Day 337 – EBS BACK ON-LINE!!!

Today, kids…. Today is a good day. At 7:00 this morning, the Emergency Broadcast System went back on-line. Thanks to our battery-powered radios, we were able to pick up the signal. It is a recording, it is not a live DJ or anything, and it is playing on a loop, providing all sorts of tips. Here is just a real basic run down of what we know.

It is being called the Kharon Epidemic.

Travel is not advised. (Big surprise there.)

Local authorities are being re-established.

They are advising survivors to stay where they as long as their supplies can hold out.

If you engage what they are calling “hostile reanimations,” targeting the brain is the only known way to put them down.

They also said that safe zones are being maintained and FOBs (forward operating bases) are being established to search for survivors. So now we just have to wait to hear where these FOBs are located. With the buses and the bug out plan, if one is close, we could try to get to them. We still have plenty of food and supplies. We can still wait it out and the Year One plan is still viable. No one is in any big rush to get out there in the thick of it.

Also, it is important to note that earlier this morning, we saw more military aircraft flying over in the distance. These were more like scrambling fighter jets and they were hauling balls. We need to develop some way to signal them. Obviously, gaining the attention of fighter jets doing Mach 2 over the American Midwest is going to be pretty darn difficult. But what if it was a low flying helicopter? We need to come up with something more than just some waving white sheets and American flags hung upside down from our roof.    

I just have no idea what.

Day 334 – Positive Mental Attitudes

I am trying not to be a pragmatist. I really am not. But there is a definite buzz amongst our small clan of survivors. I am not certain if it is the excitement over the radio. I figure it has to be that. Whatever the cause, people seem to be moving faster. Everyone seems to have a little more pep in their step. I am not looking to dissect gossamer. I am afraid that saying anything will destroy the effect but people do seem to be genuinely happier. “Happier” isn’t quite the right word but I am almost afraid to use the word that I want to.

But this is just between you and me, right?

The word is hopeful. 

We have all survived this long. Yes, we have lost friends and family. I am not chalking up any of our losses to stupidity or carelessness. We have fought for our lives. 334 days we have been tap dancing on the rim of a blender and come out alive.

I am scared to think of what percentage of the population was lost to this thing. But we have survived this long. I think that says something about our group that we have managed to gut this thing out.

I am the furthest person from believing in psychic powers or anything but you can just feel that something is on the horizon. And for the first time, it does not feel like a crushing wave of cannibalistic undeath.

I don’t even want to type it out but I will. Yes, there is such a thing as false hope. I understand that would could be setting ourselves up for a great fall. But if everyone seems to be up and optimistic, I am not going to be the one to drag everyone down.

And that can happen all too easy.

I have worked in environments – sometimes even within my own department – where you can have that one Debbie Downer bring down the whole crew. I am not going to be that person. No way. The pendulum swings the other way too. You can have a whole group be kind of humdrum and that one guy can storm through the doors and lift everyone’s spirits.

I truly believe that emotions are contagious. It would be real easy to slip into depression over what is going on. Well, I for one am not going to be that guy. If everyone is up, I am going to go along to get along. Who is to say that greatness is not just over the horizon?

Day 333 – Hearing That Wonderful Belching Squawk….

From the very beginning of this whole thing, I have praised the odd and strange things that we were lucky enough to be stocked with here in the store. I said often that some of these things would never sell except under the most extreme of circumstances. So while it may not have been very cost prohibitive for Reason’s to put these items on the shelf for possible sale, it meant that we had a pretty good stock of those oddball odds and ends floating around.

One of these things was the weather/emergency broadcast radio. This thing plugged into the wall but it also took batteries. Hobbit Judy was one of the smart ones that put aside a large collection of batteries and designated them specifically for the radio for once the power went down.

We had a pretty nice schedule drawn up and we checked the emergency broadcast twice a week. For the longest time, we got nothing but silence. It was as if the whole world had just been lost.

But today, for the first time in months, when we turned on the radio, we heard that white noise static. Now, granted, it does not seem like much but I will take static over dead silence any day of the week. We are trying not to get too excited about the prospects and the possibilities but maybe this is a good sign. Maybe it means that whoever is starting to make a push back.  

When you go to war with someone, one of the first things you want to do is disrupt their communications. You take away the information and that leaves them all stumbling and fumbling in the dark. And most importantly, they cannot rally, regroup, and get organized for a coordinated assault.

Now, don’t get it twisted. I am not saying that the zoms did this intentionally but a byproduct of their relentless attack totally left us in the dark. And I think that was one of the most frustrating things. For all we knew, help could have been just two towns over and we never would have known. On the other hand, for all we knew, we could have been the last people left on the planet.

But we still can feel that military presence every once in a while. I have documented a few times where we have seen cars driving past. We met Kyndall and Wes. Survivors are still out there and now with the Emergency Broadcast possibly going back live, I think that it could be proof that we are finally starting to make a push back against these ravenous hordes. We could even be regaining ground.

We are trying not to put too much stock into it. No one wants to get too excited over some static. It is like you are lost at sea and you see a boat way out on the horizon. You try to contain yourself because you don’t want to expend your energy when they are not in range to see you yet but your heart is fluttering at the chance of being rescued…

Day 332 – Zombiology 101: Migratory Patterns

On more than one occasion, we have seen shambling hordes of zombies comes staggering past the store. During the winter months I half expected to see some wearing Kansas City Chiefs or St. Louis Rams clothing as if they were migrating down from the north to escape the cold. We still feel that these things are triggered by instinct and, of course, the most basic instinct is to feed.

We saw birds migrating before winter set in. Back before America was domesticated, we know the Indians followed the migratory patterns of the buffalo. When the winter weather first set in, we did see that the zoms had enough sense to get inside if and when it was possible. We discovered this in businesses, like ours, that featured automatic doors that were motion-sensitive. So, the question is do zoms have enough instinctive cognitive function to shamble south when the weather is getting cold?

Part of me wants to say that such a notion is crazy. Clearly animals are much more in tune with the natural world than we are. But these things are not human. Could it be that all that thinking and self-aware thought keeps us from following our natural instincts?

Human beings do things all the time that are against our natural instincts. Every what someone try a cigarette for the first time? Ever hear someone say “It’s an acquired taste”? That is because that 195 proof moonshine wants to kill you. Meth is filled with some of the most God awful chemicals on the planet but that was an epidemic, especially in this part of the country. And yet, people did it anyway.

If the zombies are not migrating… then what the hell are they doing? I mean where are they marching to? Could it be that the whole mob is just following the Alpha and that Alpha is secretly thinking to himself, “I have no idea where I am going but they are all following me… so, uh, everybody… this way! Yeah, that’s the ticket!” Obviously I am speaking metaphorically here.

I seriously doubt that a zom can instinctually be in New York City, sniff the air, and think, “There is a lot of human flesh down in Texas.”

I guess we have to go with migration because I cannot think of what other reason they would all be shambling on with such a purpose. Sure, we have seen the shambling zoms but that kind of wanders aimlessly, looking for something to pop up on its minimal radar screen. But that horde that moved through, the massive one, they were moving like they were chasing something. It was like they knew dinner was just over the next rise.

Could it be that they are like a wave where the larger the horde gets, the more purpose they move with? The Alpha is surfing the crest of the wave and the larger that group is behind them, the more they move with a purpose? I suppose that makes sense but I really feel sorry for whatever group that crashing wave breaks against.

I just have to hope it isn’t us. But even if it is, our wall are strong and we can wait it out inside.       

Day 331 – Kinda Missing the Old World

I know I am not usually one to bring up something like this. And before you come in and slam me here, yes, I am fully aware of how good we have things but it is called “forbidden fruit” for a reason.

I don’t know why but it seems to be human nature to want what we cannot have. You tell someone that they cannot have something and suddenly they want it all the more. Want proof? Ever been on a diet? Boom. Argument closed.

And what is really bad is that the things I want, they are so simple. I want to watch the news. I want to go to that MSN homepage and see new information about what is going on. I want to log onto The Chive. I want to see new episodes of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. I want to log into Facebook and see what everyone is doing. I know it seems mundane and trivial but before, I felt that I stayed pretty plugged into the world and not it is like I am in a sensory deprivation tank.

I know it does no good to ramble on about such things and I know what kind of a debilitating effect it would have on the group so that is why I type this out here. I know it is tremendously cliché for me to say things like this but it is true that you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone. And I have said for years that you have to learn how to appreciate the little things.

Now more than ever I seem to be feeling these things. I have to wonder if the world will ever get back to the way it was. I am afraid it is just a pipe dream really. I doubt that such a repair could even be possible in my lifetime. Sure, Dubai sprung up seemingly overnight. But we just transformed in the course of a month into a vast, unpopulated hellscape. Repairing this damage, we just might not have the manpower. There might not be enough people to rebuild this world.

I need a drink…  

Day 330 – A Man With A Mission

They say that idle hands are the devils playthings. I saw this when all of this first started and we got the store secured and locked down. After we knew we were safe, there was an emotional “crash” for lack of a better term. Not solely focused on saving our skins, we were able to stop and reflect on everything that we were losing or already lost. I was concerned about idle time during the winter months. But we have done things to keep us going. Whether it is movie night, poker night, securing the store, the bus “bug out” project, cooking lessons, working out, store inventory, we have done a really good job at keeping the hand and mind occupied. I think that helps with mental stability. It gives people goals and things to focus on.

Kanen’s task of making his armor has given him something to focus on. Joe, Hunter, and Lance are more than helpful and I think they are planning on doing up outfits of their own.

Strangely, it has been a morale booster. It also quite something to see Kanen “test” his armor by running down the hallway that leads from the Produce Prep Area to the backroom. He has even employed us to pretend to be zombies to see if we can snag him, bite him, or drag him down. One on one, I will admit it is pretty tough. Apparently Brad and Eric are not big on losing and they tend to “up sell” their zombie strength. But after 330 days, you have to assume that no rotting corpse is going to have Brad’s upper body strength.

This is still not what I consider a good idea. I think that armor might inflate your ego and your belief that you are safe. You might take chances that you normally wouldn’t. My bigger fear is that eventually Kanen is going to want to do a little trial by combat. I understand something like that is important but what if this armor fails?

It is a pretty big gamble that he is taking if he decides to go that route. We will just have to wait and see how things go.

Day 329 – Into the Lions’ Den

WARNING: I do not abdicate nor recommend anything that we are going to be talking about in this article.

I don’t know if you want to chalk it up to the impetuousness of youth or not but Kanen Kraig is adamantly convinced that he can walk amongst the zombies. Kanen is our resident extreme sports guy. Whether it is doing motocross or riding around on four wheelers, if it is motorized Kanen loves to ride it. Getting his dirt bike and his motocross gear was one of his first priorities when we started doing sortie runs.

I will say this. Whatever you call it, that BMX armor that he wears is pretty resilient. Obvious that vacu-formed plastic isn’t going to do jack squat against a bullet. This stuff is not body armor. But I cannot argue with Kanen’s logic that the stuff is strong enough to resist bites. He has this theory that if he straps on his armor, wears enough leather, and wears his helmet, he is essentially bite proof.

I remember watching these nature documentary shows where scuba divers wear chain mail to stop shark bites. Divers who have been bit while wearing the armor describe it as tremendous pressure but the teeth cannot sink in.

All day he has been working on this zombie suit that he is fortifying with duct tape. I know it sounds crazy but he is pretty convinced that this stuff would hold up. I have asked him how this stuff would hold up against a horde.

He has combated me with my own logic. From the beginning, I felt the roll up doors to the back room and the produce was secure because we would block them off with the pig iron that is our forklift. My theory was that no amount of zoms could lay hands on the limited surface area of the door to push the door in.

Kanen believes that not enough zombies could surround him enough to hold him back and break through his armor. Think about it, even if you are surrounded by 100 zombies, it is not like 100 zombie mouths are biting at you simultaneously. There is not enough “surface area.” So even surrounded by 100 zombies, at the most, you only have enough room for five or six to surround you and make contact. And if their bites are slipping and sliding off the duct tape, all you have to do is keep your feet churning and keep moving.

His theory is that if he seals off enough of the armor so there is nowhere for a zom to hook fingers in, he feels he would be okay. It is a solid argument. I am really finding it hard to disagree with him. Certainly, the guy armored up with a helmet, BMX armor and a suit made out of duct tape is going to be more protected and therefore safer than Streaker Joe out there wandering the wilds buck naked.

But this is the thing that we have been stressing from the beginning. In this world, there is no such thing as “safe.” There is “safer” but there is no safe. I just hope he understands that. I hope you all understand that. 

Day 328 – Flirting with a Downhill Spiral

I have to admit that it is taking a bit of an adjustment living into the powered down store. Because of the darkness and only one-third of the light banks powered up, the place is best described as dank. And one of the biggest problems is that there is going to be a considerable lack of airflow. I know everyone must be thinking that these are clearly First World Problems.

But my concern is that this could be the beginning of downhill spiral. If you look back in October, I made a comment about living arrangements. When people have their bellies full, they are comfortable, and have lots of sleep. We still have food but the food source is dwindling. The garden has not exactly turned out spectacularly. I think it is safe to say that once the food is consumed from here, we would have to leave here. The store is not conducive to being sustainable. Once the food is gone, we would have to leave.

Stagnant air can make it difficult to sleep. It makes people uncomfortable. And when we get uncomfortable, that is when fuses get shortened. Slowly, all those little things that didn’t really bother you that much starts to get more annoying and it is harder and harder to let stuff go. Tempers flare and suddenly we are not a nice, loving family anymore. I don’t think it will come to that. I really don’t.

This crew has rarely been about egos and manly machismo where we punch each other out to prove a point. Sure, that happens in movies and TV shows but that stuff rarely flies here. But maybe that is because we have had it easy so far.

We have not been scrounging for food. We wear clean clothes. We have real beds. I am not saying that our place is ideal but as far as apocalypses go, this is not a bad place to hole up and ride it out.

I just don’t want that to change… at least until it has too.

Day 327 – Shadows and Power

Back before the zombie apocalypse took over everything, we all just plugged along, living life. And during those times, we experienced a few power outages up here at the store. There was one year where a particularly bad ice storm covered everything in a solid coating of ice. Power lines were snapping all over. It was horrible. That was part of my fear is that we would experience something like that this past winter and we would be absolutely screwed. Thankfully, we dealt mostly with cold temperatures instead of massive precipitation.

But during those times, we knew what it was like to be here in the store with no electricity. Let me tell you, it gets DARK. One of our saving graces during this thing was our lack of windows that kept us from being vulnerable. No army of undead – no matter how many the shambling horrors – are battering down concrete walls. 

But it also prevents us from being able to see outside and it limits our natural light. As we speak, Lance is using his electrician skills to get the security camera back up and running so we can have eyes outside.

The generators are strong enough to give us light but it is just not enough. Well, it is just not as much as we are used to. The case lights are all down and the number of overhead lights have been cut to a third. Given the height of the ceiling, we are not walking around in darkness but it is like nothing is illuminated. It is like trying to read by a 25-watt light bulb when you are used to reading via a 100-watt bulb. 

I think we are going to have to be really careful now to look for warning signs of depression in people. Thank goodness we have the cordoned parking lot, the roof access, and such. The temperatures have been steadily rising.

Before, when you were performing daily tasks like cleaning the bathrooms, cooking meals, or getting together for movie night, things almost seemed normal. Or at least normal-esque. Sometimes, during really bad snowstorms, quite a few employees would often say, “Screw it.” And sleep up here at the store. Granted, that was rare but mentally you might just tell yourself, “We are just sleeping in the store tonight.”

You fool yourself into thinking that we just cannot leave the store because of the weather. And with all the bright lights and distractions, you forget that the world outside is a zombified wasteland.

With those lights going dark and the airflow brought on by the central air system now feeling stagnant, we aren’t going to want to spend a lot of time in the store. We still have boatloads of aluminum foil. Maybe we need to arrange a system where we cover the windows only at night to at least let some sunlight in here. My kingdom for a few skylights right now.

The more we cannot fool ourselves into thinking everything is fine within our high, high walls, the more people will have to embrace the madness outside… and that could be a dangerous thing. 

Day 326 – Zombiology 101: We Must Be Using Vinegar…

“You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” –Liz Lemon

“Why would want to catch flies?” –Jack Donaghy

As we are now getting into the thaw of spring, I think it is safe to say that winter is behind us but as far as winters go, this one has been pretty mild as far as precipitation. The temperatures were brutal but there was less than normal as far as ice and snow.   Whenever you talk to farmers or kids in the know, a mild winter is bad for a couple of reasons but one of the things that you don’t consider is the bug population. We always make the comment of wanting a hard freeze to kill off all the ticks and bugs. Generally, after a mild winter, the bug population is pretty intense the winter afterward.

But this leads me to postulate a theory. Take your common housefly. They come along and land of a dead body. They vomit or lay their eggs or whatever. The egg matures into a maggot and then the maggot eats dead flesh from the host that it was laid on. We have to assume that any flesh tainted with the Kharon virus would make the meat toxic. I have to assume that even if a cow does not animate from the virus, it would still be considered “infected” and anyone eating that meat afterward would have to result in death. 

So if maggots eat infected flesh, do they die and not transform into flies? Is it possible that maggots are such simple creatures that the virus does not affect them?

I remember when the AIDS outbreak was still being studied, there was an initial fear that mosquitos would be able to spread the disease if they drank the blood of an infected person and then bit an uninfected person. Thankfully, that theory was debunked pretty quickly but if that was the case, that disease could have spread faster than Kharon did.

We have already established that zoms will eat anything they perceive as meat that they come across. Does limit the availability of corpses for flies to lay eggs on? Will we see a dramatic decrease in the fly population this year because of the zombies? I guess that is one thing we can chalk up in the win column.

Still, I wonder about things that are noted scavengers: vultures, buzzards, hyenas, and (according to some researchers) Tyrannosaurus Rexes. We have seen obvious cases where animals will outright avoid these shambling corpses. But what about the ones that we have brained? Will a vulture have natural instinct or sense enough to disregard a tainted corpse or will they just be like, “Free meal!” Can they detect if a corpse is lethal to consume? And we have seen the smallest bite turn into a full blown infection. I have to assume even tasting a small portion of tainted meat would be fatal. We are not concerned about zombie vultures but that piece of the ecological puzzle could get pulled out of the equation.

And what effect would that have on the planet? Oh well, questions for men a heck of a lot smarter than me… 

Day 325 – Powering Down

We all knew it was coming. From Day One, we knew it was only a matter of time before we lost electrical power. Last night, at approximate 8:00, everything browned out, flickered, and then went dark.

If you are late to this blog, you might be asking, “Then how are you powered to transmit this?” Thankfully, our store was outfitted from the beginning with an emergency backup generator. It is powered by propane so in one of our first sortie missions into the outside world, one of our leaders “acquired” a propane truck from one of the local businesses in Langley. Fully stocked with 5,000 gallons worth of propane, we feel we have more than enough juice to get us through. I have no idea how much propane we will burn but even using 50 gallons a day (which seems excessive), we are good for 100 days. And there are massive service tanks in Langley, Big Cabin, and Adair that we can refuel with if necessary.

Now, it is a little different. Not every light is illuminated. We have gone through and shut down as much of the equipment as necessary. Coolers that are empty were taken off line months ago for fear of a Freon leak compromising the whole system. We have one small walk-in freezer going in the bakery. We have been condensing stock down in the frozen food section since this whole thing started and we have taken all empty doors offline. Produce and dairy have been empty for six months and what was left was condensed down into what we considered the “main” coolers months ago.

We basically dismantled the entire DSD operating system which powered the registers and the store’s computer systems but we did keep the store’s internal intercom system powered.

The majority of the power goes to the lights, bakery (for cooking), and a few spare outlets. Thankfully, my laptop is mobile. And while I have been hijacking the store’s internet connection, I checked last week and my portable internet card is still active. I just bring the laptop down from my bunk to recharge.

I would say we have about one third of the lights up and running. Everything is pretty much muted for lack of a better term. It is not dark. Zoms are not going to be lurking in the shadows. One of the saving graces of this place was the lack of entrances and openings that could be breeched by the zoms. We now experience the flip side of that coin. There is very little natural light. I am expecting more time spent on the roof or in the perimetered parking lot by our survivors.

We are still in good shape. We all knew that this was going to happen. It was a planned contingency. To be honest, I am amazed it lasted this long. I was really concerned that generator-powered heaters would not be enough to keep this place warm and the spacious halls would become a liability.

But we are through that weather phase and so now it is just chugging along. Stay thirsty, my friends. More soon…

Day 324 – Lo, There Do I See My Line Going Back to the Beginning

Prepare yourself. Yesterday, I was all Irish. Today, I am going Norse. Strap in…

Okay, so last week, I was wondering about if we can ever get back to a normal life. And that entry has been swirling around in my head as I have been contemplating what “normal” really is.

Will this scourge be eradicated in our lifetime or will there be “Growing Up Zombie” reality shows? Will our kids be trained to eradicate zombies and just accept it as part of their new lifestyle? Or will the scourge be eradicated and will grandparents tell “back in my day” stories to the youngins that will become the campfire ghost stories? Will future generations believe the horror stories of this eradicated zombie menace or will these stories become ramblings? “Oh, Granddad is going on again about ‘back in my day, we had to brainpan the undead to get our supper!’”

I guess that is all part of the unknown future.

So here is where the Viking stuff comes in. I will admit that back in the day, I found mythology fascinating. The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians… all their stuff was pretty cool. When you look at Christian faith, we get Heaven. We get to hang out with God and all our loved ones. Heaven is a paradise. It is Paradise. It is easy to see how people join and cling to that idea. If I am good, I get my reward in the afterlife. Not all cultures believed this.

In the Viking faith, if you died in battle, you got to go to this great shield hall where you drank beer and partied with the gods. It was paradise… for a while. But those that were assembled there were warriors. And you were there for a purpose. See, the Vikings believed in Ragnarok, the destruction of all things. There was going to come a time where the demons broke out of their prison and came to kill Odin, Thor, and all the warriors that were celebrating in the great shield hall. And here is where their afterlife was different. They lose. Not only do they lose, they know they are going to be defeated. But it didn’t matter. It was not victory that they were after. They just wanted to fight the good fight.

Stop and think about that mentality and what it would mean to live that kind of life. It doesn’t matter if you fail. It matters that you were willing to look at these impossible odds and pick up a sword anyway. Maybe we all need to adopt this attitude.

I am not saying that we start worshipping Odin. (Tough sell with this crowd anyway.) Maybe that is what it takes to be a hero in the Zombie Apocalypse. Maybe you just have to have the courage to pick up your hammer and stand against that rampaging horde that is slowly shuffling toward you.

I guess the counter to that would be that quote about useless dead soldiers. Didn’t Gen. Douglas McArthur have a quote about that? Something about it is honorable to die for your country but it is better to live for it?

Maybe that is what we are all doing here. Fighting the good fight. Maybe survival is our revenge…   

Day 323 – Top o’ the Morning to Ye!

For those that are still alive to read this, I right Irish prayer for you as you face the day!

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Yes, Hunter and Lance are working on some formula to dye some of our beer reserve green. If I don’t do another post, you know why. Avenge me.

Day 321 – If You Are What You Eat…

Okay, so yesterday I was talking about which animals would survive the Zombie Apocalypse. But most of that theorizing was based on an animal’s survivability. But that got the old wheels a turning and I got to thinking about the scavengers.

Is there a food out there (you know aside from White Castle) that is so disgusting that scavengers won’t touch it? Do animals have a certain keen insight to know to stay away from tainted or poisoned meat? Or are buzzards just like, “I don’t give a !@#$. Meat is meat.”

I am going to assume that consuming the meat of any zombie is pretty much going to kill anything that consumes it. That is just a theory and for some reason, no one amongst the survivors are willing to try a slice of zombie to prove my theory. And that is in spite of my best arguments that include yelling at them, “It’s for science, people!”

“But I don’t want to die.” Pffftt. What a bunch of crybabies.

So for the record, we are going with zombified meat is toxic to anything that consumes it. Now, the question is to what level of zombification qualifies it as toxic.

Scenario 1) Zombie Zack has been full on zombified. Bitten, the virus ran its course, he died, resurrected and is now staggering around the city. Obviously no carrion bird is going to attack him while he is moving. Zack comes across a sniper and it is brain pan city. Zombie Zack’s lifeless (again) body drops to the parking lot. Two days pass. Alpha Buzzard comes by. Is the buzzard smart enough to not eat the tainted meat? Does its instincts kick in and it flies on its merry way? We are not certain. But we are assuming that if it eats the meat, it dies.

Scenario 2) Kicking Kathy went down screaming. Bitten and savaged by a pack of zoms, she died as a result of blood loss. They chow down on her extremities but then move on. Now we have seen this event occur. Even if you die from bleeding out, your mangled body does rise a few days later. Within the first twelve hours of her death, that same buzzard comes flying by. She has not risen but she is infected. The virus was not allowed to run its course but it is in her system. If the buzzard eats on what is left, is it less likely to know the food is tainted? And if it consumes the meat, does this punch the clock on the buzzard as well, only it dies 24 hours after ingesting the meat as opposed to 2 hours as with Scenario 1?

Does burning the bodies purge the virus and could scavenger animals eat zombie barbeque without getting sick? Or, again, do those animal instincts kick in and there was no way you could force this down a hyena’s throat?

I know this can seem like a silly topic of conversation but here is something to consider. All these domesticate animals that are now running around with no masters to feed them are going to get hungry. And hunger breeds desperation. If some stray dog wandered through Langley right now, there are quite a few zom corpses to feed on.

If all scavenging animals eat this poisoned flesh and are dead in twelve hours, this changes a biological ecosystem dramatically. And not just the big predators like buzzards and hyenas. We are talking things like coyotes, dogs, raccoons, rats, mice, flies.  Hell, any meat eater becomes a scavenger if not enough food is available. 

If that meat is toxic, this could be a whole other problem Mother Nature will have to course correct.

Day 320 – The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

This week’s Zombiology 101 entry got me thinking. Obviously, if we start to go on the offensive and head out into the great wide world, I have to wonder what kind of a world we are going to find out there. Specifically, I am wondering what animals survive something like this.

What we have discovered with our zoms is that meat is meat. They eat anything. For some reason they do seem to frenetically hunt humans but if I had the choice of trying to chase down a squishy pink human or a fleet-of-feet animal like a dog, I am going after the human too.

We have seen cows brought down. My theory on this is that all it takes to bring a bovine down is a cow sleeping in the middle of the night, a single zom, a single bite, and time. The anticoagulant in a zom bite will cause the animal to bleed out eventually. Some will obviously take longer to bleed out than others.

I think birds as a species survive this thing intact. Even the fastest human is not catching a bird before getting all sluggish and zombified.

I think any animal that can climb a tree is pretty safe.

You want to say that animals like dogs and cats would be pretty safe too. Chasing them down is pretty strenuous work if you can run. Mick had Rocky chasing chickens for goodness sake. Zoms can manage a shuffling stagger at best.

I think in the cases of these animals, in a one-on-one confrontation, the animal is winning. But if there was just one zombie out there, I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

Let’s say Fido is a small breed of dog (a Jack Russell terrier?) that is small but can kick up speed if he needs to but he is trapped in his yard with a zom. No matter how fast Fido is, he is going to get tired. The zom won’t. Ever. And with that temptation of meat not letting the zom “power down,” it really is only a matter of time.

If we remove the fence from the equation, Fido now has a fighting chance because he can easily outdistance a single zombie. The problem is can he outrun a horde? What if the breadth of the walking dead is so wide that eventually Fido just gets outflanked?

Now let’s change Fido to Smokey. Yeah, a grizzly bear. Remove the fact that a bear can hit about 40 mph over open terrain. Obviously, a bear can kill a zom with one swipe. But are they smart enough to outdistance a horde? You want to say yes. I think that they would have an advantage and would survive zom encounters 9 times out of 10. But I am counting those encounters to take place up in the wide open spaces of places like Montana and Alaska.

I cannot even begin to hypothesize about animals in, let’s say, Africa.     

But most of our cows in Oklahoma are fenced. Is it only a matter of time until enough zoms pour into a pasture where the cows just don’t have anywhere else to run? Sure, half the horde is probably getting trampled and stomped out but, remember, all it takes is one bite…

I gotta admit. It has me curious.

Day 319 – Zombiology 101: Time to Go On the Offensive

Yesterday, I was asking for a change. Now I think I know what that is because, for us, the game is changing… When Zero Hour first hit us, we were very lucky to get locked down as quickly as we did. I think our two biggest saving graces were the speed with which we locked everything down and the availability of other food sources.

I know what I am about to type is going to seem cold-blooded but these are the hardcore facts. When the first wave of Zero Hour Zoms came rap-tap-tapping on our chamber doors, they found them locked and not easily opened. Now, the steel security doors and the garage-style doors were barricaded pretty quickly and featured no windows to see in.

The floor to ceiling glass doors could have been smashed in with some considerable effort. Granted, in that first day, we worked very hard to get those doors barricaded and impenetrable. But what saved us in that zero hour was the fact that the Sonic Drive-In, the bank across the street, the convenience store we share a parking lot with… Those areas were considerably less secure.

Let me reiterate an old point. Zoms like a quick and easy meal. Since there were people running around screaming while they were being chased down, the zoms in our parking lot were more apt to go after the quick meal than try to force their way through our glass doors. It sucks to say it but it is the truth. And because there were human happy meals running around in the parking lot, it gave us the time we needed to armor up and lock down. Yeah… well, that was Day 1.

Welcome to Day 319. The zoms that are still staggering around are the ones that have managed to 1) avoid damage to their body before they turned, 2) survived the freezing effects of the winter, and 3) managed to consume enough flesh to sustain their systems. In short, the winter has culled the chaff. What has survived is the wheat.

These surviving zoms are going to be tough. They are not going to give up easily. And they are going to be ravenous. That, in and of itself, is frightening enough. But there is another factor that you need to seriously consider.

Before, when people were all running around screaming, there were lots of meals for a zom to choose from. You might be the only meat in five miles so there is going to be less to draw away their attention. Before, you might be able to hunker down somewhere and wait for them to lose interest. But if there is no other meat out there to draw them away… they may just keep pounding and pounding at your door.

Given the aggressive nature that we have seen, waiting them out might no longer be an option. Which means you are going to have to go on the offensive…

Day 318 – A Small Depressive State

I know this entry is a little later than normal. Way back when this thing first started, I told you how Jennifer – excuse me – my “fiancé” Jennifer was helping me out with medication regarding my depression. I cannot remember if I ever explained this but I did not take it for long. I was never a big fan of medicating to begin with.

Last night, I remember lying in bed, looking up at the rafters above the Produce Cooler, and wondering if it was cheating. Look, in case the whole engagement thing didn’t come across as tongue-in-cheek as I wanted it to, I don’t consider Jennifer my fiancé by any stretch of the imagination. If the two of us were a couple and people saw us together, they would clearly think that I was either extremely wealthy or some sort of weird Svengali that had hypnotized her. Physically, she is way out of my league.

But the thing about being confined in a space with people is that 1) you get to know way too many intimate details (whether you want to or not) and 2) to pass the time, your conversation chains take you down some pretty strange roads. And right now, it seems like we’ve got far too much time on our hands.

And then, lying in bed, I wondered if being in a faux-relationship was cheating. (Don’t judge me. The mind goes to strange places in the dark.) I don’t even know if I am married anymore. We were going to be divorced anyway. Has death done us part?

That got me spiraling down the rabbit hole with my thoughts and the most direct result of that is often my depression trying to return. And there is nothing I can seem to do about it.

I have tried reading books from the collection that the store had on hand. I’ve tried watching my favorite movies from the video department. I’ve tried working out. I’ve tried sniping zoms from the rooftop. But nothing seems to be capable of holding my interest for very long, thus allowing me to enjoy things.

And when you try to do all these things, searching for enjoyment, and coming up dry, that just makes it even worse. Inevitably, you find yourself collapsing in your bed and sleeping. A lot. And I know that is not healthy.

I guess this is the part where the therapists ask me if I am considering hurting myself. No, of course not. It is just I am getting mired down in a funk. I don’t like it but I don’t know how to claw my way out of it. This is not a cry for help or anything. I am just pissed off about this depression and it is clogging my head up to a point where I don’t even know what to write here.

And the more futile things become, the more tired I become and the more I want to sleep. It is like this perpetual cycle that I cannot escape.

I need a change. I just don’t know what…

Day 317 – I AM ENGAGED! (Kinda…)

Yep, kids, it is official. I am engaged to be married. After a series of long talks and walks on the beach (by that I mean the Frozen Food Department), Jennifer Brown and I have decided we are going to get married. Now, I know what you are thinking. You have all see her pictures. She the hottie with the naughty body. Why is she hooking up with some jamoke like me?

Well, that catch to it is that she has to be sixty and unattached at the time. Yes, we are both still free to date and look for our soul mates and yadda, yadda, yadda. But if we both survive this apocalypse and are unattached when we are sixty, we have agreed to marry each other so we don’t die alone. Of course, by then I will be in my seventies. But I keep telling you, you’ve got to plan ahead, people. You need to figure out that roadmap or you just wander through life aimlessly. (Remember: It was planning ahead and looking at the big picture that gave us the Year One Plan.)

I just hope she keeps her figure so I can show her off as clearly a trophy wife during the “we survived the apocalypse” book tours. She said that she is totally okay with that as long as I pay for everything. Sounds like a pretty solid arrangement to me!

Okay, so we are both joking. But it does draw up some interesting questions. Ask any firefighter. If you are dealing with a brushfire, you have to make sure that it is extinguished completely. One lone ember can cause the whole thing to flare back up again and put you right back in the field to fight again. Zombies are the same way.

We have to crush this menace completely. If ONE zom is still left un-alive, this whole thing can start back up again. I am still of the opinion that not knowing what we were dealing with in the beginning caught us with our pants down. Not just us but humanity as a whole. I doubt humanity will be caught off guard like this again. How many bureaucrats in Washington heard the reports of zombie cannibals and didn’t take it seriously until it was too late?

If some lab has a dozen of these things locked away for study, there is a chance that a second outbreak could occur and overwhelm us a second time. There could be one trapped on an off-shore oil rig waiting for rescuers or a salvage team to arrive. Bingo, it starts all over again. There could be one trapped in a forgotten basement. Bango, overnight you’ve got fifty running around Manhattan.  

But once the menace is eradicated, how long until things get back to normal? I know anyone can get married. It doesn’t take a piece of paper to get married. In a sense, all it takes is two willing hearts. I guess you probably need a minister, or a justice of the peace, or a sea captain to perform the ceremony. But how long does it take for society to get back to the point where we are filing paperwork at the courthouse and having blood tests performed before the blessed event? Will we ever get back to that?

I have no idea what happened to the woman that was technically my wife of whom I was separated. And I don’t mean the horde separated us. We were living in two separate places. I have no idea if she is still out there, if she became zombie chow, or if she herself is now a zombie. So is the slate wiped clean? Does everyone else just start fresh? And more importantly, what about land ownership? Can I go stake claim to Trump Tower right now? Is possession still nine-tenths of the law. Because if so, get the guns and the grenades. We are going on a road trip!

Day 316 – Still Human After All

George Costanza once commented on women crying. He talked about it was like they are on fire and you are just panicking and trying to put them out. That is what I felt this weekend when I chanced into the pharmacy at the wrong time.

Kimber Caskey was using that rather isolated place to have a small emotional breakdown and I came in right in the middle of it. I didn’t know whether to run away or stay, touch her or not, speak or listen. I just wanted some ibuprofen and walked smacked dab into the buzz saw. It took me a second to get my bearings but then I did what I am somewhat known for amongst the group.

I sat down beside her and gave her the nonthreatening/nonsexual/hip-to-hip hug where you can put your arm around someone. At first, I didn’t say much and let her cry. We did that gentle rocking back and forth sway that seems to be soothing. Then I just let her open up as much as she felt she needed to.

She wanted to be married. She wanted to have kids. She just wanted a job and to pay bills. She wanted all those things that we used to dread or took for granted. She wanted to bring “him a beer as he watched football on TV.” She wanted parent teacher conferences and opening her W2 to plug into the tax program on the internet. She wanted to watch those dancing competition shows and flannel pajamas and eating too much turkey on Thanksgiving.

I couldn’t fault her for what she wanted. Maybe it is all those little things that seem so inconsequential at the time are what truly define us as human beings. Sure, you could go through and paint me (or anyone with broad strokes). Late thirties, white male, separated, one kid.

That seems like tombstone stuff. It may be how the world sees us but I would say that is not who we really are as people. The things that Kimber wanted, isn’t that what defines us as people?

Can you better identity who a person is based on the films they like or the TV shows they watch? By what music they listen to or what books they read? If that is true, Kimber wanted to be someone’s wife, someone’s mother, who worked steady at a job and would be content and happy to have a little house with a lawn and a picket fence. That’s a good person. That is a person worth being.

But can any of us get that back?

Will any of us live normal lives again? Does it do us good to dwell on such things? Or is it best to just let that old life go and live in the here and now?

The problem if that if we all just accept that this is how the world is now, then what are we fighting for? Are we doing all this to get back to a normal life?

Questions for too intense for a produce clerk from Adair, Oklahoma.   

 

Day 314 – Vacations & Genetic Dispositions

Back when we lived in the real world, I would accumulate about two weeks worth of vacation time over the year. Inevitably, I would take a week off for vacation and people would always ask, “Where are you going on your vacation?”

Here is a bit of advice for those that don’t understand the plight of the poor. We don’t go on vacation. My week would always be the same. I would get caught up on projects like cleaning out the hall closet or emptying junk out of the garage. At least those would be my intentions. More often than not, it ended up taking naps in the afternoon after catching up on my DVR. I could literally go days without setting foot off my property or seeing people. And I was perfectly okay with that.

I am not tremendously introverted or anything but I could handle being stranded or trapped inside. Major ice storm makes the road impassable for four days? As long as I have food and an internet connection, it was not a problem.

Not everyone has this mindset or this temperament. And you can definitely see it in the people that did not like being cooped up in the store during those winter months. With the weather warming every day, I think guys like Lance and Hunter would sleep outside if they could. Kanen has been particularly antsy. And the only thing worse than trapping Kanen inside a building… is being trapped inside a building with Kanen. He is just not built for this kind of isolation.

I think part of it is youth but I think the other part is being told that he cannot do something. Isn’t that the case with anything “forbidden”? It makes it all the more sweeter to do it? I may have to come up with something to occupy his time. I’ve tried taking one of Kilo’s tennis balls and making Kanen chase it. (What was really sad is that the first couple of times he actually did it.) But that appears to have lost its charm as of late.

Way back when, Kanen was pretty adamant about getting his motorcycle and his riding gear from his house which is not far from the store. He did that and over the winter months while Kanen has been isolated, he has been working on modifying the plastic motocross armor to defend him in case of an attack. 

Maybe I could distract him with turning the armor into something… offensive. Hmmm… I might be on to something there.

Day 313 – Insomnia Sucks

I am not certain when I will get around to posting this. Probably at my normal time. But I am writing this at about 4:30 in the morning. Way back when this blog first started I warned you guys. You have to get a good healthy amount of sleep.

In those first few days, it wasn’t hard. You were so tired from all the hard work to secure this place that you were practically asleep before your head hit the pillow. Then there was a stretch, after the place was secure, where I found myself staring up at the ceiling in the middle of the night.

Insomnia sucks. No doubt about it. My problem is that my brain just kept tumbling scenarios over and over in my head. “Well, what do we do if this happens? And what if this happens?” You can drive yourself crazy with such thoughts.

But then you begin to settle in. You begin to accept that this is your reality now. The mind just begins to cope and understand and eventually accept. I think that is when the brain begins to shut down at night and you are allowed to sleep properly again.

Having a warm and comfortable bed is helpful too. And then if you are really lucky, you have someone to sleep next to you. I have the warm bed. I don’t have the person to sleep next to. Admittedly, this is my own choice. As much as I want to, as much as long for physical contact, I don’t know if I can allow myself to be that vulnerable again.

But this… this is something different. This recent bought of insomnia is something strange. It has a different feel to it. The problem is that when you are not getting a solid amount of sleep, you walk around in this haze.

I tell myself to just lay down but then my mind just reels with possibilities of what if scenarios. And I hate that. It is like I cannot shut my brain off. And then when it is time to get up and everyone is all rested, I feel like I just swallowed a whole handful of Tylenol PM.

I don’t know if this is some warning – a foreboding, a harbinger – warning me that something dark is just over the horizon. Maybe tonight sleep will be better and then maybe I will be too…

Day 312 – Zombiology 101: 100% Pure Adrenaline

Things are… Things are not good. I mention this only on the blog. I don’t want to mention this to our group for fear of diminishing our hopes. I hope you are not showing up to the party late but in case you are or if you need a recap, here is what we’ve concluded after watching our enemy for the last 312 days… We hoped that the winter would deteriorate the bodies of our enemies, would make them weaker. We were right but the Def-Con level has still elevated considerably.   

It seems like in the past week, we have seen a considerable amount of increased activity amongst the zombie population. Maybe it is our locals thawing out after the winter. Maybe they are migratory and on the move looking for more things to eat.

Way back when, I did an article comparing zoms to lions that had made a fresh kill. If their bellies are full, they are still very dangerous but they are not overly aggressive because their hunger has been satisfied (if only for a while.)

Well, as far as zombie standards go, it has been a long winter. And when a grizzly wakes up from a long hibernating slumber, the first thing they want to do is eat. The only thing they want to do is eat. They are ravenous. Apparently, zombies are the exact same way.

Not only are they ravenous, they are aggressive and angry. They seem worked up and their faces are no longer just emotionless masks. Their eyes are still very much dead but they are now aggressive and angry. It is like they are running on 100% adrenaline and looking to get any sort of flesh fix that they can.

Now, when these things come across our palisade of buses, it is not just a simple probing touch against the glass windows. Up and down the wall of buses that we have created, you can see spider web cracks and smears of gore and ichor from their hands where they have pounded against the defenses wanting any morsel of meat that they can come across. You can practically feel the desperation as they claw and pound against the defenses but I am thankful to report that we are holding strong. Striking from within the buses, we have taken out more than a handful of these wretched things.  

Now, I mentioned last week that their bones do seem to be becoming more porous. If zombie bones were made out of wood, it would be like they are being eaten by termites. There are pockmarks and holes in the bones. Is this what osteoporosis looks like? But the catch to it is their flesh is not rotting as much as we have hoped.

Maybe it was the cold temperatures. We don’t know. So at this point, it is easier to cave in a skull and get to that brain than before. However, the flesh moving those bones around is not as far decomposed as we hoped. Kind of a good news/bad news situation.

Still, with these things getting more desperate, now more than ever you have to keep up your guard.

Day 311 – Cold Turkey (Because You Really Don’t Have a Choice)

I used to discuss with friends how I was very happy that I didn’t understand addiction. I know some people do have addictive personalities. One of my best friends and our leader Fred were admitted alcoholics. I’ve never done an illegal drug in my life and I have never smoked a cigarette. I watched my mother struggle with her nicotine addiction her whole life. I have always had the mindset of if I tried to quit something and failed, that would just inspire me to quit even more.

I say that. But yet I am overweight. I guess because it was so easy to just swing into a McDonalds. It was easy to just grab a Little Debbie. It was easy to indulge that lifestyle. And the justification was always, “It is my body. Why can’t I have a roast beef from Arby’s.”

Well, after the ZomPoc hit, things like fast food just were not an option any more. Those Little Debbie snackie cakes and all the good candy? That stuff went the fastest. One of my big indulgences was the Monster energy drinks. But I was not the only one that liked them and those things did not last as long as you hoped.

Removing that temptation was clearly the first step towards improvements. Thankfully, there are not a lot of smokers amongst us. I don’t know if smokers have brands they prefer or if any smoke in a pinch will do. I guess if they really want a smoke, they don’t have much of a choice.

Thank God that none of us are drug addicts. Or if someone is a drug addict they hide it really well. You see things in all those Lifetime movies and such where the person quits cold turkey and they sit on a cot in some rehab center shaking and sweating. I guess it is possible to die from withdraws. Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue for any of us. (I swear I am going somewhere with this.)

Now, they say that the less you have something, the less you crave it. I just pop out of my diet when I was about 25. I was drinking three 20 oz. Mountain Dews a day. I stopped drinking it and replaced it with water. The bad side was that my bladder was like that of a woman that was nine months pregnant. The good side is that after a while, if I tried to go back, I found it too sweet and just couldn’t drink it.

Joseph is a big pop drinker. He loves the stuff. And he has mentioned before that every couple a months he would just quit drinking it and replace it with flavored water, tea, or juice. For him, stopping was no big deal. (I guess that shows you are not an addict.) But then, after being away for so long, when you take that first drink… It was like swimming in paradise. Sometimes, he said he would quit just to get the rush of that first precious drink.

I have found that physical contact is the same way. The less you have access to it, the less that you find that you need it. But that first brush of fingers, that first romantic touch… It is like fireworks.

Day 310 – Fortress of Solitude: The Perimeter Cage

If you have just found this blog or if you missed it, we raided many of the surrounding schools to pillage their bus barns for a fleet of school buses. We then rolled the caravan to our front door and created a perimeter around our parking lot. This gave us a vast open space, gave us another barrier that kept the zombies from getting direct contact with our doors, and created a secure place where we could prep three of the best buses so they could become “bug out vehicles” if we needed them.

So, this perimeter is pretty solid as long as we are inside and off the zom radar. These zoms are not like movie zombies that relentless charge at a barrier. If there is no meat on the menu, there is no reason for them to test the barriers and spill over the smaller car barrier that makes up the western face. (We kept this area low so we could snipe them from our roof.)

But when the horde rolled through, their numbers were so massive it was conceivable that they could have spilled over the barriers by climbing over the tops of one another. I still feel that the outer doors are solid. So they could not breech the security of the outer doors.

The thrill and scent of meat would draw them over the cars and then into the perimeter. But what then? Even if we went quick quiet and removed all visual stimuli, they would be trapped within that perimeter. It would take a pretty impressive amount of fresh meat on the other side of the perimeter to get them out. This means we would have no choice but to dispatch them which puts us at risk. I don’t like risk.

I suppose we could set up one of the buses so that the doors (both front and emergency) were open. They could climb up the steps of the bus and then fall out the emergency exit. I don’t think the exit is low enough for them to climb in through it.

Maybe I am overthinking it. I just don’t like the thought of us being exposed. We have the potential of having created a cage with our perimeter. But with all things like this, you have to weigh the pros and the cons. I think having our parking lot reclaimed is worth the risk.