Deadland, USA
           A Zombie Serial by Heath Lowrance
           
           
            It's all over now. The world as we knew it is gone forever and there will be no future generations to read this. One ugly day in March the undead came and none of us were ready. How could we be? Within months, the entire planet was one writhing, bloody infestation, and all the governments, all the churches, all the great men of power and insight and wisdom, became as meaningless as the tinny tune of a broken music box.
            So why do I bother to keep this journal? Good question. If there is no hope for tomorrow, why chronicle these events as I see them? Well, I'll tell you why.
            It's the only thing that keeps me from going completely ape-shit insane.
            So to you, welcome. To my Fictional Future Generation, my scores of happy safe delusions, welcome. Welcome to Deadland, USA. ^back to top
           
           

           
           
           Episode One:
           Mindless Consumerism
           
            Rondo snatched this journal for me almost two month ago, when we were passing through the outskirts of Nashville, and it's a pretty nice one. A forest green cover, very sturdy, that feels nice against the fingertips. There's three hundred pages in it, counting both sides. "You should write this shit down, man," he said, and I nodded noncommittally and shoved the journal in my pack. I had no intention of writing anything down.
            But I've been thinking (uh-oh, right?) about how, before the undead and everything, I used to write stupid little stories and essays and they always made me feel better and more focused. Because, honestly, this stuff is starting to get to me. I've been getting depressed lately, thinking about Mom and my sister and all the people I've ever loved and how I'll never see them again. You know how it is. I had a girlfriend too, her name was Bethany, and she was the second person I saw get eaten.
            That kind of thing can mess you up, if you know what I mean. And there's no doctor anymore to prescribe my medication so I can keep my shit together.
            At first, there was no time to think about any of that, you know? The only thought you could afford was holy shit, here come zombies, I'd better get the fuck out of here. And when you weren't thinking about that, you were completely exhausted from thinking about that, and all you could do was sleep.
            But as the days and weeks and months drag by, and your autopilot kicks in, more space becomes available in your head to think about what's gone now, what will never ever ever come back. Bethany. My sister Annie. My mom. You start crying a lot, you know, start thinking about killing yourself or even letting the meat puppets get you. It's crazy, and believe me, I know crazy.
            So anyway, I have this journal that Rondo snatched for me, and it's taking up space in my pack that could be used for water or candy bars or something, and I'm thinking about it more and more, like I said, and so now here we are. ^back to top

            We're in North Carolina now, not far from Asheville. There are seven of us currently, and we're holed up in a four-star hotel with a stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I wish you could see it (he says, to the person who doesn't exist!). The sun is just sinking down along the western slopes, making the dense green cover of forest fade into blue. Smoke or fog or something is wafting down the mountains, all serpentine and beautifully sinister, tinged red with the setting sun. Pretty, pretty, pretty. And all I can think is I wonder how many zombies are out there right now, in those mountains, in that smoky foggy stuff, searching single-mindedly for someone nice and tasty to eat?
            We did a sweep of the hotel, the seven of us, as best we could. It takes more than seven people to do a really thorough job and it's pretty likely that some groaners are still roaming around the damp cluttered halls. So, for safety, all seven of us are sharing a suite on the third floor. We pulled mattresses from some other rooms and set them up on the floor. There are three girls with us-well, two girls and one woman (Suza is in her early thirties, I guess, and is the oldest in our little group)-but all of us have managed to get beyond stupid things like modesty about being seen naked and all.
            Looking back over these last few paragraphs, I realize I haven't put anything into context and you, my FFG (Fictional Future Generation), probably have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. So let me backtrack for just a second to fill you in on the essentials.
            Back in March, on my nineteenth birthday to be exact, dead people starting getting up and walking around and eating people. Get it? They started eating people and kept eating people and you couldn't reason with them or say hey, stop doing that because they would only stare at you with blank hunger and go for your throat. They don't do anything but walk around like stupid sleepwalkers and groan and moan and attack any living thing they see. And now it's October and there is no more government, there is no more television or internet or telephones. The major military engagements happened in mid-summer-I actually saw one of them, maybe I'll tell you about it later-but now even the military is gone.
            There's no way of knowing what's going on in other countries, really. There's no way of knowing what's happening even a hundred miles from here. Which is why we keep moving, searching for other survivors, hoping someone somewhere is maybe doing something useful to bring the world back.
            But I'll tell you the truth. And this is just between you and me, FFG. I don't think the world will be coming back. Ever. I would never say that to the others, because some of them, like Kat for instance, are barely holding on. It's only the hope that things will somehow get back to normal that's letting her do that.
            I don't know. I don't want to write any of this. Fuck it. ^back to top
          

            Okay, I'm back. It's two hours later and everyone's asleep and I'm on watch. I had to stop earlier because I started crying and getting all worked up. I said that Kat is barely holding on, but who am I to talk? The others have stared thinking of me as the leader, kind of, but if they had any idea how close I was to snapping they would give that some second thoughts. I don't have any qualifications that would make me a leader anyway.
            And you don't even know my name, do you, FFG? It's Sam. Samuel Richard Lynch. I'm nineteen years old, five feet nine, and even before the plague I was too thin. I'm a lazy, self-centered punk, or at least that's what I've been told. Turn-ons: garage rock, horror movies, comic books, Goth girls. Turn-offs: mindless consumerism.
            Ha ha.
            There is no more garage rock and my ipod died months ago. Horror movies? Well, if they still existed, I don't think I'd dig them so much anymore. Comic books? Whatever. Goth girls? Hey, yeah, the world is chock full of Goth girls now, but-surprise-taken to this extreme they aren't as sexy as you might think.
            Mindless consumerism? All the rage these days.
            Before the plague, I used to have to take medicine for anxiety and manic-depression. Since then, I've managed to raid a few pharmacies for my proper dose, but mostly it's been catch as catch can and I've had to go long stretches without. Only Rondo knows this (and now you, FFG, mum's the word, okay?).
            But I've done pretty well. Surprisingly well, even. If doctors could prescribe total mind-numbing terror in small pills, it would probably help alleviate tons of other mental problems.
            So anyway, I was saying, the others have taken to looking to me for leadership, which may give you some idea about how fucked-up things have become.
            There's Rondo, the only one of the group I knew before the shitstorm. We're best friends, really. We went to high school together and drank under the bleachers and tried to pick up girls at the mall. He's even thinner than me, with a long soulful face and crazy hair down to his shoulders. He used to be that guy, you know the one, who's always joking around, never letting anything serious rest on the perch for too long before swiping it away. He doesn't do that so much anymore.
            We met Kat and Johnny in April, during our frantic escape from the suburb of Detroit where we'd lived all our lives. And if I believed in God, I would thank Him for setting Kat and Johnny's path along our own. They saved our lives within minutes of our meeting them.
            Kat is twenty-two and was in the Army, so you'd think that she'd be our natural leader-she's the only one of us who'd ever held a gun before the plague-but I guess my knowledge of movie zombie lore trumps her practical combat experience, right? She's really tough, and even though I don't normally go for her type I will admit to you, FFG, that I would love to nail her. She's really buff, with wavy red hair and green eyes and, if no one minds me saying so, incredible tits.
            Johnny is Mr. Kung-Fu the Zombies Guy. How he wound up with Kat is a story I'll try to make a point of getting to later, but suffice to say for now it was just one of those things that happened, two wildly different people being thrown together by the great panic. They aren't an item or anything like that. Hell, they didn't even know each other a couple days before me and Rondo met them. But it's that whole yin-yang thing-which is exactly what Johnny would say. He's kinda short, powerfully built, with a clean-shaven head. When we still had the luxury of choosing what we wanted to wear, he always chose black. I have no idea how old he is, but I'm gonna guess twenty-one or so. He's really good at that chop-socky stuff. He used to run a dojo, which is pretty cool for a guy his age.
            We're all kids, really. Isn't that weird? Aside from Suza, everyone in our little gang is just a snot-nosed kid. Even Kat, for all her "real-world experience", would be barely old enough to drink legally in the Old World.
            It was the four of us for awhile. There were three or four others willy-nilly along the way, but well. none of them survived. And only a few weeks ago, in early September, we met Suza, a housewife from Kentucky. A couple days later, sixteen year old Alistair and seventeen year old Alice joined us, brother and sister who'd spent their whole lives on a farm in Ohio and had been heading south to find their mother in Florida. But that's their story, not mine. If they want to tell it, let them get their own goddamn journal, right?
            I won't lie to you about this, FFG. I've made a point of not getting close to Suza or Alistair or Alice. They aren't coping and clearly have zombie food written all over them, as clear as the ingredients label on a can of chicken noodle soup. And if nothing else, I've become a terrific reader.
            So right now, I'm sitting by the window in our luxury hotel suite and the only light is the white moon drowning weakly in the night sky. I'm writing by the light of my little pen flash. I really shouldn't be doing this, for two reasons: one, the battery is draining away every second and the world has only so many pen flashes left, and two, even this meager light could possibly be seen from outside and attract meat puppets.
            Hang on a second. ^back to top
           

            Okay, back. I moved away from the window. And as I did I heard some noise coming from the floor above. Something shattered against the hardwood floor, a vase or something, and as I listen closer I'm pretty sure I hear shuffling footsteps. It could be my imagination. How likely would it be, in a fancy hotel like this, that I could hear noise coming from the floor above?
            In the Old World, not too likely. But things are different now. The world has gone frosty silent these days. And in that silence, you can sometimes hear things you might never have heard before.
            I'm thinking about waking the others, putting everyone on high alert. In the flickering light of my flash, I can see them all, sleeping peacefully. Alistair and Alice are huddled on either side of Kat. Kat is on her back, the silenced nine millimeter resting on her washboard stomach, and she looks like she could come awake and start shooting in a fraction of a second. Rondo is on the love seat, blanket pulled over his head and crazy blond hair sticking out like a chia pet. Suza is asleep on the floor inches from my foot. Johnny has pushed his mattress to the far corner of the room and is snoring in the dark. I can barely see him.
            And there it is again, FFG, a soft shuffling sound from upstairs, like feet being dragged laboriously across the floor, and it's not my imagination.
            But we knew the place probably harbored some Meaties. The door to our suite is locked and barricaded and we have an emergency exit via the window and the fire escape that is currently pulled up. We're okay. And we've been quiet; they don't know we're here. If they did know, they'd have been all over us by now.
            One of the weird things about the zombies, if they get relatively close to your position, say within twenty feet or so, they can. I don't know.sense you. We don't know much about the way their senses work, but there's something even more developed than a living person. Whether it's hearing or smell or sight, I don't know. But it's something all right. I found that out early on, trying to hide in a closet. Remind me to tell you about that someday.
            So, in our upscale hotel suite, smelling of damp and rot from neglect, I think we're pretty safe. As long as none of the things venture near our door, and I doubt there's enough of them here that we have to worry about that too much.
            But okay, FFG, now I'm hearing something else and I think it's coming from this floor. I just heard a soft, creaky moaning sound, the kind they make when
            shit ^back to top
     

            Hahahahah. Hey, we can laugh about it now, yeah? There I was writing in my brand new journal when all hell breaks loose and I almost get fucking eaten alive, but I still find the time to write the word "shit". Like the narrator in one of those screwed-up stories by H.P. Lovecraft.
            Hoo-boy, good times, good times, nothing but fun for us. Will the party never end? Remember what I wrote earlier, about not believing in God? Well, let me re-phrase that. I hope there isn't a God, because if He exists, He is a class-A motherfucker, the biggest heartless prick of all time.
            It's been three days since the hotel suite and we're only now starting to calm down. That's always the way it is. After every "engagement", as Kat calls it, there's a long period of barely suppressed hysteria for the survivors, when all your senses are working at peak efficiency, everything that defines you disappearing and being replaced by a single-mindedness as brutal as any zombies', the single-mindedness of surviving.
            I had written that Suza and Alistair and Alice had zombie food written all over them. You can now refer to me as the Amazing Psychic Boy. Hold your applause, please, until the end of the program.
            Well, only mostly psychic. Alice survived, even though she hasn't said a word since Rondo got her to stop screaming three days ago, and she broke her ankle when we jumped.
            We were lucky that only two of us died.
           
            "Hey Sammy my manny," Rondo says. "You're writing in the journal. That's cool."
            "Yeah," I say.
            He shuffles his feet a little in the dirt, takes a modest swig from his water bottle. Then he says, "Writing about the other night?"
            "No," I say. "I'm writing an article on how to please your man in bed for the next issue of Cosmo."
            He chuckles. "Fuckhead," he says.
            "Dickbreath," I say, and he laughs and walks back to the river where the others are resting.
           
            So yeah, Alistair and Suza died, and I'm sorry, I know it's not funny. I honestly don't think it is. I'm just. well, it's like I said before, I'm just really tired of all this zombie stuff and I'm starting to get depressed about it. I only laugh to hide my tears, hahaha.
            I heard the moaning and groaning in the hallway outside, see, and instead of jumping up and going all Mr. Action Hero I sat silently and waited. Waited for what? Hell if I know. Waited to see if the moaning came closer to our room, waited to see if I could tell how many there were, waited to see if maybe it was just room service popping up with a bottle of champagne and some caviar.
            The soft creaky moaning came closer and I figured on two or three of the Meaties in the hall. Two or three generally don't pose much of a problem if you're an old hand at this-which we all are by now. But the problem, see, is that two or three, once they catch the scent of living flesh, they go all crazy like. They start moaning louder, carrying on, growling and howling, until they've attracted every other zombie in the area and next thing you know you have a full-scale swarming.
            Zombie pros and cons.
            Pros:
            Just like in the movies, zombies are pretty slow. Yeah, I know, in some flicks they had zombies that could actually run and that was pretty creepy by the standards of the time, but the truth is they can barely walk let alone sprint. Think about it, man. They're dead, right? Rigor mortis or whatever.
            Also, they don't seem to be very bright. There's not much in their rotting heads except an overwhelming predatory instinct. This makes it very very easy to outmaneuver them, lead them into traps, etcetera. And if they're chasing you and suddenly lose your scent, well. they shuffle off on their way as if you never existed.
            Those are the pros. A short list.
            Cons:
            They don't feel pain. I mean, if you stab one a hundred times, yank off its arm, pull its teeth out one by one, pull its heart out, you get. nothing. It keeps right on ticking. You can't wound it, if you know what I'm saying, since it's already suffered the wound you can't put a band-aid on-death.
            Two, they are relentless. If a zombie senses you with its nose or eyes or ears or whatever, there is absolutely nothing that will stop it from trying to get you. If you've seen enough movies, you know there's only one way to kill one, so I won't go into that right now.
            Three, they are as strong as a human being, maybe stronger, due to the lack of pain factor I mentioned as point one.
            Four, they swarm with all the instinctual knowledge of killer bees. They're so good, you can't have just one. That sort of negates the slow factor, because if you're surrounded by thousands of the fuckers it doesn't matter how slow they are. They'll swarm you and drag you down. It happens all the time.
            Right then I was mostly concerned with the swarming factor. There were only two or three out in the hall at the moment, but I knew that if they caught our scent more would arrive in no time at all.
            I was just starting to wake Kat up with a firm shake of the shoulder when the groaning crescendoed right outside the door and something pounded against it forcefully.
            Everyone came awake instantly, and Alistair let out a short cry of alarm before he could stop himself. The meat puppet pounded on the door with more vigor then, his moans turning into inarticulate howls. Another one from down the hall took up its call.
            We were all up, Kat chambering a round into her nine millimeter. She's told me a hundred times what sort of gun it is, but I can never remember. Rondo went for the assault rifle he had propped against the love seat, and I said, "Rondo. The shotguns, man." He looked at me blankly and I said, "Shotguns. Close range."
            He nodded, scrambled for the weapons bag by the window and hauled out the sawed-offs. We had three of them in the bag, plus at least a couple hundred shells. We'd picked them up at a gun shop in Toledo, knowing that we may need them for just this sort of scenario-indoors, close range. There are four grenades in there too, but we've never had a good reason to use them yet, unless you count blowing ourselves up and putting an end to our own misery. Which we were leaving open as a possibility.
            Since we met Kat and Johnny, we've learned how to use firearms pretty efficiently. Kat taught us well. When we're on the road we mostly walk-never, ever drive a car is rule numero uno-and me, Rondo and Kat always carry a primary weapon (a handgun, mine is a simple .38 caliber revolver), a semi-automatic rifle, and a hunting knife. These, Kat says, are the essentials. Other weapons are fine, but these are the ones you need on your person at all times, as well as a decent amount of ammo.
            Johnny is the only one who blatantly ignores Kat's recommendations. He carries a knife, yes, but aside from that his weapon choice is his own. A slim curved blade he calls a 'tai-chi sword', about five feet long, with some Chinese scribble on it, that's about it. Don't laugh. I've actually seen him kill a few Meaties with that stick, in less time than it takes to reload a shotgun.
            We had scrounged weapons from our stockpile for Suza and Alistair and Alice as well-Suza had the spare assault rifle and the Ohio kids had the matching pair of Colt .45's Rondo had nicked from the gun shop because they looked fancy. They'd have broken their wrists if they actually tried to shoot them, but as it turned out neither of them had the chance.
            So we were prepared, or as prepared as anyone could expect us to be. Rondo handed out the sawed-offs and slung his assault rifle over his scrawny shoulder. Suza hissed, "Please. Give me one of the shotguns!"
            The pounding at the door intensified, and another set of fists joined it. From somewhere else in the hotel, maybe the lobby, I could hear more moaning, growing louder, growing closer.
            Rondo said, "There's only three shotguns, Suza."
            "Give me one," she said, her teeth gritted. She had that look, the panicked look that meant she was going to die, I'd seen it too many times by then. "Give me one. This rifle won't work in this situation, I've heard you say so."
            Rondo pulled his own snub-nose police .38 from its holster on his narrow hip and handed it to her. She snatched it out of his fingers.
            "Take it easy," Rondo said.
            I checked my shotgun to make sure there was a round in the chamber. "Nobody panic," I said, which, if you can imagine how I felt right at that moment, is a pretty goddamn funny thing to say. "This is just like Lexington, okay?"
            We'd been trapped in a grocery store in Lexington, Kentucky, back in mid-September and had only made it out by staying cool and finding the employee entrance way in back. The thing is, Suza had panicked then as well, and probably would have been a zombie buffet if Johnny hadn't knocked her unconscious with his kung-fu stick and dragged her out.
            "The window?" Johnny said, and I nodded. He glided across the room, snapped open the latch and pushed open the window. Immediately we could hear them outside, moaning and carrying on. Johnny peered down into the darkness. "They're out there, for sure," he said. "But none of them seem to be on this side."
            The pounding at the door continued, and my mind replaced the word 'pounding' with 'bashing'. There were more of them now, groaning hungrily. My mind replaced the word 'groaning' with 'roaring'.
            I guessed six or seven. We had an enormous bureau in front of it, so heavy it took me, Rondo and Alistair to move it into place. It would hold for awhile, but not forever. Already, the wood along the hinges of the door was starting to split.
            "We have to go," Alice said, her voice flat. Everyone started moving toward the window.
            "No," I said, still staring at the door. "Not yet."
            They all stopped, and I could feel the angry, confused stares boring into the back of my head.
            More Meaties were coming, working themselves into a frenzy. From the hallway, just below the din of roaring and bashing, I could hear clumsy bodies knocking over the ashtrays by the elevator doors, stumbling single-mindedly to the source of commotion, before joining in with the roaring and bashing, moaning and pounding.
            Fifteen now? Maybe twenty? Maybe more? They could potentially have the door knocked down within the minute, the bureau swept away as easily as a tidal wave sweeps away a surfer.
            Kat said, "Sammy? I'm thinking tactical withdraw is a good fucking idea right now."
            "I hate to jump on the bandwagon," Rondo said. "But I'm kinda liking the sound of that suggestion."
            I said, "Johnny? How's it look out there right now?"
            Johnny leaned over the sill a bit and peeked down. "Still no uglies." He turned back to me. "Maybe we should go now, huh?"
            "I asked the wrong question, Johnny. How's it sound down there?"
            He understood instantly. Smiling faintly, he poked his head out again, listened intently for a moment. "Fading off out here," he said. "They're moving away."
            I nodded, and Rondo said, "Moving away from. moving away from outside, you mean?"
            "Yeah," Alistair said. "And into the fucking hotel. I hardly see what's so fucking great about that."
            "They're clearing out of our escape route," Rondo said. "What are you, stupid?"
            I said, "Give it another minute, okay, guys? We want as many of them in that hallway and as few of them outside as possible. When I give the word, Johnny, lower the fire escape."
            "Right," Johnny said.
            Rondo came up next to me, his shotgun leveled instinctively at the door. The wood was beginning to crack along the frame now. The top hinge was almost completely torn free. We could hear the howling and moaning louder now, not just because there was more of them but because the barrier between us had gotten flimsier. It was a big living space and with the two of us in the middle of it the door was about twenty feet away.
            "Who'd have thought it?" Rondo said to me, quietly. "Who'd have thought you'd actually be pretty good at this zombie fighting business?"
            I didn't have an answer for that. But thinking about it now, it's a fair question, you know? I've never been good at anything, man. The first nineteen years of my life were a total wash-out. Straight C student, part time jobs that never lasted more than a few days, a series of girlfriends I treated like crap. I'd like to tell you that Bethany was different, she was the girl I could have loved and treated right, but that's probably a lie. I probably only feel that way because she was the first one who didn't have a chance to catch on what a loser I am. It didn't end with her screaming at me and throwing my CDs out the window. It ended with her getting eaten.
            I screwed up everything, basically. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me much if I found out that the plague was all my fault.
            The top hinge snapped and the bureau gave half an inch.
            Suza screamed and Alistair and Alice made a dash for the window.
            "Now, Johnny!" I said, and I heard him lean out the window and start cranking the lever that lowered the fire escape. I started backing up, keeping my eyes on the door, feeling only slightly comforted by Rondo at my side.
            "Hurry the fuck up!" Alistair screamed at Johnny. Johnny ignored him, cranking away at the lever, grimacing against the screeching metal sound it made. If he'd started doing it even seconds earlier, the sound would definitely have drawn hordes of undead to this side of the building. As it was, I knew we could count on at least a few to greet us down there.
            The door snapped off its hinges entirely and the bureau pushed another two inches into the room. A hand crept through the crack, grasping, the flesh of its fingers half-rotted away and bone showing through. The Meaties snarled and howled and pushed. The bureau gave another inch.
            "Shoot them, you stupid punks!" Suza said. "Don't just stand there!"
            I said to Rondo, "Don't. Don't waste ammo," and he nodded.
            Suza said, "Stupid punks!" again and came up with the gun Rondo had given her. She stared firing at the door, splintering off great chunks of wood.
            There was no time to calm her down and talk sense to her, obviously. What is it about older people? For some reason it seems like the older someone is, the less capable they are of dealing with this crisis.
            She fired and fired and fired until the gun clicked empty, and then she howled in desperation and crumpled to the floor.
            Johnny said, "Hey!" and I turned in time to see Alice pushing past him, climbing out the window and onto the half-lowered fire escape. Alistair climbed after her.
            "It's not secured yet, you idiots!" Johnny said, and hey, that was right about the time Alice fell from the shaky structure and into the darkness below our window.
            "Alice!" Alistair screamed into the night, and I could just see it in my mind, a handful of zombies turning around and stumbling back to this side of the building. "Alice, Jesus! Are you okay?"
            Kat came up behind him and thumped him hard on the back of the head with her shotgun. He dropped to the floor and didn't move. "Moron," she said. "Now I have to carry your worthless ass, hope you're happy."
            I was glad she volunteered to carry him, because I certainly wasn't going to.
            The bureau slid across the floor and the door fell out of the frame and a whole swarm of walking corpses pushed their way in.
            "Now!" I said. Rondo and I opened fire from the middle of the room, and Kat got off a few rounds from the window with her nine millimeter whatever-it-is. Suza slumped on the floor, sobbing, useless. "Suza!" I said. "Suza, come on! Go now!"
            But she only sat there sobbing and the zombies poured in like a stinking gory wave, moaning and snarling and hungry, at least twenty of them.
            I shot one in the face and it fell back and was trampled by the others as they came in, arms outstretched, fingers grasping. I heard Rondo screaming as he fired over and over again, but it seemed distant, like something you'd hear from underwater. A few of the ghouls went down under the steady barrage of shotgun blasts, but not enough of them.
            We backed up steadily, keeping up our fire. The shotguns were perfect for this, since we didn't have to be too accurate-just aim high, the general vicinity of all the bobbing, snarling heads. But they only held six rounds at a time, so we were trying to be economical about it.
            I risked a quick glance behind me, saw Johnny climbing out carefully. Kat shouted, "Come on!" and I said, "Kat, go! We're right behind you! Go!" and, I'll always love her for this, she said, "Reload, now, I'll cover!" and we followed her instructions. She fired her handgun from the window with devastating results, getting a perfect head shot with every round, and when we'd reloaded I said, "Hey, thanks. Now go!"
            She hesitated for only a moment before grabbing Alistair by his collar and dragging him out the window.
            Rondo and I took that as our cue to start backing up faster.
            Suza was a lost cause. I know that sounds. cold. I can't help that. By that point, the zombies were closer to her than we were, and have you ever tried forcing someone to move who doesn't want to move? She just sat there sobbing, creating a perfect distraction if you want to know the truth. At least half the Meaties who came in started heading in her direction, taking some of the heat off me and Rondo. I was almost thankful for her breakdown.
            Oh, who am I kidding? I was hoping, hoping beyond hope, that Suza would make a lovely meal for the fuckers, lovely enough that they would linger for awhile and enjoy her, long enough for us to make a get-away.
            And are you going to judge me, FFG? Are you going to sit there in your non-existence and tell me you'd have been the big hero and saved everyone and killed all the ghouls? Are you going to judge me? Fuck you. You haven't lived through what I've lived through.
            Rondo and I made it to the window just as they descended on Suza. Her sobs turned to screams and suddenly there was blood and bits of flesh everywhere and it was hard to think.
            Forgive me if I don't go into a bunch of detail here. Let's just say there are some things you don't get used to seeing or hearing or smelling. Suza wasn't the first person I'd ever seen get ripped apart by those things, but the horror of it never goes away.
            Well, one detail, I guess, while I'm thinking of it. It's about the eyes. Or more accurately, the expression on the face that we often mistake for being all in the eyes, but you get what I mean. Each time I've witnessed someone falling under the onslaught of a ghoul attack, my attention is always drawn to the eyes, because everything is there. You see terror first, bright and raw. Then, as they begin to feast on your flesh, tearing out chunks of meat-your meat-with rotted teeth, there is a lucid pure agony that makes all other human emotion seem worthless. Then shock. Blank, simple-minded shock.
            And then, of course, death, and those eyes go hollow.
            I looked back just in time to see Suza's eyes go hollow like that, empty, as the ghouls devoured her. For a moment I almost froze, just like one of the 'destined to die' types, before a few of the things turned away from her and began shambling in my direction.
            "Come on," Rondo said, his voice about three octaves higher than usual.
            We got in a couple more shots each, taking out two or three Meaties, and slung our shotguns over our shoulders and started out the window after the others.
            The fire escape was narrow but secure, the type they sometimes slap on older structures to pass whatever safety codes they can't get around. Rondo is a wiry, nimble kind of guy and monkeyed down the escape without a problem, but I'm a bit clumsier and (to be honest) a bit nervous about heights, so it took me longer. It was dark, and I couldn't see the others below me. Whatever sounds may have reached my ears were drowned out by the monsters above, moaning and snarling in frustration.
            The fire escape ended before reaching the ground. I peered down into the darkness, listening intently, but couldn't hear a thing. Finally, I hissed, "Hey! Rondo! Johnny! Anyone?"
            What could have been a whispered response drifted up out of the darkness. A whispered response, or an undead moan.
            The fire escape started rattling and shaking and I glanced up to see some of the Meaties pushing themselves out onto the top of the ladder. The bastards are horrible climbers, especially if they have to climb down, but nothing could prevent them really from falling like moronic children out the window, landing unhurt on the ground, and reaching up to yank me right off the escape.
            One of them was leaning out very far now, about to fall. I took a deep breath and jumped off the ladder.
            The ground was only five or six feet below me, and my bones jarred painfully when I hit. Immediately, a strong hand touched my arm and before I could panic Johnny said, "Come on, this way."
            My eyes began adjusting and I could see Johnny's drawn and worried face. I could see Rondo and Kat, weapons out, scanning the area around them. Alice was leaning against Kat, favoring her left leg. I found out later she'd broken her ankle jumping off the ladder too early.
            And Alistair was just coming to, sitting up from where Kat had dropped him.
            Right below the window.
            I started to say something, started to warn him, when the zombie dropped right on top of him.
            Alistair screamed in shock but the meat puppet didn't even need a moment to collect itself. It grabbed Alistair by the hair, pulled its face toward him, and bit his nose off.
            Alistair's screams stopped right away in a wash of blood and he slumped lifeless in the thing's grip. Probably he was dead already; it's been known to happen, somebody just dying from sheer fright or shock or something, I guess. Regardless, he was done.
            Alice, on the other hand, went into complete, hopeless hysterics, shrieking like a banshee. She began crawling away, across the lawn and toward the thin line of trees just a few feet beyond the hotel. Johnny, ever the one thinking of others, grabbed her by the wrist and began dragging her away. He yelled over his shoulder, "Let's move!"
            And that made damn good sense.
            But first: I unslung my shotgun, took a step toward the zombie who was now contentedly crunching away on Alistair's face. I pumped a round into the chamber and the thing looked up from its meal and growled at me, exposing jagged blood-stained teeth, dropped Alistair's body and started to get up and come after me.
            I shot a blast of lead right into its face at nearly point-blank range, and its head evaporated in a fine red mist.
            Rondo stepped around me without a word, touched the barrel of his shotgun against Alistair's ruined head and pulled the trigger.
            Above us, the zombies had massed at the window, groaning and moaning at us. They seemed to be struggling with whatever survival instinct still existed in them, but I knew it wouldn't be long before they all came tumbling out. A few yards away, from around the corner of the hotel, came more creaky moaning, and then a few of them shuffled into view.
            So Rondo and I took off after Johnny and Kat and Alice, took off into the dark mountainous woods of North Carolina. We caught up to them in seconds and all of us moved as fast as we could, considering that one of us had a broken ankle and it was so dark you could barely see inches in front of you. We moved fast, and left the four-star hotel behind us, left Suza and Alistair behind us, knowing in our hearts that any second we'd run into a huge mass of undead things that wanted nothing from us, nothing except our flesh and blood for nourishment, ghouls that couldn't be reasoned with or spoken to, walking corpses that wanted only to consume us.
            We moved fast, and didn't stop moving until daylight had broken on the eastern horizon. ^back to top
           

            So like I said, that was three days ago. We got kind of lost for awhile, wandering around in the goddamn mountains and what-not, before coming across an old dirt road that took us away from Asheville and any other centers of past civilization. By my map, we're still in North Carolina, but I don't know where exactly. Kat and I are still working out the logistics, and where we plan to head next.
            Alice is a basket-case, and if it weren't for Johnny's good nature, the rest of us might seriously have considered abandoning her as a liability (I write that, wondering how much I really mean it).
            Rondo hasn't cracked any stupid jokes in awhile. Before, when I wrote about how he shot Alistair, I maybe made it sound like he did that sort of thing all the time, but that's not true. He had to do it, understand, for Alistair's sake, but as far as I know he'd never done it before. If I felt up to it, I could provide him a little comfort in that arena-I've done it a few times now-but frankly I'm too fucking tired.
            And depressed. Did I mention I'm starting to get a little down about all this zombie horseshit?
            I'm just a kid. We're all just fucking kids. It's too much.
            That's all I can write for now, FFG. My hand hurts and besides this pen is running out of ink. We hope to find some secure shelter before nightfall, so maybe I'll write more later. Or maybe not. Who gives a shit?
              
           
            ^back to top