Zomblog Saga Box Set (Books 1-6) (127 page)
“This one’s for you, too!” Brad came up to her with a pac
kage wrapped in blue foil with a silver bow. The tag that dangled from it was in the same script with her name.
Sitting on the stairs, she opened the package to discover a beautiful black dress. Her eyes began to water a bit. She blinked to clear them and noticed something written on the back of the tag. She picked it up and read:
Yes, Rindy, there is a Santa Claus.
I think that may be one of the sweetest, saddest things that I have ever heard. I hope you don’t mind that I shared it with you.
Thursday, June 14
th
The ground is clear of snow, but there is plenty of mud. I am not sure which I like least. The progress of rebuilding the barricades around Warehouse City is going well. Betty has really stepped in and taken charge.
It took the first several days to take care of all the bodies. We performed an elaborate ceremony with help from the N
atives, complete with the fires, singing, feasting and ceremonial dancing. I did not hear any complaints.
The people are trickling back in from all around. Many are having a tough time making eye contact. There are some who recall how I left here so long ago.
I have spoken with Erik Greyfeather (he arrived via wagon about three weeks ago) and have agreed to come to the lands of the Confederated Tribes next spring. I can’t say if that is where I will call home, after all, this is where I was born, grew up…it is what I know.
Many of the Native Americans will be leaving in a few weeks. They want to ensure that the mountains are at their safest. I guess it is not uncommon for a freak snowstorm to rear its head as late as May.
I will miss having them near.
As for me, this is my last entry, one of the librarians for Warehouse City has insisted that I give my journals over to be copied and placed in the library beside my dad’s and Meredith’s. I don’t see what all the fuss is about, but I have agreed.
So I guess this will be our farewell. I wish that I could get to know each of you who picks this up and reads it as you have come to know me. This seems like such a one-sided relationship. And I thank you for even considering that anything I had to say was worth your time.
So, since you are reading this and it is safe to say that enough time has passed, I guess I can admit to you here that Jimmy Stonekiller has asked me if it would be okay for him to stay behind when the rest of the Natives return home. I told him I needed to think about it, but I already made up my mind. I am going to say “yes” to him tonight when we go for our walk.
Also, I have been bursting at the seams since Betty told me, maybe if I write it down, it will ease my desire to blurt it out.
Betty is pregnant. I will be Aunty Snoe!
And last, we have received word from a delegation from the former leading faction of the NAA before Dominique assassinated their president. They were a little late to the party with their offer to help us defeat “this unsettling rebellion”. However, both sides will be meeting, along with a contingent from the tribes along Corridor 26, Freetown, the Native Americans, and some large community from Alaska. It looks like we will be forming some sort of North American Defense League. One of the first orders of business is to actually open our borders and get some transit between the communities.
It will no doubt run in to some snags...but guess what! They didn’t ask me to be a part of any of it! Well, Jimmy will be knocking on my door soon, likely hoping for an answer. Time to go…I guess this is farewell.
Sunset Fortress Colony
—You know, you would think that writing about your past would be easy. I mean hell, come on, no one knows you better than you do right? But damn, it’s just not my thing I guess.
Since this whole mess started, I have never really jumped on the bandwagon with the whole journal thing. I know, I know, with Sam and Meredith’s (I actually met her once, long ago) books it became the thing to do for a lot of people. I just never could get into talking about my life. But hey, I am by no means knocking those who have done it religiously (and I guess I’d be a hypocrite since here I am, sitting here doing the same thing).
I started reading their journals once, years ago. Truthfully, I couldn’t even finish reading them. I mean, these are shit times we are in, folks. I have been living in those times since the whole damn mess started, so why would I want to read about someone else living it? But I am smart enough to know that everyone needs a distraction and some form of hope, especially in these times. Those two, whether they meant to or not, became heroes to people in a time when they really needed them. And that I can truly appreciate and respect. Maybe it’s because now that I’ve grown older and I guess more
internalized
, as my old shrink used to say, I feel like I should at least try to leave behind a record of myself in case something happens to me. Ha, when something happens more likely.
I am by no means a hero, but it just seems shitty to me to die and fall away into oblivion with not a soul even knowing that I had ever walked the Earth. Enough of the world’s population has passed like that since the dead rose. I have no illusions, but I at least figure that now I can write about me and have someone not read my book. Well, I guess I better start by telling you about myself.
My name is Captain Josh M. Ross, age forty-eight, and I am the second in command of the Sunset Fortress Colony’s Escort and Expeditionary Force. I am a survivor, always been one, always will be I guess. Well, until I die that is.
I have made my peace with death a long time ago. To an
ybody that might actually be reading this, the world wasn’t always so shitty. I guess I felt that it was though. Before the dead rose, I had spent ten years in the U.S Army Infantry. I did three tours to Iraq, and one tour to Afghanistan (those were rough places even before the zombies started coming to “life”). I suffered from PTSD from the things I lived through during that time (not nearly as much as I do now). I had spent so much time in combat, and had to kill so many enemies and seen so many good people die while at war that I thought I could handle anything. I thought that I had seen the worst of people and the world. It turned out that I was wrong, dead wrong. So much for thinking right?
After getting out of the Army, I couldn’t handle being a c
ivilian. I sure couldn’t come to grips with everything I had seen and done. I could never turn off my training. I didn’t think life could get any worse for me than what it had been. Damn, if only back then I had the slightest idea how wrong I was, I may have actually been a bit happier. All of my training and all of my skills I had acquired in the military, and I wasn’t prepared. I don’t think anyone was ready for what happened when the world turned upside down and the dead first started to rise. Who could have possibly been primed for what happened? No one knew what to think, or what to do.
Those first days were very confusing. I had heard bits and pieces on TV and the radio about some kind of virus or som
ething. The media was putting its spin on things telling people to stay calm and that things were under control. According to them, it was probably another new strain of the bird flu or something like that. I didn’t go out of the apartment that I rented much in those days. I spent most of my time indoors reading and avoiding people. I enjoyed the silence that my solitude brought. But all that night I sat up in my small living room and listened to the sirens in the distance and what had to be gunshots. I didn’t sleep at all that night. My PTSD was on overdrive.
While I was eating breakfast that following morning, I watched all the news reports about those suspected of being i
nfected going crazy and attacking people. They were acting like they were high on bath salts or something. Later that day, the president made an appearance on television and issued a nationwide curfew for dusk. Anyone spotted outside after it got dark would be shot on sight. Things got very real very quick after that. In the army, we would always bullshit about the possibilities of the zombie apocalypse and how we would survive during it. Who in the hell would have known that some of those things would actually save my neck?
I was lucky initially. I already had a small arsenal in my possession that I had collected over the years, along with su
pplies in case of trouble. I was what you could call a small time “prepper”. I had the training that would help me survive in austere conditions without the burden of having been sent to the meat grinder like the majority of the armed forces did at the beginning of the undead rising. Not many soldiers survived the initial wave of the infection.
Many survivors took to trying to loot and scavenge houses for supplies. Not me, as soon as it was apparent beyond a sha
dow of a doubt what was going on, I had my bug out bag ready to go along with my AR-15, three pistols, a Mossberg 500, and plenty of ammo to last a while. I headed for the main highway and away from populated areas. I figured that since most people had tried to evacuate to “safe zones” (ha, yeah right) and left their homes behind, that most of the things I would need could be found packed conveniently into their vehicles for me. That worked out wonderfully. I was often finding weapons, ammo, foodstuffs, and survival gear. I would bag and stash what supplies I could find off the highway at randomly marked points to try to keep it away from animals or other people. Every now and then, I would encounter survivors. Some were decent folks who I would help if possible. Most of them looked like scum, though, so I kept my distance. I survived living alone by myself for at least half a year.
At first, killing zombies, especially the child ones, seemed…I don’t know…unnatural. But it eventually became very easy to stop thinking of them in terms of having once been living and more in terms of just nightmarish monsters. Screw the cold detachment the military taught me. I actually began to enjoy killing the nasty sons of bitches. My weapons of choice were, of course, my guns. Ah, I miss the hell out of guns and ammo. I found this very mean looking and sharp as hell hand-and-a-half sword that I took a liking to. Oh, and I can’t forget about my big ass machete. I still to this day call it my BAM (big ass machete, get it?). Sometimes I would get caught up in the moment and shout out “BAM!” while slicing zombie brains. Hey, I guess you guys can maybe figure out that I may not have been completely straight in the head. But all things considered, I think I did a
lright.
One of my favorite finds while on my own came in the form of an RV that I stumbled across. Somehow whoever had been driving it had managed to pull it off of the road and well back into the woods. It was hidden well enough that I had passed through this area multiple times and had missed it up until now. I had always wanted my very own RV. I figured why the hell not, here is my chance.
I drew my .45 as I crept cautiously toward the side door of the vehicle. I turned the knob on the door. Immediately the stench of death and decay assaulted my nostrils and I instinctively took a step back. I barely had time to register the huge shape framing the doorway. The shriek of a crying baby from inside froze me in my tracks. That almost got me killed. When I say the huge shape, I mean
really
huge. This zombie had to have weighed well over five hundred pounds when it was alive. Tattered skin hung from gashes in its fat rolls. Lurching forward to try to grab me, the behemoth toppled forward out of the door. The undead blob crashed into me, knocking me to the ground and the air out of my lungs. My pistol went flying out of my hand and underneath some brush. I will never forget the stench of that thing on top of me. Its greenish-grey mottled face stared blankly at me while its teeth clicked menacingly together in supreme effort to tear into my flesh.
My lungs burned with the aching need for air, and my vision began to darken around the edges as I struggled to keep the thing from biting me. I was able to tuck my legs up over my stomach as much as I could and kicked as hard as I was able, but the damn thing barely budged. I kicked and kicked for what seemed like an eternity. With a grunt I pushed one last time. The undead mass reared back barely, but it was enough. I rolled out, coming unsteadily to my knees. Sucking down a deep ragged breath of air I fumbled for my machete. My hands felt like lead weights, and my head, like it was stuffed with cotton. Finally, I was able to yank it free from the leg sheath.
I lunged awkwardly at the zombie with my machete, thrusting upwards under the zombie’s chin and into what was left of its brain. It shattered through the back of its skull, tangling in its lanky hair. Satisfied I had killed the son of a bitch for its last time, I twisted and yanked the sharp blade back out. Black viscera and brain matter oozed into a small puddle on the ground. God, these damn things stink to high hell. I hardly ever retch from the stench anymore; but, man, it never gets any easier having to smell these damn things.
Exhausted, I fell back, panting. That was entirely too close of a call for my comfort. But it was worth it. After killing the fat zombie, clearing rest of the RV was a breeze. There was an e
lderly looking female zombie buckled into the passenger seat, whose pawing arms dropped as I dispatched it with ease. It felt like Christmas when I “acquired” my new RV! I lived very well in that thing for a long time. The vehicle became my favorite camp. I thought it was the perfect spot to avoid trouble. I was wrong.
All of my weapons expertise and carefulness didn’t save my ass from making a cherry mistake: I became predictable. It was about thirteen months after the dead came back to life. Up until this point, I pretty much still kept to myself. I was still a loner just like before, except this time there were much fewer people around, well alive ones anyways. Truthfully, that suited me just fine. The only problems I had had up until then had been with the undead. That was about to change.
I had a routine (the Army always taught to change up your routine so the enemy couldn’t predict your next move) where I would scavenge during the day, then set up camp before dark off of the highway in the wood line, normally in my RV. Earlier that day, I had seen smoke in the distance.
They were probably just campfires from traveling survivors passing through,
I had thought. I was so used to things being fine how they were that I wasn’t much worried about it since it still looked a good distance away. I had spent about a day and a half away from camp trying to avoid a small zombie herd that I stumbled across while scavenging. I was so exhausted that I didn’t reset my standard noise trap (they were old cans and bells on fishing wire) around the perimeter to warn me of any comers dead or living. I was too tired to care.
I went into my vehicle and lay down. Before I knew it, I was dead asleep. I had no idea I was surrounded until they were a
lready on top of me. My side screen door banging closed startled me awake. I barely had time to raise my head up before something smashed into it, knocking me unconscious.
I finally gained consciousness after God only knows how long. All I knew was that it was dark outside. I was more than a little bit unsteady, and by what I could see and defiantly feel, I was pretty confident I had gotten the shit beat out of me. I lay where I was for a while trying to recover a bit and take asses
sment of my situation. It seemed pretty grim.
I was chained to the ground in what I guess was a crude a
ttempt at a tent. I could hear rough voices and laughter in the distance. I was able to look through a slit of the tent’s fabric and see a faint orange glow from what had to be a fire. I saw chained near the fire what looked like a small, naked zombie. Something about that sent chills down my spine.
Instinct and training finally kicked in and I felt around for what had me chained down. I finally found it and was able to wrap my throbbing bloody hands (maybe I had fought back…who knows) around the stake that was holding me chained to the ground and pull. Nothing gave way. My fingers began dripping fresh blood as the effort of trying to pull out the stake ripped away skin. I pulled for what felt like a lifetime. F
inally, it gave way and I tumbled out the back of the tent and into the crisp night air. I waited a few moments to make sure I was not heard. Knowing I needed to get out of there, I crept slowly to the opening of the next ragged tent. I peeked inside.
Faint light from the fire outside and an old fashioned oil la
ntern illuminated a small shape on the ground and a larger more menacing one above it. A large man with a scraggly ponytail and a greasy matted beard was fumbling to pull his pants off while mumbling to himself. He was obviously drunk, I could smell the alcohol on his breath from where I knelt. Next to him on the floor I saw a bloody and bruised girl that couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old staked to the ground in the same manner as I had been. What was once probably a very pretty face was now so swollen that she looked almost alien. This man wasn’t the first one to be here by the looks of it. What remained of the girl’s clothes were in shreds and barely covered her frail body.
The man finally freed himself from his clothing and stood over the girl leering. As he knelt to get on top of her something snapped inside of me and the desire for me to escape was washed away in a torrent. I had never felt such unbridled hate before. I sprang to my feet and lunged at the sick excuse for a human. Knocking him over, I clamped my hand over this mo
nster’s mouth. I still have his teeth marks on my palm from how hard I did it. With my free hand, I stabbed the stake that had held me in my tent into his temple with every ounce of energy I possessed.