Zomblog: The Final Entry (18 page)

Lovelock was strangely busy when I rolled into town. Sam started growling as soon as we peeled off of Interstate 80 and coasted onto Frontage Road—according to the signs still hanging.

Almost immediately I had to stop my bike as a trio of these migrant-worker looking zombies stepped out into the street from a hotel that appeared like it might have been expensive in another lifetime. It got worse when a pack of zomdogs limped out from the dark, gaping hole that was once the hotel’s main entrance.

Sam
really
hates zomdogs. I don’t know if it is because he can tell that they used to be dogs like him and it freaks him out, or what. Whatever the case, he went from prowling and growling to whimpering and backing up beside me.

I moved slow and had my spear in hand after I put three of the five dogs down with my crossbow. As I waded in, I found myself itching for a fight. It seemed to be exactly what I needed. Moments later, the intersection was littered with bodies.

The dust up did draw some attention, so I decided to jog away and lead the mindless mini-mob in the opposite direction of my ultimate destination which was the hospital. It took a bit longer than what I would have liked, and I ended up with two empty canteens, which, in this heat, can be very bad for your health.

By the time I got up here to my top floor, I was feeling more than a little light-headed and had a thundering headache. Did I forget to mention that it is at least a hundred degrees, I’m wearing a leather coat, gloves with a fine mesh lining, boots, shin-guards, and a riot helmet with a modified face shield designed to minimize the hindrance of my peripheral vision?

When I’m on open roads with long, flat, empty stretches of nothing, I can strip down to my sports bra and bicycle shorts. However, the moment I spot any former civilization zones, or even the slightest congested section of what’s left of the road, it is automatic that I suit up. Heat is no excuse.

Right now I’m watching the shadows claim the town as the sun sets. Also, I’m stark naked. Hey…who’s gonna see me? Good thing, too. My legs and pits are sporting three full days of not being clean shaven. And to think…there used to be a time when I wouldn’t leave the house without my most intimate parts being perfectly manicured. Now I look like I’m straight out of a vintage Seventies Playboy centerfold.

Friday, August 6

This valley that Interstate 80 cuts through is a mess. Between the landslides and damage from unchecked winters that have wedged the asphalt apart, I spent most of the day on foot. The bike is a huge hindrance right now.

Just before making camp, I heard that hair-raising baby cry sound. The poor bastard was geared up with an awesome backpack, but the weight, coupled with the left leg not only being chewed up, but broken in several spots to the point that I don’t know how it didn’t just fall off, kept this zombie as helpless as a flipped over turtle.

After I put it out of its misery, I was thrilled to find an awesome stash of foil-packaged, dehydrated meals. He also had a small caliber pistol, but that was beyond repair.

I briefly considered veering off and following the train tracks. But if I encountered some long, dark tunnel…there’s just no way in hell.

Saturday, August 7

I imagined that this is Winnemucca looked like a year or so ago. The perimeter fence is mostly in place, the town itself is clean, but more undead straggle in than the living types.

There’s a fire that’s been burning for three weeks if I am to believe the person that escorted me and Sam into quarantine. It seems that the undead from Reno keep trickling in

There is a huge difference in the folks from Fernley and the ones I left behind in Winnemucca.

God.

This is a religious settlement. They have services three times a day,
every
day. I was given a bible in quarantine. I said it wasn’t necessary, but the young man who escorted me to my cell said “one never knows when God will reveal himself.”

He wasn’t Genesis Brotherhood crazy, and he didn’t try to preach or force anything on me—although he would not take the bible back, apparently it is my own personal copy…my name is even written in it—he just seems…
religious
. I do not have any idea how to explain it. It is like he is…happy. That is an emotion that I haven’t seen or felt in a long, long time. Even on the best day you still have that niggling feeling in the back of your mind that something is wrong. That is the new normal. Only, this guy seemed different.

Sunday, August 8

I was brought out to meet the town elders—Fernley’s version of government, I guess—and be grilled on what I was delivering to Betty from the folks from Winnemucca. Maybe I should have peeked, but I figured that the envelope was sealed for a reason. Primarily as a way to say, “Meredith, this is none of your beeswax, keep your nose out of it!”

Something was said about returning a girl to her family. See? Start civilizing things and people start losing sight of the real problems. I go back to my prior estimate of humanity not surviving another decade.

I told two dozen different people that I had no idea what was written on the note, it wasn’t my business, and no, I will not take a message back. I made it clear that my ass is heading out of town at daybreak.

For a little bit I was worried that I might have to fight my way out. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. I was, however, made to camp in this little park. No room indoors for Meredith.

All that being said, I will make this observation: I don’t give
these
people six months. They don’t have the farmland that the Winnemucca settlement has. From what little I’ve seen, there are too many people making decisions. Remember how impotent our congress had become? Well, these folks didn’t pay attention. Also, their security is crap. I don’t know if it can just be credited to this place being a newer settlement, but I personally saw three roamers—one that
I
put down—inside the perimeter. I’m near the center of town.

Did I mention that I am sleeping up on top of a concrete building that once acted as the public restrooms in the city park? Oh yeah, this place has got problems.

Monday, August 9

I could not get out of that place soon enough. It was just too damn bizarre. I am happy to be able to pedal my bicycle once again. However, I will have to be very careful. It seems as if the undead are really drawn to the human buffet that is Fernley.

I never knew Nevada was so mountainous. I guess I always pictured it a lot like New Mexico and Arizona. There is certainly plenty of desert, but there are also plenty of snow-capped mountains. The good side of this is all of the little streams and creeks that I keep running across.

Tonight I am camped out inside an RV that went off the road and ended up on its side. There was a well-preserved but very dead woman in the front passenger seat. She died from a nasty head injury. It looks like…well…her forehead is smashed flat at an angle that I would be willing to bet matches the dash of the RV. Of course she didn’t turn because she died a normal death. I wonder where the driver went? There is no sign of a struggle, and no blood except a little bit around the dead woman’s nose and ears. Did I mention that the woman is little more than a dried husk? I made no attempt to move her because I am certain that she would only crumble in my hands. Besides, I’m sleeping in the back.

Thursday, August 12

Vegas is still my destination, but it is officially on hold. I guess it was just a matter of time before I encountered some really bad people again. I am currently hiding out in a movie theater—what is it with me and theaters—waiting for it to get dark outside. Once it does, I’m gonna bring some serious pain down on the gang of sickos that slither around in this infested hole of a town.

If I die…you can bet I will be bringing a lot of them with me. I won’t be carrying anything tonight except for my weapons. So if you are reading this and the rest of the pages are blank, then that means that I am dead. And if you see a zombie decked out in leather, bristling with weapons, with a ‘Mean People Suck’ sweatshirt underneath, please shoot me in the head.

The first sign that something was wrong came a mile out of the town proper. It was the sign: Entering Fallon…the town that God forgot. That last little bit was spray-painted on in red. Dangling from the sign was an armless, legless, female zombie with the word “whore” carved into her torso. When I got closer, it was obvious that she couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen. She mewled and gurgled at me until I put my spear into her head.

As I crept into town, I had to put the leash on Sam because there were too many zombies around. It only took me about twenty minutes to realize that they were
all
female. I reached a city park that had reinforced fencing, and found more zombies—also all female—standing in clusters.

I was under a school bus trying to make sense of everything when a large cart being drawn by eight women, all naked and alive, came rolling down the street. They were escorted by at least two dozen men in everything from leathers to what looked like a baseball catcher’s gear. The ones bringing up the rear were pulling along four boys from age eight to somewhere in the early teens. Once there, they manhandled them into a chute that emptied into the park/zombie pen. What they did next solidified my decision to stay and fight. They opened the cart, and then they began tossing bundles from one person to the next like you would sandbags to hold back a river. The last man at the end of the human conveyer tossed the bundle over the fence. These babies’ cries were real.

A couple of the boys put up a really good fight, but it only served as a source of entertainment for the gang of men. One of the boys tried desperately to keep the swaddled infants away from the tearing jaws of death. Another managed to break free, climb the fence, and make it all the way to the sobbing females who had been leading the carts. He grabbed one and hugged her before being yanked away again and forced into the chute once more.

I was curious how come there wasn’t more zombie traffic, and finally spotted the RVs pulled or pushed in place at the head of the three possible entry points to this street. The few that were in the area had been herded into some of the buildings lining the streets.

Back to the park scene. When the other end of that chute opened, the boys were forced into the park by the men with what looked like from here to be cattle prods. After that, it really didn’t take long. The zombies are so numerous that there isn’t enough left to come back. Sure, some of the boys lasted longer, running. But it was really a forgone conclusion, and none of them had a chance of escape.

The women were forced to watch. Some were even unharnessed and dragged to the fence for a closer look. During one particularly nasty moment, one of them was held down and brutally raped next to the fence where a young boy—apparently her son—was torn apart and feasted upon just inches away; the only thing separating them being that thin fence that may as well have been a mile-wide chasm.

Thinking back, I’m surprised I didn’t cry. I believe that I was simply too horrified and shocked. I have no idea how we have come to this. I shudder to think of what went on in the minds of people that I walked by every day in the Old World. Considering what happened to me at the hands of my town’s sheriff before I escaped and found Sam and his group that day…

Who were these men before? School teachers? Cops? Cashiers at the local grocery store?

The thing is, I’ve met good people, too. Decent folks who help the weak and care for others. But the bad…the evil…it seems to be amplified to a level that I could have never imagined human beings capable of, and it just rips out my heart.

Eventually, a few of the men went to one of the RV sealed ends of one of the streets and disappeared. Obviously their job was to lead away any of the zombies that had gathered. The women were hitched up to their harnesses again and away they went. Two men stayed behind for a few minutes to open the doors of all the buildings along the streets again to allow the undead captives to resume roaming free.

I wonder if the reason that the zombies stick around is because of this feeding event that I witnessed. Several hundred converged on the park once the men left, pressing against the fence where their zombie sisters stumbled about covered in fresh blood and gore. It actually allowed me an opportunity to escape from the area without incident.

I spent the next couple of hours trying to find that cart. You’d think it wouldn’t be hard in a town with so few living. It turned out to be like finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, late in the afternoon, I found what I was looking for.

They had doubled back and taken a big circle to return to what is obviously their base. It sits atop a big, ugly, brown hill just past the northeast corner of town right next to the airfield.

They have it walled off pretty good. It is next to impossible to get an accurate idea of their numbers. For one, the wall is brick and about eight feet tall; for another, they all dress the same and I don’t have any binoculars.

I spent all day and all night watching—and unfortunately listening—to the comings, goings, and carryings on of these bastards. I’ve developed a plan. The downside is that it will probably kill everybody, including the female captives. However, if it were me in there, and with what I’ve heard, I would welcome death over the alternative. The problem I’m gonna have is getting away.

Friday, August 13

No matter what, tonight is my “go” night. Last night, a caravan of strange looking, obviously heavily modified motorcycles rolled into town and straight to the encampment. Three of the motorcycles were hauling wheeled cages. I would guess that there were at least a dozen women and young girls crammed into each of them. This has to stop.

I’m not afraid to die. I am only afraid to fail.