Day 33 – Proposing a QZ

With the confirmation of the group trapped across the way in ACE Hardware store, I can see their future plans coming from a mile away. They are going to want to get that group over here to us. I have no problem with that and there is also a pretty good chance that we could encounter survivors that are going to want to have sanctuary with us. And given my nature and the nature of many people that are in here, I do not see us turning people away. I mean if you look back at my first post, we invited people to come to us if they needed sanctuary.

But we have to keep the infected out. At all costs.

Naturally, I have a theory and I worked this out with Fred. The conversation took all of about two minutes for him to be on board. We are planning on breaking the plan to the group tomorrow. With a lot of the produce going out, that cooler is getting empty. I think the only real choice is to convert the Produce Department’s Prep Area into a QZ – a Quarantine Zone. With all of our people and shopping carts and pallet jacks, we could empty out the Produce Prep of all useable equipment in an hour. Assigning 10+ people towards a task, it can get done pretty quickly. Many hands make light work.

So here is my justification for this plan. The produce cooler is a lot like the meat department cooler in that there are drains and we have a hose in the department. The two doors that lead out of the produce cooler are pretty old and all we have to do is remove the exit pins from them and the doors cannot be opened from the inside. (Yeah, if there are any fire marshals out there, come give us a ticket!) That leaves only one entrance from Produce to the rest of the store. And we can easily close that area off with a stack of pallets.

Now, the Produce “Back Room” has a lot. There is a prep sink, drains, and we have buckets from bakery that we could fill with cat litter from the pet food aisle. (Crude, I know but it will work for what we have planned.) We have this little TV with a DVD player that the store used for product demos. We have magazines and a small assortment of books from that section of the store. Produce does have its own computer which does feature Solitare, Hearts, Spider, and Mindsweeper. And we can set up pallet stacks along with some of our full length pool rafts for sleeping.

The produce prep room is equipped with a security camera so we can monitor them from the Store Director’s Office to make sure everything is okay. We have an intercom system so we can talk on the internal phone lines.

If Brad and his crew want to come into our area, we have to quarantine them. What if one of them is bit? And who knows? What if other survivors show up down the road? We need to be prepared for them as well.

So we let them come in the store and they have to hang out for two days to make sure they are not showing any symptoms. It is going to be harsh but I think we need it for the safety of our collective group.

I need to sleep on it and figure out the best way to sell this to the crew but with Fred agreeing with me and on board I don’t think it will be a hard sell.

Day 33 – Survivor Profile: Lance & Hunter

Lance Wiggington: Lance came to work with us in the Produce Department last year and I have to be real honest with you... I didn't like the kid to start. He had entered I to a brand new environment, didn't really know how to handle all of us, and so to try to fit in, he went the macho route, wanting to prove he was a big, tough guy. He quickly realized that technique didn't really impress anyone and so he let that quirky, weird side come through... And once he did that, he became a true member of our group. No one has looked back since.

You know the kind of redneck kid that is one of those borderline outdoor survivalists? That type of person knows how to fish, hunt with a bow, hunt with a rifle, can clean and field dress his kills, and then cook it up for you afterwards? Yep, that is Lance. If you were looking around for a redneck to survive not just the zombie apocalypse but any apocalypse, Lance is that kid. I don't like to rank our survivors in order of importance because everyone brings their own unique skill set to the table. But Lance is really up there in the rankings as far as a survivor that I do not want to lose.
If we need fresh meat later on down the line, you are not going to see me out there tracking down a buck or shooting squirrels for his squirrel & dumplings dish. And this is just the things that he does in his spare time.

Lance was going to school to be an electrician which is one of the things that saved his life. Being so late in the school year, Lance had already completed all his credit hours at VoTech, so he didn’t go into school at Ketchum until after lunch. Wanting to make a little extra money, he talked Holly into letting him come in early just to help us set up from 7:00 to 11:00 until school was out. That little decision saved his life. 

Because of all that VoTech schooling, he knows his ways around tools. All his older brothers are military trained. And this kid is the textbook definition of a gym rat. He really leads the charge with our physical fitness routines. I don't want to sound like I am gushing too much but her really is an important piece in our group. Amazing considering he is barely eighteen.

I guess if he does have a downside it is that he is a ginger which means he has no soul, he can draw thin lines of blood with the “rattails” he makes out of the wiping rags from the department, and he is the single biggest depleting force of our beer supply...

 

Hunter Woolsman: The odds of us employing two gingers in a department that had a total of six people had to be a statistically improbability but somehow the powers that be in Reason’s made it happen. With the exception of Audrey, Hunter probably had the shortest employment run in the store before Zero Hour but it was flat out amazing how quickly Hunter fit in the with our group. Have you ever experienced that strange moment of Zen where you say, “Yeah, he is going to fit right in”? Well, one day Lance came back into the department eating some of the chicken from the hot bar from the deli. Hunter saw Lance eating and chased him out of the department, calling out in a proud and audible voice, “Yo, give me some of that cock, bro!” That pretty much did it. He was in ever since.

Despite all his claims for “No Homo” – and it is not like he a secret gay or anything – Hunter will hug you when you are leaving at the end of your shift. He is somewhat known for those encouraging smacks on the butt like football players… but he only does it with the male survivors. I am probably not painting an accurate picture. Hunter is a good kid. I’ve even had him over to my house for dinner.   

I think like all of us, it was blind luck that during Zero Hour, Hunter had decided to skip school to do some fishing. It was also good timing that Hunter was one of the first people Lance speed-dialed when things started falling apart. Hunter and Lance have become some pretty good friends. I cannot tell you how many times they have spent time after work “drinkin’ cold beer” as they call it. Just ignore the fact that both of them are well under twenty-one.

Along with Alex, Hunter is one of the few reasons that we have a small collection of firearms thanks to the rifle and pistols he always carried with him in his truck. And during Zero Hour, he saved my son’s life. For that I am eternally grateful. I swear, give me time and I will explain Zero Hour in full detail. I promise.

Day 32 – Grand Again

Way back when Reason’s first built this location, they set up three little spaces on the south side of the store to rent out for small local businesses. I guess they figured they could make money on some rent and turn the plaza into a shopping center. Businesses came and went over the years. A pharmacy (before Reason’s had one in house) and nail and hair salons are a few examples. But the only business that did really well was the consignment shop Grand Again.

The place sold clothes and whatever stuff people thought they could sell secondhand. Basically it was one level above garage sale. There are things in that store like DVDs, old VHS tapes (if that tells you anything), some video games, some furniture, small appliances, a lot of baby things like strollers and cribs but I would say a solid one half of the store is dedicated to clothes.

Now, thankfully the place was closed and locked up when Zero Hour hit. And also thanks to the fact that the Reason’s corporation is the landlords, we have keys to the place kept in the office in the case of an emergency.

Unfortunately, unmentionables are rarely sold second hand. Honestly, are you wearing secondhand underwear? But no pair of underwear was meant to be worn for 32 days straight. Granted, we were not complete savages. The washing machine and dryer is running constantly.

Back a few years ago, Reason’s attempted this plan to have some of the issued laundry done in house. So they had a washer and dryer delivered to the store. It didn’t work out very well and eventually they went back to having the laundry done via a service. However, they kept the washer and dryer in house and the kids that carried out the groceries would use the dryer to dry their jackets and such when it would rain really heavy. With 20+ people in the store, it does seem like that washer and dryer is going constantly to keep up with the towels and clothes.

We are wearing the smock jackets from the Produce and Bakery or the T-shirts for the local schools and the “Grand Summer 2013” tank tops but we are a grocery store. There are not a lot of spare changes of clothes to be had.

I need to have Kasondra write a note on her dry erase board to Brad. That crew has access to the Dollar General next door. They have been living off the supplies that they have in there. I know that place has underwear, socks, jeans, sweat pants, shoes… A few totes of packaged and bundled clothes tossed in the back of a pickup would improve our lifestyle tremendously. 

Day 32 – Zombiology 101: Zom Aggro Range

Star Trek: The Next Generation had an enemy called The Borg that was these cybernetic organisms. The number one thing with the Borg was the expenditure of energy. A member of Starfleet could beam onto one of their cube vessels and actually walk around without a Borg sentry animating and coming after them. The hive mind, the Collective, knew that one unassimilated person was in there but the threat wasn’t worth the energy disbursement. Once invaders started shooting phasers, then drones would be dispatched. These zoms are kind of the same way.

I have to give Luke credit for this theory but think of it like a video game. When you are running around in a video game, you can often see enemies in the distance before they “spot” you. So those enemies just kind of wander around however their program tells them to. If you get within certain proximity of a bad guy, they turn and come after you (as per their programming). But you have to get within that aggro range for them to come after you. While zombies do hunt, their level of sharpness seems to have left them in unlife. So 90% of the time, the zombies just shuffle around looking for food – looking for something to get in their aggro range.

Going back to the theory of the energy expenditure, I have actually seen one give up and take a seat in a car. (Again, I think it is just instinct kicking in.) Chances are you may come across one that has powered down on a park bench or anywhere comfortable. But then if something gets within that aggro range, they get back up and start shuffling towards their target.

Now if you can get out of that aggro range and they lose you, they are going to go back to that instinctive hunting cycle. Of course, the best way to get out of their aggro range is to provide them with an easier and more accessible target. So in a way, zoms are not too different from running away from a rampaging T-Rex or a grizzly bear. (And yes, I have done both in my adventuring days so hold off your snarky comments.)

I don’t have to run fast… I just have to run faster than you.

In all seriousness, one zombie will not track you down if you drive away in a car. They will track you until they lose you off their radar and since they are not tremendously fast, most of the time, you can outrun them.

Again, going back to that expenditure of energy, we noted something pretty important when we went out to neutralize the tornado sirens. Most zoms just shuffle about, barely picking up their feet. I think it has something to do with their deteriorating motor skills. Now, these guys don’t flat out sprint but the closer they get to their target, the harder they work. When the zoms started coming up the back way to the store and saw fresh meat, they started hustling.

This leaves you with an interesting decision to make. You want them to be close enough so you can shoot them with accurate head shots but the closer they get the faster they come. So you have to wait but you cannot wait too long.

Stay frosty. They are coming…

Day 31 – Ghetto Bastards Gettin’ Their Groove On

It’s funny the things that can make you laugh in even the most horrible of situations. And trust me, it doesn’t get much worse than the zombie apocalypse.

Ask anyone that works in a store that plays Musak, employees hate it. Especially if it is the same songs over and over again. Modern musak is not just a hit song performed by a small section of classic instruments anymore. Now places have all these promos and junk that just drive you batshit insane and makes you wish the zombies would break through and end it all. It took us about three days to disconnect the satellite system that broadcasts the Musak. We thought about keeping it up to see if they would do any broadcasts but that was a no go.

For a few days, we just ran silent. But a grocery store is a pretty big place and with no one in this place, it gets a lot quieter than you would think. So I had this idea. Kim is a really big music fan and she has the best iPod I have ever seen. So using the USB cord from my aircard, we cannibalized (pun intended) every iPod, iPhone, MP3 player and music storage device we could find. Thanks to the video department, DSD, and the employee training centers, we have quite a few computers in this place.

So we set up one computer and freed up all the memory we could and transferred every available song to that hard drive. The store is set up with an intercom network. So we grabbed a phone, dinged the trigger that activates the intercom and wedged a folded segment of paper in it to keep the trigger depressed. Placing the receiver next to the computer speakers, we now broadcast music that we actually like to listen to over the speakers.

Kim went through and set up all kinds of playlists. She selected all the mellow songs and set them to play at night while we are sleeping. The thing with MP3 and the mix of people and all their different music tastes, we have a pretty eclectic mix of music. And then when Kim puts her playlists on shuffle, it becomes even more awesome.

It is not very often that you get to hear Lady Gaga followed by Hank Williams Jr. followed by Eminem followed by Michael Buble. Still, the music really helps people.  We keep it at a low enough level so as not to attract the zombies but not so low that you have to strain to hear it. Surprisingly, spirits have really lifted since we brought this plan on board. We get to sleep without earplugs. The music has helped drown the zoms out quite a bit and it makes the nights more manageable.

So getting back to what is so funny… We got everything set up and I know the first song played out of the random queue came out of my MP3 player. I graduated high school in 1993 – Go Warriors! – so I still really enjoy the ‘90s rap songs. And the first song out of the queue was Naughty by Nature’s “Ghetto Bastard” – which some of you remember as the radio edited version called “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.”

The story in the song is just freakin’horrible about this kid who just lives in terrible circumstances but the chorus is a sample from this happy song that sings several times, “Everything’s gonna be alright.” So I am dancing on the aisle while I am working and thinking to myself, “Everything’s gonna be alright.” Surrounded by the undead. Don’t even know what tomorrow will bring. But this song made me laugh as I thought the same thing Trech asks, “Why me, huh? Why me?”

Day 31 – Exterior Assessment: Desperate Times Call For…

Because of the Memorial Day Zombie Shoot-a-thon and now with contact being made with the group across the street, we have been spending a lot of time on the roof lately. And that has got me thinking…

Langley is not exactly a hotbed of activity by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly if you were going to go out looting a place like Tulsa would be much more optimal. However, to use one of the most overused cliché phrases from comic books, the zoms hit this place hard and fast. We were extremely lucky in that we shut things down and barricaded up pretty quickly.

Looking around with binoculars from the roof, you can clearly see which businesses got overrun. The bank, the pharmacy across the street, the Sonic, the real estate office, the local greasy spoon… Those places had population in them, so they fell quick. But this was zombies overrunning the place in search of flesh. the massive (and unexpected) overrun has left many of the local businesses still fairly intact when it comes to stock levels.

If you can look on the sunny side of things, if people knew that zombie apocalypse was heading their way, they would be out buying supplies like Hurricane Sandy was making another run at the coast. Shelves would be picked clean. And what else does this mean? It means there is still gas in the tanks in the three different gas stations in town. There are still supplies on the shelves at the local hardware store and lumber yard. And we just need to develop a way to get to those items safely. Because that is the question you have to ask yourself. Is there is anything out there amongst the local businesses that is worth dying for?

 

Rame Fishing & Hunting: Rame’s is one of those small town stores that stockpiles all kinds of ammunition and weapons for hunting season. Bow and arrows, pistols, rifles, and all kinds of ammo. The problem is that they are down in the heart of old downtown. Not like Langley is that big but it is far enough away that our boys would have to be out of contact. That is IF no one else has thought of looting that place first. Of course, for all we know, the family that runs it could still be holed up inside making a guns blazing stand. Of course, if we are looking for weapons, shouldn’t we go scope out the police station too?

 

Pier 92 Liquors: So our parking lot shares space with the Grand Again consignment shop, the Party Mart convenience store and Pier 92 Liquors. At the time of the attack, Pier 92 was closed, which means their whole stock is still up for grabs. As I have said before, there is enough booze over there to keep us all drunk until rapture. I could lie and say that we need it for sterilization and such.

 

Westlake ACE Hardware & The Lumber Yard: Langley has two different locations that sell a variety of tools and supplies that could be very helpful for us when it comes to fixing things up around the store. ACE Hardware is just across the street and a little bit north of us and the local lumber yard (I forget its name now) is just far enough south that you wouldn’t want to walk there but it is close enough that from the roof, I think you could keep eyes on a sortie team at all times.

 

Langley Western Store: The last thing I want to do is for someone to catch me dressed up like Garth Brooks. I have no need for any sort of rhinestone button up shirts or wearing Wrangler jeans because “Wrangler butts drive cowgirls nuts.” However, their stock of steel-toed work boots, Carhart jackets, jeans, leather work gloves and such apparel could be key survival items. Yeah, it is May now but January is going to paint a whole different picture… What is more, the store is not exactly high profile when it comes to supplies for the end of the world. So we might have first dibs at the stock. Of course the dream is that the smokin’ hot chick that ran the place is still barricaded inside. She is/was half Columbian or something. A real natural beauty. I would want her to be part of the group for her chest size alone. But, like the rest of Langley, she might be staggering around looking for human flesh to feast on… but not in a good way.

 

I will have to think on what other businesses we will need to loot and that is when I realized that we have an untapped resource literally right next door. I will have to do some research and double check on something…

Day 30 – Fortress of Solitude: Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Red colors indicate our bathrooms and Blue is the shower areas.

Given how we are surrounded by the undead, I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear us say that we all developed an obsession with cleanliness. Hand sanitizer seems to be carried by everyone.

Highlighted in red are our bathroom facilities. We have a total of five toilets and one urinal which has been more than enough for everyone thus far. The bathrooms have been established just for “waste extraction.” People get ready for their day in separate areas just to keep the congestion down. And if you ever have to follow Luke after a Mexican TV dinner, you want to find somewhere else to shave. (I can say that because Luke is my battle buddy and I love him.)

We knew from the very beginning that the Produce Department and the Meat Department had limited shelf life. (Even now as I write this, the Produce Department is down to almost nothing after 30 days.)

Tommy and Luke disconnected the refrigeration units in the main Meat Department cooler that you see highlighted in blue on the map. This area has concrete floors equipped with drains and features stainless steel walls and ceiling. The meat guys used to hose out these coolers every night to clean them so it seemed only natural to transform this area into our shower area. We have hot water (hot = clean) and plenty of hose length… ladies.  

We modified the aluminum product racks and plastic trays used in the department to make shower stalls with shelf space for shampoo, conditioners, bars of soap and all the showering needs. I really think that this will be one area where rationing is not going to be an issue. We literally have hundreds of bars of soap, bottles of shampoo and all the cleaning products you could imagine.  

We used length of bailing wire from our cardboard baler, elephant clips from the school supplies and vinyl picnic table cloths to make shower curtains to provide a small level of modesty. Again, this is where working at a Walmart would have been more ideal or even having access to the General Dollar across the street would be nice but you work with what you have and I think we did quite nicely. The bailing wire and the elephant clips really allow the table cloth/curtains to slide back and forth very easily.

Now, this is part that I am proud off. The cases where the vegetables and fruit were stocked in the produce department have these mirrored acrylic panels. They measured 30” x 46” and we have 21 individual panels. We assembled the acrylic mirrors in the shower stalls for shaving and personal grooming. It works pretty darn well. 

Luke and Tommy both have great skills when it comes to the modifications here in the store so they have been working well together. Both Jennifer and Kim are kind of clean freaks so they went through and assigned flip flops from the Seasonal Aisle for everyone to wear in the shower. They sized everyone and used Sharpie pens so everyone would know which pair is theirs. They even went a little overboard with decorating the flip flops but we have a lot of Sharpies and they have a lot of time on their hands. It is a very cool system.

And thanks to the fact that the store was gearing up for the summer season, we had plenty of beach towels and flip-flops on hand. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, some of the towels were dedicated to become blankets and the rest were designated for the showers. They are not very thick and pretty scratchy but it is better than drying off with paper towels.

We are working on a scheduling system to keep everyone happy but it quickly has degenerated down to a locker room mentality. With this many people, you have to expect some cross traffic. Men try to avoid the women and vice versa and I think everyone just kind of “pretends” not to look. Speaking of the flip-flop dispensers, it’s pretty tough not to notice if Jennifer is in there and Kim’s fake boobs don’t make it easier either. (I thank goodness Janet doesn’t access this blog.)

Personally, I’m way too self-conscious about my weight so I pull the curtain on the stall before I start to undress. Some are more modest than others. But the pendulum swings the other way too…

Case in point, Kanen barely keeps his clothes on period and he will just let the sausage swing regardless of who is in there. But he works out constantly and I think he has a tapeworm so he has nothing to be bashful about. (Want proof? I had Kim pull this pic off his cell phone. Cannot even be certain he is wearing pants in this pic.) 

Most people just pretend not to notice or they try not to encourage him. There was one time where last Tuesday, I think Sharon had had enough and held like a twenty minute conversation with him in the shower room while Kanen was in the buff. It was like a naked version of a Mexican standoff. Funniest thing I had ever seen.

Still, with an entire store stock to pull from, soap, shampoo, conditioner and all those beauty aids are just up for grabs. And there is some stuff out there that I just never tried but now I can because price is no longer an option. Does it make me a giant douche to admit I like Axe Body Spray? Regardless, it may be the end of the world but we certainly do not smell like it…

Day 30 – A Gift From Heaven

Holy crap. Brad Chambers made it. I cannot believe it. Well, no, I can believe it. Like I said earlier, if anyone was going to have the mindset to stay rational when zombies are chowing down on customers in your parking lot, it is Brad.

Not only did he make it, he has five survivors with him. Three coworkers and two customers. Kasondra is sending messages back and forth with him via the white board.

Honestly, I cannot believe it. Don’t get me wrong. I am ecstatic. To be brutally truthful, God, you kind of owe us one or two. Brad and Kasondra were supposed to get married this month so I think it is divine will that these two have survived. (I swiped this pic from Kasondra’s iPhone.) Tell me these two don’t deserve to be reunited.

So there are six of them over there. The owner of the joint is a sweet girl named Jenny. I am glad to hear that she made it. We went to school together but she graduated a year ahead of me. I would duck in there from time to time when I needed things, so I know Kelsey (kinda). She is this Indian girl that worked the register. Keith is one of the reasons they survived. Nice guy, his girlfriend worked in our bakery. I know him and Brad pal around. Then they listed Shannon and Yulonda. I have to assume they are customers. (Is it wrong that I have already made the decision to nickname Yulonda “Honey Bunny” because of Pulp Fiction?)  

But we are not out of the woods yet. There is a lot of real estate between us and them. They are in a hardware store. I am by no means a hardware guy but I have been in there a few times. I am sure they have to have snack crackers and some break room food but after 30 days, how are they even living. Next door to their location is a Dollar General  store that would have access to a number of supplies. If they are raiding that store, then food would be in plentiful supply. Their other neighbor is a bank which would offer zero by way of supplies. (I think cash money is kind of worthless now.)

We have to get them over here. And we have to figure out how. God may send us some assistance but He is not going to just fairy wing them over here. It is going to be up to us…

Day 30 – Hoping Against Hope

I think Kasondra slept on the roof last night. At one point, last evening, she literally ripped the white board off of the wall in the Produce Department and carried it up to the roof along with dry erase pens, a rag, and the pair of binoculars that Hunter brought inside when he entered the building back on Day 1. Thanks to Hunter and Alex, we have a few firearms and a small amount of ammunition. (I swear I will explain Zero Hour and how we got our guns.) Still, I don’t believe we have the hardware to pull off what Kasondra is going to ask us. Kasondra is waiting nervously on the roof to see ACE Hardware by the dawn’s early light. I really hope it is him…

Day 29 – A Light in the Darkness (a.k.a. The Monday Miracle)

Despite the pounding headache and all the hangover reliefs I have been taking, I cannot wait until morning to post this. Absolutely astounding news. When dusk finally hit and people started to retire, Lance, Joe, Kim and Judy were all up on the roof packing everything away. They were nice enough to volunteer to do the clean-up. Plus, Lance has this closing day ritual where he likes to take a six-pack of beer and down one zombie per beer.  

So we are all powering down from the festivities and Joe comes sprinting down the ladder, yelling about a flashing light. So we all clamored up to the roof. And then we saw it. The flashing light.

Across Highway 82 and less than a section line north of us is our local ACE Hardware store. The message was coming from their rooftop. Now, I am not a Morse code expert but damn near everyone knows S.O.S. from the play walkie-talkies your parents got you as a kid for Christmas. Dot, dot dot, dash dash dash, dot, dot, dot. And by means of a flashing light inside their building, we got that message.

I cannot help but think that whoever is over there saw zero light coming from our windows when we are normally lit up to a point where you can probably see us from the orbital space station. Maybe they saw the flags hanging upside down. Maybe they heard all the .22 fire coming from our roof during the tornado siren mission. Or maybe they heard our Memorial Day party. However they spotted us, there is one guy over there at ACE who would understand the significance of the upside down flags and how to Morse code an SOS message…

Now, it is too dark to tell who is sending the message but it is everything we can do to keep Kasondra and Janet contained. Kasondra’s fiancée and Janet’s son, Brad Chambers, works at ACE Hardware and he is this gung-ho, military, Sylvester Stallone loving guy who wants nothing more than to be Rambo. And if I had money to bet, when the Zombie Apocalypse started, Brad would have the wherewithal to react the same way we did in barricading himself inside the store.

It is too dark tonight to tell who is up there. But this is not some random sparking light. This is an intelligent signal. We should know more in the morning.

I am exhausted but wanted to report this. Now I am off to bed but I bet those girls don’t sleep a wink.

More soon…

Day 29 – Getting’ Our Drink On

How is this possible? How is it possible to have a hangover for two days straight? For those of you that came in late, to honor Memorial Day and to remember those that we have lost (family, friends and such), the crew decided to deplete a few reserves of our beer stores. So for the first time in a very long time, I got plastered. Not proud of it and this is why my blog entry is late today and probably going to be pretty short.

I am not against drinking or anything. I am the farthest thing from an alcoholic. The truth is I have the bladder of a woman than is nine months pregnant. If I drink one beer, I am pissing three. So it is not often that I tie one on. And CLEARLY the body of a man in his late thirties does not rebound nearly as quickly as that of an eighteen-year-old. But with the grills going and the sunshine and music and laughter… you could almost forget we were in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.

It was worth it. It was a good time for everyone. Thanks to Oklahoma’s rather stiff laws regarding alcohol, 3.2 beer is all we have. There is a liquor store next to the convenience store that we share a parking lot with but it is a pretty tough run to score some hooch. Still, there is enough booze over there to keep us all drunk until rapture. 

Ugg. My head hurts and I am in serious need of some Gatorade. Happy Memorial Day. More tomorrow…

Day 27 – Target Practice, Steaks, and Cold Beer

I am taking just a quick time out from the celebration because if the rest of the day keeps going like we are going now, I will be slurring me typing, punctuating sentences with *hic* and then asking you to text me a picture of your boobs. No one wants that.

The grills have been going. Luke and Fred have been cooking meat that has been marinating for days. We have all kinds of ice chests with beer and pop cooled down as cold as possible. There are all kinds of snacks. Kim set up music for us. Shala and Jennifer worked together and have made all kinds of games. They have us set up to play Cornhole. It is this game where you throw bean bags onto a board with a hole in it. Like horseshoes but the goal is to sink your bean bags in the hole. I don’t think I laughed harder than when Nolan was beaten by Hunter in a game and Nolan proclaimed Hunter to be a much better cornholer than he was.

See, all the young guys have this quiet homophobia about Nolan. I think that is just an age thing. When I was eighteen, if someone called me gay, I would have been all like, “Nu-uh! Shut up. I’ve had sex with your mom!” When you get older and all that stuff doesn’t seem to matter very much and you begin to care less.

I am sure that things have been said in the past about me and Luke and how close we are together. Whatever. I don’t have the abs, fashion sense, or flamboyancy to be gay. See, but Nolan plays it perfectly. He uses self-deprecating humor and he doesn’t run from it. He puts his name on it. He is not going to be standing at some rally chanting witty rhyming slogans. He has actually told me he hates those flamers because he feels it just fuels the stereotype. But he knows Hunter can be uncomfortable with the whole thing. So when Nolan proclaimed him to be the best cornholer in the group, Hunter was so embarrassed he just went back to drinking. But Nolan is not malicious at all. He knows when and when not to poke the bear.

So this is a good time. I am taking just a little break between meals. I know that Lance and Kasondra have brought up the guns. We will probably do a little target practice later on. Yes, because beer and firearms always go great together. I see no problems coming from that at all.

It is a great Memorial Day Weekend so far. If you are out there and you are reading this, then you are either living in an area that is not tainted yet by the greatest plague in human history. Or you are holed up somewhere and riding this thing out like the rest of us. So to you all I can say is… Endure.

Ride it out. You have made it this far. Make it a little farther. I raise my glass to you and offer you this toast: May the best of your past be the worst of your future. That was my birthday wish I would put on friends’ Facebook walls when it was their birthday. No doubt, we are in the darkness. But the dawn is coming. Wait for that sunrise.

Fight on, brothers. Fight on. God bless.         

Day 26 – Survivor Profile: Janet & Kasondra

Janet Chambers: “Mama Janet.” “Janet the Invincible.” She is known by many names. Okay, so Janet was one of two “original” employees from when Reason’s opened its doors in Langley. The only other one was our store director who was lost to us in the opening salvo of Zero Hour.

One of the biggest success stories is The Chambers. I really admire the Chambers’ family because they have each other to rely on. See Kim Chambers is Janet’s daughter and Kasondra Taylor should have been Janet’s daughter-in-law. We just don’t talk too much about Bud and Brad because we don’t know their status. Well, at this stage of the game, we can all assume… Let’s just move on.

Janet is this little spitfire of a woman. She has a real June Cleaver vibe going on. She just celebrated her 50^th birthday and had worked for Reason’s for over 32 years. That really showcases her loyalty and dedication. I cannot imagine doing anything for over thirty years. Still, Janet ran the show in there. She is this little woman who has an indomitable spirit packed into a frame that is far too small. She has this wonderful spiritual presence to her and for one of the older ladies in our little funhouse of horrors we are living in… Janet has it going on. I bet she was a slice a pie back in her high school days.

She worked in the office managing all the money and all the paperwork that goes on in there. Stuff way over my pay grade. Note: It was not a mistake that I put “worked” in that sentence above. I think it is pretty safe to say that the Reason’s company does not even officially exist anymore…

Janet reminds me a lot of my mother. I know that makes the slice of pie comment earlier seem downright creepy. But I could just see Janet and my mom sitting at a kitchen table pounding back glasses from a box of wine talking about their kids. I wish they could have been friends.

I am very happy Janet is with us. She still refuses to look outside or go up on the roof. I think part of that is because she has lived in Langley almost her entire life and she doesn’t want to face the reality of what the world is degenerating down to out there. I understand. She is not exactly living like an ostrich with her head in the sand. I think it is more of an out of sight, out of mind thing.

 

Kasondra Taylor: The above article on Janet lets me dovetail perfectly into Kasondra. Aside from Fred, Kasondra is one of the number one people I want on my Zombie Defense Force Team. Reason? Military training. Kasondra has been serving as a medic for her National Guard Unit one weekend a month and two weeks a year since she graduated from high school. I mean her training was more about patching holes and battlefield triage but I would be comfortable with her giving me injections or starting an IV if I needed one.

Kas is one of the most dude-like chicks I have ever met. She can go toe to toe with either Luke or me when it comes to crude and salacious comments when in the break room. I honestly consider her a friend or like the little sister that I never had.

Unfortunately, Kasondra’s story is mired in a bit of tragedy. She got involved with Brad Chambers – Janet’s son and younger brother of Kim. When Kasondra was offered the position of management here at Reason’s, Brad decided to move across the road and work at ACE Hardware so there wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. And because of that, Kasondra is carrying a lot of survivor guilt. She thinks that if Brad were here, he would still be alive.

Add to the fact that Kasondra was the first person to close the door and seal the fate of Charley and Lee Sutter. That is a pretty big cross to bear. But she is carrying it well. Much like Janet, Kasondra doesn’t spend a lot of time up on the roof. I think it is mainly because we are in pretty plain view of ACE Hardware and that just brings up feelings of guilt.

Still, she goes up there for weapons training and she has really taken Alex under her wing when it comes to the shooting. Fred is a good teacher too but Fred is a sixty year old grandfather and Kasondra sports what would officially be labeled a “Badonkadonk.” (Yeah, spellcheck that one Microsoft Word!) Who would you rather spend time with?

Day 26 – Giving Memorial Weekend a Whole New Meaning

Checking the calendar, I see that today should have been the kickoff of the Memorial Day weekend. It is typically the second biggest weekend on Grand Lake (second only to Fourth of July) when all the Tulsa yuppies would come up to their lake houses and tool about the lake before retiring for a nice supper at the local yacht club… while I would drive home in my pimped out 2003 Honda Civic to eat Hamburger Helper and day old bread. As you can tell, I am not bitter or jealous at all. But all that changed when Patient Zero showed up at Grand Lake…

Secretly, I have this theory that this whole mess started down in Tulsa. Like the apocalypse was just starting and people didn’t know what was going on yet. Then someone disoriented and driven mad by the fever bites one of those a-holes with a lake house while he was filling up his Hummer and hauling his two new Sea-Doos up to the lake. The guy gets away from the zom and gets in the Hummer with his wife, Muffy, and their miniature Corgi named something stupid like Biscuit or Sir Reginald. You know, a little d-bag like that. And it was one of those nose-in-the-air turd burglars that brought this to our doorstep. Like I said, I am not bitter or jealous.

Of course, I say that jokingly but if Tulsa did get quarantined and sealed off, you can see how the virus could easily hop a barricade and be beyond the quarantine zone by more than an hour north and east.

Well, today, Memorial Day barely seems like a blip on the radar. The whole holiday just doesn’t seem to have any real meaning anymore but it seems like a lot of the crew are bound and determined to make something of it. A lot of the girls have been active this morning, running up and down the ladder we have propped against the ice cream cooler which leads up to the roof access.

I went up there to sneak a peek to see what they are up to. If you stay in the center of the roof and don’t work too hard to look over the walls down into the abyss, you can almost forget what is going on. They have even been decorating with things like the tiki torches, cintronella candles, and some inflatable pools toys just to make things pop. They have flags waving and they have used the Memorial Day flowers and wreaths to try to spread some more cheer. 

Then I learned more of their plan.

They have coolers set aside to fill with ice along with some nice reserves of soft drinks (name brand!) and expensive level beer. They have the grills all set up for cooking and I know for a fact that Fred has had some prime choice cuts of steak set aside for this. He pull me into the Meat Department and showed me something called kobe beef that I have never even heard of before. They are gathering up the top shelf paper plates and plastic forks. The plan is to get our bellies full of beef, brats, beer, and all sorts of tasty sweet treats. It is going to be a wonderful weekend where hopefully we can just forget about everything horrible in the world right now…

As of right now, I am really looking forward to the celebration tomorrow.   

Day 25 – Temperature Differentials

I have been spending some good time up on the roof here lately to get some sun and fresh air but this has also brought something of a pressing problem on my radar. The temperatures have started to reach into the nineties for the first time of the season which is leaving us with a rather pungent problem. We have a number of bodies littering our parking lot. Many of these are zombies that Lance and Hunter have been taking out from their sniper positions on the roof. Once those bodies start to ripen and cook in the heat on the asphalt, we could be in for some serious stench issues, not to mention the health risks.

So we are going to have to figure out how to dispose of these bodies. Burying them does not seem very practical. The time to dig the graves, place the bodies, and then cover them back up would leave team members pretty exposed. Burning them seems to be a pretty viable option but I don’t really know how to start…

Day 25 – Zombiology 101: Origin of the Species

THIS IS JUST A THEORY. WE ARE DOING OBSERVATIONS TO PROVE THE VALIDITY. BUT WE COULD BE WRONG.

Unless this is some sort of doomsday contagion, this zombie virus is not naturally occurring. I am dying for any sort of official information but with no contact with the outside world, we are just kind of winging it. But here is what we know.

It is not airborne or waterborne which is why we feel pretty safe using the tap water for now. If it was in the air or the water, there would be no escape and we are just delaying the inevitable. Might as well slit our wrists now. So we are fairly confident that this is how it works…

The virus is transferred via body fluids, which means if you get bit, you have it. If you are fighting these guys in melee combat, slashing at them with chainsaws and get their blood in your eyes, mouth, or an open wound, you are in trouble. Fingernail scratches are dubious right now.

I am by no means a veterinarian but you hear stories all the time about dogs contracting rabies and they have to be put down. I remember a news story from a while back about a police officer putting down a rabid squirrel in a school yard because they were afraid it might attack the kids. This is what these things seem to be like. They are rabid. They are mean, aggressive, and just want to eat.

So let’s say this is some form of mutated rabies or it at least shares the same qualities. As near as I can figure, filmmakers in the past must have consulted doctors and such when they wrote their scripts and all the theories and postulating has just happened to turn out to be correct. It is some weird life-imitating-art thing.

The zombie must carry a virus strain that is transferred by fluids. It acts like most other pathogens. (Is that the right word? Pathogen?) Diane was showing serious symptoms over the course of a few hours.

Okay, so, you encounter a zombie and you get bitten. You don’t automatically turn and start eating human flesh like you see in a bunch of Hollywood films. It starts off as a virus in your system. I don’t believe that an antidote could reverse the effect unless 1) you got it in your system very, very early or 2) such a thing even exists. I think Amputation would be very risky. If you get bit on the ankle, could you cut off your leg fast enough before your blood circulates up from your leg to your brain? I doubt it.

Now, the virus gets in your bloodstream. It immediately starts attacking your organs and systems because it wants you to die. That is the whole goal. But at this point, you are just sick. You are not a zombie yet. Eventually, the fever burns you out, like we saw with Diane, your organs shut down and you die. Once you die, that is when this virus really goes to work.

I have not had enough exposure to infected test subjects to do a true scientific analysis but my theory is that if you die by the virus, reanimation is a matter of minutes. With Diane, it took about ten minutes and her eyes opened back up. But there is another timetable that I think we have figured out.

Back during Zero Hour, we saw a customer get hit outside by a pack of these things. She was loading groceries into the back of her van when several of these monsters jumped her. All we could do was watch from our doorway as we were barricading it.

Now she did not die from the virus. She died from blood loss and the fact that her guts were chewed out by these monsters. Her body was sprawled out in the back of her van for over a day. Then we watched from the roof as she reanimated and limped around as best she could on limbs with bites taken out of them and meat chewed away. [The happy ending to this story is that Hunter put a bullet in her head with one of the weapons that he brought in and ended her unlife.] But Diane, who died from the virus killing her, reanimated in a matter of minutes. So a single chomp puts the virus in your system and you will reanimate eventually, even if you die from blood loss. (This furthers my theory that amputation will not work… or it may just slow the onset.)

I keep going back to that scene in the movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey. In that, the very lethality of the virus was actually a benefit. It killed everyone so fast it did not have a chance to spread. Do we have that option here? Is there a chance that there are sections of the population that are immune to this virus? Or if there are people out there that are not currently infected (like us) and we can outlast these shambling hordes, will life get back to some semblance of normalcy?

That is really our plan of attack with this whole thing. If we can just wait for these corpses to rot off, we can go back to normal… which rolls us back to our One Year Plan. If we can just outlast these beasties, we can wait it out and be part of those last vestiges of humanity that will inevitably reclaim the world.

At least, that is the plan. I just hope to God that it works.

This concludes your Zombiology lesson for the day.

Day 24 – Let the Sun Shine In…

As we are now in Day 24 of our life inside our little grocery store, I have to admit I have seen a change in some individuals and I think I know the reason. We had a major flaw in our plan with the aluminum foil over all the windows and the glass doors. We originally blacked out the windows using aluminum foil for two reasons:

#1) We believe zombies hunt by sight.

#2) We did not want to broadcast our presence during the night time hours.

To those that still have use of their cerebral cortexes, they will see zombie bodies littering the parking lot (from the ones we have taken out), the windows all boarded up, and we are locked down… Yeah, we probably do seem like a pretty strong fortress. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anyone with a functioning medulla oblongata for days. [I don’t even know what those sections of the brain actually control but there were the only sections I could remember from my 9^th grade science class. It was a long time ago.]

But, our big problem is that if you take aluminum foil and cover your windows, zero light gets through. Zero. And believe me, it gets pretty freaking dark. I have worked the night shift before and said that as long as you didn’t look outside, you didn’t really notice what time it actually was. But I want us to have some normalcy. We need to see at least some small section of the outside world from time to time. We can’t just live in Jodie Foster’s panic room. What kind of life is that?

So with that in mind, we are amending the aluminum foil plan. We are still going to keep it up but we are developing a system where the bottom one-third of the windows will remain covered at all times. But we are making sections in the top two-thirds of the windows (above the pallet reinforcements) that we can open up to allow light inside. Then we are going to assign people to start closing the “shades” at sundown.

And I was pretty proud of this idea. One thing a grocery store has plenty of is cardboard. With all the boxes that cereal and mayonnaise and canned vegetables that used to come in, we usually bailed up one pallet load of cardboard per day, sometimes even twice a day if we were really busy. We worked together and rigged up these cardboard booths that you can sit in and look through peek holes at night without light shining out through the aluminum foil. It’s pretty effective.

But we do need more outdoor activity. I could have sworn I read something one time about lack of sunlight causing a vitamin deficiency. There was an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocked out the sun and Homer joined a posse to tear the machine down. “I’ve had it up to here with these rickets.” I don’t know what rickets are but I am fairly certain I don’t want them.

So we are going to work on projects that will get us up on the roof. Lance loves to go up there and shoot zombies. There is a ton of free space up there that we know is zombie free. We have seeds in packets in the Produce Department and there are pallets of potting soil outside (if we can get to them). We need to start our own garden. Everyone could be involved. Fresh vegetables. It’ll be like Little House on the Prairie up in this mug.

I guess I list this to show you that we are not always perfect in our plans. We have to make modifications. And you will too. The only difference is that if we make too big a mistake, people can die. And that is a pretty scary thought.

Day 23 – Fortress of Solitude: A Good Night’s Sleep



Sleeping Areas: All on top of department coolers

A good’s night sleep is essential. Needless to say, sleep for employees was not really something that Reason’s was considering when it came to designing a store that was open 24-hours.  We are lucky that the store was already ramping up for the summer time. This means we were heavily stocked up on beach chairs with a folding section for both your head and legs. We were also stocked up on air mattress for use in pools and in the lakes. When you blow these up, they serve fairly well as a bed.

We have been using rolls of paper towels wrapped up Tootsie Roll style with dish towels as pillows. Again, it is not our best options but it is the best thing we have come up with. Using needle and thread from the HBC sections, Judy Savage and Becca Cason took to sewing large beach towels stuffed with things like coats from the meat department to serve as blankets.  I guess if bums can use newspapers for covers, we can use meat coats and towels for now. It is starting to get into the heat of the summer so everyone is making do. Right now, it is more about being covered than being warm so they don’t have to be perfect but they are doing for now. When it starts to get colder, this system will suck but we should have better linens by that time.

Kim also came up with this great idea that she came around to everyone with. She broke out a collection of medical tape and cotton balls from the pharmacy section to serve as ear protection to help you sleep. That seems safe and it helps muffle the moans and groans of the zombies staggering around outside. Because these things just moan and growl all day and night. They are like that dog that is right outside your window that yips and yaps all night and there is nothing you can do about it. That does help out with the sleeping arrangements.  

So, we are adapting well for sleeping but I will tell you this, though. If we do start venturing outside, bedding is tops on the priority list. In fact, there is this isolated bed and breakfast place a few miles from here called Southern Elms that probably have great mattresses (because it is one of those high dollar outfits) and all kinds of linens.

A few back and forth trips with a flatbed pickup would do wonders for all of us. 

Now, the location of our sleeping arrangements is fairly unique and I also think smart on our part. The coolers for all of the departments (produce, meat, dairy, and frozen) all have a height of approximately 12 feet. You would have to be a serious athlete to be able to jump and grab the lip of any of these coolers or freezers. The space above these coolers is often used for storage and there is between five to six feet between the top of the cooler and the metal support beams for the roof. You have to be careful walking around when you are on top of the coolers or you can smack your forehead. It is difficult to get up and down off the top of the coolers without a ladder. For a zombie, it would be impossible.

So with living space above the coolers for produce, meat, dairy and both ice cream freezers, there is plenty of sleeping space that allows us all to spread out and have a little bit of privacy. We do this on the off-hand chance that zoms do manage to breech the defenses and make their way into the store while we are sleeping. We cannot imagine any scenario where these things could make it up on top of a freezer. 

People have kind of claimed their spots for sleeping. You can see on the attached map where the sleeping area is and it basically equals out to four sleeping zones, which equals out to five people per area. You can see the size of the coolers so there is plenty of space for everyone. It sucks having to climb down the ladders in the middle of the night if you have to go to the bathroom but it is the price you pay. Kanen confesses that he has a large mouth Gatorade bottle on hand so he doesn’t have to climb down off the cooler. I am not that desperate (or lazy) but we made sure he labeled that bad boy clearly with Sharpie pens… Kids these days.