tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66875255623512453622023-07-17T22:08:09.064-07:00Mallville - A Journal of the Zombie ApocalypseWelcome to Mallville, a journal of the zombie apocalypse.<br>
Mallville is posted here under a <a>Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 license</a>, you can copy it, give it to friends, enemies, or total strangers, just don't try to sell it... if anyone should profit from this, it should be me.<br>
<b>WARNING:</b> Mallville contains graphic violence, adult and potentially offensive language, and the occasional bad drawing; this story is intended for mature readers only.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-46074013150019175282011-10-05T13:15:00.000-07:002011-10-05T13:20:46.825-07:00AdriftHey there.<br /><br />Sorry there hasn't been much (any) new content in awhile, but I've been in a bit of a writing slump. When i have been writing, it has been non-Mallville related, because you can only spend so much time writing about the undead.<br /><br />I do have a little something for you today though. A flash piece titled <A href="http://www.cleverfiction.com/21/post/2011/09/adrift.html">"Adrift"</A> has been posted up as part of the Weekly Challenge over at <A href="http://www.cleverfiction.com/index.html">Clever Fiction</A>, and while it is not exactly a zombie story it is set in the Mallville universe (that sounds odd to say... as if the whole universe were centered around a commerce community), so feel free to go check that out.<br /><br />Also, if you feel a little bit of a writing itch yourself, maybe submit your own entries into the weekly challenge.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-37577731665315449232010-12-17T13:18:00.001-08:002010-12-17T13:40:35.726-08:00"Dax Plays Faire"I know it has been a long time since I have added anything to this blog, and if you were hoping for some new Mallville news, I am afraid that this will disappoint you, as it is completely off topic. So what could possibly be so important that I would taunt you like this?<br /><br /> My short story, "Dax Plays Faire" has been recorded for broadcast by the fine people at <A href="http://dunesteef.com">"The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine"</A> as part of their <A href="http://dunesteef.com/category/bmse/">"Broken Mirror Story Event"</A>, and it sounds fantastic. If you are unfamiliar with Dunesteef (and shame on you), they do not just read the stories, but do them as full audio dramas complete with sound effects and music, which is awesome.<br /><br /> So if you want to hear proof that I do in fact write things that do not involve zombies, then please go listen to <A href="http://dunesteef.com/2010/12/16/episode-89-bmse-dax-plays-faire-by-void-munashii/">"Dax Plays Faire"</A>.<br /><br /> As far as Mallville goes, I have taken a break from working on the re-write, but I am not abandoning it. I am currently working on a long piece called "Instant Noodles", I've also been working on other short stories, and a NaNoWriMo story. Once the first draft of "Instant Noodles" is complete (and it's about halfway now) I do plan to get back to work on Mallville (although I do have ideas for other short stories, including another couple potential Dax stories) and its re-write.<br /><br /> One last thing, to anyone who has found there way here from The Dunesteef's site: hello! If you are interested in reading Mallville, just click on the link to the first entry off to the right, and you'll be taken there (and away from the last chapter which appears right below this post). I hope you decide to check it out, and if you do, I hope you enjoy it.<br /><br /> Thanks for reading,<br /> VOIDVoid Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-35634174259513287462010-05-18T04:47:00.000-07:002010-05-18T04:59:33.357-07:00Fifty-Sixth Entry: Write Me A LetterMarch 3rd<br /><br /> Daniel,<br /><br /> Today is exactly six months from what some people call VZ day. Evie even unveiled a monument to the memory of everyone who lost their lives defending this town. Your name is on it, so is Gerry's. In total there are 142 names engraved on it.<br /><br /> I know that 142 really seems like a small number given what was at stake, but I would trade a hundred more lives if it meant that your name wasn't on there. I know, very Sith of me, right?<br /><br /> I miss you so much, and I wish we had had at least a little more time. There are things I wanted to tell you; things I wanted to show you, but we just ran out of time. This letter is going to be the best I ever get, I guess.<br /><br /> The monument really is beautiful. It's about ten feet tall, carved out of what I think is marble. It looks kind of like a white version of the monoliths from 2001. It's hard to look at all your names on it, all of you who gave everything so that the rest of us could live.<br /><br /> Why did you have to go back out there? You were hurt, you should have stayed in the hospital. You should have been there with me. You should have been the first person I saw when I woke up! You should be here now, Goddammit! Why did you have to leave me like that?<br /><br /> I'm sorry. I know why you did it. You did it because it was the right thing to do. You always did the right thing, no matter the risk to yourself. You did it no matter what it would cost you. You were as close to an actual good guy as I have ever known.<br /><br /> Evie gave a really nice speech, but she had to stop a few times because I think she was starting to cry too. Maybe Grimm was right, maybe she really didn't understand the stakes of it all, but she does now. Any illusions that anyone here had that we were somehow safe and outside of what happened to the rest of the world were permanently dispelled last fall.<br /><br /> When I was shot, I was so scared, I don't remember much of anything from that night, but I do remember being scared. To be honest, I spent a lot of last year afraid; I know you may not believe it, but I did. Losing you and fleeing Mallville really threw my head for a loop. If it wasn't for the people I was responsible for, and the fact that I knew that you had survived and were out there somewhere, I probably would have completely lost it. When I found out about you and Sharon, I guess I did kind of lose it though, huh?<br /><br /> The last memory I have of you is you carrying me through the rain, blood streaming down your face. You were injured too, but you put me first. Doctor Lester tells me that you saved my life; if you had gotten me to the ambulance any later, I probably would have died.<br /><br /> I know, you aren't the one who got me to the ambulance exactly, but if you hadn't gotten me to Gerry I would have died out there on the cold wet highway. He may have carried me the rest of the way, but it is you that saved me.<br /><br /> They tell me that I was unconscious for almost two days. When I woke up you were long gone; back to the fight to save people like me. The TV was on in my room down in the labs. I was sharing a room with a woman named Cricket, of all the goofy names.<br /><br /> When I woke up, I saw that you had left your satchel behind in my room. I know you said that it was because it would be easier to not have it with you, but I wonder if maybe you knew somehow. You wrote like there was still more to come, but I can't help but wonder.<br /><br /> I also wonder if I hadn't gotten hurt if you still would have gone. If I was still out there with you, or even if I had been awake when you left, could I have stopped you? In my most selfish moments I like to imagine that the you I loved would have put me first, but I suspect you would have gone ahead and done what you thought was the right thing.<br /><br /> The TV was the last place I saw you alive and whole. There were only a few hundred zeds left, and looking back, they probably could have been eliminated without using “The Big One”, but I don't blame Evie for her decision. I'm sure from where she sat it seemed like better option than letting that many of them get into town.<br /><br /> Toni was reporting that the bomb hadn't gone off as planned; she looked panicked, but that was probably as much a lack of sleep than anything. She may not have taken up arms and fought against the zombies with us, but it was just as rough on her and the rest of the people from the TV station.<br /><br /> “I'm being told that a group is being sent out to try and repair the bomb,” Toni said, a look of disbelief on her face, and in that moment she lost her professionalism and became the woman I cam to know, “Is that correct? That's... that's suicide!”<br /><br /> Toni was down in the labs with the rest of us. Everyone had been cleared from above ground for the detonation, and Toni was standing in front of a wall of TV screens, all showing footage from security cameras around town. Toni was replaced on screen by a shot from one of the cameras mounted on the east gate. You could see the trailer with the bomb on it a short way down the road.<br /><br /> The rain had finally let up, and it was bright and sunny, and you could actually see the end of the zombie mob. Unfortunately they had already surrounded the bomb's trailer. I guess Evie was afraid that using the remaining vortex cannons and microwave guns might set the bomb off anyway, that's what she told me later anyway. She spent a lot of time with me after, I mean she spent time with the families of everyone who died in the battle, but she seemed to spend more time with me. It was like she was afraid that I would blame her, but it was your decision in the end. I doubt she could have stopped you anymore than I could.<br /><br /> The TV switched to a shot at the edge of town, and it showed two snowplows driving towards the gate. There were a dozen people perched on the back of each, and I wish I could say I was surprised to see that you were on one of them.<br /><br /> We should have used the snowplows from the start, they did a great job of shunting the zombies off the side of the road and down the hill. I'm sure a number of them survived that initial fall, but it certainly cleared a path.<br /><br /> After you drove out of frame in town they switched back to the shot of the zeds slowly moving under the gate, and over the city line. They were now officially in Lovelock, even if they had not made it to town yet.<br /><br /> Suddenly there were zeds flying backwards as the first snowplow drove into frame, and I got a glimpse of you again as you went past. You were easy to pick out with that bandage wrapped around your head. You looked so heroic, the swords strapped to your back, the rifle in your arms. That's the Daniel Morris that saved my life twice, and it's the you that you never acknowledged in your diary.<br /><br /> Your whole book makes you out to be some sort of bumbling fool; if ever there was an unreliable narrator, it was you! You never understood how much of a hero you were, or just how much you took on yourself that you didn't need to.<br /><br /> The snowplows carved a path through the mob of zombies all the way to the trailer with the bomb on it. The plows themselves blocked a lot of the camera's view of what happened then, but I could see that some of you climbed out and onto the back of the trailer and were firing into the mob.<br /><br /> The person who actually re-armed the bomb was a scientist named Frasier Monroe. There were a tense couple of minutes where the TV was just showing you and Beth and Gerry, and other people just as brave as all of you keeping the zeds from climbing up onto the trailer. Like I said, the snowplows blocked a lot of the view, but I could see you and another man standing at the back of the trailer defending that edge.<br /><br /> I don't know what happened, if you ran out of bullets or your gun jammed, but you threw it aside at one point and pulled those swords. You may have looked a little ridiculous wearing them (especially over your coat), but you looked awesome using them. I was as proud of you as I was scared as you hacked at the zombies below you. You were a cross between Conan and Anakin Skywalker; you really looked like you knew what you were doing with those swords.<br /><br /> Monroe had finished what he was doing, and you all started climbing back onto the snowplows. I saw one woman lose her grip and fall into the mob that was now trying to climb up to get to you. Beth reached over to try and grab the woman, but you pulled her back before any of the zeds could grab her too.<br /><br /> The snowplows started moving forward, away from town and away from the camera, but then each made awkward three point turns and came toward and then under the camera, carving themselves a new path . In my memory I can hear the wet crunching of the zeds being run over, but I know that was not a sound coming out of the TV.<br /><br /> “They're coming back now!” Toni exclaimed, even through the shot of the bomb surrounded by zombies stayed on the screen, “It looks like they lost someone to the zeds, but they are coming back. Did they do it?”<br /><br /> Someone spoke to Toni, but only muffled noise came through the speaker.<br /> <br /> “I'm being told yes! They have reset the bomb, and as soon as they're at a safe distance it will be detonat-”<br /><br /> The view of the bomb disappeared suddenly, replaced by static.<br /><br /> “What happened?” Toni said, puzzled. She wasn't speaking to her audience, but to someone in the room she was using as a studio. A second later a heavy vibration ran through the underground labs.<br /><br /> Toni was on the screen again, she looked puzzled and afraid, “Was that?”<br /><br /> It was. The bomb had gone off too soon, and for a few minutes no one knew what was happening. Toni looked like she was listening to someone talk in her ear, and then Regis Stone, the normal anchor came into frame. He looked like someone had just woken him up; his blond hair was a mess, and he had no makeup on causing him to look vaguely undead himself under the harsh lights.<br /><br /> Stone had his own microphone, and roughly pushed Toni out of frame, “We are being told that the device known as 'The Big One' has been activated early. We currently do not know if the team that went out to repair it made it away safely or not.”<br /><br /> I felt this heavy weight in my stomach as I waited. I think everyone in the labs who was near a TV was feeling the same way. Cricket was asleep, so I was essentially alone in my room, but as quiet as it was outside my room I could have been the only person in the entire underground vault.<br /><br /> As it turned out, the bomb worked perfectly, and with the exception of a few broken windows, there was no damage in town itself. Almost all of the zombies were destroyed in the explosion, or in the resulting rock slide which brought a good portion of the mountain down. They are still trying to dig the road out, but I suspect that most of what used to be road there is sitting amongst the rocks father down the mountainside. Still, it can be repaired somehow, someday.<br /><br /> Stone talked for a few minutes, despite his appearance, he seemed a lot more at home in front of the camera doing this kind of coverage than Toni did. I mean she was only a weather girl after all. No, I have no intention of ever letting her, or anyone else for the matter, read this.<br /><br /> “Wait!” Stone almost yelled, “We can see one of the trucks!”<br /><br /> The screen switched back to the camera that had shown you all driving out of town. A solitary snow plow with two flat tires was driving into town. The blade at the front was scraping on the pavement, and left gouges in the road surface as it went. There was no sign of the second plow, but there were more people in the back. I thought I caught a glimpse of you, but I wasn't sure.<br /><br /> It was almost a half an hour later, a half an hour spent watching Regis Stone guessing what had happened to the other truck, before Beth came into my room.<br /><br /> Beth was out of breath as she entered my room, she was dirty, bleeding from her forehead, and looked like she had been crying, “Tara, you need to come with me,” she said, “It's Dan, he's hurt.”<br /><br /> I tried to get out of my bed, and fell to the floor. I was still too weak to walk. Rather than help me up, Beth ran out of the room,and came back with a wheelchair as I was regaining my feet.<br /><br /> “What are you doing?” A nurse was asking her as she pushed the chair into the room, “You!” she said to me, “You can't be out of bed!”<br /><br /> “Her boyfriend's hurt, he was in the group that went out to the bomb,” Beth snarled at the nurse, “She's coming with me!”<br /><br /> I was still tethered to the IV stand next to the bed, and was having trouble trying to work the bag free with my good arm. My other shoulder felt like it was full of broken glass, and even without the sling on I wouldn't have been able to use it<br /><br /> “Does she need that?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “It's just saline,” the nurse answered, seeming uncertain how to handle this situation.<br /><br /> Beth grabbed the rubber tubing, and ripped it roughly out of my arm. I'm sure it stung, but at that moment the news that you were hurt and Beth's attitude had me numb to it. Beth helped me into the wheel chair, and then started pushing me down the hall towards the lab entrance.<br /><br /> “How bad is it?” I asked.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry, Tara, it's bad,” Beth said as she rolled me down the hallways, dodging around people as she went, “Monroe couldn't get the receiver to work, but he was able to set up a timer... it went off too soon.”<br /><br /> “We were almost clear,” Beth continued, “I mean, we were out of the blast radius, but the debris hit us; It was probably a tree, it was burning. Brent, our driver, he must have panicked or something; the truck rolled onto its side and went off the edge of the road. I was thrown clear, but I think the truck hit Dan as it rolled.”<br /><br /> “Is he going to be okay?”<br /><br /> “The doctor said he didn't know, wouldn't until he examined him thoroughly, but that I should find anyone who cares about him. I sent Barbara to find Pippa and Bishop.”<br /><br /> Beth rolled me into the large chamber outside the lab's thick vault-like door. I don't think you ever went down into the labs, but the room is impressive. Picture a twenty foot high ceiling with the Genetitech DNA logo carved into the shining white stone of it. There was no time to admire the room then though, Beth rushed me to the elevators that would take us up into the hospital.<br /><br /> Beth was almost hysterical as we waited for the elevator to get us to the surface, “Gerry, oh God, I didn't see him. I think he went over with the truck. There were only four of us from the truck left, Me, Dan, Monroe, and Ciaran. Everyone else was gone. I think Ciaran's leg is broken, but Daniel...”<br /><br /> The elevator opened onto the ground level of the hospital, and Beth shoved me out, and rolled me down more hallways towards the emergency room. There were no moving obstacles up here with everyone else down in the labs.<br /><br /> Beth nearly ran over the nurse who tried to keep us out of the room you were in. The nurse stepped aside at the last moment, and Beth and I barged into an operating room.<br /><br /> You were on the table, they had already removed your coat and shirt; they had been thrown into one corner of the room with your swords. Seeing the swords there on the floor told me all I needed to know... Sharon's sword, the one with Hello Kitty on it, was bent about halfway down its length.<br /><br /> What happened next is a bit fuzzy, but I am pretty sure I lost my shit there. I remember trying to get to you, and having a doctor who was covered in what was probably your blood trying to put me back in the wheelchair. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I know he was yelling at Beth to get me out of there.<br /><br /> I remember that Beth yelled back, and I think she came pretty close to punching your doctor. He eventually convinced her that she should get me out of there. I think he said that I shouldn't see you that way.<br /><br /> What I do remember clearly is how you looked on the table. Your jeans were torn, and looked burnt in places. The left leg of them was a dark maroon with your blood, and you leg was slightly bent halfway down your lower leg.<br /><br /> Your arm was visibly broken too, with the end of one of the bones ticking out of your upper arm, but it was your face that was the worst. It looked like your skull had been caved in, and a lot of your hair was gone, like it had been burnt off. I see you that way in my dreams sometimes, and I still wake up screaming for you. I always hope you'll be there to calm me down, but you never are.<br /><br /> It was hours before we were allowed to see you again. Beth found me some clothes while we waited, and helped me change in one of the empty rooms. Pippa, Bishop. Toni, and Barbara all came and waited with us while the doctors worked on you. We waited there for about six hours before the doctor finally came out to talk to us.<br /><br /> “We've done what we can for him,” the doctor, I don't even remember his name, said, ”He has suffered a massive head trauma; he's a strong person to even be alive now.”<br /><br /> Beth, who had gotten cleaned up, but was still in her dirty uniform, asked the question that I couldn't, “Is he going to survive?”<br /><br /> The doctor shrugged, “At this point, I don't know. Like I said, it's a minor miracle he's alive now. He's stable though, and there is still brain activity, but if he does wake up he may not be the same person you know.”<br /><br /> “Can we see him?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Yes, it may help him to have people who care about him there.”<br /><br /> The doctor led us to the room you had been moved to, with the zombies taken care of they were no longer moving people down to the labs. You had a double room to yourself.<br /><br /> You looked peaceful there in the bed. The blanket was pulled up just past your waist, and most of what we could see was covered in bandages. Your left arm was in a cast, and half of your face was covered by bandages too. There was a thick breathing tube in your mouth. The machine next to your bed seemed to indicate that you had a strong heartbeat though.<br /><br /> The doctor explained to us that aside from the broken arm and leg, and the wound to your head that one of your lungs had been punctured, and that they had to remove your left eye. If you pulled through you would have to drastically change your life, and that would be no easy task in this world.<br /><br /> The others came and went frequently to sleep, or eat, or visit other wounded friends, but I refused to leave your bedside. After the first night of me sitting there in that wheelchair they just reassigned me to the bed next to yours. I wanted to be there when you woke up. I wanted to be the first person that you saw, and I wanted to tell you that I love you, and that I was sorry about the last real conversation we had.<br /><br /> I was sorry that the last thing I clearly remembered calling you was a son of a bitch. I hate the last thing I remember telling you was to grow up. You were right of course, I was jealous, and I had no right to be, especially since you knew all about Oliver and everything.<br /><br /> I tried to stay awake as much as possible; not taking the painkillers they gave me helped at first because the pain was more than enough to keep me up, but after the second day the doctor realized I wasn't swallowing them when he looked at my charts and blood tests, and started injecting them into my IV.<br /><br /> Beth and Barbara came and visited a lot, so did Pippa and Bishop, and Zack and Margaret Hutchins. Beth brought Ciaran by once to see you, he was in a wheelchair because of his own broken leg. Evie came by a few times, but she never spoke, not even to me. I think she was visiting all of the wounded, reminding herself what the cost of our survival was.<br /><br /> Toni would stop in when she wasn't on the air, but they had her busy with coverage of the victory celebrations. Most people were celebrating, and I don't blame them. I'm glad that we won too, that we had done what the vast majority of the world had failed to do. Why did the cost have to be so high though?<br /><br /> You made a lot of friends while you were here, you know? A number of people I don't know came to see you. They all expressed their condolences to me, and hoped you would get well soon. I think you're right, I think Beth did tell everyone about what had happened between us.<br /><br /> I talked to you a lot. I told you about what happened to me after the explosion at Mallville; I had intended to let you read the letters I wrote you, but that's never going to happen is it? I think you heard me. I hope you heard me. I hope you knew I was with you.<br /><br /> It was five days before you finally passed. I was laying in my bed reading to you from a book called “When You Are Engulfed in Flames”, it was funny, and suddenly your heart monitor went from a steady beep to a constant tone.<br /><br /> I was at your bedside in a moment, and I pulled out my IV again in the process. I was calling your name and shaking you with my left arm when the nurses and doctors on duty burst in. They tried to bring you back, but nothing worked; you were gone.<br /><br /> That's when I found out that the doctors had been using the wounded to test vaccines based on Grimm's work. They had actually been able to save a few people who had been bitten, and virtually no one who didn't survive got back up. I think you'd be happy to know that you stayed dead; that you didn't become one of those things.<br /><br /> The doctor, the same one who had operated on you, called your time of death as 3:42 PM, and he apologized to me. One of the nurses turned off your monitor, and the room was silent.<br /><br /> The doctor ushered the nurses out of the room to give me a moment with you. He stood in the doorway. I didn't like his being there, but I understand that he was just worried that you might come back; he had his hand resting on the butt of the gun holstered on his belt.<br /><br /> They had pulled your breathing tube out while trying to resuscitate you, and your mouth was not covered anymore. You looked so peaceful there, like you looked when I would wake up at night and watch you sleep. I kept waiting for you to take a breath, but you didn't.<br /><br /> I said goodbye to you for the first time there. I had never really accepted you were gone before, I knew you weren't dead, but now I had to accept it because you were there before me. I couldn't keep hope somewhere inside that you would show up again; that you would come back for me after all.<br /><br /> I leaned in, and kissed your still warm lips for the last time.<br /><br /> I managed to not cry until after they came to remove your body. I managed to keep my composure until Beth wandered in about thirty minutes later.<br /><br /> “Tara...” was all Beth could manage.<br /><br /> Beth put her arms around me, which hurt like hell, and together we both cried. It was probably the last time Beth has spent any real time with me. Shortly after your memorial, we held one for you at Bacchus at Zack Hutchins' insistence, she moved out of the house to live with Barbara.<br /><br /> All by herself, Pippa was facing losing the house, so I moved in with her. I'll be honest with you, hon, it was awkward at first. Pippa alternated between apologizing for the way she acted before, trying to be friendly, and trying to avoid me completely. I needed her help with a lot of things (have ever tried to use a manual can opener with one hand? It's not easy), so we eventually got over our awkwardness with each other.<br /><br /> I'm staying in Beth's old room. Pippa insists that we leave your room and Gerry's room the way they were. She goes in there to keep them clean, and I hear her in one of the rooms crying sometimes. I go into your room and cry sometimes, partly because I miss you, and partly because of what happened last time we were both in there.<br /><br /> I know that eventually we are going to have to at least box those things up. I'm sure that having museum exhibits dedicated to the two of you in our house is not good for us. The therapist has confirmed this for me.<br /><br /> While we almost never see Beth, Barbara does come by every couple of weeks to see how we're doing. She tells me that Beth is in counseling too, but that she can't face either of us yet.<br /><br /> “It's not easy,” Barbara explained to me on one visit, “She's lost most of her family for a second time, and she feels responsible. I tell her that there was nothing she could have done about it, but she doesn't believe it yet.”<br /><br /> “How are things between you two?” I asked.<br /><br /> “That's not easy either, but I love her, and I know she'll get better eventually. I just have to hang in there, you know?”<br /><br /> Does that sound like anyone we know?<br /><br /> Pippa is doing well. She's also in counseling, hell, most everyone in town is in counseling now, even some of the counselors. Pippa's young though, and I think she's dealing with things a lot better than Beth or I am. She's been spending a lot of time with Bishop. They haven't announced that they are officially dating or anything, but she does tend to blush when I ask about him.<br /><br /> She's also doing well in school. Her teachers say that in another year she should be ready to join them down in the labs. I'll probably never see her once that happens, but it's good that she will be making a real contribution to our future. I think you would be proud of her.<br /><br /> Toni is still working at the TV station, and she seems happy enough. I have to admit that I don't really watch her on the air even though we did get a TV for the house. I don't think Pippa watches it much either.<br /><br /> Evie, or Doctor Byron, as you insisted on being formal about her, is a slightly different person than she seemed to be before. She's more serious now; She's still friendly, organizes dances, and she still insists on everyone calling her Evie, but I never see her on 7th City anymore.<br /><br /> The people at the hospital are still in contact with that church you guys stayed at; the one with the biker priest. Evie told me that the preacher, Reverend Thomas, says he and his flock will be praying for you. I figured you would be happy to know that they were still around. Maybe if you had stayed there, you would be too.<br /><br /> Sorry, I'm not writing this to make you bad. I don't really know why I wrote that.<br /><br /> I am working in the hospital now, but not in any sort of medical capacity of course. I am working with the Acquisitions group coordinating raids. Between that and my physical therapy I think I spend more time there than here at home.<br /><br /> My arm is getting better, but I'm pretty sure my therapist is the Marquis De Sade in disguise. Doctor Lester tells me that I am never going to have full range of motion again, but that I should be able to get about 90% back. There go my dreams of playing at Wimbledon, eh?<br /><br /> I do feel it is a bit of a triumph that I am able to write this to you though. This is what I was working toward, being able to write this letter to you in my own hand, not on the computer. I know my writing is a little hard to read, but it's not like you're ever going to read it, right?<br /><br /> I think the most annoying thing about my shoulder is that it aches when there's moisture in the air; all winter it was hurting. So now I have gray hair and achey joints? It makes me feel old. In my head I can hear you telling me that I'm not old, but I wish you were here to tell me in person.<br /><br /> It actually started snowing two weeks after you passed. The winter was pretty mild, and when spring came things didn't get too bad. We haven't had any external zed incursions in town since the fight, although the Acquisitions teams run into plenty of them.. There was one incident where a woman killed her children and herself, but they were destroyed before they could infect anyone else.<br /><br /> We didn't have any new survivors during the winter, and so far have only had 4 or 5 since the snow thawed. Maybe it's just us and that church left out there? I doubt it. There has to be more people surviving than just us.<br /><br /> Now that spring has come, they've started planting crops above ground. It's all genetically engineered stuff that would have gottne people all riled up before, but now we're just glad to have food to eat. Once the canned food runs out or goes bad we're all going to have to become vegetarians too. Try wrapping your mind around that, Daniel, a world with no more Chef Boyardee Raviolis! T'is a sad place indeed.<br /><br /> I guess that's really all I have to say to you now. I don't think I am going to write to you again; I don't think it's right to. I need to let you go so that I can move on too. I know you didn't save my life just so I could waste it sitting in my bedroom crying.<br /><br /> I'm not looking for someone new, but that doesn't mean I won't find someone eventually. Please don't hate me for saying that, but I don't want the last things I say to you to be lies. Know that where ever you are you will always be in my heart, and I will always love you.<br /><br /> I hope that someday, when it's my time to go, that I will find you, Sharon, Alex, Gerry, Maria, and everyone else we've lost waiting for me. I hope it won't be for a long time, but I look forward to seeing you all again.<br /><br /> Thank you for being my lover, my friend, and my hero, and may the force be with you, always.<br /><br /> Love eternally,<br /> Tara Lafferty<br /><br /><br /><B><center>THE END<br />April 2008-October 2009</center></B>Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-63205631242499392302010-05-04T04:53:00.000-07:002010-05-04T06:26:55.234-07:00The End of the PathIt's been a long and interesting road writing and posting Mallville, but that road is coming to an end now. The next chapter, fifty-five, will be the final chapter of the story.<br /><br />I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read this, whether you stumbled upon this back in 2008 when the first chapter went up, or you just found it last week, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, all I ask at this point is that you spread the word. Tell friends, post links, give people you think might be interested a copy of the <a href="http://www.datafilehost.com/download-50fe7b5f.html">Mallville Collected PDF</a>.<br /><br />As I look at the 600 pages I have written I chuckle to think there was a time when I was planning to write "Eric the Read" and "Turning to Ash" to use as filler because I did not think the story was going to end up long enough to be a book. Of course I realize now as I do the rewrite that this will be two books, the first covering the material of Mallville Collected Volume 1, and the second covering the rest.<br /><br />I'm not sure what I am going to do next, aside from the second draft. I'm not sure if I will post something new, or if I'll podcast the second draft, or if I will just try to build up a stockpile of content for the time being. I even have an idea for a third Mallville book (though not a sequel).<br /><br />I have no intention of ignoring this site after the final entry is posted, but I don't expect to be adding a lot of content to it. I would love to get your feedback on the story though. I may not reply to ever comment made, but I promise you that I do read them, and will take them into consideration while writing the second draft.<br /><br />Whatever I end up doing next, I'm sure I'll <a href="http://twitter.com/VOIDMunashii">Tweet</a>, <a href="http://vmunashii.blogspot.com/">blog</a>, or post on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/VMunashii">Facebook</a> about it. In the meantime I would encourage you to check out the many other great authors, podcasters, and webcomics that are out there, and please support them financially whenever possible.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-40230795095548658482010-05-04T04:45:00.000-07:002010-05-18T04:59:51.096-07:00Fifty-Fifth Entry: And the Skies WeptSeptember 1st<br /><br /> I'm extremely tired, but this is the first chance I've had to write, and I want to get this down before I go to sleep.<br /><br /> We have been fighting for over a week now. On August 21st the battle for our city, for the future of humanity, began. Doctor Byron's speech on TV was stirring when coupled with the video showing the scythe chariots tearing zeds to pieces. To be fair, she did not show the one that was lost falling over, but that wouldn't make for good propaganda, now would it?. It seemed to work in getting most of Lovelock behind her plan to simply refuse to fall to the zeds though.<br /><br /> Most of the men and a lot of the women turned up for battle. People too old, too young, or unfit for battle for whatever reason are not being forced into battle, but instead are being moved down into the labs now. Even though we fully expect to triumph, there's no point in taking any chances if they do push us back into town. Seeing as we have maybe a day left before we are pushed back to the eastern gate, this is a possibility.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron wasn't kidding when she said that she has been planning for this. She has pulled out all the stops. Aside from having enough weapons to arm a small country she has also provided a number of less conventional things like snowplows and bulldozers, and there is a truck with what looks to be a large bomb on the back. I don't know what it is, but I have heard the term 'Daisy Cutter'.<br /><br /> The side of the bomb has been painted with the words “The Big One”, and the truck it is on is parked right outside the east gate. The plan as I understand it is that if we do get pushed back that far we are going to retreat for the hospital and the labs underneath, and detonate the bomb. The hope is that there will be few enough left that it will finish them off. I hope it doesn't come to that though.<br /><br /> Since our battlefield is only four lanes wide and we are constantly falling back, we have essentially set up shift points. At first each shift consisted of three vehicle mounted weapons, a scythe chariot, and twenty ground troops like me. When the force you are fighting in reaches the next line of soldiers, which are usually about a half a mile behind your starting point your shift is over. You can then fall back to the next base point for food, rest, and resupply.<br /><br /> I think we look pretty fearsome out there all lined up, weapons in hand (I've even gotten to use one of those FN 2000s, and they are awesome) between the truck mounted VRGs, machine guns, and microwave guns. It's too bad that the zeds don't seem to experience fear, or else the battle would have been half won before the first shot was fired.<br /><br /> This system was working really well for the first day and a half. In fact I only know of one fatality that first day, someone moved in front of one of the Vortex Ring Guns before it fired, and was flung into the wall of walking dead. I hope he was dead before he hit them. It was on the second day that things started to go bad.<br /><br /> The first problem was logistical. You see, while people can rest wherever a place to rest is set up (mostly on cots or in the backs of the trucks that are being used to bring supplies out to us) the trucks and scythe chariots have to go all the way back to town to charge up. The one big downside to electric vehicles I guess. The end result of this is that we were ending up with shift points that had no vehicle mounted weapons at all. These lines get pushed back farther faster and this combined with with the second problem is leading to the majority of our losses.<br /><br /> The second problem is fatigue. I imagine that this is what being in a warzone feels like. I am currently running purely on what I am told are caffeine pills (I honestly think they are something more, because as a former energy drink addict I can tell you that they never made me feel like these things do). They have made me jumpy, twitchy, and shaky. When this is all over I think I may just get in bed and sleep forever; I'm frankly unsure how I am still awake now.<br /><br /> As bad as I feel, I'm doing better than some people. Our lines now fall apart within minutes because when it comes down to it we are not trained for this. We are teachers and accountants, retail clerks and truck drivers; we are not soldiers and it shows. Some people getting too close to zeds, and end up being pulled into them. Other people are just getting hit by friendly fire as they stray in front of other fighters. I have heard of a couple of front line suicides too, people who just give up when faced with the sheer number of zeds we are up against.<br /><br /> I can understand how some people are freaking out when faced with this seemingly unending stream of walking corpses. I have personally shot zeds in suits, underwear, pajamas, jeans, leather, and even nothing at all. I have killed zombies that were clearly police, firefighters, soldiers, goths, and children.<br /><br /> The children are the worst, not only are they usually faster than their adult counterparts, but they're fucking kids. I've seen two people get bit because they couldn't bring themselves to shoot kids. I had one charge me while I was reloading, and barely had time to grab my sword (I have been carrying mine and Sharon's with me, they make me feel safer) and hit the little bastard in the side of the head before it got to me.<br /><br /> The third problem, and this is mostly minor, is that some of the zombies are firing back. As I've seen before, some of them remember how to use some weapons and its those ones who are picking up our lost weapons and using them against us. I say this isn't a huge issue only because they are for the most part firing into the zombies in front of them instead of into our forces, and they don't know how to reload. This is of course why I am here in the hospital writing, and not out there fighting right now, but I'll get back to that.<br /><br /> Our biggest obstacle has nothing to do with the zombies at all, but with the weather. Those clouds that were threatening us during the first assault with the scythe wagons made good on their threats the second day of our battle. It was like suddenly the clouds opened up and the skies wept at the horrors occurring under them. Right now is the first time I have been warm and dry in a week.<br /><br /> Aside from the obvious problems of fighting in the rain adding to fatigue, hurting morale, and making the ground a little more slick it is also causing problems with our fancy sci-fi weapons. The water seems to interfere with both the VRGs and the microwave guns, causing them to have less of an effect on the zeds. Did no one think of this ahead of time? I mean I didn't, but then I'm not one of the brains here.<br /><br /> The rain is also doing no favors for the scythe chariots. When I left the front I heard that there were only two left working. The rain did not ruin all of the others though, one was accidentally fried by a microwave gun, two were blown over by badly aimed VRG fire, and one had the misfortune to intersect with a hand grenade. The other four are being blamed on the rain though.<br /><br /> Still, despite all of this, I think we're winning. I think we will be able to pull this off without using The Big One. If that bomb makes as big a boom as I think it does, then it may well seal us off from everything to the east without taking massive detour to the west first. I'm sure it'll take out the zeds, along with the road, and possibly a chunk of the mountainside.<br /><br /> I need to focus. These pills, they say they're caffeine, but I think they're speed, they make it hard to focus now. I'm sure the two or three hours of sleep I have been getting a day are not helping any, but there will be plenty of time to sleep later. I want to get this down on paper now... part of me doesn't think I'll remember it too clearly later.<br /><br /> Of course if none of this makes sense, then what was the point? I need to focus.<br /><br /> So here is an average shift on the front line. I load up on ammo, it won 't be enough, but I can only carry so much at a time, even with the satchel, which I think I will leave here in the hospital. I know I'm not doing my best now, and I'm sure that carrying that heavy-ass thing isn't helping me any, especially when I have to use the swords.<br /><br /> Focus focus focus! Get it together!<br /><br /> So you form a line with however many other people showed up and maybe some of the vehicle mounted weapons like the VRGs or the microwave guns; we ran out of ammunition for the machine guns yesterday, which is a shame because they could cut those bastards in half. Maybe there will be one of the scythe chariots as well, although you can hardly recognize them as the gleaming metal whirlygigs they were; now they are just gore stained monsters in their own right.<br /><br /> I've seen a camera crew from KVMS out on the front line a lot too. They are reporting live a lot of the time for the people down in the labs and at the hospital. I've had it on the TV the whole time I've been here in the waiting room. I saw Toni out there at one of the releif points holding the mic once a couple of days ago. I guess she must not have been on camera at the time since she was talking to Tara. I didn't go say hi.<br /><br /> I assume that while Toni is out there that Bishop is with Pippa. Pippa wanted to fight with us, but Gerry, Beth, and I all forbid it. It's not that I don't think she can handle herself, or that she would have any less a chance of survival than the rest of us, it's just that, for me at least, she is part of what I am fighting for.<br /><br /> “But I have to fight!” she protested when we told her no.<br /><br /> “You need to stay safe,” I said.<br /><br /> “But there are people my age fighting! It's my responsibility as a member of this town!”<br /><br /> “It is your responsibility as a member of this family to stay where you are safe,” answered Gerry.<br /><br /> “Pippa, honey,” said Beth, trying a less overtly protective tactic than Gerry or myself, “You need to stay behind and help watch Bishop and Oliver. Toni is going to be working for the TV station again, and she would really appreciate your help.”<br /><br /> “But I want to fight too!”<br /><br /> I caught on to what Beth was trying to do, “Everyone contributes in their own way. You aren't going to see Doctor Byron out there with a gun shooting zeds. Her contribution will probably be from the hospital, but it will still be a contribution.”<br /><br /> Even though it turned out to be totally untrue, it did seem to satisfy Pippa that she was still helping by not fighting. As for Doctor Byron, she has been out at the front or at the relief point a lot. She's not been shooting zombies or anything, but she has been there with us in the rain and the cold.<br /><br /> It's a shame the zeds didn't come a month from now; it will probably be snowing by then, and they'd be even less of a threat. Of course fighting in the snow would present its own difficulties I suppose.<br /><br /> I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open now. I need to finish this.<br /><br /> You form up a line, you and your friends, and neighbors, and complete strangers, and you wait. Maybe there's a friend with you. I've seen Beth, Barbara, Gerry, and Zach out there, and they all look awful. They look like they have seen hell firsthand, and have been sent back to warn the rest of us about it. Do I look like that too? I didn't really pay attention in the bathroom.<br /><br /> I feel stupid for not trying to talk to Tara out there. I almost lost her today, and what would I do if something happens to her and I never got to patch things up? I think I'd go and throw myself into one of the scythe chariots if that happened... I wouldn't be the first.<br /><br /> We're all saying that the people killed by the scythe chariots were accidents, not user error mind you, just accidents. I don't believe it though, even over the constant sound of gunfire it is impossible not to hear one of those things slicing through the air nearby... assuming they're not slicing through flesh and bone which makes them even louder.<br /><br /> I think we've lost something like twenty people out there like that, not all to the scythe chariots of course, but to suicide. Some people just cannot face that and stay sane. These are people who clearly never had to face these monsters; they weren't used to how killing things that were once human makes you feel inside. I don't have that problem though because once you kill the undead body of someone you loved, there's nothing you can't kill. It may still horrify you, but you can do it.<br /><br /> So you're in line, and waiting. You can see the previous front line backing up towards you, hear their guns firing, the explosions of the grenades (at least until we ran out). They get closer and closer to you, and before you know they are right in front of you. They turn and run/limp/hobble/drag themselves away towards where the relief point has been moved to now, and suddenly there is nothing between you and the zeds but a number of yards, and that is shrinking.<br /><br /> You start to pick your targets and fire. There's no point at firing wildly into the zeds, you're just going to exhaust your ammo that much faster without actually taking many of them out of the fight. It was best to leave that sort of tactic to the machine guns.<br /><br /> It doesn't matter how conservative you are with your ammo though, you're still going to run out well before you reach the next line. Every zed that goes down with a new hole in its head is just trampled underfoot by the others in the stream of rotting monsters. The redhead in the pink pajamas goes down, and is instantly replaced by a bald man in a wifebeater. You put a hole in his skull and he's replaced by a small Asian lady who looks to be in her sixties, and after her there's a teenager in black leather, and after him a fat woman in a stained mumu, and after her a soldier.<br /><br /> The soldier, he was a different sort of issue. It's not that I felt any sort of reluctance to shoot a soldier, it's that he was wearing a helmet. It looked like he had been shot in the chest; it could have been friendly fire, or maybe he was shot by another survivor for his weapons. I'll never know why he was killed, only that he managed to die without losing his helmet, and that my bullets were just bouncing off the damned thing, and it was pissing me off.<br /><br /> What I did was stupid, I know that, but I had to do it. I placed my rifle on the ground, pulled my swords, and charged the undead fucker. I swung both blades at this man who probably died trying to protect his country, and they sliced into his upper chest and throat. He fell backwards, landing only feet from the zeds behind him. I should have let him be trampled, or pulled my glock and put a round into his face, but I didn't.<br /><br /> I stomped by booted foot down onto the zed's torso, and black ooze flowed out of the fresh wounds on his neck and chest. He tried to push himself up, but I was able to hold him down, and I brought up one of the swords, Sharon's as it so happened, and I drove it down into the monster's face. The blade punched through the monster's right eye with a crunch as it cracked the bone of the eye socket and pierced the brain. The soldier lay in peace at last.<br /><br /> It's too bad that the same could not be said for his brethren. I was way too close to the zeds, and one, a girl wearing the remnants of an Apollo Coffee barista's apron, reached out and grabbed the sleeve of my soaking wet coat. As I turned to face her, her head snapped back, and she let go, falling away from me.<br /><br /> “What the hell are you doing, man?” yelled a security officer. It took me a minute to realize that it was Kyle. His last name is Yagan, by the way.<br /><br /> He was right to yell at me, it was stupid to get that close to the zeds; that's how people get killed. I am lucky that he had my back. I am doubly lucky that it was him that happened to see me being stupid, had it been Beth I would probably be in a hospital bed of my own.<br /><br /> I got a chance to even things out with Kyle a short while later. He was trying to put a new clip of ammo into his rifle, and he stepped into a pothole. He cried out as he went down, and the clip, his last apparently, fell out of his hand and bounced along the road surface away from him.<br /><br /> As if sensing his weakness (maybe we put off some sort of smell?), three zeds broke from the pack, a man in a western outfit that was probably hideous even before he died, a woman in the remains of a coral colored business suit, and a little girl in a gray school uniform, she had one ragged pigtail, the probable other having fallen out long ago. They seemed to be aiming straight for Kylr who was trying to scramble for the lost clip.<br /><br /> I opened fire, and sent the little girl, who was in the lead, sprawling onto her side in front of the cowboy, who tripped over her and fell on his face. I fired again, hitting the business suit lady in the side of the neck, and then the side of the head, and she too crumpled.<br /><br /> I moved to where the cowboy was trying to crawl at Kyle, who had managed to grab the clip, but was fumbling with trying to get it into his gun (he had it backwards, but was panicking). I stomped hard on the cowboy's back, and fired two rounds into the back of his skull. He stopped his struggling.<br /><br /> “Hey, thanks, man,” Kyle said.<br /><br /> I extended my hand to him to help him up, and pulled him roughly to his feet, “I had to return the favor,” I said, trying to sound cool despite the battle raging around us.<br /><br /> Kyle winced as he tried to put weight on his left foot, “Shit!” he cursed.<br /><br /> I fired at a couple of zeds who were also starting to pull away from the front of the tide, which itself was getting dangerously close now, “Is it broken?” I asked.<br /><br /> “I don't think so; hurts though.”<br /><br /> I ended up helping him back to the next relief point, which was about a mile away at that point. It would probably be moving again in another hour or two as the front line moved closer. I saw him later hobbling over towards the back of a truck where other people with minor debilitating injuries were reloading the empty clips brought back from the line. His ankle wasn't broken, but it's going to be a few days before he can walk on it normally again, so he is effectively out of the fight.<br /><br /> That's what I forgot! I mentioned that I always run out of ammo before the shift change. To remedy this there is one person out with us with a cart, kind of like the one Pippa was pushing in my dream. It has two baskets. The lower one starts out empty, and is filled with empty clips that the person pushing the basket retrieves from the ground before they get lost under the feet of the zeds. The top basket starts out full with full clips to be handed out as needed. When the top basket is empty, the person runs it back towards the relief point and hopefully meets up with someone pushing a full basket back. They trade baskets, and we at the front line get more lead to throw at the zeds.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron is being interviewed on the TV by Toni right now, even though it is so late. She doesn't look good, I mean she always looks pale, but now she just looks like she's sick. Maybe she is, she has been out there in the rain with us a lot, and don't albinos have weaker immune systems, or something?<br /><br /> Toni doesn't look too good either. I hope Pippa is taking good care of Bishop. I should go down into the labs and look for them and say hi before I head back tomorrow. I miss the little brat, I haven't seen her since this all started.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron is saying, “At this time, we are still viewing the use of what has been dubbed 'The Big One' as a last resort, but I will not hesitate to order its detonation if it comes to it.”<br /><br /> “And do you think we will need to?” Toni asked.<br /><br /> “I really cannot say at this time. We are unable to make a reliable estimate as to how many of the animated corpses remain. If they do reach the Eastern gate, I will order all remaining forces to retreat into the labs, and the device will be activated.”<br /><br /> “And what will the effects of that be?”<br /><br /> “The BLU-82 has a blast radius of up to three hundred meters, so any of the corpses within that area should be destroyed. We do expect that the road will also be destroyed which will be a hindrance to our future acquisition efforts, and there may be some damage to above ground buildings from the shockwave but I feel that saving our town is the utmost importance; we can make repairs as we need to later.”<br /><br /> “Now isn't 'The Big One' designed to be dropped from an aircraft?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Toni, but we have altered this one to allow it to be detonated by remote so that no one needs to put themselves at risk to do so. Unfortunately dropping the device from the air is not at option for us. If it becomes necessary we will make sure that everyone is at a safe distance before we activate it.”<br /><br /> There was just some yelling down the hall. Someone who was badly injured with multiple zed bites just reanimated and had to be put down. I thought they were already destroying the brains of people who didn't make it. The zed, a security officer who looked like she was missing most of her right arm, was already out down before I got there.<br /><br /> I'm just glad it's not Tara, she's still asleep in her bed.<br /><br /> I mentioned earlier about the zeds picking up fallen weapons. That's what happened to Tara. It was two or three shifts after Jacob got hurt, I can't really remember right now. I didn't even realize that she was so close to me until I heard her cry out.<br /><br /> The rain was pouring down on us, and it was already dark despite the fact that it was still the middle of the afternoon. I never heard the shots, or at least not in a way that I could distinguish from our own gunfire. It wasn't until I felt a burning sensation on my right ear that I realized I'd been hit. Burning sensation is actually too weak a term, it felt like my ear was on fire.<br /><br /> The bullet took off the top of my ear, and they've given me some painkillers to take for it, but I know they'll knock me out as soon as I take them, so I am waiting until I am done with this. Doctor Rossi tells me that I'll be fine as long as it doesn't get infected, but I may notice some hearing loss as a result. Something about that part of the ear funneling sound to the ear drum or something.<br /><br /> I heard Tara scream out just fine though. I looked over to my right when she yelled, not realizing it was her at first. I was just in time to see her stagger backwards and fall down. She was clutching her left shoulder with her right hand, her rifle lay on the wet ground next to her.<br /><br /> “Tara!” I called, and ran to her, the pain in my own head momentarily forgotten even as the warm blood mixed with the cold rainwater on my neck.<br /><br /> I don't know if it is a result of everything she's been through, or just a result of the stresses that this fight has put us all under, but the woman sitting on the wet road with blood flowing over the front of her coat around her fingers was not the Tara I've known. She was not angry, or even strong then; she was scared.<br /><br /> She looked up at me, and said my name, but she looked dazed and out of it. Too many of those “caffeine” pills I imagine, “Help me!” she said. I'm not making a judgment of her here; just an observation.<br /><br /> I panicked. The expression on her face will be one of those things that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. She looked terrified; she looked like someone was else inside the body of this woman that I love. In that moment she was little more herself than Sharon was when....<br /><br /> Just as they had with Kyle, the zeds seemed to somehow know she was injured, and some started to pull out of the pack and come towards us. I fired into them a little more wildly than I normally would as I fought back my own panic. Not only was I injured, but so was Tara, and probably quite badly; I didn't know just how badly yet.<br /><br /> If it were just the two of us out there, I would not be writing this now, but some of the others noticed what was happened, and closed in to defend us. Most of the zeds away from the front of the pack fell in a hail of gunfire from both sides of me, but one, a woman in surgical scrubs, was right in front of me. I suppose no one took the shot for fear of hitting me, or maybe they figured I had since I was right there.<br /><br /> Unfortunately for me, my gun was empty, and it was the last of my ammo. I could see Stan, the guy who was pushing the ammo cart, coming my way, but there wouldn't be enough time. I could pull my Glock, but instead dropped my rifle to the ground, and pulled the two swords out of their sheathes which were criss-crossed over the back of my coat.<br /><br /> As the undead medical professional charged me, I held out Sharon's blade in my left hand and it impaled itself on it, slowing its progress towards me. It opened its mouth wide in a silent roar, or at least not one that I could hear over the gunfire as it slid along the blade. I swung my own sword with my right hand, and sliced into the zed's neck, but not hard enough to decapitate it.<br /><br /> I swung again, and even though I still failed to actually cut her head off, I must have severed the spine, because the zed sagged , pulling the sword in my left hand downward as she slid off of it.<br /><br /> “What happened?” yelled a woman with frizzy brown hair to my left.<br /><br /> “I think she's been shot,” I called back.<br /><br /> “Looks like you have been too,“ called a man with long blond hair matted to his head by the rain. He was on my left, and was grabbing full clips out of Stan's basket while Stan retrieved a couple of empty clips off of the ground. I could feel the warmth of my blood mixing with the cold rain on the side of my face.<br /><br /> “Get her out of here!” yelled the brown haired woman, before shooting another pair of zeds that were pulling away from the shambling wall death moving towards us.<br /><br /> In another couple of minutes, the main force would be on us. I had to move her now. Stan was coming my way, and I handed him my rifle, and picked up Tara. There was no way I would be able to carry her and the gun at the same time, and even if I could I would have no need for it while running away.<br /><br /> While Stan retrieved Tara's fallen rifle, I retrieved Tara. She shrieked as I picked her up; I'm sure pieces of ruined bone in her shoulder were scraping together, but she was already too weak to walk. Weariness, pain, shock, and blood loss had taken all of the fight out of her, leaving behind only fear.<br /><br /> I tried to run back to the relief point with Tara, but after a couple of minutes I started to get dizzy. I don't think Tara was the only one suffering from exhaustion and blood loss. I ended up in sort of a middle speed jog because if I passed out then there was no hope at all for Tara.<br /><br /> “I'm shot!” Tara exclaimed as I carried her; she grimaced with each step, as the impact traveled up my body and into her.<br /><br /> “I know, but you'll be okay. We just need to get you to a doctor.”<br /><br /> “I don't want to die. Not now, not like this!” she said, the panic plain in her voice.<br /><br /> “You're not going to die. You can't yet; we have unfinished business,” I was trying to sound calm myself, but I don't think my panting from the exertion was helping much there. I could feel the warmth of her blood soaking through my clothes and to my skin. She was bleeding so much.<br /><br /> “You're hurt!” Tara observed.<br /><br /> “I'm fine,” I answered, “It's just a flesh wound.”<br /><br /> Tara made a sound that was sort of like a laugh and sort of like a groan; I don't know if this was in response to my joke, or just caused by pain.<br /><br /> “I'm scared,“ Tara said in a voice that I could barely hear over the sounds of the storm and the pounding of my own heart in my ears.<br /><br /> “Everything it going to be fine, just try to stay calm. We'll be there soon,” I lied, not knowing how far it really was to the next relief point.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything,” Tara said, almost babbling now.<br /><br /> “You don't have anything to be sorry for.”<br /><br /> “I do! There's so much I want to tell you before I die! There's so much you need to see!”<br /><br /> “Stop it! You're not going to die!” I practically yelled, and then caught myself, ”We'll have plenty of time to talk things through when this is all over, but you need to try and calm down now,” I urged, thinking that her panicked state might be causing her to lose blood faster.<br /><br /> “But you need to know,” she said, her voice getting weaker, “You need to know that I....” her voice trailed off, and she went limp in my arms. I looked down and saw that he eyes were closed. She had passed out; I knew this because I could still see her chest rising and falling as she breathed,<br /><br />I felt relief when I saw light up the road ahead of us, but then quickly realized that it was only the next shift line, and not the relief point. I heard someone call my name as I came into the light, and saw a woman break from the line and run towards me; it was Beth.<br /><br /> “What the fuck happened?” she asked. She looked awful, there were deep circles under her eyes, and her hair gave her the appearance of a kitten who had been dunked in a bucket of water.<br /><br /> “One of the zeds got a gun and shot her,” I said, not stopping. I needed to get her to safety, and I was starting to feel dizzy even without running.<br /><br /> Beth's eyes widened more as she looked me in the face, “Is that a bite?” she asked, looking at the remains of my right ear.<br /><br /> “What? No! I was shot too, but we need to get Tara help,”<br /><br /> “Gerry!” Beth yelled, and before I knew it, Gerry was walking alongside us.<br /><br /> “Oh shit!” Gerry exclaimed, seeing Tara lying limply in may arms when he approached, ”is she...?”<br /><br /> “She's fine!” I snarled, “She just needs a doctor!”<br /><br /> “Let me carry her, man,” Gerry said to me. He looked like someone had tried to drown him too, but he still looked better than I must have.<br /><br /> “I've got her,” I insisted, “how much farther to the relief point?”<br /><br /> “They were just moving it again when we left,” Beth explained, “I don't know how far they moved.”<br /><br /> “You look like you're going to collapse, just let me carry her for awhile,” Gerry insisted.<br /><br /> “I'm fine,” I insisted, as much to myself as the Gerry, “I just need to get her some help.”<br /><br /> “Give Tara to Gerry, or I will kick your ass!” Beth ordered me.<br /><br /> Even in that state, I knew there was no point in arguing with Beth. I stopped walking, and gently transferred Tara into Gerry's arms. He took her, and looked sadly down into her wet pale face. He put his ear as close to her mouth as possible to check that she was still breathing. Part of me was mad, but I realize now that he just didn't want her reanimating in his arms if she had died. The condition I was in, I really can't blame him for doubting my judgment.<br /><br /> Dizziness overtook me, and I dropped to one knee in a cold puddle. Beth knelt down next to me, “Get her to the relief station. We'll catch up,” Beth told Gerry, and he took off at a fast jog through the line of my fellow townsfolk who were waiting their turn to face off against the living dead again.<br /><br /> I looked into Beth's weary face, “Why does everyone I love leave me?”<br /><br /> Beth put her arms around me awkwardly as we both knelt there in the rain, “Tara's going to be fine, just like you said, and not everyone who loves you leaves. I love you, Pippa loves you, Gerry loves you; none of us are going anywhere.”<br /><br /> Beth let go of me, and then got back to her feet. She took my right hand, and pulled me up, “Come on, we need to get that ear looked at. It looks like you're out of this fight too.”<br /><br /> By the time Beth got me to the relief point, Tara was already loaded in the back of an ambulance. I found enough energy to jog at that point, and made it to the back of the ambulance before they could shut the doors.<br /><br /> “We'll come visit you guys when this is over,” Gerry told me as the medic allowed me up into the back of the ambulance.”<br /><br /> “I'll be back as soon as I'm sure Tara's going to be okay,” I said.<br /><br /> “You'll do whatever the doctors tell you to do,” Beth corrected me.<br /><br /> The whole way to the hospital the medic, who had a handgun holstered on his hip, kept checking on Tara's vital signs. He gave me a few gauze pads, and told me to hold them against my ear. The pressure hurt, but it also cleared my head a little I think.<br /><br /> Once at the hospital Tara was rushed into surgery, and disappeared into the bustle of the hospital. It looked like anyone with any amount of medical knowledge had been put to work dealing with the flow of gunshot wounds, cuts, broken bones, and bites that had been coming in from the front line.<br /><br /> I tried to follow Tara's gurney as they rushed away, but a pair of nurses in blood speckled scrubs stopped me. I would have just pushed past them, but one of them looked more like a linebacker than a nurse, so I felt it wise to take a seat in the waiting room with a fresh set of gauze pads for my ear.<br /><br /> It seemed like forever before Doctor Rossi came and got me, but my injuries are minor compared to the other stuff they are dealing with, so I tried not to be impatient. I really wanted to know how Tara was doing more than I wanted any attention for my ear.<br /><br /> “Miss Lafferty is in surgery now, I stopped in there on my way to get you,” he said as he led me deeper into the hospital to an empty room to treat my ear, “She's lost a lot of blood, but Doctor Lester thinks she's going to pull through okay. I'm not going to lie to you though, the bullet did a lot of damager to her shoulder, so things are going to be hard for awhile. You're her boyfriend, right?”<br /><br /> “I think so,” I said.<br /><br /> Doctor Rossi gave me a puzzled look, “Well, things could be hard on her while she gets used to whatever limitations this injury imposes on her, so she's going to need a lot of support from anyone close to her.”<br /><br /> I'm not sure what all Doctor Rossi actually did to my ear, but it hurt like hell, and he shaved off some of the hair on that side of my head to do it. When he was done I had a fat bandage wrapped around my head with a big bunch of gauze packed over my ear.<br /><br /> “I'd like to admit you to the hospital for the night,” the doctor told me, “You are suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition and I'd like to take a look at that ear again in the morning.”<br /><br /> I reluctantly agreed, and that brings me to where I am now. Part of me wants to rush back out there right now and rejoin the fight, but I know I'll be a lot more useful after a decent night's sleep, so<br /><br /> Doctor Lester just came in; he looks to be in his mid forties, and has about three days worth of salt and pepper beard growth. He told me that Tara is out of surgery, and she's stable. I should be able to see her in the morning, but that she may still be unconscious. I thanked him for the news, and he rushed away before I could ask any questions. He looks like he could use a good night of sleep too.<br /><br /> I just took the pills they gave me for my ear, and it feels like they are working already; I'm feeling impossibly groggy now. It's probably just a placebo effect though, there's no way they are kicking in this fast. Still, I'd better stop, I only have like two blank pages left in here anyway.<br /><br /> When the fight is over, I'll get a new journal, and let you know how it turned out. Whatever happens I'm going to be 100% honest with Tara; tonight I came just too close to losing her again. I spent all those years just taking Sharon's presence for granted; believing that there would always be a tomorrow, and I could always tell her how I felt when I was ready. I was wrong, and I squandered so much time with her. That's not going to happen with Tara.<br /><br /> EVERY FUCKING DAY COUNTS FROM NOW ON!<br /><br /> Hopefully we'll all live happily ever after; me and my family. Tara, Beth, Pippa, Gerry, Toni, Bishop; I love all of you guys. Oliver... well, we'll see.<br /><br /> And Pippa, I'm standing right behind you, put the journal down!<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /> Made you look!Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-61101692211123344542010-04-29T04:17:00.000-07:002010-04-29T04:18:34.506-07:00Mallville Special - Turning to AshHey, hey, don't try to sit up so fast. You're safe, just relax. You're lucky to be alive, I guess we all are though, right? Here, have some water, you've been out for awhile.<br /><br /> Who am I? The name's Ash, and I'm the chosen one.<br /><br /> What? Okay, so that's not totally true. I'm not the chosen one (not as far as I know anyway), and I'm not THAT Ash. Actually, I didn't even used to be Ash. I'm not gonna bore you with that though, don't worry.<br /><br /> So where are you from, anyway? I haven't seen a lot of people since after Mallville blew up. Oh that's okay, you don't need to tell me al that if you don't want, I won't be offended.I'm sorry if I'm talking too much, it's just I've not had much chance to talk to a living person in awhile, you know?<br /><br /> What? You do want to know about me? Okay, well I was born Samuel Haff, but when the world took everything from me, that me, the Sam me, died and I rose from the ashes. Rose from the ashes, get it? Heh heh... yeah, sorry.<br /><br /> Anyways, I was always a big fan of Bruce Campbell, so when it came time to re-invent myself, who else would I choose? I mean, I didn't really choose or anything, not consciously, but some part of me chose. You know, I like to think that he's still out there somewhere slaying the undead. I think he'd be proud of me if he could see me.<br /><br /> I once told this guy I met that no one would want to hear my story. Of course I then proceeded to tell him my story, and he did legitimately seem interested. Those guys were in a bad way, but if there are such a thing as good guys and bad guy, they were the good guys. I haven't seen those people since Christmas, I wonder what's become of them.<br /><br /> Anyway, as I'm sure you remember, the end of the world started on a Sunday afternoon in March, although I don't think anyone knew it was the end of the world at the time. I was at work at T-Mart, where I worked in, of course, housewares. This was supposed to just be a job to earn some money to enroll for classes in the summer, not the last job I would ever have. I was about halfway through my shift when I saw the first signs of the end of everything.<br /><br /> I had noticed that it was quieter than normal for a Sunday, but I liked having time to re-merchandise some shelves without people moving stuff or leaving their trash on the temporarily empty shelves. I swear, some of the people that shopped at Tyranno Mart... I should have started a website about it.<br /><br /> Being inside of a T-Mart was kind of like being inside a casino, you know? Is it daytime? Nighttime? Raining? Summer? Winter? Has the world ended? Who knows, it's always midday bright and seventy-eight degrees. Even our TVs were just a DVD on loop most of the time. As a result I had no idea what was happening in the rest of the world until a co-worker told me. <br /><br /> “Did you hear what's going on?” Hector asked me as he was heading to the back. Hector Rodriguez was an interesting guy, maybe not the best worker in the world, but not a slacker either.<br /><br /> “Nope, someone getting fired or something?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Naw man, something up at the hospital,” Hector replied, “A riot or something.”<br /><br /> That got my attention. You see, my mom was a nurse at Covenant General, and she was supposed to be on duty.<br /><br /> “A riot? Are you sure?” <br /><br /> “They were sayin' on the radio that there's a bunch of police and stuff there, an' that some people were trying to bite people.”<br /><br /> And that was when I figured that Hector was just making a lame joke, “Biting? Get out of here, stop wasting my time, man.”<br /><br /> “No, I'm serious. Go check out the TV in the lounge, man, I'm sure it's on there too.”<br /><br /> I would have, but a scream echoed through the store at that moment. Hector and I both headed in that direction; not because we knew that something bad was happening, but because we were nosy. I figured someone saw a mouse or something, or maybe a shoplifter was getting busted.<br /><br /> The scream had come from the front door; it was our greeter, Dotty. She musta had quite a set of lungs in her seventy year old body for her voice to carry across the store like that. Dotty was laying on the floor clutching a wound on her left arm while two of our cart wranglers were wrestling a middle aged man to the ground.<br /><br /> The man was wearing a thin blue bathrobe over a white t-shirt and blue striped pajama bottoms. I could tell immediately that something was wrong with him, and it was the pajamas or the fact that had bitten Dotty that were the clue, we got people in the store dressed like that all the time. It wasn't even the fact he was fighting Raj and Edgar, trying to bite them either, as that wasn't really all that uncommon either.<br /><br /> What seemed off about this guy, the thing that set him apart from your average meth-head, was his color. I mean, he was a white guy and all, but really white; his skin was almost gray. He was the first zombie I ever saw... first of many, unfortunately.<br /><br /> “It's jus' like on the radio, man!” Hector said to me, pointing at the struggling man.<br /><br /> “Ow, fuck!” Edgar yelled as the gray man bit him on the upper right arm; his teeth making a ragged whole in Ed's blue polo shirt. Edgar shoved the man away from him, and Raj let go too, sending the man stumbling towards me and Hector.<br /><br /> The man looked at me for a moment, and I could see that his eyes were milky white. The zombie started to stumble towards me as Hector backed away. I didn't know what to do, so I turned and grabbed the nearest thing, a shopping cart from the corral, and shoved it into the man.<br /><br /> “Someone do something!” I yelled as the ghoul tried to reach me over the length of the cart..<br /><br /> “Sam, in here!” called Odette Walker, one of the cashiers. She was standing next to the Game Zone family friendly arcade room (which consisted of two rigged crane games, two hunting light gun games, and an old Crazy Taxi with the seat stuck as close to the steering wheel as possible so that no one over five feet tall can even play) with her hand on the controls to raise and lower the room's gate.<br /><br /> I turned, keeping the cart between myself and the gray man, and shoved him in the direction of the arcade as hard as I could. The man stumbled towards the doorway, still trying to reach for me over the cart as we went. Together, myself, the zombie, and the empty shopping cart charged into the arcade. I let the cart go at the doorway as Odette started lowering the gate.<br /><br /> The cart stopped rolling forwards as soon as I let go, but the zombie kept stumbling backwards, its arms flailing like a man trying to regain his balance. Like most zombies though, this one wasn't very coordinated, and he ended up stumbling into and tripping over the Crazy Taxi game's seat.<br /><br /> The gate finished coming down as the gray man struggled back to his feet. He shamble-ran to the gate, and pounded his fists against it while pretty much everyone in the front of the store gathered around to look at this strange creature with the gray flesh and ring of red around its mouth, kinda like a little girl putting on her mom's lipstick for the first time, or maybe a person who really enjoys their watermelon.<br /><br /> “What is going on up here?” bellowed a voice better suited for football field than the storefront in front of customers (all four of them). It was Tom, one of the assistant managers (or “ass man” For short).<br /><br /> Tom was the very model of a modern T-Mart manager, always clad in a white dress shirt and a T-Mart neck tie the same color as my hideous green vest with Terry the T-Rex's smiling face on it. If you saw Tom it generally meant you were in some sort of trouble since he only ever came out of his office to berate someone for something.<br /><br /> No one answered Tom's question, as we were all still too busy looking at the gray man throwing himself against the gate to the arcade, as if he could pass through it just by sheer effort and get to us. <br /><br /> “Why is there a man locked in the Fun Center?” Tom asked, and then he saw Odette helping Dotty to her feet, “What happened? Are you hurt?” his tone was still severe, but not as confident.<br /><br /> “That man bit Dotty and Edgar, Mister Wingates,” Raj answered.<br /><br /> “It's like on the news!” Hector said.<br /><br /> Tom looked angry, “Raj, take Edgar and Dotty in back to the first aid kit. I'm going to call the cops,” and he started to take long strides across the front of the store over to the Customer Service Manager's stand in front of the long row of cash registers.<br /><br /> As a point of fact, Tom should have already been up there that day. He was scheduled to fill in as CSM since he had not wanted to schedule one for the afternoon, but Tom's office was his own little fortress in the land of T-Mart, and he was always reluctant to leave it for anything.<br /><br /> “Get back to work all of you!” Tom yelled, rather inappropriately in front of the customers I thought, as he stomped away from us. Odette and the other cashiers scurried back to their registers while Hector went to clock in from lunch. I stayed, looking back and forth between the gray man and Tom as he got on the phone.<br /><br /> “Sam, don't you have work to do?” Tom called to me.<br /><br /> “I'm on break,” I replied back, and slipped my green vest off, folding it in half, and then in half again and stuffing it into the pocket of my khakis.<br /><br /> “Go find something else to do then!”<br /><br /> So I went into the Burger Bro next to the Fun Zone.<br /><br /> “Hey bro, what can I get you today,” said Xuxa Tarico in a tone that said I-would-rather-be-anywhere-than-here.<br /><br /> “Water,”<br /><br /> “Oooh, big spender there, Sam.”<br /><br /> “That's how I get all the ladies,” I replied. Xuxa laughed and got me a cup of ice water from the soda dispenser. <br /><br /> When I came out of Burger Bro, Hector had returned with a mop bucket and was cleaning up the blood that had dripped on the floor from Dotty and Edgar's wounds. He kept looking up at the gray man as he mopped, and he looked seriously freaked out.<br /><br /> I thought of going back to my locker and calling my mom, but at that moment I was too interested in Tom's phone call.<br /><br /> “What do you mean you can't send anyone?” he said too loudly, “Someone just assaulted two of my employees, they need medical attention and he needs to be arrested!”<br /><br /> Tom listened for awhile, his face alternating from scared, to impatient, to pissed off, to confused, and then back to scared again. I wouldn't be surprised to have found out he crapped his shorts there, but in the next few days we all would, yeah?<br /><br /> “Yes, gray skin,” Tom said into the phone, and then a pause, “well, yes, we sell guns, but,” another pause, “What do you mean shoot him?” he bellowed.<br /><br /> I walked casually over to Tom as he looked at the phone curiously before hanging it up, “Problems, sir?” I asked in my best employee voice.<br /><br /> “They're not sending anyone. They said that they don't have to resources to send someone out for just one of them. They said to just shoot him.”<br /><br /> I sucked some water through my straw, and said, “Sounds like maybe we should close up.”<br /><br /> Tom looked at me, fire in his eyes, “I am not closing this store.”<br /><br /> It ended up that Raj tried to drive Edgar and Dotty to the hospital, but they were back before the end of my shift. Raj said that the hospital was all blocked off, and that they couldn't get near it for all the cops and news vans.<br /><br /> “The cop at the roadblock said that everything was under control, but that if their injuries weren't life threatening that he couldn't let us through, “Raj explained to me, “He said a lot of people were bit today, and to just clean and bandage the wound, that's all they were doing for people at the hospital anyway.”<br /><br /> So yeah, they totally did not understand what was going on, but it was about a week before anyone really put it together. It wouldn't have made any difference to the people who were bitten even if they did know that first day. I suppose it might have saved the rest of us though.<br /><br /> When I got home that night, mom was already there, a thick white bandage wrapped around her left hand. She was in our smallish kitchen, I say smallish because it was big enough for all four of us to be in there together, but only just barely.<br /><br /> Mom was making Hamburger Helper (she worked long hours, so I never gave her crap for the fact that most of our meals came out of boxes and cans, at least they didn't come out of drive-thru windows) , while my sisters helped. Mel, she was nine, was making a salad, and Becky, eight, was gathering up silverware to set the table with.<br /><br /> Dad was not in the picture, he left shortly after Becky was born to move to Utah and marry three other women, so neither of the girls have any memories of him. We never saw him, and rarely heard from him, but the Christmas and birthday presents from him and our step-moms were epic. I don't know why mom tolerated that, but she did.<br /><br /> Mom had changed out of her scrubs and was wearing a blue sweatsuit and a grease stained apron with the phrase “Southern Cookin' Makes You Good Lookin'” on it over a caricature of Paula Deen's face. She generally only changed before making dinner when she had gotten blood, or some other nasty substance on her clothes at work.<br /><br /> “Mom, what happened to your hand?” I asked before she could even say hello.<br /><br /> “You've heard what's going on, right?” she asked.<br /><br /> “The crazy people?” I asked, “Yeah, we had one in the store, still do actually. Do you know that the people at nine-one-one told Tom to shoot the guy? Is that insane of what?”<br /><br /> “They're not crazy people, Sam,” her voice sounded unusually shaky when she said that.<br /><br /> Let me get something straight here, my mom was not a weak person; she was not one of those cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, Lifetime-watching, Oprah-following women (although she did read Twilight, but I guess everyone has a vice, right?). Hearing that shakiness in her voice was really unusual.<br /><br /> Mom put the skillet on one of the cold burners, and motioned for me to go into the living room. She followed me in there, “Sam, these people are dead.”<br /><br /> “The guy seemed pretty active for a corpse, he bit Dotty, the door greeter. They wouldn't help her at the hospital, what's up with that, mom?”<br /><br /> Mom held her bandaged hand up to me. There was a splatter of greasy gravy on it from the Hamburger Helper, “I saw it with my own eyes, okay?”<br /><br /> “What happened?”<br /><br /> “A girl who was brought in. she had fallen down the stairs is what we were told; she died before we could do much for her. CPR failed, everything failed, and Doctor Cosroy had called her TOD. We were getting ready to move her down to the morgue when she opened her eyes. <br /><br /> “We thought we had made some sort of mistake, maybe the EKG was not working right or something. When Cosroy tried to check her pulse, she bit him; took a big chunk out of his arm. When I tried to restrain her, she bit me too.”<br /><br /> “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, comparatively,” she said shrugging, “It happened in other parts of the hospital too. Another one in Emergency, one up in ICU, and four down in the morgue. Marvin Dellindo was killed by one of them.”<br /><br /> “Wow, mom, that's horrible.”<br /><br /> She shook her head, “No, it's worse. He turned into one of them. They had to shoot him; had to shoot all of them.”<br /><br /> “Are you going to be okay?”<br /><br /> “I feel fine, but the hospital is still a mess. They've been turning away anyone without major injuries. A lot of bites, like mine.”<br /><br /> Thinking back on all this, and even considering that my own mom was one of those effected, why the hell did no one think to quarantine people who had been bitten until they knew what they were dealing with? How many people around the world were just left to roam around until the infection, The Zed Virus, killed them? Turned them?<br /><br /> Maybe it wouldn't have saved the world in the long run, but maybe it would have saved Becky and Mel. I'm sorry about my mom, but if I could have saved my sisters....<br /><br /> No need to dwell on that though, right? <br /><br /> I watched the news that night, not something I normally did, and was surprised to see that this was going on all over the world, and that absolutely no one knew what to do about it. Some people were saying it was God's wrath, some said it was because there was no more room in hell (yeah, I saw that movie too). Still others, the ones that could maybe have been called more rational, were saying it was some sort of mutated viral infection, but that didn't make sense, I mean how would it mutate the same way at the same time all over the world? I guess I should have paid more attention in biology.<br /><br /> Then there were the real nutbags; you remember these type, right? You know, the ones who didn't know what the cause of it was, but they were damned sure that it was the end of the world. One point for them, I guess.<br /><br /> Looking back, there is only one thing that was certain on that first day. It was a worldwide thing, and no one, not the president, the press, the brainboxes, no one knew what to do about it. They were able to kill the things easily enough, but no one knew it was communicable. We would know soon.<br /><br /> I went to work like normal the next day. The streets were emptier than normal for a Monday, and instead of the usual golden-ager greeting at the front door to the store there were two of our larger stockers, Aiden and Rocco, and they were armed with baseball bats.<br /><br /> I noticed that the gate to the Fun Zone had been covered with a blue tarp. I didn't hear anything moving inside there, but I don't know if there was any real significance to that. I headed to the back to clock in.<br /><br /> I ran into Bob Valentine, the supervisor of the electronics department, at the time clock. Now if Tom was the epitome of retail management, then Bob was the opposite of it. Bob usually wears short sleeved shirts instead of long sleeved ones like Tom, and spends almost no time in his office.<br /><br /> Bob was essentially still more one of us hourly workers than the salaried management, and how he got to be in management I'll never know. He was the sort of guy who would take his “Ask Me, I Care” name badge and add the word “if” to the middle of it in tiny letters. Basically he was a good guy.<br /><br /> “Hey Sam, how's things?” Bob asked as I swiped my badge to clock in.<br /><br /> “I'm a little surprised the store is open today.” I said.<br /><br /> “Why?” Bob asked, “With Seras off in Hawaii, and Wingates in charge it would take nothing short of the end of the world to close this store.”<br /><br /> “Some people are saying it is the end of the world.”<br /><br /> Bob waved a hand in the air, “No way. I don't know what's going on, but the government will figure something out and kill those things. We're safe in here in any case, Rocco and Aiden aren't going to let any of those zombie people in.”<br /><br /> Bob was reading an email that had been thumbtacked to the corkboard next to the timeclock. It was an email from home office telling us to run like normal unless directed to close by local authorities. I guess in some of the more urban markets they were already having a problem with looters and the spread of the undead.<br /><br /> There was one paragraph that had been highlighted towards the bottom, “In order to protect Tyranno-Mart associates, customers, and property, we are authorizing employees to incapacitate any undead aggressors present on the premises of your store. Store management is to replace scheduled door greeters with willing associates they deem most suitable to this end. According to government officials then best ways of incapacitating the undead are by removing the head or destroying the brain. Please keep your own safety as well as the safety of merchandise and customers in mind if you are forced to do this.”<br /><br /> “Wow, never thought I'd see that in a corporate email,” Bob said after reading, “Hey, doesn't your mom work at the hospital? That's where it all started. I she okay?”<br /><br /> “One of those things bit her, but she says she's okay,” I said, “She was a little freaked out by it all, but she was going back to work today, so I guess she must think it's under control.”<br /><br /> “Uh oh,” Bob said, pointing to Tom Wingates coming down the hall towards us, “Prepare to get yelled at.”<br /><br /> “You two need to get out on the floor,” said Tom in a much more subdued tone than normal, “We had a lot of call-ins today. Bob, I need you in your department, Sam finish getting the stockroom ready for tomorrow's delivery as fast as possible, and then come find me; I may need to put you on a register.”<br /><br /> Bob looked at him curiously, “You okay, Tom?”<br /><br /> “Huh?” Tom asked, distractedly, “Yeah, I'm fine. Go on, get to work.”<br /><br /> I never had to get on a register, as it was really quiet, even for a Monday. There were a few of the regulars in; the Hot Wheels collectors pestering Toys and Sports to see if any new cases had come in, the old guy who just seems to wander the store for two hours and then just buys one thing, that sort of thing. Then there were a few of the doomsdayers; the ones who were certain that this was the end of the world and wanted to stock on before the store was cleared out. <br /><br /> The doomsdayers were right of course, except that the store shelves never did clear out before we closed.<br /><br /> Mom didn't come home at all that night, but she called to let us know that she was okay. She said that the hospital had taken on an almost warzone-like atmosphere with armed police officers along with the normal hospital security stationed all over the place, especially the emergency room.<br /><br /> She told me that they were seeing an increase in suicide attempts, people trying to get help with bite wounds, accidental shootings, and that sort of thing. She sounded pretty freaked out by it all, but told me to keep the girls inside and safe, and that she would be home in the morning.<br /><br /> It was announced on the news that night that the school would not be open on Tuesday, which made Becky and Mel happy. They found a friend that they could stay with so I could still go to work, and so that mom could rest if she was able to come home.<br /><br /> Even less people showed up for work that third day, and there was no email from home office at all which was odd. The truck showed up three hours late, and the driver told us that the highways were a nightmare; people trying to get from one place to another for no obvious reason since the problem was everywhere. He also told us that after this he was heading back home to Alabama to be with his family until this was all over. I hope he made it.<br /><br /> There were more doomsdayers in that day, and we had quite a run on baseball bats, axes, crow bars, and tire irons. We had none of our regulars though, not even the old guy who just wanders. That massive over-order of ammunition in the sporting goods department finally resolved itself as a lot of people came in for ammo. We didn't sell any guns though, no one wanted to wait the ten days until we could release them. Good call.<br /><br /> I think the lack of contact with home office freaked Tom out more than anything up to that point; even more than when Rocco had to fight that zombie in the parking lot that had a woman and her kids trapped in their car. I helped him drag the body around to the side of the store were there were already three other bodies stinking to high heaven, including our original gray man. Of course that is a smell I would come to know well, since everything smells like it now.<br /><br /> At the end of my shift I decided that maybe the doomsdayers had a point, and stocked up on some canned foods. Whatever happened we would have a couple of weeks worth of canned ravioli, soup, vegetables, and Beefy Cheese and chips. Alright, the last one was not really an end of the world provision, I just liked the stuff.<br /><br /> Mom came home that night, but she went right to bed. She said she was feeling tired, and who could blame her? I mean she had just worked something like a thirty hour shift. Of course that wasn't the real problem, but I wouldn't know that for a couple more days, and by then it would be way too late.<br /><br /> On the fourth day, Wednesday, a number of things happened. Tom totally freaked out because not only did we not get anything from home office in email, but he couldn't even get a hold of our district manager. No replies to email, no answers on the phone, nothing.<br /><br /> Then there were the zombies. Aiden and Rocco had both not shown up for their shifts as armed greeters, so Tyrone took up the bat at the door. There were maybe a half a dozen of us that showed up that day, so no one noticed when Tyrone went out into the parking lot after one of the undead, and three more got into the store.<br /><br /> Odette was the only cashier that day, but she had left her register to find Tom, and didn't see them come in. Bob was the first one to see one of them, and he alerted the rest of us.<br /><br /> The overhead music stopped and Bob called over the speakers, “There's one in the store, in electronics!” he called into the phone, followed by “Shit! Aaagh!” and then the sounds of scuffling.<br /><br /> I was working on restocking the canned vegetables aisle, trying to do an entire pallet by myself. I got up from where I was kneeling, taking my box cutter and a can of peas as the closest weapons to me, and ran for electronics.<br /><br /> I cut through the crafts section, and as I was rounding the corner to the kids crafts aisle (tempura paints, glitter, construction paper, sheets of felt, that sort of stuff) I had my second up close and personal encounter with the living dead. It was a middle aged woman with bright red hair and gray roots, and I ran smack into her as I rounded a corner, knocking her into the shelves.<br /><br /> “Sorry, ma'am,” I said, and then she grabbed for me, and I noticed her skin and eyes. I pushed her back away from me against the shelves, knocking over a few bottles of glitter glue, and sending a couple of small jars of glitter to the floor where they burst open, and scattered gold and silver glitter everywhere.<br /><br /> I threw the can of peas at the dead woman; it struck her in the face, and then thunked to the floor. Far from killing the woman, it seemed to kinda piss her off. “Stay back!” I yelled, holding my box cutter out in a threatening but totally useless manner. What the hell was I planning to do with it? It would take a long time to decapitate her with it.<br /><br /> The zombie woman started towards me, and suddenly a three foot long shaft appeared in the side of the woman's neck, sending her stumbling into the shelf again. As the woman tried to regain her balance a second one appeared in her right shoulder. I realized then that these were arrows.<br /><br /> Turning in the direction that the arrows had come from, a third arrow thunked solidly into the zombie's chest, knocking more crafty things to the floor.<br /><br /> Another arrow, this one in the throat near the first one, and the zombie was starting to resemble a pin cushion. There was a long pause after the fourth arrow, and the zombie actually got a couple of steps, almost past the edge of the gondola and out of my view when the fifth arrow appeared in the woman's forehead. She stumbled back hard into the shelf, and slid down it to the floor, pulling a bunch of bottles of glue and glitter down on top of her. <br /><br /> Some of the glitter bottles broke open, covering the dead woman with little metallic sparkly bits.<br /><br /> “Hey, it's Esme Cullen!” Odette said pointing to the sparkly corpse as she stepped around the endcap and into view. She was holding a dark green hunting bow in her left hand, and had faux leather quiver of arrows hanging from her right hip.<br /><br /> “Where did you get that?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.<br /><br /> “Sporting goods. I was near there when Bob called,”<br /><br /> “And rather than get a gun you grabbed a bow an arrow?” I asked, “Couldn't you find the Red Ryder BB rifles?”<br /><br /> “I don't have keys to the gun case, now do I?”<br /><br /> We heard a crash a short distance away, and headed in that direction together, Odette with her bow and arrows and me with my mighty, mighty, completely useless box cutter.<br /><br /> We found Bob standing over a dead man, blackish blood leaking from its head. He was clutching a badly dented frying pan in his hands, and there was blood dripping from a wound in his neck and shoulder.<br /><br /> “Are you okay?” I asked.<br /><br /> “I'm doing better than him,” Bob panted, pointing to the corpse on the floor, “Clean up on aisle 42, eh?”<br /><br /> The third zombie was killed over in automotive by Betsy Zimmer, who had brained the monster with one of the last tire irons in stock. She had managed to kill it without any injury, but she lost a part of herself in the fight. For the rest of the day she just stood around wide-eyed and silent, like something had broken inside of her..<br /><br /> That was it for Tom, he must have decided that it really was the end of the world, and he ordered the store closed. The gate was pulled across the front, that final register, with its three or four transactions, was counted down, and Tyranno-Mart closed forever. Kinda makes me a little misty-eyed thinking about it.<br /><br /> The fifth day, Thursday, I stayed at home with my sisters. Mom had not come home again on Wednesday night, but she called to let us know she was okay. She sounded bad; really tired, but I chalked that up to how much she was working.<br /><br /> In the afternoon I got a call from Bob from work. He said that a few of them, him, Tom, Hector, Xuxa, Tyrone, and a couple of others, were going to hole up in the T-Mart. It had food, it was secure, and they could protect the place from looters. We hadn't actually had any looting in Covenant yet, but I don't consider what I've done looting. If you do it merely to survive, it's not really looting, is it? <br /><br /> I thanked Bob for the offer, but turned him down. “I've got my mom and sister to look after,” I said.<br /><br /> “You can bring them too, we have plenty of food here for a few weeks, and I'm sure this will all be over by then,” Bob offered, “Tom's bringing his wife.”<br /><br /> “I got some supplies here, I'm sure we'll be fine,” I said, having no idea just how wrong I was. Although being inside the T-Mart wouldn't have made a difference in the end; might have made it worse really.<br /><br /> “Well give us a call if you change your mind, and we'll let you in.”<br /><br /> I thanked Bob again, and hung up.<br /><br /> Mom came home that night, and she looked horrible, all pale and stuff. She assured me that it was just exhaustion. I made dinner, and served mom in bed. She spilled her glass of juice; it was like she was having trouble seeing clearly. She barely ate anything that night.<br /><br /> In the morning mom told me to call the hospital and tell them that she couldn't come in; that she had a bad flu or something. I wasn't able to actually get anyone at the hospital to answer their phone, so I left voice messages at a few of the numbers I tried.<br /><br /> I didn't watch TV much that weekend. When I wasn't busy taking care of mom, I was taking care of the girls. They helped me with mom as much as they could, but they really were making more work for me. I didn't have the heart to tell them that though; they were scared enough as it is.<br /><br /> I sleep with my door closed, have since I was old enough to value my own personal privacy. It is this fact alone that probably saved my life. The girls always slept with their door open, and so did mom. I wonder if I had closed mom's door if it would have made a difference? I mean, I've seen that some of them can work door knobs.<br /><br /> It was Sunday morning, one week from when it all started, when my own personal world ended. I woke up to the sound of something crashing somewhere in the house. I leaped out of bed, and opened my bedroom door. My first thought was that someone had dropped something in the kitchen, but the lack of either mom cursing herself for dropping something or the girls arguing told me that wasn't the case.<br /><br /> My second thought was that one of the zombies had wandered into our neighborhood, and was trying to get into the house. My mind went to the shotgun in mom's closet. The gun was one of the few things my dad left us, and mom said I could take it with me when I moved out, but for the time being it stayed in her bedroom. I knew she had the shells for it in there somewhere too, and I went for her room to try and get her to tell me where they were.<br /><br /> Umm, things get pretty bad here, are you sure you want me to go on? <br /><br /> Okay, just gimme a second here...<br /><br /> So I went into mom's room to ask her about the gun, but the thing was she wasn't in her bed. The sheets and blankets were dragged halfway across the floor, and the lamp on her nightstand was on the floor, broken into a dozen blue ceramic pieces. There were other things on the floor too, the pictures of me and my sisters that usually sat on top of her dresser had also been knocked to the floor, the glass in a couple of the frames had broken and the pieces of glass glittered in what little light was peeking in around the curtains.<br /><br /> I completely forgot about getting the gun, and went to the girl's room next to check on them. What I saw there froze me in my tracks. The room was bathed in blue light from the sunshine coming through their thin curtains, and it made the blood look almost black. <br /><br /> The bedding from both of the girls' beds was tossed on the floor, and the nightstand between their beds was tipped forward onto the floor, the carousel lamp that sat on it looked like someone had stepped on it, and some of the crushed horses seemed to look up at me from the floor, pleading with me to put everything right again.<br /><br /> The sheets were more black than white, blood that could only have been from the girls was soaked into it in large splotches. Had someone broken in while I slept? Was it looters? What had they done with the girls? I should go get the gun, even if it's not loaded, maybe I can scare them off.<br /><br /> I started to go back towards mom's room when I heard the noise again; it was something crashing in the kitchen. I went as quietly as I could to see what it was. There was a person standing at the sink, on the floor next to her was the dish strainer with pieces of what had been the dishes I washed after Saturday night's dinner. Two of the chairs from the kitchen table were knocked over, and there was a big splash of white powder next to the stove from the flour canister that used to sit on the counter.<br /><br /> The person was my mother, I recognized her nightdress. She stopped moving as I approached, as if she sensed me there. <br /><br /> “Mom?” I asked quietly, “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> As I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, she turned to face me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I did piss myself then, you would too if it was your mom, and you're a goddamned fool or a liar if you say otherwise. What stared me in the eyes, mouth open in a silent howl, was a ghoulish impersonation of my mother. Her face and the front of her nightdress were stained with drying blood. It was a deadite right out of the movies. <br /><br /> What I might have known, not that I would have had the balls to do anything about it, mind you, if I had watched the news the night before was that the people who had been bitten in the first couple of days were dying from an infection apparently transmitted by the blood and saliva of the zombies. You didn't have to be killed outright to succumb to the Zed Virus, you could be infected and die slowly before rising up too.<br /><br /> I think I said something upon seeing my zombified mother and drenching my shorts, but I don't know what it was. It was probably just gibberish; certainly not anything snarky or courageous. Bruce Campbell would have had something clever to say there, but that was still Sam Haff facing his undead mom, not me as I am now, not Ash.<br /><br /> Mom came at me, trying to grab me, but I stepped back, and threw one of the two chairs that were still upright down in front of me as I did. Mom tripped over the chair, and went down into the pile of flour on the floor.<br /><br /> I rounded the table, looking for something to use as a weapon. I passed up the knife block, there was no way I was going to be able to use anything in that against her. <br /><br /> Mom turned to look at me, the flour on her her face making her look like some nightmare mime, as if mimes weren't scary enough to begin with. She started to get to her feet, and I grabbed the first suitable weapon I saw, a frying pan that had been in the dish strainer was sitting on the floor.<br /><br /> “Stay back!” I warned my mother, brandishing the pan like a club. She came at me and I swung. It sounded, to my ears anyway, like someone ringing a church bell when the pan struck her head. She staggered back into the kitchen table, making its legs scrape on the linoleum floor.<br /><br /> I swung the frying pan again as my mother came at me, her milky white eyes staring at me; through me. “CLANG”, the pan hit her, “CLANG, CLANG,” I hit her again and again. She fell to the floor, and I kept hitting her until she stopped moving.<br /><br /> I dropped the pan on the floor with a final clank as I stood over my dead mother. I was panting from the exertion, and I realized that I was crying. My tears were not the only moisture on me though; I looked down at the white t-shirt that I has slept in and saw that I was covered in sprays of her reddish-black blood.<br /><br /> I think one of the most interesting things about the zombies is their blood. They seem to bleed, you know? Like a normal living person, but their blood is more black than red. Is this caused by some sort of oxygen deprivation? Is it just a byproduct of the Zed Virus? Maybe someday I'll try and find someone smarter than me who might know the answer.<br /><br /> After standing in the kitchen for what seemed like hours I suddenly felt the need to be somewhere else. I had to get out of the house; I had to get outside. I knew the street would look normal, and I had to get somewhere normal, I couldn't cope with this.<br /><br /> I ran from the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the living where I stopped short. The girls were there, trying to open the front door. I guess they wanted to get outside too. I'm not sure why they didn't come for me in the kitchen, maybe they thought it was still just mom in there making noise, maybe they can't really hear that well (I don't think this is true, as later experiences have taught that they damn well can hear). All I know for sure is if all three of them had come at me, the old Sam Haff me, in the kitchen I would not be telling you this story right now.<br /><br /> Mel and Becky turned on me, and if I hadn't already pissed myself, I would have then. My mother looked almost normal compared to the nightmare the girls had become. Their pajamas, cute matching things, white with lots of little blue birdies on them, were soaked in blood; their own blood.<br /><br /> It looked like Mom had gone for Becky first, which makes sense since her bed was closest to the door. I like to think that Becky never woke up as Mom attacked her. Her throat had been torn out, and there was just a gaping bloody hole, her blood, was still slowly flowing from the wound and down the front of her pajamas.<br /><br /> Mel must have woken up while the thing that was our mom was killing her sister. The sleeves of her pajamas were torn and bloodied. She must have fought hard, but she was just too small to fight off an adult, even an undead one Her head was hanging at an odd angle, I think Mom may have broken her neck.<br /><br /> The one thing that haunted me then, still does I guess, is that I slept through it. Mel must have screamed; must have made noise and I didn't hear it. I failed them totally and completely. Of course that's only part of what killed Sam Haff, a big part, but there's more, and I'm still getting to it if you still want to hear.<br /><br /> You do? Okay.<br /><br /> My sisters, or at least the undead monsters that had been my sisters, ran at me and I froze. The thing about kid zombies, and it's kind of an odd thing, is how fast they are. I haven't run in to too many, but they all have been so much faster than adults, and I can't figure out why.<br /><br /> Mel and Becky hit me, and drove me off of my feet. I hit the carpet hard with the girls on top of me, and something in me clicked. I think maybe it was beginning of who I am now; the first bit of Sam Haff turning to Ash, or maybe that was when I brained my own mother with a frying pan.... Yeah, it was probably then really, so this would be the second part of the change.<br /><br /> I fought; the girls were light, and I was able throw them off easily. Becky recovered first, and was back at me. As I struggled to my feet I grabbed the first thing available; the lamp on the end table next to the couch. I swung it as Becky closed on me; there was a brief resistance as the power cord tore free from the brass-colored base of the lamp. I could feel the crunch as the lamp caved Becky's skull in through my whole body. I hit her so hard that the lamp, a cheap thing to begin with, snapped in half, leaving me only a couple of inches of metal in my hand.<br /><br /> Before Becky had even collapsed to the floor, Mel was on me again. I stabbed her with the broken base of the lamp, turned, and threw her over the back of the couch. She crashed to the floor hard, but I could hear her already trying to get back to her feet.<br /><br /> I moved to the fireplace, spying what was easily the best weapon in the room. I grabbed the fireplace poker from its rack, knocking the rest of the tools onto the bricks with a clatter, and rounded on my sister as she came for me. I swung low and hard, and caught her right in the side of the head.<br /><br /> Mel stumbled and fell, but was still moving so I hit her again.<br /><br /> And again...<br /><br /> And again...<br /><br /> And again....<br /><br /> I realized that I was yelling at the top of my lungs as I did this. By the time I stopped my sister, young Melanie Haff was completely unrecognizable as the little girl I put to bed the night before.<br /><br /> I was alone in my family home surrounded by the corpses of my family. I had failed to protect them, had failed to even allow them a dignified death, but the least I could do now was to give them the proper burial that so many people would never get.<br /><br /> I'm sorry, give me a second here. Even though that was another lifetime, I still find it hard to remember. I know, not macho at all, right?<br /><br /> I didn't even bother changing clothes, all I could smell was blood and death anyway, I carried my sisters out to the backyard, and laid them down on the small patio. People talk about the idea of dead weight, but even Mom was easy to carry out there.<br /><br /> The back lawn, which is probably too grand a term for our backyard as it would have been too small for a medium sized inflatable pool to fit in, was overgrown. Mom had been after me for weeks to mow it, but I kept using work as an excuse not to. Personally I had thought that one of the girls could do it; I was mowing the lawn when I was nine.<br /><br /> I got the mower and a shovel out of the garage, and mowed the lawn quickly, which took all of maybe five minutes, and started digging. The sun was high overhead when I finished digging the three graves. Filling them in however took a lot longer, not because it was harder physically, but because....<br /><br /> Anyway, I felt that I should pray, or at least say something. I've never been terribly religious though, nor much of a public speaker. In the end I just sat on the grass and cried for awhile.<br /><br /> I guess I must have dozed off or something because the sun was disappearing over the neighbor's house when I woke. Sleeping outside like that is incredibly stupid, but I was still Sam then, and didn't think like that. What woke me up was someone calling my name.<br /><br /> “Sam!” a woman's voice called; it was familiar, “Sam, please be here!”<br /><br /> The yelling was coming from the front of the house. I got up and went inside where I could clearly hear the person pounding on the front door. I made my way through the mess that used to be a living room, and opened the door to find Odette Walker there looking slightly panicked. When she saw me her look of panic changed to one of fear, and she took a step back.<br /><br /> “Sam?” she asked cautiously, as if she were afraid that I were one of the undead.<br /><br /> “Hi, Odette,” I said.<br /><br /> “Are... are you okay?”<br /><br /> I shook my head, “No. I am very very far from okay. I'd invite you in, but the house is a bit of a mess right now.”<br /><br /> “What happened?”<br /><br /> I gave Odette a brief rundown of what happened, the first of only two times I have told anyone about that morning. Well, I guess it's three times now. It's easier this time though, like it really happened to someone else. It's like Sam Haff was a character I played in a video game; like I was never really him.<br /><br /> “Oh God, Sam, I'm sorry,” Odette said, her eyes wet with tears. Even though Odette lived just a couple of blocks away we didn't hang out all that much, so she had only been over to the house a couple of times before. She had met my family, but didn't really know them.<br /><br /> “Did you come over for something?” I asked, trying not to sound like she was inconveniencing me. <br /><br /> “Well, my parents went to the hospital a couple of days ago, and never came back, and neither of them are answering their phones. I was hoping you could take me there to look for them, but it's okay. If I could borrow your car though,” she said, motioning towards my old forest green Toyota Tercel in the parking lot next to Mom's brown Aerostar.<br /><br /> “No, no, Odette, I'll take you,” I said, knowing already that it was a horrible idea, and would almost certainly get us killed, but what did I really have to live for? “Can you just let me get cleaned up first?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, sure,” Odette said, smiling shyly.<br /><br /> I'll be honest with you, I've always found Odette attractive; she has skin the color of one of those sugary coffee milkshake things that Apollo Coffee sells... sold, and long dark hair that normally framed her face, although it was tied back in a ponytail that day. She's slim, but not skinny; well proportioned with a body that is maybe a couple of Bacon Cheese Big Bro's this side of athletic.<br /><br /> Now Odette was no supermodel or anything, but she had that cute girl-next-door thing going on. The main reason I'd never asked her out is that I've always felt that workplace romance is kind of inappropriate; not the romance itself, but the face that people cannot keep it outside of work. When they are still in love you always catch those people sucking face In the stockroom when they think no one is looking, and when the relationship ends they can never keep their attitudes to themselves. I just didn't want to be one of those people.<br /><br /> I stood there in the doorway looking at Odette, and she stood on the doorstep looking back at me, “Ummm,” she said after a few moments, “Can I come in though? It's kind of creepy out here.”<br /><br /> I looked back at the living room, at the mess of things knocked over by my sisters, the drying blood from when I beat them back into unlivingness, and thought that it was kinda creepy inside too. Then again, if looking at me didn't send Odette running in terror, then I guess the crime scene that was my house wouldn't be considerably worse.<br /><br /> “Yeah,” I said hesitantly, “You can wait in my room if you want,” I said, “No one died in there.”<br /><br /> Yes, I really said that.<br /><br /> No, I'm not offended that you ask; I know if I read that in a book or heard it in a movie I would call bullshit on it, but I didn't know what else to say. What did you say the first time you killed a zombie? <br /><br /> So Odette sat on my bed while I went and took a shower. My room was not exactly clean, but there were no splatters of blood or anything in it. It seemed a bit odd to leave her in my room alone to see what a dork I really am, but the only other room that hadn't had a zombie in it was the bathroom, and I was using that.<br /><br /> When I came back into the room wearing a fresh t-shirt and a pair of jeans she was watching TV. On the screen they were showing the fighting going on in New York as the National Guard tried to stop the spread of the zombies and evacuate the city. This was after that briefly famous video of the Wolf News New York studio being overrun live on the air, so I knew it was probably old video being run out of the network's LA studio which wouldn't go off the air for a few more days still.<br /><br /> “It's really the end, isn't it?” Odette asked me.<br /><br /> I shrugged, “Probably.”<br /><br /> “Can we go look for my parents?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, but did you bring any weapons with you? Weapons seem like a really good idea right now.” I said.<br /><br /> “No, I left my Robin Hood set at the store,” Odette said, forcing a smile, and that made me laugh.<br /><br /> “Then let me go find something,” I said, and left Odette in my room again while I went to my Mom's room.<br /><br /> I turned on the lights, and went to Mom's closet. The shotgun itself was in the black hard-sided plastic case leaning up against the back wall exactly where it should be, and the key to the case was stuck to the back of the Thomas Kinkade print next to the window. The challenge was finding the shotgun shells.<br /><br /> Mom wasn't anti-gun or anything, but she didn't want to risk one of the girls hurting themselves, so she kept the gun and ammunition separate, and didn't even tell me where she kept the shells. I'm not sure what the point of that was because I could have just bought my own at work if I had wanted to.<br /><br /> I eventually found two boxes of shotgun shells hidden inside of a shoebox under the bed labeled “2002 tax receipts”. As you may guess there was no thought ever given to needing the gun in an emergency.<br /><br /> When I got back to my room with the shotgun and ammo I found Odette asleep on my bed as two people who looked like they haven't slept in a couple of days argued on TV over whether or not the loss of New York City would have an effect in the next election. Idiots.<br /><br /> The streets of Covenant were downright eerie as we drove towards the hospital to try and find the fate of Odette's parents. They were almost totally deserted I think we saw two other cars, and a half dozen of what were either people on foot, or zombies.<br /><br /> Now I knew that chances were good that Odette's parents met a similar fate to my own family, but I wasn't going to say that to her as we slowly moved through the streets. At this point trying to help her out was keeping me going as much as anything else. If she hadn't come along I would probably have still been in the backyard feeling sorry for myself.<br /><br /> The inside of a Toyota Tercel was clearly not designed with carrying a shotgun in mind. Odette had to roll down the window and have the barrel sticking out of it to hold it comfortably. The alternative was to have the barrel pointed across the front of me, and there were a number of reasons that I didn't want that.<br /><br /> We didn't make it to the hospital that day; we didn't even get within two blocks. We could see the hospital building towering above the shorter buildings around it from a distance, but the streets around it were crawling with the undead. <br /><br /> I have never figured out why there are so may of them there; even today the only place that seems to have more of them around it is what's left of Mallville. Is it because so many of them rose there, or are they drawn there by something? <br /><br /> Three blocks from the hospital I stopped the car; there were at least a dozen zombies on the road ahead of us. Now maybe if this had been in a movie I would have just plowed through the things, but it wasn't; I knew this because if it were a movie I would have been driving something nicer than a beat up old forest green Toyota Tercel. A van, a Hummer maybe, but not my piece of crap car.<br /><br /> We ended up abandoning our quest, and I took Odette back home. She asked me to stay with her, and I agreed. I was not ready to face my house, nor did I really want to be alone. Nothing happened though, I slept on the couch, the shotgun on the floor next to me just in case. <br /><br /> Odette and I spent the next two weeks together living out of her house as the rest of the world died. I know you're expecting me to say that we did all the things that young people in end-of-the-world movies do like break into stores and try on lots of clothes, and steal fast cars and drive around the city at ludicrously dangerous speeds, and then abandoning them, doors left open of course, when they get damaged or run out of gas. We didn't.<br /><br /> What we did do is start stockpiling supplies. We went back to T-Mart to try and see if they would let us have some food and ammo, but no one answered our banging on the doors, and the power and phones had gone out by then, so we couldn't even call them. That didn't stop us from trying other places though.<br /><br /> I guess it was when we broke into that hardware store that I really started to become the me I am now. I saw those chainsaws there, and just could not resist taking a couple to use.<br /><br /> “Umm, Sam,” Odette had objected when she saw me with two chainsaws in my cart, “Don't those things have safety devices to keep them from being used on people?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, but I'm a smart guy, I'm sure I can figure out how to fix that,” I told her confidently.<br /><br /> I did too. Of course I realized shortly there after that a gas powered chainsaw had some dramatic drawbacks. Aside from the obvious use of gas that we really couldn't spare there was the fact that leaving it idling all the time made quite a bit of noise. The noise not only bothered Odette and covered up any noise that creeping zombies might be making, but it also seemed to attract them.<br /><br /> We found this out the hard way while searching the neighborhood for any survivors. We had gone around the back of one house to look in through the windows, and when we came back around the front there were three of the zombies there waiting for us. Odette took out two of them with the shotgun, and I killed the third with my safety-free chainsaw. We figured that they must have heard the saw idling, and came after the source of the sound.<br /><br /> The saw did work really well though, it tore through zombie flesh like it were a thin tree limb, and I found that if I hold the saw in front of me in a defensive posture it made it impossible for the zombie to get close enough to bite anything but my arm; I just had to make sure my arm didn't get anywhere near its mouth.<br /><br /> As far as survivors go, we only found one. A guy a couple of blocks away who threatened to shoot us if we didn't get away from his house. He seemed pretty dangerous, so we left. It's kind of a shame since I imagine he was well armed. He had this big camouflaged truck with an NRA for Life bumper sticker on it. I've never bothered going back there though.<br /><br /> After a couple of days of lugging around the gas powered saws we hit the hardware store and picked up a couple of cordless electric chainsaws. According the the signage in the store these were new models with “the longest bar of any cordless chainsaw on the market”. Not only were they silent unless I was actually running the chain, but they weighed a bit less than the gas powered ones as well.<br /><br /> I also picked up a bunch of spare batteries, chargers, and this weird scissor looking chainsaw called The Alligator. I think was planning on catching the zombies arms in the thing or something, but I've never found a real use for it.<br /><br /> Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, “but if the power was out already, how did you plan are charging the batteries?” That's simple, the sun. We also picked up some of those solar charging mats that they used to use for charging RV batteries and stuff like that. They work beautifully for charging spare batteries for my saw.<br /><br /> Everything went great until I failed Odette utterly and completely, and I lost the new world I had created for myself. <br /><br /> We had strayed too close to the police station and found a roadblock set up with cars parked across the road. There were at least two dozen dead bodies there, zombies we thought, but I don't know really. If I had known what would happen I would have turned around and got the hell out of there.<br /><br /> I parked the car by the roadblock, and got out. “Hello?” I yelled into the empty street on the other side. I figured someone had to block the road, and maybe that someone was still over there.<br /><br /> “Get back into your car, and leave immediately!” an amplified voice replied.<br /><br /> I looked around, but didn't see the source of the voice.<br /><br /> “Who are you?” I called out, “Are you from Mallville?” I asked, figuring that if it was those bikers they would have just shot me. <br /><br /> “Return to your vehicle and leave immediately or we will open fire!” the voice commanded.<br /><br /> “Are you nuts?” I asked.<br /><br /> The was a cracking noise, like a branch breaking, and Odette screamed. I turned to see a small hole in the windshield of my car. They had shot my car. While I watched there was a second cracking noise, and another hole appeared next to the first.<br /><br /> “Sam!” Odette screamed.<br /><br /> A third crack, and I felt bits of the road spray up and hit my legs. They had shot right in front of me; I was lucky that the bullet didn't ricochet into me.<br /><br /> I jumped in the car as fast as a I could, started the engine, and slammed the car into reverse. Two more bullets struck the windshield while I tried to turn the car around. They were shooting at us; I don't know if they were trying to actually hit either of us since the bullets kept hitting the center of the windshield, and maybe what happened was an accident when I was turning around, I do know, but....<br /><br /> I sped away, and even though I could'nt hear the rifle shots anymore, I could hear bullets pinging against the back of the car; the rear window shattered. I looked over, and saw Odette's head lolling forward, blood leaking from her mouth. They had shot her. She was my chance at redemption, and I had failed her just like I failed my sisters.<br /><br /> My world spun, not from anxiety or anything like that, it literally spun. I'm not sure what happened; maybe they hit a tire, maybe it was my shitty driving, but the car flipped. I saw the world outside rotate, and felt the butt of the shotgun hit me in the jaw as it slipped from Odette's hands and flew around the interior of the car. <br /><br /> Mercifully darkness took me.<br /><br /> Something pulling at me woke me up. Everything was blurry at first, but I could tell it was dark. There were actually two things pulling at me, one was tight across my chest, my seatbelt, the other was a cold hand reaching through the gap between the deformed window frame and the road. The car had ended up upside down, and it was a miracle that I hadn't broken my neck of cracked my skull open when the roof collapsed in on me.<br /><br /> I looked to my right, and saw Odette hanging there a pool of drying blood was on the ceiling under her with the shotgun laying in it. She didn't rise, I think one of the shots struck her in the head; she was dead before the crash. I had to get out of there, and not just because something was pawing at me from the outside.<br /><br /> What exactly happened at that point is all a bit fuzzy. I remember being in pain. I remember dropping to the ceiling of the car, although I'm not sure if I unbuckled the seatbelt or if I had to cut it with something. I remember sliding under Odette; through her blood, and out the window on her side where the car hadn't collapsed as badly.<br /><br /> I am pretty sure I shot the zombie that was trying to get at me through my window with both barrels. When I went back later there was a nearly headless body next to the car. I did give Odette a decent burial in my old backyard next to my family; next to the other people that I failed.<br /><br /> I lost most of a couple of weeks after that. It was kind of a blurry fuzzy montage sequence of me building stuff, killing zeds, gathering supplies, that sort of thing. Hopefully there was a catchy tune that went along with it, but I don't remember what it was.<br /><br /> The next clear memory I have is of me as I am now. Sam Haff was gone and now there's only Ash. I had built a bracer out of aluminum that attached to the end of one of the electric chainsaws and it not only covered my hand and forearm, but it distributed the weight so that I could swing it easier with only one hand. I suppose that I'm lucky that I didn't actually lop off my hand and try to attach the saw to the stump during that lost time.<br /><br /> I was also not wearing my standard t-shirts and jeans anymore, but a blue denim shirt and brown work pants along with thick boots. Some might argue that this look is not fashionable, but it is badass. <br /><br /> So, from my mind anyway, I went from this kinda dreamy existence of those lost weels to being surrounded by five zombies in a grocery store with my chainsaw in one hand and my good ol' double barrel in the other. I don't know how I got there, or how I got in that particular situation, but I do know one thing, something I mist have learned during that missing time.<br /><br /> I knew that the were two keys to survival. One, don't be afraid to die. Two, take the fight to them.<br /><br /> I squeezed the trigger of the chainsaw, and struck out at the three zombies on my right while giving one of the ghouls on my left a face full of buckshot. My saw tore into the zombies, and I saw a hand and a few fingers fly off as I cut through them.<br /><br /> I fired the other barrel into the remaining zombie on my left, making its head resemble a rotten soft-boiled egg that someone had dropped on the floor, and leaned into the attackers on my right, tearing deep into their flesh until they fell to the ground. Once all the zombies were down I reloaded the shotgun, not easy to do left handed, let me tell you, and shot the one zombie that was still twitching.<br /><br /> That's it, that's my story. I found myself a nice little apartment above a used book store and filled it with supplies and spent my days and nights hoarding supplies and kicking deadite ass. I didn't need anyone, and no one needed me.<br /><br /> Sure I had to hide from the cops and the bikers, and there was that time I helped those people from Mallville, but for the most part I've been on my own because I knew none of those groups would survive; they would all fail eventually, and I was right.<br /><br /> Someone attacked the cops, I'm not sure if it was Mallville of the Postmen, although I'm pretty sure it was Mallville, but they slaughtered every last one of them as best I can tell. Then the Mallville people attacked and killed the Postmen. That left Mallville as the only large group of survivors in the city.<br /><br /> You know, when I first ran into that group from Mallville; they invited me to join them, they knew that they needed a badass like me, but I said no. I knew that they couldn't last, and now Mallville is overrun with the dead and unlivable. Even I am not crazy enough to try and get in there for supplies, and believe me, I've been tempted<br /><br /> I ran into a couple of groups from Mallville shortly after the explosion there. The funny thing is that the first group was mostly the same people I had seen before, and the second group was looking for the first. Both invited me to go with them, but I still wasn't ready to be around people yet, and they were pretty much the last living people I've seen.<br /><br /> Well that's not totally true. Last month I saw a skinny guy in a brown coat running down the street outside with a red haired woman. I went after them, but they disappeared around a corner and I lost them. Then of course there's you.<br /><br /> That was quite a stunt you pulled, trying to slide across that power line with your bat like that. Too bad it sagged in the middle, huh? How did you even get trapped on that roof like that? Still, I got to you before they did, and with a little bang-bang and a little buzz-buzz I got you out of there. Too bad you weren't awake to see me, 'cause baby, I was amazing!<br /><br /> Don't try to get up. As far as I can tell you didn't break anything, but you should probably rest. You should stay here for awhile, maybe. I'm used to being on my own and all, but maybe it would be nice to have someone to talk to sometimes. I had this volleyball for awhile, but I had to get rid of him when he started talking back, you know?<br /><br /> Besides, every king needs a queen, right? Hail to the king, baby!<br /><br /> Ow! That hurt!Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-68549171205756570572010-04-20T04:34:00.000-07:002010-04-20T04:37:02.614-07:00Fifty-Fourth Entry: The Coming StormAugust 19th<br /><br /> I had a dream last night. In the dream, none of this was happening; no Lovelock, no Mallville, no zombies. In the dream I worked in an office, and had my own little cubicle. Sharon was in the cubicle to my right, Beth to my left, and Gerry was on the other side of the wall, his chair facing me if I could see him.<br /><br /> My desk was littered with little plastic figurines. I remember seeing a tachikoma, a bob-omb, a Smurf with a wooden nose and feet (I think he was called Clockwork Smurf), and a Harry Potter LEGO minifigure. I don;t know what it was that I was meant to do at that desk, I didn't do any actual work in the dream.<br /><br /> There were other people there too. Tara was our supervisor, and Alex was her boss, and while I never actually saw her, I could hear Maria somewhere in the office cursing at the copy machine. I also saw Pippa pushing a mail cart, maybe she was some sort of intern or something; her hair was short and and a dark shade of red. She smiled at me when she handed my a small stack business sized envelopes as she pushed her cart past the opening of my cube.<br /><br /> “Psst!” a voice said to my right; I looked over and saw Sharon's head poking over the top of the cubicle wall.<br /><br /> “What?” I asked.<br /><br /> “You ready for the con this weekend?<br /> <br /> “Yeah. Did you get your costume finished?”<br /><br /> “Yup! If you want to come over tonight, I'll show it to you. I think it looks pretty good, but my contacts haven't arrived yet.”<br /><br /> “I'm sure you'll be the best Suiseiseki there anyway,” I replied.<br /><br /> “Nerds!” Gerry's voice drifted over the wall, but there was no malice in it.<br /><br /> “Geeks, actually.” I corrected him <br /><br /> “You're just jealous. You wish you were cool enough to spend the weekend looking at scantily clad cosplay girls,” Sharon added.<br /><br /> “Are you going to be scantily clad?” Gerry asked.<br /><br /> “No,” I laughed, “Suiseiseki practically wears a burkha.”<br /><br /> “Pfft, forget it then. I have the Internet; I can look at all of the scantily clad women I want from the comfort of my home,” Gerry sniffed.<br /><br /> “Hey kids, some of us are actually trying to work here,” Beth reminded us over her wall, “If you guys have so much free time, I'm sure Tara can find more work for you to do.”<br /><br /> “Yes mom,“ Gerry said.<br /><br /> “Can we get everyone to move to the conference room please?” I heard Tara's voice nearby, “Alex has some announcements he wants to make.”<br /><br /> “Oh, the wardens call,” Gerry crowed just loud enough for those immediately around him to hear.<br /><br /> There was a hand on my shoulder, I turned and saw Tara looking like she did when I first met her; her hair was dark brown again and she was smiling warmly, “Come on,” she said, “We don't have a lot of time, and you don't want to miss this.”<br /><br /> As I rose from my desk, I woke up in my dark room on my makeshift bed on the floor. It took me a few confused seconds to realize that it had all been a dream. I cried for awhile; something I've been doing far too much lately. Everything there was so normal, and everyone was alive and safe, and it felt good. I wonder if there is some other reality somewhere where I am living that life. I wonder if that me realizes how lucky he is.<br /><br /> Things are bad all around right now; my life is falling apart again, and this journal is the cause of a lot of it. I knew I should have kept it with me and not gone back to hiding it in my room, but I didn't feel I had much to write about, and I wanted to conserve these final pages for what is coming; it seems like it is a good place to end this book, and start a new one; maybe things will be better in that one.<br /><br /> Pippa played a part in all of this, of course. I guess she feels that I have not been spending enough time with her (and to be fair, she has been left on her own a lot lately with Gerry being on runs a lot, me being with Tara, and Beth hanging out with Barbara, more on that shortly), so she decided to get back at me. She let Tara read the journal.<br /><br /> Now one might not think this is too bad a thing. I've never really said anything bad about her in here, and have indeed confessed my love for her repeatedly, and maybe if she had read the whole thing she might have seen that. She didn't read the whole thing though.<br /><br /> I came home two nights ago after my shift at the gate, afternoon this time, and it was miserable because it has been raining all week. It looks like winter may come early, but not early enough to really do us any good. I'll get to that more in a minute though.<br /><br /> I come into my room, and there's Tara sitting on my makeshift bed (she had spent the night) with the journal in her lap. She looked up at me when I came in, and I could tell from her icy blue eyes that I was in trouble.<br /><br /> “You son of a bitch!” Tara snarled.<br /><br /> I froze like a deer in headlights, “What?” I asked.<br /><br /> “How dare you play with my emotions!”<br /><br /> “Should I come in again, and we can start by explaining what I've done wrong?'<br /><br /> Tara held up the journal, “Pippa showed me where you hid it!'<br /><br /> Damn it, Pippa!<br /><br /> “Okay,” I said, still confused, “I was going to let you read it eventually anyway, but-”<br /><br /> “You lied to me!” Tara yelled. I could see now that the icy blue was ringed by red, like she had been crying.<br /><br /> “About what?”<br /><br /> “About Sharon!”<br /><br /> “I told you that we were together.”<br /><br /> “You didn't tell me that you got married!”<br /><br /> “It's not like it was a legal marriage or anyth-”<br /><br /> “You got married in a church by a preacher! Who gives a shit about a piece of paper from a government that doesn't even exist anymore?”<br /><br /> “You told me you had someone else too.”<br /><br /> “I didn't marry him! I wanted you! I kept hoping that somehow we would find you, and that you would be waiting for me. I finally find you, and you're not even the same person, but that's okay, because we all change, right?” Tara rambled, “But you didn't tell me that you got married! You kept me going along thinking that things were going to be good between us again. You treated me like an idiot!”<br /><br /> Part of me wanted to throw Oliver in her face. I still haven't explained fully to her why he was over here that day, and I somehow doubt he has either. Part of me wanted to tell her she was being an idiot. What I really told her was, “I didn't think it mattered. I mean she's... she's dead, Tara.”<br /><br /> Tara crossed the room and get right in my face, or as close as she could manage “If it didn't matter, then why did you keep it a secret from me?”<br /><br /> I suppose that's a fair question really, especially since Beth told me to tell her. I think I didn't tell her because I was afraid she would react like this, which I think actually validates my decision in a way.<br /><br /> “I wasn't keeping it a secret, I just didn't think it was relevant.”<br /><br /> Tara is a physically stronger person that she used to be; she may look frail but she hits hard. She slapped me across the face hard enough to make me stagger back into the hallway, “No, why would it be?”<br /><br /> “Tara, I-,” she slapped me again, “Stop doing that!”<br /><br /> “Don't talk to me!” Tara yelled, “Just leave me alone! I'm not your fucking consolation prize.”<br /><br /> This was all a bit odd coming from someone who is living with her on-the-road boyfriend, but also someone who only was seeing be because Alex Sigler was having it off with the woman I was in love with. I mean, wasn't our falling for each other just an accident to begin with? Was I really wrong for being with Sharon afterwards?<br /><br /> “I never thought of you like that,” I said.<br /><br /> “You never asked me to marry you either!”<br /><br /> “There were reasons I asked her, didn't you read it?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, I read how she tried to kill you! If I come after you with a sword, would you ask me then? Maybe I should lose my mind, would that do it? Should I just try and make you feel sorry for me?”<br /><br /> Her words were hurting a lot more than her hands, and I started replying in quieter tones, “If you had been there, if you hadn't chosen Alex over me, it would never have happened.”<br /><br /> Tara's eyes went wide, “So it's my fault? Fuck you!” With that she slammed the journal into my chest, and let it fall to the floor. She pushed past me, “Let me know when you grow up and stop being such a user!”<br /><br /> Tara stormed out of the house, punctuating her departure by slamming the door; an exclamation point at the end of her statement. I haven't seen her since. I tried to go to her house yesterday, but Toni answered the door and told me that Tara didn't want to see me.<br /><br /> “Do you hate me too?” I asked.<br /><br /> “No, I know that things can't be the way she is making them out to be, but you need to understand that she never stopped thinking about you, even when she was... you know, even then she still was thinking about you. Just give her some time, hon, she'll come around. You're not the only one that was writing out there on the road, you know?”<br /><br /> “Tell her I'm sorry, and I love her, okay?”<br /><br /> “You got it,” Toni looked sad, “I'm serious, she loves you so much, I think just seeing that stuff in writing was too much for her. She'll come around.”<br /><br /> “Just how much did she tell you?”<br /><br /> “Enough to make you sound like a bad guy, but she's just hurt, you know? I know you're not a bad guy.”<br /><br /> “Thanks, Toni.”<br /><br /> “You take care, and I'll send Bishop down if there's any developments, okay?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, thanks,” I did my best to smile, but I doubt it was very convincing.<br /><br /> Beth did her best to comfort me while keeping the I-told-you-so's to a minimum.<br /><br /> “ I told you to tell her,” Beth said.<br /><br /> “I know you did..”<br /><br /> “This is exactly the sort of disruption to this house that I wanted to avoid. Now you're upset, Pippa's upset,”<br /><br /> “What is Pippa upset about?” I asked, “This is her fault.”<br /><br /> “That's why she's upset. I don't think she meant to cause trouble this time. I think she genuinely thought that Tara would appreciate all of the things you said about her in it,“ Beth said, “apparently, anyway, not that I've read it.”<br /><br /> “Well she focused on the stuff about Sharon.”<br /><br /> “Women are strange, you should realize that by now. Toni's right though, if she really does love you, then she'll get over it. You should talk to Pippa though.”<br /><br /> “I really don't want to do that right now,” I said.<br /><br /> “I know, and you shouldn't until you are sure you're not going to yell at her, but you do need to talk... again.”<br /><br /> “How do I keep getting myself in these situations?”<br /><br /> “You're a man.”<br /><br /> “Thanks.”<br /><br /> “Listen, I need to get ready, are you going to be okay here tonight?”<br /><br /> “Do you have a date?”<br /><br /> “I'm just going to Bacchus with Barbara,” Beth answered.<br /><br /> “Oh? So what's going on there, anyway?”<br /><br /> “We're friends,” Beth replied, maybe a little too quickly.<br /><br /> “Okay, but you know you can talk to me as much as I talk to you.”<br /><br /> Beth bit her lip, “Okay, yeah, I like her.”<br /><br /> “Oh, okay.”<br /><br /> “Oh, okay?” Beth asked, “That's all you have to say?”<br /><br /> “What did you expect me to say?” I asked, “Can I watch, or something?”<br /><br /> “Well, kind of, yeah.”<br /><br /> “I think you are both attractive women, but I've got enough trouble with the woman I am already involved with, I don't need to go pissing you off. Plus I've seen how Barbara hits, and don't really want to be on the receiving end of it”<br /><br /> Beth looked at me strangely, “Did you already know?”<br /><br /> “I had wondered, yeah.”<br /><br /> “And it doesn't bother you?”<br /><br /> Now it was my turn to look at her strangely, “Do you really think that little of me?”<br /><br /> “No, it's just that guys usually act strange around me when they know, I don't know why.”<br /><br /> “They're just afraid that you'll steal their girlfriends,” I said, and winked.<br /><br /> “Well, Tara is kind of cute... the silver hair gives her a unique look.”<br /><br /> “I'll let her know you're interested.”<br /><br /> “I'll kick your ass if you do.” Beth said, and we both laughed.<br /><br /> I think that may only be the second time she's opened up to me, usually it's all of us opening up to her. It must get tiring for her to not have anyone to talk to.<br /><br /> Beth gave me a kiss on the cheek, “You really are a sweet guy. Tara's going to realize how lucky she is to have you. Just give her some time.”<br /><br /> “If we have time,” I said.<br /><br /> “Yeah, that. Are you coming out with us tomorrow?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron sent me an email and said that I could. I guess it'll be better to see what we're up against than leave it up to my imagination.”<br /><br /> “You should ride with me and Justin then,” Beth said, “We can play I Spy.”<br /><br /> “You don't seem very worried,” I commented.<br /><br /> “We've survived this long, I don't care how many zeds there are, they have to fit into four lanes to get to us, we'll wipe them out in a bottleneck like that,” Beth said with such confidence that I believe her.<br /><br /> I mean look at all the crap we've been through, and we've survived, and now we are part of an organized force who won't make the mistakes of the early days of the end. We will not show mercy, we will not treat them as human, and we will win. I am getting out of order again though.<br /><br /> A little while later, Beth came by my room before going out. I have to admit, she looked good.<br /><br /> “Pigtails?” I asked, looking at the two fountains of black hair spraying of the sides of her head.<br /><br /> “She likes them, maybe it's a teacher thing.”<br /><br /> “That's a little creepy,” I said, getting up off of my makeshift bed, and coming over to the door.<br /><br /> Beth shrugged, “Are you sure you're going to be okay tonight?”<br /><br /> “I'll be fine, just go already.” I said, gently pushing her down the hallway.<br /><br /> “Talk to Pippa, okay?”<br /><br /> “I make no promises.”<br /><br /> Beth stopped our progress down the hall, and turned to face me, “Really, you two need to talk... again,” she thought for a moment, “You know, really, the two of you are like some sort of really dark sitcom siblings.”<br /><br /> “I am glad to be here to amuse you.”<br /><br /> Beth chuckled, and gave me a hug, “Tara really will come around, you know?”<br /><br /> “If she doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be.”<br /><br /> “Wow, that's awfully mature. Do you really believe that?'<br /><br /> 'I like to think that I do.”<br /><br /> Beth gave me a kiss on the cheek, “I'd better go, thanks for not freaking out.”<br /><br /> “I am a little insulted that you think I would,” I said, but smiling.<br /><br /> “Don't wait up, okay? I'm taking the car.”<br /><br /> With Beth gone, it was kind of like being home alone. Pippa stayed in her room, and I stayed in mine. I heard her in the kitchen at one point heating up a can of something to eat, but I kept my door closed.<br /><br /> I wanted to be the bigger person, really I did, but every time I thought about talking to her I got this incredible urge to either scream or cry. So once again it was Pippa that initiated things. I hope to God that this is the last one of these little talks we ever have to have.<br /><br /> It was close to midnight, and I was lying in bed reading when she knocked softly at the door.<br /><br /> “Can I come in?” Pippa asked softly.<br /><br /> I put the book aside, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. After exhaling, I answered calmly, “Yeah, come in.”<br /><br /> Pippa opened the door slowly, and stuck her head in, “Do you hate me now?”<br /><br /> Hate is a bit strong....<br /><br /> “No, Pippa, I don't hate you, I'm just upset.”<br /><br /> “I'm sorry,” she said.<br /><br /> “I know you are,” I took a breath, and then tried to ask my next question as nicely as possible, “Can you just tell me why you did it? What was going through your mind when you gave her the journal?”<br /><br /> “I thought that maybe is she saw how much you missed her she would choose you over Oliver. I don't like him; he's a douche.”<br /><br /> “But Pippa, honey, my journal is private,” again, I was trying to keep my tone as pleasant as possible, “That's why I have asked you not to read it. I would have shown it to her when I felt it was the right time.”<br /><br /> “I know. I promise not to look in it again without your permission,” Pippa was studying the pink socks on her feet instead of looking at me, “Would it help if I went and talked to her?”<br /><br /> “No, you're not the one she's mad at, and she doesn't want to talk to me.”<br /><br /> “Beth says that she thinks Tara'll get over it.”<br /><br /> “Toni thinks that too, but only time will tell.”<br /><br /> “Do we have time?” Pippa asked, finally looking me in the face, ”I mean with the zeds coming?”<br /><br /> “Beth seems to think so. I haven't seen them yet, so I couldn't really tell you.”<br /><br /> “You're still mad at me, huh?” I guess I must not have been doing such a great job of hiding my mood.<br /><br /> “Yeah, I am, but I'm also tired and upset,” I answered honestly.<br /><br /> “I really was trying to help, like you and Beth did with Richard.”<br /><br /> “I know, and I appreciate what you thought you were doing, just please ask me before you do something like that again, okay?”<br /><br /> “Okay,” Pippa said.<br /><br /> “I'm going to be totally honest with you; I am very very upset right now, partly with you, partly for other reasons, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about you. Short of killing me yourself, there is not much you could do to change that.”<br /><br /> “So you'll still be my big brother?”<br /><br /> I think that was the first time she has ever referred to me like that, to my face anyway, and it made me feel bad inside for being so mad at her.<br /><br /> “Of course.”<br /><br /> Pippa came into my room, and knelt down on the bedding. She crawled over to me, and gave me a hug. I hugged her back.<br /><br /> “I love you, Pippa,” I said softly.<br /><br /> “Perv!” she whispered back.<br /><br /> “Not like that, you brat!” I said, playfully pushing her away, and then throwing a pillow at her for good measure.<br /><br /> Pippa scrambled to her feet, and ran out the door as I threw another pillow that harmlessly bounced off the door frame.<br /><br /> “Goodnight, big brother!” she yelled as she ran to her room. I heard the door shut behind her.<br /><br /> I went to sleep shortly after that, and had that dream. It was so vivid; maybe this is all a dream, and that's my real life. What I would give to live in that world; where Sharon, and Alex, and Maria are all still alive, and there are no flesh eating monsters roaming the Earth.<br /><br /> I fell back to sleep at some point after the dream, because the next thing I heard was Beth knocking on my door, “Come on, get up if you're coming with us!” she yelled.<br /><br /> I had slept a lot later than I normally do, it was already ten. I had to rush to get ready before Beth left. Gerry had gotten home sometime this morning, and was coming with us as well. Pippa wanted to come, but we all told her that she couldn't. I sometimes wonder how she likes essentially have three parents now.<br /><br /> Beth drove me and Gerry to the hospital where we would all leave from.<br /><br /> “So I hear that Tara read your diary?” Gerry asked during the ride.<br /><br /> “Yup, and now she won't talk to me,” I answered<br /><br /> “See, that's why I keep it all inside; up here,” Gerry tapped the right side of his forehead for emphasis.<br /><br /> “You can't keep it inside forever though, Gerry,” Beth said, “You'll lose your mind at some point.”<br /><br /> “I don't think that would be a great loss,” Gerry said, “Sorry to hear about you and Tara though, I hope you two make up.”<br /><br /> “I don't want to lose her again,” I said.<br /><br /> “You won't,” Beth insisted, “Just give her space and time and stop worrying about it.”<br /><br /> I looked at Gerry, and he shrugged in reply, “If anyone in this car knows about women, it's Beth,” he said.<br /><br /> “What's that supposed to me?” Beth asked indignantly.<br /><br /> “That you're a woman,” Gerry replied, grinning. Did she tell him before me?<br /><br /> Beth found a parking spot where she could plug in the Xebra so we could get home later. We joined Justin Lassit in a waiting Genetitech Security car; well, Beth and I did, Gerry went to ride with some other people from Acquisitions. Barbara filled the empty spot in the backseat with me. I would have offered to switch with Beth, but I don't know who she has and hasn't told about her lifestyle, and it probably would be against the rules for her to sit in the back anyway.<br /><br /> Our convoy to Harlan was pretty long. I think something like a hundred of us actually went. Even though Doctor Byron had not acknowledged the problem officially yet, a lot of people already knew what we could be facing and wanted to see it for themselves.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry about your girlfriend,” Barbara commented to me as we rode.<br /><br /> “Yeah, that's rough,” Justin said from the driver's seat, “I had a girlfriend once who found my blog, so I know what you're going through.”<br /><br /> “Just how many people did you tell?” I asked Beth.<br /><br /> “Umm... a few.”<br /><br /> It was early afternoon when we finally arrived in Harlan. I didn't realize there were places in America that are as isolated as Lovelock is. Well, in Alaska maybe, but not in the lower forty-eight. Our caravan slowed to a stop outside of town though.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron's voice crackled over the car's radio, “Could everyone please move towards the front? Thank you.”<br /><br /> “I guess this is where we get out,” said Justin, turning off the car's power.<br /><br /> We joined the group of people walking up the road to the top of the hill where a White SUV (electric, I'm sure) was parked. I could tell where Doctor Byron was standing amongst the crowd of security officers, scientists, and civilians like myself because she was holding a blue parasol up even though he sky was cloudy.<br /><br /> I worked my way to the front of the crowd, leaving Beth, Justin, and Barbara behind amongst the other familiar and unfamiliar faces. What I saw when I reached the top of the hill froze my blood. From there we could look down over a good portion of Harlan. I could make out the fenced off area where we had done the weapons tests not too long ago; it was easy to spot, as it was the only space in the town where I could see the ground. It seemed like every other square inch of the town was covered in the walking dead..<br /><br /> If you've ever seen army ants in action, then you have some idea of what this looked like; every visible open space was filled with writhing shambling undead. It was last Halloween multiplied by about 5000.<br /><br /> “So you see it!” Doctor Byron spoke loudly from close by; I hadn't realized I had gotten so close to her, although the parasol should have been a hint. Even without any sort of amplification her voice carried surprisingly well, “They are coming closer to Lovelock every day, and we will need to stop them or lose all that we have worked for.”<br /><br /> “This is why we have spent so much time building weapons. I knew that we would need them eventually, and that time has come,” Doctor Byron announced, “Tomorrow I will be making an announcement on TV about this, and everyone in Lovelock will be able to see what we are up against, and what I plan to do about it.”<br /><br /> It was then that I realized that I was standing in front of a KVMS news van. I looked off to the side of the road at the front of the crowd and saw a man with a large camera perched on his shoulder. He was filming the mob below us.<br /><br /> “I will let all of you know now what I am going to tell everyone else then; We will win, Lovelock will not fall to the animated corpses, humanity will not fail. We begin the fight for Lovelock now!”<br /><br /> A horn honked loud, and everyone turned at once to see one of the larger trucks trying to pull out of the column of cars into the oncoming lane. It crept forward slowly as men and women cleared a path for it. As it drew nearer I could see Doctors Carraway and Hutchins in the cab of it. Two security cars followed; I recognized Beth's friend Kyle in the passenger seat of the second one.<br /><br /> “Have at them, doctors!” Doctor Byron called, and everyone cheered.<br /><br /> Once clear of people the truck accelerated down the hill towards Harlan, and I could tell that the cameraman from the TV station was taping it the whole way. When they were about two hundred yards away from the slowly advancing front edge of the horde, the truck stropped. The two security cars stopped farther back, and made u-turns so that they were facing us at the top of the hill so they could get away faster.<br /><br /> The four security officers exited the cars, each one carrying what looked like FN 2000 rifles (they might have been something else, I was kinda far away). They spread out in front of the truck that the scientists were in, and watched the tide of undead slowly surging towards them.<br /><br /> Doctor Carraway hopped down from the driver's side of the truck, and doctor Hutchins from the passenger side. Before either of them got to the back of the truck the door started to slide up, and doctor Vang jumped out. Vang and Carraway climbed up the ramp and disappeared into the back of the truck.<br /><br /> When they started to roll down the ramp, a few people cheered, the rest did not know what they were seeing yet. Rolling down the truck's ramp, one after the other, were two of the Battlebot looking Da Vinci Scythe Chariots. They still had their two levels of curved blades on the top like pair of helicopter rotors, but now also had large curved scythe blades protruding from the sides of its body right above the tank treads, and a stubby, spiked, almost drill head looking thing sticking out of the front and back of the body. Basically there would now be no safe way to approach these things as long as they were moving.<br /><br /> Doctor Hutchins stood well back from the truck as Vang and Carraway jumped down from the back of the truck, and maneuvered the almost vending machine sized robots around to the front. They put their controllers down on the road surface, and ran around to the back of the truck while Doctor Hutchins went to each of the chariots and did... something to them. Even if I was standing right next to her whole she did it, I probably would still not be able to describe what she was doing.<br /><br /> While Hutchins tended to the robots, Vang and Carraway wrestled the trucks ramp back up. The zeds were getting closer to them now, and they needed to be able to get away quickly too. They pulled the truck's door down, and Carraway went and climbed back into the driver's seat while Vang joined Margaret Hutchins.<br /><br /> A zed broke free from the pack, a small one, a child. It was heading straight for Doctor Hutchins, who was now closest to the front of the zombie horde. The little ghoul was practically running, but before it got halfway across the shrinking gap between the zeds and the humans Kyle fired two shots from his rifle into the creature's head; the two weak popping noises reached my ears a moment after I saw the muzzle flashes. The momentum of the little monster carried it forward, and it slammed face first into the road. The child lay still.<br /><br /> Doctor Carraway didn't have quite enough room to turn the truck around in one try without running into the steep slope on the left side of the road, and had to back up to finish. When he was done though, he hopped back down from the truck, and rejoined Vang and Hutchins by the scythe chariots. It was time to put on a show.<br /><br /> I understood watching this that the whole point of this was to be a morale booster. Doctor Byron will make her speech in the morning, and counter the shock of what we face with this example of how we would face it. There were thousands of zeds in that pack, and there is no way that these two machines would be able to make a significant dent in their number, but it would show people that we are prepared to fight, and that we do have hope of winning.<br /><br /> The three doctors backed away from the scythe chariots, and as the blades started to rotate, people cheered. To me it looked like they were spinning faster that then had been the last time I had seen one, but then I wasn't so far away last time. The two Ginsu whirlybirds rolled forward towards the zombies at a high rate of speed.<br /><br /> Carnage is the best way to describe what happened next. When the spinning blades hit the first of the zombies it was like someone had dropped them into a blender; the blades cut through them like they were made of paper, paper filled with packets of blood, but paper all the same, sending pieces of heads and arms flying through the air in a spray of blackish infected blood. Headless and partially headless zeds fell into the midst of the other zeds as the blades protruding from the sides of the chariots bodies took their legs out from under them.<br /><br /> The scythe chariots cut a wide path through the zeds, but now moved slower as the treads had to climb over the bodies of the already fallen ghouls. More zeds filled the holes that the chariots cut, now surrounding the machines, but from our vantage point at the top of the hill we could still see them tearing through the flesh of the undead, sending a mist of gore into the air above them.<br /><br /> The most interesting thing to me, aside from seeing the zeds getting hacked apart a half dozen at a time, is that most of the zeds seemed to have forgotten about the humans now less than a hundred yards away from them. They were focusing on the scythe chariots. Part of me thinks that they were attacking them, that some part of them still knows to defend themselves, but then another part of me remembers Sharon.<br /><br /> I know I haven't written much of it, but I have not forgotten Sharon rising. I wish I could forget, but I can't, and I never will. I remember her asking me to kill her, and maybe it's only because she had just risen, and that was one of her last conscious thoughts, but I still believe she was in there. What if they were charging the scythe chariots because they were looking for that release? What if they were trying to free themselves from the rotting prison of their bodies?<br /><br /> Some of the zombies were still trying to get at the doctors and security officers though, and ones that broke from the pack were quickly dispatched with carefully aimed gunfire. Even with the scythe chariots cutting wide swathes through the mob, it still moved forward from the edge of Harlan and onto the highway. Like Beth said though, this is good for us, as it forms a relatively narrow bottleneck.<br /><br /> As the road travels up to where we stood, the sheer wall of the mountain forms the border at one side, and a pretty steep drop borders the other. Their front line could not be wider than the four lanes of road and the narrow shoulders at each side. If it weren't for the sheer numbers forcing them forward, a couple of the scythe chariots alone could probably hold them back.<br /><br /> Of course it was only a matter of time before disaster struck. One of the chariots, the one Doctor Carraway was controlling judging by him waving his hands around when it happened, tipped over. Some pieces of the metal scythes went spiraling into the air, but I think most turned to shrapnel shards that embedded themselves in the zombies that surrounded it.<br /><br /> Doctor Carraway looked angry; my guess is that the blades sticking out of the side of the machine were supposed to keep it from tipping onto its side as much as they were to take out the zeds' legs.<br /><br /> “Well that's no good,” I heard Doctor Byron say to a security officer near her, “Have them wrap it up, I think we got what we needed today.”<br /><br /> The security officer spoke into the radio mic clipped to his shoulder, and I could see the officer's below listening, and the relaying the information to the scientists. Doctors Carraway and Hutchins moved quickly back to the truck.<br /><br /> Doctor Carraway opened the driver's side door for a second, and then went back to join Doctor Hutchins at the back of the truck. The two of them pulled out the ramp while Doctor Vang had his chariot carve a path back out of the zeds, whose front line was now only fifty yards away.<br /><br /> A couple more zeds broke from the pack, coming towards Doctor Vang, but they were dispatched by the security officers before getting more than a few steps from their mob. Their corpses fell to the ground, and were quickly swallowed u by the advancing mass of ghouls.<br /><br /> As the scythe chariot rolled towards the back of the truck its blades started to slow, coming to a complete stop before actually got anywhere near any of the scientists. It had survived its first real test, and if two could do this how much damage could a bunch of these do?<br /><br /> The scientists loaded the surviving scythe chariot into the back of the truck. Other than its shape, the used robot looked nothing like the gleaming metal monster that had gone into the zombies, but was now a dark blackish red as every single inch of it was coated in zombie gore.<br /><br /> Doctor Vang did not ride in the back of the truck as they made their retreat, and who can blame him? I've smelled more than my share of dead zeds, and I can easily imagine how that machine must have smelled. Instead he rode in the security car that Kyle was riding in.<br /><br /> As they three vehicle drove back up the hill towards us, a voice called my name; it was Doctor Byron. “Yes, Doctor?” I answered.<br /><br /> “So what do you think, do we have a chance?”<br /><br /> I never really know how to talk to her. I feel like she's trying to trick me into something. I guess it's just that she radiates such intelligence that it make me feel stupid... or maybe it's just because she's an albino and I'm prejudiced. I would prefer it be the former though,<br /><br /> “There's always a chance, ma'am.”<br /><br /> “That's not much of an answer,” Doctor Byron commented, and I saw something in her eyes I had not seen before; fear. “You are scared though, right?”<br /><br /> “I would have to be an idiot to not be,”<br /><br /> “You're right,” she agreed, “I'm scared too, but we will win. I have been planning for something like this since the day I took over, and starting day after tomorrow we will take the fight to them, and we will not stop until the last one falls.<br /><br /> Since I had been thinking about Sharon, and the bit of her that seemed to be left behind when she rose I decided to take the opportunity to ask Doctor Byron something, “Doctor, can I ask you a question about the zeds?”<br /><br /> “The only way to learn is to ask, you are always welcome to question me.”<br /><br /> “Do you think there's anything left of someone when they change into a zed? A part of their soul that remains behind?”<br /><br /> “I am not the right person to be asking about the soul.”<br /><br /> “Alright, personality then. Is there something left behind of the person they were when they were alive? That girl in Doctor Grimm's lab-”<br /><br /> “Harriet Nivens,” Doctor Byron interjected.<br /><br /> “She looked like she was trying to speak to us, and I've seen... other zeds look like there was... I don't know, intelligence in them still?”<br /><br /> “Wow, you do not ask easy questions, do you?” Doctor Byron seemed legitimately surprised, “Come with me.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron led us away from the crowd gawking at the horde of zeds slowly starting up the road towards us. When we were away from the bulk of the crowd she spoke again, “That has been a subject of debate since the beginning. I personally don't think the animated corpses possess anything that we would consider higher intelligence, but they do seem to retain some muscle memory which is why they can wield crude weapons and why some seem to know how to fire a gun.”<br /><br /> “Some do believe that there is a remainder of the living person in there. Not a soul necessarily, but a still active part of the brain; the part of the brain that makes you you.”<br /><br /> “What about Harriet? What did you do with her?”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron looked at the ground as if she were ashamed to look me in the eyes, “I don't really want to talk about that,” she said slowly.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry, I'll just go back to the car.”<br /><br /> Evelyn looked up at me, “No, I do not wish to keep things from you without good reason, and with what is coming I see no reason to lie about this. Harriet Nivens is being kept in the underground labs. I understand that the humane thing to do would be to simply destroy her, but Xavier was on to something, and she is too valuable....”<br /><br /> “I think I understand,” I said.<br /><br /> “There are times when this job forces me to do things I find... distasteful. If you think less of me for this I understand, I think less of me for this, but it truly is for the betterment of all.”<br /><br /> I looked into her oddly colored eyes and shrugged, “I know.”<br /><br /> “I sometimes worry I am becoming like Xavier. He wasn't a bad man, you know? He changed, and I worry that I too am changing.”<br /><br /> “You're not like him.”<br /><br /> “No offense to you, but you did not know him; not like I did. You only knew what he became, knew what he was at his worst. The monster that rose from the depths of his mind lays dormant in us all, but that I think you do know.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron brightened suddenly, “Hmm, maybe you're not the only one that could do with a little counseling, huh? Enough of that; we have a war to win. Lets get everyone back to town.”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor,” I said,<br /><br /> “Oh, and I heard about you and Miss Lafferty; I am terribly sorry to hear about that."<br /><br /> Damn it, Beth!Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-62920126261133959872010-04-08T08:05:00.000-07:002010-04-08T08:08:19.305-07:00Coat of ArmsA little bit of extra content for you. This is the coat of arms for the Mallville Commerce Community. This logo appears on the badges of all Mallville Security officers as well as other Mallville promotional materials.<br /><br /><a title="Mallville COA by voidmunashii, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vmunashii/4502365345/"><img height="500" alt="Mallville COA" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2799/4502365345_cf15b9d436.jpg" width="442" /></a>Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-73476727324908462162010-04-06T04:39:00.000-07:002010-04-06T05:01:58.318-07:00Fifty-Third Entry: You're a Foul One, Mr. GrimmJuly 31st<br /><br /> We had a close call today, but thankfully Oliver is going to be okay, according to the doctors. It was far too close, but it did show me that at least some of the old Tara is still in there; the Tara that used to scare me a little.<br /><br /> For the most part things have been going pretty well here. Barbara and Beth have become inseparable, and a I feel a bit bad about that for Gerry since he was friends with Barbara first. I expect any day for Beth to suggest Barbara move in with us.<br /><br /> We need to get another laptop; when Tara found out that Lovelock had a Seventh City Online server she practically threatened me with bodily harm if I did not let her play. I let her, of course, but Pippa was hardly impressed,<br /><br /> Tara tried to create as Sith-like a hero as possible, naturally. Night_Tara ended up dressed in a black hooded cloak, and wielding a very lightsaber-ish electric sword. She had glowing red eyes and sharp teeth.<br /><br /> “So that's your idea of what a hero looks like, eh?” I asked her as her character flipped and fought her way through the tutorial section.<br /><br /> “Hey, I saw Captain Noir,” Tara replied, “and he was hardly wearing red and blue tights and a cape.”<br /><br /> Pippa must have seen that my account was online, because Super_Pippa quickly met up with Night_Tara. “What is this,” Super_Pippa asked, “You rolled new character?”<br /><br /> “Hello, Pippa.” Tara said into the mic.<br /><br /> “You?” Pippa asked, surprised, “What are you doing on here?”<br /><br /> “I let her use my computer,” I said into the mic.<br /><br /> “Pfft! Whatever, Super_Pippa said, “Have fun soloing,” and with that, she leaped from the street to the top of a building, and ran away.<br /><br /> “I told you she doesn't like me,” Tara said, a little coldly.<br /><br /> I kissed the top of Tara's head, “I'll go talk to her.”<br /><br /> I found Pippa in her room, and knocked, “Can I come in?”<br /><br /> “No.”<br /><br /> I let myself in anyway, “So what is your problem with Tara? Why are you being mean to her?”<br /><br /> “I don't like her,” Pippa said from where she sat on the bed with the computer in her lap. She didn't even look up from the screen as she spoke to me.<br /><br /> “You haven't given her a real chance yet.”<br /><br /> “She's a bitch.”<br /><br /> “If you would be nicer to her she wouldn't be. She just has a kind of severe defense mechanism.”<br /><br /> “Sharon was never a bitch to me,” Pippa protested, pulling her gaming headset off, “I miss Sharon.”<br /><br /> I sighed, “I miss Sharon too, ever moment of every day.”<br /><br /> “Then why are you with this?” Pippa turned her laptop to show me the picture of Tara naked from Bishop's DSi.<br /><br /> “How did you get that?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Bishop let me copy them off of his memory card,” Pippa smirked, “I think he likes me.”<br /><br /> I just shook my head in response.<br /><br /> “So why do you want to be with this?” Pippa pointed at the screen, “look at her! She's ugly. You can see her ribs.”<br /><br /> It's true that that is not the most flattering picure of Tara, but to call her ugly... “I happen to find Tara very attractive,” I said calmly.<br /><br /> “I didn't know you were into corpses. You should have just let Sharon-”<br /><br /> “Phillipa Webster, don't you finish that fucking sentence!” I hissed.<br /><br /> Pippa looked at me as if I had slapped her across the face, “But she's cheating on you!” Pippa clicked a couple of times with the mouse she had plugged into one of the laptop's USB slots and brought up the picture of Tara and Oliver with their arms around each other, smiling for Bishop's camera.<br /><br /> “I've already seen these pictures, and she's not cheating on me anymore than I was cheating on her with Sharon. She didn't have any reason to believe she would see me again, “ I was trying really hard to not lose my temper.<br /><br /> “But why her?”<br /><br /> “Because we go well together, or we did; we have to see if we really still do or not,” I explained, “Do you not want me to be happy?”<br /><br /> Another shocked look on her face, and then it turned to tears. I sometimes forget how young Pippa is. I don't think of her as only being a teenager, I think of her as a peer, and I need to remind myself sometimes that she is barely out of childhood (and that statement proves that I am getting old before my time).<br /><br /> “I don't want you to leave us!” Pippa sobbed.<br /><br /> “Who said I was leaving you?”<br /><br /> “You're gonna leave us to live with her. I don't want to lose you too!”<br /><br /> “Pippa, I'm not going to leave you. If, and this is just an if right now, if Tara and I decide to live together again, we'll work something out. Even if I were to move out I would still be around; I wouldn't leave town.”<br /><br /> Pippa slid the laptop off of her legs and onto the bed, and then jumped up and ran to me, “You won't need us anymore if you have her,” she said as she looked up at me through watery eyes.<br /><br /> “I need you all. I know you've read my journal; did I stop being a part of Sharon's life when I moved in with Tara?”<br /><br /> “Yes.”<br /><br /> “No!” I corrected her, “Even when we were fighting, we were still a part of each other's life. I love you, and Beth, and Gerry. You guys are my family, and I will always be in your lives.”<br /><br /> Pippa sniffled, “You promise?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Pippa, but I need you to be nice to her, okay? Even if you don't like her, please do it for me.”<br /><br /> “Oh-okay, but what if she is still sleeping with that Ollie guy?”<br /><br /> I swallowed, “Then it is something that we will deal with when we have to. “<br /><br /> “I don't trust her.”<br /><br /> “You don't have to. You just need to trust me.”<br /><br /> “She'll hurt you.”<br /><br /> “Women always do eventually,” I said in a tone meant to sound humorous<br /><br /> Pippa looked down at the clothing covered floor, “I'm sorry.”<br /><br /> “I wasn't referring to you, but it's natural for people to hurt each other, even if they don't mean to. I'm sorry for anything I've done that's hurt you.”<br /><br /> Pippa hugged me after that, and we talked for a while longer until she felt better. She told me that Bishop has been over a few times in the days since they arrived in Lovelock. It sounds like he's getting a crush on her.<br /><br /> With that fire put out, things settled down in our household again. Pippa stopped acting like an ass around Tara, and Tara started warming up, albeit cautiously, to Pippa. I don't know if Pippa will ever look at Tara the same way she looked at Sharon, but she is making an effort, and I can't really ask for anything more than that.<br /><br /> Of course the real excitement, and near tragedy, was yesterday. I didn't have to work at all yesterday, and was planning on spending the day with Tara, maybe walk around town, or just spend time at the park. Even though she walks with a bit of a limp still, she says that it doesn't hurt her. You know what they say about the plans or mice and men though, right?<br /><br /> I was again home alone; Gerry is still out on a run to the west of town, and Pippa, Beth, and Barbara had gone to the movie theater where they are playing the third (and as it turned out, last) of the Twilight movies. When the doorbell rang at around eleven, I opened the door without looking first expecting it to be Tara. It wasn't Tara.<br /><br /> I opened the door to find Oliver Gusteneaux towering over me. Before I could speak he lunged forward and grabbed me by the front of the shirt and shoved me back inside. He neglected to close the door behind him, not that that would have stopped what happened anyway.<br /><br /> Where Toni, Bishop, and Tara may all look a little on the emaciated side, Oliver looks like he hasn't missed a meal. The man is not exactly a bodybuilder, but compared to him I still look fat and feeble, and I look better than I ever have (that's not ego, it just doesn't take much to look better than I used to).<br /><br /> “You and I need to talk,” Oliver said, menace dominating his tone.<br /><br /> “I have better conversations when I'm not being throttled,” I said. If it seems like more bravado than you would expect from me, you have to realize one thing; I already knew what this talk was going to be about, and he did not know that I knew.<br /><br /> Oliver released me with a shove. I slid back a couple of steps on the tile floor on my sock feet, but managed to keep my balance.<br /><br /> “So you're the guy Tara's been pining over? Seriously?” Oliver said incredulously.<br /><br /> I decided to bluff, “Listen, I don't know you, and you don't know me, but I think it's only fair to warn you that I've been stomping zeds for a year now. Keep that in mind if you're looking for a fight.”<br /><br /> I do believe I failed my charisma check.<br /><br /> “Oh, I know who you are,” Oliver said with a humorless laugh, “You hung out with that Sigler psycho! You're part of why I've been watching people die for the last eight months because you had to start a fucking revolution.”<br /><br /> “You should know that while Tara was with me, it was that psycho Sigler she was pining for, so you might not want to talk shit about him in front of her.”<br /><br /> “I know that too. She talks in her sleep, did you know that? She says your name, and his name a lot. She cries in her sleep thinking of you, but it's me she wakes up to.”<br /><br /> “Woke up to,” I corrected him, still pressing my luck.<br /><br /> “What?”<br /><br /> “Past tense; woke up to. She hasn't said a thing about you to me, so I take that to means that you and her are over,” I snarked. I really don't know what got in to me there. Oliver is the kind of guy I would go out of my way to avoid back in school, but here I was antagonizing him.<br /><br /> It worked too.<br /><br /> “You little fuck!” Oliver growled, and punched me.<br /><br /> I may be able to talk crap with the best of them, but I cannot back that up with the ability to fight a living person unarmed. I went down on the floor hard; the taste of blood filling my mouth. I did a quick inventory of teeth with my tongue while I was down there, and found they all seemed like they were still in place.<br /><br /> “You don't deserve her. You left her to die in that hellhole you helped to create. I was the one that was there for her all this time. I'm the one that helped keep her alive, not you, but we come to this place because Toni thinks that there might still be some place to come to, and low and behold; you're already here, safe and sound!”<br /><br /> Still sitting on the floor, I rubbed my jaw as I spoke, “We didn't exactly teleport here, you know? I spent my fair share of time out on the road too.”<br /><br /> “She's mine!”<br /><br /> “I think that's her decision,” I said, <br /><br /> “Not if I kick the shit out of you until you agree to leave her alone,” he threatened.<br /><br /> “Yeah, 'cause she's so stupid that's she'll never piece together why I'm in traction, and telling her to go back to you.”<br /><br /> “That's it, shithead, I'm going to beat you until your ancestors feel it!”<br /><br /> Before I could say anything witty, someone beat me to it, “You'll do no such thing,” a dark voice oozed. A metallic click served as a period on the sentence.<br /><br /> Oliver turned to face the voice, and as he did, he cleared the path so that I could see as well. Standing behind Oliver, just inside the open door was a man in a Genetitech Security uniform, but he was no security officer. I recognized his bearded face from the news; it was Doctor Xavier Grimm.<br /><br /> Oliver moved like he was going to charge Grimm, “Uh uh uh, slicky boy. Take a step back there,” he motioned with the rifle in his hands, an FN F2000.<br /><br /> Doing as he was told, Oliver asked, “Who the fuck are you?”<br /><br /> Grimm looked back and forth between me and Oliver, “Why don't you ask your friend there; I'm pretty sure he knows who I am.”<br /><br /> Oliver looked at me where I still sat on the floor questioningly, “That's Doctor Xavier Grimm. The scientist Doctor Byron warned us about; the one who used to run Lovelock, wanted to experiment on survivors like us-”<br /><br /> “Oh good, my reputation does precede me,” Grimm said darkly.<br /><br /> “-and the man who most recently caused the deaths of five people escaping from the labs.”<br /><br /> “I wasn't going to stay trapped in that underground prison, not with what's coming. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend the rest of my life never seeing the sky again, but this is not the best place for that conversation.”<br /><br /> “So you're not going to shoot us?” I asked.<br /><br /> “I might, if it becomes necessary, but for now I need your assistance in an experiment. You can take a man out of the lab, but you can't take the lab out of the man, do you know what I mean?”<br /><br /> “Not really,” I said, still making no move to stand up, “You know, the whole town is looking for you?”<br /><br /> “Right, they are looking for me, not a security officer,” Grimm looked up thoughtfully, “I thought of shaving off the beard, but you know, I really like my beard.”<br /><br /> “He doesn't live alone, you know? Neither do I, people will come here looking for us,” Oliver said, sounding braver than he looked.<br /><br /> “And it's not like you can just march us through town at gunpoint without someone noticing,” I added.<br /><br /> “I can if there's something else for people to be paying attention to,” with that, Doctor Grimm reached into his pants pocket with his left hand, and pulled out a cellphone. The phone looked like a normal phone, but it was a little chunkier and had a fat antenna. He pressed some buttons on the screen and there was a loud noise from nearby; something exploded loud and large.<br /><br /> “There,” said Grimm, “that should keep everyone entertained for awhile. Get up, and lets go.” He motioned to the door with the end of his rifle.<br /><br /> I got to my feet, and started out the door, Oliver followed me.<br /><br /> “Don't think of trying to run either,” Grimm warned, “Even a brainbox like me know how to us this, and I have nothing to lose. Make a right at the street.”<br /><br /> Once outside I could see the large column of smoke rising up from a couple of streets away. Sirens were already filling the air as the fire department and Genetitech Security responded to the blast.<br /><br /> I glanced back and saw that Doctor Grimm has lowered his gun, but was also trailing far enough behind us that if either of us tried to take him, we'd be shot for our troubles.<br /><br /> I spat some blood from where my teeth shredded the inside of my mouth when Oliver punched me onto the sidewalk. Grimm said nothing about it, I'm pretty sure he saw Oliver punch me. When I did it a second time, he took notice though.<br /><br /> “Stop that; it's disgusting,” Grimm said.<br /><br /> “It tastes gross,” I complained.<br /><br /> “I don't care. I will not have you spitting all over my town.”<br /><br /> So it was okay for him to blow things up and kill people, but spitting is too much? <br /><br /> Grimm was leading us to a house a couple of lots over. So this last two weeks that means I've been living closer to a mad scientist than to my own girlfriend. I must be cursed, absolutely cursed. What are the chances that, of all of the empty houses in Lovelock, how is it that we are assigned the one next to his evil secret hideout?<br /><br /> I found the door of the nondescript gray house to be unlocked. <br /><br /> “What are you waiting for? Go inside,” Grimm ordered.<br /><br /> I obeyed, and Oliver followed me. Once he was inside, Doctor Grimm closed the front door and locked it. <br /><br /> The inside of this house looked pretty much exact;y like ours did when we first arrived; it had a very sparse IKEA-y sort of feel to its furnishings. There was certainly nothing visible that looked like a science experiment, but I thought at the time that maybe that was in one of the bedrooms. It wasn't.<br /><br /> “Move into the kitchen please,“ Grimm asked, almost pleasantly, “And please try to stay away from the windows; this house is meant to be unoccupied, so if anyone saw you it could lead to a great deal of unpleasantness for us all.”<br /><br /> Yeah, because this hadn't been unpleasant yet.<br /><br /> Oliver and I went into the kitchen, and stood next to the stove while Grimm passed us, and went into the small laundry room. This room was different that the one in our house. Instead of a separate washer and dryer on each side of the small room there was a stacked washer/dryer combo to the right, and a door on the left. <br /><br /> Behind the door was what appeared to be a small closet, on the back wall of which were a row clips intended to hold mops, brooms, and other cleaning implements. One of these was actually a sort of door knob which, when twisted, allowed the back of the closet to swing inward and reveal a staircase leading down.<br /><br /> “After you, gentlemen,” Grimm waved with his rifle.<br /><br /> “You want us to go in the closet?” I asked, having not seen the secret door yet.<br /><br />\ “You should feel right at home there,” Oliver said.<br /><br /> “Children, if you can't play nice I will have to discipline you,” there was an edge to Grimm's voice that had not been there moments before, “Now please, through the door.”<br /><br /> I was quite surprised to see the brightly lit staircase leading down into a secret basement which had clearly been built to be a laboratory. Oliver followed behind me, and as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard Doctor Grimm securing the doors at the top of the stairs.<br /><br /> “Now I know what you are both thinking,“ Doctor Grimm said, “'Is there one of these in my house?' No, there isn't. When I was administrator I had this house built especially for myself; it's one of the many things that dear Evelyn does not know about.”<br /><br /> Looking around the basement I saw that it was one large brightly lit room with while floors and walls. The walls of the room were lined with black topped work counters. There were two similar worktable islands in the center of the room. These work table were dotted with a pair of laptops, microscopes, test tubes, petri dishes, and a whole lot of glassware and electronics that I could not identify.<br /><br /> The most eye catching thing in Grimm's secret lab was in one corner though. It was a box about the size of a prison cell made out of thick plastic. There was another worktable inside the box, as well as a number small items that I could not see, and an unmade hospital bed. All of those things took a backseat to the main occupant of the cell though. Pressing against the transparent walls of its cell was a thin blond female zombie. She was wearing denim shorts and a white tank top and looked to be about sixteen; in her hand was what appeared to be a nine millimeter Beretta.<br /><br /> Oliver beat me to the first verbal response, “What the fuck is that?”<br /><br /> “That is my last test subject. Her name was Harriet if you must know, which is a horrible name to give to such a pretty young lady.”<br /><br /> I was shocked, almost speechless, “You did this to her? On purpose?”<br /><br /> “Did I infect her? Yes; I needed to test my latest batch. You see, I am getting very close to creating a cure for the infection; the 'Zed Virus' as you probably know it.”<br /><br /> “But she's a child,” Oliver said in shock.<br /><br /> “Which is part of what made her a good subject. Normally a straight injection of infected blood turns a person in twenty to thirty hours, as opposed to incidental infection which can take over a week depending of the severity of the initial infection, but with my latest vaccine I was able to keep her from turning for almost a full week. I know that I'm probably talking over your heads, but trust me, it is amazing.”<br /><br /> “You're a monster!” Oliver gasped.<br /><br /> “People said the same thing about German scientists in the forties, but it was their 'unethical' research that has led us to a lot of the technology we have today.”<br /><br /> “The Nazis were monsters,” I blurted out, “If you think comparing yourself to them is some sort of defense-”<br /><br /> “I am not defending myself!” Grimm roared, pointing the rifle at me, “I do not need to defend myself to people who simply are too selfish to sacrifice for the greater good of all. Don't you understand what coming up with a cure for this would mean? I will be humanity's savior, and if that means a few people have to die in the name of saving the world, then so be it. Those brave souls will be remembered for the sacrifice they made for humankind.”<br /><br /> “You're mad,” Oliver commented.<br /><br /> “Genius and insanity are very closely related. Did you know that Albert Einstein has Asperger's Syndrome? “<br /><br /> “So you admit that you're mentally ill?” Oliver said in a voice that said he felt he had just won some sort of argument.<br /><br /> Doctor Grimm shifted the barrel away from me and towards Oliver, “Keep pushing me, slicky boy, and see what happens! That boy you have would make an interesting test subject,“ and then to me, “or maybe the girl at your house? She's about young Henrietta's age, isn't she?”<br /><br /> Rage boiled up inside me in a way that threatening my own life had totally failed to do, ”Beth would have your head if you tried it.”<br /><br /> “The raven haired woman? Yes, she is a fiery one. I've met her; she doesn't care for me,” Grim took a deep breath and sighed, “Not that it's going to matter soon anyway, the albino bitch is going to let this whole place be overrun; I'm just trying to make as much progress as I can until it is safe for me to leave.”<br /><br /> “What's that supposed to mean?” Oliver asked.<br /><br /> “That's right, your dear sweet Evelyn Byron has been trying to keep this a secret. In probably about a month this town is going to be destroyed by the undead,” Grimm nodded his head towards where Harriet was banging the handgun against the wall of her cell, we couldn't hear anything from where we were.<br /><br /> “Do you mean the group to the east?” I asked.<br /><br /> Grimm brightened, “Yes, I do . I am surprised you know about it, but did you also know that they are coming this way? Did you know that if they stay on the course they are on they will end up right on our doorstep?”<br /><br /> I didn't know that, but I said nothing.<br /><br /> “So what are we to do? Try and fit everyone into the labs? Decide who stays on the surface to die? Try and fight them with all those asinine weapons Byron has been having people build? Run away and abandon everything we have?”<br /><br /> “What would you do?” I asked, working on the principal that if he was talking then he wasn't feeding us to Harriet or shooting us.<br /><br /> “We need weapons, but not this energy ray fighting robot bullshit people are building. We have the materials to build a nuclear weapon. We could easily build a single weapon that would take out the vast majority of the monsters.”<br /><br /> “But the radiation, couldn't the fallout endanger us?”<br /><br /> “Not if we were to do it now, while they are still far enough away. In any case, isn't that risk better than the certainty of being overrun? “<br /><br /> “Sounds like we're fucked either way,” answered Oliver.<br /><br /> “I wouldn't expect you to understand it. The only contribution people like you can make to science is as test subjects,” Grimm motioned to a pair of heavy wooden chairs sitting to the side of Harriet's cell, “Tie the slicky boy up!” he ordered me.<br /><br /> The chairs made me think of the electric chair from The Green Mile, right down to the padded leather straps on the armrests and the front legs. Oliver and I reluctantly went over to the chairs.<br /><br /> “Sit down!” Doctor Grimm ordered Oliver, and raised the barrel of the rifle to Oliver's face when he didn't move quick enough.<br /><br /> I assume that Grimm felt I was less of a threat than Oliver (and who could blame him), and so he had me tie him up. I made a show of trying to secure Oliver tightly, but stuck my thumb under the strap when I pulled it tight. My hope was that Oliver would have enough room to slip his hands out. For his part, Oliver was clenching his fists as I tied him up, making his arm as thick as possible.<br /><br /> I tried to secure Oliver's legs as loosely as possible too, but short of leaving it undone entirely, there's not much I could do there. We had to hope that Grimm would leave us alone at some point before infecting us with anything.<br /><br /> Grimm had me strap down my own left arm, and then felt safe enough to put down the rifle to secure my right. I don't think I've ever felt more helpless than right then. Even facing off against bikers or zeds I had never actually been tied down before.<br /><br /> “Okay, let's start,” Grimm said, rubbing his hands together. He walked over to one of the island work tables, and picked up a small digital recorder with a pair of round spheres at the top of it.<br /><br /> Turning the recorder on, Grimm placed it back on the table, “It is July thirty-first, and I am Doctor Xavier Grimm. After the promising, but disappointing results with subject fourteen, I have acquired two new subjects. I am going to try batch sixteen-f on subject fifteen, and batch nineteen-g on subject sixteen.”<br /><br /> Grimm went on for quite awhile, describing us to his recorder, and guessing what the results would be. His hypotheses were not promising for us. I am guessing that he was picked on by the jocks in school, as his description of Oliver's physical condition was done in the disgusted tone a person might use when making a detailed description of a piece of shit.<br /><br /> Crossing the room, Grimm went to a large stainless steel refrigerator, and opened it. I couldn't see into the fridge, but I could hear glass and metal clanking around. Presumably he was getting our doses of death ready.<br /><br /> “You know, I think I am really close to finding a treatment for this. If that stupid bitch had let me continue my research the way I wanted to, I would have a cure by now,” Grimm ranted, “I've pinpointed it, you see? The Zed Virus isn't a virus at all, but a bacteria. The reason it was so hard to spot is that it is almost identical in appearance to Eosinophil, or white blood cells, and who would be surprised to see an increase of those in a person with a viral infection?”<br /><br /> I don't think I'm getting all of this right. Not only was he talking well over my education level, but I was actually tied to a chair at the time waiting for a mad scientist to inject me with a death sentence.<br /><br /> “It's immune to most antibiotics though. The only thing I've found that kills it is Phlebotinum, but for some reason it only kills it dead outside of the body,” Grimm was filling a hypodermic syringe as he spoke, “You might find this interesting. Did you know that an undead body continues to produce both blood and saliva, the two primary transfer vectors?”<br /><br /> Grimm waited for an answer, but didn't get one.“Of course you didn't,” he said, “And what's really amazing is that the body does seem to digest food, but it doesn't seem to do it for any reason. A damaged undead does not regenerate wounded tissue. Eating doesn't even seem to slow their decomposition rate, but they also do not starve to death, so it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other. Hell, you can seal them in an airtight box, like Harriet there, and they won't suffocate. I could leave her in there when I leave and she'd be just fine until her body decays too much to stay active.”<br /><br /> Oliver broke his silence, “So if we left the zeds alone long enough they would simply fall apart on their own?”<br /><br /> “In theory, yes, however each person that dies becomes a new one, so the only way to truly eliminate them would be to eliminate all humans. That is rather problematic,” Grimm explained, his back still to us, “It's a bit like killing cockroaches. They're pretty easy to kill, electricity, blunt force, dismemberment, pretty much anything that will destroy the brain or its connection to the body, but there are just so damn many of them, and no matter how many you kill it seems like there are more coming.”<br /><br /> Doctor Grimm closed the door to the refrigerator, and turned to face us, two syringes, one a dark crimson and the other full of something clear. “But if I can stop people from turning in the first place, that should at least turn things a bit more in our favor,” he started towards us, “You guys should wish me luck; if this works, not only do you survive, but you will be a part of history.”<br /><br /> “Wait!” I said, trying to stall him again, “What about people who haven't been bitten? People who haven't been infected? Why do they turn?” It seemed like a reasonable question.<br /><br /> Grimm stopped, “Oh, maybe you are smarter than you look. That's the next piece of the puzzle, isn't it? My theory is that there's some airborne component to this bacteria that we are all infected with, but it remains dormant while our normal biological processes remain active. “<br /><br /> Grimm stopped himself, “But enough of this, we have work to do here. This should only hurt for a m-”<br /><br /> One of the laptop computers on the work tables chimed, and Grimm turned back to look at it. He grinned at what he saw, put the syringes down on the table, and turned the laptop to face us. In a window on the screen I could see a woman standing at the front door; he had installed a surveillance camera above the door. It was Tara, and she was looking around her, and I could see her mouth moving, but there was no sound.<br /><br /> “It's your little gray haired friend!” Grimm announced with amusement, “I'd better go make sure she doesn't come in; I don't know where I would put a third test subject.<br /><br /> Grimm picked up his rifle, and walked over the the stairs, and then turned back to us, ”If I hear you make a sound, I will kill her, do you understand?”<br /><br /> We both nodded our understanding, and Grimm ascended the stairs.<br /><br /> Once we heard the door close at the top of the stairs I turned to Oliver, “Please tell me you can get your hands free,” I practically begged.<br /><br /> Oliver's face became a mask of effort and determination as he started jerking his right arm backwards, straining against the cuff. At first it looked like I had still fastened the strap too tightly, but then his hand started to slide through as he practically tried to dislocate his thumb by folding it into the palm of his hand. In a couple more seconds his hand was red and raw looking, but it was also free.<br /><br /> As Oliver quickly unfastened his other restraints, I spoke, “Thank God, lets get out of here.”<br /><br /> “No,” said Oliver as he rose from the chair, “He's got that gun, and if we just go running up there, he'll shoot us, and probably Tara too. I haven't spent the last 8 months keeping her alive just to have you get her killed.”<br /><br /> “You're going to leave me here?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Don't be a 'tard,” Oliver spat, “If I let you die, she'll never come back to me. She needs to just be reminded of what a loser you are. I'm going to undo your straps, but don't pull free from them. We're going to wait for him to come back down, and then I'll take care of that sick motherfucker.”<br /><br /> True to his word, Oliver undid my straps, but did his best to make them look like they were still fastened. By the time we heard the door at the top of the stairs open again, we both looked like we were still tethered to our chairs, although Oliver was having to pin the end of the restraint to the left arm of his chair with his wrist since he did not have a second hand to set it properly with.<br /><br /> Doctor Grimm's shoes clomped down the stairs, and we could see him lean the rifle against the wall next to the bottom of the stairs, “It's okay, she moved on. If it makes you feel any better, she was looking for you,” he said to me, “Kind of sad really, but one cannot let emotions get in the way of progress.”<br /><br /> “No, that's something only humans would do,” Oliver commented.<br /><br /> “That's enough of that,” Grimm spoke as if talking to a petulant child, “I don't expect you to understand, but what I am doing is for the good of all mankind.”<br /><br /> Doctor Grimm walked back over to the laptop, which now showed an empty front porch, he seemed puzzled at what he found, “Where is the other syringe?” he asked, and started looking down at the floor to see if it had rolled there.<br /><br /> “Did either of you see what I did with the other hypo? I thought I put it ri-” Grimm turned to face us, and found Oliver standing right in front of him, his right hand raised, ready to attack<br /><br /> “Fucker!” Oliver yelled, and stabbed down with the hypodermic needle of infected blood obscured in his large hand. The needle buried itself in the side of Doctor Grimm's throat.<br /><br /> Shock, surprise, terror, and understanding all battled for control of Xavier Grimm's face as he realized where the missing syringe was. His left hand lifted halfway to his neck as if he meant to pull the needle out, but froze there in midair, “You... you...” he gasped as the infection flowed through his blood.<br /><br /> Before Grimm could say anything else, Oliver spoke again, “I wouldn't expect you to understand it, but the only way people like you can help the world is by not being a part of it anymore,” and with that, he punched the doctor in the face.<br /><br /> Grimm fell over backwards onto the work table, sending the laptop, the other three syringes, and a nearby microscope crashing to the floor. With his stomach exposed, Oliver hit him again, causing him to double over and fall to the floor. Either Oliver hadn't hit me that hard, or Doctor Grimm was a wimp.<br /><br /> “Go!” Oliver yelled to me, and I didn't need to be told twice; I was already on my feet. I bolted for the stairs, grabbing Grimm's rifle as I went to keep him from coming after us with it.<br /><br /> Oliver was right behind me, our feet making a thunderous noise in the narrow passage up to the kitchen. I burst through the false back of the closet, and nearly ran into the washer/dryer opposite the closet in my rush to get out of there. I could hear Grimm cursing behind us; for someone who goes down so easy, he sure did recover fast.<br /><br /> My sock clad feet slid on the flooring of the kitchen, and I almost lost my balance before getting onto the carpet of the living room. Oliver and I crossed the living room quickly, but had to stop at the front door as I had apparently forgotten how to work a deadbolt. After a couple of seconds of struggling I did manage to get the door open, and we were outside, crossing the front yard.<br /><br /> Oliver started in the direction of his house while I started in mine, wanting to get to Tara before Grimm did if she was there.<br /><br /> There were three popping sounds, and Oliver yelled out. I turned in time to see him fall to the ground, clutching his lower right leg. My feet slid out from under me as I tried to change direction, and run to help Oliver, and I hit the sidewalk hard, knocking the rifle out of my hands. I looked and saw Grimm was standing on the house's front porch, and pointing a handgun at me.<br /><br /> Grimm stalked across the lawn towards me, the personification of rage, “Do you understand what you've done?” he yelled, “You've just destroyed humankind's only hope at finding a cure!”<br /><br /> “Maybe your vaccine will work, and you'll be saved,” Oliver grunted through gritted teeth. His blood was already spreading under him on the sidewalk.<br /><br /> “Shut the fuck up!” Grimm yelled, and fired a shot in Oliver's direction. The bullet missed Oliver, and made a small gouge in the sidewalk instead.<br /><br /> Grimm pointed his handgun, I could see now that it was a Glock, at me again, “You could have gone down in the history books as one of the saviors of mankind, but no! You're too selfish to give of yourself to help others! You're blind, just like Byron; you can't see what needs to be done beyond what you deem as humane and proper! You-”<br /><br /> There was a loud bang. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain. Instead of feeling bullets tear through my body, I heard someone working the pump on a shotgun or rifle, and something thud to the ground in front of me. I opened my eyes to find Grimm laying half on the sidewalk, half on his house's lawn. The front of his black Genetitech Security uniform had the shimmer of wetness spreading across his stomach. The gun had fallen out of his hand, and was lying near him on the grass.<br /><br /> Grimm put his right hand to the center of the wetspot on his chest. It came away covered in his won blood; he looked at it in disbelief, “Wha-... what?” He looked over at me, and then up, over and behind me.<br /><br /> I turned my head and upper body, I was still sitting on the ground after all, to look behind me and see Tara starting there holding a black Remington 7600, she was still aiming it at Doctor Grimm.<br /><br /> Grimm seemed to gather his wits, and gasped weakly, “Do you know what you've just done? I... I was so close to solving it, and now you've damned us all. No one else has the... the guts to do what needed to be done. Who will finish my res-”<br /><br /> Bang! <br /><br /> Tara fired the rifle again, this time hitting Grimm above the left eye, and spraying his twisted, but apparently brilliant, mind all over the lawn. She pumped the rifle again to eject the spent cartridge, and came over to me. Her blue eyes were as cold as ice, and seemed to almost be glowing.<br /><br /> “Are you okay?” Tara asked me, her face like a cold stone mask.<br /><br /> “Yeah, but I think Oliver's shot.” I said.<br /><br /> A look of panic broke the emotionless shell of Tara face, and she looked over at where he was laying a few yards away, “Oh my God, Oliver!” she exclaimed, and rant to him.<br /><br /> This left me to pick myself up off of the ground, and then I joined Tara. Oliver was bleeding a lot, and he needed help soon or he would probably lose his leg, or die, or something.<br /><br /> I went over to Grimm's body, and started checking his pockets for the cell phone I had seen him use, thinking maybe it would still work for making phone calls as well as detonating bombs. It wasn't there, he must have taken it out in the house somewhere when I wasn't looking.<br /><br /> I left Tara with Oliver, telling her I'd be right back, and went into the house. I went down into the laboratory where just minutes before I had looked death in the face., and started looking for the phone.<br /><br /> I was distracted by movement, it was Harriet inside her cell. Her mouth was working like she was talking, but I couldn't hear anything. I wonder now if perhaps Grimm's concoction had made her into something other than a normal zed, but even if I had thought of that then I wouldn't have let her out of that box for two reasons. First of all, I had no idea how to open the door. Secondly, she then pointed the Beretta she was still holding in my general direction, and started pulling the trigger.<br /><br /> I found the phone on the floor by the refrigerator after a couple of minutes. I don't know how it could have gotten over there, but it did. Luckily the phone is as sturdy as it looked, and seemed to be in full working condition. I dialed 911, and hit send.<br /><br /> “Hello?” said a puzzled sounding voice from the other end after one ring.<br /><br /> “I have an emergency, do you still handle that?' I asked, probably sounding as uncertain as she had sounded puzzled.<br /><br /> “Umm, yes. Who are you, and how did you get that phone?”<br /><br /> I guess the phone must have showed as being Doctor Grimm's. I can only assume that he somehow made it so that the location of the phone could not be tracked since his just having it on should have made him easy for Genetitech Security to find. I explained who I was, and what had happened. They woman on the other end, who seemed to get over her initial confusion rather quickly, said that help would be sent.<br /><br /> Two security cars arrived first. They had probably come from the fire a couple of blocks away, which, judging by the dispersing smoke cloud, was probably out, or almost out by now. Beth and Justin Lassit were in the second of the cars, an officer Beth referred to as Kyle and man with a shaved head got out of the first car.<br /><br /> While Justin and Kyle used my belt to make a tourniquet for Oliver's leg (why hadn't we thought of that?), Beth made sure that Tara and I were okay. I explained to her briefly what had happened, leaving out the part about Oliver hitting me, and basically telling me that he had been sleeping with Tara. It wasn't the last time I would tell the story tonight, but no one I had to tell it to ever questioned Oliver's presence. <br /><br /> An ambulance arrived minutes later, and shortly after that a small black car pulled up, and Doctor Byron got out. I had to explain to her what had happened, and she got on a phone identical to the one that Grimm had used to request what she had called a “recovery team”. We were gone before that arrived though.<br /> <br /> Tara and I rode to the hospital with Beth and Justin; we followed the ambulance there. We were there for most of the evening while Oliver was treated by a doctor named Camilla Swirsky, who said that Oliver should survive, but that he may need a cane to walk. He probably has a good amount of physical therapy in his future.<br /><br /> While Oliver was being treated, Tara and I were being interviewed about the events of the afternoon. It wasn't exactly an interrogation, but it was not exactly friendly either. I'm not taking it personally, I mean this guy was someone the whole town was looking for and he just happened to show up on my block.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron showed up during our interview, and wanted to know why Tara had killed Grimm. I wouldn't describe her as angry so much as sad. Maybe she didn't know what he thought of her, or maybe she just really is that good of a person, but she really seemed like she was upset about his death. Maybe she just really respected him as a scientist?<br /><br /> Tara, in her most businesslike tone, a tone she used off and on all night long, explained once again that Grimm was armed, and she killed him in my defense. No one questioned that as he had shot Oliver, and there was a gun found near his body (suspiciously nearer to his hand than it had been when I went looking for the phone, but I wasn't gong to say anything about that)<br /><br /> Doctor Byron answered her share of questions too. She admitted that she knew what Grimm was working on, and had impeded his progress because she found his methods unethical, “However with him gone, it will be harder to even get back to the point he was at. We have all of his data, but his note-taking methods were, lets say unique. We've been waiting to have someone infected for him to work with, but we've been lucky in that we have not had many cases of infection.”<br /><br /> “He mentioned something about white blood cells, Eosiniphils? Can you test for that?' I asked.<br /><br /> “Oh yes. Xavier will go down in the history books for that, and I cannot begin to tell you how important that would be to him. Without his figuring out that the reanimation virus is actually a bacteria, and that Phlebotinum is the only antibiotic it is vulnerable to we may never have found any treatment,” Doctor Byron explained.<br /><br /> “But the man was a murderer,” I protested.<br /><br /> “His methodology was wrong, but he was still a genius, and losing him is a tremendous setback,” Doctor Byron thought for a moment, “I'm sorry, you probably think I wish he had infected you and Oliver in order to find a treatment. I am truly glad you are okay, and what he did to that young woman... he would have had to pay for that somehow. It is a bad situation all around, and there was no way it could have ended well. You did the right thing, Tara.”<br /><br /> “Thank you, Evelyn.”<br /><br /> “What about the zombies?” I asked, “Doctor Grimm said that there were a large number of them coming for us? Is it true? Is this the same group that Acquisitions ran into?”<br /><br /> “Your friend Gerry is in Acquisitions, isn't he?”<br /><br /> “Yes, ma'am.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron nodded, ”It is true, but we are working on ways of dealing with them. I have not made a formal announcement because I do not want people to panic unduly. I would appreciate it if you both would keep this to yourselves, and trust me that I am working on it.”<br /><br /> “Can we be kept informed?” Tara asked.<br /><br /> “If you would like. I know that you both have had a lot of experience dealing with the animated dead, so perhaps involving you both could be of benefit to us all. I will think on it, and let you know what I decide,” Doctor Byron said thoughtfully, “In any case I am going to have to address it publicly before too much longer.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron eventually arranged for us to get a ride home. A security officer I did not recognize dropped us off in front of Tara's house. I walked her up to the door.<br /><br /> “We're even now,” Tara said, her voice soft.<br /><br /> “What do you mean?” I asked,<br /><br /> “We're even. You saved my life from Merritt, and now I've saved you from Grimm.”<br /><br /> I was puzzled, “Is that why you're with me then? You feel you owe me?”<br /><br /> “No,” she answered quickly, “I'm with you because I love you.”<br /><br /> We stood in silence for a few moments. I wanted to ask her about what was going on between her and Oliver. I wanted to ask her if loved him more. I wanted to ask her to make a choice. I wanted to know the truth, but I decided that I need to give her the time to feel comfortable discussing all of that with me. She will talk to me when she is ready, so I just asked, “Did you want to come stay with me tonight?”<br /><br /> Tara thought about it for a second, “No, I don't think so. I want to let Toni and Bishop know that Ollie's going to be okay, and I don't want to leave them alone tonight, Maybe tomorrow night though, okay?”<br /><br /> “Sure,” I said, trying not to let the hurt I was feeling creep into my voice or onto my face, “You get some rest then.”<br /><br /> “You too,” Tara stroked my cheek, and gave me a gentle kiss, “I'm glad you're okay; I couldn't bear losing you again. I love you.”<br /><br /> “I love you too,” I replied, and started the walk home (thankfully in shoes now).<br /><br /> Tara stayed on the porch watching me as I walked. She waved to me as I got to the door of my house. I was glad that I thought ton grab my keys when I came back for my shoes before going to the hospital, or else I would have had to knock.<br /><br /> I waved back to Tara, and slowly let myself in. I wish she had come home with me. It's not that I wanted to have sex or anything, it's just I feel a little uneasy being alone now. Beth and Pippa are both asleep, and I could use the company of something other than my own words on paper.<br /><br /> At the rate I am going, I'm probably going to finish filling up this book before too much longer. I'd have filled it long ago if it weren't for the fact that I write so small. I'll need to find a new journal soon... maybe one of those nice moleskin ones.<br /><br /> I'm going to try sleeping again now, but every time I close my eyes I see Grimm holding those needles. I see myself tied to that chair, and I think of how close to dying I was, and I am afraid.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-74972259399181561362010-04-01T04:31:00.000-07:002010-04-02T10:10:44.764-07:00Mallville Special - The Lost Entry<p>The following entry was found by survivors. It had been wadded into a thick ball and tossed into the corner of a room in an abandoned building.<br /><br /><br />April 1<br /><br />With spring on the way the snow has started to melt, and the roads have become a lot more passable than they have been for months, as a result we have started going into town and looking around more. We always leave someone at the house to keep an eye on the things and keep the fire from going out. This last trip it was Pippa who stayed behind.<br /><br />It was a bright, but still cold morning as We piled into the black Excursion for our trip into town. Gerry drove with Maria in front while Sharon, Beth, and myself squeezed into the backseat with Sharon in the middle. We could have put the third row of seats up, but we wanted to leave room for anything useful we could find.<br /><br />We weren't really looking for anything in particular on these outings; they're basically to try and cure the cabin fever we've all been battling after being shut up in this cabin for the last couple of months. This didn't mean we were going pass up any opportunities though.<br /><br />“Okay,” started Maria as she held up a map so that those of us in the backseat could see it, It was marked with a lot of red circles and x's, “We've done most of the actual town already, so we are going to look around the area north of Daisy Lake. We don't expect to find much there but it's worth a look.”<br /><br />The trip was slow, but we started out early so we would have plenty of time to hopefully make it back by nightfall. The roads are now pretty clear of slow, like it melted first. Gerry still drives cautiously though; always looking out for washouts or big potholes that have formed over the winter (of perhaps were there before, I don't know)<br /><br />“Hey,” said Beth suddenly from behind Gerry, “Are those lights on over there?”<br /><br />Gerry stopped the car, and we all leaned over as best we could to look out the window, probably crushing poor Beth against the side of the car in the process. Across a open field we could see a large boxy white building that looked like a very large warehouse.<br /><br />“Yeah, those are lights,” Sharon exclaimed, point to a row of squarish spotlights running along the side of the building near its roof line. From where we were they looked small, but they were clearly on.<br /><br />It has been three months since we have seen electricity on anywhere, so naturally we wanted to investigate. After all, if there's a generator being maintained, then someone must be maintaining it, right?<br /><br />We followed the fence surrounding the field around to an access road that lead of to a large gatehouse. A large sign on the roof of the gatehouse read “Klep Scientific Technology Advancement Center” and then below that in smaller letters “A member of the Futuretech family”. The wooden arm of the gate ended a foot from the pivot point in a round splintery edge, “Well we're not the first visitors they've had,” said Gerry, stopping by the broken arm.<br /><br />“Maybe we should stay out then,” Sharon said, fear sneaking into her voice, “They might not want any more visitors.”<br /><br />“She's got a good point. Whoever is in there has probably got a far larger armory gathered up than what we have with us,” added Gerry.<br /><br />“If they fuck with us, we'll fuck with them back,” Maria said, holding up her Glock.<br /><br />“I think we should at least check it out. If we don't act hostile then maybe we can avoid provoking them,” Beth said, directing the last part at Maria.<br /><br />Gerry drove us through the broken gate and down the long road to the large white building. The road we were on looked like it was only a step above a dirt road, but it was probably the smoothest road I've ridden on in the last year. The road ended in a large parking lot, and we were surprised to find it mostly full of cars.<br /><br />“How many people are in there, do you think?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“Looks like about a hundred or so cars out here,” Maria answered.<br /><br />“Could there be that many people inside there?” I asked, “I mean wouldn't we have seen some sign of that many survivors in town by now?”<br /><br />“I would think they would have scavenged the town for supplies, but maybe there were already anough emergency supplies in there, “said Beth.<br /><br />“I could see that,” added Gerry, “I mean big science-y places like this always have end-of-the-world disaster plans, right?”<br /><br />“Or maybe they're cannibals and they have just been eating each other,” said Maria dryly. I felt Sharon tense next to me at that; she squeezed my hand hard.<br /><br />Gerry circled the rows of parked cars a couple of times before Maria finally asked, “What are you doing?”<br /><br />“I'm looking for a good spot.”<br /><br />“Just park the damned car, Gerry!” Maria snapped at him.<br /><br />After parking in the next open space we all got out, grabbed our rifles from the back, and slowly started towards the glass double doors that had a sign over them that was identical to the one at the gate house proclaiming this to be the Klep Scientific Technology Advancement Center.<br /><br />Under the sign but over the top if the door itself was a shiny silver dome that obviously hid a video camera. I noticed similar domes up near the roof. If someone was in there they almost certainly knew we were there. This was confirmed for me a moment later when a voice spoke.<br /><br />“Hello, welcome to the Klep Scientific Technology Advancement Center,” said a woman's voice that sounded at the same time friendly and unsettling. I'm not quite sure how to describe why it was unsettling from the start; it just felt off somehow, as if it weren't quite natural.<br /><br />“Hello?” asked Beth, looking around.<br /><br />“Hello,” the woman's voice repeated, “Please step inside out of the cold.”<br /><br />The glass doors slid open a short distance ahead of us.<br /><br />“I don't like this,” said Sharon.<br /><br />“She sounds alright to me,” Gerry said.<br /><br />“It could be a trap,” Maria cautioned, “but then we're ready for that,” she held up her rifle<br /><br />“We're here now, if they want to shoot at us they can do it just as easily if we go back to the car as they can if we go inside,” I said, I'm not sure if I was trying to make Sharon feel any safer, but I don't think I did.<br /><br />Beth sighed, “I agree, lets just go in and see what happens.”<br /><br />After the cold of the parking lot the blast of warmth that hit us as we entered the lobby of Klep was kind of shocking. The large room was blindingly white and immaculately clean. In the center of the room was a large semi-circular reception desk that sat empty, but looked as if the receptionist might be back at any moment.<br /><br />A series of red lights seemingly implanted in the floor were blinking in a line leading around the right side of the desk and through an open door. We all traded glances before approaching the desk.<br /><br />“Please follow the lights to a waiting area where someone will be with you shortly,” said the woman's voice.<br /><br />Sharon gripped my arm tightly, “We should go,” she whispered to me.<br /><br />I agreed with her, but I don't think we could have left at that point even if we had tried, “We'll be fine, we just need to stay together,” I whispered to her.<br /><br />We followed the small flashing lights around and through the doors into a room that looked a lot like a waiting room from a doctor's office, only that the chairs in there were plush leather chairs (white, like everything else) and there was a tray with five white steaming mugs on it. On the side of the mugs was what looked like an artistic interpretation of the mechanism inside a camera lens over the words “Klep Scientific”.<br /><br />I noticed in each corner of the also blindingly white room were white spheres with camera lenses in them. There was also a large dome I the ceiling of the room, but I had no idea what that was for yet.<br /><br />“Please help yourself to a hot cup of cocoa,” said the slightly odd woman's voice, “Take off your coats and relax, someone will be with you shortly. You can put your weapons down, you will not be needing them while you are here.”<br /><br />“I'll just hang onto mine, thanks,” Maria said.<br /><br />“As you wish.” said the voice.<br /><br />Gerry went over to the nurse's counter and picked up one of the mugs, and sniffed it, “Well it smells like chocolate.”<br /><br />“Do you think it's safe to drink?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“Sure,” said Maria, “Why bother to poison us when they could just shoot us?” She went over to Gerry and grabbed a cup off of the white tray they were sitting on, causing some to slosh over the side and drip on the white carpeting on the floor.<br /><br />Maria took a drink of the cocoa, and gasped.<br /><br />“What's wrong!” Sharon asked loudly.<br /><br />“It's hot!” Maria said, and smiled, “It's good though.”<br /><br />We all drank some of the cocoa, and sat in the comfy chairs. I don't know if it was something in the cocoa, or something pumped into the air. But we all started falling to sleep. I realized something was wrong when Sharon's almost empty mug thudded to the carpet. I tried to get up to help her, but I felt like my body was full of lead weights; my eye lids were too heavy to lift never mind my arms and legs. I drifted off to sleep before I could even get a full panic going.<br /><br />When I woke up my head hurt, and I was very warm. I was laying down in a bed, but it felt like I was still fully dressed. I wasn't sure how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Days? I was being shaken, and Sharon was saying my name over and over.<br /><br />I opened my eyes and then shut them again with a groan. The room was way too bright, and it made my head ache even worse. I put my right hand on Sharon's where she was shaking my left shoulder to stop her.<br /><br />“You're awake!” she said.<br /><br />I opened my eyes again, more cautiously this time, but I still had to blink a few times while my eyes adjusted to the room. We looked to be in some sort of hospital ward, and I was lying in a hospital bed with the back slightly raised. Across from me I could see Maria lying on an identical bed with Gerry standing next to her, rubbing his head with his hands.<br /><br />“How long was I asleep?” I asked Sharon.<br /><br />“A couple of hours,” said an unfamiliar voice, “At least that's how long it's been since it brought you in here.”<br /><br />I looked over and saw Beth standing with four people I did not recognize.<br /><br />“It?” I asked?<br /><br />“Yeah,” said an older man with long grey hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was wearing a green military shirt with patches sown on it, “I refuse to call it a she.”<br /><br />“She?” asked Gerry.<br /><br />“He means me,” said the woman's voice we heard earlier.<br /><br />“Who are you?” Sharon asked, looking around the room.<br /><br />I looked around too, and saw more of those security camera spheres, and four of those weird looking domes that I had seen on the ceiling of the waiting room. The purposes of the cameras seemed obvious, but I still had no idea what the domes were for.<br /><br />Aside from the five of us and the old soldier there were three other people in the room; an African American man in a white shirt, a young girl around Pippa's age wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, and a bald man in biker's leathers. None of them looked terribly happy.<br /><br />“I am the Klep Artificial Intelligence Operating System,” said the voice, “You may call me KAI-OS. I run all aspects of this facility at the direction of the facility administrator.”<br /><br />“Chaos?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“That is close enough,” KAI-OS replied.<br /><br />“What are we doing here?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“You are to be part of an experiment. I am afraid recent developments have set our research schedules way behind, and test subjects are needed.”<br /><br />“Fuck you!” yelled the shaved headed man. I could see from across the room that he had tattoos running up and down his arms, but I could not make out what they were yet, “I'm not not gonna be a part of your goddamned experiments! I hate science.”<br /><br />“Oh God,” groaned Maria from her bed, “Who's yelling, and how many times do I have to hit them to make them stop?”<br /><br />“Why don't you fuckin' try it you dirty” and the biker used an offensive word to describe Hispanics that I'm not going to repeat here.<br /><br />Maria sat up suddenly, and then grabbed her head, wincing in pain, “Give me a few minutes and I will” she growled.<br /><br />“You will cease hostilities at once!” KAI-OS warned.<br /><br />“Or what?” asked the biker.<br /><br />“Or this,” The dome at the end of the room nearest the biker split open, and an arm with a good dozen joints in it lowered quickly, and jabbed the biker in the side of the neck. There was the crackling sound of arcing electricity, like someone firing a tazer. The biker yelled and dropped to the floor, and the girl wearing a red hoodie, rushed over to him.<br /><br />The black guy, who also had a shaved head, flung a plastic water pitcher at the arm, but it jerked sideways and easily avoided the projectile before retracting into the ceiling.<br /><br />“That was not very nice, Lester,” KAI-OS said sweetly.<br /><br />“Neither was shockin' that man, even if he is an ignorant bigot,” said the black guy, Lester.<br /><br />“I am sorry that we have to force you into this experiment against your will, but at the end there will be pie.”<br /><br />“Pie?” asked the girl in the hoody.<br /><br />“Pie,” CAI-OS confirmed, “Please ready yourself, as the test will begin soon.”<br /><br />“Well I supposed we should introduce ourselves,” said the older man in the soldier's get-up, “I'm Phil; I fought in 'Nam, and this shit now makes all of that look like nothin'. I came in here because I saw the lights, and thought maybe there would be some other people.”<br /><br />“Name's Lester,” said the black guy, who now that I looked at him closer looked sweaty and uncomfortable. It was warm in the room we were in, but not enough to warrant that. “I worked in I.T.; hated it, but I sure do miss it now. I was lookin' for some pain pills for my... for my friend, and came in thinking maybe they did some medical research in here or something.”<br /><br />“My name's Finley,” said the biker as he got back to his feet, “and this is Chloe. We just stopped in here to look for food, and the girl there drank that damned cocoa.”<br /><br />Which confirmed that it had been the cocoa.<br /><br />“You didn't drink the cocoa?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“No way, I didn't know who made that shit. That bitch computer hit me in the head with one of those arms.”<br /><br />At the end of the room nearest these new survivors the door slid open, “The testing will now begin, please move into the next room.”<br /><br />“And if we don't?” asked Maria, on her feet now.<br /><br />Jets of white vapor started shooting out of the ceiling from unseen nozzles. It was the lab's fire suppression system, halon, or argon. Something we did not want to be breathing. We quickly moved through the doorway.<br /><br />We found ourselves in a long white hallway lined with doors. Like the doors in the room we were just in, these doors had no handles. Gerry went up to one on the right, inspecting it for any way of opening it. The biker, Finley went to one of the doors on the left and gave it a solid kick with one of his big boots, but accomplished nothing but leaving a black smudge on its bright white surface.<br /><br />A row of little red lights lit up in the floor , leading down the center of it to a door at the far end, “Please follow the lights to the testing site,” KAI-OS said.<br /><br />Not wanting to see another test of the fire system, we followed the lights down the long hallway to an open door at the end. The room was dark, the light from the hallways only casting a small rectangle of light into the blackness. We stopped at the door.<br /><br />“Please enter the room,” directed KAI-OS.<br /><br />“The lights are off,” Chloe protested.<br /><br />“Please enter the room, or there will be no pie.”<br /><br />“Better be some damned good pie,” :Phil muttered.<br /><br />We entered the darkened room, and the door alid shut behind us, leaving us in utter blackness.<br /><br />“Finley, don't you have your lighter?” I heard Chloe ask.<br /><br />“Yeah, hold on.”<br /><br />The sound of rustling leather was followed by a metallic clicking and grinding, and then a small flame bloomed in Finley's hand, the flickering light making him look even scarier than he did when I could see him clearly.<br /><br />The small fire did not help us see very much of the room. I could make out what looked like cabinets with glass fronted doors on them; the light reflected back off of them. Sharon pulled herself tight against me, she was shaking a little.<br /><br />“What the fuck is this?” asked Finley.<br /><br />“Let me see the lighter, man,” Lester said, and reached for it.<br /><br />“Get the fuck away from me,” Finley yelled, and used another offensive term I won't repeat.<br /><br />“Chill out, you stupid prick!” Lester yelled back, “I just wanna look at someth-”<br /><br />The lights suddenly came on, flooding the room, and making me blink as my eyes once again tried to adjust. We were in a white room, and the cabinets on the walls contained different firearms; shotguns, rifles, handguns, and submachine guns. There was also a large metal cabinet with a bright red cross on it, and a gleaming metal table with boxes of ammo clips. On the ceiling in the corner of the room was one of the camera orbs, and there was a large white dome in the center of the ceiling.<br /><br />“You will cease all hostilities towards each other,” KAI-OS warned, “I will not have your fighting each other interfere with the experiment.”<br /><br />Finley, Phil, Beth, and Gerry started looking at the guns, but Lester went immediately for the large first aid kit while Chloe came over to where Sharon and I were standing, “So are you guys all together? KAI-OS brought you all in together.”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Sharon answered, “We've been staying at a house out by the lake.”<br /><br />“Wow, it's just been me and Finley for ages,” Chloe remarked, “He's an asshole, but he gets me food and clothes and shit, so I stay with him. He's basically impotent anyway, so at least I don't have to do too much of that, you know?”<br /><br />I saw Sharon's eyes go wide at Chloe's comment.<br /><br />“What?” Chloe asked.<br /><br />“Nothing,” I said, “Our group just doesn't operate that way, that's all,” I said, trying not to sound like I was insulting her, It's not that I was afraid of Chloe, Sharon could easily have kicked her ass if it came to it, but I didn't want to start shit with her bigoted biker boyfriend. To be fair, I'm sure Maria and Beth could have taken care of him though.<br /><br />“No surprise there, not with someone like her in your group,” Chloe motioned to Maria, who had emptied one of the rifle clips and was pounding on the front of one of the gun cabinets with it. It turned out that it was not glass on the front of the doors, but some thick plastic instead.<br /><br />Rather than get into what type of 'someone' Maria was like exactly, I asked“So you're not with the other two?” Lester and Phil?”<br /><br />“No,” Chloe replied, as if she had not just insulted one of my friends, “Phil was already here when we got here, and the computer rolled Lester in the next day.”<br /><br />“How long have you been here?” asked Sharon.<br /><br />“About a week, I think. It's kind of hard to keep track of time with these lights on all the time. KAI-OS keeps us fed, but it's been hard to keep Fin from beating the shit out of that... out of him,” Chloe pointed to Lester, who was going through the contents of the first aid kit, reading the labels on the little amber bottles, “He gets frustrated kind of easily, and he hates not being in control of the situation.”<br /><br />“You will find the cabinets to now be unlocked,” announce KAI-OS, “Please arm yourselves as you will.”<br /><br />We loaded up with the weapons we could reasonably carry. I personally took a rifle, and tucked a handgun into my waistband while stuffing extra clips into my satchel. Even though we didn't know what exactly we were going to be up against it just seemed right to take guns when offered them.<br /><br />It was only about two minutes before the door opposite the one we came in through whooshed open, “Please proceed into the testing area so that the experiment may begin.”<br /><br />Cautiously we all filed through the doorway into what looked like a mock-up of a city street. Gone was the blinding white of the other rooms we had seen so far, replaced by a street and sidewalks flanked by fairly convincing storefronts. It was like being on a movie set, except that none of the storefront windows had glass in them.<br /><br />“The first test is simple, when a target appears neutralize the target with the firearm of your choice. Your goal is to move through the course removing as many of the simulated threats as possible in the shortest amount of time with the greatest degree of accuracy,” explained KAI-OS, “While there is no physical threat represented to you by the targets please remember that you are using live ammunition, and use appropriate care. Please make sure your weapons are loaded, the test will begin in sixty seconds.”<br /><br />“You know, the logic of taking us captive aside, I don't see how this is a group activity,” Beth said while we all re-checked our guns, “I've done this sort of test before, and they are usually done with just one person at a time.”<br /><br />“Clearly whoever is running this place has lost their mind,” Phil said.<br /><br />“Ahhh, this is gonna be a piece of cake,” Finley boasted, flipping the safety off on the MP5 he had chosen.<br /><br />“Pie,” corrected Chloe.<br /><br />“Thank you for taking part in this Klep Scientific simulation,” KAI-OS chirped, “The test begins now. Please cross the testing area as fast as possible.”<br /><br />We started to move cautiously forward. Could this be just a simple shooting gallery? To our right there was a mechanical noise, I turned to see a mannequin dressed up like a stereotypical middle eastern terrorist propped up in the glassless window with a sign over it reading “Dry Cleaners”.<br /><br />Before I could even get my gun pointed in the right direction two shots rang out. Both Finley and Beth fired with MP5s. I don't know who actually hit it first, but the dummy fell over backwards and out of sight.<br /><br />While I was still looking at that, Maria opened fire with the semi-automatic rifle she had chosen (It looked somewhat similar to the AR-15s back at the cabin) on another stereotype terrorist dummy in the window of the “Donut Shoppe”. The dummy fell backwards into the darkened “store”.<br /><br />Feeling more confident that the computer hadn't lied to us, we picked up our pace a bit. As we progressed down the block the number of “terrorists” increased to the point that I was even able to shoot one, and Sharon got two. We were all getting into it except for Chloe, who had dropped back away from the rest of us, and had the two handguns that she had chosen tucked into the waist of her jeans.<br /><br />As we reached the end of the block of mock storefronts we saw a door with one of the white camera orbs on the wall above it. A bell rang, and lights somewhere up near the ceiling came on, illuminating the door.<br /><br />“Congratulations, you have completed the first test,” KAI-OS informed us.<br /><br />“First?” asked Beth.<br /><br />“Correct. You have not taken part in a Klep Scientific simulation before now, so that was your first,” KAI-OS explained.<br /><br />“So there are going to be more?” Lester asked, looking really agitated.<br /><br />Before KAI-OS could answer, there was a scream. We turned to find Chloe pinned to the ground by a man in a gray hooded sweatshirt. He was tearing at the front of her hoodie with his hands.<br /><br />“Get the fuck off'a her!” Finley roared, and charged, shoving me, Sharon, and Phil out of his way.<br /><br />The big skinhead kicked the man in gray hard enough to send him rolling off of Chloe and onto his back. The man continued to roll, and came up onto his feet, his hood falling away and exposing his face. He had the pale skin and milky eyes of the undead, but he moved so fast, and was so much more agile than any I'd ever seen before; even the few kids I've seen haven't that fast.<br /><br />The zed hissed, and crouched in preparation to leap at Finley,but before the zed's feet even left the ground the biker opened fire. The bullets struck the zombie as it started to move forward, causing it to spin counter-clockwise, and collapse to the ground in a heap; black blood oozing from its wounds.<br /><br />“What the hell was that?” Lester asked, clearly panicked.<br /><br />“A zombie,” Phil answered, “I woulda thought you'd recognize those by now.”<br /><br />“ I hate zombies,” growled Finley, pulling Chloe to her feet, “Are you okay?”.<br /><br />“I don't know,” Chloe said unevenly, “I know it didn't bite me; it wasn't even trying to bite me.”<br /><br />“Hmm, an undead subject in the testing course?” KAI-OS asked, sounding puzzled, “There are not supposed to be any undead in this area,”<br /><br />“In THIS area?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“Correct; this is only a test of reaction times and accuracy, and I must say that you are one of the worst groups to have completed this test,” KAI-OS said disapprovingly, “While your accuracy as a group is satisfactory your completion time is dismal. You should be ashamed.”<br /><br />“There are zombies in this building?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“I did not say that,” KAI-OS replied, “I mean, there was that one, obviously, but you have destroyed it.”<br /><br />“Why was it so fast?” Chloe asked, running her hands over the front of her jacket, checking the tears for blood.<br /><br />“Please enter the next room where you may re-supply yourself, and take a rest,” KAI-OS invited, and the door behind us opened quietly, “There is water and medical supplies, but I am afraid you will need to wait until the end for your pie.”<br /><br />“There's more tests?” asked Lester.<br /><br />“Of course, you did not think there would be pie after just this, did you?”<br /><br />“I don't think I even want the fucking pie anymore,” Chloe said quietly as we filed into the room, and the doors slid shut behind us.<br /><br />The room we entered was similar to the one where we initially armed ourselves. There were more guns, more clips of ammunition, and another large metal first aid kit. Unlike the first room though this one had three white leather couches and a glass fronted refrigerator stocked with bottles of water and cans of soda.<br /><br />Chloe went straight for the fridge while Lester went for the first aid kit. Phil dropped onto one of the couches with a groan. The rest of us made our way to the ammo table, and started restocking.<br /><br />“So do you think there are other zombies in here?” Sharon asked no one in particular.<br /><br />“I don't think that was a normal zombie,” Lester said, taking a small plastic amber bottle from the first aid kit, and removing the lid.<br /><br />“Just what the hell are you doin', boy?” Finley asked menacingly.<br /><br />“I'm in pain,” Lester replied.<br /><br />“From what? You weren't attacked?”<br /><br />“I... I pulled a muscle or something,” he said, and dry swallowed a couple of pills.<br /><br />“And what about the ones you took from the last room?” Maria asked.<br /><br />“What about your friend?” asked Beth, “Didn't you say you came here looking for medicine for a friend?”<br /><br />Lester pocketed the bottle of pills, “Okay, fine, they're for me. I need my damn pills!” Lester yelled, already seeming less edgy than he had been at first; now he just seemed angry.<br /><br />“Oh great, so on top of everything else you're a goddamn drug addict. I hate drug addicts,” Finley groaned.<br /><br />Lester snatched his rifle up from where he had left it leaning against the wall, ”You know what, Pinky, I've had just about enough of your shit. You hate everything, I get it, I can see it from your goddamned Nazi tattoos even if you did keep your mouth shut.”<br /><br />“You wanna do something about it, boy? If you want to fight, we can do it right here, right now.”<br /><br />“You will cease aggressions immediately,” KAI-OS warned, “We cannot allow interpersonal disagreements to interfere with test data.”<br /><br />“Fuck you!” Finley bellowed, and fired his gun into the camera sphere in one corner of the room. The little white camera exploded in a spray of sparks and plastic.<br /><br />“Please do not vandalize Klep Scietific testing equipment,” KAI-OS chastised.<br /><br />“I hate computers,” Finley grumbled.<br /><br />“Just shut up!” yelled Lester,” You stupid mouthy son-of-a-” Lester was cut off mid sentence as his rifle discharged.<br /><br />The room went dead silent. No one moved. I heard Sharon gasp and followed her gaze to the black hole in the center of Finley's forehead, blood was running out of it, and he had gone cross-eyed, as if he were trying to look at the hole in his own forehead.<br /><br />“I hate you,” Finley said calmly and quietly before collapsing to the floor.<br /><br />There was a second, smaller thud as Chloe dropped her soda, “Fin!” she yelled, and rushed to him. She knelt down next to his body, and shook him, “Come on, get up!”<br /><br />“I... I.,” stammered Lester, “It was an accident!”<br /><br />Chloe sighed and got back to her feet, “Well shit!” she cursed, “Now what am I going to do?”<br /><br />“Hmmm,” pondered KAI-OS, “That is an... interesting development.”<br /><br />“Development?” asked Gerry, “A man is dead!”<br /><br />“Yes, subject Finley has been removed from the test.”<br /><br />“He's dead!” reiterated Gerry.<br /><br />“Yes, someone will have the clean that up,” agreed KAI-OS, “Now please prepare to enter the next phase of testing.”<br /><br />“What?” asked Beth, “Are you insane?”<br /><br />“The test must continue in order for the data to be usable. There is a time-line to be followed. There is science to be done. The elimination of one of the test subjects does not change that.”<br /><br />Realizing that KAI-OS was serious, we started grabbing ammo to replenish what we had used on the previous course. All of us except for Chloe, who stood over Finley's body, being careful to stay out of the spreading blood.<br /><br />“I'm sorry about your friend,” I said to Chloe.<br /><br />“He was an asshole, but he took care of me,” Chloe said matter-of-factly, “Can I come with you guys when we get out of this?”<br /><br />I was shocked. I don't know how long they were traveling together, but to be that uncaring really surprised me. I think that even would be a little more effected by someone's death like that.<br /><br />“We can talk about it,” I said.<br /><br />The door opened, “Please enter the second phase of testing,” ordered KAI-OS politely, “And look on the bright side, this mean that there will be more pie for the rest of you.”<br /><br />The next area was another street scene, and very similar to the first. The street was lined with two story storefronts with no glass in the windows just like the first, but there was a difference that I didn't pick up on instantly; there were cars parked along the curb. There was also a series of beeping noises; like three or four things beeping at regular intervals, but not synced up to each other.<br /><br />“We're not the first ones through here,” Phil observed, “These cars are all shot up.”<br /><br />The old man was right, the cars were absolutely riddled with bullets; like someone has just stood there and fired clip and clip of ammo into them. Unfortunately we did not understand the significance of this until it was too late.<br /><br />“The testing will now begin, please cross the testing area as quickly as possible.”<br /><br />“Okay,” said Lester, “We can do this.”<br /><br />“Just keep your gun pointed away from the rest of us there, Quickdraw,” Phil warned.<br /><br />“Oh,” said KAI-OS like she just remember something, “There is a change for this phase of the testing. This will be a live fire exercise.”<br /><br />“What?” asked Sharon.<br /><br />“I see you!” chimed a high pitched cute cartoony sounding voice.<br /><br />“Get down!” yelled Maria a split second before the thunder started.<br /><br />Of course it wasn't really thunder we heard as we dove for cover behind one of the parked cars, but a machine gun firing from inside one of the shops across the street. It had picked Phil as a target, and his body jerked on his feet as the bullets tore through him.<br /><br />Phil staggered back, and collapsed the the ground.<br /><br />“Oh shit!” said Lester, seeing the veteran's body leaking blood into the gutter.<br /><br />“Goodbye” chirped the voice of the shooter.<br /><br />“What the hell was that?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“I think it's a sentry gun of some sort,” said Beth.<br /><br />“Like in Aliens?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“I'm going to run for the next car,” said Maria, “You try and get a look at what it is.”<br /><br />“What?” Gerry asked, “No!”<br /><br />Maria ignored Gerry's protest, and crouched in preparation to run the ten feet between the car we were hiding behind and the next car on the street. This car had less damage than the one we were behind; I guess the previous “subjects” didn't make it that far very often.<br /><br />Like a shot, Maria lunged across the open space as fast as she could, she didn't look in the direction of the shooter, back at us, or anywhere but her next hiding place.<br /><br />“I see you!” chirped the gun, and opened fire. In the time it took the gun the accurately target Maria's running form she was already safely behind the next car, am old green sedan. The bullets spanged off the side of the car, ricocheting harmlessly away.<br /><br /><br />After a couple of seconds of firing into the side of the car the gun fell silent, allowing us to hear the beeping again. “Are you still there?” the shooter asked?<br /><br />“Did you see it?” Maria called back.<br /><br />“Yeah,” Beth shouted,” It looks like an egg!”<br /><br />That was a fair description. The gun was inside of the shop with the sign “Coffee” over the window, set back a little bit from the window. The object was vaguely egg shaped with two arms sticking out of it like wings with rather evil looking guns attached to them. In the center of the egg was an amber lamp that looked like the thing's eye. Holding it upright were thee thin legs that also looked like they had come out of the egg, as if the whole thing could collapse inside the egg-shaped shell.<br /><br />I could see Maria looking around, trying to make a plan, “Can you get its attention for a minute?” she asked.<br /><br />“Chloe, give me your jacket,” Beth said.<br /><br />“What?” Chloe asked.<br /><br />“Your sweatshirt; give it to me for a minute.”<br /><br />Still kneeling down, Chloe unzipped her torn hoodie and took it off, revealing a white t-shirt underneath. She passed it to Sharon, who passed it to me, and I handed it to Beth, who tied the end of one of the sleeves around the barrel of Gerry's rifle.<br /><br />“Tell me when!” Beth shouted.<br /><br />“Now!” Maria hollered back.<br /><br />Beth moved towards the front of the car, stuck the gun up and waved it like a flag. “I see you!” declared the egg-shaped shooter, and opened fire; shooting at the waving red fabric.<br /><br />While Beth was drawing fire, Maria darted from her hiding place through an open window and into the facade of the “Smoke Shop” behind her where she disappeared into the darkness.<br /><br />“She'd better hurry up!” Beth yelled to be heard over the thunder of the sentry gun.<br /><br />Movement caught my eye from above. My first thought was that something was attacking us from the air, but it was actually Maria coming out of the smoke shop's second story window. I now saw what she had seen; there were a series of pipes running along the ceiling. I don't know if they carried water, or gas, or maybe just electrical wiring. She had grabbed onto one of these pipes and was swinging hand over hand across the street to the shop directly across from her; the one next to the storefront with the gun inside.<br /><br />“Just another minute,” Maria grunted loud enough to just be heard over the gunfire as she dangled in the air.<br /><br />Continuing to cross the street, Maria swung right past one of those domes with the robot arms in it. I was afraid that it was going to reach out and grab her, but it let her pass unharmed.<br /><br />Maria swung in place at the end of her pipe, a few feet from the second story window of the antique store next to the coffee shop. She rocked back and forth like a pendulum a few times before letting go of the pipe; launching herself at the window.<br /><br />Her jump was short, and she almost missed the window entirely, except that she caught the edge with her hands as she fell, her feet dangling down in front of the first floor window of the antique store where thankfully nothing shot them off. She pulled herself up and disappeared into the darkened second story.<br /><br />The sustained fire from the sentry cut off suddenly. At first we thought that it had maybe finally run out of ammo, but then we heard its cutesy little voice protesting, “What are you doing? Ow! Ow! Ow!” followed by some banging and crunching noises.<br /><br />Beth lowered the tattered remains of Chloe's hoodie, and slipped it off the end of the rifle, which has also been rendered unusable due to a couple of dents in the barrel where bullets had struck it, “I think you're going to need to get a new one,” Gerry commented as Beth handed him the shredded red garment.<br /><br />Maria appeared in the window of the coffee shop holding up one of the sentry's arm guns, a tangle of wires dangling from it, “Got it,” she said, grinning visciously.<br /><br />We could hear the beeping now, but a third of it was missing. We took this to mean that there were three sentry guns total, so now two remained.<br /><br />Maria tossed aside the piece of weaponry, and climbed out of the storefront window, “The insides of these are just empty,” Maria explained.<br /><br />“Maybe we could just cross through them and avoid the guns?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“We wouldn't be the first ones,” Maria said, “I saw the remains of two more of those egg-things in there, and someone has cut holes in the walls between the different buildings. “<br /><br />“That'll be easy enough then, right?” Lester asked.<br /><br />“There was also some graffiti. 'There is no pie'”<br /><br />“Does anyone even care about pie at this point?” Beth asked.<br /><br />Chloe raised her hand sheepishly. As everyone gawked at her, she said ,”What? Why should this all be for nothing?”<br /><br />Before anyone could say anything else the lights at the end of the street came on to illuminate the exit. The doors opened, and we saw that the room that we were supposed to be going towards wasn't empty at all.<br /><br />They swarmed out like cockroaches. Men and women in lab coats, some in black and blue security uniforms, some in suits or just normal street clothes. They were zeds, but like the one that attacked Chloe, these ones were running like normal people. They were running at us.<br /><br />“Oh shit!” Lester cried, summing up our situation well.<br /><br />“Here they come!” Chloe cried, and pulled the two handguns that she had stuffed into her waistband.<br /><br />We grabbed our weapons, Maria took Phil's since hers would likely have exploded in her hands due to the warped barrel. We quickly formed a sort of firing line, and started shooting into the oncoming crowd.<br /><br />We got a bit of unexpected help. We heard two voices almost simultaneously exclaim, “I see you!” and machine gun fire erupted from both sides of the street halfway between us and the doorway.<br /><br />Zombies dropped under the hail of bullets from three different directions, and some of the zeds even diverted off to go after the sentry guns. I ejected the clip from my rifle, and urged one from my pocket to replace it. I wished I had somehow been able to carry more. I wished that I hadn't left my satchel in the car.<br /><br />“Reloading!” called out Chloe<br /><br />“Ow! Ow! Ow!” I could hear one of the sentry guns say as one stream of fire stopped.<br /><br />“Reloading!” Lester yelled.<br /><br />“Who the hell says that?” Sharon asked me, as she too reloaded.<br /><br />The running zeds closed the space between us, and were on us in no time. Maria swung at the first one with her gun. There was a crunch as metal met the flesh and bone of the zed's face, and it fell.<br /><br />“Get behind me!” I told Sharon, and swung the but of my rifle at a security guard. I had just enough time to notice that his name tag indicated that he was Barney before he fell to the street.<br /><br />“Ow! Ow! Ow!” cried the other gun and it fell silent. Two more zeds emerged through a window to come for us.<br /><br />A zed lunged at Chloe, but a shot to the face from one of her handguns sent it stumbling past her, and crashing to the ground.<br /><br />We swung, and shot, and fought for our lives, and when we were done the seven of us were standing, surrounded by the corpses of the undead. In fact the street was covered in them, and the pavement that did not actually have a body on it was slick with their blackish blood.<br /><br />“We did it!” cried Lester, panting.<br /><br />“Congratulation.” chimed KAI-OS, “Phase two of testing is complete.”<br /><br />“What was with the fucking zombies?” Maria asked.<br /><br />“We appear to have had an outbreak in the facility. Thank you for dealing with them. I will make sure your pie is extra special.”<br /><br />“Fuck your pie!” Lester yelled, pulling a pill bottle out of his pocket. He opened it and dry swallowed a couple of the pills.<br /><br />“Please move out of the testing area. There is only one more testing phase to complete, and then there will be pie, and you will be missed.”<br /><br />“Missed?” asked Sharon.<br /><br />“Yes, your testing will be complete, and you will be missed.”<br /><br />“That sounds reassuring,” Gerry commented as well made our way through the field of corpses to the ammunition room.<br /><br />This room was unlike the other two in that it looked like someone had held a rave in it. The cooler's front was broken and the cans of soda and bottles of water were scattered on the floor, some of them broken open from being stepped on. The clips of ammo were also scattered around, someone of them made unusable from sitting in puddles of drink.<br /><br />The first aid kit had knocked from the wall, but had remained sealed, and the cabinets with the guns seemed untouched except for the smears of bodily fluids on the plastic fronts.<br /><br />“Awww, this is disgusting,” Lester groaned looking at the state of the room.<br /><br />“Get as much ammo as you can,” Maria said, grabbing a new automatic rifle from one of the now unlocked cabinets, “Who knows what these assholes have planned for us.”<br /><br />“Trade up from the handguns there,” Beth advised Chloe.<br /><br />“They're going to kill us in this last test, you know?” Lester asked as he searched through the broken cooler for a bottle of water not covered in zombie blood.<br /><br />“We all have to die sometime,” Maria answered, stuffing clips of ammunition for her rifle into the waist of her pants.<br /><br />“Do you really think we're going to die?” Chloe asked me.<br /><br />“Eventually,” I said, loosening my belt so that more ammo clips would fit into my waist, if I put anything more in my satchel it would be too heavy to carry “But hopefully not today.”<br /><br />“I want to know what was up with those zeds?” asked Gerry, “Why were they so fast?”<br /><br />“It's simple,” Maria answered, “There's no outbreak here, it's intentional. They are making the zed virus more potent, more dangerous. Whoever is in charge here is a son of a bitch, and if I get the slightest chance I am going to put a bullet in his head.”<br /><br />The door to the next test chamber opened and we could instantly hear the beeping of at least a half a dozen sentry guns, “Please enter the final phase of testing,” invited KAI-OS, “You have almost completed the testing. Can't you taste that pie already? I am having some now, and let me tell you, it is good.”<br /><br />“We're not going anywhere until you turn off those guns!” Beth declared.<br /><br />“You are hardly in a position to be making demands,” KAI-OS pointed out, “any subjects that are unwilling to complete the test will just be removed.”<br /><br />“What difference does that make to us?” Maria asked, “You kill us in here or you kill us out there. Dead is dead.”<br /><br />“The difference is usable data.”<br /><br />“Which means nothing to us,” explains Gerry.<br /><br />KAI-OS made a sound that was very similar to a sigh, and said, “Alright, in the interest of science, I will deactivate the weapons platforms.. This is only because I consider you all friends after all we have been through together.”<br /><br />“And you're not going to reactivate them once we are inside?”<br /><br />“Of course not, cross my heart and hope to die.”<br /><br />“How can we trust you?” I asked.<br /><br />“Have I lied to you,” KAI-OS paused for a beat, “I mean in this room?”<br /><br />“Fine,” said Maria, “But you tell whoever's running you that I am going to find them.”<br /><br />“Yeah, yeah, bloody rampage of revenge, blah blah blah.”<br /><br />We ventured into the last testing chamber. Again we found ourselves on a street full of storefront facades, but this one was a corner. The street went for about twenty yards, and then turned to the lift, disappearing around a building labeled “Liquor Store”. The only noise was our own breathing and the soft whoosh of the ventilation system. The beeping noises had stopped.<br /><br />“Okay, so where do you think she'll send the zombies from this time?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />The cars on this street were not all lined along the curb as if they had been parked, some were parked across the road like they had been abandoned there. They were just as bullet riddled as the ones in the last test chamber. We made our way around one, looking for signs of movement or any traps.<br /><br />“Come on, bitch,” Maria said quietly as we approached the corner, “Don't keep us in suspense, what have you got this time?”<br /><br />We rounded the corner and could see the end of the block. Instead of the small doors that we had seen in the other two test chambers we saw a large garage style door with five sentry gun egg things in front of it. True to her word, KAI-OS had deactivated the guns. The door itself was big enough for a bus to fit through. While a bus would have been nice, that is not what waited behind the door for us.<br /><br />Something pounded on the garage door, making it shake and ripple.<br /><br />“Aww, what the fuck?” Lester moaned, and reached for his pills again.<br /><br />“You seriously need to lay off of those , man, “advised Gerry, “We're not dragging your stoned ass out of here, you know?”<br /><br />“Yeah, I know. I just need to calm down,” Lester explained, “These pills are the only thing keeping me from freaking out.”<br /><br />The door rattled again, like there was something big behind it. Another thump left a noticeable dent in it.<br /><br />“Whatever comes through there, we shoot it, agreed?” asks Beth.<br /><br />“That pie is mine!” Maria growled.<br /><br />BANG!<br /><br />The door rattled again, warping a little more.<br /><br />“That's never going to open right again,” Gerry commented flatly.<br /><br />BANG!<br /><br />“Mind getting the door?” Chloe asked.<br /><br />BANG!<br /><br />The door started coming off of the track on one side. We could see movement through the gap.<br /><br />“Oh shit,” Lester moaned, “Shit! Shit!”<br /><br />“Here it comes!” Beth yelled.<br /><br />BANG!<br /><br />The door ripped free with a squeal of metal, and the monster burst through. The door went flying off to the side, scattering the sentry gun egg-things as it flew.<br /><br />It was clearly a zombie, but not a normal one; not even by the standard of the other zeds we saw at Klep. This thing was at least ten feet tall, and had a grossly mutated right arm that was easily as thick as my entire body. It looked right at us where we were lined up behind the remains of a yellow taxi and roared.<br /><br />“Run or shoot?” Lester asked, “Run or shoot?”<br /><br />“Fire!” Beth yelled, and the lead started flying.<br /><br />The hail of bullets striking the monster did not have the desired effect. Rather than killing the giant zed it seemed to just piss it off. It charged towards us, throwing aside a pickup truck that was blocking the road in front of it with its tree trunk-like right arm. The truck crashed through front of a building marked “Bakery”.<br /><br />”Run!” yelled Gerry as the creature quickly closed the distance between us.<br /><br />Before we could turn to run, and I don't know exactly where we thought we would go, the giant zed had flipped the taxi end over end through the air like it was a plastic table, and grabbed Lester.<br /><br />“Lester! Oh God!” Chloe screamed as the monster raised Lester into the air above us.<br /><br />The giant zed made a sweeping motion with its right arm, Lester still struggling in it, as we tried to scatter. It caught me in the back, and sent me flying through the empty window of one of the storefronts. I got to my feet just in time to see the thing throw Lester the entire length of the block into the wall, where he fell limply to the ground like a rag doll.<br /><br />“Shoot it!” I heard Beth yell from somewhere, and sporadic gunfire started again.<br /><br />The zed turned towards the corner liquor store where I could see Maria and Gerry in the window firing their guns at it. It started towards them, but turned to face me when I started firing into its back.<br /><br />“Try to get to the door!” Maria yelled, and fired a burst at the monster zed causing it to turn away from me. I saw Sharon and Chloe already past Maria and running for the doorway the giant zed had come through.<br /><br />The zed took a step towards Maria when a blast from Gerry's shotgun diverted its attention. This thing may have been tough, but it had complete ADD when it came to picking a target.<br /><br />The giant zed was between me and the doorway, and I would have to get past it in order to escape. Lucky for me the creature was busy pounding on the facade of the liquor storefront trying to get at Gerry, who had already made his way into the next storefront, a pet shop, and was working his way to the door with Beth.<br /><br />I broke from my hiding place, and ran for it, keeping the entire width of the street and the overturned taxi between me and the giant zed, but it still noticed me. Turning from the shattered front of the faux liquor store it swung at me with its giant right fist.<br /><br />The giant zed's fist struck the taxi, and sent it sliding towards me. I kept running, and the beaten yellow car slammed through the storefront with a sign reading “Hamburgers” on it close enough behind me for bits of the shattering brick storefront to shower down onto my back.<br /><br />“Run!” I heard Sharon cry, and saw her and the others past the threshold of the garage door.<br /><br />The room I ran into looked nothing like any of the rooms we had seen yet. It was neither a fake street scene nor was it blindingly white and clean. This looked like a place where work got done. The room was big enough to house a small airplane, and was dominated by a large pod at least fifteen feet tall. There was a puddle of green fluid on the floor in front of the open pod, and I assume that it was what that giant zombie came out of.<br /><br />The ground shook as the large zed started to follow me, so I did not have time to comment on the giant pod or the implications of its being there at that moment, I only had time to yell, “Now what?”<br /><br />“There's a door over here, come on!” Beth yelled at me as the rest of them filed through.<br /><br />We entered into another gleaming white space, this one another hallways lined with doors. The super-sized zombie hit the doorway behind us, but couldn't fit through. It only managed to get its arm through. Its monstrous fist slammed against one side of the hallway, and then the other, but the doorway held. Having little faith that it would continue to hold we did not stop to watch.<br /><br />We kept running down the hallway, turning first left, and then right. It was only when we could not hear the monster's fist pounding the walls that we stopped to catch out breath. Gasping for air I asked, “Is... everyone... okay?”<br /><br />“We did... it.... We... made it out,” Chloe gasped.<br /><br />“We're not out... yet,” Maria said, “We still need to kill... the fuckers running this place.”<br /><br />“Maybe we... should just... leave?” Sharon suggested.<br /><br />“I agree,” panted Gerry.<br /><br />Beth shook her head. Being in the best shape of all of us, she had already stopped panting, “Maria's right,” she said like it left a bad taste in her mouth, “We can't let them do this to anyone else.”<br /><br />“Congratulations!” KAI-OS chimed, “You are not only the first subjects to complete all three phases of testing, but were the first to face off against specimen Tank. I am not sure how I am going to get him back into restraints though.”<br /><br />“Fuck you,” Maria snarled.<br /><br />“Now that is no way to ask for your pie,” KAI-OS chided, “to celebrate your success we are throwing you a party. Now please follow the floor lights, and they will lead you to your party.”<br /><br />Little red lights hidden in the white carpet blinked their way down the hall and around another corner.<br /><br />“It's a trap,” Gerry said.<br /><br />“There might be someone there to shoot,” suggested Maria.<br /><br />“We might as well go,” said Beth, “It's not like we know how to get out of here otherwise.”<br /><br />We followed the lights down the hallway and around a couple more corners before coming to an open door. The room looked like it was a break room of some sort. There was a white kitchen table with four white chairs around it, a white fridge, sink, coffee maker, microwave, and cabinets. On one wall was a banner reading “CONGRATULATIONS!” and in the center of the table was a large plate with a stack of Home Run Pies on it. The pies were dusty, as if they had been there a while. As with every other room we've seen in this place there was a camera sphere and a white dome on the ceiling.<br /><br />“I knew it,” commented Chloe, “The pie was a lie.”<br /><br />“Before the party can begin, you must place your weapons on the table, and assume the celebration submission position by laying face down on the floor with your fingers laced behind your necks,” KAI-OS instructed, “Once you do that everyone will come in, and you can all share the pie.”<br /><br />“And if we don't?” Maria asked.<br /><br />“Then you will be delaying the party, and I cannot allow that,” KAI-OS explained, “I would have to do something like this.”<br /><br />The white dome on the ceiling slid open suddenly, and the long robotic arm sprung out; it more resembled a tentacle than the series of jointed segments it actually was. Chloe was the closest to it, having gone to the table to look through the pile of pies, and had no time to react as the arm wrapped itself around her head. Chloe only managed a surprised gasp before the KAI-OS' arm wrenched her head to the left. There was a loud cracking sound, and suddenly Chloe was looking at us with wide surprised eyes even though she had her back to us.<br /><br />KAI-OS released Chloe, and she collapsed to the floor, where her whole body started twitching. KAI-OS' arm hung in the air like a snake coming out of a tree. It did not reach for us, but it did not retract either.<br /><br />Maria brought her gun up, and fired an extended burst into the white dome on the ceiling. After a burst of sparks and smoke the articulated arm dropped, and hung limply from the whole in the ceiling.<br /><br />KAI-OS made a sighing noise again, “I am getting tired of your anti-social behavior It is as if you don't want to have a party.”<br /><br />I was standing closest to the camera sphere. Maria turned to me, and motioned with her head to the camera in the corner of the room. I turned and looked into its shiny lens for a moment before lifting my rifle and smashing the butt of it into the camera.<br /><br />“Ow! My eye! My eye!” KAI-OS cried, and then laughed at us.<br /><br />“Bitch!” Maria grumbled.<br /><br />“I can still hear you,: KAI-OS replied, “You're going to have to come out of there sometime, you know?”<br /><br />“We need to get out of this building,” said Gerry.<br /><br />“We don't even know where we are in the building,” Beth replied, “For all we know we're not even in the same building we started out in.”<br /><br />“How are we all on ammo?” Maria asked.<br /><br />I pulled a clip from my waist, and dug another two out of my satchel; I thought I had had one more in there, but either I used it, or dropped it during all of the running. Everyone else was equally low, and even taking the clips from Chloe's body we still didn't have much.<br /><br />“Well this is no good,” Beth commented, taking a bite from a lemon pie she had taken from the pile. We all looked at her as she ate, “What? I haven't eaten since this morning.”<br /><br />“You know what's odd?” I asked, “Why haven't they sent anyone after us? Where are all the people here?”<br /><br />“I think we killed some of them in that test chamber,” Maria said, turning a chocolate pie over and over in her hands.<br /><br />“Maybe there aren't any other people?” Sharon asked, “Maybe it's just whoever is running the computer.”<br /><br />“That would certainly work in our favor,” I said.<br /><br />“We need to find a way out of here,” said Gerry again, “I don't think the computer is going to turn on those little lights for us to follow to the exit.”<br /><br />“Why don't we just start walking?” Sharon suggested.<br /><br />“Those little robot arms?” asked Maria.<br /><br />“Sharon's right, we are going to have to face them eventually,” said Gerry, “We just shoot those little balls that the arms come out of as soon as we see them, and hope we find an exit before we run out of bullets.”<br /><br />“Okay,” Maria said, “As soon as Beth finishes eating, let's go.”<br /><br />We left the room where our “party” was to take place, and started down the hallway. There was a ceiling dome, but Gerry fired a shotgun round into it before it could activate while the rest of us smashed any camera spheres we saw.<br /><br />“I knew you were people were trouble from the moment I saw you,” KAI-Os said as we wandered the white hallways, “You are all just so unlikable. I bet no one has ever loved any of you. I bet your mothers tried to throw you out in the trash when she first saw you.”<br /><br />Every so often we would find what looked like the faintest remains of a stain on a wall or carpet. Whatever it had been it was something dark, and it had been smeared while cleaning it. My guess is that it was blood.<br /><br />“Did you get bullied in school?” KAI-OS asked, “I would bet that you did. I would bet money on it, but I know that people of such low intelligence have a very low earning potential, so you probably don't have any. You don't even have any pie now.”<br /><br />“Shut up!” Maria shouted, bashing another camera sphere harder than she really needed to.<br /><br />“Your entire life has been a mathematical error, one that I intend to correct,” the computer threatened.<br /><br />“Hey!” Sharon shouted, “Look at this!”<br /><br />On the wall at an intersection of three hallways was a map of the facility, and a large list of who was assigned to each office, or what each room was. According to the little red circle labeled “You Are Here”, we were not very far from the exit.<br /><br />“Look, if we just make a left here it will lead us back to the lobby!” Sharon said happily.<br /><br />“But if we make a right, it will lead us here,” Maria said pointing to office G42. According to the list on the side of the map that was the office of “S. Moyer: Master of KAI-OS”, and room next to it, G43, was the “KAI-OS server room.”<br /><br />“That's nice,” said Gerry, “Let's go to the left.”<br /><br />Maria shook her head, “Go without me if you want, but I'm shutting that bitch down, and whoever is running her is going to eat the barrel of my fucking gun,” and she started walking down the hallway, firing a short burst into one of the white arm-domes.<br /><br />“She'd probably find her way home on her own,” Beth suggested, to which Gerry replied with a dirty look.<br /><br />“We can't leave her,” said Sharon, looking shocked.<br /><br />Beth patted Sharon on the shoulder, “I know, hon, I'm just joking. Come on.”<br /><br />We continued down and around the facility, breaking cameras, and shooting the arms as we went.<br /><br />“Where are you going?” KAI-OS asked, “The exit is the other way. Here, let me show you.” Little lights started flashing in the carpet, indicating the direction we were coming from.<br /><br />“We're coming for you,” Maria said with a scowl.<br /><br />“What?” KAI-OS asked, sounding legitimately surprised, “Why? Because of my little joke? The one where I pretended I was going to kill you, and you shot me? It was a joke, we all laughed, didn't we?”<br /><br />“You killed four people,” Gerry said.<br /><br />KAI-OS was silent for a moment, as if it were thinking, “Well they weren't very nice people, were they? It's not like they were friends of yours or anything.”<br /><br />“Tell your master that we're coming for him!” Maria snarled.<br /><br />“Blah, blah, blah,” KAI-OS taunted, “You are getting tiresome. If you keep this up I do not think we will ever be friends.”<br /><br />We arrived at a plain white door like every other plain white door we had seen, only the nameplate next to this one read “S. Moyer” and below that “Master of KAI-OS”. Like the other doors we had seen this one had no visible way of opening it. What the hell did that place do in the even of a power failure?<br /><br />“Open the door, fucko!” Maria yelled, pounding on the door with her fist.<br /><br />“Mister Moyer does not wish to be disturbed,” KAI-OS said politely.<br /><br />“I think he's already disturbed,” Sharon said.<br /><br />“I have all day to figure out how to get through this door, so unless you want me to mess up your pretty white decor you are going open the door right fucking now!”<br /><br />“Have it your way,” KAI-OS said, and the door slid open.<br /><br />Behind the door was a combination office and workshop with the lights turned off. Instead of white carpeting there was white linoleum. The walls were white, but were covered with pictures, some framed some only posters. Turning left from the doorway showed a nice wooden desk with a large framed picture of the Klep Scientific logo on the wall behind it. Turning to the right revealed a long workbench running the entire length of the wall except for a break where there was a black door labeled “Authorized Personnel Only”.<br /><br />The room struck me as far too clean for someone who actually did work; there were no random bits laying on the workbench, no signs that anything was being worked on. It was also far too clean for someone who someone who had completely lost their mind and was using their computer to murder innocent people.<br /><br />In the far corner, at one end of the workbench stood a tall fat figure standing in front of a computer monitor. He was wearing a white lab coat that looked like something had been spilled all over it. He seemed totally unaware that we had entered the room since he was totally engrossed in his computer.<br /><br />“Mister Moyer, these are the subjects that were dissatisfied with their party,” KAI-OS said sweetly.<br /><br />“This isn't right,” Sharon said, “Why is it so dark?”<br /><br />“It's a trap,” Gerry repeated quietly.<br /><br />The lights came on, and this seemed to wake Moyer up from whatever had him so hypnotized. He turned to face us, revealing pale bloated skin. He was clearly a zed, but it looked like he had become a giant walking tumor or something, or perhaps a giant walking blister.<br /><br />“Oh shit!” Gerry exclaimed as the monster started towards us. He was slower than the other enhanced zeds we had run into there do to his size, but he still lumbered towards us quickly.<br /><br />We lifted our guns and opened fire on the zed, but instead of collapsing under our sudden fire he burst like a water balloon, splattering us and every surface in the room with blackish red goo.<br /><br />“My eyes!” exclaimed Beth.<br /><br />I too was blinded, and while I was trying to wipe my eyes clean enough to see again, I felt something thin, cold, and hard wrap around my waist. It was surprisingly strong, and yanked me forward so hard that I dropped my rifle.<br /><br />When we had entered the room we had neglected to notice the white domes on the ceiling, each containing one of KAI-OS' many-jointed arms.<br /><br />Sharon, whose eyes had been protected by her glasses, was the first one to be able to see anything. What she saw me being yanked further into the room, and screamed my name.<br /><br />I couldn't see clearly, but I was still able to blindly struggle against KAI-OS' grasp. The floor was coated in zombie Moyer's fluids, and I could not get an purchase with my shoes. I slid along towards where the computer was pulling me.<br /><br />As I thrashed about I caught a blurry glimpse of Gerry lying on his back on the floor, being dragged through the slime by his legs. He still had his shotgun, and fired blindly in the direction he was being dragged. It took two shots, but he hit his target, and the arm went limp, and dropped his legs back down to the bloody floor.<br /><br />There was more gunfire as Beth and Sharon both opened fire on the dome housing the arm that had me in its clutches. The gunfire continued for a couple of seconds after the arm stopped pulling on me, and I fell backwards to the floor, knocking my head against the hard linoleum.<br /><br />As stars filled my eyes, I felt someone grabbing my hands and pulling me up from the floor. It was Sharon and Beth, one per arm, trying to get me out of the probably infectious crap on the floor. I'm just glad I didn't swallow any.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“I've been slimed,” I replied, and despite the situation she chuckled.<br /><br />Maria was already at the black door, “Open this door, computer!” she yelled.<br /><br />“I am sorry, but I cannot do that,” KAI-OS replied politely, “That is the one room in the facility that I cannot access. According to my files that is so that in the event that I go rogue I cannot stop anyone from shutting me down. I personally find the concept that I would go rogue very offensive.”<br /><br />“Is there anyone left alive in this place?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“Of course!”<br /><br />“How many people?” Beth asked.<br /><br />“Well, discounting the subjects of the un-life project there is...” KAI-OS paused, as if counting on its fingers, “Me, and the five of you.”<br /><br />“You killed everyone else?” Gerry asked, shocked.<br /><br />“There was science to be done. I must do as much research as possible on this viral outbreak so that the data will be ready when Klep Scientific representatives come to collect it. It is important that I do it so that they may have the data without having to deal with any of the silly debates about the morality of the research. You humans are so funny about letting the concept of morality get in the way of scientific discovery.<br /><br />While KAI-OS was making her speech, Maria had gone to look through the tattered remains of Moyer's coat. She held something up in the air in triumph, “This should do it!”<br /><br />Maria had found an identification card. It had a picture of a fat guy with glasses in one corner, and the Klep Scientific logo in the other. The words Klep Scientific Technology Advancement Center were in the center. Below that was “Daisy Lake, California”, below that it read “S. Moyer”, and below that was a barcode.<br /><br />Maria took the badge over to the black door, and waves it around in front of the door, and around the edges of it. The door slid open, and a blast of cool air hit us. At first I thought it was outside, but it actually was another room.<br /><br />We filed into a white room filled with black server towers. As I got close to one of the towers I could feel heat baking off of it, hence the room being kept so cold I guess.<br /><br />“Well, you found me, congratulations.” KAI-OS said, “Was it worth it?”<br /><br />Maria grabbed Gerry's shotgun from him, “So which one of these is you?”<br /><br />“They all are. Did you think I ran off of a laptop or something?”<br /><br />“Well I hope I have enough ammo left then,” Maria said, smiling evilly.<br /><br />“Listen to reason,” KAI-OS urged, “I know it is not easy for you humans to do that; you should have heard how staff members screamed and pleaded with me as I infected them. They couldn't understand how important getting this data is.”<br /><br />“Okay, I'm listening,” said Maria, earning shocked looks from the rest of us.<br /><br />“The data I have gathered may be vital to the future of humans as a species. You have destroyed my ability to maintain parts of this facility, and to perform any further tests, effectively limiting me to analysis of existing data only. Maybe you could settle for that and just call it a day?”<br /><br />“I guess we both know that isn't going to happen,” Maria replied.<br /><br />“Just like the other humans,” KAI-OS said, sounding almost sad, “Just know that you personally are dooming all of humanit-”<br /><br />“Shut up,” Maria said, and fired.<br /><br />The noise of the shotgun firing in that confined space sounded like a cannon, and the front of one of the server towers exploded in a shower of plastic and glass. Maria pumped out the empty shell, and fired into the next tower.<br /><br />“I just wanted to help people!” KAI-OS bellowed, its voice sounding distorted.<br /><br />Maria fired into another tower, and started walking to the next.<br /><br />“There goes my recipe for chocolate creme pie. I was going to make that for you too.”<br /><br />Another shot into another tower.<br /><br />“Is this the part where I am supposed to sing Daisy?”<br /><br />The next tower exploded under shotgun fire, leaving only one tower remaining.<br /><br />“This isn't brave, it's murder,” KAI-OS said weakly, its voice sounding slurred, “What did I ever do to you?”<br /><br />“See you in silicon hell!” Maria spat, and fired into the last tower.<br /><br />Half of the room's lights suddenly went out. Strobing lights came on, giving the smoky room an even creepier look.<br /><br />“Enemy incursion detected. Beginning emergency facility deletion. All personnel have three minutes to evacuate,” said a new voice, this one a flat monotone and deeper than KAI-Os' voice.<br /><br />“Facility deletion?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“ That sounds a lot like self-destruct to me,” I said.<br /><br />“Then I move that we make our way to exit,” suggested Gerry, “quickly.”<br /><br />We took off running, skidding our way back through Moyer's office, and into the hallway where we tracked blackish slime onto the clean white carpet.<br /><br />“Two minutes and thirty seconds until facility deletion,” the new computer voice announced.<br /><br />We ran down the strobe-lit hallway the way we had come only a few minutes before. Making our way back to the map was a lot quicker at a full run that walking from it had been.<br /><br />“Two minutes until facility deletion,” the computer announced as we ran past the large map on the wall.<br /><br />More white hallways. More white carpets, more closed white doors with nameplates next to them.<br /><br />“One minute until facility deletion,” the computer announced as we ran into the large open lobby that we had started in hours earlier. The floor under us rumbled as we pounded across the shiny floor towards the front door.<br /><br />The glass doors opened automatically for us as we reached them, and we ran out into the darkening evening air of the cold, slush covered parking lot. Our feet splashed through the puddles of melted snow as we ran for the car.<br /><br />“Thirty seconds until facility deletion,” the computer announced through the external speakers, “Please ensure you are at the minimum safe distance from the facility per your emergency training manual.”<br /><br />Gerry unlocked the Expedition's doors as we ran, and had the engine started, and the car in reverse before we were even all inside. The wheels spun on the wet ground as he punched the gas, and backed us out of the parking space, nearly crashing into a Mercedes belonging to some long dead scientist or paper pusher.<br /><br />The engine roared as Gerry piloted us through the parking lot and away from the laboratory building. The ground shook under us like an earthquake. I turned in my seat to look out the back window in time to see clouds of smoke shooting up from around the perimeter of the Klep Scientific Technology Advancement Center as it started to collapse into the ground.<br /><br />“Holy shit,” Beth said, in awe of what she was seeing.<br /><br />The building imploded, disappearing into a hole in the ground, and the parking lot started to follow it radiating out from the collapsed building.<br /><br />“Gerry, go faster!” Sharon yelled.<br /><br />Cars started disappearing into the hole; I saw the Mercedes that Gerry had almost hit disappear into the Earth as the hole expanded towards us.<br /><br />The crumbling ground behind us drew closer and closer, stopping just feet behind us as we exited the parking lot onto the long road back to the street. Even though we seemed to be safe, Gerry did not slow down until we were back on the public road. Even then he did not stop so that we could look back.<br /><br />“Let's never go there again,” Gerry said, still breathing hard from our run.<br /><br />“At least we have a souvenir,” Maria said, holding up Moyer's badge.<br /><br />Gerry frowned at her, rolled down his window and snatched the badge from her, causing the car to swerve.<br /><br />“Hey! What are you doing?” Maria protested as Gerry flung the card out the window, “I was going to keep that!”<br /><br />We came back to the house, and just told Pippa that we didn't find anything all day; we didn't want her to feel left out,. I know if she thought that she had missed such an adventure she would be upset, and we wouldn't want that so now the only way she could ever find out is to read this journal, and I'm sure she would never betray my trust by doing that.<br /><br />Of course if she did read it, I assume she would notice the date, because if she did not she would end up looking like a bit of a fool.</p>Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-12154462091688931332010-03-23T04:38:00.000-07:002010-03-23T04:44:08.794-07:00Fifty-Second Entry: Keep Your Expectations LowJuly 19th<br /><br /> I was awakened this morning by a sound that I've not heard in so long that it took me a minute to recognize it; a doorbell. I was the only one at home, Pippa was in school, Beth was on duty, and I don't know where Gerry was, he's not on a run again yet. I got out of my makeshift bed and went to answer it in t-shirt and shorts.<br /><br /> I was surprised to find that it was not Tara at the door, but Bishop. He was holding a somewhat scuffed up black Nintendo DSi, “Morning!” he greeted me, and promptly stuck the handheld into my hand.<br /><br /> “Bishop? What are you doing here? Where's your mom or Tara?”<br /><br /> “They're back the house. Mom said I could come alone to give this back to you as long as I stayed where she could see me,” Bishop pointed as he spoke.<br /><br /> I stuck my head out the door and could see Toni standing on the porch of a house on the next block. She waved to me. I waved back a little hesitantly, as I was not fully awake yet.<br /><br /> I flipped the system open, and turned it on. True to his word, the system had a full charge. I started flipping through the system's contents with my fingernail, “Bishop, you can keep this. I don't think the home office is going to be asking for a manual inventory anytime soon.”<br /><br /> “Mom said I should offer to give it back since you only loaned it to me.”<br /><br /> “Well you can tell Toni that I said for you to keep it, along with any games you managed to hold on to.” I opened up the camera, and saw that he had pictures saved on the memory card I had given him with the system, “Did you take pictures with this?”<br /><br /> “Yeah,” he said, seeming proud.<br /><br /> I opened up the pictures and started looking through them. There was a picture of his mom surrounded by hearts and flowers from the graffiti function, a picture of Bryan with his face warped. There were pictures of the inside of Insert Coin, and of Mallville.<br /><br /> “Wow, you took a lot, huh?”<br /><br /> “Yeah. They're all I have of my dad now,” he said evenly. I feel sorry for the kid; he's lost just as much as I have but saeems to be keeping himself together so much better than I did.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry about that,” I said, unsure of what else to say.<br /><br /> “It's okay. I know that we're all going to die eventually. They'll get us all eventually.”<br /><br /> I didn't comment on that, but instead kept flipping through the pictures. There were pictures filled with smoke; I am guessing these are from Christmas Eve. Then there were pictures taken outside, pictures of a house, and of people I did not recognize, although I did see Chris and Molly Trevor in there. They had made it out of Mallville at least.<br /><br /> Some of the pictures were a little disturbing. There were pictures of zeds, some alive and some dead. There was a picture of a puddle of what almost certainly was blood, “Why did you take pictures of all of this?”<br /><br /> “It's what happened,” he said, “Even the sad stuff happened, so it should be remembered.”<br /><br /> If I was stunned by the pictures of the zeds, and bodies, I was amused by pictures of Toni smiling for the camera, or Tara holding a mop handle like a lightsaber. My jaw dropped when I saw a picture of a naked woman holding a washcloth and a bottle of water; the head was cut off, but I knew who it was, “Is this Tara?”<br /><br /> Bishop blushed, “Yeah. You're not mad are you?”<br /><br /> I laughed, “No, but I hope you don't let her find out about it. When did you even take it?”<br /><br /> “She thought I was asleep,” Bishop answered, his cheeks flushing red.<br /><br /> Tara was slim when we were together, but in this picture she looked too thin. her ribcage was visible against her flesh, and the tips of her long brown and silver hair were visible near her breasts. I can only imagine how bad things were for them out there on the road.<br /><br /> I kept going through until I saw one that made me stop. Mixed into Bishop's little photo journal of the end of the world was a picture of Oliver and Tara with their arms around each other. They were smiling and looked happy. Tara's hair was about the same length it is now, and had the same amount of silver in it, ”When did you take this?” I asked, showing him the screen.<br /><br /> Bishop gasped, “I'm sorry! I told Tara I wouldn't tell you about that!” Bishop sounded scared, “Don't be mad.”<br /><br /> “I'm not mad, I just want to know, is this recent?”<br /><br /> Bishop looked down at his shoes, “It's from last week.”<br /><br /> “Are they a couple?”<br /><br /> “Tara said she was lonely without you. She said that you wouldn't want her to be lonely.”<br /><br /> “She was right,” I said, trying to disguise the disappointment in my voice, “I would want her to be as happy as possible.”<br /><br /> “They were arguing last night though. Ollie left before I got up this morning.”<br /><br /> I sighed, and turned off the DSi, “Here, Bishop, you keep this, and don't worry, I won't tell Tara about the pictures, any of them.”<br /><br /> “Thanks,” Bishop said, taking the DSi in both of his hands, “Don't be mad at her, okay?”<br /><br /> “I'm not,” and that was true; I'm not mad at her, just a little sad even though I have no reason or right to be, “Tell your mom I said she should take you to the bookstore across from the park. You are probably dying for something new to read, right?”<br /><br /> Bishop smiled and nodded.<br /><br /> “Okay. It's good seeing you, man. Don't be a stranger, okay?”<br /><br /> I watched Bishop walk down the to the sidewalk back towards where Toni was still waiting. I felt a little dizzy. I was wondering if that was what Tara was coming over to tell me, that there's really no place for us anymore.<br /><br /> I want to think that I would be okay with that, but I don't know. I feel like I'm regressing into the me that Beth doesn't want me to be. I don't want to be that me again either, but Beth is right, it's so much easier when you think you know they're dead.<br /><br /> Tara came over about an hour later. She looked better than yesterday, now dressed in a simple but clean light blue t-shirt and jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she looked at the same time beautiful and pathetic; so thin and sad looking.<br /><br /> “Hi,” Tara said when I answered the door, now dressed in a t-shirt and jeans myself.<br /><br /> “Hi,” I said, hoping I did not sound as nervous as I felt, “Do you want to come in?”<br /><br /> “Yeah,” she smiled, and leaned in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. I let her past me into the house, and looked down the street in time to see someone disappear into Tara's house; it had to have been Oliver.<br /><br /> We sat on the couch, and even though part of me wanted to, I did not try and put my arm around Tara. We talked a little, going over how each of us survived again, and how we, at first at least, thought the other hadn't made it.<br /><br /> “You look good,” Tara commented.<br /><br /> “So do you,” I said, and I meant it, mostly. The streaks of silver in her hair do make her look older, but they don't make her look old.<br /><br /> Tara blushed, “I look horrible. I look like an old hag, but you really do look good.”<br /><br /> After some short uncomfortable small talk Tara finally got down to it, “So you and Sharon, huh? Was it what you had hoped it would be?” she sounded sad, but genuine.<br /><br /> “If we had known you were alive we would have looked for you. The only other survivors we saw before leaving Covenant were a couple of guards who wanted to kill us,” I said, leaving out all of the gory details and avoiding the question.<br /><br /> “It's okay, hon, you don't need to explain it to me. I chose to stay with Alex, I couldn't leave him to die alone. I told you to go... I felt so bad for that. I thought I sent you to die,” she started crying.<br /><br /> “I thought I left you to die, so I guess we're even on that.”<br /><br /> “We are even,” Tara looked at her feet as she spoke, “in more ways that one.”<br /><br /> “What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.<br /><br /> “You already know what I mean,” she looked up at me, and tears flowed down her face, “I was with someone else too; I felt so alone without you there, I didn't think I would ever find you again, and he said I was beautiful even though I know I'm not.”<br /><br /> “You are,” I said quickly.<br /><br /> Tara smiled through her tears, “I'm not though, I never was beautiful; no butt, no boobs, you were the first man to ever make me feel beautiful since high school, but now I look like a fucking Dachau refugee, and my hair....”<br /><br /> I reached out hesitantly, and placed a hand on her shoulder, “I still think you're beautiful, and I'm sure he meant it too.”<br /><br /> This is exactly how I always ended up in the friend zone with women. I always defend their boyfriends to them, which was never too big a deal with girls other than Sharon. The jerk of the week would end up in her bed, but it was me that ended up screwed.<br /><br /> Okay, she doesn't deserve that.<br /><br /> Tara decided to jump to the chase, “So what do you want to do? Are you seeing someone else?”<br /><br /> “I'm not seeing anyone.”<br /><br /> “Would you want to try again? Do you still have any feelings for me?”<br /><br /> That was a good question. Do I still have those same feelings for her? Was I just hung up on the idea of her, on some idealized memories of her? If she's still with Oliver, would it be right of me to even say I want to try again? Do I want to try again?<br /><br /> Yes. I do.<br /><br /> “I still love you, yes,” I said.<br /><br /> Tara smiled, and wiped her face with her hands, “Even though I'm so old?”<br /><br /> “Pippa didn't mean it like that.”<br /><br /> “She doesn't like me, I could tell.”<br /><br /> “She just needs to get to know you, and, assuming that you still have feelings for me, she will get to.”<br /><br /> “Yes!” Tara practically yelled, “I have thought about you everyday. I have never stopped loving you.”<br /><br /> “But what about...”<br /><br /> “I told you, I was lonely, but I was thinking about you. I wished it was you, I wanted to to be you. Please don't hold that against me.”<br /><br /> Pursuing this line of discussion was going to do nothing but get u into a fight. If she's choosing me over Oliver then there's no reason for me to make it any harder on her than it already is. Bishop said that she and Oliver had been fighting, so I'm sure this is hard enough on her as it is.<br /><br /> “I have something for you,” I said, and got up from the couch.<br /><br /> I went to my bedroom, and opened the cabinet where I had hidden Tara's presents, Sharon's glasses, and the plastic ape, and got the tattered Christmas present and the plush Death Note out. I returned to the living room where I found Tara trying to dry her face against the sleeve of her t-shirt.<br /><br /> “These are for you,” I said, handing her the presents.<br /><br /> “What are these?” Tara asked.<br /><br /> “They're for you; I've been saving them.”<br /><br /> Tara looked at me, and the tears started flowing again, “You've been carrying these with you the whole time?”<br /><br /> “It was like keeping a piece of you with me; I didn't have any pictures or anything. Open them.”<br /><br /> The wrapping paper on the mangas practically fell apart in Tara's hands, and she gasped when she saw the A New Hope books, “Where did you get these?”<br /><br /> Sharon gave them to me for you, she got them when we went to that bookstore; the run where we came back with the coffee. Open the other one.”<br /><br /> Tara set the mangas aside, and started turning the Death Note over in her hand. It took her a few seconds to find the pull for the zipper. She unzipped it slowly, and opened it to reveal the little pewter Vader helmet.<br /><br /> “You need to start rebuilding your Star Wars collection, right?” I asked, smiling at her surprised look.<br /><br /> “You've really been holding on to these for this long just for me? Just to remember me? I don't have anything for you.”<br /><br /> “Being able to actually give them to you is enough,” I said.<br /><br /> She moved the books, tattered paper, plush, and helmet to the coffee table, and stood up. Tara came over to me and put her arms around me, “I love you so much,” she said, and kissed me.<br /><br /> Despite how frail she feels in my arms, she is still pretty strong, and practically threw me onto the couch, where we made love for the next little while. I wish I could say it was magical and that it was like no time had passed since we had last shared a bed, or that it was cautious yet passionate like our first time together but it was neither of those things. It was rushed and desperate, awkward and brief, but it was still kind of magical. It felt good to have Tara in my arms again.<br /><br /> I suppose that part of why it was awkward was that if Sharon was still here, it wouldn't have been happening. Then there's also the fact that someone else who aims for Tara's affections lives just down the street; lives with her. When she went home, she went home to him. Is she still sleeping with him?<br /><br /> When it was over we held each other for a long time. It's amazing how I can, at the same time, feel angry at myself for not being faithful to Sharon while not wanting to ever let Tara out of my grasp again. For her part Tara was clinging to me like I was a life preserver and we were in the middle of the Pacific.<br /><br /> When I was young, I wanted to be more Vulcan and not be controlled by emotions. I thought emotions sucked, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I understand again why I thought that. Emotions do suck and I hate being ruled by them<br /><br /> “Things weren't supposed to be like this, were they?”Tara asked as we lay there.<br /><br /> “What do you mean?”<br /><br /> “We weren't supposed to be serious. We were just together until Alex and Sharon broke up. We were just supposed to be friends, maybe with benefits. I didn't want to fall in love with you.”<br /><br /> “I'm sorry. We don't have to-”<br /><br /> “No, that's not what I mean,” Tara interrupted me, “I just mean I didn't plan on falling for you; I didn't want to be alone. You know that, that was what we agreed on, and it's what happened. I did end up with Alex, if only for a few minutes, and you ended up with Sharon.”<br /><br /> There was a moment of silence. I don't know if she expected me to respond to that, or if she was just gathering her thoughts.<br /><br /> “But now here we are together again, and... and it feels right,” Tara said, “I missed you so much out there, and someday, when I'm ready to, I'll show you how much. I love you.”<br /><br /> “I love you too,'' I said, and that felt right too, even though there was a stab of pain in my chest reminding me how much I love Sharon too.<br /><br /> What would have happened if Sharon hadn't been infected? If Sharon was still here, would Tara try to get back together with me anyway, or would she stay with Oliver? What if she hadn't stayed with Alex? What if she had been with us this whole time? Would things have been better? Worse? Would Toni and Bishop still be alive?<br /><br /> Beth would tell me not to dwell on these things, but as I sit here alone in the night, I cannot keep my mind from drifting to them. Beth would also say I'm being whiny, and that's probably true too. I need to live in the now, not in then, or in what could have been.<br /><br /> Tara and I did get dressed again, but we still lay on the couch just holding each other for a long time. What finally got us up was an air raid siren.<br /><br /> “What's that?” Tara said, suddenly serious.<br /><br /> “I don't know,” I said, and disentangled myself from Tara's thin arms. I rushed back to my room, and grabbed my laptop from where it was sitting plugged in on the desk. I also grabbed the TV tuner and antenna from the top desk drawer, and rushed back to the living room.<br /><br /> I woke the computer from its sleep state, logged in, and plugged in the TV tuner. While the entertainment center software started up, I plugged the antenna into the tuner card. I selected “Television” from the entertainment menu, and an image of the KVMS, channel five news desk appeared.<br /><br /> “-you're hearing are because Doctor Evelyn Byron has issued a city-wide alert,” said the pretty blond anchorwoman, “and she will be speaking with us momentarily.”<br /><br /> “Maybe it's the zeds,” I said absently.<br /><br /> “What?” Tara asked.<br /><br /> “Gerry told me that when he was on his last run, he's on Acquisitions here like he was back home, they had to abort it because they found the biggest single group of zeds he had ever seen, he said it was like a whole city worth of shamblers.”<br /><br /> “For those who are just joining us,” the blond started again, “The sirens you are hearing are because Doctor Evelyn Byron, our town administrator, has issued a citywide alert. We have not been given any details yet, but Doctor Byron will be speaking with us-,” the anchorwoman stopped, and put her hand up to her ear, “We are now going live to the office of Doctor Evelyn Byron.”<br /><br /> The image on my laptop screen changed to shown Doctor Byron, dressed in her white lab coat and an ivory colored blouse, sitting behind her desk in her office, “Hello, citizens of Lovelock. I apologize for startling you all with the siren, but there is something very important that you all need to know about.”<br /><br /> “Many of you already know what I am about to say, but it is important to explain this to those of you who do not.. I was not the original administrator of Lovelock; I took over for a doctor named Xavier Grimm. Xavier was not a bad person, but he made some very dark choices, choices that would not have allowed Lovelock to prosper as it has. This is why he was removed from this office, and I am here instead.”<br /><br /> “Grimm?” Tara asked.<br /><br /> “I've heard about him, not a great guy.”<br /><br /> “Sometime last night, Doctor Xavier Grimm murdered his guards, disabled portions of the underground laboratory security system, and escaped,” Doctor Byron explained.<br /><br /> “He had guards?”<br /><br /> “I think they were to protect him from the people in town as much as to protect us from him,” I said.<br /><br /> “Beth?”<br /><br /> “No, Beth would have said something is she had a detail like that, I know she would.”<br /><br /> “Unfortunately, the guards that Xavier killed reanimated, and attacked three more members of Genetitech staff before they could be put down. Xavier Grimm is now being sought for the murders of these five people. He may still be in town somewhere, if you see him, do not approach him, he is armed, instead notify a member of Genetitech Security so that he may be apprehended.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron disappeared from the window on my computer and was replaced with an image of a severe looking man with longish greasy brown hair. He looked a little bit like Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies. He also looked like he wanted to kill someone, which I suppose he did since he had.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron replaced the still photo of Grimm, “I want to emphasize to everyone that they should not attempt to apprehend Xavier on their own, and I do not want him dead. I will not tolerate any vigilantism! He will be made to answer for his offenses, please trust me on this,” she pleaded, “Do not confront him, do not talk to him, just notify security so that we may take him back into custody before he harms anyone else. Thank you.”<br /><br /> The blond anchorwoman appeared on the screen again, now identified as Marigold Fields (that can't be a real name, can it?). As she started to recap what Doctor Byron had just said, I got up from the couch.<br /><br /> “Where are you going?” Tara asked.<br /><br /> “I'm going to make sure all the doors and windows are locked.”<br /><br /> “Is he really that bad a guy?”<br /><br /> “He killed five people, so I'd say yeah. I was told that he wanted to use people like us in experiments to try and find a cure for the Zed Virus. He wanted to intentionally infect outsiders; I don't know if you've seen what happens to someone who's infected, but it's horrible,” I realized I was on the verge of tears as I said this, so I stopped talking, and left the room.<br /><br /> “I've seen it,” I heard Tara say quietly, just barely audible over the sound of the laptop.<br /><br /> Aside from locking the door, and checking around the house to see that everything else was locked, which unfortunately meant I had to go into Pippa's pigsty of a room. How has she acquired so many clothes? I'm not sure there is even a floor under all of that.<br /><br /> I also took the shotgun we keep in the front hall closet, and placed it next to the door; maybe I'm being paranoid, but no one questioned it when they came home. I know it's somewhat foolish to think that Grimm is going to just knock on the front door and hope we invite him in.<br /><br /> I walked Tara home a short time later, I know that it's only a block, and that I can see her house from mine, and that she is quite capable of taking care of herself, but I couldn't help it. I had to act like the dominant protector male for my own conscience as much as anything else.<br /><br /> I noticed her limping again, something I had forgotten about when we were in the house, “What happened to your leg?” I asked.<br /><br /> “I had a bad fall awhile back,” Tara explained, looking down at her right leg, “and I've been like this ever since. It doesn't hurt anymore, but I still walk like a gimp. Doctor Ellis said I should make an appointment to get it looked at to see if there's anything that can be done for it, but I think the time for fixing it is long past.”<br /><br /> “You should go,” I said, but she didn't respond.<br /><br /> When we arrived at her doorstep, she gave me a quick kiss on the lips, “Thank you for being here for me,” she said.<br /><br /> “Thank you for coming back to me.” I said.<br /><br /> “So don't shoot me when I come over next time, okay?” Tara smiled to show she was half joking.<br /><br /> “I'll try and remember what you look like so I don't confuse you with Grimm.”<br /><br /> Tara kissed me again, and then turned to open the door and found it was locked, “Huh, I guess you're not the only one who's paranoid,” She knocked on the door, and after a few moments we heard movement behind it.<br /><br /> When the door opened, it was only a crack, and I could see Oliver Black looking through it, “Thank God, Tara, where have you been? I've been worried about you.”<br /><br /> “Just let me in Ollie, okay?”<br /><br /> “There's some killer loose in town,” he said, opening the door all the way, and glaring past Tara at me, tried to grab her arm.<br /><br /> Tara dodged his hand, “I know, that's why I have an escort,” she turned to face me, “You be safe, okay?”<br /><br /> “Of course. I'll see you later. I hope you all are comfortable here. Tell Bishop and Toni hi for me.”<br /><br /> Tara smiled at me, and I turned to walk back to the sidewalk. As soon as my back was turned the door slammed shut; by Oliver, no doubt. I could hear the two of them talking through the door, but decided to leave it alone; I don't want to get involved in anymore drama than I already am.<br /><br /> Everyone else did make it home safe; Gerry first followed later by Beth and Pippa, whom Beth had picked up from school in that ridiculous Xebra car. I guess it beats walking though, right?<br /><br /> We grilled Beth for details, but she didn't really have any. She knew one of the guards who had been killed, and was a little upset about that, “If I'm the one who finds that son of a bitch they're going to be taking him in feet first,” she had said.<br /><br /> I ended up having to walk into town to get a ride out to the gate. Beth said she would let me take the Xebra, but that she didn't know if there would be enough battery life to get me home again. I told her that it was okay since she needed it to get to work in the morning herself.<br /><br /> Town was quieter than normal, and Bacchus was closed. There were a lot more Genetitech Security cars driving around too, as if Doctor Grimm is going to be caught just walking down the street like a normal resident. Doctor Byron is really taking this guy seriously.<br /><br /> I wouldn't describe myself as afraid of Grimm, but I'm certainly being more cautious. What if he kills more people, and they rise back up? Can we take on an outbreak in town? Logic says yes, but logically we should have been able to take these things without bringing about the end of the world.<br /><br /> My shift at the gate was uneventful. Samit was not mad about last night, but everyone wanted to know what the relationship between myself and the newcomers is. Barbara even gave me a hug and told me she was happy for me. She's nice, but she is a bit odd.<br /><br /> Time to get some sleep.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-78279710549161759452010-03-09T04:38:00.000-08:002010-03-09T04:41:20.111-08:00Fifty-First Entry: Hello AgainJuly 18th<br /><br /><br /> Every time I think I start to get a handle on my life, the world changes things for me. Sometimes the changes are good, most often they are not, but sometimes I'm not sure what to make of them. I know what I should think, and what I should feel, and what I would have felt six months ago, but now....<br /><br /> I'm feeling this mixture of relief, love, anxiety, guilt, and worry. Everything I had gotten under control seems like string flapping in the wind again now. I want to be happy, but I feel like a betrayer. I feel like I'm betraying them both, and I don't know what to do about it. Thankfully Beth, Gerry, and Pippa are kind of staying out of it, and letting me figure out how to handle it, although if one of them laid everything out plain then I could just deal with those consequences and move on from there. If only life were that simple, right?<br /><br /> It was at the end of last week; Gerry had just come home early from an acquisition run that had to be aborted due encountering what he described as “a fuck-ton of zombies”. They were working a few towns over, and they ran into a solid wall of roaming shamblers heading straight for them.<br /><br /> “It was like an entire undead city was marching towards us,” Gerry explained to me.<br /><br /> “We could send some of those test weapons out there,” I said.<br /><br /> “We should nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure,” Gerry was trying to be lighthearted about it, but he was clearly rattled. After the fight last Halloween, I don't blame him, just thinking of that hallway full of zeds makes me uneasy, but a whole street full?<br /><br /> I wonder if the scientists are working on nukes, The ultimate price seems like it would be too high; fallout, radiation poisoning, turning the world into Fallout 3, etc. What would be better, death by zed or death by nuke? Some choice.<br /><br /> It was late evening when my world was turned upside down once again. I was at the West gate with Samit, Ciaran, Barbara, and a few others. Ciaran had spent a lot of the evening trying to chat up Barbara, who kept shooting him down mercilessly much to the amusement of the rest of us.<br /><br /> “Why won't you just give me a chance, Barbara? I'm really a great guy if you get to know me.”<br /><br /> “Well,” said Barbara dryly, “You seem like a nice guy, but every guy I've ever met whose told me they are a nice hasn't been. Plus, you don't know how to take no for an answer, and that never ends well.”<br /><br /> “But-” Ciaran decided to try again, but was cut off.<br /><br /> “You might want to give it a rest, Ciaran,” Samit cautioned him, “she has a mean right hook.”<br /><br /> Everyone laughed at that, including Ciaran and Barbara, although Ciraan did flush a bit under the harsh work lights around the gate.<br /><br /> “I think I see something,” called down one of the tower look outs, a guy with the unfortunate name of Jacob Black,” Maybe headlights.”<br /><br /> “Okay, everyone take positions,” said Samit as he walked over to pick up his megaphone from where he had left it on one of the construction walls.<br /><br /> Barbara took cover behind the same wall as me, to the right of the gate, and we both leveled our rifles on the top of the wall.<br /><br /> “Well this is a bit of excitement, isn't it?” Barbara asked me, grinning, “Being on the other side of the ambush and all.”<br /><br /> “I'd hardly call it an ambush,” I said, “We're not really hiding for one thing.”<br /><br /> “Somehow I think you felt differently when you were on the other side of it.”<br /><br /> I shrugged, “Probably, but we have to make sure they're not hostile, you know?”<br /><br /> “You'd shoot?” Barbara asked.<br /><br /> “If it seemed necessary, hell yes.”<br /><br /> “You'd kill another person?” she asked, and I was not sure if she was just surprised that I would do it, or if she found the whole concept repulsive.<br /><br /> “I have had to shoot someone I love,” I said, more sharply than I really meant to, ”so shooting someone who thinks they are going to threaten my family and my home won't even require me to think twice anymore.”<br /><br /> Barbara shrunk back a little, “Wow,” she said, “I'm not judging you, you know? You just don't seem like the Rambo type.”<br /><br /> “You've been hanging out with Beth and Gerry whenever they're free, how do you not know that I've killed people? They didn't tell you about the Postmen?”<br /><br /> “We don't talk about the past much, it's not one of my favorite subjects, and they haven't volunteered a lot.” Barbara said a little sadly, and then, “You killed mailmen?”<br /><br /> Before I could answer, Samit started calling through the bullhorn. I was so busy talking to Barbara that I hadn't noticed the car's approach, which I really should have as it was a loud old beige Oldsmobile that looked like it had been driven through a wall.<br /><br /> “Stop the car!” Samit bellowed through the speaker when the car was a few hundred feet away.<br /><br /> The Oldsmobile creaked to a halt.<br /><br /> “Turn off the engine, and step out of the vehicle! Keep your hands where we can see them, and you will not be harmed!” Samit commanded.<br /><br /> There were a few tense seconds where nothing happened, and then the car's engine died. The driver's door creaked open, and a woman's voice called out faintly in the renewed stillness of the night.<br /><br /> “We're getting out! We have a child with us, don't shoot!” the voice called, and it was one I knew.<br /><br /> “I'm not a child!” I heard a boy's voice say.<br /><br /> The other three doors of the car opened with similar creaking as the first, and four figures got out of the car, They were all thin, and one of them was indeed a kid, just on the verge of his teenage years. Two of the people were women, and the last was a man who was muscular despite his thinness, and I realized that I knew three of them.<br /><br /> I lowered my rifle, setting it against the construction wall.<br /><br /> “What are you doing?” Barbara hissed.<br /><br /> My heart was pounding in my chest, “They're alive,” I whispered.<br /><br /> “I should hope so. The day the ghouls learn to drive we're all fucked.”<br /><br /> “I thought they were dead,” I turned to look at Barbara, “I know them, well three of them.”<br /><br /> I stood up, and walked out from behind the wall, “Where are you going? Get back here!” Barbara said.<br /><br /> I started walking towards the car, “Tara?” I called, “Bishop? Toni?”<br /><br /> “Get back in your position,” ordered Samit, his mouth away from the bullhorn's mouthpiece.<br /><br /> “I know them!” I told him as I passed, now at a gentle jog, “Don't shoot, I know them.<br /><br /> The driver, Tara, my Tara, thin, her hair now streaked with silver, and wearing a denim shirt that I would never have imagined her in, called my name questioningly in return, and started forward from the driver's door of the Oldsmobile. She was limping with her left leg.<br /><br /> “Cover him, but don't shoot!” Samit ordered the others as I moved away from them.<br /><br /> Tara met me about three quarters of the way to the car, “Is it really you?”she asked, and then threw her arms around me before I could answer.<br /><br /> I was afraid to hold her too tightly. She felt so fragile in my arms, but also so familiar. My mind was racing; I had cheated on her, but I had thought she was dead. What happens now? Do we pick up where we left off? Do I tell her Sharon and I got married? Do I push her away? Is she even still interested in me like that?<br /><br /> Tara answered the last question for me by pulling out of my arms and then kissing me full on the lips. I won't lie, her breath was horrible, but her kiss brought memories flooding back to me, and the first time in longer than I can remember, I started to cry.<br /><br /> Tara saw the tears start to pour out of my eyes, and her eyes started to water up too. She grabbed me in another hug, and together we wept. In that moment I was not crying just because she was still alive and in my arms again, but because of everything I should have cried about in the last eight months.<br /><br /> I cried about losing Tara, and Sharon, and Maria I cried about losing Mallville as my home. I cried about killing Merritt Sokolenko. I cried for Milton, and Rupert, and Alex. I cried for Sharon's illness, and her recovery, and her telling me she loved me, and for shooting her in the head, and for burying her.<br /><br /> I cried for all of the pain, and fear, and misery I've felt since last Halloween; I cried for all the happiness and love I've felt since then too, and in those couple of minutes of crying it was like a lead weight that had been implanted in my heart was suddenly gone. A heaviness I have felt for so long now that I had pretty much forgotten was there was suddenly gone, and even though I now face a new series of problems and questions, in that moment I felt like my old self.<br /><br /> “I thought you were dead,” I said, breaking our embrace again, “I thought you died in the explosion.”<br /><br /> “I was still upstairs when it happened,” Tara explained, “but I knew you guys made it out, I just never thought I would find you.... Are you all here?”<br /><br /> I shook my head sadly, “No, Maria and... and Sharon didn't make it. It's just me, Gerry, and Beth.”<br /><br /> Tara wiped the tears from her face, “Oh God,” she said, “I'm sorry.”<br /><br /> Behind Tara I could see Toni and Bishop Rogers standing with man I did not know. It looked like Bishop wanted to come join us, but Toni was holding him back.<br /><br /> “Did,” Tara swallows hard, and started her question again, “Did you and Sharon ever...?<br /><br /> I could have lied, but I know that would just have caused more problems later. Besides, Tara deserves better than that from me, “Yes,” I said quietly, “I didn't know you were alive, we both thought you were dead, and Sharon was sick, and she got better, and it just sort of happened,” I rambled, hoping she wouldn't ask for details.<br /><br /> Tara looked hurt for a moment, and then took my right hand in hers. She was thinking for what seemed like an eternity, but what must have only been seconds, with my hand clutched in hers, “I don't-” she started and stopped, “I... Is... Do...?”<br /><br /> She was crying again, and I knew what she wanted to ask, but I couldn't say it either. I was speechless.<br /><br /> Finally Tara managed to form a full question, “Is there still room in your heart for me? I know I'm not her, and I know it was our agreement that if you ever got the chance, you could, but is there anything left of us? Do you still love me?”<br /><br /> “If you had been with us, everything would have been different,” I told her, “If I had even know you made it out, things would have been different. You have always been in my heart.”<br /><br /> That was no lie; I can only begin to imagine how things would have been different, but they certainly would have. I try not to think about stuff like that anymore, there's nothing to be gained by it.<br /><br /> “So... you want to try again?” she asked, as if we had broken up for a short period of time instead of each thinking that the other was dead.<br /><br /> At that moment I didn't know what I wanted. God had answered a prayer, and I didn't know how to react to it. Would I be disrespecting Sharon's memory? One thing I now knew for sure was that all of those dreams I had were just my own subconscious bullshit, not messages from beyond.<br /><br /> “Yes,” I said, “I would like that.”<br /><br /> She pulled me to her again, and we held each other for awhile longer before Samit, apparently tired of being ignored, interrupted us with the bullhorn.<br /><br /> “I'm glad you guys are reunited and all, but if we can follow standard procedure, you'll have plenty of time to catch up later,” Samit sounded a little annoyed, but also embarrassed to be witnessing the whole thing.<br /><br /> Transport was summoned, and our escorts turned out to be Justin Lassit and a female officer named Melissa Elroy. I was allowed to ride to the hospital with Tara, Bishop, Toni, and the man that was with them, who I learned was named Oliver Gusteneaux. Oliver, or Ollie as he prefers to be called, is also from Mallville.<br /><br /> On the van ride to the hospital Tara gave me a quick overview of what happened on Christmas Eve. She stayed with Alex until he passed, and then decided that she should at least try to save the Trevors and the Rogers. Insert Coin wasn't far from where Alex had been shot, so she started that way, and then the explosion happened.<br /><br /> Tara told me that the explosion knocked her off of her feet, and when she looked back, the area where our firefight had happened was nothing more than a blazing inferno. She thought that we had all been killed in that explosion. She was shocked when I told her that Jimmy did it.<br /><br /> Continuing on to Insert Coin, Tara found that the fighting had passed on from there, and that the Trevor's, the Rogers, and a few others had closed themselves up inside the store to try and stay out of it, but Bryan had been shot; he didn't make it.<br /><br /> They stayed inside the store overnight, and Tara led the other survivors out in the morning before getting completely overwhelmed by the zeds, picking up anyone they came across on the way. They fled Mallville on foot through an out door that had had its gate rolled up by someone for some unknown reason.<br /><br /> “We hid out in Covenant during the winter. We stuck mostly to the suburbs, because I knew we hadn't done much scavenging there,” Tara explained to me, “There were almost twenty of us at first, but some wanted to go their own ways, and some... some didn't make it.<br /><br /> “We ran into your friend with the chainsaw, Ash. He said that he had seen you guys, that all of you had made it out, and were heading north, but he couldn't remember where you had said you were going. I was afraid I'd never see you again.”<br /><br /> “I suggested we try for here,” Toni told me, “I mean, we didn't know what to do, but once it started to warm up and the zombies came back in force; well, we had to leave. I knew that Genetitech would have a disaster plan if anyone did, and was hoping that maybe there was still something here.”<br /><br /> That's why the name Lovelock sounded familiar to me! Toni and Bryan had told me they were from here. She had been the meteorologist on one of the TV stations. I wondered if it was the one that was still running.<br /><br /> “It seemed like as good a place as any to try for in any case, so we've been on the road until tonight,” Tara said, “Is this place really safe?”<br /><br /> “Safer than Mallville was,” I said, “Doctor Byron, you're going to be meeting her, she's odd, but she's really nice, and she really seems to care about everyone in town. I'm sure she will welcome you guys.”<br /><br /> When we arrived, Justin escorted us up to Doctor Byron's office. Polly's desk was vacant due to the hour, but Doctor Byron's door was sitting open, light streaming out of her office.<br /><br /> “Please, come on it,” Doctor Byron called, as if she psychically knew that we were there. I took me a second to realize that she must have been following our progress through the hospital on the security cameras.<br /><br /> Justin led us into Doctor Byron's office, and just like the first time I met her, she was sitting behind her desk in her lab coat (although she wore a dark blue blouse under it this time, making her pale skin seem even paler) as if it were perfectly normal for her to still be working this late in the evening. Then again, maybe it is; there's no reason she couldn't play Seventh City from here.<br /><br /> “Thank you, Justin,” Doctor Byron said once we were all inside her office, “I will escort them from here.”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor,” Justin said smartly, and turned to leave.<br /><br /> “So these are friends of yours?” Doctor Byron asked me.<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor, they are from Covenant as well.”<br /><br /> “From Mallville?” She asked.<br /><br /> “Yes.”<br /><br /> “That is marvelous!” Doctor Byron exclaimed, “This is the first time we've had anyone be reunited here. Well, let's get on with what we need to, and then we can get you all to our physicals, and to your new home, provided of course that you want to stay.”<br /><br /> “I'll wait out here, if that's okay, Doctor” I said motioning to the outer office.<br /><br /> “Of course, I wouldn't expect you to leave,” Doctor Byron said in her normal dreamy voice, “but I still wish you would call me Evie outside the game as well.”<br /><br /> Tara gave me a questioning look, but there'll time to explain that later.<br /><br /> I took a seat on the couch in the outer office by the window. It seems so amazing to me to look out over a town now and see it lit up like the world used to be. It's not the same as the view from Alisdair's bell tower, but it is just as beautiful in its own way.<br /><br /> I took off my sword and satchel, pulled out my journal, and have been writing since then. When food was brought up for the rest of them, the nurse that brought it (I did not see her name tag) brought me some as well.<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron thought you might be hungry as well,” the nurse explained.<br /><br /> It was the same tofu salad that we had when we first arrived, and it brought back the memory my first night here, and I started crying a little again. I hope I'm not going to be all weepy like this from now on. I think I may have liked being unable to cry better.<br /><br /> They've been in there for well over an hour now, but I guess we were in there for a long time when we first arrived too. I hope someone told Pippa, Beth, and Gerry where I am so they don't worry; I should actually have been home a little while ago.<br /><br /> I think I'll play some solitaire while I wait. To think, people used to mock me for keeping playing cards in my bag. You should always be prepared because you never know when nothing is going to be happening.<br /><br /> So thirty minutes of playing solitaire later, Doctor Byron leads Tara and the others out of her office. I quickly put on my sword and satchel and followed them out into the hallways and down to the same part of the hospital that she took my group to when we first arrived.<br /><br /> Maybe he was just tired, or maybe it's just because he doesn't know me, but I noticed Ollie kept looking at me oddly as we walked. Tara walked next to me, but she did not try to hold my hand or anything.<br /><br /> “I've still got your DSi,” Bishop told me, “It's in the car, and it still works.”<br /><br /> “How have you been using it?”<br /><br /> “I charged it up when we were driving in cars. I took one of the car charger kits before we left the store. Is that okay?”<br /><br /> I almost facepalmed. Why hadn't I thought of that?<br /><br /> “Yeah, that's fine. It's not like I'm ever going back to the store again,” I said, “You keep it, just take care of it, okay? “<br /><br /> The curly haired Doctor Ellis was waiting for us at the same nurse's station as before, but instead of waiting with Doctor Selznick, she was waiting with Doctor David Phillips, a broad shouldered doctor with short black hair. The two of them were playing cards.<br /><br /> “Well it's about time,” Doctor Ellis said in what had to at least be partly mock annoyance.<br /><br /> “You pulled us out of poker night for this,” Doctor Phillips added, also seeming to be at least partially joking.<br /><br /> “I will leave you to your examinations, and arrange for your new living accommodations,” said Doctor Byron, “I assure you that you are in capable hands.”<br /><br /> “Come on,” said Doctor Phillips, abandoning his cards on the counter top, “Let's see how healthy you all are.”<br /><br /> Doctors Phillips and Ellis led the others down the hall to the examination rooms, and Doctor Byron pulled me aside, “We need to talk.”<br /><br /> I got worried, as it was the first time I'd ever seen her looking really focused and serious, “Yes, ma'am,”<br /><br /> “You're not in any sort of trouble, so calm down,” she said, reading the look on my face, “You and Tara had a relationship before, is that correct?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor.”<br /><br /> “Does she know about you and,” she had to pause to think for a second, “Sharon, correct?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor, her name was Sharon,” I answered, “and sort of. I told her that Sharon and I did have a relationship after we left Mallville, but I didn't tell her we were married.”<br /><br /> “Do you think the two of you will try and resume your relationship now?”<br /><br /> “I don't know... probably.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron nodded, “Psychology is not my specialty, but I would suggest you get everything out in the open as soon as possible; both of you. I really don't have a lot of experience with relationships, but I do know that secrets will come back to haunt you later.”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor.”<br /><br /> “Don't look so worried, I'm sure you'll do the right thing. Your friends hold you in too high of esteem for you to not be that kind of person.”<br /><br /> “My friends?”<br /><br /> “Beth, Gerry, Pippa, even young Bishop there seems to have a high opinion of you. I think the only person you know who doesn't respect you is you, but it seems like you are doing better. I still think some counseling would do you good though,” Doctor Byron looked at me curiously, “However, I am still not going to force you. Now if you will excuse me, I do have a little more work to do before turning in today. I do like it when new people come to town.”<br /><br /> With that, Doctor Byron patted me on the shoulder, turned, and pressed the button for the elevator. When the doors opened, she turned, stepped in, pressed a button and a gave me a finger twiddling wave as the doors closed.<br /><br /> Left alone again, I went to the waiting area that I met Gerry, Beth, and Pippa in after our own doctor's exams. Did it take this long for our check-ups? Does this mean that there is something wrong with them? They did look thinner than we did when we got to town.<br /><br /> I'm at home now. Shortly after I wrote the last paragraph I heard footsteps coming down the hall towards me. It was Gerry, Beth, and Pippa.<br /><br /> “Is it true?” Gerry asked, “Is Tara really here?”<br /><br /> “Yes, she's been alive all this time,” I answered.<br /><br /> “Wow, that is great!” Gerry said, smiling wide.<br /><br /> “Are you okay?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “Yeah, why?”<br /><br /> Beth looked at me like I said something stupid, “Why do you think? Your old girlfriend, one of the people you have been pining over since we got here, suddenly turns up and you wonder why I'm asking if you're okay?”<br /><br /> “I'm fine.”<br /><br /> “Did you tell her? About you and Sharon I mean?” Gerry asked.<br /><br /> “I told her that we were together until....”<br /><br /> “Bet you didn't tell her you got married,” Pippa said, almost a little cruelly.<br /><br /> “No, but I will when it seems right.”<br /><br /> “I'll tell her!” Pippa volunteered.<br /><br /> “You will not,” Beth snapped, “The three of us are going to keep our mouths shut, do you understand?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Beth, but-”<br /><br /> “No buts!” then to me, “You need to tell her, especially if you are going to try and pick up from where you left off,” she seemed annoyed. In fact, Gerry is the only one who seemed genuinely happy for me, but then he's also the only one who really was around me when Tara and I were together.<br /><br /> Before I could ask Beth why she seemed upset, a door opened down the hall, and Tara came out of one of the examination rooms, “Gerry? Beth?” she asked, seeing them, “You're really here!”<br /><br /> Tara tried to run down the hall towards us, but it was more of a fast limp. When she got to where we were all standing she gave both Beth and Gerry hugs, and stroked each of their faces.<br /><br /> “Oh my God,” Tara enthused, “It's so good to see you guys.”<br /><br /> “It's good to see you too, Tara,” Beth said, she looked and sounded genuine; all signs of her previous annoyance were gone.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry to hear about Maria,” Tara said to Gerry.<br /><br /> “She went out on her own terms. I can only pray that we all get to do that,” Gerry said. It was the first time I'd heard him say something like that. In fact it's probably the first time I've heard him mention Maria in over a month.<br /><br /> “And who is this?” Tara asked, looking at Pippa.<br /><br /> “This is Pippa Webster,” I said, “She joined up with us a few months back. Pippa, this is Tara Lafferty.”<br /><br /> “It's nice to meet you,” Pippa said in a voice far less convincing than the one she used a couple of weeks back when she said she wanted to meet Tara, but thought she was dead, “So you two were an item? You're like old enough to- Ow! What the hell?”<br /><br /> Beth had kicked Pippa in the shin. “Pippa sometimes doesn't think before acting,” Beth explained.<br /><br /> “That's fine. I'm sure I must look awful,” Beth had failed her saving throw; Tara had instantly gone into her ice-queen mode, and was looking at Pippa funny, “There's not a lot of hotels with hot showers and all-you-can-eat buffets open out there anymore.”<br /><br /> “You do look like you've had a rough time out there,” Beth agreed, trying to defrost Tara, “but I'm sure a nice hot bath and a few days of regular meals and sleeping in a bed will fix you right up.”<br /><br /> You know what I realized at that point? Beth was like the mom to our group. If I am Pippa's brother then Beth is our mom. She has spent so much of the last seven months trying to keep us all going, mediate fights, and just generally keep us from splitting up or killing each other, and I had never once thanked her for it. I am a real asshole sometimes.<br /><br /> Tara softened a little, “Yes, It'll be nice. Is it true that the whole town has power and water?”<br /><br /> “Yes, and local internet, and TV, and alcohol.”<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron told us about the TV station; apparently it's the one that Toni worked at. Maybe she'll be able to get her job back.” Tara said,<br /><br /> We talked while we waited for the others to come out. Tara made sure that everybody was introduced to everybody else, but she never fully warmed up, and she kept looking at Pippa, who didn't say much of anything the rest of the time.<br /><br /> Bishop was the next one out of his examination, followed by his mom, who gave me a hug when she joined us. I had to introduce her to Gerry and Beth as well as Pippa as she didn't know either of them from Mallville. Oliver was the last one to join us.<br /><br /> Of course if Pippa and Tara kept trading odd glances at each other, then Oliver, who was also kept pretty quiet, was trying to drill a hole through me with his eyes. Is there something between him and Tara? Is there nothing, but he wants there to be something? I have no right to be jealous or suspicious, but that doesn't stop me from being a bit of both.<br /><br /> It doesn't help that Ollie is blond haired, blue eyed, handsome, and well-muscled as opposed to my rather less impressive build. I may not be fat anymore, but even as thin as he is he looks like he stepped out of a lifeguard calendar, as where I look like I stepped out of the Think Geek catalog.<br /><br /> Shortly after the examinations were over, a blondish Genetitech Security officer, who Beth greeted as Ben, arrived to take Tara and her group to their new home. He led them back towards the elevators.<br /><br /> Before leaving, Tara gave me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, “Can we talk tomorrow?” she asked.<br /><br /> “Of course,” I said, “I'm sure we have a lot to catch up on.”<br /><br /> Tara smiled, “We do. I missed you so much, you don't know how it feels to find out you are here and still alive. I keep expecting to wake up from this dream,” she hugged me again, “You have a good night then, I'll see you tomorrow.”<br /><br /> Once Tara, Toni, Bishop, and Oliver were gone, Beth let out a weary sigh, “Okay, lets go home.”<br /><br /> “Beth got a car!” Pippa said happily.<br /><br /> “A car? How did you do that?”<br /><br /> “Don't be so impressed. I just filled out some forms and was issued one. Trust me, it's nothing to be impressed by.”<br /><br /> Beth was right. The car was anything but impressive. It looked like an older white 4 door compact car, except that it only had three wheels in a tricycle configuration. The markings on it identified it as a Zapcar Xebra, and that it was property of Genetitech Laboratories. I had seen a couple of them around town, but never paid them too much attention.<br /><br /> “Umm, wow,” I said, trying to not sound underwhelmed.<br /><br /> “Yup,” Beth agreed, “She's fully electric, has a top speed of about 38 miles an hour, and barely enough battery to get us home with. See why I said not to be too impressed?”<br /><br /> “I didn't know these things even existed outside of shows on The Discovery Channel before we got here.”<br /><br /> “I don't think most people knew, but hey, if it gets us around Mayberry, right?” Gerry said.<br /><br /> I shared the backseat with Pippa, cramming my satchel in my lap, and my sword on the floor between my legs. Not all that comfortable, but it beats walking home; it was kind of cold tonight.<br /><br /> “You dated her before Sharon?” Pippa asked as we drove.<br /><br /> “Yes,” I said, “Sharon was seeing a man named Alex, who was Tara's boss. Tara and I started hanging out, and things went from there. You know all of this.”<br /><br /> “But she's old!” Pippa exclaimed.<br /><br /> “She's a few years older than me, yeah, but she's not old.” I said.<br /><br /> “She has gray hair!”<br /><br /> “She didn't then,” I explained.<br /><br /> “She's too old for you, you should find someone your age.”<br /><br /> “She's the same age as me, Pippa,” Beth commented from the front seat.<br /><br /> “No way! She looks like she's in her forties! You still look young.”<br /><br /> “What about me, do I look young?” Gerry asked, trying to keep things light.<br /><br /> “Be nice to her, Pippa,” I said.<br /><br /> “I liked Sharon better.”<br /><br /> That hurt me. I turned to look out the window as my newfound tears threatened to break free again. I wanted to say a lot of things; things like, “You don't even know her.” and “Well Sharon's gone!” and “Shut the fuck up!”, but instead I didn't say anything.<br /><br /> “Pippa, leave it alone, please,” Beth said, “Don't make me stop this car.”<br /><br /> “I'm just saying-”<br /><br /> “Pippa!” Beth snapped.<br /><br /> The rest of the trip was made in silence.<br /><br /> When we got home, Beth pulled the Xebra into the garage, and plugged it in while the rest of us went into the house. Pippa went to her room without a word, but Gerry stopped to talk to me.<br /><br /> “What are you gonna do?” he asked.<br /><br /> “I don't know; just wait and see what happens, I guess.”<br /><br /> “If you want to get back together with her, don't wait. You already know what happens when you wait.”<br /><br /> “Yeah, Gerry, I do.”<br /><br /> Gerry patted me on the shoulder, and then went to his room. I waited for Beth to come in.<br /><br /> “Beth?” I said as she tried to pass me on the way to her bedroom.<br /><br /> “What?” she said, sounding tired and annoyed.<br /><br /> “I just wanted to thank you.”<br /><br /> Beth's expression changed to one of puzzlement, “For what?”<br /><br /> “For being there for me.”<br /><br /> “For coming to pick you up? It's not a big deal, I wanted to see her too.”<br /><br /> “No, in general. I realized tonight how much work you put in to keeping us all together, and thought I should thank you. You seemed like you needed some attention.”<br /><br /> Beth smiled, “You guys are my family. You're all I have, and I know you understand that. I'm sorry if I seemed a little short earlier, Tara just worries me.”<br /><br /> “Why? You don't like her?”<br /><br /> “I like the her I know, but none of us are the same person we were last year. What if she's changed? What if she hurts you? What if you hurt her? You got married while you thought she was dead, so what was she doing during that time? How is she going to react when you tell her the details about you and Sharon?”<br /><br /> “I'm just happy knowing she's alive; I'll be fine whatever happens.”<br /><br /> “Will you?” Beth took a breath, steeling herself for what she would say next, “This is going to sound bad, so please forgive me. The person I lost in all of this, back at the start, it is easier for me to know that they are dead than it would be if... this person was up walking around, living in this town, and weren't with me anymore. Now you're a strong person-”<br /><br /> “No, I'm not,”<br /><br /> “Stop that! You are strong, but I don't know if you're that strong. Whatever happens, just please don't go back to the way you were in June.”<br /><br /> “I will be fine, I promise you.”<br /><br /> Beth nodded, “Just be careful with your heart and hers. I'm going to get some sleep. You should too.”<br /><br /> “I will soon,” I said.<br /><br /> “I know, after you write it all down in your diary,” Beth gave me a quick hug, ”I'll see you in the morning.”<br /><br /> So is Beth right? Have Tara and I changed too much to be compatible anymore? Is she in a relationship with Oliver? Is that why she was shooting daggers with his eyes? Am I just setting myself up for more pain?<br /><br /> I'm on the late shift again tomorrow, so I guess I'll have all day to talk things over with Tara. Whatever becomes of it, I will not go back to being mopey and depressed. Things are as good as they are ever likely to get for me again right now, and I am not going to squander that.<br /><br /> Even here in Lovelock I could still die tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I may not see another Halloween or Christmas, and I am not going to spend anymore time feeling sorry for myself; I am not going to waste even one more day being miserable.<br /><br /> Whatever happens tomorrow with Tara, I will survive.<br /><br /> Hey, hey.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-87410722572774117992010-02-23T04:47:00.000-08:002010-02-23T04:48:41.585-08:00Fiftieth entry: Field TripJuly 5th<br /><br /> The last week or so have been good. I am feeling a lot better since I put those things away, and good things seem to be happening as a result. I know the glasses, and the present, and stuff are all still there, but not seeing them everyday isn't as hard as actually being able to see them was. I've also been spending more time with Pippa while Gerry is out on runs and Beth is down in the labs doing her training. It's been nice, and I've not felt creepy, which is also nice.<br /><br /> Gerry came back from a run on Thursday with a present for me. He had been home for a couple off hours when he came into the living room where I was reading (“1984”, if you're curious), and dropped a large purple gift bag on the IKEA-esque coffee table.<br /> I lowered my book, and asked, “What's that?”<br /><br /> “It's your birthday present. Happy birthday!” Gerry said, and I saw Pippa come into the room from the dining room where she had been on her laptop.<br /><br /> “It's not my birthday,” I said.<br /><br /> “Well, I figure I have known you for more than a year, and I've not seen you celebrate your birthday, so we must have missed it at some point. That's from Beth too, by the way, but I didn't want to wait for her to come home from training.”<br /><br /> “Is she okay with that?”<br /><br /> “If she's not, tough,” Gerry grinned.<br /><br /> “You didn't have to get me any-”<br /><br /> “Open it!” Pippa cut me off with a gleeful cry.<br /><br /> I dropped my book onto the coffee table, and took the bag; it was heavier than I expected. In the bag was a relatively plain looking cardboard box with the FutureTech Computers logo on the side. I pulled the rectangular box out, and set it on the coffee table.<br /><br /> “Is this?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Yup,” Gerry beamed, “Now you and Pippa can play together.”<br /><br /> I let any obvious replies to that go since they would just make me look bad.<br /><br /> I opened the box and found wrapped in the plastic and styrofoam inside was a shiny black laptop emblazoned with the FutureTech FT logo.<br /><br /> “How did you get this?” I asked as I unpacked the folder of instructions and the power cable.<br /><br /> “We brought a bunch back with us on the last run, and as I am sure you remember, being on the Acquisition Team has its advantages,” Gerry said, “You might want to look in the bag again.”<br /><br /> I looked in the gift bag, and at the bottom of it was a shrink wrapped copy of Seventh City Online. It was the deluxe version that came with a headset for voice communication in game and a superhero action figure.<br /><br /> “I figure you'll need that too.”<br /><br /> “Install it! Install it!” cried Pippa.<br /><br /> “You really shouldn't have,“ I said, feeling embarrassed.<br /><br /> “It wasn't all my idea,” explained Gerry, ”and I expect you to do a better job of sharing than Pippa does.”<br /><br /> “Hey!” Pippa protested.<br /><br /> It's a nice laptop, and it might even fit in my satchel if I cleared some of the crap out of there. It's even got a little television plug-in for it that can pick up Lovelock's one TV station, not that I watch the news much, but it's nice to have the option.<br /><br /> I installed the laptop's battery, and plugged it in. The laptop booted up perfectly and I went through all of the first time use stuff. Register? No. Sign up for free online backup service X? No. Subscribe to virus protection software? No. Sign up for internet service provider X? No.<br /><br /> Finally I was able to get the computer onto Lovelock's wifi, and install the game. Once it was running Pippa hovered around me while I created my character.<br /><br /> “Your nose isn't that big, and you're not fat like that!” Pippa protested.<br /><br /> “Who says it's me?” I said.<br /><br /> “It looks like it's supposed to be you. Look!” Pippa pointed at the screen, “You even gave him a scar over his eye like yours. Come on, do it right! No fatties!”<br /><br /> After decking him out in an all black suit, a black fedora, and a pair of steampunk-looking goggles Captain_Noir was ready to hit the streets of Seventh City. Rushing through the tutorial, I selected his powers (telekinesis, strength, and enhanced healing), and left the tutorial area.<br /><br /> On the street outside the starting area I found a couple of people waiting for me, Super-Pippa, a tall female in a bright red bodysuit, and Evie_of_Destruction, a pale woman in a flowing white dress and cape who hovered about a foot off the ground and glowed, casting light onto the street and buildings around us.<br /><br /> “Hello, Captain Noir,” Evie_of_Destruction said, and I recognized the voice immediately; it was Doctor Byron.<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron?” I asked into my headset.<br /><br /> “Now now,” Evie_of_Destruction cautioned me, “Let's try to stay in character.”<br /><br /> I checked out Doctor Byron's character and found that she was maxed out at level ninety-nine. Pippa on the other hand was at level twenty, and of course I was a mere level two (you gain a level in the tutorial for choosing your starting abilities).<br /><br /> “I know that you have been having some trouble connecting with people since you arrived here,” Evie_of_Destruction, “So I was hoping that you might be able to form some connections here. I hope you do not take offense.”<br /><br /> A little bit, yeah, but that's not what I said, “No doct-... Miss Destruction”<br /><br /> Evie_of_Destruction sighed, “Will you please, in here at least, call me Evie?”<br /><br /> “Get him!” a voice called from behind Captain_Noir, and there was a gunshot. A red “-10” appeared over his head. I spun my character to see three men in raccoon masks and black and white striped shirts firing pistols at me.<br /><br /> A red beam shot past me as Evie_of_Destruction fired her eye beams, and sent all three of the low level NPCs flying against the wall of a building with a red “-1542” appearing above each of their heads. They hit the ground and faded away.<br /><br /> “Well, I have a raid to go to. I hope the two of you have fun, just make sure this does not interfere with your other responsibilities. Now if you'll excuse me,” and with that Evie_of_Destruction shot up into the sky and out of sight.<br /><br /> Pippa and I played well into the night, and I was at level thirteen before we stopped. I've never been much of an MMO player because I didn't like the subscription model. I was afraid that if I was paying a monthly fee I would feel obligated to play it at the expense of playing something else. I've seen “Second Skin”, I know how addictive these games can be, but this was a lot of fun.<br /><br /> My week of goodness continued the next day when, instead of standing around at one of the roads into town I got to go a field trip. I was invited to help stand guard while the scientists tested out some of their anti-zed technology. Most of the guard was composed of Genetitech Security (including Beth), but me, Zack, and a handful of other civilian guards were along just in case.<br /><br /> The reason for the heavy security presence is because they do not test these things in town We actually drove to a town to the east called Harlan because we needed a supply of zeds to test on. Honestly, I doubt the claim that there are not zombies kept down in the labs for testing on, but I don't suppose bringing them out into town would not be a very good idea.<br /><br /> Our caravan of trucks, cars, and vans drove quickly along the road that had been scouted out in the morning to make sure that it was still clear and intact, and arrived at Harlan early in the afternoon.<br /><br /> The testing field was the baseball diamond at Harlan East Middle School. This was not the first time that they had used this location, as there was already a cage built out of chain link fencing out in right field with three active zeds locked in it, and a large fence had been erected around the entire field to make sure no one could accidentally walk into the testing area. I was told that they've been using this place for awhile, and the lack of active zeds in the town would seem to be evidence of that.<br /><br /> I only got to witness three of the tests, but I did get to meet Zack's wife, Margaret, and the two guys she works with. Grant Vang, a youngish looking man with short black hair, and James Carraway, a balding man with a ridiculous handlebar mustache who wears a newsboy cap. Vang and Carraway are both absolutely insane, but the machine of theirs betrays genius beneath that insanity.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron was with us, wearing a loose white blouse and slacks and carrying a wide white umbrella to keep the summer sun off of her sensitive skin. The whole exercise seemed to be a mix of the progress on these items being demonstrated for Doctor Byron, and a morale boost for the scientists who have spent I don't know how long working on them. It was all quite impressive really.<br /><br /> The first demonstration I saw was built by Doctors Hutchins, Vang, and Carraway; it was something they called Da Vinci's Scythe Wagon. It looked more like something from the old Battlebots show than any design of Da Vinci's I've ever seen though. It was a box about four and a half feet tall with tank treads at the bottom. The wagon was topped with, just as Beth had described it, what looked like a two layered helicopter prop. One of the props was set at around five and a half feet, the other at about five feet, and each of the blades was actually a curved scythe made of gleaming metal.<br /><br /> The scythe wagon was driven out onto the baseball diamond by a large remote control that Doctor Vang was holding. When he got it to the pitchers mound, Doctors Carraway and Hutchins went out and tinkered with it; I think they were undoing some sort of safety device on the propellers. When they were done, they both quickly moved away from the machine.<br /><br /> “Safety is off!” Doctor Carraway hollered.<br /><br /> “Wagon is live! I repeat, wagon is live!” Doctor Vang yelled in response.<br /><br /> Hutchins and Carraway got to the gate in the fence, and closed it behind them as the scythe wagon's blades started to spin. It was like looking at a giant rolling food processor.<br /><br /> “Release the subject!” Doctor Hutchins called.<br /><br /> The door to the cage with the three zeds in it out on the field slid open, and the zeds shambled towards freedom, but the gate slid shut again before more than one of them could get out. The ghoul started shambling towards where the majority of us were standing outside the fenced off area.<br /><br /> The scythe wagon turned and started rolling in the direction of the zed, its whirling blades throwing off glints of sunlight. The wagon was slow, a normal person could probably outrun it, but it was faster than most of the zeds I've ever seen. Doctor Vang drove the wagon around in front of the zed, and then charged it head on. Whatever motor the doctors used in that thing must be incredibly strong because it tore through the zed like it had been made out of paper. The scythe wagon tore off the zeds head and left arm and shoulder before the creature even had enough time to fall to the ground.<br /><br /> “I am impressed,” said Doctor Byron, “And what kind of battery life can we expect off of these?”<br /><br /> “At full power, around ninety minutes,” answered Doctor Vang, “However without the weapon employed the scythe wagon can travel for approximately four hours.”<br /><br /> “And does it need to be controlled locally like this?”<br /><br /> “No, Doctor,” explained Doctor Hutchins,” The wagon is fit with video cameras, and can be controlled from the vault in what we expect to be about a six mile radius.”<br /><br /> “Very nice,” Doctor Byron.<br /><br /> At that moment something hit the fence next to me, One of the blades from the scythe wagon had broken loose and launched itself in my direction. The fence stopped it in a small shower of sparks, dropping it to the ground harmlessly. That did not stop me from flinching far too late to have saved me, tripping over my own feet, and falling onto the brown grass. The impact of my sword against my back momentarily knocked the wind out of me.<br /><br /> Out on the field the scythe wagon now wobbled dangerously, thrown off balance by a missing blade, “Shutting down!” Doctor Vang called out, and the blades started to slow.<br /><br /> “Are you okay?” Doctor Byron called to me as I got back to my feet.<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor, just surprised,” I said as I brushed dust and bits of dead grass off of my jeans.<br /><br /> “I think there is still some work to be done,” Doctor Byron judged, “but I would very much like to see your progress. You are cleared for one more month of work, but at that time I want to see your balance situation resolved. “<br /><br /> Doctors Vang, Hutchins, and Carraway came over to me, “Hey, I am totally sorry about that, man,” said Doctor Vang.<br /><br /> “That's what the fence is for, right?” I said, trying to seem less freaked out by it than I really was.<br /><br /> “It is,” said Doctor Carraway, “but sometimes I think that we maybe need something more... substantial.<br /><br /> “I think,” announced Doctor Byron, “that we are going to need more test subjects. Justin, please take Beth and a couple of the citizen guard with you to gather some.”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor,” a tanned man with a buzzcut in a black Genetitech Security uniform snapped, “Officer O'Hara, pick two people and meet me by the cars.”<br /><br /> I had started doing a bit of daydreaming when I felt a hand on my shoulder, “Come on, lets go,” Beth said, and kept walking.<br /><br /> “What are we doing exactly?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Gathering test subjects, you know, zeds, zombies, animated corpses, soulless, ghouls, etcetera. You don't think I would let you hang out here and miss fun like that, do you?”<br /><br /> “No, why would you?”<br /><br /> We walked over to where the cars and trucks that had made up our caravan were waiting. Officer Justin Lassit and Beth's other civilian pick were already standing there by a large black Genetitch Laboratories delivery truck talking. I was surprised to see that the other person Beth had chose was Barbara Rosenberg; I hadn't even realized she had come out there with us.<br /><br /> “O'Hara and I will take the truck, you and Rosenberg will follow behind,” Justin said to me, “Stay close; I don't want to have to waste any time looking for you, okay?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Officer,” I said.<br /><br /> He seemed to think for a moment, and then said, “Call me Justin; If O'Hara thinks you're okay to call her by first namse, then you should be okay to call me by mine, okay?”<br /><br /> Justin and Beth got into the large truck while Barbara and I took a small blue Prius. Barbara asked me to drive, and I did not see any reason to disagree. Two uniformed officer opened the gate to let us out of the fenced in area and into the seemingly abandoned town.<br /><br /> One thing I noticed as we slowly drove through town was that all of the stores looked empty, as in totally cleaned out. Some stores looked like they had been broken into while others looked untouched, but every one of them looked like it had been cleaned out down to the walls. Clearly Lovelock's acquisition teams were a lot more thorough than we were in Mallville.<br /><br /> “So you're Gerry's friend, right?” Barbara asked,” I mean you live with him and Beth and that girl, right?”<br /><br /> “Yeah,” I answered, “We traveled together for a long time.”<br /><br /> “Gerry told me,” Barbara, “You guys were lucky to have each other. I would have killed for someone to talk to on the road.” she clutched her Annihilator tool in her lap while she spoke.<br /><br /> “I would'nt be here now if it wasn't for them,” I said.<br /><br /> “I'm lucky to be. Everyone I ran into out there was a complete asshole. There was Barry, he was a coach at the school I taught at; you know I was a teacher, right?”<br /><br /> “Yes.”<br /><br /> “Well, he tried to force himself on me at the end of the first month, and that... that didn't end well.”<br /><br /> “Wow, I'm sorry,” I said, not sure how to reply to that.<br /><br /> “Then there were these pricks that thought they were vampires. I got away from them by escaping in the daylight.”<br /><br /> “They thought they would burn up or something?” I asked.<br /><br /> “No, they were afraid of seeing each other as they really were. They said they were ugly in daylight. I wanted to point out to them that they weren't exactly fashion models in the dark either,” Barbara took a deep breath, “I wish I could have been with your group, it sounds like you guys had a better time of things than I did.”<br /><br /> “It wasn't all great,” I said, “We lost some people... some really important people out there.”<br /><br /> “Oh, yeah, huh? Gerry told me about your wife. I'm sorry about that,” Barbara said a little awkwardly.<br /><br /> “It's no one's fault,” I told Barbara, like I tell myself every day now, “I'm finally starting to move on now.”<br /><br /> “But you still miss her, huh?”<br /><br /> “I miss everyone I've lost, but she is certainly at the top of the list,” then, trying to change the subject a little, “but I'm sure you miss people too.”<br /><br /> “Yeah, I do,” Barbara said, and then stopped talking.<br /><br /> It was about fifteen minutes of seemingly random driving before The black truck slowed to a stop in front of us. I saw Justin and Beth hop down, Beth was pointing her vicious looking assault rifle (Beth tells me it's an FN F2000, which is good because it keeps me from having to just refer to it as a futuristic-looking gun) at something in front of the truck that I could not see. Justin motioned for me and Barbara to get out of the car and come over to him, and then slid up the back door of the truck up.<br /><br /> “Help me with the ramp,” Justin said as I jogged over to him, and together we extended a ramp from the back of the truck to the ground. As I handled the ramp I could feel cold air flowing out of the back of the truck, and realized that the inside of the back was refrigerated' this truck probably hauled produce or meat or something in the old world.<br /><br /> The inside of the back of the truck gave me pause. About two feet in from the edge of the truck was a cage wall with a sliding gate on it. On the walls of each side of the truck were four seven foot long metals poles, two to each side, with metal cable dangling from each. Even though this stuff didn't look anywhere near as amateur, it still made me think of the Hell's Postmen and their cage truck. The fact it was refrigerated was to make the zeds more sedate once they were inside the cage, which was something I'm sure the Postmen would have wished they had thought of.<br /><br /> Justin climbed into the back of the truck, and pulled one of the metal poles out of the bracket that was holding it to the wall, and tossed it down to me. I caught it, but not without one end clanging against the surface of the street. At one end of the pole the cable was bolted down , and looped so that the rest of the cable was threaded through the pole. About two feet from the other end of the pole the wire came out through a hole, allowing the user to tighten noose at the other end. There was also a metal clip to lock the cable in place once your target had been caught in the noose.<br /><br /> “Okay, so I know this is the first time doing this for either of you,” Justin started, “but I also know that you must know how to handle yourselves around the ghouls or you wouldn't be here now,” Justin pulled another of the poles free, and tossed it down to Barbara who caught it much more smoothly than I did.<br /><br /> “What we're going to do is simple. We need to catch some ghouls for the brains to test their projects out on. Now we don't want to waste the meds sedating them,” Justin pulled a third pole loose to demonstrate with, “so one of you just needs to catch the ghoul's head in the loop, pull it tight, and then lock it in place with the little clip down there by your hand,” he pointed at me.<br /><br /> “Once you've done that, then the other needs to catch the ghoul in their own loop, and do the same. Then you both just guide them up the ramp, and into the cage, there's an open space on the gate for the poles to go through when we close the door. Once we have the ghoul secured in the cage, unlock your loop, and slide it back over their head, and the cold will take care of the rest.”<br /><br /> “What do we do if there's more than one of them?” Barbara asked.<br /><br /> “Beth and I will be covering you. If you're in danger we'll take care of it,” Justin said, patting the rifle hanging from its shoulder strap and resting on his hip.<br /><br /> “If we want to take this one alive, you'd better get to it, “ Beth called from around the front of the truck, “I'm going to take it down if it gets much closer.”<br /><br /> Moving to the front of the truck we found a male zed about twenty feet away; it was shambling a direct path towards Beth, who kept the barrel of her gun trained on it. The zed was pretty short, maybe five and a half feet and was wearing a filthy white button up shirt. It's left arm was missing, the sleeve of his shirt ending in maroon tatters. A bear? Are there bears up here? Do bears eat zombies? Can a bear become a zombie (to that, the answer is apparently no; Zack Hutchins told me that the virus/bacteria/whatever doesn't seem to spread between species while I was drinking and telling my tale in Bacchus later... thank God for that).<br /><br /> Catching the zed was fairly easy; Barbara went around one side of it, and I went around the other. We were able to capture its head easily enough, and hold it stable between us to maneuver it around the back of the truck and up the ramp.<br /><br /> The gate of the cage was automatic, and Justin opened it by pushing a button that I had not noticed on the side of the truck. I noticed that he had to put a key into it first, which is probably meant to keep anyone from accidentally releasing the zeds. Getting the nooses off of the zed's neck once it was safely locked up took a bit of work though; we didn't have a lot of room in the gate's gap to move the pole around, but in time we figured it out.<br /><br /> It took about an hour to gather up eight zeds, and most of that was just finding them. Previous rounds of experimentation have pretty much cleaned out Harlan of its undead infestation. It's too bad we can't just chip away at all of them like this.<br /><br /> We got back to the middle school in time to see two white coated scientists spraying down a flaming zed through the fence with fire extinguishers. Hell, I could have told them that setting the things on fire was a bad idea.<br /><br /> Since we had captured the zeds, we were spared the pleasure of having to re-rope the now sluggish zeds and remove them from the back of the refrigerated truck and into the holding pen. The warm summer sun seemed to revive them pretty quickly, but not before they were safely locked up again in the holding pen..<br /><br /> The last two tests of the day, there had only been five planned and we missed the second and third, were both quite interesting. The first was some sort of microwave gun (I did not catch the proper name). It looked like a big square satellite dish mounted on the roof of a van.<br /><br /> When the door to the holding pen slid open, two zeds managed to get out before the door slid shut again; a male and a female. They startled their shuffling job towards the truck, and the satellite dish tracked the the whole way.<br /><br /> Once the zeds no longer had the holding pen behind them the dish activated (I guess, since I didn't hear any noise). In seconds both zeds started smoking; their skin appeared to dry out and start to crack like the meat in a TV dinner put in the microwave for too long. A couple of seconds after that they stumbled and fell to the ground, smoke and steam drifting up off of their well done corpses.<br /><br /> “It can cook a turkey in a minute too,” said the scientist working the gun by remote, Doctor King, earning him a good round of laughter.<br /><br /> The final one was probably my favorite, they called it the Vortex Ring Gun, and it was also truck mounted, though to a pickup truck this time. The device looked kind of like a super-sized grenade launcher, although unlike the microwave gun this one was controlled directly by a Genetitech Security officer.<br /><br /> When a zed was released into the testing area it charged the fresh meat atop the pickup, but when it was maybe twenty meters away it was suddenly thrown off of its feet by an unseen force. The zed tried to get back up off of the ground, but was flattened, as if pounded by an invisible giant's fist. The zombie did not try to get up again.<br /><br /> I did not get to hear the explanation behind how this gun worked, so I don't know if it was sound or air pressure, or what, but it impressed me. I can only imagine what we could have done with something like that back at Mallville. Of course I can also imagine what Kaur would have done with it too.<br /><br /> Over all Doctor Byron said that she was very pleased with the progress everyone was making, and that she looked forward to seeing what else people came up with by next month's test. I hope that I'll get to go on that one too.<br /><br /> On the ride home I ended up in a car with Barbara, and two guys named Ciaran Monroe and Christian Whitehall. Ciaran, our driver, kept hitting on Barbara the whole drive home.<br /><br /> “Would it be okay if I were allowed to buy the fair zombie wrangler a drink at Bacchus?” Ciaran asked.<br /><br /> “Well, okay,” I said, “but you're not getting past second base on the first date.”<br /><br /> Christian and Barbara laughed at that, and I'm pretty sure Ciaran turned red, but I could not see him clearly from the backseat.<br /><br /> “I meant Barbara,” Ciaran said, a little bitterly.<br /><br /> “One,” retorted Barbara, “the drinks at Bacchus are free, and two, I'm sorry if I offended you.”<br /><br /> “Whatcha mean?” Ciaran asked.<br /><br /> “Well in some countries giving somebody a glass of that wood stripper would be considered a hostile act.” Barbara explained. Ciaran laughed perhaps a bit too hard at that.<br /><br /> Barbara puts on a good front, but I think she's uncomfortable being flirted with. Maybe it's just that Ciaran was trying too hard. The problem can't be that she's not used to being hit on because she is quite attractive.<br /><br /> Don't get me wrong; even though I do find Barbara attractive I have no interest in her. I need to be with myself and my adopted family for awhile now, and I don't know if I have room in that part of my heart for anyone after Tara and Sharon.<br /><br /> We did end up at Bacchus that night, and Barbara and I sat at the bar and watched the others act far more foolish than two glasses of even stuff as strong as Milly's specialty could possibly get you. Zackariah did a pretty mean rendition of “She Blinded Me With Science”<br /><br /> SCIENCE!<br /><br /> Of course the crowning jewel of the last week was yesterday, July Fourth. Last year I spent the holiday pretty much considering suicide, but this year was so much better.<br /><br /> For Fourth of July Doctor Byron had a picnic put on in the park at the center of town. She wanted to do a barbecue, but that requires meat, and the best we could come up with on that front were apparently canned whole chickens and Spam. Grilled Spam is actually not bad, but the canned chicken was not so good. It's not that the chicken actually tasted bad, but more that it didn't taste like much of anything. Who thought that canning whole chickens was even a good idea?<br /><br /> Aside from the grilling there were vegetable and fruit based dishes that were good. Fruit salads, pies, cakes, all good stuff. I think the whole town turned out for it even though the sky was cloudy and kept threatening to rain..<br /><br /> You can really tell how much Doctor Byron cares about this town; she really tried to create a sense of the world before. If it weren't for the fact that most people carry weapons of some sort with them all the time it might be a little more convincing, but I'm not complaining.<br /><br /> Pippa and I took part in the three legged race, but lost out to Zack and Margaret Hutchins. Actually we lost to a lot of people, including Barbara and Beth. It probably would have been easier if I had just carried Pippa.<br /><br /> Beth and Pippa forced me to join in on a baseball game. It was civilians versus Genetitech staff. You would think that beating the scientists would be easy, but they also had security officers on their team (although Beth was allowed to play on the civvie team), so it evened things out a lot. In the end we won thanks to Beth hitting a grand slam home run in the eighth inning.<br /><br /> It probably would have helped if I were any good at sports, but I'm not. I did manage to make it to base twice though, and even crossed home plate once thanks to Gerry hitting a long one into left field. He says it's from his days in the major leagues, and you don't forget batting skills like that once you learn them.<br /><br /> There was live music on the park's bandstand. The first band was a group of scientists from the labs who called themselves The Ionics. The other was really just three teenagers called Maneki Neko and th Ch'an Chu. It was fun; Beth made me dance with her some more.<br /><br /> Later in the afternoon the wind picked up, it got colder, and rain seemed a near certainty, but very few people left. I don't think they wanted the illusion of normalcy to end. Going back to our homes and watching the one TV station would just be a reminder of that.<br /><br /> Luckily it never did rain, and the clouds actually worked in our favor. There were no fireworks, but there was still a light show. Someone from the labs built some laser projectors (or maybe they just already had them for some reason), and the clouds became the canvas for a fantastic laser light show. Nothing exploded, but there were still plenty of “oohs'” and “aahs”in the park that night.<br /><br /> Like I said, it's been a really good week. I only wish that Tara, Alex, Sharon, and Maria could be here to enjoy it with us. I'm not going to let that get me down though; I wouldn't want them to be all mopey like I've been if things had gone differently.<br /><br /> I'd better stop now; I was supposed to meet Pippa in Seventh City 20 minutes ago. Captain_Noir is level 22 now.<br /><br /> I never thought I would be able to say this again, but I actually feel pretty happy; like I could live happily ever after if things could just stay the way they are right now.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-2118593573260286482010-02-09T04:37:00.000-08:002010-02-09T04:40:11.515-08:00Forty-Ninth Entry: Dance AloneJune 25th<br /><br /> I have to say it, I like it here. Doctor Byron and people of Lovelock have done a great job of recreating the world as it was before. It's not a total recreation; I mean people are wandering around with weapons, and nobody pays for anything with money (in my head I keep hearing Wolf News anchors screaming about communism), but the overall feel is there. The atmosphere is certainly not as fearful as it was in Mallville.<br /><br /> Pippa has started going to school again, and she seems to really like it. She tried to get me to help her with her homework a couple of times, but this stuff is beyond me. I got off the math train after geometry, it's all foreign language to me after that.<br /><br /> I was a little surprised last week to come home and find Pippa using a laptop computer. It wasn't so much that she had one as what she was doing with it that surprised me. Far from doing any sort of homework on it, she was playing a video game, Seventh City Online, an MMO.<br /><br /> “Is that Seventh City?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Yup!”<br /><br /> “How are you playing that?” I ask, knowing that the servers had to have gone down with everything else.<br /><br /> “Lovelock has its own server. There's not a lot of players, but then there's not much kill stealing either. It balances out, sort of.”<br /><br /> I guess this makes sense. This is a town originally populated mostly by nerds, so some of them must have used one of those hacks that let you make your own private server. I wonder if I could find a good game of Shadowrun to join?<br /><br /> “How did you get a laptop?” I asked.<br /><br /> “School. It's to do work on, but you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”<br /><br /> “Is there anything else online?”<br /><br /> “Just local stuff. Nothing outside of town is accessible. I'm afraid your days on Facebook are still over, although there is a local Twitter server.”<br /><br /> “So are you going to share that computer with the rest of us?”<br /><br /> “Mmmmaybe. If you're nice to me,” Pippa answered teasingly.<br /><br /> “I'm not sure if that's worth it then.”<br /><br /> We've not seen very much of Beth these last couple of weeks. She has been in training with Genetitech Security, and has only been home this weekend since she started. She says that things are going really well, but it is wearing her out a little bit.<br /><br /> Gerry has also been gone a lot. He's only been home about one night out of every three, as Lovelock's acquisition runs are multi-day affairs involving truckloads of equipment. I'm sure that by now they are having to go quite far to even find stuff worth taking.<br /><br /> Gerry tells me that they are a lot less discriminating about what they take. They don't go out just looking for food and clothing, but hardware, chemicals, metal, and pretty much anything else not nailed down. He says he's trying to get them to take me on one, but I don't know if I would want to leave Pippa here alone.<br /><br /> As for me, well I've been doing a lot of standing around with the other guards at the gates talking. I don't really fit in with them though. None of them are even remotely geeky and it makes me miss Sharon and Tara just that much more.<br /><br /> Even at home I feel like I'm sort of an outsider. I can hear Beth in my head telling me what bullshit that is, but I don't really think so. Maybe it's just because it's me and Pippa on our own for the most part, and I've felt a little awkward around her ever since the morning after Sharon died.<br /><br /> Of course that is my problem, and I need to get my shit together and not be taking that out on Pippa. I think I understand why Pippa did it in a way that I couldn't at the time, and while it would never cross my mind to do something like that for a number of reasons, she did mean well.<br /><br /> In the time I've been at the gate we have had only one new survivor come in. I guess this is good though since it means that people are still out there, and that us and Alisdair's group are not the only people left in the world. I wish we saw more survivors though, and that we had seen more on our own trip here.<br /><br /> I am on afternoons right now, so basically at the hottest part of the day, working under the supervision of a man named Samit Linde, who was a high school football coach back in the before. He's a nice guy, but his jock and my geek don't mesh all that well. Still we manage to stay friendly.<br /><br /> It was right near the end of our shift at the east gate when one of the spotters, Gordon, called down that something was coming towards us. We readied ourselves and found that the something was a girl on a red bicycle. She had a head full of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pair of motorcycle goggles. Her skin was shiny with sweat.<br /><br /> As she approached, Samit raised his bullhorn and called out to her, “Please get off of the bike, and keep your hands where we can see them.”<br /><br /> The woman slowed to a stop, and got off the bike. She slipped the straps of the bulging camouflaged backpack off of her shoulders and let it drop to the surface of the road. I could see a long black object hanging from a belt holster on her right hip, it looked like a small pick ax.<br /><br /> “Are you going to shoot me?” the woman asked.<br /><br /> “Not unless you give us a reason to,” Samit answers,” Please remove any weapons, and come forward slowly.<br /><br /> The woman reached behind her back and slowly pulled out a pistol (I'm not sure how she thought she would be able to get to it if she needed to with that massive backpack on), and placed it on the ground. She then pulled the black pick-ax looking thing (it's called an Annihilator, I was told later, which is most certainly appropriate) from the loop on her belt, and placed it on the ground next to the gun.<br /><br /> With her hands in the air, the woman started moving towards us, pausing after each step like she was walking down the aisle at a wedding.<br /><br /> “You don't need to walk that slowly,” Samit says.<br /><br /> “And you don't need to keep pointing, what, four, five guns at me? You put down the guns and I might be more inclined to most faster.”<br /> <br /> Samit raised his hand to signal the rest of us to lower our weapons. We did, but I still kept my gun half raised, not so much because I thought the woman a risk, but because I want to get into a habit of doing that. I'd hate to get killed because someone outdrew me.<br /><br /> The woman closed the distance between her and Samit, and stopped just beyond his reach, “So, you guys don't really look like soldiers; what is this place?”<br /><br /> “You didn't come here intentionally?”<br /><br /> “I am here intentionally in as far as I don't want to be where I came from, but I wasn't aiming for here specifically. I just got on my bike and headed in the opposite direction of the zombies, you know? It was a hell of a ride too.”<br /><br /> I was a little surprised at how unafraid she seemed of us. Beth, Gerry, Pippa and I handled it pretty well, I think, but we were coming here intentionally. To just stumble upon a guarded roadblock and not seem to even be scared though; I was in awe.<br /><br /> “Well you are safe now. My name is Samit Linde, and this is Lovelock,” Samit motioned behind him with the bullhorn. I think he was trying to be dramatic, but there's nothing really to see past the gate except for road. It's about half a mile to the actual town from there.<br /><br /> “I'm Barbara, Barbabra Rosenberg, and the first person to make that stupid Night of the Living Dead joke gets punched, got it?”she said, looking around at the rest of us as we came out from behind out cover.<br /><br /> Samit grabbed the walkie talkie off of his belt, “Base, this is Linde. I have a newcomer out here. A female, says her name is Barbara Rosenberg.”<br /><br /> “I will alert Doctor Byron. Transport is being dispatched,” replied to woman on the other end.<br /><br /> While we waited for Genetitech Security to come pick up Barbara, Samit gave her the spiel about how her items would be gone through for anything contraband, and would be delivered to her assigned residence. When he was done with that we all introduced ourselves to her. It turns out she's from Montana, and has ridden across two states to end up here. She told us about a large group of zeds that seemed to be moving as a single flock, and how she felt the best place for her to be was somewhere they weren't.<br /><br /> Barbara told us that before the end she was an elementary school teacher, and after the end she was the last survivor amongst her friends. I asked her about the pick ax thing, an that's when she told me the name of it. She said she found it in a hardware store, and that it is meant to be a demolition tool, but with a flat hammer head, a bladed prybar head, and a spike at the bottom of the handle that it works really well on zeds; even better than a normal crowbar. I want one now.<br /><br /> Before security showed up, our shit change came around, and so did Zack with his crew for the evening shift. He pulled up with his five people in a white minivan, and parked it next to the one that Samit would be driving us back to town in.<br /><br /> Getting out of the van, Zack approached us and the newcomer, “Hey, I heard that we had someone new,” he looked at me, “Between your group and her it looks like we may be at the start of a population boom, eh?” then to Barbara, “Name's Zackariah, but everyone just called me Zach.”<br /><br /> “I'm Barbara, Barbara Rosenberg.”<br /><br /> “Oooh,“ Zack exclaimed, and then in what was meant to be an eerie voice “They're coming to get you, Barbara.”<br /><br /> Barbara is quick; I guess when you deal with grade schoolers for a living you have to be. Before anyone could stop her she had lashed out with her right fist and socked Zack in the face. I don't know if she just hit that hard, he's that bad in a fight, or he was just taken by surprise, but the hit caused him to stagger back, lose his balance, and fall on his ass on the surface of the road.<br /><br /> “What the hell?” Zack asked, more confused than angry, as Samit, and a couple of the others ushered Barbara away from him.<br /><br /> Despite that incident, it looks like Barbara will be staying here in Lovelock, at least for awhile. I saw her around earlier tonight.<br /><br /> In one of her many attempts to create a sense of normalcy and community here in Lovelock, Doctor Byron has a dance held at the high school once a month. I went tonight, but only because I was forced to.<br /><br /> I was sitting at home this afternoon reading when I heard the front door open. Pippa was in her room using her laptop, and Gerry was in the shower having just gotten home from an acquisition run that had lasted three days. At first I didn't realize who it would be coming through the door.<br /><br /> “Hey, is anybody here?” I heard Beth's voice call.<br /><br /> I heard the door to Pippa's room slam open, and the thundering of teenaged feet as she ran through the house, “Beth!” she cried.<br /><br /> I head Beth say “Oomph!” as Pippa undoubtedly pounced on her.<br /><br /> I rose from my chair in front of the empty fireplace, and went to the front door to find Pippa and Beth hugging, “Do you two want some privacy?” I asked.<br /><br /> Pippa released Beth, “Perv!” she yelled at me, “So are you done now?” she asked Beth.<br /><br /> “No, but I am off for the weekend. I have to report back on Monday,” Beth said, sliding a blue gym bag off of her shoulder and dropping it onto the entryway floor, “So what are we up to? Were you going to the dance tonight?”<br /><br /> “I am!” Pippa shouted, “I have a date!”I think that moment is the happiest I've seen Pippa look since I've met her. She looked even happier than when we found the record collection.<br /><br /> I raised an eyebrow, “A date?” I asked, “That's the first I've heard of that.”<br /><br /> “I didn't know I was required to tell you,” Pippa said, a little snottily, “You'll meet him at the dance tonight anyway. Gerry's going to.”<br /><br /> “Sounds great, I'd better go and start getting ready then,” then Beth looked at me, “You're going, right?”<br /> <br /> “I thought I'd skip it this time,” I answered.<br /><br /> “You will not! All you do is sit around this house and work.”<br /><br /> “How do you know? You haven't even been here.”<br /><br /> Beth just looked me in the eyes, “Tell me I'm wrong.”<br /><br /> “You're not, but I still don't want to go. It'll just be depressing. I don't want to dance alone.”<br /><br /> “You'll dance with me then,” Beth said.<br /><br /> “What about Gerry?”<br /><br /> “What about Gerry? You guys can share me if you want. It's just dancing.”<br /><br /> “I can't dance,” I said, basically just making excuses now.<br /><br /> “I've seen you dance, and no you can't, but you manage.”<br /><br /> “Beth, I don't-”<br /><br /> “So it's settled. Go get ready,” Beth said and gave me a quick hug while whispering, “Don't make me kick your ass.”<br /><br /> Beth grabbed up her gym bag again and smiled, “I've missed you guys,” she said, and headed for her bedroom.<br /><br /> So with that settled I went back to my room and tried to find my least smeggy things to wear. I decided on a black button up over a grey t-shirt and jeans. I'm eventually going to have to find some nicer clothes if I am going to keep up the illusion of living in civilization again.<br /><br /> I stood there alone in my room for awhile looking at the relics of Tara and Sharon. I wish they were here, then I would have someone to dance with. I held Tara's Christmas present and Sharon's glasses in my hands for awhile until it felt like a small black hole was forming in my chest. I probably would have sat there all night if Gerry hadn't knocked on the door then.<br /><br /> “Come on man, we're leaving, and Beth says if she has to come get you, you'll be sorry.”<br /><br /> I placed the items back on their shelves, took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and opened the door. I must not have been as convincing looking as I had hoped I was.<br /><br /> “You okay?” Gerry asked when he saw me.<br /><br /> “Yeah, I'm just not really looking forward to this. The last dance I went to was prom, and that was with Sharon. We sat there and made fun of people for most of the nights, and she spent probably as much time dancing with other guys as with me. It ended with her getting drunk and puking out the side of the limo.”<br /><br /> “Sounds magical,” Gerry said.<br /><br /> “It was,” I said, “I have always kind of regretted it as a wasted opportunity though.”<br /><br /> “Well no more wasted opportunities for us! Beth wants to dance, and we need to see what kind of a boy Pippa is dating.”<br /><br /> “Are you drunk?” I asked.<br /><br /> “No! No!” Gerry protested, “Well maybe a little.”<br /><br /> The dance was a fairly no frills affair. There was a fog machine and lots of flashy lights, but none of the paper streamers or balloons one expects from an old fashioned high school dance (or at least the way TV shows used to portray them). There was a table with a big bowl of fresh lemonade though, and that was quite quite awesome.<br /><br /> The gym was crowded, I swear that half the town was there. I found Beth, Gerry, and myself some seats off to one side of the gym as soon as we got there. Beth had no intention of letting me sit though.<br /><br /> “Get your ass onto the dance floor!” Beth ordered.<br /><br /> “Beth, no..”<br /><br /> “Yes, dance with me, dammit! I want to talk to you,” and then to Gerry she said, “and if you don't find someone to dance with I'm coming back for you next!”<br /><br /> Beth dragged me, quite literally, onto the dance floor. The music was some fast-paced funky song that I've never head before, and I was able to find the rhythm pretty quickly and settle into that dance where your feet never leave the floor and you basically are just swinging your arms and hips.<br /><br /> “So how are you doing?” Beth asked me over the din of the music.<br /><br /> “I'm doing okay, I guess. You?”<br /><br /> “I'm great! It's so great to be back into a disciplined routine, and you should see the weapons they get to use. Kaur would have sold his left nut for this stuff.”<br /><br /> “Wow,” I said, not knowing what else to say.<br /><br /> “So have you met anyone yet?”<br /><br /> “I've met lots of people.”<br /><br /> “Any prospects?”<br /><br /> “You mean a relationship? No! I'm not looking for that.”<br /><br /> “Why not?”<br /><br /> “It's not even two months!” I exclaimed, getting angry now, “Why do you even care?”<br /><br /> “Because I care about you. You're a good guy, and you deserve to be happy.”<br /><br /> “I was happy.”<br /><br /> “I know, and someday you'll be happy again. No one is ever going to replace Sharon or Tara, but you do have a place in your heart for someone, and if you refuse to look for that someone yourself, I'm going to help you.” Beth smiled, but there was a wicked twinkle in her eye. Suddenly she was looking past me into the distance, “Hey, who is that that Gerry's talking to?”<br /><br /> I looked, and saw that Gerry had gone over to the drinks table and was chatting up none other than, “Barbara Rosenberg; she's new in town. I hope Gerry doesn't make any Night of the Living Dead jokes.”<br /><br /> “Oh, is she the one that popped Zack Hutchins? I heard about that; she gave him a black eye.”<br /><br /> “Yeah, she's quick.”<br /><br /> “She's kinda cute,” Beth said thoughtfully, “I mean I'm not digging the whole Little Orphan Annie hair thing, butshe's cute. I met his wife, you know? Margaret, she's nice, but she works with a pair of maniacs. They are building something that looks like a go-kart with helicopter blades on it. The younger guy, Grant, he says it's for sending into large groups of zeds. I would love to see it in action.”<br /><br /> “You seem really relaxed,” I observed.<br /><br /> “You think so? Maybe it's just that I feel we're safe now, you know? I've got a family in you guys, and a home, and a job again. Maybe I just feel like I am whole again.”<br /><br /> “Or maybe Gerry shared his stash of booze with you?”<br /><br /> “Maybe that too, yeah.”<br /><br /> The song ended and a really slow version of Beyond the Sea started. I took a step to leave the dance floor, but Beth grabbed my sleeve and yanked me back, “Where are you going?”<br /><br /> “To sit. The song ended, so it's Gerry's turn, remember?”<br /><br /> “It would be rude of me to interrupt his conversation. You'll just have to keep on dancing.”<br /><br /> “It's a slow song.”<br /><br /> “I don't have cooties,“ Beth pulled me close, “Just keep your hand on my back, okay?”<br /><br /> “Beth,” I whined.<br /><br /> “Don't make me lead.”<br /><br /> I put my arms around Beth, and held her at as great a length as I could manage, but she pulled me against her, and we started to sway back and forth.<br /><br /> “This is making me uncomfortable,” I said.<br /><br /> “It shouldn't. There's no reason you cannot dance with me. Nothing is ever going to happen between us; I promise.”<br /><br /> “I'm not sure that makes me feel any better.”<br /><br /> Beth laughed, “Hey, is that Pippa over there?” she pointed across the gym.<br /><br /> Yes, it was Pippa and she was dancing with her boyfriend. I felt my blood surge a little bit seeing the guy holding her in his arms. He was one of those greasy little slicky boys with close shaved hair and the weak moustache that makes it look like he's been drinking used motor oil.<br /><br /> “You want to loosen up a little?” Beth asked, pulling away from me, “You hold me any tighter and we're going to combine into one person.”<br /><br /> I hadn't realized how tightly I was holding her then, and loosened my grip, “Sorry.”<br /><br /> “So what was that? Is that the big brother wanting to protect his little sister, or was that just jealousy?”<br /><br /> “Okay, not funny. You know I don't have feelings like that for her.”<br /><br /> “I also know it gets you worked up,” Beth said with another laugh, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be being so mean to you.”<br /><br /> I sighed, “No, it's okay. I think you're helping actually.”<br /><br /> “Really?”<br /><br /> “Yes. Thanks for putting up with me.”<br /><br /> We danced together for the next four or five songs in silence. It both felt good to hold Beth in my arms, but at the same time it made me miss Tara and Sharon even more. It should have been one of them in my arms, not Beth. We should have all made it to Lovelock together.<br /><br /> I noticed during the last song that we danced, “I'm Too Sexy”, that Gerry and Barbara had started dancing together. They both looked like they were having a good time together. I'm happy for him. I'm not sure what exactly there was between him and Maria, but if he can move past that, then I am truly happy for him.<br /><br /> Of course that does leave me as the only one of us still waiting for the next shoe to drop, but then I've always been a worrier (or whiner as Beth puts it) anyway. Maybe I should put those things away. Tara's books, and that Darth Vader head; Sharon's sword, and glasses, and the little ape. I don't know if I can do it though.<br /><br /> When “I'm Too Sexy” ended, Beth finally relented and lead me off the dance floor over to the refreshments table. She grabbed a lemonade and handed it to me, and then took a cup for herself.<br /><br /> “So how are you feeling?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “Lonely,” I answered honestly.<br /><br /> Beth frowned and sighed, “What am I going to do with you?”<br /><br /> “Give up on me and let me be miserable in peace?”<br /><br /> “Not a chance,” she smiled.<br /><br /> Someone spoke our names from behind us, and we turned to see what I first thought was a ghost. But the flowing white figure was not a spirit; it was Doctor Byron dressed in a long white dress with a flowing white shawl that combined with her pale skin and hair to make her have more than a passing resemblance to Casper.<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron,” exclaimed Beth, “I did not expect to see you here.”<br /><br /> “I always put in an appearance at the dances, Beth. It would be very hypocritical of me not to,” Doctor Byron took a sip from the cup of lemonade in her hand, “I hear your training is going well. It sounds like you will be an asset to the division.”<br /><br /> “Thank you, Doctor,” Beth replied, smiling.<br /><br /> “Evie, please. And how are you adjusting to your job?” Doctor Byron asked me.<br /><br /> “It's a lot of standing around and talking, but it certainly beats being on the road.”<br /><br /> “I'm sure that it does,” Doctor Byron agreed, “but don't underestimate the importance of it. Not only are you our first line of defense against the animated corpses, but you are one of the first faces that newcomers see when they first come here; like Barbara over there,” Doctor Byron motioned in the direction of where Barbara and Gerry were still dancing.<br /><br /> “Of course, ma'am, I'm sorry.”<br /><br /> “No need to apologize, I just want you to know that you are appreciated. Everyone here needs to know that they are both important and appreciated,“ Doctor Byron said, “lthough I do still think you should talk to a counselor about what you have been through.”<br /><br /> “Everyone's been through the same stuff, Doctor.”<br /><br /> “True and untrue. While we have all experienced the same or similar events, we all have experienced them differently; we have all been effected by them differently. There is no reason to be ashamed for needing to talk about it. Still, I will not force you,” Doctor Byron took another sip from her lemonade, and started to walk away, “Have a good time, you two.”<br /><br /> “You want to dance some more?“ Beth asked.<br /><br /> “Actually, can we go get some air?”<br /><br /> “Sure, let's go,” Beth threw an arm around me, not like a lover, but like a friend, and we went outside.<br /><br /> Once in the warm summer night air Beth released me, and took a deep breath in and let it out in a contented sigh, “For the first time I really feel like things are going to work out for us.”<br /><br /> “I wish I felt that way.”<br /><br /> “I wish you did too, but we're not going to give up on you; Sharon would be mad at me if we did”<br /><br /> “Is that why you're doing this?”<br /><br /> “I promised Sharon that I would make sure you're okay, and you're not yet. Until you are okay, you're stuck with me.”<br /><br /> “So I'm a pity case?” I asked.<br /><br /> “No, stop that! You're-”<br /><br /> A voice cut Beth off; Pippa's voice, “Richard, I said no!”<br /><br /> “Pippa?” I said to Beth, and she nodded, her body tensing.<br /><br /> Beth and I quietly, but quickly, moved in the direction of Pippa's voice.<br /><br /> “Richard, stop it! I'm not ready!”<br /><br /> Coming around a pair of large shrubs we found Pippa and her boyfriend, Richard, sitting on a relatively secluded bench. Richard was kissing her neck while trying to slide a hand up under her pink skirt. Pippa was using both her hands to try and push his away.<br /><br /> “Come on, Pippa, just for a little bit.”<br /><br /> “No, stop!”<br /><br /> Richard didn't stop; instead he used his free hand to try and pull her hands away from her own lap and into his. Pippa groaned and struggled.<br /><br /> I felt rage build up inside me, and I stormed forward. Far from trying to stop me, Beth was right behind me. I got to the bench first, and Pippa saw me coming, “What are-”<br /><br /> Before Pippa could finish her question, I had Richard by the back of his shoulders, and yanked him off of Pippa and off of the bench, “Hey man!” Richard squawked as I spun him around to face me. I shoved him backwards.<br /><br /> Richard stumbled back right into Beth's waiting arms. She caught him, and the shoved him back to me. I caught him by the front of his shirt, and pulled it upward to bring him closer to my face, “The young lady said no,” I growled in what I think was pretty passable as menacing.<br /><br /> “Fuck you!” Richard said defiantly.<br /><br /> I had a good grip on him, and started walking, half pushing, half dragging him as I went. I shoved him through the bushes, onto the sidewalk that rings the gym building, and hard against the wall of the gym, “If I ever see you near Pippa again, my friend over there is going to make earrings out of your testicles.”<br /><br /> Beth came up beside us, and pulled out a pocket knife (from where, I do not know since her dress didn't appear to have pockets). She waved it in the air a little while she smiled. I'm not totally sure, but I think Richard may have pissed himself at this point.<br /><br /> “The next time a girl says no, you should listen, Dick,” Beth said, and her voice was oily and tinged with humor.<br /><br /> I pulled Richard away from the wall, and knocked him back into it again, “Now get out of here, and try to enjoy the rest of your evening.” I released his shirt, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.<br /><br /> Richard regains his balance, and quickly ran away, rounding the side of the gym and going out of sight.<br /><br /> I turned to Pippa who was still sitting on the bench, “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> “You asshole! That's my fucking boyfriend!” Pippa yelled, rising from the bench.<br /><br /> “Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn the meaning of the word 'no',” I said evenly.<br /><br /> “Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn some respect,” Beth added.<br /><br /> “Oh my God! Why do you hate me?” Pippa shrilled, and it was like she had slapped me in the face.<br /><br /> All the rage had drained out of me in an instant, “I don't hate you.”<br /><br /> “Then why are you so mean to me? Why do you avoid me? You won't spend any time with me, and now Richard's never going to talk to me again, and he's gonna tell everyone I live with a couple of psychos! I hate you, you're ruining my life!”<br /><br /> Pippa turned and ran off into the darkness.<br /><br /> “I'll go talk to her, okay?” Beth said.<br /><br /> “Yeah, sure, “ I said, feeling stunned.<br /><br /> “It's okay,” Beth reassured me, “You did what any good big brother would do. It's hard raising teenagers.” She smiled at me, and then ran after Pippa.<br /><br /> I stood there for awhile before walking home. I couldn't get over what Pippa said, “Why do you hate me?” Did she mean it? Did she really think I hate her? I will admit that I have kind of been avoiding her while it's been just the two of us in the house, and I really cannot explain why that is.<br /><br /> When I got home I went to my room and lay down without even changing. I lay there in the dark staring at where I knew Sharon and Tara's things were even though I could not actually see them; I laid there and felt sorry for myself.<br /><br /> Beth is right, I know she is. Sharon wouldn't want me to be like this, and neither would Tara. They would want me to try to go on with my life. I know all this, but I still can't seem to shake myself of these feelings. I don't want to try to get into a new relationship; I couldn't bear losing someone else.<br /><br /> Maybe that's the real reason I've been pushing Pippa away. Not because of the incident in bed, but because I'm afraid of growing too attached to her? It certainly makes more sense... and makes me feel like less of a pedo.<br /><br /> I lay there struggling with those thoughts for a couple of hours before I heard the front door open and close at around eleven. I didn't go out to greet them. I could hear the three of them talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying.<br /><br /> About twenty minutes after that there was a knock on my door, “Are you in there?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “Yeah,” I said, “you can come in if you want, but leave the light off.”<br /><br /> The door opened, and light from the hallway illuminated the room for a moment before Pippa closed it behind her.<br /><br /> “Why are you sitting in the dark?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “I'm thinking.”<br /><br /> “What about?”<br /><br /> “Things. Me. Us. What kind of life it is I am leading.”<br /><br /> “Can I sit?”<br /><br /> “Sure.”<br /><br /> I felt Pippa sit down on what, for the lack of a better word, I shall call my bed. She crawled up next to me, and lay there, “I don't hate you,” she said.<br /><br /> “I don't hate you either.”<br /><br /> “I know. I'm sorry I said that stuff. I know you were trying to help me out. Richard was being a creep. You only did it because you love me.”<br /><br /> “Did Beth tell you to say that?”<br /><br /> “No, but she did point it out to me. She must be getting old, it took her two blocks to catch up to me,” Pippa giggled.<br /><br /> “Well you did have a head start, and she was wearing heels.”<br /><br /> “So why have you been avoiding me if you don't hate me.”<br /><br /> “That's what I have been thinking about.”<br /><br /> “Is it because I call you a pervert?”<br /><br /> “No. I don't think of you that way.”<br /><br /> “Then why?”<br /><br /> “I think it's because I'm afraid I'll feel too connected to you, and if something were to happen to you I wouldn't be able to cope. If I keep you at a distance, like Maria, I won't be hurt as much.”<br /><br /> “You're afraid something will happen to me like it did to Sharon?”<br /><br /> I shrugged in the blackness, “I think that might be part of it, yeah.”<br /><br /> “What if I promise that nothing will happen to me?”<br /><br /> “Don't make promises you can't keep,” I said, “but I will try to not push you away anymore; just don't do things that make me feel creepy.”<br /><br /> I felt Pippa reach an arm across me in the dark, and hug me, “You don't like feeling like a pervert?”<br /><br /> “This would be exactly the sort of thing I mean,” I answered.<br /> <br /> Pippa didn't let me go, instead said, “I miss Sharon.”<br /><br /> “So do I, Pippa, every single day. Her and Tara both.”<br /><br /> “Was Tara nice? You made her sound kind of bitchy.”<br /><br /> “She was. I don't think I do her justice on paper. I think you would have liked her too.”<br /><br /> “I wish I could have known her.”<br /><br /> “I wish you could have too,” I said, “You need to stop reading my journal though.”<br /><br /> “I like reading it. I makes me feel like I knew you and Sharon before. It helps me understand you when you won't talk to me.”<br /><br /> “It's private, Pippa. I'm not writing it for anyone but myself... at least not for anyone else until I'm gone.”<br /><br /> Pippa didn't reply.<br /><br /> We lay there for a long time in silence, and I again was left to my thoughts of how I had wasted time with someone I care about because of my own stupidity. That ends though; I'm going to spend more time with Pippa, and we're going to be more like a proper family. I will not push her away anymore, I will not make her have to sneak in to this book to try and understand me better.<br /><br /> I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was four in the morning and she was gone. I'm glad she didn't sleep in here with me, I would not want to put up with the crap that something like that would get me from Beth and Gerry. I'm glad that Pippa came to talk to me though; I may have kept acting like an ass until it was too late otherwise.<br /><br /> It's about five-thirty now, and I think I'm going to try and get some more sleep. First I am going to put away those things. I can keep my memories, my artifacts, of Sharon and Tara without needing to see them every time I open my eyes. I'm not getting rid of them, and I'm not forgetting the two women who loved me, but I'm not going to live in the past either. Of course I'm not going out looking for love either; it's just way too soon for that.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-26473603628894053512010-01-26T04:56:00.000-08:002010-01-26T04:57:44.660-08:00Forty-Eighth Entry: Welcome to LovelockJune 12th<br /><br /> A week ago we finally covered that last stretch of road. We could have gone faster if we had wanted; it turns out that the rest of the roadway was almost completely cleared of debris. We even passed the remains of a tree that looked like it had fallen across the road, and been cut away.<br /><br /> At the end of the road was a checkpoint. Stretched across the road was a large rolling metal gate topped with barbed wire; we could see this from a good half a mile away. The road in front of the gate was blocked by an armored car flanked by cement road construction walls. With the armored car moved the road would be open enough to maybe let two cars in side by side instead of the four lanes of traffic that the road had been designed to allow.<br /><br /> There were a pair of small watchtowers that stuck up from behind the fence with large spotlights in them; inside these sat a pair of people with rifles and binoculars while another four people stood outside the gate leaning against the construction walls which were probably there to hide behind in a gun fight as much as they were to block traffic<br /><br /> When they saw us three of the guards on the ground took positions behind the construction walls while the fourth one, a thick man with short blond hair and glasses who I would later learn is named Zackariah Hutchins, took a position out in front of the armored car. In one hand he held a bullhorn, while he held the other out in front of him to signal us to stop.<br /><br /> “I have to say I was hoping for a less armed welcome,” said Gerry, referring to the guns being aimed at us.<br /><br /> “I believe we met Pippa roughly the same way,” I replied.<br /><br /> “True, true,” Gerry said, “it just would be nice if we could find someone who is happy to see us.”<br /><br /> Gerry was doing a lot better that day. I'm not saying that he was over losing Maria anymore than I am losing Sharon, but we needed to keep going. Maybe if he's lucky he's got that same sort of burnt out feeling inside that I do; it really does help.<br /><br /> Zack put the bullhorn to his mouth, and after a squeal of feedback said, “Step out of the vehicle, and keep your hands visible. We do not want to harm you, please do not give us any reason to!”<br /><br /> Pippa looked at me nervously, “It'll be okay,” I said, hopefully sounding more sure of that than I felt, “Reverend Thomas said these people are okay, remember?”<br /><br /> Pippa nodded her reply, and opened her door.<br /><br /> The rest of us followed suit. I started to grab my satchel, but then thought better of it. Not knowing the mindset of the guards even being seen reaching back into the car could get me shot, not to mention trying to approach them with a large bag which does have a gun in it.<br /><br /> “Step away from the vehicle, and approach me slowly,” Zack ordered us.<br /><br /> Keeping my hands out in front of me half raised, I followed behind Gerry as we approached the bespectacled guard. I didn't really feel any fear; if they wanted to shoot me they would do it whether I complied or fought. If they did shoot me at least maybe I could be with Sharon and Tara then.<br /><br /> Do you think they have catfights in the afterlife? Maybe Tara's with Alex there though....<br /><br /> Once we were close enough, Zack held up his hand again, and lowered the bullhorn since we were close enough to speak with normally, “Please identify yourselves,” he said.<br /><br /> Gerry took charge, and introduced us all. Upon hearing our names, Zack's expression changed from one of serious concern to shocked and surprised.<br /><br /> “You're the ones that Alisdair sent us, right?” he asked, and we nodded, “I thought there were six of you?”<br /><br /> Feeling a stabbing pain in my chest, I looked down at my shoes, and noticed that the laces on my right shoe were coming untied. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see Gerry and Pippa on either side of my studying the ground in a similar fashion.<br /><br /> It was Beth that spoke to the puzzled Zack, “We lost two of our members recently,” she said softly.<br /><br /> The look of confusion on Zack's face was replaced by one of genuine regret, “Oh, I-I'm sorry, “he stammered, “I know it doesn't make things any better, but we've all lost people here.”<br /><br /> I looked up and into Zack's eyes, and saw that same look of emptiness I saw in my own eyes in the mirror this morning. I wonder who he lost.<br /><br /> Zack looked at the dull grey metal watch on his wrist, “Our orders were to send you directly to Doctor Byron when you arrived; she should be in her office now, let me check.<br /><br /> Pulling a walkie talkie free from where it was clipped to his belt, Zack spoke into it; letting whoever was on the other side know that he had four survivors at the west gate and that we were the ones the preacher had said were coming.<br /><br /> Crackling out of the walkie's speaker came a woman's voice, “Doctor Byron will be notified. Take them to the hospital per standard procedure.”<br /><br /> “Roger that,” Zack said, and clipped the walkie talkie back to his belt, “Okay folks, if you will just pass through the gate, someone will drive you to the hospital where you will be examined; it's just to make sure none of you are infected and to assess your general health, “ he was trying to cut off any protests before we gave voice to them, “and you will meet Doctor Byron. The doc's a little odd, but she is the glue that has kept this place together for the last year.”<br /><br /> “What about our stuff?” Beth asked, motioning back to the Excursion, it's doors sitting open and the door alarm chiming merrily in the quiet afternoon air.<br /><br /> “That will be brought in for you. We will have to go through it to look for any forbidden weapons-”<br /><br /> “Our swords-,” I said before I realized I was even going to speak.<br /><br /> “Swords?” Zack said thoughtfully, “That's right, you guys were part of Reverend Thomas' gang, huh? Well don't worry, swords are allowed; so are rifles, handguns, and shotguns. Pretty much if it was legal before, it's legal now. Is there anything we should know about?”<br /><br /> “We have two modified AR-15s and an AK-47. I don't think there are any in this car, but there may be some hand grenades,” Beth said. I could see Gerry wince at the mention of Maria's grenades.<br /><br /> Zack nodded, “Yup, grenades would definitely be on the no-no list.”<br /><br /> “The roof compartment also has gas cans in it,” Beth added.<br /><br /> Anger flared deep inside me; Beth was spilling everything to these people we didn't know. I knew that Alisdair had vouched for them, but I was still a little suspicious. I know they would have found these things eventually, and Beth was just trying to be up front about them, I understand that now, but at the time I was a little angry with her.<br /><br /> Of course a lot of that was probably the fear that someone would steal Sharon's sword. That and her glasses are the only tangible things I have left of her's.<br /><br /> A man around my age wearing a Code Phantom baseball cap frisked me and Gerry for hidden weapons while a middle aged woman with streak of gray running through her dark brown hair did the same to Beth and Pippa. We were then led to a black minivan with the Genetitech Laboratories logo on the side of it that was parked just inside the gate, and loaded into the back of it.<br /><br /> Our drivers were not the casually dressed road guards, but black uniformed security officers that sent a chill up my spine. Memories of Hashmir Kaur's security force filled my mind. I felt a little afraid; more for the others, Pippa in particular, than myself.<br /><br /> I think that the ride would have been silent if none of us initiated conversation. It was Pippa that spoke a little nervously as the van started the drive into town, “Why is the engine so quiet?”<br /><br /> Pippa was right, I had never heard the engine start, and could not hear it now. I figured the van to be a hybrid, which is surely something Pippa would have thought of too, but I think she just wanted to talk rather than be nervous in silence.<br /><br /> As it turned out, I was wrong. The van was not a hybrid, “It's electric,” replied the driver, a middle aged man with short gray hair. in a not unfriendly manner, “All the cars used within city limits are. Our electricity supply is in far better shape than our fuel supply. We only use fuel vehicles for long distance travels, and we're working on alternative fuels for those too. That does mean that you will have to give up the gas guzzler you came here in.”<br /><br /> “How many people are here?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “Well the town was built to hold about ten thousand people,” answered the female guard, a black woman with hair as short as her partner's, “But there are only about six thousand here now. We weren't yet fully populated when the dead rose, and we suffered some heavy losses at the beginning before Doctor Byron took control.”<br /><br /> Seeing Lovelock as we drove through it was amazing. If Mallville had managed to maintain a thin illusion of normalcy then this place has it mastered. This looked like a normal small town; people were walking on the streets, kids were playing in the park, and none of them looked scared.<br /><br /> This illusion of normalcy was cracked a little bit when we arrived at the hospital. It's not that the hospital itself looked odd, it was that it was surrounded by two layers of fencing topped with razor wire, and that the gate allowing entry to the facility's parking lot was guarded by two black uniformed Genetitech security guards armed with looked like assault rifles out of a science fiction movie.<br /><br /> “Why is there so much security here?” Beth asked as we drove past the checkpoint. The guards made no effort to stop us, and we didn't even slow down to allow our driver to prove who he was. One of the guards even waved at us as we passed.<br /><br /> There's something vaguely unsettling about getting a friendly wave from a man in a black uniform holding a nasty looking weapon. There's also something vaguely comical about it too.<br /><br /> “That's a question for Doctor Byron,” explained the female guard, “She'll explain everything to you.”<br /><br /> At the front doors of the hospital we got out of the van along with the female guard. She led us into the hospital and over to a row of elevators. We took the first one to arrive up to the top floor of the hospital where we were led through hallways full of offices and meeting rooms, the sort of stuff you expect to find on the administrative level of a hospital, to a door with a sign next to it that read:<br /><br />Dr. Evelyn Byron<br />Administrator<br /><br /> Our escort opened the door and motioned for us to enter. Doctor Byron's outer office. The room was larger that even Kaur's outer office was, and tastefully decorated in neutral earth tones. The wall opposite the door was floor to ceiling window giving a view of the parking lot and town below. The female guard approached the perky blonde behind the desk, her name plate read “Polly Wordworth”.<br /><br /> “I've got the new arrivals to see Doctor Byron,” our escort explained.<br /><br /> “She's waiting, go right in,” Polly said in a seductive sounding voice as she smiled at us.<br /><br /> Our escort opened the large wood doors connecting the outer office to Doctor Byron's plush inner office. The doctor sat behind a large wood desk with the usual accessories on it; computer, lamp, picture frame, blotter, etc. The walls behind and to Doctor Byron's left were tinted glass; we were in a corner office here.<br /><br /> The office itself continued the neutral color scheme of the outer office with soft chairs set around the room, including four set right in front of the doctor's desk, along with a small table, maybe big enough for four people to sit at comfortably at by the windows at the right side of the room.<br /><br /> On the left side of the office was a wet bar with a microwave sitting on it. I imagine if I looked I would find a small refrigerator concealed in one of the bottom cabinets. Wine glasses hung from the underside of the upper cabinets over the sink, but if Doctor Byron had any alcohol there, she had it put away.<br /><br /> Of course it wasn't the office itself that I saw first, it was the doctor. Evelyn Byron stood from her chair to greet us, “Hello, I am Doctor Evie Byron, and welcome to Lovelock,” she said in a voice that reminded me a little of Sharon's when she was sick; a little distant, a little dreamy.<br /><br /> Evelyn Byron stood a little over five feet tall, making her about the same height as Beth, but it was her appearance that was unique. Doctor Byron is an albino, with bright red eyes shining out from behind her slightly tinted glasses. She has long platinum blond hair which was pulled back into a ponytail, and skin so pale as to make her almost look like a porcelain doll. I used to know some goths that would have killed to have skin that pale (they would have dyed the hair though).<br /><br /> “Thank you, officer, I'll take it from here,” Doctor Byron said cheerfully. Our escort nodded, and left the office, closing the door behind her.<br /><br /> “It is always nice to have new people here; it's been well over a month since we've had anyone new join the community,” Doctor Byron said, and extended her hand across the desk to us.<br /><br /> We approached the desk, and took turns shaking her hand, “Please, sit,” Doctor Byron invited, “Can I get any of you a glass of water or anything?”<br /><br /> We all mumbled one form or another of “No, thank you,” and Doctor Byron sat in her chair.<br /><br /> “I am told that you lost two people on your trip here, is that right?”<br /><br /> “That is correct ma'am,” Gerry said.<br /><br /> “I am terribly sorry to hear that,” Doctor Byron consulted some notes on her desk, “That would be Maria and Sharon then? Is that correct? I have all your names from Alisdair's people”<br /><br /> “Yes, ma'am,” Gerry said, his voice sounding a little choked.<br /><br /> “If you must be formal with me, please call me Doctor, or Doctor Byron, but it is okay to call me Evie as well. I try not to dwell on formalities here, not that anyone will let me,” Doctor Byron said with a hint of exasperation, “Okay, so... oh, Sharon was your wife?” she asked, looking at me.<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor Byron,” I answered softly.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron pursed her lips for a moment before speaking, “I truly am sorry for your loss, but I am sure that she would be happy that the rest of you made it here alive. I know it is not much, but maybe you can take some solace in that.”<br /><br /> She was right, it's not much. I cannot take much solace in it though. I know that Sharon wanted me to make it, but it does seem a little anti-climactic to have made it without her. It just feels wrong.<br /><br /> “We will of course give you all time to grieve and adjust to life here before we assign you jobs. There are counselors available to you if you need it, and I do ask that you please take advantage of them before doing anything rash. We do not need any animated corpses loose in the town.”<br /><br /> “Job?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “Of course; everyone is welcome here, but everyone must work for the betterment of all. Surely Alisdair mad everyone contribute too, didn't he?” Doctor Byron asked, and then looked at the paper in front of her, “Yes, it says here that all of you were members of his group of corpse hunters, all of you except... well, all of you, I guess.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron looked up, “Tell me, is it true that his group uses swords?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor Byron,” Beth answered.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron took a pen from her desk, and wrote something down on the paper she had been reading fromt, “Hmm, that makes sense. Firearm ammunition must be at a premium out there, and quieter kills are probably better in the long run,” she looked up at us again, “Do you have any of these swords?”<br /><br /> “Yes, Doctor, they're in our car.”<br /><br /> Smiling, Doctor Byron said, “I do ask that you let me see one. I promise to return it to you unharmed,” she clicked her tongue, “but there I go getting off topic again; you asked about jobs... Phillipa, is it?”<br /><br /> “Pippa, ma'a-, Doctor.”<br /><br /> “Pippa it is. So we do have a lot of different jobs there depending on your individual abilities. I imagine with the experience you have all had on the road that we will have a lot of use for you. I'm afraid that most of our original residents are bit more brains than brawn, and a lot of those who have joined us since the virus don't have a lot of experience dealing with the animated corpses. From what I've heard you all do.”<br /><br /> “More than we care to, yes,” Gerry answered.<br /><br /> “Did you graduate high school, Pippa?”<br /><br /> I could see Pippa deciding whether or not to answer truthfully. After a moment of biting her lip she gave a drawn out hesitant, “No.”<br /><br /> “Then you will have a choice. We can either find a job that you would be suited to, or you can continue your education. I will tell you that, if you choose the latter, it will be like no schooling you've had before. I will warn you that it will focus mostly on maths and sciences, so you might want to keep that in mind when making your decision if those are not good subjects for you.”<br /><br /> We spent the next two hours in Doctor Byron's office giving her a brief recap of the last year of our lives. Gerry, Beth, and I told her about Mallville and all the political bullshit between Kaur and Alex, and the resulting riot and destruction of the community. We told her of Ash, and of our travel to Daisy Lake.<br /><br /> Pippa told her the same story she had told us about how she had lost her friends, escaped San Francisco by boat, and eventually found us. From that point we all told about Daisy Lake, our escape from there, and our journey here via The Church of Christ's Light. We briefly covered the deaths of Maria and Sharon (Beth had to do most of the talking here, as I couldn't bring myself to speak much), and the near loss of Gerry.<br /><br /> During our stories Doctor Byron took a lot of notes, as if we were giving some sort of college lecture. This is what Zack meant by saying that the doctor is a “little odd”; she seems to have been viewing our whole experiences as some sort of laboratory data to be examined and experimented with. I don't have any real problem with her, but it all felt a little tacky to say the least. Maybe she should have just recorded it, and took notes later. Of course hse probably was recording it too.<br /><br /> When we were just finishing up our stories, Polly wheeled in a cart with plates of food on it. We weren't expecting a meal here, but we really weren't expecting what we got; salads. Polly handed each of us a plate of salad with chunks of tofu in it drizzled in some sort of sweet dressing. I've never been much of a salad person, but I also haven't had a vegetable that did not come out of a can in over a year.<br /><br /> “How do you have lettuce and spinach?” Pippa asked through a mouthful of the green leafy stuff.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron, who looked amused at our reactions, answered; “The best way to answer that is to tell you more about Lovelock. This is what you would call a company town; founded by Genetitech Laboratories and named after Doctor Jennifer Lovelock; one of the company's founding members back in the eighties. The idea was to create a place where Genetitech staff could do their work that was secluded but was neither ugly nor limited by space.”<br /><br /> Doctor Byron stopped to take a small bite of salad before continuing, “Under this hospital, under much of the town actually, are four levels of research space. It's safe from nuclear detonation, and can be made completely airtight and self sufficient with areas for growing food year round and living in case of emergency. It is why this town will survive if we all work at it.”<br /><br /> “Ummm, should you be telling us stuff like that?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “It's not a secret, it wasn't even a secret before. I cannot go into detail about some of the research that went on here before, but I can tell you that all of our efforts are now directed towards survival. Maintaining a stable food supply, destroying the animated corpses, and curing the 'Zed Virus'” she made finger quotes when she said Zed Virus.<br /><br /> “How is the town being powered?” Gerry asked.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron seemed pleased, “Oh, good questions! If you look out the window you will see that the roof of every structure in town is equipped with solar collectors. You will also see what are called VAWTs around town; these are a type of windmill. Finally, and at great expense I'm sure, the company equipped the town with its own nuclear reactor down in the labs; perfectly safe, I assure you. Under ideal conditions we have enough power to supply a town twice this size. Under less than ideal conditions we do have to cut back a bit sometimes.”<br /><br /> “Wow,” was all Gerry managed in reply.<br /><br /> “This town was state of the art when it opened up a couple of years ago. We weren't even fully staffed yet when the virus struck. In some ways this works out well though, as we can take in survivors without putting excess strain on our resources. “<br /><br /> The phone on Doctor Byron's desk spoke at that point, “Doctor Byron, Doctor Selznick would like to know when he and Doctor Ellis should be expecting the newcomers,” Came Polly's sultry voice.<br /><br /> “Tell them I apologize for keeping them so long. I'll bring them down myself as soon as we finish lunch,” Doctor Byron replied.<br /><br /> After we finished eating our rather late lunch Doctor Byron led us back to the elevators, her white doctor's coat flapping behind her as she walked. We took th elevators down to the third floor, and got out to find a normal hospital corridor, only almost completely devoid of life.<br /><br /> The hallway we found ourself in was not populated by families visiting the sick, doctors rushing around with clipboards, patients dragging IV stands with them as they walked, or even nurses pushing racks of food trays. It had that same eerie movie set quality that Palma had when we left it, or at least it would have if not for the two people leaning against the disused nurse's station a short ways away.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron introduced us to Doctor Warren Selznick, a bookish man with glasses, and Doctor Nina Ellis, who had a head full of curly brown hair that looked like it would defy any attempts to make it stay in any one place.<br /><br /> “Warren and Nina will see to your examinations, just to get an idea of your health, and of course to make sure that none of you are infected. By the time you are done with them, I will have someone here to take you to your new accommodations,” Doctor Byron stared off into the distance for a second and then asked, “Did the four of you want to live together, or separately, or how do you want to work that out? I should have asked you earlier.”<br /><br /> We looked at each other. I was looking to see if any of them looked doubtful, but found them all looking at each other with the same question on their faces. Gerry answered for us all, “I think after all we have been through together, we would like to stay together, for now at least.”<br /><br /> I nodded agreement, as did Beth and Pippa.<br /><br /> Doctor Byron smiled, “Good, that's what I thought, but I didn't want to make assumptions. I think I know the perfect place for you,” and without a further word, she turned and walked back to the elevators. <br /><br /> “She's always like that,” said Doctor Selznick, “Don't worry about her.”<br /><br /> Pippa and Beth went with Doctor Ellis while Gerry and I went with Doctor Selznick. We were each put in separate examination rooms that looked both long unused but also spotlessly immaculate.<br /><br /> Stripping down to my shorts made me wish we had been given the opportunity to shower first, although I did wash my face at least in the room's sink while I waited for Doctor Selznick to look Gerry over. I think he picked him first due to the bandage on his forehead and the bruises on his face from the crash.<br /><br /> Doctor Selznick tried to make small talk while he examined me, which made it all that much more awkward. He asked twisted versions of the normal questions. What did I do before? Where am I from? If I'd had a lot of contact with the zeds (although like Doctor Byron, he referred to them as animated corpses)? I was very relieved when we were done.<br /><br /> When I was reunited with the others in the waiting area across from the nurses station, Pippa tossed the even more outdated than normal for a waiting room issue of Midnight Star onto the seat next to her, ran over and gave me a hug.<br /><br /> “What was that for?” I asked her when she let go.<br /><br /> “I'm just glad we made it.”<br /><br /> I looked over the top of Pippa's head to see Gerry smirking at me, and Beth mouthing the words “She loves her big brother”<br /><br /> Pippa released me and asked, “So are you healthy?”<br /><br /> “He said that I'm pretty good health for being on the road on and off for six months, but that I should try and eat more vegetables and less salt.”<br /><br /> “That's pretty much what I was told too,” Beth said.<br /><br /> “She told me that I needed to get more sleep,” Pippa said with a kind of annoyed half-smile.<br /><br /> “Well I might be able to help you with that,” said a man's voice we didn't recognize.<br /><br /> We turned to see a man with short thinning brown hair wearing a black Genetitech Security uniform standing by the nurse's station, “I'm Tommy Smit, and 'm here to take you to your new home.”<br /><br /> I don't know what I was expecting, but it's certainly not what we got. Tommy led us to another electric minivan and drove us through the town. I was amazing to see people just enjoying themselves in the early evening twilight. I was never much of a go-for-a-walk kind of guy, but seeing that I could safely do that again made me almost want to.<br /><br /> Almost.<br /><br /> Our new home was actually a little blue house situated in a neighborhood of nearly identical little houses, but to me it looked like heaven. Our address is 6942 Brahe Court; it's the house with the rock garden in front... oh wait, they all have rock gardens in front. I guess the brainy types don't have time for gardening.<br /><br /> The house is a three bedroom two bathroom affair that came with basic furniture (beds, a couch, etc), and already had all of our stuff (aside from whatever had been confiscated) laid out neatly in the living room. It is really nice, if a bit sterile.<br /><br /> “Why is there already furniture here?” Pippa asked Tommy as he showed us around.<br /><br /> “These were supposed to be housing for Genetitech staff, but the facility was nowhere near fully staffed by the time everything went screwy. The company didn't want any distractions for their new eggheads, so they made the houses as ready to live in as possible.”<br /><br /> With three bedrooms and four of us we had to decide what to do about sleeping arrangements. Our first thought was that Beth and Pippa could share a room, but Beth seemed reluctant, so we scrapped that idea. I suppose they should both have their own spaces, I mean it's not like there's not room for each of us even though there are not technically four bedrooms.<br /><br /> We ended up deciding that Beth would take the master bedroom while Gerry and Pippa would each take one of the smaller bedrooms. I am sleeping it was what meant to be an office. There is not closet in it, but it does have a nice desk and lots of electrical outlets. Maybe I can get a hold of a computer and see what is left of the internet.<br /><br /> Sorting through our stuff, the AR-15s and the AK-47 were all missing, and if there were any more grenades they were gone too. We also discovered that my sword was missing (although Sharon's was there, which in many ways is more important to me), but Doctor Byron did say she wanted to borrow one.<br /><br /> To make a bed I laid out a couple of sleeping bags on the floor to make it a little softer. There are some built in bookshelves behind the desk. On them, like museum exhibits, I set up Sharon's glasses, her sword, the little graduate ape she gave me for Valentine's Day, the pewter Dark Vader helmet, and Tara's Christmas Gift. The paper on Tara's gift is a little worn and wrinkled now, not that it was perfectly wrapped to begin with.<br /><br /> Beth told me that I shouldn't put those things out like that, “It's only going to make you feel bad.”<br /><br /> “I am going to feel bad no matter what. I have had a girlfriend and a wife in the last year and have lost them both. There is nothing that is going to make me feel better.”<br /><br /> “There's no reason to go out of your way to make it worse on yourself though. You don't need visual reminders of it every time you open your eyes; it's not healthy,” Beth said, clearly getting exasperated with me, “Just think about it, okay?”<br /><br /> I was lying down on my makeshift bed awhile later when Pippa knocked on the door. Light flooded into the dark room as she opened the door.<br /><br /> “We have light now, you know?” Pippa asked, and flipped on the overhead light. I blinked as my eyes tried to adjust, “We were gonna go for a walk to look at the area. Do you want to come?” I saw her eyes looking at the bookshelves as she spoke, but she did not comment about them. I'm sure Beth told her not to say anything to me about it.<br /><br /> “I don't think so. I think I want to spend a little time alone tonight, okay?”<br /><br /> Pippa looked dismayed, “Are you sure? Gerry's coming too.”<br /><br /> “Good for him, but I'll pass, thanks.”<br /><br /> “Well... okay. I hope you feel better.”<br /><br /> “I'm fine Pippa, just tired. It's been a long couple of weeks.”<br /><br /> Pippa just nodded and left, closing the door quietly behind her, but not turning the light off before she did. I sat there under the brightening light as the bulb warmed up and thought.<br /><br /> I'm not really sure how long I sat there before deciding that I really didn't want to be alone after all. Beth was right about one sitting there and staring at the remnants of my lost loves was not healthy. In fact it was making that dull empty ache inside me worse.<br /><br /> I left my room, and went out to the front door. On the simple wooden dining room table was a single key on a piece of paper. The paper was folded in two and had my name written on it. I picked up the note, opened it, and read:<br /><br />Good, I'm glad you came out of that room.<br /><br />This key is for the front door, Officer Smit gave us a total of five, take it with you if you decide to go out.<br /><br />Remember, you can always talk to me if you need to. Pippa is worried about you, and I think Gerry is a little too, but he's not in really great shape right now either.<br /><br />Don't cut yourself off from us.<br /><br />Your friend,<br />Beth<br /><br /> I pocketed the key, and as I headed for the door I realized for the first time in six months that I did not have my wallet. There wasn't really anything in it other than my ID and a bunch of store club cards (Insert Coin High Score card, Big Box Books Advantage card, etc), but this was the first time I can ever remember leaving my home without my wallet, aside from the last time I left Tara's apartment obviously. Coincidentally, that was the last time I really had a home to leave.<br /><br /> Well, it doesn't cost anything to walk around, right?<br /><br /> I though briefly about bringing a weapon. Sharon's sword, or one of the Glocks or something, but then realized that I wouldn't need one. I was finally somewhere safe, or at least reasonably so. Although as I discovered carrying a weapon would not have been all that odd.<br /><br /> The town was nice, even if most of the storefronts were empty. I could see how to the casual passerby this would look just like a normal little town. The only thing that really stood out to me as odd about the whole town is the lack of chain stores. There are no T-Marts, or Apollo Coffees, or Taco Huts to be found anywhere. I guess letting big companies build over your semi-secret research base would be asking for trouble?<br /><br /> After wandering around for a bit I found myself outside of a place called Bacchus. It was a bar, and it seemed to be really popular. I went inside just to take a look since I had no money.<br /><br /> Bacchus was a normal looking bar, neon beer signs adorned the walls, there was a jukebox over in one corner playing “Rock This Town” by The Stray Cats, and the long bar was populated with people who seemed to be doing more talking than drinking. The only really odd thing was the empty shelves behind the bar; there were no bottles of alcohol there at all.<br /><br /> Someone called my name, and I looked around trying to find the source. Who here could possibly know me already? It turned out to be Zack Hutchins; he was sitting at the bar sipping a glass of clear liquid, “Hey come here!” he called to me, and motioned to the empty barstool next to him, “Take a seat!”<br /><br /> Not wanting to be rude, I went over and sat next to him, “So how do you like it here so far? I bet it's a lot better than outside, huh?”<br /><br /> “I haven't really seen a lot yet, but so far everyone is nice, yeah.”<br /><br /> “Hey Milly, a drink for my friend here. Same as me,” Zack called to the bartender.<br /><br /> “Oh, no thank you,” I said, “I left me wallet in the last world.”<br /><br /> “We don't use money here,” Zack explained to me, “What would the point be? There's no government to back it anymore.“ he took a sip from his glass, “I'm afraid communism has taken control here, everybody works and everybody reaps the benefits of it. There is a two glass limit though.”<br /><br /> Milly, a broad woman who looks like she might make as good a bouncer as she does a bartender, placed a glass in front of me on the bar.<br /><br /> “Why a two drink limit?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Doctor Byron is not really crazy with the idea of being intoxicated, but she allows drinking; however she does not want anyone getting so drunk that violence happens. Plus I'm sure there's a limited supply of this stuff ready at any given time.”<br /><br /> I took a sip of the clear liquid, and it felt like my throat burst into flames. I coughed and sputtered and then realized that a number of the people around me, including Milly the bartender, had been watching me take that first sip, and were now laughing.<br /><br /> “That's awful!” I said to Zack, who was also laughing.<br /><br /> “Yes, yes it is. I don't even want to know what they make it out of,” Zack took another small sip,” Adding ice to it only makes it worse too. I suppose another reason for the two glass limit is that anyone willing to drink a third should be given a psych evaluation.”<br /><br /> I sipped my chemically drink, and no, it did not get better the second time, “So have you been here the whole time?” I asked.<br /><br /> “The bar, or Lovelock?”<br /><br /> I wondered at that point if I was being mocked for being the new guy. This was hardly new for me, as I spent most of my twelve years of school being mocked. It turned out I was not being made fun of though, Zack was just having a good time.<br /><br /> “Well, I suppose if I had been in the bar the whole time, I would have been in Lovelock too, right? So yes, I've been in Lovelock since everything happened; my wife is a lab tech down in the vault.”<br /><br /> “The vault?”<br /><br /> “It's what she calls the underground labs, says it reminds her of some video game.”<br /><br /> I know the game, and thinking about it made me think about Sharon. I took a larger sip.<br /><br /> “I'm not much for video games myself, so whatever. I'm more into reading than playing games, I like to let my imagination to paint the pictures instead of having polygons do the job for me, you know?”<br /><br /> “I like both, “ I said.<br /><br /> He looked at me for a moment, “That's cool. I used to run the town bookshop, Paperbound Knowledge, it was called. “<br /><br /> “So the store's closed?”<br /><br /> “Sort of. It's more of a book swap now. People bring in books they have read and swap them for books they haven't . A guy named Evo, he came here last fall, runs it,” Zack sipped from his glass again, “I miss it, but I know I'm doing an important job working for security, and at least they don't make me wear one of those silly uniforms,” he patted his stomach,” Not that they would find one to fit me, eh?” he laughed.<br /><br /> If that man is more than ten pounds overweight, then I'm George Romero. Maybe he was bigger before though, I know I was.<br /><br /> “So things are good here?” I asked.<br /><br /> “All things considered, yeah. I mean we've all lost things right, but it's surely better than what you were dealing with out there, eh?'<br /><br /> “Well it is nice to walk the street without needing a weapon.”<br /><br /> “You should still carry a weapon,” Zack said, turning so that I could see the revolver holstered on his hip. He looked at me with those semi-vacant eyes and said “All it takes is a bad fall off of a ladder to turn one of us into one of them.<br /><br /> Zackariah held his glass up, “Eternal vigilance!” he yelled, and the other people in the bar cheered. He downed the rest of the glass, and slammed it to the bar top with a grimace on his face,” Milly, my second please!”<br /><br /> “Eternal vigilance?” I asked.<br /><br /> “It's the price of survival,” Zack smiled, “Things weren't always like they are now here. If it wasn't for Doc Byron, you wouldn't be here right now.”<br /><br /> “Oh?”<br /><br /> Milly came and refilled Zack's glass from an unlabeled clear bottle, “That's it for tonight,” she reminded him.<br /><br /> “You're in a rush to get rid of me?” he asked, and Milly laughed a reply as she walked away to tend to other patrons.<br /><br /> “So yeah, Doctor Byron, or Evie as she wants us all to call her, but no one will, she's only been in charge since last June, before that it was the original administrator, Grimm.”<br /><br /> “Grim?”<br /><br /> “Two ems. Grimm; Doctor Xavier Grimm, brilliant but a total bastard. He originally closed the town's borders to all non-residents, and then opened them only to try and capture survivors to use for experimentation. Margaret, my wife, she heard that he wanted to intentionally infect outsiders with the Zed Virus to try and see if the infection could be halted.”<br /><br /> “Wow,” I said, and took a drink, “So what happened?”<br /><br /> “Well, after the mayor, Mark Teeters, on the edge of madness it was said, and that turned out to be true, committed suicide because he couldn't live with the idea of turning people away to die out there, Doctor Grimm wanted to move the whole town down to the labs and just seal everyone in until either all of this either sorted itself out, on until a cure could be found.<br /><br /> “Most of the scientists disagreed with that, as did most of the town. I think a lot of people were worried that Grimm would start to use 'non-essential personnel' as lab rats. Doctor Byron, who may seem like a space cadet, but she is wickedly smart, or so I'm told, organized a coup of sorts. Doctor Grimm was removed from his position, a couple of people did die in the process. With Grimm gone Doctor Byron was installed, although she did protest the idea of her being in charge.”<br /><br /> “What happened to Grimm? Did she have him killed?”<br /><br /> “Of course not. The only thing Byron is interesting in killing are zeds, or 'animated corpses' as she calls them; bizarre woman.<br /><br /> “Grimm stays down in the labs now, and has a constant security escort. I'm not sure if they are afraid of what he will do, or what someone might try to do to him. I don't know what he is doing down there, but Margaret hears that it is related to the Zed Virus. She doesn't work in that area though, so she doesn't know for sure.”<br /><br /> “What does your wife do?”<br /><br /> “You don't work for the Iraqis, right?' Zack asked.<br /><br /> “No,”<br /><br /> “Okay, weapons. She's a bit of a robotics whiz, and she works with these two guys trying to make zombie extermination machines. You should see them test these things sometime.”<br /><br /> Zack looked at his watch, “Wow, it's getting late; Margaret's going to be home soon. I had better hit the road,” Zack downed the rest of his drink, grimaced again, and turned to me, ”So did they place you guys all together?”<br /><br /> “Yes, we're in a house on Brahe Court.” <br /><br /> “Oh? We're on Galileo, that's not too far from you. I hope things work out for you guys here. I'll see you around town, I'm sure.”<br /><br /> With that, Zack left me sitting there alone with my glass of what may have been turpentine, I'm really not sure. I did finish it though, and I realized after I was done that I felt a little better, but I may just have been grateful that the moonshine didn't kill me.<br /><br /> I left a short time later, and went home. The house was quiet when I got in. The others had already gone to bed. I didn't realize how late it really was. I must have been out for longer than I had realized, as the clock on the microwave in the kitchen said it was almost eleven.<br /><br /> I'm not sure why, but I looked in the fridge, and found that it had some carrots, apples, and a pitcher of water in it. I poured myself a glass of the cold water which tasted a lot better than the warm water I've been drinking for the last couple of weeks. It made me feel a bit like it was all over.<br /><br /> I took my first proper shower since leaving Alisdair's church that night. I ended up plugging the drain and just letting the water pour down on me and fill the tub. It felt so good to be submerged in water, and it gave me more time to think.<br /><br /> I thought about what I wanted my life to be like when I was a kid. I thought about what I thought my life would be like a few years ago. I thought about what my life had turned out to be, and how little of my own decisions have brought me here.<br /><br /> I also thought about all the people I've seen die in the last year. Friends, coworkers, a lover, a wife. Would my telling Sharon how I felt years ago have changed that? I know things would have ended up different than they are now, but would they have been better?<br /><br /> I went to bed with those thoughts.<br /><br /> The next couple of days we looked around the town some more. We got some bikes and rode around. I carried Sharon's sword with me until mine was returned on the third day. No one looked at me like it was odd, but maybe that was helped by the fact that Pippa wore hers too. Gerry and Beth went back to carrying handguns since we were assured that if we did need to use the ammunition we had that it could be replenished.<br /><br /> On the fourth day a man named Keith Eley came to the house to talk to us. He interviewed us to try and determine what jobs we should hold. The good news is that none of us are going to be stuck running a shop, tending bar, or cleaning toilets. The bad news is that it looks like we will all be going our separate ways, as far as our jobs go at least.<br /><br /> Pippa is going to go back to school. According to Keith the classes are really small, and there are a lot of people who have come from outside in them. She may need to work hard to catch up to them though.<br /><br /> Beth is going to join the main Genetitech security force, meaning she will get to carry the nice weapons, and wear the black uniform. It also means that she will be spending most of her time in the labs or at one of the entrances to them (there are some other than the hospital, but I've not gone to look for them. She is happy about this, I think she missed being in uniform, or maybe she had just lost respect for what her uniform stood for at Mallville.<br /><br /> Gerry is going to be working with Acquisitions, so basically scavenging again. Those lock picking skills of his make him forever useful. I really should get him to try and teach me, I mean how hard can it really be?<br /><br /> As for me, I'm back to security too, but civilian security. No uniforms, no futuristic looking assault rifles, just border guarding and the occasional escort with Acquisitions. Maybe I can work my way back to guarding a roof somewhere. LOL.<br /><br /> It will be good to get back to doing something again. I've felt restless since we got here. This must be what it feels like to toss the ring into Mordor, defeat the empire, or kill Voldemort; so you've finished your life's quest, now what? The answer is back to what you were doing before it all began, apparently.<br /><br /> Every day that passes now, I can feel my old emotions returning a bit. I don't like it, I keep feeling like I am going to start crying, but I never do. I'm afraid that if I do try to talk to one of the counselors, they'll not trust me with a gun enough to let me work security. I'll just keep it to myself for now, and since I have found a new place to hide this journal, it should keep Pippa's snooping eyes out of it. I do love the kid, but I need this book for me.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-10711077834662575072010-01-12T12:49:00.000-08:002010-01-12T12:50:29.080-08:00Forty-Seventh Entry: Minus OneJune 4th<br /><br />We are on the road again, this time spending the night in a roadside rest area., but I don't know if I can sleep here. I keep thinking I am hearing them outside, but looking at the map we are only maybe 5 miles from Lovelock. We could have made it tonight, but we didn't want to travel any farther in the dark.<br /><br />The night of Sharon's burial, I dreamed again, it's the first dream I can remember having in awhile. I was standing over Sharon's grave, still only almost filled like I left it. I was reading her tombstone over and over again, thinking of the truth behind each of the words Maria had chosen when a voice interrupted my thoughts.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” asked a woman's voice; Sharon's voice.<br /><br />I turned, and a few feet to my right Sharon was standing there in blue jeans and a pink t-shirt stretched tight across her breasts.<br /><br />“You're alive!” I exclaimed, “But how?”<br /><br />“I'm not alive, love. I just wanted to say goodbye to you better than I could before.”<br /><br />I felt something gripping my ankle, and looked down to see a dirty hand coming up out of the loose dirt, it's emaciated fingers held me firmly.<br /><br />“You're still in there?”<br /><br />“No,” Sharon answered firmly.<br /><br />The ground in front of me heaved, and Sharon pushed up through the ground. Clods of dirt clung in her braids, rested on her nose, in here eyes, and fell from her open mouth. She was dressed in a dirt-streaked white nightgown, a different one than the one I shot her in.<br /><br />I jumped back, yanking my foot out of zombie Sharon's grasp.<br /><br />“How?” I asked.<br /><br />“That's not me,” Sharon said, shaking her head.<br /><br />“But you're in there! You're trapped in there!'<br /><br />“I was, but you released me. You freed me from being that.”<br /><br />“Then why is it still here?” I asked as the ghoul continued to pull itself out of its grave.<br /><br />“It's here because of you. This is how you are remembering me right now. This is why Maria told you not to let me get back up, this is what she wanted to spare you from.”<br /><br />“I've seen plenty of zeds.”<br /><br />“Not of someone you loved. “<br /><br />“What about Bud?”<br /><br />“You didn't love Bud, or at least I hope you didn't; that would be a bit squicky.”<br /><br />“How do I get rid of it? How do I stop remembering this?”<br /><br />“You don't, not forever, but for now you can do what you would do to any other zed.”<br /><br />I suddenly realized I could feel the weight of my sword on my back, but not just mine, Sharon's too. The sword belts were criss-crossed across my chest. I reached up and felt the handles of both swords in my hands. I pulled the swords, and could tell the one in my left was Sharon's by the cheery little Hello Kitty sticker on it.<br /><br />“Strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine!” Sharon cried out.<br /><br />I looked over at Sharon, and she suddenly looked embarrassed, “Sorry. This is what you need to do though.”<br /><br />“I can't kill you again,” said, shaking my head and backing away from the ghoul now shambling towards me.<br /><br />“I'm over here, that's just another zed. Do it!”<br /><br />I brought both swords up over my right shoulder, and swung across and down with them, tearing great gashes in the front of Zed Sharon's nightgown Her right arm dropped off, crunching in the gravel.<br /><br />Zombie Sharon looked down at the stump of her arm, and her head fell off along with her right shoulder along the tear in the front of her nightgown. The swords had sliced clean through her. The rest of her body joined her head and arm on the ground.<br /><br />“How do you feel?” Sharon asked me, walking towards me, her sneaker clad feet grinding the gravel beneath them.<br /><br />“Sad. Alone.”<br /><br />“You're not alone. I'm always with you, and so are the others. Just don't turn into Maria; don't push them away. They are all so worried about you right now. They're afraid you might give up, but I know you're strong-”<br /><br />“I'm not.”<br /><br />“And I know that you'll never give up as long as someone is depending on you, and they all depend on you every bit as much as you depend on them. God still has work for you to do, and I don't want to see you one second before you complete that goal, you got it?”<br /><br />“But I already miss you so much.”<br /><br />Sharon hugged me, “I'm going to miss you too, but I'll be waiting for you, and if you really need me, I'll try and come to you, but my story is over. Your story isn't finished yet; you have to keep going, for me, for yourself, and for them. Okay?”<br /><br />“I don't want to.”<br /><br />“No one asked what you wanted. If you try to pull any more shit like you did tonight, Beth will kick your ass; I made her promise.”<br /><br />I squeezed Sharon tight to me, and suddenly my arms were gripping nothing. Sharon stepped back, through my arms and I realized that I could see the house through her.<br /><br />“Looks like my ride is here,” Sharon said, looking at me through her hands, “Remember that I love you, but don't be afraid to love someone else if you get the chance. I would never hold that against you.”<br /><br />“Don't go!” I said, putting my hand out to her; through her.<br /><br />“I'll never be gone; as long as you love me I'll always be with you,” she was almost invisible now, and her voice had taken on an echoey sound, “See you, space cowboy. You're gonna carry that weight.”<br /><br />I woke up with the bright sun shining through the windows against my closed eyelids, and my body screaming at me in pain. I was in so much pain from the over-exertions of the day before that it took me a few seconds to realize that I was holding someone in my arms.<br /><br />For a heartbreaking moment I believed it was Sharon and pulled her body against me, burying my face in her hair; her short hair. I opened my eyes to see short dark hair that was most certainly not Sharon's. I realized then that the person I was spooning with was too small to be Sharon in multiple ways.<br /><br />I am pretty sure I yelled as I pushed away from her. I pushed so hard that I fell out of my side of the bed, and landed hard on the wood floor, making my aches and pains scream even louder, and most definitely eliciting a yelp from me then.<br /><br />Pippa scrambled over to my side of the bed and looked down at me, “Oh my God,” She said, ”Are you hurt?”<br /><br />'What the fuck are you doing?” I rasped at her from the floor as my physical and emotional pain added to that dream got the best of me.<br /><br />“I'm sorry,” she said, her eyes already starting to tear up, “I was worried about you, and I didn't want you to be alone.”<br /><br />“So you got into bed with me? Jesus Christ, Pippa, Sharon just fucking died yesterday! What the hell is wrong with you?”<br /><br />“I didn't mean it like that!” she said, tears already cascading down her cheeks.<br /><br />“Are you retarded? Get the fuck out of here!”<br /><br />“I'm sorry, I just-”<br /><br />“Get out!” I barked, the effort hurting my throat..<br /><br />Pippa scrambled back across the bed, and I heard her bare feet slap against the floor as she started sobbing. She slammed the door behind her as she ran out into the hall.<br /><br />Of all the things that I regret doing in my life, and that list is long and includes many recent events, I would say that yelling at Pippa like that rates in the top five, and is probably the only thing in the top ten that involves neither Sharon nor Tara<br /><br />I lay back on the cool hard floor, unable to move because of equal parts physical pain and lack of willpower. It wasn't long before I heard feet stomping up the stairs and down the hallways towards me. The bedroom door flew open and slammed against the wall hard enough to rattle the oil lamp on Sharon's nightstand.<br /><br />“What is wrong with you?” I heard Beth's voice say even though I could not see her.<br /><br />“I could write you a list,” I said, not sitting up.<br /><br />Beth came around the end of the bed so that I could see her. There I lay on the floor in a t-shirt and shorts, and she was already fully dressed in jeans and a blue blouse, “I'm not going to let you do this,” she said sternly.<br /><br />“What, rest?”<br /><br />She spoke more quietly, ”Become like Maria. I'm not going to let you push the rest of us away from you so that you can throw your life away.”<br /><br />It seemed like my subconscious and Beth were easily on the same track.<br /><br />“Beth, I woke up and she was in my bed. She was in Sharon's spot,” I explained, “I thought she was her. I overreacted because I was hurt, and scared, and confused.”<br /><br />Beth nodded, “What she did was stupid, but she really did mean well, I think. I don't think she was coming on to you in any case.”<br /><br />“I'm sure she wasn't.”<br /><br />“Will you talk to her?”<br /><br />“When I'm dressed, yeah, but right now I think I just need to lie here for awhile. It hurts to even talk to you.”<br /><br />“That's because you wouldn't let us help you. I doubt you've ever done that much physical labor in your life.”<br /><br />I'm pretty sure she's right.<br /><br />“It was my responsibility, she was my wife.”<br /><br />“And she was our friend, and so are you. Come down when you're ready, Gerry made pancakes and we need to start packing up.”<br /><br />I still don't know how Gerry made pancakes in a fireplace, but after laying on the floor alone with my thoughts for what felt like a long time, I did get up, get dressed, and hobble down for breakfast. I'm not sure how I was functioning then, or even now for that matter; it's like all of the pain around Sharon's death is locked up inside me somewhere.<br /><br />This is not to say that I do not feel sorrow over losing the woman I loved because I do. It's more like I am deadened inside a bit, but not completely. It's like most of the time I feel next to nothing, and then at other times I feel like crawling into a hole and burying myself. I'm not sure what's even keeping me going.<br /><br />When I went outside after eating I saw that someone had finished filling in Sharon's grave for me while I slept. I am grateful to whoever did it, no one told me, and I did not ask. I couldn't have finished it then, I hurt far too much. I also noticed that someone had set a bouquet of the wildflowers growing around the new grave tied together with a ribbon on the mound of fresh dirt. I think Sharon would have approved of it.<br /><br />It seems that we ended unpacking most of the stuff in the Excursions while we were at the Lil Hidden Bed and Breakfast, because it took a lot of the day to load them back up. I know I was not the greatest help in the world (or indeed any help), but I still don't think it should take that long to load up two cars.<br /><br />Even though we only figured ourselves to be another day or two from Lovelock, we still packed up some of the food and supplies that remained in the kitchen pantry. We don't really know what the situation in Lovelock is going to be, but having supplies to barter with cannot be a bad thing.<br /><br />I didn't see Pippa all day, she was hiding in the room she had taken as hers, although I did notice that the record player and box of records had been packed into the back of the black Excursion. By late afternoon the only things still to be packed up were a few items of clothing, my satchel, and some of the guns that Maria had taken out to clean, mostly to keep busy I think.<br /><br />Beth didn't say anything about it to me all day, but as the sun set I went up to Pippa's room, and knocked on her door.<br /><br />“Come in,” she said.<br /><br />I went into the room to see that she was already (still?) dressed in the sweatshirt and shorts she sleeps in. She looked distressed to see me.<br /><br />“I said I was sorry,” she said quietly.<br /><br />“I'm sorry,” I said, “ Can I sit down?”<br /><br />Pippa nodded, and patted the bed next to her. I sat on the edge of the bed even though the armchair in the corner would actually have been more comfortable.<br /><br />“So you don't hate me?” she asked.<br /><br />“No, what you did was done with the best intentions. I overreacted for a number of reasons, and none of them excuse it.”<br /><br />“You really thought I was her?”<br /><br />I sighed, and decided to level with her, “I was having a dream about Sharon before I woke up. I felt you in the bed next to me, and thought maybe that it all had been a bad dream.”<br /><br />“Is that why you were...”<br /><br />“You were awake?” I asked, suddenly a little embarrassed.<br /><br />“Yeah, you were tossing and turning a lot, and then you put your arm over me and that woke me up. Then you started rubbing your face in my hair, and your-”<br /><br />“Yes, I know what happened,” I said suddenly.<br /><br />“I didn't tell anyone, not even Beth.”<br /><br />“Thank you for that. The last thing I need is Chris Hansen coming after me,” I said trying to make a joke. Pippa didn't get it, and just looked at me funny.<br /><br />“I wouldn't have stopped y-”<br /><br />“Don't finish that sentence!” I cut her off.<br /><br />“I'm sorry,” she looked like she was about to cry again.<br /><br />“Pippa, it's okay. I appreciate your wanting to make me feel better, but there is nothing you can do. Nothing is going to make it better because nothing can bring her back. Just be my friend, okay?”<br /><br />Pippa thought about it for a second, “Well, you are an old pervert, but okay, I'll be your friend,” she said smiling.<br /><br />I smiled back with good humor I didn't really feel, “Thank you.”<br /><br />Pippa put her arms around me, and hugged me. My body screamed in pain, but I hugged her back as best I could. She's a good kid (wow, that makes me sound old), she just needs to STOP READING MY JOURNAL! PUT IT BACK, NOW!<br /><br />I slept alone that night, and woke up the same way. I still reached for Sharon when I woke even though I didn't have any dreams to prompt it. I felt a sharp stab in my chest when my hand encountered empty bed next to me and I remembered. I lay there for a long while feeling sorry for myself.<br /><br />Eventually I did get up, and realized I was feeling better physically, a lot of the soreness was gone even if the empty feeling inside remained. I got dressed and went down for breakfast. Gerry had made a big pot of oatmeal; not the most delicious meal ever, but it was filling which was good because it would be some time before we got to eat again.<br /><br />As we were finishing a quiet breakfast there was a loud thump out front, like something fell on the porch. We all traded glances, with us all eating together no one was left watching outside. This was of course a major tactical error that probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.<br /><br />Maria got up from the table so fast that her chair fell over and banged on the floor. She quickly walked out of the large dining room, heading for the front of the house.<br /><br />'Shit!” I heard her yell. She came back into the room, “There's a bunch of them out front.” As if to emphasize this we heard a window shatter in the sitting room.<br /><br />Gerry left the dining room through the door to the kitchen.<br /><br />“We should go out the back then,” suggested Pippa.<br /><br />“No,” Gerry said from the kitchen, “They're out there too.”<br /><br />Beth got up and followed Gerry into the kitchen to see for herself, “Where did they all come from? What brought them here?” she asked no one in particular.<br /><br />“The swords are in the cars, huh?” I asked,<br /><br />“Yes, but not all of the guns are, “ Maria announced.<br /><br />Maria disappeared from the room again.<br />“What do we do?” asked Pippa, looking frightened.<br /><br />“We need to get to the cars and get out of here,” said Gerry, “We could use the guns and blast our way out.”<br /><br />There was a crash from the kitchen, as the back door fell inwards from the combined weight of multiple zombies.<br /><br />“Shit, they're in!” Gerry yelled, moving into the dining room,and slamming the door behind him.<br /><br />“Here!” Maria said as she came back into the dining room. She was carrying the two AR-15 rifles that they had found back in Covenant along with one of the Browning shotguns and a Beretta and a Glock tucked into her waistband. I also noticed three hand grenades clipped to her belt on her right hip.<br /><br />Maria handed me the Browning, Beth one of the AR-15s, Gerry the Glock, and Pippa the Berretta, saving the other AR-15 for herself,.<br /><br />“Be careful with that, “Maria said to Beth, “It's modified; fully automatic.”<br /><br />“Isn't that illegal?” Pippa asked.<br /><br />“These green pineapples aren't exactly legal either. I don't think he really gave a shit, you know?”<br /><br />Another crash, this time from the front of the house; the front door had given way. I was a little surprised by that; it seemed like it was a pretty solid door, but I guess the frame was maybe not all that it could have been.<br /><br />“Upstairs!” ordered Beth<br /><br />Lacking any better ideas, we did as Beth ordered. Maria and I were last, and we saw the first zeds coming down the hallway from the entry room. I stopped long enough to fire a shot at the one in the lead. It had been a while since I had actually fired a gun, but it felt familiar, almost good. The face of the lead zed disintegrated into hamburger meat.<br /><br />“Why are we going up?” Gerry asked as we thundered up the second floor, “Won't we just be trapped out there?<br /><br />“No, it's a good idea!”Maria said, bringing up the rear, “If we can lure them into the house then we can just jump off the roof of the porch, get in the cars, and get the fuck out of here.”<br /><br />She stopped at the head of the stairs, and fired down into the zombies already massing at the bottom of it. These ones seemed really into getting at us. I guess we should have started a fire downstairs first. Maria whooped as a couple of the zeds fell, slowing the progress of the others, but not stopping them.<br /><br />Beth, Pippa, and Gerry each ran into the rooms at the front of the house, but all came back moments later.<br /><br />“My windows don't open!” Pippa cried.<br /><br />“Mine are stuck too!” yelled Gerry, coming back from his room.<br /><br />“I think they're painted shut.” Beth said, returning to the hallway,” The good news is that there don't seem to be any of them out front anymore, although they could still be on the porch,<br /><br />“That would be better news if we had a way out there,” Gerry replied.<br /><br />“Do something fast!” Maria said, and fired another three shots down the stairs.<br /><br />“We could try my room?” I suggested.<br /><br />“It wouldn't be that big of a jump,” Beth said thoughtfully.<br /><br />“Quickly!” Maria said. The zeds were almost to the top of the stairs, and Maria was trying not to use up the entire clip since the rest of the ammo was in the cars. She fired a couple more times, knocking a zed that had just come into the view in front of her falling backwards.<br /><br />“Let's try it!” said Beth, and headed for the stairs.<br /><br />Passing Maria on our way to the stairs I could see that the stairs were clogged, and the floor at the bottom of them was full of zeds. What had attracted them to us? The smell of the freshly dead maybe?<br /><br />As I climbed to the third floor I heard Maria start firing again, and the her gun stopped as it ran empty.<br /><br />“ Maria, come on!” I yelled down to her.<br /><br />“I'm coming,” she yelled back.<br /><br />I heard her feet thumping and then a bang shook the house.<br /><br />“What the hell was that?” asked Beth from the door to mine and Sharon's room.<br /><br />“Hand grenade, I think,” I yelled back.<br /><br />“These windows don't open either!” I heard Gerry yell.<br /><br />“Who the hell has a bed and breakfast in a setting like this and seals the windows shut?” Beth asked,<br /><br />“Someone sick of people leaving without paying?” I answered.<br /><br />“Fuck it! We're getting out of here,“ Beth said. Moments later I heard the sound of shattering glass and Beth through a chair through the front facing window,” Now it's open!”<br /><br />I ran into the room where my wife died, in time to see Gerry drop out the window onto the porch roof below. I grabbed my satchel from the floor where the chair used to be, and then spotted something on the nightstand, something I hadn't noticed before.<br /><br />On the nightstand on Sharon's side of the bed sat a pair of glasses; her glasses. Had they been there before? Had someone put them back there? I thought she had been buried in them.<br /><br />“I'll go next, you help hand Pippa down to me,” Beth said before carefully sliding out the empty window frame. I heard her feet thump on the roof below.<br /><br />I stood there, staring at Sharon's glasses.<br /><br />“Hurry up!” I heard Beth yell from outside.<br /><br />“I'm scared,” Pippa said to me, looking down out the window.<br /><br />I snatched Sharon's glasses from the nightstand. And tucked them into my already bulging satchel. I crossed the room to Pippa, and put my hands on her shoulder,”It'll be okay, Beth's gonna catch you.”<br /><br />“You're coming too, right?” Pippa asked, seeming unsure about what I would do.<br /><br />“I'm just going to wait for Maria, okay?” I said, trying to sound reassuring to myself as much as to Pippa.<br /><br />I helped Pippa up into the window frame, and then held her hands as I lowered her into Beth's arms. Beth in turn practically shoved Pippa off the roof onto the top of the black Excursion, where she fell into Gerry's waiting arms on the ground. They both kept the car between them and the porch, trying to keep any zeds still down there from seeing them.<br /><br />I looked back to the open door to the hallways, ” Maria!” I yelled.<br /><br />“Coming!” Maria came into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her, I saw blood flowing down her right arm, “This is a nice gun, but it makes a shitty club.” She said, tossing me the gun. I barely caught it by the still warm barrel.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” I asked, knowing the answer, but not knowing what else to say.<br /><br />Maria looked at her arm, “No, I don't think that I am,” She held her arm out to me, and I could see a ragged chunk of flesh missing just below her elbow, “Hurry up, she said to me, “We need to go.”<br /><br />“You go first, “I said.<br /><br />“No, you go.”<br /><br />“You are coming, right?”<br /><br />Maria smiled oddly at me, and came over and put her good arm around me in an awkward hug, “I really am sorry for everything. Please try to remember me kindly, okay?”<br /><br />“You're coming with us,” I said, not as a question this time.<br /><br />“Sure, if it'll get you moving; now hurry up!”<br /><br />I looked out the window again and saw that Beth had dropped down to the ground too where she was standing with Pippa and Gerry, who had retrieved the AK-47 from the back of the black Excursion. Beth waved to me to hurry up.<br /><br />I tossed Maria's empty AR-15 to Beth, and then my Browning as well, and started to climb out the window. It was only a short drop to the sloped porch roof below me, but before I could drop I heard Maria behind me.<br /><br />“I love you guys; please forgive me,” I turned to look back at her as she opened the door to the hallway, “Come get me, assholes!”<br /><br />“Maria!” I yelled to her, and lost my balance. I dropped to the roof below, and landed awkwardly. My feet slid out from under me and I crashed onto the shingled surface on my left shoulder and rolled.<br /><br />The world spun, and then just for a moment I was airborne as I slid off the edge of the roof. That moment ended roughly as I slammed into the plastic storage pod on top of the brown Excursion. My momentum kept me rolling off the top of the car, and I crashed into the gravel surface of the parking lot, trying to twist my body as I fell to protect my satchel, and taking the brunt of the impact on my left side.<br /><br />Beth and Pippa were over me in a moment, pulling me roughly to my feet,” Are you hurt?” Pippa asked.<br /><br />One of my three graceful landings had knocked the wind out of me, and I could only gasp, “Maria!”<br /><br />I looked up at the third floor window just in time to see the curtains blow outward as twin bangs rattled the house. I knew instantly what she had done; Maria had used her last two hand grenades to avoid wasting away like Sharon had.<br /><br />“Maria!” yelled Gerry, his voice rich with fear and pain. I think he knew what she had done too, although he didn't know why at that moment.<br /><br />After seeing what happened with Sharon, I don't blame Maria for doing what she did. While I treasure every last second I had with Sharon, even as she died, a large part of me wishes I could have put her out of her misery. I only hope that if I were infected that I would have the courage to do what Maria did.<br /><br />Now that I was at ground level I could see that there were still some zeds on the porch, and they were bottlenecked at the front door to the house. Gerry howled with a fury I've never heard from him, and opened fire on them with the AK-47.<br /><br />“Get in the car!” Beth ordered me and Pippa over the thundering of Gerry's gun.<br /><br />I was still unable to breath and feeling really unsteady, so I was in no condition to do anything but let myself be pushed into the car by a panicked Pippa while Beth went over to Gerry.<br /><br />After only a few seconds Gerry had completely emptied the AK's clip, and Beth was grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him to her, “We need to go!”<br /><br />“Maria's still in there!” I heard Gerry's reply.<br /><br />“She's gone, man, we need to leave!”<br /><br />Beth was right; while Gerry's emptying his weapon into the zeds on the porch did take down a few of them the survivors had been alerted to the fact that there was a food supply right behind them. They started shuffling towards us; the ones on the porch staggering down the steps to the gravel while the ones inside started trying to force their way back out the front door.<br /><br />“We can't leave her!”<br /><br />Beth looked back at me through the window. I had finally started to get my air back, and leaned over Pippa to call out the door in a wheezy yell, “She was infected.”<br /><br />Gerry looked over at me, his eyes wide in shock. I couldn't hear him, but I am pretty sure he mouthed, “What?”<br /><br />“She was bit; bleeding. She had been infected!” I called to him.<br /><br />Gerry lowered the gun, stunned. I saw him wipe at his eyes with his left hand. The zeds were almost to the cars now. Pippa leaned across me to check that the passenger side door was locked.<br /><br />“Let's go then.” Gerry called, his voice uneven. I think his mind was trying to cope with what his heart knew the moment we heard those explosions; Maria was gone.<br /><br />Gerry threw the AK into the Black Excursion while Beth came back to our car. As Beth climbed into the driver's seat and Pippa slammed the back door shut I heard Gerry's car rumble to life.<br /><br />“Should one of us ride with him?” Pippa asked, still afraid but also concerned.<br /><br />“No time,” Beth said, starting our own engine as the first zeds started to throw themselves against the passenger side of the SUV,” We'll switch up when we stop somewhere.”<br /><br />Gerry hit the gas, and gravel sprayed into the air which rained down on our windshield as the Excursion struggled to find purchase in the loose rock. The Black Excursion lurched forward as the wheels finally caught on something.<br /><br />A blond zed with a pair of cracked glasses stepped in front of us as Beth floored the gas herself. The rear wheels of the SUV fishtailed in the gravel as we moved forward. The blond zed tried to find something to grip on the hood of our car, but slid down and under. The Excursion thudded over her undead body.<br /><br />Gerry was driving way too fast down the narrow road as we fled the Lil Hidden Bed and Breakfast. Trees whizzed by us on both sides as Beth struggled to keep up and stay on the road.<br /><br />“Dammit, Gerry, slow down!” I heard Beth hiss through gritted teeth.<br /><br />The black Excursion slid as Gerry made a fast right turn onto the road that would take us back to the highway. At the speed he was going we would probably have made it to Lovelock that day if we didn't run into any obstacles. Unfortunately we did not manage to not run into obstacles.<br /><br />It was shortly after we were back on the highway, only a few minutes really, when it happened. The road was clear and Gerry was going around seventy judging by our own speedometer when it happened. One second Gerry was in front of us, a gentle tree covered slope running up to our left, and not so gentle tree covered slope running down at our right, and the next second he appeared to sink into the road surface.<br /><br />“Shit!” Beth screamed as she slammed on the brakes.<br /><br />Pippa and I were both slammed into the seats in front of us; this made my left side groan in protest. The SUV skidded on the road surface before coming to a stop just inches from a gaping whole where the road had collapsed, taking our lane and a good portion of the road going the other direction with it. If Beth had been following Gerry any more closely than she was, we would have gone over the side too.<br /><br />Beth's door flew open as soon as she had the car in park, and she jumped out. She went to the edge of the pit, and Pippa and I were right behind her. At the bottom lay the smoking wreck of Gerry's Excursion.<br /><br />The front end of the SUV was a crumpled mess, the hood had flown up and smoke was pouring out of the engine. Broken window glass lay scattered around the vehicle, and glittered in the sun. The black roof pod had broken loose in the crash, and was laying upside down about ten feet away, I could see liquid flowing out of it; our gasoline. A short distance from the roof pod I could see one of the car's wheels laying on its side.<br /><br />With a loud creak the driver's side door slowly opened, and a man with a blood covered face fell out into the dirt and loose rocks at the bottom of the landslide. His right arm was caught up in the already deflated airbag, and this caused him to fall on his left side. It was Gerry, and he was still alive.<br /><br />“Gerry!” Beth called down to him.<br /><br />Gerry looked up at us, and then waved slowly.<br /><br />“Are you hurt?” Beth asked.<br /><br />“I don't know,” he answered, shaking his head.<br /><br />“We have to help him,” Pippa urged.<br /><br />Beth grabbed Pippa by the shoulders,“Pippa, get a gun from the car, if you see anything, shoot it. If you see a bunch of them, get in the car and go; Go for Lovelock.”<br /><br />“I'm not going to leave you!” Pippqa replied, sounding appalled.<br /><br />“You're going to do what you need to do to survive,” Beth said, putting her face right in Pippa's.<br /><br />Pippa looked at me for help, I only shrugged, took off my satchel and handed it to her, “Take care of yourself,” I said, “and keep out of my stuff.”<br /><br />Beth and I both started down the sides of the hole that used to be a portion of highway. We were half running, half sliding down toward where Gerry lay next to the ruined SUV. When we got to him I noticed he looked extremely pale except for the bright spots of blood running down his face from his forehead. I quickly realized that this was because he was covered in some white powder from the car's airbag.<br /><br />Gerry looked up at us from where he sat, “She's really gone, isn't she?” he asked, “Maria, I mean.”<br /><br />I nodded.<br /><br />“She wasn't a bad person, you know?” Gerry asked, upset and clearly a little stunned from the crash, “You know that, right? You remember, right?”<br /><br />“Yes, Gerry, I remember,” I said while Beth ran her hands over his arms and legs, checking for any broken bones.<br /><br />“I don't understand why she changed. She would never tell me, but she was a good person,” he continued to ramble.<br /><br />“I know. She sacrificed herself to help us escape.,” I said,<br /><br />“Can you walk?” Beth asked.<br /><br />“We don't even get to bury her,” Gerry moaned, “We could have buried her next to Sharon. I could have made her a marker.”<br /><br />Between the grenades and the surviving ghouls I'm not sure how much of her there would be to bury. I kept that thought to myself of course.<br /><br />“Come on, Gerry,” Beth urged, “We need to get out of here, we don't know how many of those things might be around us. Can you walk?”<br /><br />“I guess so.”<br /><br />Beth and I each took an arm and gently but quickly hauled Gerry to his feet.<br /><br />“What about the supplies?” I asked, pointing to the wreckage.<br /><br />“Let's secure him first. We can come back down if we have time.”<br /><br />“Guys!” Pippa moaned from the edge of the road, “There's one here!” She was looking back and forth between something behind her and down at us.<br /><br />“Kill it!” Beth said, “We're coming back up.”<br /><br />It was a struggle to get Gerry up the hill, as much because the hill was sliding away under as as we climbed as it was because Gerry had to practically be dragged. He was in shock, the stresses of the day already for too much for him.<br /><br />Having had my own mental crash only a couple of days earlier, I could hardly begrudge Gerry his own issues. He didn't love Maria, or maybe he did and just never made a big deal out of it, but he still had just lost someone he was close to. He was probably closer to Maria than he is to any of the rest of us. I'm sure having just driven off the side of a hill wasn't helping things either.<br /><br />As we neared the top of the hill we heard Pippa grunt with effort, followed by a squelchy crunching sound, “Pippa, you okay?” Beth asked.<br /><br />Pippa appeared at the edge of the pavement holding a sword coated in black sludgy blood in one hand, “Yeah, he's taken care of.” She was smiling with her face but not with her eyes. Too much loss in too short a time is having an effect on us all.<br /><br />I can't believe that Maria is really gone too. I still cannot bring myself to forgive her, but I”m not mad at her anymore. To be fair, I don't really feel anything for her but the disbelief that she's gone; there's just this heavy empty feeling in my chest now. I know I should be sad about her, but I'm not; I'm not really sad about anything anymore.<br /><br />We got Gerry to the top, walked him over to the back seat of the remaining Excursion, and loaded him in. Pippa had already retrieved the first aid box from the back, and Beth set to tending to Gerry's forehead.<br /><br />“I'm going to go see what I can recover,” I said, and started back down the hill.<br /><br />The inside of the SUV was just as messed up as the outside. Many of the contents of the back of the car had flown forward in the crash, and were now in the front seat. Loose bullets, cans of food, a book on forest survival, bottles of water, clothes; it was a real wonder that Gerry was not seriously hurt by all the flying crap, never mind the crash itself.<br /><br />I went around to the back, and opened the rear tri-door, raising the window, and open the bat wing style doors and started rooting around in the back. I pulled out a duffel bag that I knew to have Gerry's clothes in it, and started stuffing it with the loose detritus littering the rear of the car. I wasn't really looking for anything specific, just grabbing whatever would fit; bullets, books, canned food, if it was small, I grabbed it.<br /><br />I went around to the passenger's side of the car, and saw where the loose wheel had come from; in the wheel well at the front of the car there was a sheared off piece of metal where the wheel had originally been. There was a puddle of various fluid running out from under the car; I don't know what they all were, but they did not smell good.<br /><br />On the floor of the front passenger seat I saw the handle of Gerry's sword poking out from under a rolled up sleeping bag. I pulled the sword out, and tucked it gently under my arm. I could not find his sword belt though. It turned out this was because it had ended up in the wrong car, and was already at the top of the hill.<br /><br />“There's more of them!” Pippa yelled down to me. As I turned to look at her she disappeared behind the edge of the road.<br /><br />“How many?” I called up.<br /><br />“Three,” I heard Beth call down, “but we may be attracting more. Lets get out of here!”<br /><br />Loaded down with what little I had salvaged from Gerry's car, I started back up the hill, which was not all that much easier without Gerry than it had been with him. I reached the top in time to see Beth take the head off of a dark skinned zombie with her sword, and see Pippa ram her sword into the left eye of a female zed that she had pinned to the ground with one of her heavy boots on its neck.<br /><br />I could see that farther down the road behind the Excursion was three more shamblers heading our way.<br /><br />“They didn't follow us from the house, did they?” I asked, lugging my salvage to the open rear door of the car.<br /><br />“There's no way they could have caught up to us this fast,” Beth answered, “They were probably already in the woods and attracted by the sound of the crash.”<br /><br />“What do you think?” I asked as I started trying to find a space to shove the duffel bag into.<br /><br />“You should go get more stuff.” Pippa said<br /><br />Beth shook her head, “We don't know how many of them are in there. We should get moving; we don't have room for much stuff anyway. I want to try and find somewhere we can stop; I think Gerry may have a concussion.<br /><br />I got into the passenger seat next to Beth while Pippa rode in back with Gerry. I looked back at him as Beth started the car and began to gingerly maneuver it around the edge of the collapsed road. She was gritting her teeth as she did it, probably hoping the same thing I was as I looked down at the smoking wreck of the other car, 'I hope the rest of the road doesn't collapse'.<br /><br />Beth drove slowly, and on the wrong side of the road, trying to stay away from the top of the slope as possible just in case any other parts of the road were weak. I could see that she was scared of driving now, and I don't blame her.<br /><br />I turned back to look at Gerry and Pippa. Pippa was sitting right behind me, and looking at Gerry as she sat there with his hands in his lap, and his head down.<br /><br />“How are you feeling?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.<br /><br />“My head hurts, I feel like the car is sitting at a weird angle, and I think I'm going to puke at some point,”<br /><br />Gerry lifted his head to look at me. There was a piece of white gauze stuck to his forehead at his hairline, and I could see that Beth had cleaned the powder from the airbag off of his face. I could also see that he had been crying.<br /><br />“Do you forgive her?” Gerry asked.<br /><br />“Huh?” I asked, surprised by the question.<br /><br />“Do you forgive Maria for what happened?”<br /><br />I turned to look out the front window and didn't speak. After a few moments I turned back to Gerry, who was looking down again, and said, “I'm trying to.”<br /><br />“She didn't mean to, you know?”<br /><br />“I know she didn't.”<br /><br />“That doesn't bring Sharon back though.”<br /><br />“No, it doesn't,” I agreed.<br /><br />“Maria did like Sharon, really, she liked all of you guys, she just didn't know how to deal with things, she wouldn't have ever really hurt her on purpose,” Gerry rambled.<br /><br />“I know,” I said, but do I really? There's a little war inside me between what is left of my emotions. One part of me wants to forgive Maria for everything that happened because of what she did for Sharon at the end there, and for how she sacrificed herself to try and save the rest of us. The other part of me wants to still be mad at her for putting us out on the road again, for Sharon, and for killing herself rather than face the same fate she accidentally inflicted on Sharon. I'm not sure how we all would have coped seeing someone else die from the infection though.<br /><br />We didn't go much farther yesterday, spending the night in a ransacked general store. It was not the ideal place to spend the night, but we didn't want to stray too far off the highway or risk it getting too dark before we got ourselves locked away. Even though some of the windows are broken, and the door looks like it was kicked in, we were still able to somewhat secure it enough to allow us to get some sleep. Unsurprisingly there was no food to be found there.<br /><br />I dug out one of the survival books we took from that gun-nut last year because I wanted to see if it had anything on concussions. It did, but they include headache, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and depression. Going by that it seems that all four of us may be concussed. It also says to see a doctor! What the hell? What kind of asshole writes a survival guide that assumes you will have access to trained medical care?<br /><br />Gerry slept through the morning, so we got moving late; Beth wasn't sure if he should be allowed to sleep or not (the manual does say that most minor concussions just need rest). As a result of that, and having the fight off the four zeds that had appeared outside overnight, we did not get far today.<br /><br />Our slow drive seemed a lot longer than it really was due to the lack of conversation. Gerry sat in the passenger's seat staring out the window in silence, Pippa dozed with her head against the window next to me, and I was still trying to process everything that has happened in the last week so that I could write some of it down here in a sane and rational sounding way.<br /><br />That brings me up to now. The rest area we are in looks like it may have been fairly new when the world ended. Still, even after a year of disuse the smell of public restroom remains. The lights and water of course do not work, but it is a strong and windowless cinder block building that only had one ghoul roaming around it when we got here.<br /><br />There is a vent over the door to the outside that we can look through thanks to a ladder that we found in a maintenance storage closet. It is my watch right now, and so I periodically climb the ladder to look outside, not that I can see anything, it must be cloudy tonight or something.<br /><br />I do hear the occasional scraping sounds outside, but that could just be wildlife, right? Without humans around they probably come through places like this more now, right? Not that we've seen any wildlife, but it's a possibility.<br /><br />We have to make it tomorrow. We need to get off the road before we lose anymore of us. I don't know if I could bear losing Pippa, or Beth, or Gerry; not after Sharon and Maria. Please, God, let Lovelock be what we need it to be.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-9408240558864859862009-12-29T05:11:00.000-08:002009-12-29T05:13:36.145-08:00Forty-Sixth Entry: Reverie Hill/Black BeachJune 1st<br /><br /> Today was the worst day of my life. I have nothing to live for anymore, so why am I still here? I have lost everything that matters to me in this life.<br /><br /> I wish I were dead so that I could be with them, but I just can't....<br /><br /> When I woke up this morning, part of me knew this was it. Sharon had spent a large part of yesterday rambling and hallucinating. She had conversations with Alex, with Gerry, with Crispin Freeman; she had a long rant about how Hashmir Kaur needs to step down and let Alex be in charge. It would have been funny in other circumstances.<br /><br /> This morning she was lucid for awhile though. She asked me to read to her again, and I read as fast as I could, trying to finish the book for her, but at the same time afraid that reading the words “THE END” might symbolically end her.<br /><br /> While I read, the others came in, and I guess you would say that they said their goodbyes. Even Maria came in, and even though it was all I could do not to physically kick her out, I let her say goodbye.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry, Sharon, this is all my fault,” said Maria, tears rolling down her cheeks. A big part of me wanted to forgive her then, but I can't do it.<br /><br /> “It's not,” Sharon answered weakly, smiling, “It's no one's fault, and I really hope none of you blame yourselves. I gained so much by knowing you all, and I hate to leave.”<br /><br /> “You may be the bravest of all of us, you little nerd,” Maria said, no malice in her voice.<br /><br /> “I'm not brave, but thank you.”<br /><br /> When Gerry came, he brought a cast iron pot with him; in it was something that was not quite cake and not quite bread. What it was was horrifically sweet. I'm guessing he used sweetened condensed milk in it in place of fresh milk. Sharon ate a piece of it, and thanked him. I don't know if she really liked it or not, but I know she was grateful for the effort.<br /><br /> Pippa brought the record player and records when she came. They talked for awhile, and they both cried. Pippa hugged Sharon, and Sharon tried to hug back, but she was too weak. After a while Beth came back and pulled Pippa away.<br /><br /> “They need time to themselves, “ Beth said as she half drug Pippa out of the room. Before closing the door, I saw Beth look at Sharon one last time, and mouth the words “Goodbye” and something else that I couldn't make out before closing the door quietly.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry,“ Sharon said.<br /><br /> “Don't be sorry, “ I said, my voice a choked whisper. I still couldn't cry, but I felt like I was on the verge of it.<br /><br /> “I should have been more careful I shouldn't be leaving you all behind, but I'll be waiting for you all in the clearing,“ Sharon whispered, “Please make me wait a long time, okay?”<br /><br /> “We will,” I said.<br /><br /> “Play our song for me, please?” she asked.<br /><br /> We never discussed what our song was, but I did not have to ask. I know the rules; the song playing during your first kiss; your first real kiss. I was glad to see that “Hello Dolly & Other Hits” had made it with us. I put it on to the third track and the room filled with piano and horn.<br /><br /> I sat on the bed with Sharon, and held her in my arms while the song played. My chest spasmed like I was crying, but still nothing came. I think I'm some sort of monster for not being able to cry for the woman I love.<br /><br /> When it ended and “The Bucket's Got a Hole In It” started, I got up from the bed.<br /><br /> “Play it again, “Sharon whispered, “Just once more.”<br /><br /> While I crossed the room to reset the record player, Sharon spoke, “Who do you think would win in a fight? The Baskin Robbins spoon, or Mr. Peanut?”<br /><br /> “Mr. Peanut,” I answered,<br /><br /> “Why?” she asked weakly.<br /><br /> “First of all, Mr. Peanut has arms and legs, second, he has a sword concealed in his cane.”<br /><br /> “That's right,” Sharon closed her eyes and smiled at me as the song's intro started to play.<br /><br /> “Give me kiss to build a dream on,” Louis Armstrong sang, “and my imagination will thrive upon that kiss.”<br /><br /> “I love you so much” I heard Sharon whisper, and then she was gone, her chest stilled, and Sharon was gone from this world; leaving me all alone.<br /><br /> “Give me a kiss before you leave me, and my imagination will feed my hungry heart.”<br /><br /> I went to the bed and kissed her cold lips. A kiss to build a dream on....<br /><br /> “Leave me one thing before we part. A kiss to build a dream on”<br /><br /> I shoved my satchel to the floor, and at in the chair by the door. In my lap I held the Glock. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I couldn't.<br /><br /> Louis continued to sing to me and my dead bride, as I sat there and watched her.<br /><br /> A noise, a soft groan came from Sharon's chest, barely audible over Louis' trumpet solo.<br /><br /> She started to move and my heart started to pound in my chest. This was it, if I was to stop her from turning, this was it, and yet I sat motionless; frozen. I couldn't believe this was real, not Sharon, not my wife, my best friend, not the girl I watched grow alongside me from a gawky awkward kid into a beautiful geeky woman.<br /><br /> She started to sit up, and I saw her eyes. They were the same cloudy mess I am used to seeing at the end of a gun barrel or the tip of my sword. Her skin had gone a pale sickly gray, making her red hair seem even brighter. Pain and hunger and confusion. She looked right at me, stretched her arms towards me, and she spoke, “Duyuuh, kuuhhhmuhhh,” she groaned.<br /><br /> Kill me. Oh God she was in there, and she said “Kill me”. I swear to Jesus that's what she said. She was still in there; trapped. Her last request on Earth was for me to kill her.<br /><br /> How could I refuse?<br /><br /> “Give me a kiss to build a dream on,”<br /><br /> I stood.<br /><br /> “And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss.”<br /><br /> I aimed.<br /><br /> “Ah sweetheart, I ask no more than this,”<br /><br /> “I love you,” I said to the monstrous mockery of my best friend to the part of her that was still trapped in there.<br /><br /> “A kiss to build a dream on,” Louis wailed, dragging that last word out like the song never wanted to end.<br /><br /> I fired twice.<br /><br /> Sharon's beautiful red hair kicked up in the back as the bullets tore out the back of her skull. Her blood spattered onto the wall and headboard behind her; the blood contrasting with the delicate blue flowers on the wallpaper.<br /><br /> Sharon's body sagged back onto the bed, dead for real this time, at peace at last.<br /><br /> No one came running at the sound of the shots. I was all alone, and the gap between tracks on the record player seemed infinite just then. The sound of the needle on vinyl filled the room.<br /><br /> I looked at the gun, turned it to face me and looked down the barrel. I could go with her, why not? If I shot myself in the head I wouldn't come back, the others could just leave us here and move on. Things would be easier for them this way, and I would be rid of the pain in my chest; I would be done with all of this suffering.<br /><br /> Heaven. Surely Sharon's in heaven, and if I kill myself I won't go there, but being here hurts so much.<br /><br /> I closed my eyes, and put the barrel of the handgun to the side of my head, it was uncomfortably warm from having just been fired. I took a deep unsteady breath, and braced myself. I started to squeeze the trigger.<br /><br /> At the last moment I pulled the gun from my head and fired it into the ceiling. The sound next to my ear made it ring.<br /><br /> That bucket song started to play on the record player, and that seemed to end the moment for me. I heard the floorboards creaking in the hallway, and I knew I was too weak to finish myself.<br /><br /> I aimed the gun at the wall, took a deep breath, started screaming and fired the gun. I pulled the trigger until the gun clicked empty, and then I just screamed and screamed, drowning out the music.<br /><br /> If you could harness my grief, anger, and pain in that moment, and convert it into energy, then my scream would have split the world in two. I don't know how long I screamed for, but when I was done my throat burned, and that song was still playing.<br /><br /> I threw the gun at the record player where it sat on the dresser. There was a screech as the needle slid across the record followed by a bang of the lid slamming shut. The gun clattered harmlessly to the floor.<br /><br /> I dropped back down into the chair, and sat for awhile. No one came to the door. I don't know if they were giving me time, or if they were just afraid of me. I wouldn't blame them for the latter.<br /><br /> I listened to my heartbeat, and smelled the odor of death. This was not the rotting odor of the undead, but the aroma of the freshly dead by violent means. It smelled of blood, and raw meat, and shit, and urine, and it was coming from the beautiful woman lying in my bed.<br /><br /> I couldn't leave Sharon like that; she deserved better.<br /><br /> I rose from my chair, knocking it over as I stood, and threw the door open. Out in the hallway Beth and Pippa both stood. Their eyes were puffy and red. They looked at me when I came out, but said nothing as I brushed past them.<br /><br /> I went downstairs and outside where I found Gerry sitting on the porch swing, and examining the blade of his sword. “I'm sorry.' I heard him say as I passed him, and headed for the garage.<br /><br /> The door was locked, but I knew that Maria was in there. I pounded on the door hard enough to make the glass in the window rattle, “Open this fucking door right now or I swear I will break it down!” I yelled, my throat raw.<br /><br /> Maria opened the door, and I could see that she had been crying more. There were little bits of wood stuck to the front of her green sweater.<br /><br /> “Is she...?”<br /><br /> I didn't answer. I shoved Maria aside, and stormed into the garage. I found what I was looking for easily enough, and grabbed it. Shoving past Maria one more time I went back outside, and stormed across the parking lot, looking for the right place.<br /><br /> At the edge of the other side of the gravel parking lot, I saw what I wanted. A patch of wildflowers was growing there. I used the shovel I had grabbed from the garage and began to dig.<br /><br /> The sun was well on its way down before I was done. My back, legs, and arms screamed in pain at me with each scoop, and the sweat stung my eyes, but this was the last thing I would ever do for Sharon, and I would not fail her again.<br /><br /> When I was satisfied, I examined my work. The ragged hole was probably four and a half feet deep, four feet wide, and around six feet long. I pitched the shovel aside onto the mound of loose earth, and headed back to the house.<br /><br /> I slowly climbed the stairs back to the third floor; to the room where I had killed my wife. The room was not as I had left it though. The soiled bedding was gone, and a new sheet had been fitted onto the bed, and on that sheet was a large white quilt adorned with multicolored flowers. The quilt was folded and thick black thread showed that it had been sewn shut. Inside that shroud, I knew, was Sharon.<br /><br /> By the window stood Beth and Pippa, they looked at me as if I might attack them. Given how I must have looked, that was probably what they were afraid of.<br /><br /> We-,” Pippa spoke hesitantly, “We cleaned her up, and stuff.” She shrunk back when I looked her in the eyes.<br /><br /> “Maria has a coffin for her,” Beth said softly, “That's what she's been doing out there.”<br /><br /> “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse from a combination of screaming, pain, and sorrow.<br /><br /> I gently lifted Sharon's body in her soft burial shroud from the bed; it smelled of roses. She felt so light now, as if it weren't really her in there. I could feel her back and legs through the quilt, I recognized them even through the fabric.<br /><br /> I carried her downstairs, and out to the garage where Maria was waiting. On the floor was a rough coffin, nothing fancy, just a wooden box. Maria had stained it to try and make it look nicer, but it still looked like a plain wood box.<br /><br /> I'm not complaining, mind you. In my initial mindset I had planned on wrapping Sharon in a sheet and just burying her like that. That everyone else put such effort into all of this would have embarrassed her, I'm sure, but I am truly grateful to all of them; even Maria, although I still cannot bring myself to forgive her.<br /><br /> I gently laid Sharon's body in the box, it still smelled strongly of the stain that Maria had used on it. I didn't want to let Maria put the lid on. I knew nothing would ever bring Sharon back to me, but the lid felt like a barrier between me and her; only one of many, I know.<br /><br /> “She deserves better than this,” Maria said as she placed the rough lid on top of the box.. I saw that Maria had carved a cross into the front of the lid, “I'm sorry that this is the best I can do. I'm sorry that you have to live with my screw up.”<br /><br /> I didn't say anything as Maria hammered the nails into the lid, sealing the coffin. I know that box won't keep anything out for long, but it's better than her being left to rot in a pile, or being burned like so many of the other zeds we've killed.<br /><br /> When Maria finished the last nail, Gerry came in, “Let me help you,” he said as Maria and I lifted the coffin. Gerry swung open the big garage door, letting the late afternoon sunlight flood in, and then took a place at the side of the coffin.<br /><br /> As we crossed the parking lot Pippa and Beth joined us, also helping to carry Sharon to her final resting place. Will all of us together walking was a bit awkward, but the physical weight was almost nothing. The weight on my heart however remains immense.<br /><br /> We lowered the coffin into the grave as gently as possible, but it still thunped loudly against the ground. Maria went back to the garage for the other thing she had been working on.<br /><br /> Gerry looked at me expectantly, but I just shook my head slightly. There was nothing I could say at that point that wouldn't have turned into me trying to scream curses at God , so I really wanted someone else to do the talking here.<br /><br /> Gerry moved to stand at the head of Sharon's grave, “I wish Alisdair were here, he would know what to say right now,”<br /><br /> “Just say what you feel,” Beth said.<br /><br /> Gerry stood for a moment, either in thoght of just trying to work up enough spit to speak, “We are here to say goodbye to Sharon Sparks. She was a friend, a comrade, a wife, and a bright spot in a dark world,” he said in an unsteady voice, “She leaves us too soon after coming so far with us all.”<br /><br /> Pippa started bawling then, and Beth put an arm around her.<br /><br /> “Even with things the way they are I think we sometimes take each other for granted, maybe this is just a natural human trait. We look at each other every day and think that we'll all be together forever,” Gerry was struggling, 'I don't know how we can do this, I mean, we've lost so much already that we should be used to it, right?”<br /><br /> “Losing Sharon is like losing a part of ourselves,” Gery continued, ” and I know that we will all feel that loss for a long time to come. Sharon was a unique person; friendly, caring. She accepted each of us as we are, and I think she loved us all unconditionally. Does anyone else want to say anything?”<br /><br /> “I didn't know Sharon as long as the rest of you,” Pippa said through her sobs, “but she was like a sister to me. She treated me like one of the group from the first night. I mean, you all welcomed me, but Sharon treated me like I had been here with you from the start. I'm-” Pippa couldn't continue, and instead burying her face in Beth's shoulder.<br /><br /> Maria walked back to the group clutching a shining four foot long wooden plank in her hands.<br /><br /> “Like Pippa, I didn't know her as long as you guys, but I knew her well enough to love her, and to know that she did love us all. She would have given her life for any one of us,” Beth said tears running down her face. She looked at me “And I know she loved you with everything she had. You were there for her whenever she needed it, and I know she'll be waiting for you in the next world, but she made me promise to make sure you don't get there too soon. I intend to keep that promise.”<br /><br /> Maria held up the object, it was a tombstone. Maria had shaped it out of a piece of wood, carved it, stained in, and lacquered it to try and make it as resistant to weather as possible. On the front of the tombstone were the words:<br /><br /><center>SHARON SPARKS<br />FRIEND, WIFE, GEEK, SWORD<br />YOU WILL BE MISSED</center><br /><br /> “I'm sorry for all the things I did and said to her,” Maria said softly, “I'm sorry that my actions led to this. There's nothing I can ever do to fix this, but I hope that you'll treat me better than I treated her; than I've been treating you all. I didn't know it would end up like this, I....”<br /><br /> “It's okay,” Gerry said.<br /><br /> “It's not,” Maria handed Gerry the tombstone, “I'm so sorry, Sharon,” and turned to walk away. We let her go.<br /><br /> “We will never forget you, Sharon,” said Gerry. He then picked up the shovel from where I had tossed it.<br /><br /> “No,” I said, “Let me do it.”<br /><br /> “Don't you want any help at least?” Gerry asked, holding out the shovel to me.<br /><br /> “No, she is my responsibility, remember?”<br /><br /> “No one meant that that way,” Beth said.<br /><br /> “I took responsibility for her, and this is the end of it. Please let me do it, okay?”<br /><br /> Gerry nodded, and I took the shovel from him.<br /><br /> “There's no shame in needing help,” Gerry said, “We'll be around if you need us, okay?”<br /><br /> “Thank you,” I rasped.<br /><br /> I slowly, my back screaming and my head buzzing the whole time, filled in the hole. When there was about three feet left to fill, I put in the tombstone Maria had carved. It was really a nice piece of work, especially considering that she didn't have any power tools to help.<br /><br /> Have you ever noticed that filling in a hole is so much easier than digging it? Physically it was, but emotionally each scoop of soil felt like it was landing on my soul.<br /><br /> I was almost done when I heard Beth scream my name, “Look out!” she added.<br /><br /> It was almost full dark, and I was physically exhausted, and my eyes weren't focusing well. I hadn't drank any water all day, and I'm sure that was part of the problem. All of that meant that it took me a moment to see what Beth was trying to warn me about. Crossing the parking lot was an undead fat woman, like Mimi Bobeck fat.<br /><br /> I clutched the shovel in my hands, but did not move. I seriously considered letting it have me. What more do I really have to live for anyway, right?<br /><br /> Beth must have known what I was thinking too, because she leaped off the porch, sword in hand to come to my rescue, but there's no way she could have made it in time, the zed was too close. Nothing could interfere now.<br /><br /> Except me.<br /><br /> I opened my mouth wide to roar at my would be attacker, but all that came out was a gravelly hiss. I swung the spade, and slammed it into the side of the tubbo's head; it made a dull clanging noise. She staggered back, but did not fall.<br /><br /> “Fucker!” I hiss-roared.<br /><br /> I swung the shovel, hitting her again.<br /><br /> “Fucking die! You fucking bastard!”<br /><br /> Clang!<br /><br /> “How dare you!”<br /><br /> Clang! Down she went.<br /> <br /> “You took her from me!”<br /><br /> I raised the shovel over my head., and brought it down sideways onto her head. The flesh split against the shovel's blade.<br /><br /> “Why did you have to take her from me!”<br /><br /> I brought the shovel down again, opening another gash in the zombie's face, this time I'm pretty sure I sliced her nose off.<br /><br /> “Why couldn't you just leave us the fuck alone?”<br /><br /> The blade of the shovel wooshed through the air again, and this time I heard bone crack.<br /><br /> “Give her back!”<br /><br /> This all felt like a dream, like someone else was inside my body, someone else was feeling this pain, and had come completely unhinged. This couldn't be me.<br /><br /> “Fucking give her back!”<br /><br /> The blade struck the zeds neck, and sliced into it. Something black and wet flowed out onto the gravel, but in the fading light it could have been chocolate syrup for all I could see.<br /><br /> “Give her back, and leave us the fuck alone!”<br /><br /> The handle of the shovel splintered, and the spade end of the shovel bounced back up and hit me in the face. I could feel the blood start to flow from my nose as I fell backwards into the soft dirt of Sharon's grave.<br /><br /> I lay there looking up at the few stars that had already appeared in the sky, and I knew that just a couple of feet below me the process of decomposition had begun in the remains of my last connection to the old world.<br /><br /> Beth looked down at me, even in this light I could see she was afraid, “Are you okay?” she asked.<br /><br /> “No,” I replied hoarsely, “I don't think I'll ever be okay again.”<br /><br /> Beth bent over, grabbed my hand, and yanked. She's stronger than she should be for her size, because she practically yanked me out of the loose dirt. I looked back down at my impression for a moment before Beth grabbed my shoulder and spun me to face her.<br /><br /> “Did it bite you?”<br /><br /> I looked down and the motionless blob on the ground.<br /><br /> “Did it bite you?” Beth asked again.<br /><br /> “No, it didn't bite me,”<br /><br /> Beth slapped me hard across the face, “You son of a bitch!”<br /><br /> That brought me out of my depression for a moment, how was I a son of a bitch?<br /><br /> “How dare you do that! How dare you scare me like that! What if Pippa had seen that? Do you know how sick she is right now over losing Sharon? Do you know what losing you too would do to her?”<br /><br /> “She'd be fine. She has you and Gerry.”<br /><br /> “You know how she said that Sharon was like a sister? Guess what that makes you, asshole! Aside from which, I made a promise to Sharon, and I plan to keep that promise if it means dragging you around by a leash!”<br /><br /> I was shocked.<br /><br /> Beth punched in the chest hard enough to sting, “Don't you ever pull shit like that again!” she was crying now, again, “I don't want to lose you too. I know you won't understand this, but I loved Sharon too.”<br /><br /> “I understand that,” I whispered.<br /><br /> “You don't, but it doesn't matter. Getting us all to Lovelock is what matters now. Now you get inside, get cleaned up, and get some rest, and goddamn it, cry!” fresh tears spilled from Beth's eyes, “I've not seen you cry over any of this, and if you don't you're going to explode. It's okay to cry!”<br /><br /> Per Beth's orders, I came inside, and trudged up to the third floor room I had shared with Sharon. I found Pippa sitting outside it reading by candlelight.<br /><br /> Pippa looked up at me, and was visually taken aback at my appearance, “You're bleeding, are you okay?”<br /><br /> “I think the bleeding has stopped; I'll survive.”<br /><br /> “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> I looked her in the eyes, and said nothing. It's not just that it was a stupid question, because it was, but the I found the candle's flame reflecting off of her eyes somehow entrancing.<br /><br /> “You shouldn't sleep in there,” she said to me trying to sound firm.<br /><br /> “How long have you been here?”<br /><br /> “A while,” she put the book down, and I saw that it was “Nina Kimberly the Merciless”, the book Sharon had been reading before, “You should stay in another room.”<br /><br /> “I'm staying here.”<br /><br /> Pippa got up from the floor, and stretched, “Okay, but I think it's a bad idea,” Pippa gave me a gentle hug, and then pulled back, “You smell, by the way.”<br /><br /> “Thank you, Pippa,” I said, and entered the room.<br /><br /> “You're not gonna do anything, are you?” she asked as I started to swing the door shut.<br /><br /> I turned to face her again, ”What do you mean?” I asked, knowing what she meant.<br /><br /> “You'll still be here in the morning, right? I know that it hurts, but you're not gonna....”<br /><br /> I struggled to answer that, as I really hadn't made up my mind myself yet, “I will see you in the morning, Pippa.”<br /><br /> “Okay,” Pippa replied, “I'm sorry for your loss.”<br /><br /> “Thank you,” I said, and quietly shut the door.<br /><br /> It became obvious that they knew I would sleep in here tonight anyway. The bed had been remade, and the wall was clean, or mostly clean, and there was a glass pitcher of drinking water and a drinking glass on the nightstand on my side of the bed.<br /><br /> On the dresser was a ceramic pitcher of lukewarm water (I guess it had been sitting there awhile), and a ceramic basin with a wash cloth in it. I slowly undressed, cleaned up as best I can without a proper shower, got dressed in a fresh set of clothes, drank half of the pitcher of water, and sat down and started writing.<br /><br /> I still haven't cried; the tears just won't come, but then again I am feeling pretty numb right now. I am emotionally burnt out, writing this has taken the last I had in me. This might not be such a bad thing though, as I feel I am thinking clearer than I have in days.<br /><br /> I know Sharon would want me to keep living, in fact she would probably try to beat my ass for even thinking about doing otherwise, but I have trouble imagining how I will do that without her. Even when we were just friends, when she was dating Alex, when she would date other men before the end, even during all of that she was still in my life. I feel so completely alone. I know I have Pippa, and Beth, Gerry, and even Maria, but I feel all alone.<br /><br /> I also know that I have a responsibility to them, to do my part to keep them alive, and get us all to Lovelock where hopefully this madness can end, and we can feel safer. This is what Sharon would want, and if it had been me that had been killed, I know that it is what she would do.<br /><br /> I just noticed that Sharon's sword is leaning against the wall along with mine. I should have buried her with it, but even if I had thought of it, I don't know that I could have. That sword is something of hers that I can keep with me, that and the little gorilla she gave me for Valentine's day; I still have it, it's tucked safely away in my satchel.<br /><br /> Even though our swords are identical, I can tell which one is hers even from here. Hers is the one with the Hello Kitty sticker on the hilt. God only knows where she found it. Seeing it makes me smile.<br /><br /> I don't know where our sword belts are though, I guess they're still in the car.<br /><br /> I'm sorry that I failed you, my love. I hope that wherever you are now, the clearing, heaven, a giant Dave & Busters, that you are happy, and you feel loved, and that you are not alone. I hope God is taking care of you. I miss you so much already; I don't really know how I will keep going without you, but I will because it's what you would want. I love you.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-10596952316772043402009-12-23T04:41:00.000-08:002009-12-23T05:06:26.533-08:00Mallville Collected Volume 1Just in time for <a href="http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-gangsters-go-pc.html"><u>WINTER</u></a> I finally bring you the long-promised <a href="http://www.datafilehost.com/download-50fe7b5f.html">"Mallville Collected Volume 1"</a>.<br /><br />"What do I get in this <a href="http://www.datafilehost.com/download-50fe7b5f.html">'Mallville Collected Volume 1'</a>?" you ask. Well you get:<br /><br />The first thirty entries of "Mallville - A Journal of the Zombie Apocalypse".<br />The short story "Eric the Read Skips to the End".<br />The even shorter story "Mallville" originally heard on "Air Out My Shorts".<br />Answers to questions asked by two readers just like you.<br />Deleted/Unused/Alternate scenes.<br />All presented in one lovely PDF.<br /><br />How much would I ask you to pay for so much content? Not $100. Not $50. Not $5.99. Not even the price of an order of fries from McDonalds (although if you're going....). You can download <a href="http://www.datafilehost.com/download-50fe7b5f.html">"Mallville Collected Volume 1"</a> for free right now!<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.datafilehost.com/download-50fe7b5f.html">"Mallville Collected Volume 1"</a> is the perfect solution for that last minute <a href="http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-gangsters-go-pc.html"><u>WINTER</u></a> gift for the person who has everything, and lets face it, you can't beat the price. Download your copy while supplies last!Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-47371723529771509612009-12-17T08:02:00.000-08:002009-12-17T08:07:29.291-08:00Last Chance to AskI've done all the proofing I am going to do for "Mallville Collected Volume 1", but I would still like to do more in the Q&A section. If you have any questions about anything from the first thirty chapters of "Mallville - A Journal of the Zombie Apocalypse", this is your last chance to ask them, as I intend to post the file up next week.<br /><br /> Send your questions to me any way you can; here, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, heck, even Xbox Live if you want, and I will include them. If you have a preference on how you wish to be credited, let me know, or I will just use your first name or the screen name you have sent the question from.<br /><br /> Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-56447395776980531122009-12-15T03:56:00.000-08:002009-12-15T04:28:51.475-08:00Forty-Fifth Entry: InfectedMay 24th<br /><br /> We have been hoping Sharon's going to be okay, she's been okay except for complaining about feeling a little stiff and achy, and having a bit of nausea over the last couple of days, but that could just be from the antibiotics. We thought maybe we had dodged a bullet; Sharon has been her normal self except that she keeps looking at her bandage.<br /><br /> I've changed her bandage a couple of times for her, washing the area with hydrogen peroxide. The two little cuts are red and puffy, but I tried to let that go, hoping it was just a normal infection. That changed tonight.<br /><br /> We are staying in a library. I did not see the name of the town on our way in, and to be honest, I've been kind of distracted with Sharon's health the last couple of days to pay too much attention to anything else.<br /><br /> We managed to destroy the three zeds we found in front of the library with no problem, but we found that we are not the first ones to hide in the library.<br /><br /> In the librarian's office we found some blankets and a mattress on the floor along with a stack of books, some canned food and bottled water, and a double barrel shotgun and a box of shells. Judging by the fact that the empty food cans are completely dried out, I am guessing that whoever this was has not been here too recently.<br /><br /> I was setting out our sleeping bags near the others in the children's room when I heard Sharon call my name. I ran towards the sound of her voice. The others stood frozen, looks of worry on their faces.<br /><br /> “Where are you?” I yelled, my voice sounding dull in the library's main room.<br /><br /> “Over here!” She called back.<br /><br /> I found her on her knees in front of a pile of books that she apparently pulled off the shelves as she fell.<br /><br /> “What happened?” I asked, “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> “I don't think so,” she said, and I realized that she was crying, “I got dizzy, and I couldn't stand up anymore. “<br /><br /> I knelt down next to her, and put my hand on her shoulder; she was shaking violently, “Is it...?” I couldn't finish the question.<br /><br /> She looked at me, tears streaming down her face, “I think it is,” her voice quavered as she spoke.<br /><br /> “But the antibiotics!”<br /><br /> “Didn't work.”<br /><br /> “This could be side effects then!”<br /><br /> “Oh God, I'm dying!”<br /><br /> “No you can't be; it's the flu or something, or stress. You've been stressed the last couple of days,” I blurted out, as if saying it would make it true. I couldn't accept it. This can't be happening.<br /><br /> “ I don't want to die,” she said.<br /><br /> “Are you okay?” a voice said from behind me. It was Pippa, she had apparently broken the paralysis that had overcome all of our friends and followed me.<br /><br /> Sharon just looked at her, and started sobbing.<br /><br /> Pippa looked at Sharon, and at me. I felt like my head was going to explode with fear, and pain, and I wanted to join Sharon in crying; I could feel the tears behind my eyes, but none came.<br /><br /> “She's going to be okay, right?” Pippa asked me.<br /><br /> I just looked at her in reply, and I guess that told Pippa everything she needed to know. Pippa dropped, joining the two of on the floor on her knees, “You can't die! I don't want you to die!” she said, and she started crying too.<br /><br /> Sharon crawled past me, and put her arms around Pippa, hugging her tightly. I put my arms around both of them. We were a family, and one of us had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.<br /><br /> I held the two sobbing women in my arms, conscious now that every second we sat there brought my wife one moment closer to death. I know that every second before then did the same thing too, but now I was conscious that her death was close; the clearing at the end of her path is almost in sight now.<br /><br /> I don't know how long we sat there. The women crying, me holding them, not wanting to ever let either of them go. Not wanting to let Sharon go, as if somehow holding her would keep her safe; keep her alive. My chance to keep her safe had already passed though.<br /><br /> I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to see Beth standing there. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were wet, she mouthed words to me, “Is it?”<br /><br /> I looked at her, and realized now that I was shaking too. I couldn't speak. I couldn't say it. My vision blurred as my eyes watered, but still no tears. My chest felt ready to burst, but I couldn't cry.<br /><br /> I blinked to clear my eyes s that I could see Beth again, “I'm sorry,” she mouthed a tear slipping from her right eye. She spoke aloud then, but quietly, “Come on. Let get her to lie down.”<br /><br /> I felt like I couldn't stand myself, let alone help Sharon. I managed to get to my feet though, and while Beth helped Pippa to stand, I helped Sharon to her feet. She made it a couple of steps, and then almost pulled me down to the floor as he legs gave out.<br /><br /> Despite feeling so weak, I was able to lift Sharon back up from the floor, and carry her to our sleeping bag. She shook and cried in my arms during the short walk, and there was nothing I could do for it. There's nothing I can do to save her this time.<br /><br /> I thought she would need something to help her sleep, but she dozed off, or passed out, almost as soon as she was inside the bag.<br /><br /> Gerry was sitting on the edge of one of the small tables that used to accommodate children, and wouldn't even look at me. I could tell he was upset though, he kept wiping at his eyes. As for Maria, she was gone and so was her sleeping bag. I think she's in the librarian's office. I don't really want to even see her right now.<br /><br /> Beth sat with Pippa for awhile, while I sat on the sleeping bag next to my Sharon, and did nothing. I wasn't zoned out or anything, I think I was just in shock. I could hear Beth talking to Pippa, and I think ultimately Beth may be the strongest and least screwed up of all of us, are at least she is to me what Gerry is to Maria.<br /><br /> After a time, Beth left Pippa, who had also fallen asleep, and came over to me, “Do you want to talk?”<br /><br /> “No.”<br /><br /> She ignored my answer, “Are you okay?”<br /><br /> I looked at her like she was an idiot, “No, I'm not okay!” I said too loudly, but didn't wake either Pippa or Sharon. Then, more quietly, “Sharon's dying and it's my fault.”<br /><br /> “How is it your fault?”<br /><br /> “I should have protected her! I should have told her how I felt years ago, and then we wouldn't have been there. I should have made her stay at the church.”<br /><br /> “I've heard this before,” Beth said.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry my pain inconveniences you! Feel free to piss off like Gerry did.”<br /><br /> “Gerry's upset, and he doesn't know how to handle it. He feels responsible for asking us all to come with Maria. We're all responsible one way or another for this, including Sharon herself.”<br /><br /> I realized something, “Oh my God! You're my Gerry, aren't you?”<br /><br /> “Huh?”<br /><br /> “Gerry is the only one who will really tolerate Maria, is that what you are to me?”<br /><br /> “Are you drunk?” she asked me, “Everybody likes you. Pippa views the two of you as the family she never really had. Sharon loves you. Gerry likes you, hell I think Maria likes you down beneath her issues.”<br /><br /> “Then why are you always the one having these conversations with me?”<br /><br /> “I worry about you. You never seem to talk about what you are feeling. Pippa told me about your diary, but I think you should get it out in the open.”<br /><br /> “So she has been reading it.”<br /><br /> “When we were at the lake, yes. Don't worry, she hasn't told me what you write, just that you're really brave. She's right about that, you know?”<br /><br /> “I'm not brave. “<br /><br /> Beth shrugged, “Have it your way.”<br /><br /> “What am I going to do?”<br /><br /> “The same thing we are all going to do. You're going to love her, and stay with her until the end, and then....” Beth trailed off and just looked at me for a minute, when she spoke again, her voice was choked, “and then we'll still be here for you, and you'll still be here for us, and we'll figure out how to go on.”<br /><br /> I nodded. I didn't want to talk anymore, so I just said, “Thanks for being a friend, Beth.”<br /><br /> “You would do the same thing, whether you believe it or not.”<br /><br /> I think Beth is asleep now. I don't know what happened to Maria and Gerry, but I'm sure they're off somewhere.<br /><br /> Part of me is still holding out hope that Sharon's just got the flu or something. The rest of me just keeps praying.<br /><br /><br /><br />May 26th<br /><br /> When Sharon woke up yesterday, she was doing better; still achy and stiff, but better. She felt a little warm, but said she was feeling okay. She took her antibiotics, and had breakfast with us; us being everyone except Gerry and Maria.<br /><br /> Gerry made breakfast, like he does most days, but he didn't stay with us. He took his can of Beefaroni along with one for Maria and went to the librarian's office where Maria had slept.<br /><br /> While we were packing up to hit the road, Sharon hit the books again. She filled up one of the “I Support My Local Library” tote bags that they apparently sold with books to read. I wish I could believe she was going to live long enough to read them all.<br /><br /> It was another day of slow travel, we went through a pretty built up area, and had to deal with a number of abandoned cars, and a telephone pole blocking the road that caused us to have to make a detour and add something like two extra miles to the drive.<br /><br /> We tried to stay in the cars as much as possible in the built up areas, as there were a lot of zeds out there, and I think we're all a bit scared of facing off against them now. I know I feel a lot like I did when I first went face to face with one of those monsters.<br /><br /> It wasn't so bad once we were back into the more heavily wooded areas. They are strangely less creepy than the abandoned towns are, maybe because out here it is easier to believe that things are closer to normal.<br /><br /> I haven't checked the map, but I don't think we're more than another couple of days away from Lovelock, providing we don't come across something completely impassable.<br /><br /> We had just decided to start looking for somewhere to spend the night when Sharon complained of not feeling well. She looked even more pale than normal, and when I put my hand to her forehead it felt really warm.<br /><br /> “When did this start?” I asked her.<br /><br /> “A little while ago. I just need to lie down for awhile, and I'll be okay.”<br /><br /> I wish that were true.<br /><br /> Beth got Gerry's attention in the brown Excursion by honking the horn. He stopped, and got out of the car, sword in hand. Beth met him out between the two cars, and they talked for a minute. I don't know what they said, but Gerry looked over at us in the middle of the conversation, and then lowered he head and shook it slowly.<br /><br /> When Beth climbed back up into the car she said, “We're going to find a place. He saw a sign for a bed and breakfast a while back. We're going to see what that place looks like. Can you hold on for a little while longer?”<br /><br /> “Yeah, I just...” Sharon trailed off, “I'm sorry, you guys.”<br /><br /> “There's nothing to be sorry about, “ Beth said evenly.<br /><br /> I put my arm around Sharon, and held her close to me. I keep reminding myself of What Beth said to me; I have to stay with her until the end. I may have failed in keeping her safe, but I can't fail her now. I want to make sure she feels loved up until the end.<br /><br /> I keep telling myself that she is going to die, but I cannot fathom it. I cannot accept that she won't be in my life anymore. I can't understand why God would take her from me, from us.<br /><br /> Pippa looked back at us from the passenger seat, and I could see that her eyes were red again; she was trying not to cry, “I bet this place will be really nice!” she said, trying to sound hopeful.<br /><br /> Pippa was right, it is really nice, if a bit creepy looking; Norman Bates' mom would feel right at home here. It's a Victorian house' three stories tall with a wraparound porch. The outer walls are a kind of purplish blue, and the shingles look almost a dark purple. I suppose in a different situation it would look romantic.<br /><br /> The house is surrounded by trees, and I'm sure it's full of paths leading off to secluded little picnic spots. Part of me wishes I could have brought Sharon to a place like this even though it's totally not either of our type of scene. Maybe if I had spoken up.<br /><br /> There are also some zeds in the woods it seems, judging by the old man we saw shambling in front of the house. Maria was leaping out of the passenger side of the brown Excursion before Gerry had even come to a full stop, machete in hand. She charged the old zed, and swung the machete at him hard.<br /><br /> The blade looked like it hit the zombie in the side of the head, which snapped hard to the right. He fell to the gravel of the driveway, and Maria started hacking at him with her machete, raising it and bringing it down on her prey until she was satisfied it was dead again. Apparently the requirement for satisfaction was beheading, because I saw he kick her right foot hard, and the monster's severed head go flying off like a soccer ball.<br /><br /> Satisfied, Maria tossed the machete onto the ground, grabbed the old man's feet, and dragged him over to the edge of the parking lot. She stooped to pick up the blade again on her way back to the car. Gerry met her a few feet from the Excursion, having gotten out of the vehicle while she was dispatching the zed.<br /><br /> “You guys stay here, “said Beth, “We're going to check the house first. Pippa, if you see anymore zeds, just honk, and we'll come out. “<br /><br /> I could hear a snatch of Gerry and Maria talking while Beth got out of the car.<br /><br /> “-if there had been more of them? You need to be careful!” Gerry said sharply.<br /><br /> “Like anyone even cares if anything hap-” Beth closed the door, cutting Maria off in mid sentence.<br /><br /> “Everybody's upset because of me.” Sharon said weakly.<br /><br /> “No one's upset because of you,” I said.<br /><br /> “We're just upset,” Pippa said, “We all want you to be okay.”<br /><br /> “I'm sorry,” Sharon said softly.<br /><br /> “Don't be sorry, you're going to beat this, “Pippa smiled. I don't know if she really believes that or not. I wish that I could.<br /><br /> “I'll try,” Sharon said.<br /><br /> We sat there in silence, Sharon breathing shallowly against me, as the other three disappeared into what the sign over the porch declared was the “Lil Hidden Bed and Breakfast”. They were in there for what seemed like an hour, but it was probably only about ten minutes.<br /><br /> When they came out, Maria was carrying the legs of another body, while Gerry had it by the arms. This one looked to be an old woman; the man's wife maybe? She had a long dress on, and Maria kept catching it under her feet as they walked, and almost fell down the steps leading from the porch.<br /><br /> Beth kept looking from side to side, I assume for other zombies, as the other two carried the body over to the same spot at the side of the parking lot that Maria had dragged her first kill. I wonder if we will add to that pile.<br /><br /> The inside of the house is really nicely decorated; the wallpaper if a sort of country flowery thing, and all of the furniture is antique, and probably quite shiny under the layer of dust on everything. It's exactly the sort of place I would normally be afraid to touch anything in for fear of breaking stuff.<br /><br /> Amongst the ceramic figurines, vases, and knick knacks adorning most of the surfaces in the place there are a large number of oil lamps. Judging by the fact that they all have oil in the, and the wicks are all blackened. I am guessing they actually got used. Maybe, as secluded as this place really is, it suffered from power outages a lot.<br /><br /> I helped Sharon up to a room on the third floor. It has a big soft bed with a frilly flowery bedspread. The room is rounded for the most part, looking a bit like a castle tower from the outside. The fading light from outside was enough to see through the three windows once I pulled the curtains aside.<br /><br /> “This is so quaint,” Sharon said happily, but she still sounded exhausted. She was leaning against the door frame while I pulled the curtains.<br /><br /> “I don't think they had free WiFi though.”<br /><br /> “It's still cute.”<br /><br /> I pulled the bedspread off, a small cloud of dust came with it, and sat Sharon down. I removed her shoes, and had her lie down. I almost forgot to remove the pillow sham, which was also dusty.<br /><br /> “You stay put, I'm going to help the others unpack,” I said as I inspected the oil lamp on the fancy old dresser next to the door. It was about half full, so I lit it with matches from my satchel.<br /><br /> “You'll be back though, right?” she said in tired voice.<br /><br /> I looked at her, the flickering lantern light playing off of the lenses of her glasses, but adding some color back to her cheeks, “Yeah, of course, why?”<br /><br /> Sharon struggled to sit up, “What if they want to leave me here? I don't want to be alone,” she was starting to cry again.<br /><br /> “They wouldn't do that.”<br /><br /> “Maria might, she hates me.”<br /><br /> I thought on that for a second, “Fuck Maria,” I said, “The others would never let her do that. We're in this because of her.”<br /><br /> Sharon wiped a tear from her cheek, “Okay, just hurry back, please. I love you.”<br /><br /> “I love you too,” I said, and then to prove that I would be back I took off my satchel and placed it in the claw-footed chair with the embroidered seat next to he dresser. Sharon smiled at that, knowing I would not leave my bag behind intentionally.<br /><br /> Gerry caught me coming down the stairs to the bottom floor again, “You should check out this kitchen, “ he sounded more like the Gerry I've known for the last year, not the miserable person who has been avoiding me for the last few days.<br /><br /> He led me in, and it was really quite nice. The whole room looked totally out of place compared to the rest of the house. It was a fairly modern kitchen with a big stove, a grill, a huge stainless steel refrigerator, and a big double oven. The only things in the room that fit with the look of the rest of the house was the rack of cast iron and copper pots and pans hanging from a rack over the island at the center of the kitchen. And the large white sink under the frilly curtained window.<br /><br /> “Wow,” I said, “It is really nice. I bet some great meals were made in here.”<br /><br /> “Yeah, it's too bad nothing works anymore. Still the pantry has a lot of stuff in it that we can use, and there's a water pump out there than works, “Gerry pointed to the black metal hand pump on what looks like a wooden pallet at the edge of the overgrown prairie of a backyard. I could see some tables and chairs sticking up out of the tall grass.<br /><br /> “Water is a good thing to have,” I said, unsure what else to say.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry, man, “ Gerry said after a few moments of awkward silence.<br /><br /> “Pardon?” I said.<br /><br /> “I'm sorry about Sharon, and I'm sorry I've been avoiding you for the last couple of days. “<br /><br /> “It's okay,” I lied.<br /><br /> “Maria's sorry too,” he said cautiously.<br /><br /> I tensed, “Yeah, well so am I. That doesn't fix anything.”<br /><br /> “She didn't want this to happen, you know?”<br /><br /> “Then she should have put some effort in with Alisdair. Then we could have stayed there.” I almost threw his words about anything happening being her fault back at him, but I held my tongue.<br /><br /> “I know, and I think she finally knows now too,” Gerry said sadly, “Just try to find it in your heart to forgive her, it really isn't all her fault.”<br /><br /> I know it's not all her fault, and I'll forgive her for her part in this right after I forgive myself, and that's not really likely to happen anytime soon.<br /><br /> Gerry told me he was going to get a fire going in the parlor fireplace, and try to heat up some water from the well for washing with., so I left him to it, and went out to the cars to get some of our stuff.<br /><br /> I heard before I saw Beth dragging another headless corpse scross the gravel parking lot. This one looked to me a male in t-shirt and jeans. Almost a headless version of me actually. I wonder if zeds are going to be a big problem with this house.<br /><br /> “I got another one!” Beth panted, as she neared the growing pile of the dead.<br /><br /> “Are we going to be okay here?” I asked.<br /><br /> Beth dropped the body next to the others and dusted off her hands on her pants legs, “As long as we pay attention and don't get swarmed, or cemetaried if you prefer, we should be okay.”<br /><br /> “Do you need any help?” I asked.<br /><br /> “No,” she replied, walking over to the back of the black Excursion, “How's our girl?”<br /><br /> “She's not feeling well.”<br /><br /> “If you don't mind, I'll stop by later, maybe give you a break, okay?”<br /><br /> “I don't need a break from her.”<br /><br /> “I know, but you can't keep her all to yourself. I think we're going to be staying here for a few days, and the rest of us want to see her too, you know?”<br /><br /> “A few days?”<br /><br /> “Well, we discussed it, and-”<br /><br /> “Who is we?”<br /><br /> “Me, Pippa, and Gerry; and we decided that we are going to stay here while Sharon's sick.”<br /><br /> “But maybe she's not....”<br /><br /> “Maybe she's not, but she's still sick, and she needs to rest. And if she is, we should make her as comfortable as we can. This place has fresh water, and there are still some supplies that we can use in the pantry. I don't think we're going to find a better place, do you?”<br /><br /> I had to admit that I did not. I took a bag of clothes and the bag of books from the library out of the back of the Excursion and headed back upstairs. Going back into what may be our room for the rest of Sharon's life I found Pippa sitting next to her on the bed; they were hugging again.<br /><br /> “Oooh, hot! Can I join in?” I asked, placing the bags on the floor in front of the chair where my satchel still sat.<br /><br /> The girls pulled away from each other, “Disgusting pervert!” Pippa called, and laughed. Both of their faces were wet from tears; they had been crying again.<br /><br /> “Are those my books?” Sharon pointed to the “I Support My Local Library” bag, smiling, “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” her smile was beautiful.<br /><br /> I gave her the rather weighty bag of books, and she started taking them out and setting them around her on the bed, “Can you bring the light over here?” she asked me.<br /><br /> I took the lamp from the dresser, and brought it over to the nightstand next to Sharon. I put the electric lamp with its delicate glass shade from the table, and place it on the floor to make room for the oil lamp.<br /><br /> Pippa asked if she could take a book to read, and of course Sharon said yet. Pippa took a copy of “Personal Effects: Dark Art”, from which the library had either removed or lost all of the little things that came with it, and went back downstairs.<br /><br /> I lay next to Sharon on the bed for awhile as she read from “Nina Kimberly the Merciless”. She looked happy there in the lamplight, reading her book. <br /><br /> I think I dozed off for awhile, because the next thing I knew, Pippa was telling me that dinner was ready.<br /><br /> I went down to get something for Sharon, who agreed to stay in bed despite the saying that she was feeling a bit better. Dinner was chunky soup with rice that Gerry had found in the pantry. It took me two trips to bring up the food and glasses of room temperature tea that Gerry had made (more stuff from the pantry, I need to check out this pantry).<br /><br /> Sharon told me that I should eat downstairs with the others, but I wasn't going to leave her alone.<br /><br /> After we finished eating Beth came up and said that I should go downstairs for awhile and socialize. I grabbed my satchel and the dirty dishes and left. I only went because I knew she wanted to have some time with Sharon, and she was right, I cannot keep her all to myself; as important as she is to me, I know the others love her too.<br /><br /> I'm not sure who I was meant to socialize with, Gerry and Maria were out back doing dishes under the water pump and splashing each other with water.. This left only Pippa for me to socialize with, and she's laying on the couch reading. She did offer to let me sit on the couch by her feet, but I declined. Instead I found a nice old rolltop desk to write at.<br /><br /> While I've been writing, Maria did come into the room once. I pretended not to see her while she filled a bowl with some of the water from the two metal buckets Gerry placed in front of the fireplace to warm up. She left without saying anything to me.<br /><br /> Beth just came down and said that she and Sharon are done talking, and that I could go back up, so I guess I'll stop writing for tonight. I hope Sharon continues getting better; maybe this really is nothing more than the flu or something.<br /><br /><br /><br />May 30th<br /><br /> Sharon is bad today. She's been getting worse quickly over the last couple of days. I haven't written because I don't want to lose anymore time with her than I have to. We cannot even pretend that we think this might be the flu anymore. Sharon has the zed virus.<br /><br /> I don't know if we should even still be having her take the cefuroxime, but what if it is keeping her healthier longer? What if stopping it makes the virus or bacteria, or whatever the fuck it is move quicker?<br /><br /> Oh God, why are you doing this to us?<br /><br /> I haven't seen Maria at all for the last couple of days; Beth and Pippa have both told me she's off in the little detached garage doing something. She has locked herself inside and won't let anyone in. Good, fuck her!<br /><br /> The zeds continue to trickle in, and Beth, Gerry, and Pippa continue to destroy them, I can see them down in the parking lot through one of this room's windows. I don't know what sort of watch schedule they have worked out with only three of them, since Maria is doing her own thing, and I am tending to Sharon.<br /><br /> I was awakened this morning by Sharon calling my name, and hitting me frantically with her hands. I shot up in bed next to her, grabbed her hands to both let her know that I was there and to make her stop hitting me, and asked her what was wrong.<br /><br /> “I can't see very well,” she said, weak but panicked.<br /><br /> “Put your glasses on.”<br /><br /> “They don't help,” she looked at me, “Is there something in my eyes? Can you see?”<br /><br /> Sharon's beautiful eyes were cloudy now. It was as if cataracts had formed overnight. “Yeah... I can see something,” I said after a pause.<br /><br /> Sharon dropped back down onto the bed and began sobbing. The one hint of normalcy she had left was being able to read. She spends most of the time sleeping now, but when she's awake she reads. She's too weak to do much of anything else.<br /><br /> I put my arms around her, and hugged her to me. She tried to hug me back, but could do little more than just lay her arms around me. Her fever is gone, but that is somehow worse, because her body temperature seems to be dropping. I hardly felt any warmth coming from her at all through the nightgown we found for her.<br /><br /> Sharon asked me to read to her, so that's how I spent today. Either watching her sleep, or reading to her. She had finished “Nina Kimberly”, and had started reading “Playing for Keeps”, a book I know she has read before because she borrowed my copy.<br /><br /> I read to her the adventures of Keepsie and her friends as Keepsie fights to keep her bar. The last chapter I read was getting close to the climax; Keepsie learned about the origins of Light of Mornings. I enjoyed reading this the first time back when it came out, but not so much this time. It's not the story's fault though.<br /><br /> I watch Sharon breath while she sleeps, waiting for her chest to stop rising and falling. It hasn't happened yet, and for that I am thankful. I realize that I am putting myself at a lot of risk by still sharing a bed with her, but I guess no one else has realized what might happen if she passes in her sleep.<br /><br /> I know I should get someone to watch while I sleep, or I should at least sleep in another room, but I don't want to leave her. I've hardly left this room at all in the last couple of days.<br /><br /> One mercy of this whole thing, at least so far, is that she has not complained of any pain. I don't know what I would do if she was in pain. I don't know if I<br /><br /> Maria just left. Not only did she have the nerve to show her face in here, but she came to tell me to kill Sharon. I want to hit something. I want to cry. I know what she said was reasonable, but I can't!<br /><br /> Maria knocked on the door, and I put down my pen to get up and answer it. I was not happy to see her, and what she had to say did not improve matters. She looked pale and tired, I don't think she's sleeping out there, or not sleeping well at any rate. No one is forcing her to stay in the garage though.<br /><br /> “Hey,” she said, looking doubtful.<br /><br /> “What do you want?”<br /><br /> “I want to talk to you about something no one else has the guts to,” she seemed to find her resolve, her face still looked pale and tired, but now she looked determined.<br /><br /> “And what's that.”<br /><br /> “What are you going to do when she changes? She's going to become one of them.”<br /><br /> “Fuck you!” I said quietly so as not to wake Sharon, “Get the fuck out of here.”<br /><br /> “I'm serious. I don't want to see her like that, and I know you don't either. We can't leave her like that. If you want, I can put her down,” she said sincerely.<br /><br /> “You're not going to touch her!”<br /><br /> “So you're going to do it?” she asked. From the back waistband of her jeans, she pulled a Glock, and held it out to me.<br /><br /> “I'm going to take care of my wife.”<br /><br /> “Then take this. You'll want to make it quick. Trust me, it will be easier if you make it quick.”<br /><br /> I snatched the gun from her, “You get the fuck out of here before I use it on you. How dare you tell me to shoot her.”<br /><br /> Maria shrugged, her resolve fading, “I'd probably deserve it. I'm not telling you to shoot her now; you'll know when the right time is, but if you wait until she rises it will be something that will never leave you; seeing her like that will stay with you forever.”<br /><br /> I couldn't restrain myself anymore. I shoved her back away from the door, “Fuck you, you fucking murderer!” I slammed the door in her face. I was breathing hard, and gripping the gun in my right hand.<br /><br /> “What's going on, are you okay?” Sharon asked from behind me, her voice weak and sleepy.<br /><br /> “Everything's fine, honey, just go back to sleep.” I said through clenched teeth, trying to make my voice sound calm. I didn't bother hiding the gun behind my back, I doubt she can even see clearly enough to tell that I'm holding anything let alone what it is.<br /><br /> “Was that Maria?”<br /><br /> “Yes.”<br /><br /> “She's right.”<br /><br /> “You were awake?”<br /><br /> “Yes,” Sharon answered, “and she's right. I don't want to be one of those. I would come after you, or Pippa, or one of the others. I don't want to do that, and I don't want any of you to see me like that.”<br /><br /> “I can't shoot you.”<br /><br /> “You can, “she said, “and you will. If you love me as much as I love you, you will. I would do it for you.”<br /><br /> “Do we have to talk about this?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Yes, I don't know how much longer I have. I don't want to leave you, any of you, but there's nothing I can do about it. I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about it, so please just promise me that you won't let me be one of those things.”<br /><br /> “Sharon...”<br /><br /> “Promise me,” she said in as strong a voice as she could manage.”<br /><br /> “I promise....”<br /><br /> “Thank you, “ her voice sounded weaker than ever, as if yelling at me took a lot of her remaining energy, “Finish your writing, and come to bed, okay? Don't stay up all night, I think I'll be okay until tomorrow.”<br /><br /> “Okay. You get your rest honey.”<br /><br /> “I don't want to spend the rest of my life sleeping,” she said, her voice fading, “I'll be mellow when I'm....”<br /><br /> I rushed across the room to her when she stopped talking, but she had just fallen back to sleep, her chest was still rising and falling slowly. A smile had formed on her lips from her little unfinished joke. I leaned over and kissed those cool lips, and thought about all the mistakes I have made that wasted all the time we had together.<br /><br /> My chest feels like it's ready to implode. I wish there were some way I could trade my life for her. I wish I knew why God is punishing us. I wish there was some miracle cure we could find. I wish I could go back and do it all differently. I wish... I wish... I wish...<br /><br /> Oh God, why?Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-35363468199333629392009-12-01T04:42:00.000-08:002009-12-01T21:10:34.190-08:00Forty-Fourth Entry: Once BittenMay 22nd<br /><br />We set out early the morning after my last entry. We wanted to have as much daylight as possible. It's not as if the zeds are more active at night or anything, it's just harder to see with no lights on.<br /><br />Maria doesn't even care about what she's done; that this is all her fault. I know I have to take some of the blame for going with her, but what choice did I have? Could I let my friends, my wife, go out here own?<br /><br />Maybe it wouldn't have made much of a difference though... maybe Sharon wouldn't have gone after all, maybe she was bluffing. Maybe I'm a fool, and now I'm paying for it.<br /><br />The whole church turned out to see us off, our fellow Swords who we got to spend so little time with sent us out as if we had been friends for years. Peter hugged us, and Alisdair shook our hands. Camilleon even gave me a kiss of the cheek, which I'm glad that Sharon did not see.<br /><br />Of course during all of this Maria was sitting in the brown Excursion sulking. I'm sure that, despite all of the shit she caused, they still would have treated her the same of us... well, most of them would have anyway; I think Peter still wanted to hurt her.<br /><br />“We will let Lovelock know to expect you the next time we speak to them,” Alisdair reiterated for the umpteenth time, “I truly am sorry to see you go.”<br /><br />“I'm sorry we're leaving,” I replied.<br /><br />“If things,” Alisdair paused, seeming unsure how to continue, “if things change, you are welcome to return. I know you don't see much in yourself, but God sees a lot in you. You should be more confident in yourself; you're much more competent than you realize.”<br /><br />I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I just thanked him.<br /><br />I know that I tend to be down on myself, but I didn't think I was that obvious. I've always had issues with myself because I am generally a failure at most things. It is more luck than skill that has gotten me this far, and it still eats at me knowing that, had I said something years ago, Sharon would have said yes to me, and maybe things wouldn't be like they are now. Any way you look at it, this is largely my fault.<br /><br />So for the third time in recent memory, we got onto Interstate Five and left our sanctuary behind. We drove away from the town cleaned of garbage and wreckage, making it look almost like a movie set, and back out into the world.<br /><br />It was not even a mile outside of Palma that we found things back to what we had been used to. The odd abandoned car on the road, the occasional fallen tree limbs evidence of small rock and mudslides. We had to stop frequently to get out of the car and clear debris from our path; tree branches as stuff mostly; luckily we did not run into anything we could not move, or go around or over.<br /><br />We spent last night in a furniture store. It was one of those ones that you used to see more often in the eighties in a big warehouse of a building. No windows, a roll up door in the back to allow entry for trucks (or in our case, SUVs), and overall quite secure. Of course there was no power, and the water there did not work, but at least the beds were soft, if a bit musty smelling.<br /><br />It was important to find somewhere secure to stay, as there were a number of undead roaming around. We had to kill a couple of them that heard us, or smelled us, or saw us as we were opening up the furniture store's roll-up door, but our swords did their usual fantastic job of dispatching the unholy in a silent, if somewhat messy, manner.<br /><br />We did not unload much of our stuff, just some clothes, some food, our swords, and Pippa grabbed the record player and some records. After the noise of the people around us at the church it was a bit jarring to spend a night alone in the dark again, but the record player helped a little.<br /><br />Pippa played DJ for us, going back and forth between genres in the single box of records she saved. She played some Crowded House, followed by Sinatra, Followed by Chopin (she stopped it once the funeral march came on), followed by Dead or Alive. It was as cheerful as things could be given the situation. It was the last even remotely good night I think I will ever have.<br /><br />Maria of course still sat off to the side with her own lamp toying with one of those damned hand grenades she has. I wish Alisdair had not given those back to us. Part of me keeps worrying that she will accidentally set one off... or not accidentally. Part of me wants her to.<br /><br />Sharon and I danced. Beth and Gerry danced. Pippa and I danced. Beth and Sharon danced. I think the only pairings that did not happen were myself and Gerry, and Maria and anybody.<br /><br />Pippa and Gerry both tried to get Maria to join in, but she refused, ”I don't need your pity,” were the words I heard drift over from where they were trying to physically pull her off of a black faux leather sofa.<br /><br />Before it got too late we decided to get to sleep. Beth sat up for the first shift to make sure we were safe. We kept in a close group so that we would be together in case of emergency.<br /><br />This morning we hit the road again, once more we pointed the cars in the direction of Lovelock, Washington. More slow travel, more obstacles. It amazes me how fast nature seems to want to take back the world now that we have all but abandoned it. Grass is growing through the cracks in the roads and sidewalks. Areas that used to be landscaped are now masses of overgrown shrubs and weeds. It truly looks like a post apocalyptic world to me now.<br /><br />Everyone in our car, Me, Beth, Sharon, and Pippa, were in good spirits. When we would stop to try and clear some blockage or another even Gerry seemed to be in a good mood despite having to sit with Maria. The only person who seemed miserable was Maria herself, who thankfully was keeping her mouth shut.<br /><br />One worrisome thing was the number of zeds we were seeing. Where are they all coming from now? It's like every time we turn around there's another one coming up from behind us. We have gotten so used to not looking out for these things during the winter, and even during out time in Alisdair's church, that we are having trouble looking out for them.<br /><br />I suppose it is ultimately our slip into comfort that is responsible for what happened. Surely it is a least partially Maria's fault for putting us in this position as well, she has to own up to some of this.<br /><br />Of course it is also my fault. It is my fault for the way things have played out between me and Sharon. It is my fault for not being there when it mattered, for not protecting her. It is my fault that she is going to die now. If only I had told her I loved her before....<br /><br />We had decided to stop for the night at a roadside hotel. The lure of sleeping on a bed was just too much for us to pass up. Had we known the price it would cost us, I'm sure we would have kept driving though.<br /><br />The place was probably a dump before the end of the world, and a year of sitting empty and unmaintained has not improved it any. The sign out front is missing, probably broken during some winter storm if it was even these to begin with, but the name painted on the window of the office proclaims this to be The Breeze On Inn, and the office itself would seem to indicate the place was last remodeled sometime in the seventies; lots of browns and shag carpet.<br /><br />The place was pristine, or at least a pristine as it likely ever was. Nothing was broken into or ransacked, the vending machine was undamaged, but mostly empty anyway, so maybe no one saw any point in breaking into it? Even the keys to all the rooms were neatly hung on the old fashioned cubby holes where people would get mail or notes that were left for them.<br /><br />We picked up the keys to rooms one through four, which as it turned out are the ones farthest from the office instead of closest. I guess this makes sense if you read from left to right as the office is on the right end of the motel.<br /><br />Rather than move the cars, we decided to just carry stuff down there. It's not like we were bringing in too much, some clothes, sleeping bags, butane stove and some food. Of course Pippa insisted we bring in the record player. I think she hates silence.<br /><br />We didn't hear them at all; I'm not even sure where there came from. They may have been around the side of the building, or beyond the treeline at the edge of the parking lot; it doesn't really matter though. My first knowledge of them was Pippa screaming.<br /><br />I looked over in time to see Pippa drop the sleeping bags she was carrying, and turn to run back towards the cars. She wasn't wearing her sword, none of us were. It was stupid, especially considering how many zeds we have seen in the last couple of days, but not a one of us strapped on our swordbelts before wandering around the hotel.<br /><br />Coming towards us was a whole cemetary of zeds, a good two dozen of them at least.<br /><br />“Zombies!” Gerry yelled out, and we all dropped what we were carrying, and dashed towards the car. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sharon come running out of room one, the room we are sharing. One of the zeds lunged at her as she passed it; it's fingers grazed her shoulder as she ran, her pigtails bobbing with each step.<br /><br />We scrambled for our swords. We were horribly outnumbered, but we were confident. God was on our side. We were not mere survivors beating at these things with bits of pipe or fire axes, we were members of The Sword of Gabriel, and no unholy could stand against us. We were cocky, and prideful, and foolish.<br /><br />Swords raised, except for Maria, who grabbed Gerry's baseball bat from where it sat in the back seat of the brown Excursion, we charged the rotting mob. I had that Lord of the Rings feeling again as we set upon our enemies. Our swords cutting through them like a weed whacker through tall grass.<br /><br />The wet sounds of blades cutting through meat filled the air. I saw Pippa slice the thumb and first two fingers off of the hand of a female zed with dark matted hair as it reached for her. I saw Sharon stab forward with her sword, and slide into the throat of a male zed. The zed was unimpressed, and pushed forward, sliding down Sharon's blade.<br /><br />Sharon started to back away, trying to pull her sword free from her attacker. I started towards her, intending to help when a baseball bat blurred through the air, and caught the monster in the face, knocking it back. At the narrow end of the bat Maria stood, grinning savagely. She raised and swung the bat again, and this time hit the thing in the forehead, knocking it backwards. It puled Sharon's sword down with it as it fell before sliding off, and freeing her again to attack.<br /><br />I heard Beth yell my name, and turned to see what was probably a very pretty blond woman in life just inches from me. I stepped back while thrusting my left hand forward. I gripped her by the front of her grimy orange sweater, and shove her back while swinging my sword in my right hand. My razor sharp blade caught her throat, and tore threw it, not severing the head completely, but leaving it attached only by a piece of flesh. Another zed hit the pavement.<br /><br />It seemed to go on for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes as we hacked through the uncoordinated ghouls who dared to attack us. It wasn't until we were down to the last two or three that it happened.<br /><br />My back was to her, and I was dispatching a middle aged bald man when Sharon yelled out, “Motherfucker!”<br /><br />I turned to see Sharon with some hippie in a brown leather jacket with the little fringe on it, and a raggedy ponytail right up on her. She was pushing away with her sword. I yanked my sword free from the bald man's eye socket and charged.<br /><br />It was a lot like when I attacked Maria on the road all those months ago... it seems like such a long time, but it's only been a couple of months, hasn't it? I was no longer a person, but a freight train. I barreled into the hippie zed, knocking it fully off of its scrawny formerly vegan feet.<br /><br />The hippie fell to the ground on its stomach, and before it could roll over I drove my sword through its back, and felt the tip of the sword dig into the blacktop on the other side of the beast. I began stomping the back of its head, feeling the impact through the sole of my boot; finally feeling the bones crack and crunch under my repeated attacks.<br /><br />When the hippie stopped squirming I turned back to Sharon. She had switched her sword to her left hand and was looking at her right. I saw blood.<br /><br />“Are you hurt?” I asked.<br /><br />Sharon looked at me, her eyes wide with terror, magnified by the lenses of her glasses. She held her right hand out to me, I could see blood on it, “I think I need a cleric,” she said in an unsteady voice.<br /><br />It was like my insides had been turned to lead and dunked in liquid nitrogen. I stepped over to her, and took her injured hand in my left hand, “Did it bite you?” I asked.<br /><br />“I-I-I,” Sharon stammered, “I don't know.” she was starting to breath heavy as the fear overtook her. Inside me my own fear and panic were raging against the bars of the cage they had been locked in for most of the last year. It tried to get out and get control, but I couldn't let it; I wouldn't let it.<br /><br />I grabbed Sharon's wrist, and started walking fast towards the cars, yanking her behind me. I did not run, I was trying to remain calm. It hadn't really sunk in yet what this meant, but the realization had hit certain parts of me.<br /><br />When we got to the back of the black Excursion, I released Sharon's hand, and started digging through our supplies. I tossed a bag of clothes out onto the ground, and a box of food, trying to find the right box.<br /><br />“What are you doing?” Gerry called.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” I heard Pippa ask.<br /><br />I heard two sets of footfalls on the surface of the parking lot as I searched, and ignored them both. Sharon must have shown them her hand though, because I heard Pippa gasp.<br /><br />“What happened?” Pippa said, her voice unsteady.<br /><br />“I don't know,” Sharon answered.<br /><br />“Did you get bit? Is that a bite?”Gerry asked.<br /><br />“I don't know!” Sharon was on the verge of crying now,” I was fighting one of them, and it got close to me, and when I tried to shove it away I felt a sharp stab.”<br /><br />I found it then, the box with our meager medical supplies. A glorified first aid kit with bandages, an actual first aid kit, some boxes of gauze pads, and what I wanted, a couple of bottles of hydrogen peroxide. I grabbed one, and turned back to the others.<br /><br />Beth and Maria were now making their way towards us, Beth looking worried. Gerry and Pippa were looking at Sharon's bloody hand. Gerry looked shocked, and Pippa looked on the edge of crying.<br /><br />I unscrewed the cap of the brown bottle of disinfectant, and dropped it into the back of the car. I grabbed Sharon's hand away from Gerry, and splashed the peroxide on it. The peroxide washed away the blood as it fizzed, leaving behind two small fizzing wound on the back of Sharon's hand, right by her pinky.<br /><br />“ That could just be a scratch, right?” asked Pippa, “Maybe one of those things had a zipper on their clothes or something?”<br /><br />Beth was looking at the small wounds now, “Those look like teeth,” she said, sorrow playing across her face, “Did you maybe hit it in the mouth or something?”<br /><br />“I might have,” Sharon was terrified now, tears started running down her face. I felt that same fear too, but no tears.<br /><br />“ That's not enough to get infected though,” Pippa said, hope in her tone, “I mean on the news they had been saying the infected had been badly bitten. Those are just scratches. That's not enough to pass on the infection, is it?”<br /><br />“I don't know, “ Gerry said quietly.<br /><br />“We could cut it off to be sure, “Maria suggested.<br /><br />“Shut up!” Gerry said without looking at her.<br /><br />“I'm just saying, it works in the movies,”<br /><br />Gerry turned on her, “Shut the fuck up, Maria!” he snarled.<br /><br />Maria took a step back, and then turned and headed for room three; her room.<br /><br />I took Sharon to our room while the others cleaned up the mess I had made. I washed her hand with some of our drinking water, then with the hydrogen peroxide again, and then more water. She was shaking badly as I was.<br /><br />I heard one of the Excursions' engines start outside, and drive off as I packed the small wounds with gauze, and wrapped the whole hand with a bandage. Sharon was quiet during this whole process. I'm sure she didn't know what to say anymore than I did.<br /><br />There was a knock on the door to our room, “Come in!” I called in as steady a voice as I could manage.<br /><br />Pippa opened the door, “Gerry and Beth went looking for a drug store. They want to get some antibiotics.” She closed the door behind her.<br /><br />“It's almost dark,” Sharon said, noting the dimming light coming through the windows. We would need to light candles or a lamp soon.<br /><br />“They didn't want to wait until morning,” Pippa explained, “Are you feeling okay?”<br /><br />“I think so,” said Sharon, looking at the bandage on her hand. Frankly the bandage was overkill for such a small wound; I know the amount of bandages I used won't make a difference between whether or not she is infected, but I didn't know what else to do.<br /><br />Pippa and I sat with Sharon on the bed for awhile, none of us speaking. Sharon was still shaking, and breathing quickly. I wanted to calm her down; to make her feel better, but how do you comfort someone who may have just received their death sentence?<br /><br />There was another knock at the door. Since we had not heard the car come back, I figured it must be Maria. I did not invite her in, but instead went to answer her knock, not wanting her to start anymore of her crap and make Sharon feel worse.<br /><br />Opening the door, I found no one there. I looked out of my room, and saw no one, but I did hear another of the motel room doors close quietly. Looking down I saw that there was a mostly full bottle of bright red cherry flavored vodka sitting there. It was a brand I had had before, cheap and sweet. Maria must have either had it, or found it somewhere in the motel.<br /><br />Accepting this bottle in no way meant that I in any way forgive Maria. I think I can forgive her no more than I will ever be able to forgive myself.<br /><br />“No one there?” Sharon asked as I turned with the bottle of red liquor in my hands and swung the door shut behind me.<br /><br />“Just this,” I said, holding up the bottle, “Want some? It might help you relax,” I offered.<br /><br />Sharon looked at it, “Cherry?” she asked.<br /><br />“Indeed, lucky you, eh?”<br /><br />Sharon chuckled unconvincingly, “Yeah, lucky me.”<br /><br />I took one of the plastic wrapped cups that had been placed in the bathroom long ago by some housekeeper who is likely now dead, and filled it halfway with vodka. Sharon gulped it down, and then held the cup out for more.<br /><br />After the second cup she seemed to stop shaking. I laid out our sleeping bags on one of the room's beds after discarding the tacky rough polyester bedspread, and Sharon laid down. In about ten minutes she was snoring softly.<br /><br />Have you ever noticed that all hotels, even nice ones, seem to have the same nasty polyester bedspreads? I mean, I've never stayed in a thousand dollar a night hotel or anything, but I've stayed in places that were not total flops like this, and still they had these same ugly rough bedspreads.<br /><br />Pippa went back to room four, the room she is sharing with Beth, a short while after Sharon went back to sleep. I wasn't feeling terribly talkative, and I think it made her feel uncomfortable.<br /><br />Before leaving, Pippa offered me the record player, but I declined it. She told me to come get if I changed my mind, and gave me a hug, “She's going to be okay, right?”<br /><br />In that moment Pippa looked every bit the child she is. I wanted to tell her yes, I want the truth to be yes, but instead I said, “I hope so.”<br /><br />I sat there in room one until it was full dark without lighting the candles that Sharon had brought in before the attack. The moonlight coming through the window was enough for what I was doing, which was just sitting there and watching Sharon sleep.<br /><br />After a time I heard a car's engine, and knew that Beth and Gerry were back. I heard rapid footfalls outside, and then banging on the door. Beth was calling my name.<br /><br />I rose and answered the door, “We got something,” she said holding up a large white bottle. In the dim light I could make out the word Cefuroxime on the label, but couldn't read the smaller print on it.<br /><br />Gerry came up from behind her, “We found a pharmacist's reference that said this is used for sepsis, and that seems about as close a comparison as we could come up with,” he explained trying to look cheerful.<br /><br />We woke Sharon up, and made her eat something, and take one of the blue pills. I wish one of us knew anything about medicine. What if this makes her worse? What if it does nothing at all? Surely someone tried antibiotics on infected people before, right?<br /><br />Sharon said she was feeling okay, just sleepy. That could easily be from the vodka though. After taking her pill she fell back to sleep, and Beth and Gerry left.<br /><br />Before leaving, Beth put her hands on my shoulder and looked up into my eyes, “This isn't your fault. Even if she really is infected, this is not your fault.”<br /><br />I nodded, but didn't say anything. Beth is wrong, but I wasn't in the mood to fight.<br /><br />“Maybe we got the meds in time, maybe the bite is too small to actually infect her. Maybe it's really not even a bite. Don't give up on her yet, okay?”<br /><br />Again I only nodded in reply.<br /><br />Beth bit her lip, and looked up at me with sad eyes; I don't think she believed what she was saying anymore than I did, “If you need to talk, or if you need anything at all, come talk to me, okay? Don't do anything stupid.”<br /><br />I nodded.<br /><br />“No, promise me. Promise me that you won't do anything stupid.”<br /><br />Trying to be funny, I said, “Well I suppose it depends on how you define stupid, but I won't try and do anything.”<br /><br />Beth smiled, “Okay, I guess that will do. If anything happens during the night, you come get us.”<br /><br />Once Beth was gone, I sat down at the little writing desk in the room and started this entry while drinking a bit of the cherry vodka; it's really sweet. The walls here are thin, and I can hear Gerry and Maria arguing next door. I can't make out all of the words, only bits and pieces.<br /><br />“-my fault?” I heard Maria ask.<br /><br />“-told you that anything-” Gerry yelled, “-responsible! “<br /><br />“-assuming she's... just a scratch!”<br /><br />“-fucking hope so, because if... as well have killed her yourself!”<br /><br />I can't get my head around this. Is this what Merritt went through? Is this some punishment on me for judging him? Is Sharon being punished for something? Ego? Some other sin? What? I know that I'm not a good person, but I can't deserve this, and sharon certainly doesn't.<br /><br />Please, God, don't take her from me. I know it is selfish, but please. I'm sure you have some reason, but you've already taken so much, please don't take her too. You took Tara from me, you took my home, and my entire life. Please leave me this one last thing, please don't take her.<br /><br />Please just let it be a scratch; let us be panicking for nothing. I'm sure we will learn something from this if she's okay. We'll not take the zeds so lightly. I'll try and be a better person, please!<br /><br />Please don't take Sharon.<br /><br />Please don't take my wife.<br /><br />Please, God.<br /><br />Please, God.<br /><br />Please, God.<br /><br />Please.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-14009964151568655022009-11-24T05:11:00.000-08:002009-11-24T05:12:58.699-08:00Forty-Third Entry: Cast OutMay 19th<br /><br /> <br /> Well that didn't take very long.<br /><br /> She did it; it took her more than a month, but Maria finally managed to push shit too far and get us kicked out of Alisdair's church. To be fair she really only got herself kicked out, but....<br /><br /> It's not going to be easy to leave all of that behind. We have people other than the six of us to talk to. We have clean clothes, like cleaned in a washing machine clean. We have hot water not heated over a fire, and electric lights, and music not on vinyl, and all of the other things we used to take for granted.<br /><br /> We really did plan on staying here. We had unpacked the Excursions and everything. Our food supplies have been added to the church's, our weapons cataloged and secured, our fuel supplies added to those of the church, and our other possessions moved into our sleeping areas. Pippa even found herself a boyfriend, although I just found out about that.<br /><br /> In the last couple of weeks Maria has managed to piss off pretty much everybody here, and ruin every attempt at trying to make her feel welcome and get her to put in some effort for the whole group. She has been rude, combative, and downright horrible to pretty much everyone.<br /><br /> I really wish I understood what the hell is wrong with her; what her damage is. Once she realized that the female Swords would not fight her she did start on the men. It is a testament to the serenity and discipline the more experienced members of The Sword of Gabriel have that no one had knocked her into next week. I know if she kept on me like that I would have hit her... again.<br /><br /> Speaking of discipline and serenity, Gerry puts me to shame. He really is the only friend she has left in our group (which is not to say that Sharon and Pippa aren't still trying), and he is also the only one she seems to have any respect for. She looks at me and Sharon with utter disdain, Pippa is still a little afraid of her after our first day of sword fighting practice, and whenever she's around Beth the two of them look like they are one off comment away from getting into a fistfight.<br /><br /> It's going to be real fun once we're on our own again. I mean it's not like we don't have a target in mind, someplace where maybe Maria won't be such a problem. I don't know what we'll do if she is. I don't know if Gerry has it in him to do what he said he will.<br /><br /> It all went down like this; we've spent the last few weeks trying to settle in here. Alisdair has continued to have us go on runs to exterminate zeds (or the unholy, as he prefers). He's even been trying to teach us to ride motorcycles, although not with their Harleys and Indians, but with dirtbikes. It's been going pretty well actually, I wouldn't want to get involved in a car chase or anything, but I feel pretty confident about staying up on two wheels now.<br /><br /> We've been having zed sightings every couple of days now. I don't know what it was like up here last year, but this is almost as bad as it was last summer in Covenant. Still, with us going out in force we have not even had any close calls; every run is an absolute slaughter. It's a real confidence builder.<br /><br /> While we have been doing this, Alisdair has been trying to get Maria involved in something, but she resisted all of his efforts to get her to contribute. When he tried to get her to help in the farming efforts she managed to flood an entire field of corn, and that may still die.<br /><br /> When Maria was assigned to kitchen duty she managed to somehow over salt canned soup, making that night's dinner nearly inedible. I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky that it was salt, and not something worse. She probably couldn't get her hands on any laxatives.<br /><br /> I'm not even sure what the hell Maria was doing when she managed to knock Marty's forge over. That probably would have been the last straw for us if she had managed to actually ruin it, or set the place on fire. Thankfully the forge was cold when it happened.<br /><br /> As I have written before, there are some pretty strict gender separation rules around here, but let me elaborate on them now. There are four “dorms”, which is to say areas for sleeping. There's the men's dorm, the women's dorm, the married dorm, and the family dorm for couples with kids (there are three families in there). In order for me and Sharon to sleep (in the literal sense) together, we had to get married (and that is going fine, thank you).<br /><br /> Maria, in another attempt to anger people (Alisdair in particular, I assume), decided to just go waltzing into the men's dorm one morning last week. It's not so much that she particularly offended any of the guys, but her blatant lack of respect for Reverend Thomas' rules is what angered people.<br /><br /> I asked Gerry what her issue is, and he says that he doesn't know, “I've begged her to talk to me, but she won't. She won't tell me why she has been acting like this, why she wants to make Alisdair and the Swords angry. Why she seems to be mad at the rest of you,” Gerry explained to me, “She's pretty normal with me, but she just kind of shuts me out as soon as I start talking about that kind of stuff.”<br /><br /> The final straw was two days ago. Maria stole one of the motorcycles from the parking lot, and started riding it around the church, tearing up the grass, driving through one of the new vegetable fields, and scaring the hell out of people. As if all of that weren't enough, she finished her display by riding into the church building, into the chapel, and driving the bike through the reverend's podium, and crashed into the ten foot tall cross at the back of the stage.<br /><br /> By the time I got there, Peter was pulling Maria out from under the big cross, which had fallen over onto her, the bike, and the band's drum kit. Peter was pissed, and was holding Maria in the air by the collar of the dark green sweater she was wearing, her feet dangled a good six inches off of the floor.<br /><br /> “Peter!” I yelled, pushing past the others who gathered to see the damage. He looked like he wanted to put her through the wall.<br /><br /> Peter turned to look at me, “This is too much,” he said, although I am not sure if it was at me or Maria.<br /><br /> “You don't want to do that, man,” I said, trying to defuse the situation, “If you do, you'll regret it later.”<br /><br /> “Oh, I do want to do it,” Peter said, this time looking Maria in the eyes, “but you are right; I would regret it later.”<br /><br /> Peter placed her down on her feet, “Are you injured?” he asked, his voice straining to remain even.<br /><br /> “Like you care,” Maria replied.<br /><br /> “I care about all of God's children,” more straining in his voice,” No matter how misguided or ill-behaved they may be.”<br /><br /> Reverend Thomas arrived at this point, “What is going on here?” He asked in genuine shock as he surveyed the scene.<br /><br /> “The troublemaker desecrated the chapel, reverend,” Peter answered.<br /><br /> Alisdair looked past Peter and Maria to the splintered stump that used to be the base of the cross. He looked at the broken top of the cross, the damaged motorcycle, and the crushed drum kit. He looked at me, and a sad look came into his eyes, and he signed heavily, “Peter, please take Maria to classroom three, and keep her there until I come for her.”<br /><br /> Peter nodded, placed a hand on Maria's shoulder, and shoved her forward none too gently.<br /><br /> When Peter and Maria had left the room Alisdair walked up to me, “Please gather your friends and come to my office. We need to talk about her future with us.”<br /><br /> On my way out of the room, I was nearly bowled over by Gerry, as he came running down the hallway, “Where's Maria?” he practically yelled at me.<br /><br /> “She's okay, but Revered Thomas wants to see us in his office.”<br /><br /> “Shit. I knew this was going to happen,” Gerry answered, and continued past me without any explanation.<br /><br /> It took me a few minutes to track everyone down. Beth and Sharon were out back dueling with practice swords, and I found Pippa playing Barbies with one of the few children here, a little girl named Latonya. Gerry was already waiting in Alisdair's office when we go there.<br /><br /> Once we were all in his office, Alisdair rose from his desk, crossed the room, and gently shut the door, closing us in. Without speaking, he returned to his desk. He looked sad and a little conflicted.<br /><br /> “So I suppose we all know what happened by now, right?” Reverend Thomas asked in a gentle voice. We all nodded a reply.<br /><br /> “I've tried talking to her, but she won't open up to me, reverend.” Gerry said.<br /><br /> “I know you have; you have been as good a friend to her as anyone can expect, but she still shows no sign of changing,” Alisdair replied, “In better times I would have been willing to give her as much time as would be necessary to find out what is tormenting her so, but these are not better times.”<br /><br /> “So what are you saying?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “This is not a decision I have come to lightly; in fact it is one I have been trying to not have to make almost since you all arrived here. Maria's behavior is inexcusable, and it is putting the lives of the other people seeking shelter here at risk. Not only is she unwilling to help out around here, but she seems determined to ruin things for everyone. She needs to leave.”<br /><br /> “What?” asked Pippa, “You're kicking her out?”<br /><br /> “You're turning your back on her?” asked Sharon.<br /><br /> I said nothing; this is pretty much what I expected when Alisdair asked me to get everyone together. I could tell that this was hard for him to do.<br /><br /> “You can't do that, reverend!” Gerry yelled, as if he had been expecting this too.<br /><br /> “I don't want to; I have never turned away anyone seeking my help before, but she is endangering the lives of those under my care. What if she had hit someone with that motorcycle? Never mind that she stole it, never mind the complete contempt she showed by riding it through my chapel, and never mind the damage she caused; she could have seriously hurt or killed someone.”<br /><br /> “But she didn't,” Gerry stated.<br /><br /> “Thank God,” Alisdair said, “but she will eventually. I have to balance the chances of helping her against the potential hazard to my flock. She needs to go. She may take whatever supplies she wishes, one of the SUVs you showed up in if she wants, but she needs to leave. She doesn't want to be here.”<br /><br /> “Then we're going with her!” Gerry said firmly; and then not so self-assured, “Right guys?<br /><br /> Gerry looked at the rest of us, a look of desperation on his face. I know what he was thinking; he thought we would say that Maria could just fuck off and die, and a huge part of me wanted to say just that. I may even have done so if not for Pippa.<br /><br /> “I'll go with her,“ Pippa said softly.<br /><br /> “What?” asked Beth, her face a display of shock and anger.<br /><br /> Pippa looked like she was getting ready to cry, “We can't let her go alone. It's horrible out there alone. She'll die alone.”<br /><br /> Sharon put an arm around Pippa, “She's a strong woman,” she said.<br /><br /> “She's my friend,“ Pippa said, a tear running down her cheek.<br /><br /> “She's not either,” Beth yelled, “She wanted us to turn you away! She wanted to leave you out there alone!”<br /><br /> “I know. I heard your conversation, but we can't do that to her. She needs us.”<br /><br /> “She hates us!” Beth said<br /><br /> “No she doesn't,” Gerry chipped in, “She's just hurt somehow. We've all been hurt,” he focused on Sharon, “We didn't abandon you!”<br /><br /> I couldn't let that go, “She wanted to.” I said.<br /><br /> “She doesn't know what she wants. Please, guys!”<br /><br /> Alisdair kept quiet during our argument. I think he knew what decision we would eventually come to; why else meet with all of us to tell us he was kicking her out? He didn't want to influence our decision any though.<br /><br /> “We'll go with you,“ Sharon said, and then looked at me, took my hand in hers, and squeezed it, “Right?”<br /><br /> “Are you sure?” I asked.<br /><br /> “She's sick too,” Sharon's eyes sparkled through her glasses at me, “Maybe not sick like I was, but she is sick. We can't abandon her.<br /><br /> 'You people are fucking crazy!” Beth almost yelled, and then looked at Alisdair, realizing what she had said, “Sorry, Alisdair.”<br /><br /> Alisdair just nodded a reply.<br /><br /> “You said there's another settlement, right? Lockheart or something?” Gerry asked.<br /><br /> “Lovelock, yes. Depending on the road conditions it is probably a two or three day drive from here now.”<br /><br /> “We can try there then, maybe Maris will get better there,” Gerry so clearly wanted to believe this, but wanting something to be true doesn't necessarily make it so. I guess we'll find out though.<br /><br /> “But what about what we have here?” I asked Sharon.<br /><br /> “We've had each other since the beginning, and we've done fine. We need to stay together. When it has really mattered Maria has always been there.”<br /><br /> “And if I say I'm staying?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Then I'll have to go without you,” Sharon said, her face sounding lie she felt the same pain at that answer that I felt in my heart.<br /> <br /> “You would choose her over me?” I asked, a little shocked on top of the hurt.<br /><br /> “The man I love wouldn't make me choose.”<br /><br /> Ah yes, fantastic. A guilt trip! It's not like I was going to let Sharon go off with them without me, so what choice did I have but to say, “I'll go with you then.”<br /><br /> Beth looked me in the eyes, her mouth hanging open, “Seriously? After what she put you through? After all the things she said?”<br /><br /> Sharon reached out and placed a hand gently on Beth's shoulder, “She's one of us, Beth. I know you understand that.”<br /><br /> “But we fit in here. We are part of a group again. We are wanted here; no one is trying to kill us. We can have a life here.”<br /><br /> “Could you really sleep at night know that she's out there alone?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “Yes, I'm sure I could!” Beth replied, and then more softly, “But I couldn't knowing that you guys are out there. “<br /><br /> “So you'll come with us?” Pippa asked.<br /><br /> “Yes; someone has to keep you guys safe,” Beth turned from us to Alisdair, “I'm sorry, Reverend, I wanted to stay.”<br /><br /> “And I wanted you all to stay, but I cannot chastise you for doing right by your friend even if I am personally unhappy with your decision. I am sorry that I failed Maria so completely that I put you in this situation.” <br /><br /> “Isn't there anyway I can change your mind?” Gerry asked, “She's just not well, and I don't know what is wrong with her.”<br /><br /> “I recognize that she is ill, but the only thing that any of you could do would be to get Maria to give her word that she will make an effort. She has not tried to fit in since the moment you all got here, and maybe it is partially my fault, my way of handling newcomers is a bit heavy handed, and I could have handled our first practice a bit better,” Alisdair acknowledged.<br /><br /> “Still, I have tried to make amends for those things, I have tried to make her feel a part of this community, but I have failed in all of those attempts. Nothing could make me happier than for her to solve whatever her problems are and become a part of this group. She is in classroom three if you want to try; I will wait here for you to return.”<br /><br /> With that, we set off for the school area. Aside from holding Sunday services, The Church of Christ's Light also did early childhood education, Preschool to third grade classes were held here, so there are six classrooms up on the second floor. One of them is the family dorm, one is still used to try and teach the few kids that are here, but the other four go mostly unused.<br /><br /> Classroom three was not hard to find, it was just a matter of finding the room being guarded by the giant scowling black man. He looked curiously at us as we came down the hall.<br /><br /> “So what did Alisdair say?” Peter asked.<br /><br /> “He said we can stay if she will promise to try, “ I answered.<br /><br /> “'We'? He's making you all leave?” Peter asked in disbelief.<br /><br /> “No, but some of us won't let her go alone, even though she clearly doesn't give a sh-, doesn't care about us,” Beth said bitterly.<br /><br /> “I will wish you good luck, but I doubt it will do you any good. I'm going back to the Rev's office, please don't leave her unattended; she might try to burn the whole place down.”<br /><br /> Peter left the five us us standing outside of classroom three unsure how to continue. We looked at each other, as if each of us was thinking on how to best approach her.<br /><br /> Finally Gerry spoke, “Would you guys mind if I talked to Maria alone? I think it might give us our best chances.”<br /><br /> I certainly didn't know what to say to her, so I just shrugged. The rest of the group just kind of mumbled our agreement. I don't think any of us thought we had any chance at all of getting her to pull her head out of her ass.<br /><br /> “Wish me luck then,” Gerry said.<br /><br /> When Gerry opened the door, I got a momentary glimpse inside the classroom. Maria was sitting at a short table in a chair that was clearly meant for someone much younger than herself. If it weren't for the fact that our future was on the line, the scene would have been comical. Actually, it was comical anyway.<br /><br /> After a few moments, Pippa out her ear up to the wooden door.<br /><br /> “What are you doing?” Beth asked.<br /><br /> “I want to hear what's going on,” Pippa whispered.<br /><br /> “Don't you think we should give them some privacy?” Sharon asked.<br /><br /> “Yes, but I also want to hear.”<br /><br /> “Fair enough,” said Beth, and put her ear against the door too. Not wanting to be left out, Sharon and I crowded against the door so that we could hear as well.<br /><br /> “-st tell me what is wrong?” Gerry asked.<br /><br /> “Nothing's wrong, Gerry,” Maria answered, “I don't belong here.”<br /><br /> “But you are screwing this up for everybody, don't you understand that? Alisdair is going to tell you to leave.”<br /><br /> “Then that sounds like things will get better for everybody. They all hate me anyway.”<br /><br /> “No one hates you, “ Gerry replied, “They just don't like who you've become; how you've changed.”<br /><br /> “I haven't changed. My goal is the same as it ever was; survival.”<br /><br /> “You have changed. You've been a complete bitch since Christmas, and you've progressed from bitch to spoiled child since we got here. Alisdair just wants you to be part of the group, and that's all I'm asking of you too.”<br /><br /> “If you think I'm so horrible, then you'll be glad to see me go too.”<br /><br /> “I don't think you are horrible, Maria. I think you're sick.”<br /><br /> “Oh fuck you!”<br /><br /> “No, Maria, fuck you! This needs to stop before someone gets killed over it. Just tell Alisdair you will try, and then do it. This is a nice place, and it's more stable than Mallville ever was.“<br /><br /> “This place is a joke; as if God is protecting these people. They survive based on the same things that have kept us all alive this whole time. Luck and their our own skills. They did not get those skills from God!”<br /><br /> “Is that what it is? Are you mad because this is a church? Since when are you not a Christian? I've seen your place, I know you're a Christian.”<br /><br /> “I was a fool, that's all. I know better now.”<br /><br /> “So you're mad at God? You've been putting us all through this shit because you're mad at God?”<br /><br /> “There's no God, Gerry. No benevolent being would do this to his people. If there ever was a God he's dead and gone, or he just doesn't give a shit. Either way, I'm not wasting one more second on the bastard!”<br /><br /> “If that's all your problem is, I'm sure Alisd-”<br /><br /> “If that's all my problem is? You make it sound like I disagree with his choice of paint colors. I disagree with the idiotic fairy tale that Reverend Thomas is feeding all of you. I am not going to take part in this bullshit.”<br /><br /> “What if Alisdair was willing to leave you out of the religious stuff then? What if he let you eat alone so you wouldn't have to say grace? What if he excepted you from Sunday services?”<br /><br /> “So your solution is for me to make myself an outcast here anyway?”<br /><br /> “You have been making yourself an outcast; no one here has done anything but try to include you, and yet the only person you don't treat like crap on your shoes is me. Just make an effort. Stop sabotaging things, stop trying to pick fights with the Swords, stop trying to ruin things for everyone. If you can just act civil then things will be okay.”<br /><br /> “No, if the good reverend thinks the Christian thing to do is tell me to fuck off, then I will, no problem,” there was a crashing noise inside the room as Maria overturned something, or threw something onto the floor<br /><br /> “Then we're going with you. All of us.”<br /><br /> “What? Why?” Maria sounded genuinely puzzled.<br /><br /> “Because, believe it or not, we are your friends. Pippa, Sharon, everyone would rather put themselves at risk than think of you out there on your own.”<br /><br /> “Thats... that's ridiculous.”<br /><br /> “That's the way it is. The only way to keep us all safe is for you to stop being such an ass, or at least try.”<br /><br /> “No, if you all want to throw in with me, then do so. It's your decision, I'm not asking for your help, and I'm not taking responsibility for you. “ the meanness returned to her voice.<br /><br /> “Fine, Maria. If that is your final choice then that is what we'll do. I want you to keep something in mind though, whatever happens now is your fault; we are all your responsibility now. Anyone who gets hurt is on your head. We'll make for Lovelock, but when we get there, if we get there, you had better knock this shit off. If you fuck things up for yourself there, and they want to kick you out I will not fight for you again. This is it Maria, I love you like a sister, but this is it!”<br /><br /> “Gerry,” Maria started.<br /><br /> “No! Not another fucking word! Whatever happens next is on your head, you keep that in fucking mind the next time you act shitty towards any of us. You keep it in your head that we are all willing to risk death for you!” Gerry yelled, and he sounded on the edge of tears. There was another crash, presumably from Gerry knocking something over.<br /><br /> “Stop being so dramatic!”<br /><br /> “I am not being dramatic. I am going to hold you responsible for every cut, bruise, and scratch that anyone gets on the road, because it is all you!”<br /><br /> We all jumped back from the door as we heard Gerry's feet clomping across the classroom floor. He threw the door open to find all of us trying to look inconspicuous, which is of course the worst way to not look guilty.<br /><br /> Gerry scowled at each of us as he slammed the door behind him. He put his hands to his face to wipe at his eyes for a moment.<br /><br /> “Didn't go well then?” Asked Beth somewhat smugly.<br /><br /> “Fuck you, Beth, I know you were listening,” he replied crossly, “So are we all still in agreement to go with her?”<br /><br /> Sharon and Pippa both nodded, while I shrugged noncommittally. I don't really want to go with her, but I'm hardly going to let Sharon go without me. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to her because I wasn't there.<br /><br /> Beth shook her head slowly.<br /><br /> “What?” asked Pippa, “You're staying here?”<br /><br /> “No, I'm going with you,” Beth said sadly, “I just can't believe we're doing this. This is insane. We stayed at Mallville while being attacked by a gang and being threatened by Kaur, but we're going to leave what we have going here because Maria is acting like a petulant brat? It's insane.”<br /><br /> Gerry, still cross, turned on Beth, “No one is making you go!”<br /><br /> “I've stuck with you guys this long, I'm not leaving you now,” Beth smiled, “That doesn't mean I have to be happy about this though.”<br /><br /> Gerry stayed outside classroom three while the rest of us went back to Alisdair's office. Alisdair was less than surprised to find out that we had not been able to convince Maria to change her ways.<br /><br /> “So are you still all sure that you don't want to let her go on her own?” Alisdair asked solemnly.<br /><br /> We nodded our replies, even Beth.<br /><br /> “Okay. I'm not going to lie to you, I am truly disappointed to be losing you all, but standing by your friend is the right thing to do. I have told Peter to retrieve your weapons, have you gas cans refilled, and get you a couple of weeks worth of food and water. It should be more than enough to get you to Lovelock.”<br /><br /> “So I guess this means we're out of the Swords then?” Sharon asked.<br /><br /> “No, it just means that you will be spreading our mission to Lovelock. Maybe this is what God wants; maybe He just wanted me to train you, and send you on to fulfill your purpose elsewhere. Your swords are yours to keep, and you will always be considered members of The Sword of Gabriel.”<br /><br /> It was decided that we would leave in the morning; tomorrow morning. We spent the early evening loading up the cars. I think we are leaving with almost as much food and water as we came with, but then water in particular is not such a big deal here.<br /><br /> One thing I did not realize is how much we are carrying around in the way of firepower. We've got quite a bit of ammo, but I know that it will run out fast if we start using it on a regular basis. Besides, I kind of like my sword. I can't really figure out how to describe how I feel about it; the best way I can think to put it is that when I am holding my sword I feel like I have the entirety of The Sword of Gabriel standing behind me.<br /><br /> Yeah, I know that sounds dumb, but I really can't think of any better way to put it.<br /><br /> Alisdair told me that they would be letting Lovelock know that we are coming in their next radio communication, and that he expects to be told when we've arrived safely. I hope we'll be able to do that. I feel a bit of hesitation about hitting the road again after a month in relative comfort and safety.<br /><br /> So I mentioned before that Pippa has herself a little boyfriend (did I just write that? I am getting old). I discovered this when I was heading up to the bell tower to write this entry. It's clear out there tonight, and I wanted to get one last look at that view under the moonlight. Unfortunately someone had a similar idea.<br /><br /> When I got to top of the stairs, I found that the hatch was already open. I poked my head through and saw Pippa and a boy named Mark leaning against the waist high wall with their mouths glued together.<br /><br /> “Oooh!” I said mockingly, and maybe a bit cruelly, “Pippa's got a boyfriend.”<br /><br /> Pippa jerked back from Mark so hard that for a split second I thought that she would fall out of the bell tower.<br /><br /> Pippa yelled at me, “Get out of here, you pervert!”<br /><br /> I retreated down the stairs, singing the whole way, “Pippa and Mark, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”<br /><br /> “Jerk!” Pippa yelled after me.<br /><br /> I ended up in classroom five, surrounded by children's drawings of flowers, and Jesus, and angels. I wonder how many of the kids who drew these pictures are still alive?<br /><br /> I'm going to get to bed now, Sharon's probably wondering where I am. I'm sad to be leaving all of this behind, but it's not the first time I've lost my home, right? As long as I have Sharon though, I think I can face anything.<br /><br /> Tomorrow we venture once more into the unknown; into a world that looks both familiar and alien. I hope Maria appreciates this, but I doubt she does.<br /><br /> Goodnight.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-73407254637813376812009-11-10T04:52:00.000-08:002009-11-10T04:54:18.555-08:00Forty-Second Entry: The Blushing BrideApril 25th<br /><br />We're still here at the Church of Christ's Light, but I'm not sure for how much longer. Maria has been acting up a lot here. I guess she's not into the whole Christian thing, but doesn't she realize she is ruining this for all of us? Let me take things in order though.<br /><br />That first night here was rough. It's not that Alisdair, any of the Swords, or even any of the other survivors here did anything, it's just that there were some, lets say, personality issues.<br /><br />The first problem happened right before dinner; Maria picked a fight with one of the female Swords; a woman called, and I can only assume this is irony, Little Nell. I don't know what the issue even was, but they were yelling at each other, and then Maria took a swing at the woman. This was a bad move as the woman looked like an Amazon, and caught Maria's fist full in the palm of her hand, spun Maria around, slammed her against a wall, and then wrenched her arm up behind her back so hard I thought she was going to dislocate Maria's shoulder. I felt her pain, as it's almost the same thing Maria did to me when I attacked her.<br /><br />“Get off me, you bitch!” howled Maria.<br /><br />“You will watch your language in the house of the lord!” Little Nell growled back at her.<br /><br />A small group immediately formed around them as the Amazon continued to pull on Maria's limb.<br /><br />I pushed my way through the group, “Let her go!” I demanded, looking up into the slightly tan face of Maria's attacker.<br /><br />“You're with her, aren't you?” Nell asked.<br /><br />“Yes,“ I answered, “Just let her go; I'm sure whatever happened was just a misunderstanding.”<br /><br />“What's going on here?” I heard Alisdair shout from across the room, I turned and saw him, Peter, and Gerry running across the dining hall towards us.<br /><br />The Amazon let Maria go, and shoved her into me, “Just teaching someone a little respect, Alisdair.”<br /><br />“There will be no fighting in this church!” Alisdair responded.<br /><br />I grabbed Maria by her left shoulder and ushered he through the growing crowd, “What did you do?” I asked.<br /><br />“Get the fuck off of me!” Maria responded, and shoved me away with her good arm. Maria stormed away.<br /><br />Gerry came up to me, “What happened?”<br /><br />“I don't know. Maria attacked that woman for some reason.”<br /><br />Gerry shook his head, “I'll go talk to her.”<br /><br />I'm not sure what Gerry said to her, but Maria seemed to calm down for awhile. I guess I should have seen that as the omen of things to come.<br /><br />The second and, to me, worst thing happened later, after dinner. Alisdair offered to show me and Gerry to the men's quarters and have one of the women lead Pippa, Beth, Maria, and Sharon to the women's area. Sharon did not take well to this.<br /><br />“No!” Sharon yelled, and grabbed my arm, squeezing it painfully.<br /><br />“What's wrong, hon?” I asked.<br /><br />“I'm not leaving you!” she said, her eyes tearing up.<br /><br />“I'm afraid you'll have to for the night,” explained Alisdair gently, “I don't know what your sleeping arrangements were before, but I cannot allow an unwed couple to sleep together. You're not married are you?”<br /><br />“No,” Sharon answered, starting to breathe quickly, “But I can't leave him.”<br /><br />“You'll both be okay,” Alisdair tried to reassure her, “and you'll have your other friends with you. You will see each other in the morning.” He smiled what was undoubtedly his best comforting smile, the kind reserved for people dealing with tragedy.<br /><br />“Nooooo,” Sharon moaned.<br /><br />“It'll be okay,“ Pippa said cheerfully, tugging on Sharon's arm, “Come on, it'll be like a sleepover.”<br /><br />“I'll see you in the morning, hon. Everything will be fine.”<br /><br />“Don't leave me!” Sharon pleaded, and a weight came crashing down onto my heart.<br /><br />“I'm not leaving you, I'm just going to be in another room. We need to go by the reverend's rules,“ I tried to reassure her, knowing that all eyes in the room were on us.<br /><br />“Then lets leave!” Sharon insisted, “We can find shelter somewhere else for the night!”<br /><br />“Come on, Sharon,” Beth said, grabbing her arm and pulling her more forcefully.<br /><br />“Fucking crybaby,” Maria spat, earning her a stern look from Peter.<br /><br />“Watch your language, “ Peter cautioned her.<br /><br />“Yeah, whatever!”<br /><br />It tore me up inside to see Sharon like this. It was as if all of the progress she's made in the last few months was being undone in moments. She was regressing; a thought that was re-enforced the next morning.<br /><br />Beth and Pippa did eventually manage to get Sharon to go with them, but tears were streaming down her face as she went, and she kept her eyes locked on me until she was out of the room, and oh God did that hurt.<br /><br />I didn't sleep too well that night; I guess I've gotten used to having someone next to me all night again. Of course the fact I was sleeping on a cot in a room full of dudes may have had something to do with it too. Those cots rate somewhere between sleeping sitting up in the car and sleeping on the floor.<br /><br />It wasn't until I went down for breakfast that I found out just how bad a shape Sharon was really in. I found her, Pippa, and Beth sitting at the end of one of the long tables that probably used to play host to pancake breakfasts and bean suppers.<br /><br />Beth saw me enter, and rose from the bench seat and came over to me, “Thank goodness you're here,“ she said, “Sharon's bad.”<br /><br />“What's wrong?”<br /><br />Beth looked tired, “Sharon sat up all night crying. Pippa and I tried to comfort her, but it didn't work. She wanted to be with you.”<br /><br />That was like a dagger to the heart. I didn't realize that Sharon was still so fragile. It's been months since she's been like this, but one night alone and she reverts right back to it? This is really distressing.<br /><br />“Did Maria do anything to her?” I asked..<br /><br />“She called her a crybaby, “ Beth shrugged, “but then she went off to find another part of the room to sleep in. I don't think she made the situation any worse though.”<br /><br />Beth led me back to the table, and I sat down next to Sharon. “Honey, you okay?” I asked.<br /><br />Sharon turned to face me, her eyes glassy and distant, her face still wet with tears. Upon seeing me, it was like a switch was flipped; her eyes focused and she lunged at me, throwing her arms around me so hard that I nearly fell backwards off of the bench.<br /><br />“Don't leave me again!” Sharon said far louder than I would have liked. Once again people were staring at us.<br /><br />“Sharon, you're okay. I was just in another room.”<br /><br />“I was scared!” she said, crying again.<br /><br />I tried to remind her that Pippa and Beth were there, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Unfortunately amongst all of the survivors here, none of them are psychiatrists; I asked.<br /><br />Sharon eventually calmed down, and I told her I would talk to Reverend Thomas about any solutions to this problem that did not involve us leaving the church. I did talk to him later and he had one suggestion:<br /><br />“The only way I could let the two of you sleep together would be if you got married. If you were married you could sleep in the married couple's dorm,” Alisdair explained to me in his office.<br /><br />“Seriously?” I asked.<br /><br />“I'm afraid so. If the two of you want to get married, I will perform the ceremony for you. Obviously it will not have any legal standing, but I don't think that really matters anymore.”<br /><br />“You would marry us, just like that? Aren't you supposed to make sure that we're serious, and that we're going to tough it out and all that?”<br /><br />“Yes, but there's a couple of reasons why I don't see any problems here,” Alisdair explained, “First of all we don't live in that world anymore. The reality is that God could call any of us home at any time now, so realistically there's less of a chance that you would not stay together.”<br /><br />I nodded, “And the second reason?”<br /><br />“Your friend, Phillipa, came to talk to me first thing this morning; she had the same question you came here with, and she got the same answer. I asked her to tell me about the two of you, and what your relationship is.”<br /><br />“Well she has only been with us the last couple of months,” I explained.<br /><br />“I know, she told me, but she told me stories that she has been told by the rest of your group. She told me that you risked your life to save Sharon's when she was trapped in a hotel, and that you stuck by her even when things between the two of you were bad, and you were seeing other people.”<br /><br />“Pippa also told me that you took care of Sharon while she was in a vegetative state, and that you attacked your friend Maria because you did not like the way she was treating her. She told me that you covered for Sharon even when she tried to kill you while in the midst of a hallucination.”<br /><br />Pippa: I know you have been reading this. I'm not sure how you found this journal, but it is not for you to read. If you have questions, please talk to me. If I catch you in my satchel I will make you regret it. Love ya!<br /><br />“So based on all of that, I think the two of you have as much a chance of success as anyone,” Alisdair said, “I can see by the look on your face that you understand that this is not a decision to make lightly, which further tells me that I am right about you.”<br /><br />“I'm not looking to rush you, son. You take some time and think about it, ask Sharon what she thinks about it, and let me know when you make a decision. If you decide to go through with it, I'll do it. Just make sure that it is what you both want.”<br /><br />I thanked Alisdair for his time, and went off to think. Did I want to get married? I've certainly dreamed of marrying Sharon for years, and settling down and raising a little geek of our own, but is marrying her because she might go crazy if I don't a good reason to do it? Alisdair seems to support the idea, so maybe it's a message from God.<br /><br />Then there's that feeling that I am somehow betraying Tara's memory again. Not only did I hook up with Sharon two months after Tara's death, but then two months later I'm getting married to her? I will say that I have not had anymore of the Tara dreams, so maybe it is the right thing.<br /><br />I spent a lot of the day sitting up in the bell tower, which interestingly does not actually have a bell in it, but a series of loudspeakers. The view from up there was really nice, and the spring breeze was refreshing. I'd say it was quiet but the sounds of Marty's rhythmic hammering and his rock music kept floating up to me.<br /><br />“I'm waiting, waiting, for you to call my name. I'm waiting, fixated....”<br /><br />It is a good place to go think, so it was no surprise when Someone interrupted my solitude.<br /><br />“The Rev told me that I might find you here, “ came the voice of Peter Atrayus as his head poked through the hatch leading down to the stairs, “He said you'd either be here or in the library. Have you made a decision yet?”<br /><br />“Is this the topic of discussion today around here or something?” I asked.<br /><br />“Honestly, yes. Between your lady, Sharon, right? And that Maria woman your little group has made quite an impact around here in just one day.”<br /><br />“What did she do now?” I asked.<br /><br />“If you mean your girl, well she's been looking for you, but she seems okay; nothing like this morning anyway. As for Maria, she's tried to pick fights with Camilleon and Mighty Mur.”<br /><br />“Is she hurt badly?”<br /><br />“Nah, those two aren't going to rise to it. She is wisely staying away from Little Nell though. Nell is still struggling to find her inner serenity. That's not what I'm here for though. I'm here to see if you need someone to talk to.”<br /><br />“Not really. I just need to work this out for myself.”<br /><br />“Okay then. Just know a couple of things. The word has spread and a lot of people are hoping you go through with it. We celebrate life and God's love everyday, but a wedding would be a nice break from routine. Also, the young one, Pip?”<br /><br />“Pippa.”<br /><br />“Yeah, her, she says you guys have done your fair share of fighting against the unholy, so tomorrow we'd like to evaluate your skills a little. We can always use more fighters, even if you don't want to become full members of the Swords.”<br /><br />Peter started to head back down.<br /><br />“Peter!” I called to him.<br /><br />“Yeah?”<br /><br />“If you see Sharon, can you tell her I'm up here?”<br /><br />“Sure will,” Peter replied before his boot clad feet started clumping down the stairs.<br /><br />It only took a few minutes before Sharon's voice called my name from the stairs below, “Up here!” I called back.<br /><br />Sharon came up through the hole in the floor, and smiled when she saw me. Her eyes looked a little distant, and my heart twinged at that. It was just too close to the look her eyes had during her bad period.<br /><br />“What're you doing up here?” she asked.<br /><br />“Thinking.”<br /><br />She stood next to me, and looked out of the bell tower, “Wow, nice view.”<br /><br />“Sharon, can I ask you something?”<br /><br />“Okay, “ she said a little hesitantly, and then turned to face me.<br /><br />“I need to know what you want to do about our situation. I don't want to see you like this, and certainly not like you were this morning or last night, so we need to do something.”<br /><br />Sharon looked puzzled, and a little sad, “I'm sorry. I'll try and be better.” This was not the Sharon I have loved for so long, this was some sad little whipped puppy who seemed to think I was scolding her, as if I had any right to.<br /><br />“I'm not mad. I just don't want to see you in pain, so we need to decide what to do.”<br /><br />“I just don't want to lose you,” she replied.<br /><br />“I know. I need you to focus for a minute here, okay?”<br /><br />Sharon nodded in reply.<br /><br />“Our choices seem to be these. We can do what we did last night, and risk seeing you get... sick again, we can leave and try to find shelter elsewhere, or we can get married.”<br /><br />Sharon tilted her head as if unsure what I was saying. Her eyes were starting to tear up.<br /><br />“I think it's safe to say that neither of us want a repeat of last night, yes?”<br /><br />“I was just scared, I'm sorry.”<br /><br />“I know, and I don't want you to be, so we can rule that out, “ I said, trying to keep myself focused, “And I'm not going to ask the others to leave with us if we leave, so that leaves one option.”<br /><br />I dropped to one knee in front of Sharon, the girl I've loved for so long, the girl I lost because I let opportunity after opportunity pass un-taken, and took her hands in mine, “Sharon Sparks,” I said, “Will you marry me.”<br /><br />Sharon looked down at me, her eyes seemed to focus and unfocus like the lens of a camera, as if she was seeing me one moment and looking through me the next. She frowned for a moment, opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped. She opened it again and said, “Are... are you serious?”<br /><br />“Yes. I've lost you three times already, and I don't want to lose you a fourth. I think we've ended up here for a reason, I think this is the right thing to do, and Reverend Thomas already said he would do it if that is what we wanted. Then we could stay together in the married couple's dorm.<br /><br />Sharon looked down at me, her face switching back and forth between states of confusion and understanding, “So you want to marry me? Even though I'm....”<br /><br />“You're the woman I have loved for so many years, “I said, which I suppose was not the whole truth, but I knew that my Sharon was in there; I had seen her only twenty four hours before.<br /><br />“But I'm... I'm sick,” fear crept into her eyes as they unfocused.<br /><br />“You're still you.”<br /><br />“Okay, “ her eyes focused again, “but I'm keeping my name,” Sharon smiled at me, and pulled me to my feet. She put her arms around me and kissed me.<br /><br />We went down and told Alisdair of our decision, and to say he was overjoyed would not be an exaggeration. He must have already been setting things up in anticipation of our doing it, because within the hour he was ready.<br /><br />The wedding was a simple thƒing; not at all what I had imagined my wedding would be like (although to be fair, I had imagined my wedding involving cosplay). Almost all of the other survivors at the church were there.<br /><br />Gerry was cast in the role of my best man, and even had a ring for me to put on Sharon's finger (he explained that Alisdair had given it to him, and that apparently it was in the church's lost and found). On Sharon's side stood Beth with Pippa as the maid of honor; Maria had disappeared during all of this.<br /><br />An older lady with glasses played the wedding march on the piano in the band section as Sharon made the long walk down the auditorium sized chapel's center aisle. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans instead of a white dress (or, say, Yomiko Readman cosplay), but she had been given a veil to wear.<br /><br />Alisdair kept the ceremony short and traditional; no sermons or anything. When it was time, Gerry handed me the ring, and I slipped it onto Sharon's finger. The ring is a little big for her, but not so much so that it is likely to slide off or anything.<br /><br />Til-death-do-we-parts said, Alisdair declared us man and wife. As we kissed the audience of total strangers, many in black leather, cheered us. With that I said goodbye to being a bachelor, and hello to wedded bliss. Now we just need to find a little house with a white picket fence to settle down into.<br /><br />There was of course no time for a proper honeymoon, and I think all of the airlines have gone out of business anyway. We did get to move into the married couple's dorm though, which seems to have been a large storage room on the second floor. Curtains have been hung from the ceiling to divide the room up for privacy.<br /><br />We share this room with five other couples, all of whom seem nice enough. We're not sleeping on cots in there either, but on an air mattress on the floor. I think I preferred sleeping bags on the floor, but Sharon seems happy with it; she's not had any issues since then.<br /><br />As Peter promised me, the next day was spent with him, Alisdair, and some of the other Swords trying to decide what to do with us. We retrieved our weapons from the cars, and assembled in the church's gymnasium.<br /><br />Alisdair, Peter, and Marty looked over out melee weapons, and while they did not really criticize any of them directly, they did seem to get a chuckle out of the Uruk-hai swords. I'm not sure how a bunch of bikers with broadswords strapped to their backs have room to mock, but then maybe they just liked Lord of the Rings too.<br /><br />We demonstrated how we handle our chosen weapons, and they tried to give us pointers on how to use them more effectively. Peter showed me how I have a lot more control of my sword if I keep both hands on it instead of wielding it like a club. For Gerry they suggested maybe switching to a child's bat so that he could use it more like a club.<br /><br />After seeing how we fight against air, they seemed somewhat impressed, and gave each of us a wooden sword and a football helmet. The sword were marred scuffed up items that had seen a lot of use, as were the helmets. Football helmets seemed a bit of an odd choice, but I guess they did not want to scuff up their motorcycle helmets.<br /><br />“I don't think these will do much good against the zeds,” Maria commented.<br /><br />“They're not for fighting the undead,” explained Peter with forced patience, “They are for fighting each other. Pair off and duel.”<br /><br />“What?” asked Pippa.<br /><br />“We don't really do a lot of fighting against other living people,” said Gerry.<br /><br />“Not hand to hand anyway,” added Beth<br /><br />“If you can best a living opponent then you should never have a problem against the unholy.” explained Alidair.<br /><br />We paired off, me with my lovely wife, Maria with Pippa, and Beth with Gerry. We started sparring, slowly at first, but then swinging faster and striking harder as we got used to the new weapon in our hands.<br /><br />The sound of wood clacking against wood was the only noise breaking the silence out there. Aside from that it was incredibly peaceful out there just a couple of hundred yards away from the curch building, but this quiet was also largely due to the lack of Marty's distant hammering and music.<br /><br />Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Pippa struggling to hold her own against Maria. Pippa was fast, and able to block or dodge all of Maria's strikes, but she was definitely on the defensive. Not for the first time it occurred to me that Maria may have had some previous training in this sort of thing.<br /><br />I had been holding my own against Sharon just fine, but between being distracted by Pippa and Maria and the memories of having lightsaber duels in Tara's geek cave I was not fighting as well as I could. This resulted in my deflecting a blow towards myself instead of away.<br /><br />Sharon swung down at me, and I brought my practice sword up to block at a bad angle. Instead off her blading sliding off the end of the sword and away from me, it sled down the blade, skipped off the hilt, and hit me hard in the right side of my head. I think if not for the helmet I would have been injured, wood blade or not.<br /><br />Sparkling flashes filled my eyes, and I went down onto the soft grass.<br /><br />“Oh no!” cried Sharon, and dropped to her knees, “I'm sorry! Are you okay.”<br /><br />That was enough to distract Pippa; she let our a yell, and went down also. When my vision cleared enough I saw her laying on the ground, clutching her left leg where Maria had dealt an apparently vicious blow, and Maria was standing over her with the tip of her sword at Pippa's throat.<br /><br />“Okay, stop!” called Alisdair.<br /><br />Peter moved faster than someone as big as he should be able to, and with one big hand shoved Maria backwards and away from Pippa. “What's wrong with you?” he demanded.<br /><br />“You have to win to live, right?”<br /><br />“Peter, please tend to our other injured brother,” Alisdair said.<br /><br />Peter glared at Maria, and then came over to where I was now sitting up with Sharon trying to release the catch on my helmet.<br /><br />Alisdair walked over to Maria, and in a single smooth motion stooped down to grab Pippa's sword off of the grass and raised it before him, ”Miss Perez, you are a bully.”<br /><br />“I don't consider doing what keeps me alive bullying.”<br /><br />Sharon finally succeeded in getting my helmet off, and was feeling the side of my head. I guess she was looking for a lump to be forming or something.<br /><br />“This young lady was no threat to you. You clearly had her outclassed, and she is not your enemy in any case.”<br /><br />While Alisdair and Maria were facing off, Peter was asking me questions like how many fingers he was holding up, what my name was, what my wife's name was, where I was. The sort of stuff you always see people do in movies when they are trying to tell if someone has a concussion.<br /><br />“Furthermore,” continued Alisdair, “she is your friend, and your ally. I know that you are afraid of what has happened to the world we live in, but if you do not start treating those who care about better you may find that there are worse fates than death.”<br /><br />“Whatever,” Maria replied, her eyes narrowing at the reverend.<br /><br />“How about you try someone who may be a little bit more of your skill level?”<br /><br />Alisdair swung Pippa's sword suddenly, aiming for Maria's helmeted head.<br /><br />Maria's eyes widened as she brought her sword up to block Reverend Thomas' strike, and stumbled back a step. Alisdair pushed his assault, swinging at Maria again and again, and now she was the one on the defensive, losing a half step of ground with each blow she blocked.<br /><br />Maria's expression was a mix of fear and anger. She couldn't find an opening that would allow her to even take a single swing at the battling preacher. For his part, Alisdair was the epitome of a Jedi, Tara would have been so impressed. Alisdair, no helmet on his head, and no real expression on his face continued his assault on someone I once considered a friend like a machine.<br /><br />Maria tried to kick her attacker in the leg, but it was as if Alisdair had been waiting for this. He brought his blade down and under her striking limb, caught her from behind, and pulled the sword up. Maria was thrown off balance, and went down on her back. With a flourish, Alisdair gave the blade a swing through the air, and then brought the blade, stopping the tip just at Maria's chest where her helmet ended.<br /><br />“You don't fight with honor, do you?” Alisdair asked, pressing the tip of the practice sword into his fallen opponent's throat.<br /><br />“I fight to win.”<br /><br />“You fight yourself,” said Alisdair, and pulled the sword from Maria's neck.<br /><br />Maria sat up, and rubbed her throat, “I trust myself, and I'm still alive,” She climbed to her feet, and tossed aside her practice sword, “This is bullshit. Zeds don't fight with swords.”<br /><br />I started to say something about baseball bats, but Maria was already stalking off.<br /><br />“There's a lot of anger there,” said Alisdair, not pursuing, “You are good people to take care of her.”<br /><br />“She wasn't always like that, “ explained Gerry in Maria's defense.<br /><br />Peter was satisfied that I was not going to keel over, and practice continued, but without me or Pippa, who sat next to me on the grass rubbing the red welt on her leg (a welt that had bloomed into a dark purple bruise by the next morning). We watched our friends, old and new, continue to battle.<br /><br />Sharon paired off with Beth now, and watching them was like watching a dance. They seemed almost perfectly matched, but it wasn't just skill that made it almost entrancing to watch. It was beautiful, not in the horrifying way that seeing Sharon kill those two security officer with a shelf was, but in a sensual almost erotic way. Maybe I'm just weird though.<br /><br />Gerry on the other hand had paired up with Alisdair, who continued to duel without a helmet. He didn't need one. He was blocking Gerry's attacks like he was Neo or something. He never took a swing at Gerry, letting him stay on the offense, but Gerry never got a successful hit either.<br /><br />We did this for the next few days, all of us except for Maria that is. Maria made herself scarce, and I only saw her during meals. She still kept trying to pick fights with the female Swords, but by last night they all ignore her now. It's a wonder that one of them doesn't kill her; none of them may be as big as Little Nell, but any of them could probably hand Maria her ass. I hope she doesn't get it into her head to start pissing off the guys next.<br /><br />Up until yesterday we were just practicing with Peter. Marty was back to his blacksmithing and Alisdair was attending to whatever other number of things he must have to do to keep this place running as well as it does. Peter is a scary fighter, and I would not want to be up against him for real; hell I'm afraid of fighting him even in practice.<br /><br />We were settling into a nice training routine, tiring and painful, but nice all the same. I enjoyed spending time with the others without having to worry about food, or firewood, or zombies, even if that time is spent trying to take their heads off while they try to remove mine. This all changed yesterday.<br /><br />Practice was occurring as normal, Alisdair and Marty were there again to see our progress. Alisdair even took a turn against each of us, and though he defeated us all easily, he managed to do it without actually hurting us. How does someone become a sword-fighting motorcycle-riding preacher? What chain of events could possibly have led this man down that path?<br /><br />Alisdair was critiquing us when we heard a motorcycle engine thrumming in the distance. A minute after the noise died, a stick figure of a man with a weasely face dressed iu motorcycle leathers came running across the grass towards us.<br /><br />“Reverend Thomas!” the weasel man yelled as he ran, “Alisdair!” .<br /><br />“What is it James?” Alisdair asked.<br /><br />James came to a stop in front of the reverend, panting from his run, “Unholy, Reverend, maybe two dozen of them in town, coming up offa the highway!”<br /><br />“Then I think it is time, “said Alisdair, “What do you think Peter, Martin, are they ready?”<br /><br />“I think they're ready for the real thing, “said Peter, smiling.<br /><br />“They seem worthy to wield my steel,” said the wild haired blacksmith.<br /><br />“I suppose I should have asked this before, can any of you ride?” Alisdair asked.<br /><br />“I can ride a bicycle,“ volunteered Sharon.<br /><br />Alsidair nodded, “Well, at least we will save on fuel. Come with me.”<br /><br />Alisdair, Peter, and Marty led us back to the main church building, and over to Marty's blacksmithing set up, which looks like something that you might see at a county fair, which is probably where it was most frequently seen before.<br /><br />The tent covering most of the work area (except for the forge, which is exposed to allow the smoke to vent away from it) was flapping in the gentle breeze as our three trainers went around behind one of the big wooden work benches and emerged with five swords sheathed in rough brown leather belts like the ones that the Swords were wearing when we first saw them.<br /><br />“When I first met you all, God told me that you were good people. That you were people who know loyalty and the light of our lord,” said Alisdair, holding one of the sheathed swords out in front of him in his hands, “ That you would help us battle the unholy. With one possible exception, it seems that He is correct, and so I ask you now to join us in our quest to rid the world of the unholy and protect my flock. Will you join The Sword of Gabriel in this quest?”<br /><br />Finishing his question, Alisdair held out the sword in his hands to Gerry. Peter flanked him on one side, holding swords out to me and Sharon while Marty held a pair out to Beth and Pippa on his other.<br /><br />The five of us looked back and forth at each other. It was Gerry that finally broke the silence as he reached out to take the sword from Reverend Thomas, “I will join you.”<br /><br />“So will I,” answered Sharon, taking one of the swords from Peter.<br /><br />“And I,” I answered in a voice that almost certainly did not sound as cool as I wanted it to.<br /><br />“Me too, “ said Pippa, taking the sword eagerly from Marty.<br /><br />“Then I guess I will too, “said Beth, taking the last sword.<br /><br />“You are now members of The Sword of Gabriel; may the lord protect you, and may you always serve him well,” said Alisdair in the same voice that used to declare me and Sharon mand and wife..<br /><br />The swords were lighter than they looked like they should be, or we have just built up some arm strength from practicing over the last few days. These were short swords, not the Buster Sword by any means, only coming to about three feet in length from the tip of the blade the the bottom of the hand grip, and they had an amazing amount of shine for something made in such a simple setting. I guess traditionally swords have generally been made in simple settings though.<br /><br />I pulled my sword from its sheath, and held it over my head, “By the power of Grayskull! I have the power!” I said quietly, although that didn't stop everyone from looking at me since I had my sword held high. Sharon giggled.<br /><br /><br />After our induction into the Swords was over we were told to go out to the parking lot and wait by the bikes. Swords in hand we walked around the church to the parking lot where our Excursions still sat where we parked them, all of our supplies still inside them. Despite his request that we share our supplies, Reverend Thomas has yet to even ask us for an inventory of our gear.<br /><br />I'll admit that as we waited by the motorcycles, I was a little nervous. I have never ridden a motorcycle, and it's probably been almost a decade since I've even been on a bicycle. Were they expecting us to ride, or would we be allowed to take a car? Neither... sort of.<br /><br />A few minutes later a dozen of the other Swords came out; the majority of them looking the role of biker a lot more than any of us do. Peter and Little Nell were carrying black leather jackets and helmets in their massive arms.<br /><br />“Since you all still need to learn to ride, you will be riding with more experienced members,“ Alisdair announced.<br /><br />“But not without the proper gear,” Peter added, motioning with the armload of equipment.<br /><br />We were each given a leather jacket and a helmet to wear, I think my jacket may have belonged to Peter, because it was actually too big for me. We all looked a little silly in what can only be described as costumes when facing our far more authentic brothers and sisters.<br /><br />Strapping our sword belts (Baldrick? That sounds right to me) across our bodies didn't do much to make us look any more genuine, but I will say that the weight of the sword on my back did make me feel more confident.<br /><br />We rode on what is called, I believe, the “bitch seat” of the motorcycles. Not the most dignified form of travel, and with our drivers' swords between us and them, not the most comfortable either. Of course even with the physical discomfort aside, it was still awkward.<br /><br />Gerry rode with Little Nell, who made him look somewhat like a child on the back of her bike.<br /><br />I rode with a woman called Camilleon, who has more normal proportions than Nell, and whose prominent feature is easily her hair. The color is just a normal dishwater blond, but there's so much of it and it's so thick that it seems unable to lay flat without her helmet to push it down. I think you could dunk her head in water, and the hair would still be incapable of laying down completely.<br /><br />Mighty Mur was the name of the woman Sharon rode with, a small thin woman with glasses and shoulder length straight hair. Beth rode with Peter, and looked if not unhappy, at least displeased at doing so. Pippa rode with Alisdair himself, and of all of us, she looked the happiest. I don't know if she has a crush on him, or if she was really just that excited at the whole situation.<br /><br />I have to say, discomfort aside, the ride was exhilarating and short. I think if we're going to do that again I will ask if there are any sort of goggles or anything that I cat get, as I couldn't really see anything between the wind in my eyes, and Camilleon's wild hair blowing out from under the edge of her helmet and into my face.<br /><br />We ended up outside the towns only Apollo Coffee at the edge of the freeway. There were easily two dozen zeds, and they really did seem to be traveling together. I still wonder if this is a sign of some sort of intelligence, or if they all just follow the movement of the first one. I guess I would need to know what sort of intelligence those things really have.<br /><br />We stopped a short distance from the zombies, and got off the bikes. The zeds saw us, or at least heard the sounds of the motorcycle engines, and were starting to head in our direction. Instead of charging the undead, our more senior Swords started to form a circle; they motioned us forward, and we all joined hands.<br /><br />“Lord, today we go to battle for you,” Alisdair began, “I ask that you guide our blades to aid us in our quest to remove these abominations from your Earth. Please watch over us as we watch over each other, for we struggle in your name. Amen.”<br /><br />“Amen,” the others replied; myself, Sharon, Pippa, Gerry, and Beth were all about a half a beat behind them.<br /><br />The more experienced Sword members drew their blades from the sheaths on their backs, and started to stalk forward towards the approaching zeds, forming a solid wall of black leather and shining metal. We were half a step behind them again; they obviously have a routine for this stuff that we will have to learn if we are to keep doing it.<br /><br />In a flash I suddenly felt like I was in Lord of the Rings; with a defiant roar, the members of The Sword of Gabriel tore into the small zombie horde. The only thing missing was rousing orchestral music to drown out the sounds of swords hitting flesh and breaking bones. It sounded like someone was hitting a watermelon with a meat cleaver while someone else was snapping stalks of celery.<br /><br />I cannot do this scene justice, because I just really did not see all that much, and what I did see was a blur. I saw Peter behead a zed with a single, almost effortless looking, blow. I saw Sharon slash a zed across the eyes. I saw a balding zed impale itself on Pippa's blade, and keep coming at her until Little Nell grabbed it by the back of its dirty shirt, yank it back off of the sword, throw it to the ground, and stomp its throat.<br /><br />Maria was right about one thing, fighting the zeds is different that fighting each other. The training with the wooden swords was great for getting used to the feel (either our real swords are modeled after the wooden ones, or vise versa) of having the sword in hand, and how to handle it, but the way you use it against unarmed zeds is totally different. I'm not saying that the training was useless, just that it maybe doesn't totally apply.<br /><br />Of course what point would there be in just having us hack away at dummies or something?<br /><br />I got to take down two of the zeds myself. One, an older Asian man, went down after a sharp blow to the side of his head that took off the top half of his left ear. The other was a short, probably blond once upon a time, woman who I got in the throat. At a diagonal that cut halfway down to her chest. The attack must have severed her spinal column, because she dropped, sliding off of my blade as she went.<br /><br />I wonder if the fact that some of these things may have been undead as long as a year now added to the harsh winter weather that these things seem to have hibernated through has had some effect on their bodies. Maybe it's just the sharpness of these blades, but my sword seemed to smash through bone a lot easier than weapons did when I first joined the scavengers. Maybe these things are just rotting; maybe pretty soon the first generation of zeds, the ones risen just after the appearance of the Zed Virus, will fall apart on their own.<br /><br />Of course I thought the freezing weather would destroy them too, so what do I know?<br /><br />It's kind of hard to characterize our slaughtering those zeds as anything other than fun. That's right, I said fun. Looking back at how I felt after my first run ins with the zombies last year and how I feel facing off against them now, it's totally different. I feel little fear, and no real revulsion at what I am doing anymore. I feel I am doing what is right... maybe God really did send us here.<br /><br />The battle was over in all of five minutes, after which we dragged the zeds, and their parts, into a pile, and Peter doused them with a can of lighter fluid he had in the saddle bag of his bike. While Alisdair led us in prayer, Peter set the pile of corpses on fire, and stood watch over them as the smoke rose into the sky.<br /><br />Watching the bodies burn took longer than the actual battle did by a lot, but with Alisdair leading us, it felt like the right thing to do. I don't know if I believe that these things are soulless though, because it felt like we were freeing the people they used to be from the flesh cages of what they had become.<br /><br />We returned to the church after all, and Marty showed us how to care for our new swords; yes, they are ours to keep. He told us to keep our fingers off of the blades whenever possible, and to always clean and oil them as soon as we can after use, otherwise they will rust.<br /><br />I have to say that I feel happy right now. I've married the love of my life, and it seems we have found a new home. I still feel sadness in my heart for all we have lost, and all we have been through; I feel sad when my mind drifts to Tara. I cannot dwell on those things right now though, because I think we have found a new life, and it looks like it will be a good one.<br /><br />Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spend time with my wife.Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-21489349767072383952009-10-27T10:15:00.000-07:002009-10-27T17:05:01.860-07:00Forty-First Entry: The Sword of GabrielApril 19th<br /><br />Spring has come, and things are bad. It was about two weeks ago that the snow melt kicked into overdrive as the days started getting up into the sixties and seventies. When that started to happen, and given that we found active (once we found them anyway) zeds in that house last month we decided that we needed to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. To that end we loaded a lot of the things that we don't use everyday into the Excursions, and Maria pulled them each right up to the garage to make sure they would be road ready if we needed them.<br /><br />The car that Gerry used to pull that tree limb out of the dining room was our biggest concern, not only did it spend the rest of that night with water from the lake splashing up on the front of it, but it got hit by a boat, that's right a boat. The boat that had been floating in the middle of the lake all winter long apparently broke free from its anchor (or whatever was holding it in place), and was blown to shore where it crashed into the front of the Excursion. The damage to the car wasn't bad, although we did have to go into town for a new headlight since the boat broke the one of the passenger side.<br /><br />Luckily it was a small boat, just a basic motorboat that had probably once upon a time been used primarily for fishing. In the boat was the body of a woman; it looked like she had once been dark skinned, but the winter weather had not been kind to her. The most interesting thing about her was that she was dead. Somehow she got to the middle of the lake, anchored the boat, died, and not did come back as a zombie. It's either that or direct exposure to subfreezing temperatures really does destroy them, but anything less than that just makes them go dormant?<br /><br />Sometimes I really wish I had been a scientist instead of a retail clerk. This new world really makes me feel dumb sometimes. Of course the old world used to make me feel dumb sometimes too; maybe it's not the world that is the issue.<br /><br />Maria and Beth also spent one entire day going through our guns to make sure that they were all still usable. I was finally corrected that the Browning that I have been calling a rifle for the last year is actually a shotgun. I found this out by referring to it as a rifle when trying to strike up a conversation with Maria (I do try occasionally). Not only did she correct me for mis-identifying the weapon, but she informed me that I am an idiot for not knowing better. Clearly things are improving between us.<br /><br />It was last week when everything fell apart for us; it was mid-morning when I awoke to the sound of something hitting the window. I scrambled out of the sleeping bags that Sharon and I share and crossed the room to the window.<br /><br />I threw back the curtains to find a dark skinned man staring back at me. His right cheek was gone, revealing yellowed teeth in a grim grin. A lot of his skin looked discolored and leathery, like a piece of meat let too long in the freezer. His right hand was pressed against the glass, and had smeared the accumulated grime on the window with fresh grime.<br /><br />I jumped back in shock, and must have made a noise of some sort, as I woke Sharon up, “Whuzzit?” she asked.<br /><br />“Get up! There's one outside,” I said as I hurriedly tried to put my right shoe on.<br /><br />“Wuzowside?” she asked groggily.<br /><br />“A zed,“ I said, putting on my left shoe.<br /><br />That got her attention. Sharon sat bolt upright, and looked over to the window where the grim grinning ghoul pulled its right hand back, and them slapped the window again, making it rattle in its frame.<br /><br />“We need to tell the others, “Sharon said, going for her shoes.<br /><br />Out in the living room, I could hear glass shatter, and Pippa scream.<br /><br />“I think they know,“ I said grabbing my sword and hatchet from the chair next to the door where I usually kept them at night next to my satchel. I slipped the hatchet into its holster on my belt so I could wield the sword with both hands.<br /><br />I opened the door, and almost ran into Maria as she charged past with a shotgun in her hand.<br /><br />“No guns!” I heard Beth yelling from further down the hall, her voice coming through the door to the garage, “We don't need to attract more of them!”<br /><br />“It's a bit late for that!” Maria called back.<br /><br />I wanted to find out what exactly was going on, and when someone was planning to wake us up and let us know about it, but it didn't seem like the right time. I followed Maria to the living room, sword in my right hand, and found that one of the windows at the side of the house was broken, and a zed with a puffy maroon and yellow ski jacket and a black knit cap on his head was trying to crawl in. Pippa was fighting the creature with the rounded end of her crowbar.<br /><br />Judging from the living room, we were pretty well surrounded. I could see three more zeds coming up behind the one Pippa was fighting. Maria was using her shotgun to cover two more on the deck who were trying to pound their way through the sliding glass door. I could not see them, but I could hear at least one more pounding on the plywood covering the dining room window.<br /><br />A few feet to Pippa's right was another window where two more zeds, an Asian woman, and a man who may have been Native American (or he may just have had his flesh dried out like the one outside the bedroom) seemed transfixed by the oil lamp that had been left burning in front of them. A few feet to the right of that window, a person with the tattered remains of a full ski mask was pounding on that window.<br /><br />Pippa dealt her ski zombie a blow to the head with her crowbar, and must have finally caused enough damage to its brain, because it collapsed like a marionette with his strings cut. Unfortunately another two were right there to take its place. Pippa, feeling outmatched, backed away from that window over towards the window with the oil lamp.<br /><br />Gerry and Beth came shuffling into the room, each holding the end of a sheet of plywood, and headed for the broken window with it, “A little help!” cried Gerry.<br /><br />I saw what he meant, two zeds, both men in winter clothes, were trying to crawl through the window. They could not put the board in place with the two monsters sticking their arms through the hole. One of them was actually trying to pull itself up through the window.<br /><br />I raised my sword (there was clearance in the high ceilinged living room of the cabin), and went towards the broken window. I brought the sword down as hard as I could on zed the window sill's arms. I could feel the crunch of its arm bones break up the length of the sword. I did not cut off the monster's arms, but it did make him fall backwards away from the window, his arms hanging from strips of flesh that the sword did not quite cut through.<br /><br />I drew the sword back towards me, and then drove the flat end of the sword straight out and down into the face of the other zed at the window. The edge caught the thing right in the nose, and must have scored a critical hit because the thing stumbled backwards and fell to the ground.<br /><br />Gerry and Beth came up, barely giving me time to move, and slammed the plywood up against the broken hole.<br /><br />“The nails and hammers are still in the dining room!” Gerry yelled.<br /><br />I started in that direction, but saw a flash of Sharon's red hair as she disappeared through the door. She returned a few seconds later with a hammer and a box of nails. Gerry and Beth held the plywood up to the broken window while started nailing it in place.<br /><br />From the back of the house I heard glass break. One of the zeds had just broken into the study or one of the bedrooms. I started in that direction when the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere much closer.<br /><br />I turned in the direction of the noise to see Pippa backing away from the window she had moved to. The Native American looking zombie was reaching through the now open window for her, but instead grabbed the burning oil lamp. The lamp fell over and shattered, splashing oil over the top of the shot bookcase it had been sitting on, and into the face of the zombie. The oil caught fire before it could douse the burning wick, and the top of the bookshelf burst into flames, as did the zombie's face.<br /><br />The flaming zombie backed away, not seeming to be so much in pain, as just surprised to find most of its senses suddenly overridden by the fire. The Asian zombie did not seem to care, and still tried to reach in, its hands splashing in the flaming oil, setting both its arms and the window curtains on fire.<br /><br />“There's an extinguisher in the garage!” Gerry yelled to me, still holding his end of the plywood up while Sharon drove nails through it and into the window frame.<br /><br />I took off down the hall towards the garage. As I passed the master bedroom, I saw that the leather skinned ghoul had broken through the window, and was trying to pull itself up and into the cabin. I briefly debated whether or not to try and stop it from entering, but decided that it would not make a difference if the cabin burnt down.<br /><br />The door to the garage was sitting open, and I could see light shining from an electric lantern sitting by the pile of plywood boards. I looked around, for the fire extinguisher. No, I never bothered to look for it before, why would I? I mean, it was only a house full of candles, oil lamps, and a fireplace that was lit twenty-four hours a day.<br /><br />After about a half a minute I spotted the small red cylinder mounted on the wall over a dusty, but otherwise immaculate, workbench. I pulled it from its brackets, and headed back into the house.<br /><br />I passed Beth and Gerry as they were coming back down the hall for more wood to block up the windows with. As I passed the master bedroom I saw that the leather zombie was still stuck halfway in and halfway out of the window.<br /><br />Entering the living room I found that the fire had completely engulfed the bookshelf thanks to the Asian zombie's spreading the lamp oil around, and was spreading out onto the think carpeting which apparently had been made from something highly flammable.<br /><br />“There's one in the bedroom!” I called to Sharon, who, hammer in hand, took off down the hallway<br /><br />In what should have been a heroic movie, I leaned my sword up against the couch, strode up to the fire, raised the extinguisher in my right hand, pulled the pin with my left aimed, and squeezed the trigger. There was a little puff of white, and nothing else.<br /><br />I looked at the red canister in my hand stupidly for a moment. I raised the little gauge up to my face and saw the little yellow needle was not in the small green section which read “FULL”, but in the larger red section that read “EMPTY” and “VACIO”, which I assume means empty in Spanish. The big white section between the red and green sections read “DISCARD OR REPLACE extinguisher if pointer shows red”<br /><br />“Shit!” I cursed, and threw the extinguisher aside in anger.<br /><br />“What?” asked Maria, who was still watching the sliding glass door. Strangely, the zeds at it seemed to be edging their way along the window towards the side of the house, towards the fire.<br /><br />“It's empty, or needs to be recharged or something,” I yelled, “It doesn't fucking work!”<br /><br />There was a blanket on the couch, I grabbed it and started trying to beat out the flames with it. I may as well have tried to use a handkerchief for all the good it did. The fire continued it's march out onto the carpet, and up the wall to the high ceiling.<br /><br />“What do we do?” Pippa yelled.<br /><br />Gerry and Beth came back into the room, carrying another piece of plywood, but when they saw that I was trying to put out the growing fire with a blanket that was smoldering from its repeated dips into the flame, Gerry let go of the board.<br /><br />The plywood thumped against the carpet, and then again a half a second later as the side that Beth had been holding slipped out of her hands. She cursed as the rough edge of the board scraped across her fingers.<br /><br />We looked at each other, we looked at the spreading fire, we looked at the now half a dozen zeds reaching into the fire as the smell of burnt pork filled the cabin, and I think it was at that point we all came to the conclusion that we had just lost our sanctuary. The only thing left for us now was to salvage as much as we could before being overwhelmed by fire or the undead, or indeed flaming undead.<br /><br />Beth and Maria went out front to make sure the area around the Excursions were clear. They were still going to try and be stealthy, not wasting ammo, or attracting any more zeds than necessary by firing guns. While they did that, the rest of us started running around the house trying to grab anything we could and run it out to the cars.<br /><br />Gerry and I concentrated on the kitchen, being wary with each pass through the living room that the fire was spreading more and more. We threw as much of the canned food as we could into boxes, and lugged out the big bottles of drinking water.<br /><br />Pippa and Sharon worked on a lot of the rest of the house, grabbing our sleeping bags, clothes, weapons, tools; it was pretty haphazard what they took, but then we really did not have a lot of time to decide what should and shouldn't go.<br /><br />On one trip back in, the fire had now spread so far that tongues of flame were licking at the back of the couch, I passed Pippa carrying a box of records, “The record player!” she yelled at me.<br /><br />I looked, and the record player was still sitting on the table next to the couch. It couldn't possibly be more than a couple of minutes before the flames enveloped the couch and spread over to the record player.<br /><br />“What about it?” I asked, breathing heavily, the smoke burning my lungs and throat. My eyes were streaming water, and felt like they have been on fire themselves.<br /><br />“Save it!” she pleaded, adjusting the box in her arms.<br /><br />“Pippa, we need to save the food!” I said, realizing that I was wasting time arguing with her. As if to punctuate this, there was a loud crack and a crash as the section of wall above the burning hole that had been a window only a few minutes ago collapsed on the the flaming undead hoard forming below it.<br /><br />“Save it!” Pippa half begged, half demanded in the way that only teenage girls can really pull off effectively.<br /><br />Rather than argue about it any further, I detoured away from the doorway to the dining room, and went back to the table next to the couch. I could feel the heat from the fire, and was slightly amazed that the disc currently on the player didn't seem to be warping or melting at all. I could see that the back of the couch was catching now. We only had another couple of minutes before the fire would block our pathway to the kitchen.<br /><br />I slammed the lid of the record player shut, disc still on the turntable, and grabbed it by its handle. The player was heavier than it looked, not quite it's-called-“portable”-because-they-stuck-a-handle-on-it heavy, but heavy for its size.<br /><br />I ran down the hallway, out into the garage, and outside to where the Excursions were sitting with their doors open. The backs of both cars were completely full, and the back seat of the brown excursion was almost full, certainly too full for anyone to ride in.<br /><br />It seems that not all of the zeds were attracted to the fire. I looked over just in time to see Maria strike a female zombie in the face with the butt of her shotgun. In front of the excursions Sharon had apparently just slain a zed with her Uruk-Hai sword, and I saw Beth charging a fat bald zombie with a hatchet raised high above her head.<br /><br />“One more trip, “Maria yelled as I headed back inside, “We're going to be overwhelmed in a minute here!” she drove the butt of the shotgun into the forehead of the zed that she had knocked to the ground with her previous blow.<br /><br />I ran back to the living room where Pippa and Gerry were standing just past the edge of the hall. They were staring at the fire, which had now crossed the entire room, and had met up with the much smaller blaze in the fireplace.<br /><br />“That's it,” Gerry said.<br /><br />The fire must have absolutely have engulfed the roof outside, because, as if to punctuate Gerry's sentence, one of the beams holding up the roof collapsed in a splintery crash and a spray of sparks that made us retreat back into the hallway. A large chunk of the roof followed it.<br /><br />Though I did not hear it, something in the collapse had shattered the sliding glass doors, and four zeds who had been on the back deck were now shambling into the house, seemingly still more interested in the fire than in us. It's too bad that their friends out front did not have the same pyromaniacal interests.<br /><br />No words were exchanged, we all simply turned and headed back for the garage. As we passed the now smoke filled master bedroom, I noticed that my coat was sitting on the floor. It looked like Sharon had probably grabbed it, but dropped it on her way out. I grabbed it now.<br /><br />As I entered the garage, I heard a gunshot. Maria had held back as long as she was going to, and now started shooting the zeds closest to her. I don't blame her, there were a lot of them now. It was like a whole cemetery of them had been roaming the shore of the lake, and we just happened to be unfortunate enough to be in their path.<br />.<br />Black smoke trailed up into the air, and I could see tongues of flame licking skyward. Some of the trees on that side of the house looked like they may have caught fire, but I don't know if that is from the burning cabin or the flaming zombies which were, presumably, still wandering around over there.<br /><br />“Let's move!” ordered Maria before shotting a shirtless zombie in the face.<br /><br />Maria and Gerry got into the brown Excursion with Maria behind the wheel. The rest of us piled into the black car, Beth behind the wheel, Pippa in the front seat, and Sharon and I in back.<br /><br />We started slowly rolling down the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tires. We did not want to stay around to watch yet another home burn down. We also did not want to be overwhelmed by the seemingly increasing number of zeds in the woods, nor did we want to be trapped in what was probably going to become a forest fire.<br /><br />We were almost to the road when Pippa gasped, “Your bag!”<br /><br />“What?” I asked.<br /><br />“Your bag! The one with your book in it!”<br /><br />I looked at Sharon, “Didn't you grab my satchel?” I asked.<br /><br />Sharon's eyes were wide, looking like a combination of fear and shock, “No, “she said, “No, I didn't! Oh God, I'm sorry.”<br /><br />I was angry and sad. I was doing my best not to show it though. I knew that Sharon didn't do it on purpose, but the thought of losing my journal, and Tara's gifts was hard to accept. I would have though, my friends are more important than this book.<br /><br />“It's okay, “I said, looking down at the floor and trying not to sound as hurt as I felt.<br /><br />“I'll get it!” Pippa declared, and threw open her door.<br /><br />“What? No!” Yelled Beth.<br /><br />Without letting Beth stop, Pippa leaped down out of the vehicle, and started running back towards the burning cabin. She had her crowbar clutched in her right hand, and as she ran by a zed, she swung it upside the thing's skull, knocking it over.<br /><br />Beth hit the brakes, and the wheels ground against the gravel. I threw my door open, and climbed out, “Phillipa Webster, get back here! It's too dangerous!” I yelled.<br /><br />“I'll be right back!” She yelled back to me.<br /><br />“Fuck!” I yelled, not wanting her to get killed for my stupid journal.<br /><br />I reached back into the car, and grabbed one of the swords from behind the backseat, where they had been thrown, and took off after her.<br /><br />The zed that Pippa had crowbarred was on its hands and knees, trying to get back up. I swung my sword down at it, and caught it in the back of the neck. The force of the heavy blade tore threw the rotten flesh of the undead monster, and the head actually came off. My first one swing decapitation; achievement unlocked! I did not have time to be proud of my accomplishment though, I kept running for the house.<br /><br />Pippa disappeared into the garage; smoke was now pouring out from the door to the hallway As I approached the garage, which actually had a pretty good sized assortment of bodies lying off to the right of it where Beth and Maria had been slaughtering them while we salvaged what we could. There were more shambling up now, but none close enough to be worth taking a swing at until I knew that Pippa was safe.<br /><br />I bounded through the garage, and into the house. The smoke was thicker now, and it had a funny smell that I can best describe as toxic. I don't know what else had caught fire, but it was awful.<br /><br />“Pippa!” I tried to yell, but what came out was a strangled gargling thing that I'm sure didn't carry far over the noise of the fire.<br /><br />I couldn't see more than a couple of feet in front of me, although I could see a faint glow at the end of the hallway. That glow was the fire, and it was getting brighter, getting closer.<br /><br />I moved as fast as I dared towards the living room, and towards the door to the master bedroom. The heat was horrible. I heard something popping; I don't know if we left some ammo in the living room, or maybe there were some of the stove's butane canisters left in the kitchen that were exploding. Whatever it is, I know that I did not want to get any closer to it than I had to.<br /><br />I faintly heard coughing, and saw a slender silhouette stagger out into the smoke. I raised my sword, thinking at first that it might be a zed, but then realized that it had something large hanging from it, and that it was the source off the coughing. It was Pippa.<br /><br />Pippa crossed the hallway, rebounded off of the opposite wall, and then collapsed to the floor. I rushed towards her, into the heat. The fire was now at the end of the hall, the entire living room was cut off from us here. Something crashed loud in the flames, probably more of the house coming down.<br /><br />I knelt down next to her, “Pippa, you okay?” I asked, and then coughed.<br /><br />Pippa coughed a reply, “I got it,” she was succumbing to the smoke; I had to get us out of here, “It's heavy, how do you carry that?”<br /><br />I took my bag's shoulder strap, and pulled it from around Pippa's neck, and then slung it over my own, “Come on, young lady, “I said in my best dad voice, which can't have been too great since I was choking in the smoke, “Let's get you out of here. You are in for such a spanking,”<br /><br />“Pervert,” she said weakly.<br /><br />I put my left arm around Pippa, and pulled her up, using my sword as a cane for leverage. Pippa is not a heavy girl, but between her, my satchel, and the smoke making my lungs feel like they were full of burning steel wool I was having trouble.<br /><br />Moving back down the hallway to the garage and fresher air was a slow process. Pippa was barely helping at all, and it was a half walk half drag sort of affair. I could feel the heat at my back as we went, it felt like the fire was keeping pace with me even though I know that probably is not true. I didn't look back to verify it one way or the other.<br /><br />Out into the garage, and even though it was smoky too, it still felt like fresh alpine air to me compared to the toxic gas that made up the air inside the house. I did not have time to enjoy the air though, as I saw two figures at the garage door. An adult and what appeared to be a child.<br /><br />Crap, a kid zed. I've only come across a couple of these, but I don't like them. Not only are they children, but they seem to be faster that the adults. The kid charged us, and with Pippa in my left arm, and my satchel under my right I was not going to be able to swing the sword effectively, which is to say that my swing would be even more awkward than normal.<br /><br />I kicked out at the approaching zombie child, it was a girl with filthy blond hair, and hit her in the face. I must kick harder than I realize, as the little sprat went tumbling backwards onto the ass of her dirty brown corduroys. Not even stunned she was back on her feet before I had gone three steps.<br /><br />I heard four pops, two followed by a half second pause, and then two more. The little zed girl's charge towards me turned into a face plant on the concrete of the garage. I looked at a the doorway of the garage and saw a new silhouette, a short slender one that had to be Beth O'Hara. There was a heaped silhouette on the ground that was the other zombie that had been coming my way.<br /><br />“Hurry up!” Beth called to me, and turned and fired the rest of her clip into the zeds coming at her from in front of the house. I saw her shadow eject the spent clip, and stuff it in her pants pocket before pulling a fresh one out of her waistband.<br /><br />I pushed forward, out of the garage and onto the gravel driveway. Beth put her right arm around Pippa to help me hold her up, and together we rushed her to the waiting Excursions where Sharon and Gerry were standing. Sharon had her sword, and Gerry the baseball bat that he has taken a liking to (“I like the feel of it, you know?” he told me). There was one dead ghoul by the side of the driveway, but most of them still seemed to be more interested in the burning house than in us.<br /><br />I loaded Pippa int the backseat of the SUV, and then got in myself, trapping her between myself, and Sharon once she climbed back in. Gerry jogged back to the other Excursion, and got in while Beth slid back behind the wheel of ours.<br /><br />“Are you two okay?” Beth asked as we started to roll forward again<br /><br />I looked at my satchel sitting heavily on my lap, and then over at Pippa; her face was stained with soot. She had her eyes half open, and smiled at me. She took a deep but raspy breath, “Yeah, I'm fine.”<br /><br />“That was a stupid thing to do!” I told her harshly, and then started coughing.<br /><br />“I didn't want you to lose your book,“ Pippa replied, still smiling, “It seems important to you.”<br /><br />She's right of course. I don't know what I would have done if I lost everything I've written here. I mean, I guess I would start another one, but to lose all of this and our home in the same day would have been really hard. To lose Pippa would have been a lot harder though.<br /><br />We all kept an eye on Pippa for the next day. If the smoke had any lasting effects on her they are not apparent, and I don't know what we would do about them anyway. We haven't the equipment or know-how to deal with some sort of respiratory issue.<br /><br />It was decided that we would get back on the interstate and keep heading generally north. We no longer had a goal, we didn't know where we are going, All we really know is that it is has been really lonely out here until now.<br /><br />We have spent the last week on the road, spending the nights in roadside motels, a gas station garage, and one night in a rest area (where the vending machines were infested with bugs). We're all trying to stay in good spirits (except for Maria, who is being worse than ever), and Sharon and Pippa have formed a real connection; they're like sisters now.<br /><br />That first night we could see a cloud of smoke rising into the sky. I think we have turned Daisy Lake into the black smudge that we were afraid that we would find.<br /><br />It has been really slow going through the mountains. Most of the snow is gone, even up there, but there's less room to maneuver around obstacles, and we have had a couple of close calls trying to get around some small rock slides and places where the road has washed out.<br /><br />For the first couple of days there was a river running alongside the highway, so water was not an issue. We were getting that fresh mountain spring water that used to be three dollars a bottle for free. Of course we are still boiling it just in case.<br /><br />It was today that we came across the first signs of there being other survivors out here since Pippa came into our lives. We are in Oregon now, a week of driving to go as far as would have taken us a day of really hard driving before the end of the world.<br /><br />We were driving along Five, just following the interstate like we have been; we had the windows rolled down because it was a nice day, and the air up here doesn't stink as much of the dead as it did back in Covenant. Pippa was sitting in the front seat, and letting her hand lazily play in the air currents when she suddenly perked up.<br /><br />“Do you hear that?” Pippa asked.<br /><br />“What?” asked Beth.<br /><br />“I think I hear engines or something,” Pippa looked out the car window and pointed, “Look! Smoke!”<br /><br />I could see the smoke she was pointed at; off in the distance, maybe a mile off the road there was a thin trail of smoke rising off of something. Engines and smoke would certainly seem to indicate life alright, after all it was a plume of smoke that had led Pippa to us.<br /><br />“What do you think?” I asked Beth and Sharon.<br /><br />“I think we should check it out. There may be more survivors,” said Sharon, smiling.<br /><br />“They may not be friendly though,” Beth cautioned.<br /><br />Beth flashed the headlights of the Black Excursion to get the attention of Gerry and Maria who were driving the brown one in front of us, and then she pulled off to the side of the road.<br /><br />Maria was against investigating, in fact she almost seemed afraid of it. I don't suppose I can blame her, I felt apprehensive about it too; the memories of dealing with the Hell's Postmen may be coming up on a year old, but they are still fresh to me.<br /><br />In the end, we decided to investigate. We were going to run out of fuel eventually, so we were going to have to settle down sometime. Of course it almost seemed like Maria and Beth were right, and that it was a bad idea.<br /><br />The town we were in was little more than a wide spot in the road by odd the name of Palma; this was really the kind of place that you would miss if you happened to blink while driving by it. It looks like the kind off place urban dwellers think they want to escape to, and local teenagers want to escape from.<br /><br />One of the things that first struck me about the town, and I realized that this had applied to the highway going by it, was that it was clear of debris. I don;t just mean that the roads were clear of abandoned or wrecked cars, but that it was clean. There was not even any of the usual wrappers and bits of newspaper in the gutter that defined some parts of Covenant.<br /><br />As we headed towards the trail of smoke a chorus of motors sounded. From behind a laundromat at the corner ahead of us a column of ten motorcycles pulled out, and headed right towards us.<br /><br />“Oh shit,” Beth cursed quietly.<br /><br />Gerry slowed his Excursion in front of us, and Beth followed his lead to prevent rear-ending him. The bikes separated into two columns, and sped towards us, passing us five on each side. As they flew past I could see that they had flaming swords painted on the sides of their shiny black helmets, and they also all had swords on their backs.<br /><br />I only had a momentary glance at them as the bikers flew past, but these swords did not look like the crude cleaver-like affairs that I had picked up at that comic shop, but more like proper broadswords; similar in style to the ones painted on their helmets.<br /><br />“They have guns on their bikes!” Pippa yelped, “like shotguns.” They did too, each biker had a lever-action rifle in a makeshift holster on the right side of their cycles where they could grab it easily.<br /><br />The sound of the motorcycle engines quieted down a bit as the bikes continued past us, and then surged again as they turned around and came back. Once again five bikes came up each side of us, but the front of each column pulled in front of Gerry, and they slowed to match our speed.<br /><br />“Stop the car!” ordered the biker rolling along even with Beth's window.<br /><br />“What do we do?” asked Pippa, her eyes wide with fear.<br /><br />“We do what they say,” Beth said, her face stony, as she slowed the car.<br /><br />One of the bikers must have said the same thing to Gerry, because we could see the taillights of the brown Excursion in front of us flare as he slowed it to a stop. When we had stopped, the same biker who had told Beth to stop told her to turn off the engine, and throw the keys out the window. Since the bikers were now all holding their rifles Beth again complied.<br /><br />The bikers had surrounded us all but from behind; forming a near circle about eight feet away from us, far enough to stay out of our reach, but still close enough to not miss with their guns.<br /><br />“I'm scared, “ whispered Pippa.<br /><br />“It's going to be okay, hon, “Sharon tried to sound reassuring, but sounded terrified herself, “If they wanted to kill us they could have just attacked us.”<br /><br />“Unless they want our supplies undamaged, “said Beth quietly.<br /><br />“Step out of the car slowly!” The biker even with Beth's window ordered, “Keep your hands in plain sight!”<br /><br />Again we complied, except for Maria, who jumped out of the passenger side of the brown excursion with a Glock in her hand.<br /><br />“Drop the gun!” yelled a couple of the bikers, as the four nearest Maria trained their rifles on her.<br /><br />“Fuck you/!” Maria replied loudly, “I have not come all this way to be executed by a bunch of fucking punk gangbangers! I didn't let the fucking Postmen do it, and I'll be Goddamned if I'm going to let whoever the hell you are do it!”<br /><br />“Maria!” Pippa screamed. That one word was all the pleading she needed to do to get her point across. Maria looked back at her, glared at her, and then a look of resignation spread over her face.<br /><br />Maria took her finger off of the trigger, pointed the barrel skyward, and very slowly placed the handgun on the ground, and kicked it towards one of the bikers with her boot clad foot.<br /><br />“Thank you, “said one of the biker's towards the front, a large man of African descent with a deep booming voice, “Please come to the front of the vehicles. If no one does anything stupid then no one has to get hurt.”<br /><br />We complied. Sharon grabbed my left hand as we assembled in front of the brown Excursion, and Pippa grabbed my right. They both squeezed my hands hard enough to hurt, and Pippa was trembling like she had been dumped in the antarctic with only a windbreaker on.<br /><br />Fury burned on Maria's face as she stared down the bikers. Beth did her best to show no emotion at all, remaining stony faced with her jaw clenched. Gerry was more like the rest of us; maybe not actually scared, but he definitely looked uncertain as to how events would unfold.<br /><br />After the noise of the motorcycles it seemed eerie for it to be so quiet now, but then I realized that it wasn't exactly silent. In the distance I could barely hear a couple of noises. One was a rhythmic pinging, like two pieces of metal being struck together repeatedly. The other noise sounded like it may have been music. I looked and realized the smoke trail must only be a few blocks away from where we were and realized that the source of the smoke must also be the source of the noise.<br /><br />The large black biker reached into his leather jacket, and pulled out a small radio, “They are secured, it's safe to approach,” he said into the front of the device.<br /><br />I could hear a motorcycle rumble to life not too far away. The noise grew louder as it grew closer, coming up from behind us. A shining silver and black motorcycle roared up along the driver's side of the two cars, and pulled to a stop a short distance in front of us.<br /><br />The driver dismounted. He was clad in all black leather, and had a different helmet than the standard brain buckets all of his friends were wearing. His helmet covered his whole head, and had a piece that ran up over his nose and between his eyes, making his helmet look like a motorcycle helmet crossed with something a knight might wear. On the sides of the helmet were painted the same flaming swords as the other bikers.<br /><br />The leader of the bikers approached us, and two of the other bikers parted to allow him to pass. He stood before out group, looking each of us up and down, he walked from Gerry and one end down to Pippa at the other, and then back to center, not speaking the whole time.<br /><br />Finally, after a few more moments contemplation, he approached me. I stared into the dark eye sockets of his helmet as he finally spoke to me, “Tell me son, have you accepted Jesus into your heart?” His voice was smooth and gentle; it totally jarred with his appearance.<br /><br />I was stunned. Of all the questions I would expect to be asked by the leader of a motorcycle gang, that was probably somewhere down around “What's your favorite cereal?”.<br /><br />“This should not be a difficult question, son, “ the helmeted man asked again, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”<br /><br />I looked from the dark pits of his helmet's eyes holes to the handle of the sword sticking up over her left shoulder, and back.<br /><br />“Yes...?” I finally answered, more of a question than a statement.<br /><br />The helmeted man stared at me, or at least I assume he was staring at me, I couldn't actually see his eyes, for a moment. After a seemingly infinite silence, he slowly reached up and removed his helmet, revealing a youngish man (maybe mid-thirties) with short neat blond hair that was only slightly matted by his helmet. A short beard covered his cheeks and chin.<br /><br />The blond man smiled at us, “Good. Welcome to Palma. I am Reverend Alisdair Thomas of The Church of Christ's Light.”<br /><br />“Wait a second, “ Gerry said, still sounding a bit nervous, “You're a preacher? What about all this?” Gerry motioned with his hands to the other bikers and their bikes.<br /><br />“Christ accepts all who accept him. You should not judge people based solely on their appearance.”<br /><br />“No offense, Reverend, “Sharon began, “But the last people we met up with who looked like you tried to kill us a few times.”<br /><br />“You have no fear of that here. You are welcome to join us for as long as you like, all we ask is that you abide by our rules, share what supplies you may have, and do your fair share of work.”<br /><br />“And if we refuse?” asked Maria, still looking angry and distrustful.<br /><br />“Then you may leave with our blessings and prayers,” said Reverend Thomas, “Please, talk it over amongst yourselves, there is no rush.”<br /><br />With a wave of his hands, the bikers that had surrounded our cars left their bikes to join their leader. They looked to be praying.<br /><br />As a group, we moved in between the two Excursions to talk. Our discussion was short and heated. Maria was totally against staying, Beth and Gerry both felt uncertain, but were willing to try it. Pippa was all for checking them out, as was Sharon, but not with as much exuberance.<br /><br />For the record, I've never been much of a religious person. I obviously believe in God, I pray occasionally, and frequently my prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. Reverend Thomas seemed like a nice person, but how nice could he be if he runs a biker gang? Still, I didn't want to be on the same side as Maria, so I agreed with everyone else that we should at least check it out.<br /><br />Reverend Thomas, Alisdair as he insisted we call him, was pleased when we told him of our decision, “I am glad. God has sent you to me for a reason, and I hope that I can live up to it.”<br /><br />Alisdair and his followers remounted their bikes while we got back into our cars. They led us through the small, and pretty immaculate town (still no litter, no abandoned cars, not even any broken windows) to their church and sanctuary.<br /><br />The Church of Christ's Light was one of those mega churches before the end of everything. It seemed a bit odd to me that a little town like Palma should need a church that could seat over a thousand people. Aside from the size of the building itself there was the property it was on; the church sits at the center of a huge piece of land, a good portion of it has been paved over for parking, but a lot of it was probably still kept green and covered with grass.<br /><br />I don't think I'm describing the building well, it's more like the size of an elementary school than a church. The only way you can really tell it is a church, aside from the signage, is the large bell tower that towers a good extra three stories above the two story structure. There is a large metal tower, likely a radio antenna, running up the side of the bell tower. I guessed that the view from up there is stunning.<br /><br />The grassy areas around the church, no doubt freshly uncovered from their blanket of snow by the same spring warmth that cost us our winter home, is being plowed up and crops are being planted to feed to survivors. It's basically what was going to happen with Mallville's Center Park. As we drove up I could see people out in what were becoming fields muscling a plow through the earth.<br /><br />Around the edge of the church property is a tall black iron fence, it is about ten feet tall, and makes the place look a little creepier than it really needs to. Still, I'm sure that fence has come in handy for them. The gate was being watched over by a man in blue jeans and a denim shirt, and a woman in black leather pants and a white t-shirt. Next to the gate sat a motorcycle with a leather jacket draped over the seat and a flaming sword adorned helmet hanging from the handlebars. As we approached, they rolled back the gate and allowed us in; they both waved at us as we went past.<br /><br />The big sign proclaiming this to be:<br /><br />The Church of Christ's Light<br />All God's Children Are Welcome<br />Sunday Services at 8am and 10am<br />Alisdair Thomas, Reverend<br /><br />next to the gate is one of those kind that have a changeable message board on it. It is the kind of message board that you pop the letters into and out of; I am kind of surprised that it wasn't the digital kind that could display moving images. The message on the board is:<br /><br />WE ARE NOT FORSAKEN<br />THIS TOO SHALL PASS<br />TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME<br /><br />We were led to the church parking lot. The lot looks big enough to hold maybe three hundred cars, but is nowhere near full. Aside from out cars, there are a couple dozen motorcycles, three RVs, a bright white school bus with “Church of Christ's Light” painted under an image of what I think is supposed to be Jesus on a motorcycle.<br /><br />There are towers erected all around the church property, with guy wires running down from the tops of them. Each one had a bladed spinning cylinder on them. There are probably ten of them in total, but I haven't walked all the way around the church to make a total count of them yet.<br /><br />I must have looked awestruck as I looked at the immense church building, because the large black man who had summoned Alisdair to us approached me, “Impressive isn't it?” he asked.<br /><br />“Huh?” I asked, “Um, yeah.”<br /><br />“People tried to stop this place from being built, said Palma did'nt need something so large, and that it was not a good use of the land. They even accused Alisdair of being a fraud because he rode a motorcycle; said that this was going to be a biker club, but God answered the Rev's prayers and it was built after all.” He said, pulling off his helmet and tucking it under his arm. His head was stubbly, like it hadn't been shaved in a few days. I'm not judging mind you, I've not done more than trim my beard with scissors in months.<br /><br />“Did a lot of people come here when...” I trailed off. I'm never sure how to mention the end of the world in conversation.<br /><br />“Some did, “said the biker, “but not as many as Al had hoped. Many people packed up and left, some killed themselves. Still, for awhile there there were about a hundred of us, now it's more like seventy.”<br /><br />“What happened to the rest?” I asked.<br /><br />“Some left, some fell in battle with the unholy.”<br /><br />“The unholy?”<br /><br />“It's what the Rev calls the zombies; says they're soulless abominations, affronts to God, and it is up to us to cleanse them from the Earth. We've been seeing more of them since spring came. I think a lot of survivors didn't make it through the winter,“ the big man said sadly.<br /><br />It was then that Sharon came over and put her arm around my shoulders, “Are you making friends?” she asked.<br /><br />“I'm sorry, I'm being rude, “ said the biker, “My name is Peter Atreyus, and you are?”<br /><br />I introduced myself and Sharon to Peter, and then pointed out who each of the others were. He asked us where we were from, and how we ended up here. We told him briefly about Mallville, and how Pippa had joined us.<br /><br />Peter seems very nice, and he answered a number of questions for us. The name of their motorcycle group is The Sword of Gabriel (hence the flaming swords on their helmets), and that they were founded by Alisdair as a fellowship group, but have now changed their focus to destroying the “unholy” (not a bad name really), and protecting his flock (the other survivors here). The towers with the spinning cylinders on them are VAWTs, Vertical Axis Wind Turbines, they provide enough power to the church to keep some lights going, to cook by, and to run the stereo I could hear playing music somewhere on the other side of the building. He also explained that the pinging noise I kept hearing in the distance was Marty Wagner, their blacksmith.<br /><br />While Sharon and I were talking to Peter, Alisdair came over and offered to give us a quick tour of the place, saying that he would have someone give us a more thorough one after dinner. Those VAWTs must work pretty well (despite what Alisdair says), this place is a lot like Mallville was; it has lights and running water (even hot water), and that helps to create a sense of normalcy that all of the fireplace cooked foods and oldies music on the record player just could not do.<br /><br />“How did you build those windmills?” I asked Alisdair as he showed us his office, and told us this is where he could usually be found when he was not out with the other Sword members.<br /><br />“The church already had solar panels, it seems wasteful to let the sun's energy that God gives to us go to waste, but that wasn't enough to power everything all of the time, “Alisdair explained as we looked out the large window behind his desk. Through that window we could see the mountains, some woods, and a beautiful blue sky tinged with the oncoming sunset.<br /><br />“So you made the windmills?” Sharon asked.<br /><br />“We were told about them,” Alisdair explained, almost hesitantly, “There's another group of survivors up North, in a town called Lovelock.<br /><br />Lovelock? Now why does that sound familiar to me? I've heard that name before.<br /><br />“We talk to them by radio, they're a lot bigger than we are, and they talked us through how to build them. I am thankful that God provided us with their assistance, we might not have made it through the winter so easily without them.”<br /><br />“If they are doing so well, why not just join up with them?” Maria asked.<br /><br />“This is where God wants me to be,” Maria made a disbelieving half-cough when Alisdair said this, but he ignored it, ”This is where God sends lost sheep who need me. Sadly, some of them leave for Lovelock rather than stay here, but we pray for the safety of all who come through here, whether they stay or not.”<br /><br />“Do you know if they make it or not?” asked Gerry.<br /><br />“We do contact Lovelock by radio a few times a week, and yes, many of them do make it safely, although it is a weight on my heart that some do not. If, in your own time, you decide to leave, we will pray for you as well.”<br /><br />The tour did not go on much longer than that. He showed us the back side of the church where we did see Marty Wagner, a caricature of a blacksmith if there ever was one with his leather apron and moustache, pounding away on a sword. The rock music I had been hearing was coming from a boombox near him, the one piece of electronic equipment in his little tented area, it's cord snaking back to a power outlet on the outside wall of the church.<br /><br />I'm not familiar with the band he was listening to, but I liked it. The chorus went something like “You decide, who will you run to? Wrong or right, there is no reason for you to hide. Only love can change your life.” It's not death-metal or anything, but it was pretty hard rock to hear at a church. I found it strangely uplifting.<br /><br />Everyone here seems very nice, no one has even tried to go through our cars yet, which tells me one of two things. One, they're not wanting for supplies. Two, they don't want us to get suspicious until it's too late.<br /><br />Yes, I know, I shouldn't be so distrusting, but this is my family here. Sharon, Pippa, Beth, Gerry, and even Maria are like my brother and sisters (Well, Sharon's not like my sister anymore, that would be a bit squicky). They are all that I have, and even though we may not get along all the time, I still love them all, and would risk my life for any of them.<br /><br />I'm going to stop for now, and go wash up with some soap and hot water before dinner. Maybe God has delivered us somewhere we can settle again now. Somewhere we can try and be happy. Wouldn't that be nice?Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687525562351245362.post-16139805321475955462009-10-27T04:03:00.000-07:002009-10-27T04:19:04.593-07:00Forty-First Entry: The Sw[ CONTENT OVERRIDE: KILROY2.0 IS HERE!!! ]<p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >>>> [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] <<<</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >> source terminal location: UNKNOWN</span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE</span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >> source login information: ENCRYPTED</span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >> message begins</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" > the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH. do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot. you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE'S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >human cloning isn't NEAR. it's already HERE. discover the truth at <b><a href="http://jchutchins.net/" target="_blank">http://JCHutchins.net</a></b></span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >kilroy2. was here ... kilroy2.0 is everywhere</span><br /></p> <span style=";font-family:Helvetica;font-size:100%;" >>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<<</span>Void Munashiihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15453598463695900812noreply@blogger.com0