch that they push against each other as much if not more than they do against the barricade.

The number of zombies seems to have doubled! That, of course, is the bad news. The good news is there doesn’t seem to be any more coming. There are a couple of stragglers on the highway, but from the vantage point we have, it looks as if every one of those things in the vicinity has come and are standing their undead vigil outside our fence.

It has been decided that the office building is where we will all live. Most of us were already there. A handful of people had taken up in some of the warehouses. But everybody sees the logic in living in one central location so that, if something bad happens, we are all together. Also, this allows us to use only one of the five back-up generators for power

We have not found any fuel surplus. So we only run the generator when absolutely necessary. There had been a plan to make a run to seek out a diesel tanker-truck. Of course that has been put on hold.

I found a guitar (actually a bunch of them) and couldn’t help myself. I was sitting on a stack of big-screen televisions just getting my hands used to the feel again and had a small crowd in a matter of minutes.

I met all the kids. I guess a couple of the folks here got a make-shift class going to keep the kids occupied. Greg Parker, I guess he used to be a math teacher at Portland State, and Crystal Johnson, ironically, a school bus driver, have a class set up. They were in some meeting room and heard me. Greg asked if I would be willing to teach a music class. I’ve got nothing better to do.

Greg turns out to be a pretty funny guy in a dry-humor sort of way. He’s not at all what any math teacher I ever had was like. He has a million jokes, and they are all awful. But the kids love him. He says he was a vegetarian before all of this. He had a nice greenhouse and lived mostly off of his own organically grown produce. I really like the guy, but I realized that before all this, I would’ve not only never associated with this guy I probably would have mocked him and his lifestyle. Now, I see a man who is doing what he can to help, doing the last thing I would think of in the middle of this chaos.

Then there is Crystal. She is a fifty-something gal, about five-feet tall and four-feet wide. She is gruff and her voice is full of the gravel you expect from a former chain smoker. She can tell you, to the hour, how long it has been since she had a cigarette. Crystal knows a lot of jokes, too, but I am pretty sure the kids haven’t heard even one. The couple she has told me made
me
blush.

* * * * *

Everybody is pretty sure we heard the same thing. Up in the clouds a jet screamed by! It was headed south, but it was definitely not commercial. That has to mean that at least some of our military is left. Right?

The zombies even reacted. The horde outside seemed to get restless, and there was a lot of shifting. But none of them left.

Also, one rather disturbing bit of news. The zombies have added a new sound. At first we thought it was real. In fact, a good number of us ended up searching the perimeter. That is how we know it is them. The sound comes from all over. It seems as if very few actually do it…yet. But that sound, besides how unnerving it is, will get somebody killed.

I had my first music class with the kids today. There are seven school-aged children in the complex. All of them were very excited to be learning guitar. There are three girls and four boys: Andrea, sixteen, is the oldest; Waylon is sixteen, but he is a few months younger and apparently Andrea reminds him often; Jeremiah is fourteen and taller than all the adults including Tom, but skinny as a rail; Marty is thirteen and the quickest learner so far; Alise and Claire are both twelve and don’t seem fazed by what is going on. I think they both have ADHD, but I’m no professional so…; and last is little Joey who is ten, and scared of his shadow. He never once strummed his guitar.

I talked to Greg and Crystal and they say he follows the other kids around, shows up for class and just sits. When the others leave, he follows. He hasn’t said a single word that either of them have heard. Greg said that Robin Stayton, a young woman of about twenty-two showed up with him. When they got here, she had been bitten and he was covered in blood. None of it his own. It is obvious he saw something up close. Before Robin died she managed to say that Joey was her neighbor’s kid and that his folks were both gone. That is the full extent of what we know about the boy. One other thing I’ve noticed, he will follow the kids to the door, but he will not go outside. He’ll just sit down and wait for them to come back. If we ever have to run, that may become a problem.

People spent a lot of time outside today. It was only partly cloudy and I think they were hoping for another fly over. It never happened. We have noticed something different though and I’m not sure it is good. It was actually Al Godwin who noticed. Al is another case of this event making strange bedfellows. Al is an eighteen-year-old black male who arrived still wearing handcuffs. Apparently he escaped from the back of a State Highway Patrol cruiser after watching the officer who had arrested him get taken down by a pack of zombies at that roadblock I saw on Highway 26. Anyways, what Al noticed, and now we all do, is that we’ve not heard any gunfire in two days. It had become such a normal part of the day (and night) that we had tuned it out. After everybody thought it over real hard, we realized when the last bursts had been heard. It was the day after moving the rigs.

Of course some are saying that it is because every zombie is here that was in about a five or ten mile radius. I don’t buy that. There are stragglers. Ones who were distracted by some-thing…anything…and went their own way. Also, in this dead world, sound travels far.

* * * * *

South and slightly east of here, the horizon is glowing. There must be a big fire. We’ve seen so much smoke in the air that, like gunshots, we had all just ignored it. But this is big. I stood on the roof of the office building—now called The Apartments—and extended my arms out in front of myself. The glow on the horizon barely fits between my hands. Considering how far away it probably is, I am guessing the entire town of Forest Grove is burning. Just as I went inside, it started to rain. I don’t think that’ll be enough. At least it’s not windy.

It is a beautiful sunny day. A handful of folks decided to set up a picnic. Pretty soon, the whole place was a hive of bustling activity as tables of snack foods (practically the dietary staple) were put up.

Before long there was badminton, Frisbee, and some other games going. Tom and a couple of the guys hauled out this wooden play structure and set it up. Then one of the kids asked me to play some music. It was a regular party. The only drawback besides the obvious was that Joey still wouldn’t come outside.

I think it did everybody some good to just unwind. Also, I think it is the first time that we were all in the same place at the same time. There was smiling and laughing. Proof that humanity is resilient…able to overcome anything thrown its way.

One of the children, Claire, is sick. At first most of us thought it was all the junk food combined with the excitement. About an hour ago, Dennis VanDelay, a veterinarian a little older than I am, late forties, took a look. He thinks it is appendicitis. They moved into one of the meeting rooms down on the third floor. Crystal and another woman are in there helping.

Dennis was right. But there just wasn’t the stuff he needed to take care of it properly. I guess he tried to operate, but she lost too much blood. He’s pretty shaken up. So are the rest of the children.

At least she didn’t sit back up after she died.

A group of us had a meeting today. There was me, Tom, Dennis, and a lady named Monica Campinelli. Monica was better known in this area as Sister Mary Campinelli. I guess she was a nun from some local Catholic school and church in the town of Banks. It seems that everybody felt that she should be at this meeting because, if we do what is suggested, she will pretty much be the leader here at the complex.

Tom and I are going to make a run for a nearby hospital. Yesterday’s death of that little girl has everybody pretty shaken up. Dennis has made us a list of things to get. Monica told us where we should look.

I mistakenly thought veterinarians were folks who couldn’t hack it as doctors. Now I find that a lot of those who fail as vets go into human medicine.

Monica was not too happy with our decision. She doesn’t give us much of a chance at making it back. She’s a pretty stern bird and not much for sugar-coating her words. Monica was the other person helping Dennis try and pull off that emergency appendectomy. She did volunteer work at the hospital that we are running for. She said that “the place was teeming with them.” (She won’t use the word zombie.) I guess she worked in the ER as a nurse during the graveyard shift.

I asked her why everybody calls her ‘Monica’ instead of ‘sister’. She stared at me with those harsh gray eyes, and I could actually see them melt into a shade of blue, the lines around them relaxing just a bit. In that moment she seemed to simply be a kind little old lady in her fifties…maybe a favorite grandmother.

“I’m a little upset with God right now. I’m not sure if he’s paying me much attention. I just don’t feel right being called ‘sister’ at the moment. Until I can sort things out between Him and me, I’d rather not be called by a title that I’m not feeling obliged to act the part of.”