coincidence, but…
All day something has been chewing on my mind. You know that feeling you get when you just know there is something you are supposed to do or someplace you are supposed to be? Well I’ve had that all morning.
I was watching the sunrise as we set up camp for the day in some house with its own tennis court out back. This neighborhood got looted big time. And not all the residents died from zombies. We found a middle-aged woman here who, judging by a couple of pictures still hanging, was elegantly pretty. She’d been tied to a bed. Her death had been…unpleasant.
Anyways, back to today’s nagging feeling. I had a hunch and grabbed Sam’s journal. One year ago today he left his ex-wife’s house for the warehouse after putting down his ex and his daughter. I guess I never really thought about what that must’ve felt like to him. Maybe not as much when he did Erin, but his daughter, Elizabeth. I actually wonder if he really did it. Or, is she still tied to her mom’s bed. Not like the woman here, but in a lot of ways exactly the same. Sure, she wasn’t raped repeatedly, beaten, and abused. But Erin’s corpse was tied down.
That got me thinking. I’ve come across a lot of bodies in all the houses that I’ve been in during the past year. How many bodies, dead or undead, have I seen in beds? What is up with that? Is it some symbol of comfort? When folks started realizing what was happening and put loved ones into bed, tied down, who were they trying to comfort? Themselves? Or the shell of humanity they were trussing up?
Like I said, the world is a weird place.
Thursday, January 29
First full day out. I guess I can admit I was happy to see Jonathan and Jenifer standing there with their bags. Having Shari along is okay. She tends to fuss over me and I don’t much like that. Also, she has me drinking so much damn water, and I already feel like I have to pee twenty-four hours a day.
Today we moved down the center of Highway 26. We found a stretch that was largely uncongested. There were sections that seem to have been bulldozed clear, all the vehicles are off the road and in the ditch. We had to move really slow, and because of the thick cloud cover overhead, our ability to see was severely hampered. I will never get used to the utter darkness of night we now experience. Even living out in the sticks, there was still ambient light. Also, you could see a glow on the horizon where the cities like Pasco sprawled out across the countryside landscape. Now, there is nothing. And on nights like this, with nothing overhead but thick clouds, we have to break out our red-lensed flashlights.
This was also the first night we’ve heard gunfire in a while. It came from our left. There was a series of single shots, a short burst of auto or semi-automatic weapons fire, then silence. There is really no telling how far away it was. Like the darkness, sound carries differently. Or at least it seems to now that silence is the norm.
Speaking of silence, I noticed that nobody has really said a word since we left—not counting the exception of a handful of times that Shari nagged me about eating these nasty fiber wafers she dredged up from the kitchens of Torquemada and drinking more water. In a way it’s kinda nice. Nobody seems to feel the need to talk just to fill the silence. And once you get used to it, it’s not that uncomfortable.
Friday, January 30
Everybody is mad at me. That is the bad news. The good news is that we are camped inside an honest-to-goodness supermarket. This place is huge. And while there is nothing in the way of food to be scavenged, there is a plethora of supplies still at hand. I’m guessing that the grocery side of the place was blitzed when this whole thing got nasty. God, has it been just over a year since those first cases started showing up? However, the store sits dead center—no pun intended—of the busiest part of the Portland suburb called Beaverton. There are
All day something has been chewing on my mind. You know that feeling you get when you just know there is something you are supposed to do or someplace you are supposed to be? Well I’ve had that all morning.
I was watching the sunrise as we set up camp for the day in some house with its own tennis court out back. This neighborhood got looted big time. And not all the residents died from zombies. We found a middle-aged woman here who, judging by a couple of pictures still hanging, was elegantly pretty. She’d been tied to a bed. Her death had been…unpleasant.
Anyways, back to today’s nagging feeling. I had a hunch and grabbed Sam’s journal. One year ago today he left his ex-wife’s house for the warehouse after putting down his ex and his daughter. I guess I never really thought about what that must’ve felt like to him. Maybe not as much when he did Erin, but his daughter, Elizabeth. I actually wonder if he really did it. Or, is she still tied to her mom’s bed. Not like the woman here, but in a lot of ways exactly the same. Sure, she wasn’t raped repeatedly, beaten, and abused. But Erin’s corpse was tied down.
That got me thinking. I’ve come across a lot of bodies in all the houses that I’ve been in during the past year. How many bodies, dead or undead, have I seen in beds? What is up with that? Is it some symbol of comfort? When folks started realizing what was happening and put loved ones into bed, tied down, who were they trying to comfort? Themselves? Or the shell of humanity they were trussing up?
Like I said, the world is a weird place.
Thursday, January 29
First full day out. I guess I can admit I was happy to see Jonathan and Jenifer standing there with their bags. Having Shari along is okay. She tends to fuss over me and I don’t much like that. Also, she has me drinking so much damn water, and I already feel like I have to pee twenty-four hours a day.
Today we moved down the center of Highway 26. We found a stretch that was largely uncongested. There were sections that seem to have been bulldozed clear, all the vehicles are off the road and in the ditch. We had to move really slow, and because of the thick cloud cover overhead, our ability to see was severely hampered. I will never get used to the utter darkness of night we now experience. Even living out in the sticks, there was still ambient light. Also, you could see a glow on the horizon where the cities like Pasco sprawled out across the countryside landscape. Now, there is nothing. And on nights like this, with nothing overhead but thick clouds, we have to break out our red-lensed flashlights.
This was also the first night we’ve heard gunfire in a while. It came from our left. There was a series of single shots, a short burst of auto or semi-automatic weapons fire, then silence. There is really no telling how far away it was. Like the darkness, sound carries differently. Or at least it seems to now that silence is the norm.
Speaking of silence, I noticed that nobody has really said a word since we left—not counting the exception of a handful of times that Shari nagged me about eating these nasty fiber wafers she dredged up from the kitchens of Torquemada and drinking more water. In a way it’s kinda nice. Nobody seems to feel the need to talk just to fill the silence. And once you get used to it, it’s not that uncomfortable.
Friday, January 30
Everybody is mad at me. That is the bad news. The good news is that we are camped inside an honest-to-goodness supermarket. This place is huge. And while there is nothing in the way of food to be scavenged, there is a plethora of supplies still at hand. I’m guessing that the grocery side of the place was blitzed when this whole thing got nasty. God, has it been just over a year since those first cases started showing up? However, the store sits dead center—no pun intended—of the busiest part of the Portland suburb called Beaverton. There are
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