Tuesday, January 22
I’ve wrestled with this decision for a day and a half. I have no choice. I carried Beth up to her room and she is now securely tied down in her bed. I hadn’t been upstairs, other than tying down Erin, and this morning I took the time to look around once I had secured my daughter and changed her bandages (that stench is so overpowering).
From the second floor I get a much clearer view of the surrounding neighborhood. It is obvious there have been a few fires. A few blocks over, I can see one house still burning. No sign of any sort of emergency crews. Just how bad is it out there?
The other thing I am seeing is more disturbing. Today I saw something that my mind does not want to accept. It is too preposterous to even consider. Yet…
Okay. Getting a grip.
There was this man. Rather what was left of him. From the waist down he was a mass of torn flesh. His entire lower half was just gone! He was on his stomach…dragging himself down the street by his hands! What had to be the spinal column was twitching back and forth like an alligator’s tail. Strands of who knows what dragged behind. I got a really good look at him. It took over an hour for him to drag himself to the end of the block where he vanished behind a parked car. I watched other people just stumble past as if nothing was wrong! What the hell is going on!?!
Every time I would check, there he would be, just dragging himself along. Those guys on the radio don’t seem so insane now.
Beth is getting sicker. Her wound is smelling worse by the hour. Her skin is taking on that same gray, slick, waxy pallor that her mother’s did.
Somebody is screaming.
* * * * *
Even seeing it firsthand. Even hearing what those guys said on the radio…I still struggle to accept this. If this is real, then that means Erin is a…
So, here is what I saw. That screaming was so close, I had to at least see if there was anything I could do. I had to go in Erin’s room (this time the smell made me vomit) and look out her bedroom window. Her room is in the back of the house and looks out over the backyard.
The backyard is fenced with tall wooden slats about six feet high. But, from the second floor, I could see into the neighboring backyards on all three sides. In the backyard directly behind us was a woman. She looked to be about twentyish. She had tried to climb the fence leading into the yard behind and to the left of ours. Her shirt was snagged and two little boys no older than ten had her by a leg. Each one was trying to bite her! She was so busy kicking and struggling to free herself that she didn’t see this other man…
This is where it gets crazy again.
This man had most of the right side of his face torn off. It made his mouth seem huge. Once I stopped focusing on his terrible injury, I noticed something that was, for me, more terrifying. His skin. It looked just like Erin’s! That of course made me glance back at her. She was still straining against her bindings. Straining to get at me. Then I looked into her eyes. They were dull and milky white with a bloodshot look that was especially creepy since, instead of reddish, it was almost black. At first I thought it was a trick of the shadows on her face. Then I leaned closer for a better look with the daylight hitting her directly.
No trick.
I took a look out back again as that lady was grabbed by the man she hadn’t seen coming. I know what you’re thinking. I should’ve helped. Yelled. Something.
Okay. Then what? Really. What in the hell could I do after that? And what if they come after me? My daughter?
Anyway, what I saw next has me believing in the unbelievable. That man grabbed the woman by the head and bit into her at the top of one arm, just below the joint. He tore away a chunk of flesh. And then I heard that terrible scream. Next, one of those boys got through the jeans and took a bite out of her calf. That’s when I stopped watching.
The screams lasted another couple of minutes, but it seemed like forever. That was an hour ago. The man and those two boys are gone.
She’s not.
Still stuck on the fence though.
Only now, she’s missing one arm and part of a leg from about the knee. And she’s moving. Just like Erin was. Like that man and those boys were…slowly, with occasional jerks and fits.
Wednesday, January 23
Early yesterday evening, Beth came to. She can’t remember anything. That may be best. I would hate for her to have the last memories of her mom being so terrible.
When I heard her call me, I can’t tell you how completely surprised I was. I rushed in to find her crying and trying to get free of the restraints I had fashioned. Once I got her untied, I scooped her up and just held her. She was too weak to do anything so I carried her downstairs. (Her room reeks and the smell was upsetting her).
We were just sitting quietly. Well, I was sitting with her nestled up under my arm when the EBS broke its silence:
“The CDC has issued a statement confirming that the recently deceased are seeming to re-animate. They then become hostile and attack the living. Certain mythologies suggest head trauma may be the only way to deactivate the mobile corpses.”
That loop ran for about two hours before it went silent in mid-sentence. Ten minutes later, the EBS signal on the television went dead. There is nothing but a blank screen. Once, it flickered, and a man sitting behind a desk came on, but it was gone in a blink. Beth didn’t seem to notice any of it.
She has come in and out of consciousness the past several hours. The sun has been up for a while now. The last time I glanced at the clock it was almost 9 a.m. I’m torn between just sitting here, holding my daughter…or tying her back up. I don’t know if she’ll get better or not. If she doesn’t, I don’t want her dying, tied up like an animal. I did manage to get a good look at her eyes when I was carrying her downstairs. They aren’t milky, but the blood vessels are almost black. I must’ve been staring hard because she did ask me what was wrong.
“Nothing,” I lied.
* * * * *
My daughter, Elizabeth Marie Todd, died this evening at 4:19 p.m. I checked for a pulse. Tried CPR. I know what dead is. She was dead.
At 4:23, she sat up.
I led her up the stairs and into her mom’s room. They should at least be together.
Thursday, January 24
There are starting to be more of those things. I didn’t sleep well last night because I kept hearing them stumbling around outside. You would be surprised how much more ambient noise you hear when the world has gone silent.
I’ve shut off all the lights. I honestly don’t know how much longer power will last. It has been sporadic the past several hours. The television never did come back with so much as an EBS screen. I pressed SEEK on my radio and it is just scanning. That means none of the towers are even sending a carrier signal. Every hour I switch between AM and FM.
My cell phone still has bars, but nothing happens when I try to call. I can’t even check my voice mail. I’m pretty sure the world has shut down on a massive level.
I went out to the garage and found a bag with softballs, gloves, cleats…and three aluminum bats. Erin was as freaky about guns as I was, and apparently, so was her boyfriend. Those bats will be my only source of protection now.
I have considered going in and…dispatching… (that’s as clean of a word as I can find) my ex-wife and daughter. I’ve even gone in there a couple of times. They really get agitated when they see me. I tried to convince myself that they were just happy to see me. But that’s a lie.
They want to eat me.
* * * * *
A car sped through our neighborhood just past two in the afternoon! A herd—over a hundred—of those damned things were following in this pack that plowed along leaving a trail of ruin in their wake. Yards, fences, some mailboxes, just plain smashed. They wandered through like they didn’t notice any-thing. The only time they diverted from their course is when they came to a parked car.