Surviving 8

I’ve been too busy surviving to write. I had to leave the cabin. Those former state trooper bastards were looking, if not exactly for me, for the person who killed some of their people. I had to kill two more of them – in a world that’s falling apart – overrun by those dead fucks, I’m killing other humans. Do we deserve to survive? After I killed these last two, one with an axe, the other with my pistol, I realized they were in radio contact with their pals back in town. I packed up and left quick. There’s been very little radio traffic and most of that is some religious nut, calling down damnation on us all. Claims the dead rose due to the excesses of humanity. Who’s to say he’s not right? I’ve been keeping to logging roads and firebreaks, driving, against my best instincts at night. The going is slow. When I stop, I either stay in my wheels, or go up a tree, slinging a hammock. I haven’t been sleeping or eating well. I’m wondering why I’m bothering? Will anyone be at Camp Tryon if I ever make it?

Day what? 100? I don’t know. Does the calendar mean fuck all anymore? The weather’s warming, so it has to be past February. I thought I heard a plane the other day, but I didn’t take a chance on signaling it. Could the military be at Camp Tryon? I don’t know.

I found a small campsite today. Five tents. In three of them were couples, all dead, bullets in their heads. One was empty, but the sleeping bags and packs were splattered with blood. In the last tent, I found a young woman. She was feverish and pale, thirsty and hungry. I made her as comfortable as I could when I saw the bite on her arm. She’d tried to hide the crude bandage with a blanket. When I found this, I tied her up and waited. I shared some of my aspirin with her, not wanting to part with the more valuable medicine I’d brought and scavenged. A redhead, her name was Ginger, which when she said it, she laughed. Why not Scarlett she asked? Turned out she and the other couples were camping when the shit hit the fan. They’d been staying up here, listening to a radio station from Albany. One of them, Allan, the one that bit her, was the first to turn. Her friends couldn’t bring themselves to kill it. Lana, one of the dead women, had been the bitten one’s brother. According to Ginger, he was an odd ball, outsider kind of guy. None of them knew how he’d gotten infected. I asked Ginger when she’d been bitten. Two days past, she said. Why hadn’t she been shot by her friends? Ginger didn’t answer that. Leaving her in the tent, I went out to investigate more. Carefully, I checked the dead couples again. There were some canned and dehydrated food in the tents which I took. A collapsible five gallon jug of water that was nearly empty, I left. No telling if it was infected.

As I left the second tent, I heard a moan. Crouching, I brought up my AK. Creeping around, I saw a shape coming out of Ginger’s tent. From the description, it was Allan, back for a snack. His face was covered in blood and he was chewing. I knew Ginger was a dead woman – she’d already been bitten once – but I’d left her trussed like a cow for slaughter. Rising to my feet, I brought up the AK and whistled. Allan rose to his feet and spun. I fired once, the round hitting him in the eye. The back of his head blew off and he went down. Dragging his worthless body out of the way, I peered into the tent. Ginger lay there, still tied, throat and face ravaged. As I stood there, her eyes opened, filled with the mindless lust of the undead. I put a bullet in her face, giving her the peace undeath had robbed her of. Quickly I searched through their small camp, taking another Leatherman tool and the pistol. It was snub nose magnum. I also found half a box of shells. A bit back in the woods, I found their wheels, an old VW minibus. I took the tool box they had in the back. Unfortunately their gas tank was empty. Is this all that’s left for me? To kill others to survive? Wander the world destroying the undead until I die, or get bitten? Maybe I should find a quiet place and eat a bullet. Who the fuck wants to live this way?

More later if I don’t just write a final note and kill myself.