Day 247 – Turning the Page and Closing the Chapter

It seems like an eternity ago. One of our sortie runs involved looting the liquor store that we share a parking lot with. It was a relatively safe run. We knew the alcohol would be useful for us personally and, if worse came to worse, we knew it would be valuable for trading if we encountered any of those roving Mad Max style bandits. Well, we looted a few cases of Champaign from that liquor store haul.

I know nothing about Champaign. As of right now, I have never even had a glass. I cannot tell you which one is good or which one is cheap. But given the price tags on some of these bottles, I can honestly say this is the good stuff. We saved this stuff back for a very specific purpose. We saved it back for tonight.

While I know I have been keeping track and counting up since Zero Hour, I think everyone is in agreement when we say that today – and more accurately – tomorrow is a pretty big milestone. I know in the grand, cosmic scheme of things, New Year’s Day is really just another day.

But back before the global apocalypse, 01/01 on the calendar was always a big day. People saw it as a fresh start. It was a chance to start fresh with your goals and dreams. Things are different now. But maybe this is a closing of a chapter and tomorrow we can start fresh.

We will worry about all that tomorrow for tonight, we celebrate. It is not a celebration of the closing of a year, it is more of a celebration that we have survived this far and this long. And if you are reading this and the apocalypse has reached your door, then congratulations to you, brothers and sisters. You have survived thus far.

Please don’t give up hope. Maybe that is the trick is that we just have to outlast this thing. We just have to endure. You know, years ago, when a rampaging force would lay siege to a castle, the plan was often to just cut off all supplies and starve out the people held up inside. Sometimes they would even use biological warfare by catapulting diseased corpses of cows over the walls. Gross, I know.

But that is kind of what we are dealing with here. We are safe behind our high walls and just outlasting the army at our gates. We are hoping that they will eventually rot away and finally die (for real this time). Hopefully that is what you can do. Endure.

And we are right there with you. We are pulling for you to survive. If you can get to us, our doors are open. If you cannot get to us and you are in some fortified place of your own, I hope that this blog is motivation to keep going. Because, believe me, if we have survived this with all our flaws and foibles, I know you can too.

See you next year…

Day 247 – Apologies

It’s 3:00 in the morning. It has been around 18 hours I guess since I had a little bit of a breakdown. Here is the thing. Back in 2005, my dad and I got into a big argument because my mom was riddled with cancer and I asked what we were going to do for her as far as burial or cremation or whatever. But she had not passed away yet. My dad was mad because he didn’t want any negative energy around my mom. I saw it as being practical and preparing for the worst. He saw it as giving up.

I don’t know why this happened. I don’t know why we have survived as long as we have but the fact is we are still here. And there could be hundreds of thousands of deceased spirits looking down on us right now, encouraging us to continue.

Think of them like contestants on a reality game show. If you remember the TV show BIG BROTHER, I desperately wanted to be on that show. Before I was shaving my head, I always said if I could lose a few inches around my waist and gain a few inches of hairline, I would apply. And there have been a handful of contestants that quit or broke the rules and got kicked out. I would scream at them (through my TV). I would be pissed off because I wanted desperately to be on the show and they get cast and make it into the house and then they walk out? Idiots!

Well, as I was saying, there are probably spirits of the departed who have been mauled and their lives ended by a pack of zombies. They may be looking at me, screaming, “He is giving up? I would trade places with him in a second!” And they are right.

This all has to be for something and I apologize for losing sight of that. I cannot guarantee anything. I cannot guarantee tomorrow. But for all I know, this will get us rescued. This will save a life. I promise to fight on both for you and for me.

Sorry for losing focus.

Day 246 – Ending This Dumb Project

I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes, staring at a blinking cursor. I guess maybe I should not have taken all that time off at Christmas. Maybe it is that. I don’t remember what I have told you. I don’t know what I need to tell you. But I am looking at that header. 246 Days. 246 days I have been doing this. And for what?

Is anyone reading this? Is it all pointless? Is there some safe house somewhere? Is there some stronghold of humanity where people are planning to strike out and reclaim the entire world from the zombie infestation?

Obviously we still have power but who else does? Can we even call it the World Wide Web anymore? For all I know, this is barely posting out of the server that we are still miraculously connected to.

What is the end game here? What if none of us make it and humanity is literally wiped from the planet? So, some alien race comes along, lands, uses their ray guns to wipe out the zombies, uses their tech to repower our electric grid and computers, then they decipher our dead language, and just happen to stumble upon this blog where they can say, “Oh, look here, Shaboz of Glorgnax 7, clearly unliving dead cannibals devoured their population. Thank you Ryan Mathews for recording your people’s demise!”

When you type it all out, you see just how pointless the whole thing is. All this, the fortifications, the barricades. We’ve still lost people. Lots of people. I mean all we are really doing is delaying the inevitable. Death is coming for all of us. It is either going to get us by being devoured by a shambling horde of zombies or starving to death on top of a produce cooler with the only sustenance left to be had being frozen pie crust, capers, and Tom Collins’ Mix.

And what did I do during the Zombie Apocalypse? How did I endure? I wrote a fucking blog. I kept telling myself: This will get us rescued. This is going to save lives. This will tell our story.

It was none of that. It was a distraction. It was something to keep my mind focused and alert. Fred used to catalogue and organize and clean all the weapons over and over again. We do that with our food. We say it is so we can ration properly but that is all just bullshit we tell ourselves so we don’t go insane. Because no matter how you slice it, here is the 100% true fact. WE ARE TRAPPED IN HERE.

Yes we have sorties and we go out but the goal is never to move on. The plan always ends with “And then, we will head back to the store.” We are here for safety and food but, really, this is our prison. These are bars and walls that we have put ourselves behind. And for what? To delay death.

I’m done. I’m tired. I will post this. I won’t delete it. But I’m not proofreading it. “You know you typed ‘your’ when you should have typed ‘you’re’.” Fuck you,

This is probably the dumbest idea I ever had. It is certainly the dumbest thing I have ever written. And I used to post comments on YouTube. Yeah.

Good luck. Logging out.  

Day 242 – No Entry

I know this is rare and I have not done this that often over the course of our time here but I am going to take the weekend off. I hope you and yours are all safe and happy. Enjoy your time. I will be back at it on Monday.

Day 240 – Logging Out

Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that I am going to take a few days off for Christmas. Not losing my passion or hope or anything. I just figure Christmas is a great time for us to power down and recharge. I’ll be back. Promise.
Merry Christmas.

Day 239 – Words of Encouragement

I think in a situation like the one that we are in, you have to learn how to switch your emotions off. Without doing this, the sheer horror and weight of what we are experiencing will cripple you. I think it is pretty obvious that the loss of both Fred and Janet hit me pretty hard. You want to be mad. You want them back. But all that is just wasted energy. They are gone and there is nothing I can do about it. Instead, the only thing I can do is move forward. That is the only healthy thing you can do to stay sane in an insane world.

And I had this philosophy down cold, man. And then Jennifer found this. I didn’t think I could take a good enough picture of the letter, so I transcribed what she wrote.

October 27^th, 2013          

Dear Ryan,

            It has been almost a month since we have lost Fred. I know how much you loved him and I know his loss hit you harder than most. Fred was our leader. I think everyone agreed on that. I know you didn’t want the mantle of leadership and I know it was thrust upon you. But, honestly, you have really stepped up into the leadership role. And I know that it is because of your decisions and your plans (going all the way back to the beginning of this) that we are still alive.

            I am very proud of who you have become. I still remember you first coming to work here at the store when you were in high school. To see you mature, how you have handled the stress of this nightmare, and – most importantly – how you are a father to Alex… Ryan, I know your mother is watching you from Heaven and is so proud of you.

            I know that you doubt yourself at times. I wish you could see what I see. Your strength and determination to keep us all safe is really amazing. I know we have had many conversations and I wish you would have taken more time to come to my bible study sessions. I am not trying to convert you here. I know you are walking the same path that I am on. You just may not realize it. You just seem to instinctively know the right path.

Please don’t give up hope, Ryan. I cannot even begin to fathom why such a horrific event has happened. Maybe it is not for us to know in this life. But maybe we are focusing on the wrong things. Maybe we should be proud of the fact that we have survived. Maybe we shouldn’t dwell on the fact that everything has gone so wrong. Maybe we should focus on what has gone right.

You have brought us here, Mr. Mathews. And for that, I am proud of you. We all are. I cannot say how much time all of us have left in this world but it is our task to endure as long as possible. Keep leading us forward and I will stand behind you.

Love,         

Janet         

Psalm 71:14        

 

For the record, I had no idea what the bible verse was so I had to look it up. It says, “But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.” Yep, leave it to Janet to stir emotions in me after her was gone. I am still not buying in with the whole prayer thing. But if I have a prayer, let it be this: I hope I am the right man for the job.

Day 237 – Doing Something a Little Dumb/Fun

Sometimes life can throw you some curve balls. It can be a crushing sense of defeat if you wallow in all the things that have gone wrong. And believe me, yes, I know. The tone on the blog has been a little doom and gloom lately. Sue me. Four of our members were killed because we stupidly forgot to lock a gate.

I guess some of the people were starting to note that increasing sense of desperation and they decided to do something about it. Now, I have to give 100% of the credit to Kanen and Yulonda for this ingenious invention. As I have mentioned in the past, we have been doing a lot of “industrial condensing” to keep the store managed. Obviously, some aisles condense down more than others. We have barely put a dent in the pet food aisle despite Kilo eating like a king. But 4A (canned vegetables, non-refrigerated juice), 5A (baking), 6A (canned meat, pasta, soups) have been diminishing down. And then there is 7A. Cereal, Pop-Tarts, Oatmeal, Coffee, Peanut Butter and Jelly… Because the cereal is light and easy to move, we basically cleaned out the entire aisle just to keep things from being so spread out. That aisle has been empty for a while now and Kanen and Yulonda finally found something to do with it.

Some of their early attempts and incarnations during the planning stage were not genius ideas. At one point, I know Kanen wanted to use frozen turkeys which as you will see would have been a HUGE mistake. But, they had everyone drink up ten 2-liters of pop. With this crew, it was not hard to do. They then peeled off all the labels and refilled them approximately one-quarter of the way full with water to give them just enough weight.

At the start of every summer season, the store gets a shipment of those big inflatable rubber balls. Not like the utility balls with the grips on them that “broinked” when you hit someone with them. These are the smooth plastic balls with the swirling marble paint jobs on them. Well, these things come in deflated for shipping purposes and then Robin (RIP probably?) and Hobbit Judy would then inflate them with the small air compressor that was kept in the circuit breaker room. Then they would all get tossed in a big, giant bin and all the kids beg their moms and dads to buy them one. (Hopefully you see where this is going now.)

Using some masking tape to mark the spots on the floor of 7A, they measured out spots to set up the 2-liter “pins” and then marked off a starting line that your foot could not go past. They then proceeded to tape down lengths of those foam pool noodles to actually form bumper gutters along the aisle so your throws would not get caught up in the support struts. Using the dry erase board to keep score and a piece of poster board to track progress at the end of the games, we officially started our own bowling league.

The length of Aisle 7A is 68 feet with is officially long enough to be regulation length but obviously, the weight of the ball is not substantial enough for us to play within “regulation” lengths. (This is part of the reason why Kanen wanted to use the frozen turkeys but, c’mon, you can see that disaster potential all over the place.)    

Again, it is something we can all do together to have fun and take our minds off the atrocities of the real world… if only for a little while…

Day 236 – Paging Dr. Scholl to Podiatry…

At this stage of the game, everyone is just cruising along and doing his or her own thing but there is an area that I am growing increasingly concerned about. I am generally getting worried about our lack of real medical doctor. To go all sci-fi and nerd on you, writers of any apocalyptic story always include a doctor just to make the story easier to write when things go wrong. LOST had Jack Shepherd, THE WALKING DEAD had Herschel… Okay, GILLIGAN’S ISLAND didn’t have one… but there always seems to be a doctor within those groups.

Kasondra has medical training from her stint in the National Guard but it is not like she went to college for this. She is not a nurse, she is a medic and that is mostly about patching holes. She learned what the Army taught her.

Kim and Jennifer both know what certain pills do for certain ailments but they have zero training when it comes to diagnosing what pills need to be taken because of symptoms.

Take for instance, Demo Judy. She woke up this morning complaining of slight nausea and a shortness of breath. Ever tried to navigate WebMD? Hell, it could be anything from a common cold to Stage 4 colon cancer. So what did she do? She took Pepto-Bismol to try to ward off the nausea.

It is just one of those scenarios that we have swept under the rug and not really talked about as a group. Here is the big secret. Ready?

WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL WE ARE DOING!!!

All this, this society that we have carved out, it is not like we had a battle plan going into this thing. I’m like Indiana Jones. “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go.”

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I think for all intents and purposes, we are doing really well. I mean, look at the alternative. But still, with the internet being so damn sketchy, it is not like anyone can just grab medical textbooks and self-educate themselves into becoming a doctor overnight.  

So I guess we just have to keep on keeping on. What other option do we have? I really don’t like the idea of our people self-medicating. I’ve looked in the Pharmacy. We have dozens upon dozens of pill bottles for ailments and maladies that we will probably never run across.

I guess the best we can hope for is that a Jack Shepherd of our own will come along.

Man, I don’t know why but ever since our breach with the garbage compactor, all I keep seeing are the negative things. Is it some sort of strange coincidence that I am seeing the need for a medical doctor NOW of all times. It is another burden heaping up on my shoulders and threatening to spiral me into a deeper depression. And who would I normally talk to about such things to keep me on that even keel? Oh yes, Janet and Tommy. Thanks again, God. Way to be all just and merciful.

Day 235 – Zombiology 101: Scratches & Life Cycles

During the trash compactor breach, Jennifer received some pretty nasty scratches that did break her skin. We did all the standard things. We placed her in quarantine and put her under armed guard… just in case. After 24 hours, she was showing no signs of infection and the wounds were actually starting to show signs of healing.

I think it is safe to say that scratches from zoms will not spread the virus. It seems as if the Kharon Virus is only transferred through fluid contact. So, hey, we got that going for us.

Still, don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. If they are close enough to scratch you, you got big problems. But how long does the virus remain “alive” since it inhabits dead people?

I am by no means a doctor but parasites don’t live long inside dead hosts. If the host dies, the parasite dies. Cancer doesn’t continue to chew and eat at a body after it has passed away, correct? Are viruses the same way? If a person has a communicable disease, once they die, does that disease die with them?

Obviously, the rules for Kharon are different because this disease inhabits a dead body. Regardless of how long either that reanimated zombie or the zombie with his skull caved in has been lying there, we assume that their blood is capable of transmitting the disease.

Consider this scenario. You are moving a brain-panned body of a zom. You cut your finger on a shard of jagged bone and get a drop of zombie blood inside you. You are now infected. 48-hours and you are a goner.

We are assuming that hot enough temperatures that boil away fluids will destroy the virus. But is Kharon just a kickstarter or is it the virus that is keeping these things up and around?  

Say, for instance, the government comes along with an aerosol agent that kills the Kharon Virus. They fly a crop duster plane over a shambling horde releasing the agent. Do the zoms return to their “normal state” and just drop dead, becoming inanimate bodies? Does the Kharon Virus keep them sustained and up and moving around? Or did Kharon just kickstart that brain and now it is active until destroyed?

This is the part that sucks about not having any real information. I guess eventually, if we see C-130s flying overhead dispersing purple clouds of aerosol medicine, we can know. Until then, I think everyone is just satisfied to keep the zoms as far away from us as possible.

You guys do the same.

Day 234 – Bracing for the Long Cold Winter

Will Rogers once said "If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute and it'll change." Well, I think it is safe to say that winter has finally started to set in. We are starting to see long sustaining swathes of cold weather now. Thankfully, we still have power. I have to admit, the store’s heating system amounts to shit.

The back room has these heaters that hang from the ceiling and kick on. The first time they kick on, the stench of what I can only describe as burning dust is pretty horrific. Don’t get me wrong, they get the job done but it is more of an ambient heat. There is nowhere you can really go and stand and have that sensation like a home where you could stand in front of the fireplace or directly over an air conditioning vent to really feel that blast of heat or cold.

As long as we have power, we should be in good shape. No one likes to talk about it but I think everyone knows that the power could go out at any time. From a heating standpoint, things could get really difficult if the power goes down.

I think everyone is taking a “let’s worry about it when there is something to worry about” attitude. And it is not like we are extremely limited on options. I am sure there are Kerosene heaters that we could scavenge for.

One idea that we came up with was the option of shutting down the coolant and the fans in the ice cream cooler. It is designed to keep cold in, so in theory, if we all bunked in there, the body heat alone would probably keep us pretty darn warm and one Kerosene heater would be more than enough. But is that a recipe for all of us dying from Carbon Monoxide poisoning?  

Admittedly, I am not crazy about that idea, suffocation notwithstanding. Sleeping like sardines in a can does not sound like a lot of fun. It is certainly better than freezing in February but it has not come to that yet. Most of us sleep fairly spread out amongst the cooler tops to give us security and a little bit of privacy.

I guess all of this is a moot point really. I am worried about things before they have even happened. And while I am all for having contingency plans, excessive worrying about things that are out of your control can make you lose your mind, especially in this environment.

I will try to think of better things to occupy my mind with… More later.  

Day 233 – Barricades in Store

Overconfidence can be your downfall. I think the loss of four of our members proves that. Honestly, looking over game plan, I really thought we were solid. I thought that there was no way that the zombies outside could breech our defenses and get into our facility. Well, I freely admit it. I was wrong.

It is not a question of “if” zoms are going to get in here; it is a question of when. So we have been working on plans inside the store in case we experience another breech in security. As I have mentioned in the past, we have been condensing down aisles and shelving whenever possible and the top decks have been emptying out with our consumption and restocking of product. One thing that we do still have an abundance of is shopping carts and cardboard from the stock boxes.

So alternating on the ends of every aisle, we have created barricades where we have lashed shopping cards together using bailing wire from the cardboard baler. Then to make sure you don’t get tangled up in the carts, we’ve covered them in cardboard and duct tape. We also loaded the bottoms of the carts with 40-pound dog food bags to give them a little more weight and stability.

Here is the theory. All of us can do a military vault onto and over the carts themselves. They are high enough so that you can get over them quickly but you can still easily look over the tops of the carts to see down the aisle. 

Given that zoms rarely pick up their feet as they shamble along, vaulting over a cart is going to pretty difficult. The whole point of the barricades is that they buy you time. If we are breeched and you are being chased, you vault over the carts and it delays the zoms enough so that you can get to the top decks. If you are out of their reach, you are safe while we can regroup and retake the store. 

Hunter made it a point to stock two 64-ounce bottles of Wesson cooking oil on the top deck by every barricade. His theory that you drop a Wesson bomb at the feet of zoms and they won’t be able to stand, much less bite you.

The goal will be to all get together so I have tasked Luke, Lance, and Joe with finding a way to bridge all the top decks together with scaffolding so we can walk amongst the top decks without ever having to drop to floor level. (Again, this is keeping the crew busy.) And a lot of people want to help with this concept. I figure we can have this problem solved and implemented in a week or so.

Now, I am not a fool. Obviously, this intended to stop a breach of a dozen or so zoms. In the event that, let’s say, the Produce roll up door was battered down and a horde was rolling through here, we would have to abandon the store. I have no doubts of that. But, honestly, I cannot even fathom that happening. 

Still, I like this proactive side that everyone is showing. We need to keep that going.

Day 232 – Pieces of the Puzzle

The weekend seems to have provided very little respite for our group. I wish I could report that things are getting better but everyone seems to be in a pretty dark place. Obviously, with the loss of Janet, the family unit of Kim, Kasondra, and Brad are in pretty rough shape.

It has only been a few days but I am already missing my almost daily conversations and store walk-throughs with Tommy. He was always very top of the game when it came to keeping this place running ship shape and consolidating our supplies.

Becca was very quirky and weird. I mean that in a good way because I am also quirky and weird. I don’t ever remember us having a bad conversation. And despite Ashlynn and I vehemently arguing over who had the better radio morning show in Tulsa, I really miss her laughter. What is more, if I have not mentioned this a few dozen times already, those two girls were the absolute best snipers in our crew. I would have had little fear going out to “get the mail” if I knew those two were on the roof.

The loss of those four has changed the whole dynamic of our group. See, way back in the day, I always said Reason’s was like a puzzle. Not all of the pieces interacted directly and some pieces had closer contact with others but they were all interconnected. The Bakery people did not interact as much with the Produce people because we were cattycorner to each other in the store but the Meat Department people might have more in common with the Produce people because our departments were right next together. And you could take one person out of that configuration and the whole puzzle rearranges.

Some pieces in the fringe corners may not feel the same level of change as those that were making direct contact with that removed piece but all of the pieces are affected. All of us are feeling the loss of Janet, Tommy, Becca, and Ashlynn in some way.

But what is that expression? “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings?” I think if I can get the group focused on a brand new task, not like running the top decks, or something like that but something new, I think it can provide a distraction that can let their minds focus on something different. Of course, in order for this to work, we have to convince Kim to actually get out of bed. And right now, she needs to be handled with kid’s gloves.

I think that outfitting the buses with our “bug out” plan is a good step. Obviously, those supplies would be less secure and we risk them being lost to looters. But if things really go south, I don’t want to have to take the time to load up the buses while an army of meat bags are breathing down our necks.

I am toying with an idea… Those buses were pretty easy to grab. I mean really easy with all factors considered. Adair, Ketchum, Spavinaw, Pryor, Vinita… All these cities are within 15 minutes driving time. And all those cities will have a fleet of school buses… Hmmmm…    

Day 230 – Noting a Semi-Important Day

I wish I could fill this entry with jokes like I try to do on Saturdays but I just cannot bring myself to joke around. December 10^th was my birthday. I was too busy contemplating the future and trying to scrub the bloodstains off of the Back Room floor to even be able to note it.

I just… I don’t even know…

Okay, screw it. I’ve always been honest on here. No reason to stop now. So this is just between you and me. My fellow survivors don’t read this blog which might be a good thing because this is something that I just cannot admit to anyone else. I remember when things were really bad in my life. And I prayed and I prayed. Did I get what I wanted? No. And all anyone could tell me was, “Well, God knows what is best for you.” Garth Brooks even wrote a freaking song about it.

So, riddle me this, Batman. If you can pray all you want and God won’t answer you because He knows what is best for you, then what is the point of praying? What good does it freaking do? Nothing. Because whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I mean, is that how people justify things. Well, we are all just threads in a tapestry and we don’t know what impacts our lives are going to be down the road. So why do anything?

Look, I believe in God. I believe in a higher power. I do. As to what form that higher power takes, I have no idea. Maybe it is Jesus. Maybe it is some amalgam of all the different religions. But here is what I know.

Janet believed.

Without a doubt, Janet believed. She studied the bible so much she taught freaking Sunday school classes. She was this beacon of faith. Was born again. Proudly proclaimed it to anyone who would listen. And how was she rewarded for all this faith?

Yeah. She died screaming.

God’s most faithful follower in this whole group has chunks of her neck ripped from her body and she dies cold and alone on the Back Room floor because we were too busy trying to turn back the tide of the zoms threatening to overwhelm us.

Tell me where the justice is in that. I remember this quote from a Jewish captive at Auschwitz saying something like, “If there is a God, He owes me an apology.” Well, wherever Janet went when she died – and I hope she is with my mother – well the guy with the big “G” on his sweatshirt needs to pay her dividends for how she went out.

Explain to me how that is fair. Janet could pull bible quotes and references out of thin air. Not only could she quote the stuff (because I think anyone can do that) but she understood the context. She understood who was saying it and why and the relevance to the quote in conjunction with the rest of the book. But she dies by bleeding out on cold concrete.

And here I am, completely wandering and meandering when it comes to issues of faith and the afterlife… and I am still going strong.

To me, this is one of those things where if this is all part of some sort of divine will or some master plan, I seriously don’t get it. I still want to subscribe to the idea of free will. Maybe we are responsible.

But if this is how He lets his faithful die… then I don’t want to believe in Him.  

Day 230 – Scouting Mission to Adair

Yesterday, I decided to break my rule. The only way I was going to let this happen if I was going to be part of it, so Alex and I joined the scouting mission to Adair. Now, to explain, Adair is the town where I am from that is about 10 minutes away from Langley. It is a short and easy drive. So equipped with a number of weapons and a handpicked contingent of people, we made a stealth mission to Adair.

Our target was Adair High School. The goal was to get the spare keys to the bus fleet and raid the cafeteria to get the large quantity, economy sized canned food to help increase our food stores.

I wish I could tell you that we didn’t fire a shot but there was quite a few zoms staggering around. From the looks of things, the zoms looked to be more migratory than Adair populace. We didn’t see anyone wearing an Adair Warriors letter jacket or “local” looking clothes. Still, the place was far from overrun. Everything was manageable and Alex carried himself quite well.

We got into the school and looted the spare keys. Surprisingly, some of the guys that went with us – with Brian in the lead – decided to grab some textbooks to give the group something to read. (I think there is something to be said about reading for fun and reading to learn. The textbooks could be helpful in training the brain.)

We then went to the bus barn and selected three of the best buses from the fleet. We pulled around to the cafeteria to load up as much of the useable food that we could salvage. The plan once we get these back to the store will be to convert these things into rolling fortresses with bunks, food, and supplies. However, one will be converted to haul extra fuel for the fleet.    

Now, we are still going to be sticking with the Year One Plan. We are using the buses only as an emergency contingency. If a roving horde came through and pushed through the front doors and we had to escape out of the back of the store, we have the buses as the “bug out” plan.

I do feel safer with that contingency plan on the table and hopefully we never have to use it…

More soon.   

Day 229 – The “Bug Out” Plan

Back in October, Brian Anderson suggested that we needed to put together a “bug out” plan – a contingency where we could go mobile if we needed to. Personally, I hate that term but you heard it thrown around all the time on those doomsday reality shows. Given our recent breach of security and not knowing what the future may hold, I think now is a really good time to consider putting that theory into practice.

I put together a small brain trust to kick around some ideas. We came up with a number of ideas that included a cavalcade of SUVs, retrofitting a semi-trailer, and even taking a contingent of people over to the RV sales place in Claremore. All had pros and cons but Brian came up with a pretty ingenious plan that involved converting buses from Adair into rolling, mobile fortresses.

The plan involves retrofitting a minimum of three buses from Adair Schools to transport us out of Langley either in the event of a meltdown emergency or have we have cycled through the Year One Plan. Three buses seem a tad excessive considering that we only average around thirty survivors. However there is a method to the madness.

1) If we are stop for the night in an area, say a Walmart parking lot, we can "circle the wagons" by parking the buses in a triangle formation that would give us some semblance of safety.

2) We always like to incorporate some sort of redundancy into our plans. We like our back up plans to have back up plans. The plan is to transform one bus into a rolling fuel depot so that we can refill along the road if we need to. We have no idea how easily it will be to find fuel once we are out on the road. Plus, we have multiple vehicles in the event that we have mechanical failure or lose tires along the way.

3) The third excuse really is for comfort. We are looking to turn these things into mobile homes. We plan on outfitting them with sleeping bunks and the largest caches of water and food that we can carry. Going back to an earlier article about the difficulties of going mobile, it takes a considerable amount of supply space to get this crew ready to move.

4) While the buses can be larger and louder than most vehicles, they are also built to last and are the closest thing we can get to a rolling tank. While nothing would stand up to the horde that we saw in November, if we had to slowly bulldoze our way through a small pack of zoms, I would be much more confident doing it in a school bus as opposed to a sports car made mostly of Fiberglas.

Day 228 – Zombiology 101: Aiming for the Apricot

From the beginning of this whole thing, we have warned you that if you come across the zom you have to take out the brain. That is the only way to put a zom down. Cut ‘em in half and they will just keep crawling towards you. Now, when most people come across a reanimated corpse, it is an adrenaline fueled smash fest where you are just trying to put them down before they can bite you. And if there is a pack of these things shambling towards you, you are just focused on taking as many of them out as quickly as possible. Needless to say, this can sometimes be a violent and bloody process.

This is just going to be brutally honest. Janet and Ashlynn both died of their wounds. They bled out and the second their hearts stopped beating, it was only a matter of time before they reanimated and put us all in jeopardy. The clock was ticking but there are some areas that you need to handle with finesse.

Even with this lingering threat about to reanimate, the last thing we wanted to do was traumatize the group even further by coming along and splattering her skull under the weight of a sledge hammer.

So, if you are dealing with this situation, keep in mind the following facts. The medulla oblongata is often referred to as “the apricot” by police and military snipers. It is the section that they aim for in a high-risk or instant-death hostage situation. That “apricot” is the part of the brain that controls involuntary movement and it is located at the base of the skull. There is a hole in the back of the skull where the spinal cord enters the brain.

This was the solution we came up with. Very gently, members of our group used an ice pick from off the shelves. They inserted the ice picks into the skull through that spinal cord hole without being overly traumatic to the body. So…

We did what we had to do. We had some of the ladies distract Brad and Kim and then the team went to work “pacifying” the bodies. The damage was very subtle but effective. Then, we concealed the wounds as best as possible. This gave Kim and Brad time as much time as they needed to spend with the body of their mother and it also allowed other members of our group to properly say goodbye for their own closure.

So, this method works if you need to preserve someone’s body after they have been infected. Maybe that helps you. I don’t know. Just remember that the clock is ticking. Be fast and be safe. Hopefully, you never, ever have to use this technique but store that nugget of info away in your hard drive just in case…

Day 227 – Reconstructing the Massacre

When Tommy left to go find his family, he took a pretty large contingent of the zombies with him that were mulling around in the parking lot. I thank goodness for that because I did not want to have to take down that entire horde that was loitering around outside.

Looking back on the series of events, this is what I believe happened. A horde came through traveling north to south to escape the cold weather. When they came across our parking lot, they must have had one or two “evolved” zombies within their contingent that started exploring the other avenues.

We have commented over and over again in this blog about horde mentality but I honestly have to believe that there are scouts and certain zoms that realize the importance of breaking from the group if you want to get first dibs on the meat. Perhaps one scout was a little more perceptive that the others and went after the meat scraps in the trash compactor and had enough physical skills to climb up the chute. When it came across Janet, it issued the “I found flesh” scream and that sent the others pouring in.

Once we were compromised, we did everything I could to put all of these things down. This meant lots of gunfire. And once that gunfire started ringing out, this riled up all the zombies on the outside. This naturally meant that they were going to hang around a lot longer and look for ways to get inside the store.

Without a second source to draw them off, there is no telling how long they were going to hang around in the parking lot.  So we might have had to take all of things out from sniper position on the roof. Tommy helped us out considerably by pulling them out like a pied piper. Granted, the slower and more degenerated ones did not follow the horde but we have since dispatched those.

I think when we can start to implement the Carbone Initiative, I think we should consider somehow barricading the property. I honestly have no idea how we can do that but maybe if we could barricade off the store, it would have prevented the loss of our four. So, I guess we need to put the brain trust together and see what we can come up with.

Day 226 – FoS: The Compactor (The Point of Entry)

Back when Reason’s was still operating, trash and garbage was always a tremendous issue. We found this out whenever there was a mechanical problem or a pickup schedule went bad. If you don’t know the difference, garbage smells. Trash doesn’t. Reason’s was very big into recycling so cardboard was crushed down in the cardboard baler then combined together on a pallet sized bale. The bales were then placed outside and a service would come along once a month and pick up all the bales. You never went more than two days without making a bale. During the summer, you might make two a day.

Garbage was handled differently. Produce scraps, out of date dairy, meat slops, old bakery, it was all put down into the compactor. If you look at the diagram I provided, you can see it in green. The slide down into the compactor is about a 30-degree angle. You toss everything in and then hit a button. That button activates the ram that crams everything into a receptacle that is the size of a 18-wheeler trailer. I was never certain of the scheduling but some service would come along and switch out the receptacles and haul out our trash.

The unit has been in place forever. I cannot tell you how long it has been there. The metal plates that formed up the slide were starting to show wear and rust. Yeah, there were holes in it. Or I guess I should say gaps where the welds had popped. I never in million years thought zoms would have the wherewithal to break through those metal plates, climb up the slide angle and then force their way through the door.

Now, the door didn’t really have a lock on the inside, so with enough fumbling, they could trigger the latch and get inside. I guess the cold, the hunger, and maybe our scent(?) was too irresistible. Unfortunately, for this oversight, Janet, Tommy, Becca, and Ashlynn paid the price.

It was just in the absolute wrong place. It was too far away from any entrance to be viewed from the security camera feeds. And honestly, who would have thought to put a camera feed on the garbage chute?

We keep the entrance to the compactor barricaded now and we have repaired the damage done by the zoms in their break in. It will be a mistake that we will not make again but I am frustrated that it took four lives for us to learn this lesson.  

To my four friends, I apologize…

Day 225 – Memorializing the Fallen

This entry is pretty rough but I feel that talking about it on here might help me out.

We lost Ashlynn and Janet due to blood loss as a result of trauma. Please bear with me as I type this. The starving zombie that got a hold of Janet did so much damage that she bled out quickly. Literally, by the time we got the place locked back down and secure, she was gone. Ashlynn held on slightly longer but Janet was just… mangled. The neck wounds she received ended things very quickly. In a way, I am happy that she did not suffer long. But she died alone on the concrete floor while we were going toe to toe with the zoms that had made it through. At least Ashlynn got to look in Kelsey’s eyes and have her hand held as she slipped away. 

As you have read, Tommy and Becca’s wounds were minor and they were forced to deal with it in their own way. But Ashlynn and Janet were two beloved members of our group. “Mama” Janet was a real mother figure for everyone. Ashlynn had this incredible laugh and probably dropped more zombies thanks to her sniper skills than any other member in our crew.

The second their hearts stopped beating, Janet and Ashlynn became a liability. We knew that they could reanimate at any moment and put us all in jeopardy. So we neutralized the threat as cleanly as we could so that everyone could say proper goodbyes without that time bomb ticking away.

I tried to adopt a bit of a Lieutenant Worf stance on this whole thing. When a Klingon warrior dies, there is a ritual where their fellow warriors stand guard over the body – from things like predators and such – to give the soul enough time to escape. After that, the body is just meat. Part of me wants to treat these bodies as such.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t show respect or just toss them outside to rot. I remember holding the urn that held my mother’s ashes for the first time. There was an electrical connection. It was very subtle. It could have all just been in my head. But there is something about knowing that this urn holds my mother’s mortal body… There was just something there. So I was all about giving them all the time they needed to mourn.   

We have dressed them as neatly as possible but, for now, we are storing their bodies in the now empty ice cream freezer until the outside environment is suitable for a burial. I think having that time with their mother tremendously helped Brad and Kim. And Kasondra as well.

I still cannot believe we lost Janet. This sucks. I am going to miss her so much. She gave these genuine hugs that just made you feel so safe and happy. She taught me how to make jambalaya. She held my hand and told me how much she loved me when things were at their worst for me personally.

Screw it. Stay safe. Please…

Day 223 – Face to Face with the Reaper

Back before the apocalypse, I remember a conversation that Fred and I had in the break room while we were having lunch together. There is distinct difference between bitching and complaining. Bitching is when you are vocally displeased about something you have no control over. Complaining is when you are vocally displeased about things and said complaining can improve or remedy a problem that you are experiencing.

Complaining about how you wish your wife would not use so much tarragon and garlic is constructive. Maybe next time, she won’t use as much. Bitching about how cold it is outside does no good. You can rage all you want about the temperature but it is not going to change a damn thing. Complaining can be constructive. Bitching just makes you annoying.

I thought about that when I looked into Becca Cason’s eyes. There was not a resignation. There was not defeat. It was almost a calm serenity. It was along of the lines of I could see her thinking, “Well, so this is how it ends.”

She did not rage against whatever God is up there. She was not emotionally destroyed. She was just… accepting. She could not fight or rage the virus out of her system. There was absolutely nothing she could do about it. And if there was nothing she could do and she understood that, it was just wasted energy to rage against the dying of the light.

Now, do not misconstrue what I am saying here. I do not want you to think that there is no hope. That is not what I am saying. Everyone’s days were always numbered. We were always going to die. But once Kharon became a full blow outbreak, we were all living on borrowed time. Back in the old world, sure, we could have died in a car wreck on the way to work or slipped in the shower and suffered a broken neck. That could have happened. But it seems like that in the Kharon world, we are constantly staving off the Reaper. It is as if death is lurking around every corner.

And when Becca was bitten, her attitude seemed to be, “Well, it is what it is.” And she picked up her pick axe and headed off into the great unknown. That old adage about never knowing when you are going to die does not apply when you are infected. You know the timetable. 48 hours and that is all she wrote.

Becca wasn’t going to waste one second feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she decided to take out as many zoms as she could in the limited time she had left. I think you have to admire that. If my time comes (and I see it coming), I hope that I can be so accepting of my own fate.

If you are reading this, know that the clock is ticking. Don’t waste a second. Live, dammit. Live.

Day 222 – 24 Hours Later

It has been a full twenty-four hours. From what we can tell, Jennifer Brown is showing no signs of infection. We stationed armed monitors with her and we kept her isolated in the Produce Prep Room overnight just in case things went wrong.

It was one of the hardest things I have had to do yet. I was sitting on a cot opposite her with a pistol strapped to my hip. I could see her eyes darting nervously every so often to the gun in the holster. She looked at me, the beginning of tears welling up in her eyes, and she asked me, “Is that really necessary?”

I began to think that she was right. But then I would look at the fresh bandages covering the wounds on her arm from the zombie fingernails. And all I could do was nod at those bandages and whisper my reply. “Yes, it is.”

There were moments of true fear in her eyes. It was not panic. It was not madness or insanity. It was fear. It was that fear of not knowing if she was even infected or not. I imagine it is a lot like when you are waiting for test results to get back from the doctor. Is it malignant or benign? Am I infected or am I not? Just… not knowing. That trepidation of uncertainty… I could see it in her eyes.

We posted watches just in case signs of infection started to develop. During my turn sitting with her, I know she was trying to sleep but it just wasn’t working. She rolled over and looked at me. She looked deep into my eyes and I could see it. That fear was palpable. I will never forget how she was trying to keep her voice from cracking when she said, “I don’t want to die.”

And she stretched out her hand. I reached out to hold her hand and there was a death grip, as if she felt that by holding my hand, she might be able to stave off the infection. Thankfully, her hand was warm to the touch. Not feverish. Not clammy. It was just… normal. The night came and went and when we pulled back the bandages, there were signs of healing. We slathered those scratches with Neosporin and peroxide and as much rubbing alcohol as she could tolerate.

And so now, a day later, she is showing no signs of infection. It is too early to say that she is healing but she is showing no signs of the virus like we saw with Diane and Keith. So this leads us to the conclusion that fluid transfer still is the most common way for the Kharon Virus to transfer. Biting still seems to be the most common way to get the virus but I would very apprehensive when dealing with any sort of infected fluid.

I wish I could say that Jennifer not being infected is a bit of a miracle but I don’t know if miracles even exist anymore. I have to be honest with you, I don’t even know if there is a God anymore…

Day 221 – Saying Goodbye to Becca

Back when we lost Keith, it prompted goodbye letters to be issued from everyone along with what we called The Finale Contingency. We all wrote letters for what we wanted if we were compromised. As the leader of the group, after members of our group was compromised, I went to the Finale letters that we stored in the Cash Office. Tommy was gone before we could even access his letter. But Becca made it clear what she wanted. Everyone was granted full immunity on this one. There was no judgment leveled for anyone’s decision.

So I read what Becca wanted. She had a contingency plan that wasn’t on our option list. She wanted to go out guns blazing and go out in a blaze of glory. I understand that mentality but that also means she might show back up at our doorstep later and it also means that we are losing potential resources. This is not like Tommy taking a box of ammo. Becca wanted to strap weapons on Rambo style and charge into a horde of these things, taking out as many as she can before she dies. It was a noble sentiment and totally within her character. I got it. And I in the right circumstances, I might have wanted to do the same.

But Becca didn’t want to weaken our group, so rather than taking firearms or ammunition, she took Ashlynn’s pick axe that was her weapon of choice. I asked her where she was going to go and she commented that Spavinaw was probably still overrun with all the meth lab zombies. (For the record, Spavinaw is about 10 miles south of Langley.) The town never had much to offer by way of scavenging so it seemed like a reasonable target.

Becca was the same as she always was. She was even still cracking a bunch of her sarcastic jokes that I always expected of her. There was moment where she almost cracked… “You always know in the back of your mind that this could happen to you but even when it does, you are never really prepared for it.” I thought I saw a single tear. But then she hopped off the Produce Dock and then started heading south.

No sentiments of well wishing. No long speech. No goodbyes. She just headed off to the south to meet her inevitability. I guess in some ways, that kind of departure is the best. Just here one second and then gone the next. I think that it spares the rest of the group a lot of turmoil and heartache.

Those tears are not really for the infected. Their timecard has been punched. The ones that are suffering are the ones that are left behind. That and I get the impression that Becca did not want anyone’s pity. I guess we all knew that this was a possibility. She rolled the dice when she got up this morning and she lost. No sense in complaining about it… I guess that is how she looked at it and that is why she left. If we didn’t know how she felt about us by now, then what does it really matter what the parting words were? 

LOST MEMBER

Becca Cason – Langley, OK

Day 221 – Saying Goodbye to Tommy

Tommy Holt has made his decision. He has been bitten and is infected. I think that I have been pretty clear in previous entries that Tommy felt guilty about missing out on his family. He wasn’t certain if his family was alive or dead because Claremore was overrun. With the wound on his arm already turning necrotic, he has decided to drive to Claremore to see if they are alive. I guess one way to look at it is what does he have to lose?

He didn’t say much and when we tried to comfort him, all he kept saying was, “The clock is ticking.” He was right. So the goodbyes were pretty short and sweet.

Taking no supplies except one pistol and a box of ammo, Tommy took his car from the parking lot, go it and drove away. Navigating the crowded parking lot was a risk but we covered him from the roof as best we could from a sniper position. The last we saw, he was pulling on to the highway and heading towards Claremore. I will say this. He was driving slow and honking the horn to clear out some of the parking lot for us as a large number of their contingent were shambling after him as he left.  

I have to respect his decision and he didn’t have anything to lose. He was checking out. I did tell him that if he found his family, they were more than welcome to come here and take advantage of our shelter and supplies.

I still cannot believe that we have lost so many people. I guess it could have been worse. We could have lost eight people instead but this one is hard. After living this long with people under such tight confines, you honestly get to know them and you learn to love one another.

Every loss is a hard hit. I hope he finds his family and either tells them to come here or drives them back himself. He still has 24 hours before he starts to become debilitated. Either way, Tommy Boy, I am rooting for you…   

LOST MEMBERS:

Ashlynn Bishop – Langley, OK

Janet Chambers – Langley

Tommy Holt – Claremore, OK

Day 221 – Lost Four

Normally, I reserve Thursdays for our Zombiology entries but I cannot begin to even think about that right now. We have made a horrible mistake. This morning, they found a breach in our defenses and it cost us four of our members.

This is the only scenario that I can cook up. While we recycle a large majority of our trash, we do still throw stuff away. We have a trash compactor with a bin that is about the size of a tractor trailer. Then an 18-wheeler comes along and hauls it off when it gets full. It lays flat on the ground so the angle down from the back room stock floor to the bin itself is about 30-degrees. Sure, the metal was rusted and old. We never thought a zom would be strong enough to pry their way through into get inside.

But near as we can tell, that is what happened. I don’t know if the latch gave way or how they got in but one zom was ambitious and made it in. It was early in the morning. Half of us weren’t even awake. Janet had climbed down off the freezer top to go to the bathroom and start her morning ritual. The zom got her. The screams that issued from her and from the zom are tattooed on my brain.

Apparently, working as a scout, the zom made some sort of keening scream that signaled to the others. The next thing we knew, zoms were streaming in through the entry to the trash compactor.

I don’t know how graphic I could get. Tommy Holt knew the score. He knew that without that hatch to the trash compactor closed, we could have been overrun. So while people were trying to stop the zoms that were already in the store, Tommy went to push back the horde and get that hatch closed. In doing so, he received a bite to his arm.

The zombie that made it in first attacked Janet like a starving animal. It was like it was a solo shark in a feeding frenzy. It was as many savage bites as possible and when it got to her neck… that was it. Janet was gone before we could clear out the rest of the zoms. 

But before Tommy could get that hatch closed, it was a stream of zoms pouring through that hatch. We had to beat these things back with hand-to-hand melee combat. We didn’t want to hit people with crossfire or risk damaging things with firearms so we went hand to hand.

Ashlynn got caught by too many. She stabbed one straight through the brain with the pick axe that she liked to use. When the zom tumbled backward, she lost her grip on the weapon and too many descended upon her. We just couldn’t save her. She bled out from the multiple bite wounds. We did our best to make her comfortable but there was nothing we could do.

Becca Cason sustained too much contact with zombie blood in the melee battles. She wasn’t bit. But she got tainted blood in her eyes and mouth. We are trying to keep her calm but she is already showing signs of contamination.

Jennifer also received a nasty scratch on her arm. We are not certain is she is contaminated or not. I guess we need to get her in quarantine.

How did this happen? How were we so stupid? How did we miss this?