Day Seventeen

Today has been one of those days where I find myself falling into my old habits from a lifetime ago. I used to spend hours on the computer everyday, writing lesson plans and researching activities for my class. I'd check my email every few minutes and had an account on every social network I could think of.

I used to carry a tiny computer around in my pocket. It wasn't that long ago, but the idea boggles my mind now. I can't even fathom what it was like to pick up the phone and call whoever I wanted whenever I wanted. Now, they may as well be ...

I was going to say "dead," but then I realized that might very well be the case.

Anyway, this old PC has been a comfort to me today. The internet is still there, in parts. Most of my old haunts went down with their servers, but weirdly this blogging site still runs. So does Twitter, though I can't find anyone who's updated since the disaster.

It's been soothing clicking around on the desktop, pretending this computer is mine, and the real world is waiting for me as soon as I turn it off.

I've found some interesting fragments on here. This lab has a checkered past-- looks like they did animal testing here at one point, which explains the giant pile of rusty cages out back.

John wants me off, I've been using a lot of generator fuel today. I'll update tomorrow if anything happens. If nothing else, this is therapeutic for me.

Certainly it's not helping anyone else.

Day Sixteen

The generator blinked out yesterday. It took John most of the day to get it back up and running again. I'm so proud of him-- how he's adapted and grown. He never complains that his once-soft, nimble surgeon's hands are now callused and caked with dirt and grease. He never talks about the days before, but it's with an air of resignment, not avoidance. John has thoroughly accepted that the world has changed.

Not me. I still hope that someday I'll have a classroom to decorate and a new crop of 4th graders to teach. I want a house, and a yard, and a dog to come home to. A child of our own. A car. A pantry stocked full of food, and a frivolously huge kitchen to prepare it in.

I want the option to drink something besides water tinged with the bitter taste of iodine. I want to be able to throw food out because it's past its expiration date. I miss restaurants, and meals. I miss living, instead of surviving.

Someday, maybe there will be something besides this old lab and the creaky generator and this ancient PC and the smear of blood outside our door.

Maybe, someday.

Day Fourteen

Yesterday would have been Thanksgiving. Two years ago, John and I went to his parents' house. Three generations crammed around a table that normally seated four people. His family wasn't terribly large, but they were close.

I used to take it for granted that Thanksgiving would be the same every year. There would always be turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes and bread and butter. Pumpkin pie and tummy aches, long naps and bickering.

But yesterday was just another day, haunted by another death. We ate canned tuna and some crackers. We played solitaire with a deck of cards John found in the bottom of his scavenged backpack. We tried to be close, but . . . well, it's been hard to think about love with the world ending around us. I can't remember the last time we just hugged for no reason.

I don't know why I'm writing this down on the empty internet. It's not like our relationship is the sort of thing people will need or want to know about in the future.

I miss having things to be thankful for, aside from a.) I'm alive, and b.) I'm not totally alone.

Day Twelve

Today, I killed a man. A normal man.

My hands didn't lift a gun. My fingers didn't wrap around a knife. All I did was wait, and the eaters did the rest.

The man we thought was a hunter is dead. All that remains of his life is a pool of blood outside our door and the echoes of his screams in our heads.

John is luckier than I. His makeshift earplugs kept most of the cries away from him. But it has been burned into my brain, the terrified screams that ran into gurgles and finally silenced altogether, and the squelch of flesh and crack of bones as the eaters tore into him.

By the time we knew he was normal, it was too late to help him.

At least, telling myself that is the only way I will ever be able to sleep again without his screams bouncing around inside my head.

The thought that he knew something about my family, or had spoken to my mother, will never, ever go away.

Day Eleven

He's quiet now. Every now and then he'll start back up and pound feebly at the door. John's shoved cotton in his ears as makeshift ear plugs, but I can't block him out. I can't chance that he'll say something that will convince me, and I won't be able to hear it. Something about my family.

He would have told us by now, if he really knew anything. But I can't tear myself away.

I fell asleep by the door last night. I probably will again tonight.

It's an awful lullaby.

"Let me in. Please let me in."

"Jane. Let me in. Jane. They'll find me."

"Your mother made me promise, Jane."

The sick, wet squelch of his bloody hands pounding on the door will stay with me for months. John and I discussed letting him in this morning, but there's just no way to know. His commitment suggests truth; but a crazed eater might do the same. Or a really dedicated hunter.

I wish there was a way to know.

Day Ten

The hunter is at the door. John turned the generator back on; no use in hiding since he obviously knows we're here. We've barricaded the door as best we can, and at first it seemed like enough.

But the part of him we can't hold back is his voice.

He's begging, pleading with us to let him in. Says there's a pack of eaters following him, and if we don't let him in, he'll be dead in a day.

I know it's a lie; if he really was normal, there are a couple other buildings here he could hole up in if he had to. But he sounds so distraught, his voice breaking and hoarse as he yells and pleads and pounds the door. His hands must be bloody by now.

It's enough to make me wonder if he really is telling the truth.

He knows my name.

He says my mother sent him to come find us.

It's been over twelve hours, and he still won't stop begging us to let him in. 

Day Seven - going on lockdown

John's about to turn the generator off. I only have a minute.

We saw someone while we were outside. Just a flash of a red flannel shirt up on the hillside, but that was enough.

We're going on lockdown. If you're reading this, and I don't post again within a week . . .

Well, let's just hope I will.

Day Six

Some days it's painful how much I miss the sun. I used to go stand outside in the biggest patch I could find when my kids went to recess. Now, I can barely reach the thinnest sliver coming in the high window in this room, and only for a few minutes in the afternoon.

It's safer not to have windows. It's safer to travel at night, during the new moon. It's safest indoors.

Some days, I want to stop caring about safe and just go outside.

John does. He says his little field trips help him stay sane, and it does let us keep an eye on the area. I'm mostly too afraid to go myself ever since we separated from my family. There was a hunter after us. He could have followed us, or chased my family. Or picked up our trail after he was ... done with them.

It's been two weeks since we left them. He likely would have shown himself or set a trap by now if he was here.

I hope they made it somewhere safe, but I'm pretty sure they're dead. Or worse. I still haven't come to terms with the fact I'll never see them again.

Maybe I'll go outside tomorrow.

Day Five

John says I should be sharing more info, just in case. We won't share our location-- if we're online, there's no way of knowing if the eaters are, too.

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning. As far as we know, about a year ago, something happened. We never heard for sure if it was an experiment that escaped or a terrorist attack. But somehow, the eater virus got loose. There were a few cases scattered up and down the east coast earlier this year that made people joke about the zombie apocalypse. Within a few weeks, the jokes stopped. It was real.

Well; except for the zombie part. They aren't zombies. Not exactly.

See, the eater virus is a twisted, cruel sickness. There is no death and resurrection; and the worst part is, the eaters keep their memories and their voices and look and walk and talk just like normals. There's no easy way to tell them apart from someone who hasn't been turned.

The virus causes an abdominal tumor that blocks the uptake of certain nutrients in food, except when consumed in human flesh. Right after you're infected, you might lose your appetite. Regular food tastes bitter, or sour, or like ash. Maybe you chalk it up to a stomach bug. Maybe you ignore the tiny signals when you smell or see other people. The slight salivation. The empty grumble in your stomach.

A few days go by, and you start feeling sick. The more regular food you eat, the worse it gets.  From here, there are three ways it can go:

A lot of turned people starve to death refusing to give in and eat human flesh, or put bullets in their brains.

Some go crazy, and kill everyone they can get their hands on to satiate the hunger inside.

A rare few keep every cold ounce of sanity they have, and enjoy it. These, we call hunters.

It doesn't seem to matter what your personality is like to begin with. The nicest lady I ever knew, Mrs. Robbins, taught Sunday school and held monthly bake sales for orphans. A month into the disaster, they found her chewing on what was left of a 6-year-old boy.

Now the eaters that don't starve to death live together in tribes that roam what's left of the world, searching for any normals they can turn or eat. Something keeps them from killing each other, though they will immediately turn on any member of their troop that dies. There must be a trigger in the virus, too, because sometimes they just bite you to pass on the disease.

I'd like to think John and I would both choose to starve to death or put a gun in our mouths. I hope we never have to find out.

Day Four

John brought me flowers today. All wild, except for one rose he found, growing in an old garden across the complex from our building. I wish he hadn't gone so far on his own, but for a few minutes, it felt like we were dating again.

It's been so long since I've smelled a rose. To be honest, I've never really liked them. They always smelled sharp and bitter to me, like my grandmother's house. But this rose smells like heaven.

I miss the outdoors. I miss going anywhere without walls. We either travel (at night), or steal field trips for brief moments, like John did today. Otherwise, there's always something to do indoors: stockpile supplies, load and care for weapons, treat water, check locks and doors and windows.

I suppose there's only so much I can really expect. As long as the eaters are out there, we'll be in here. At least we can stay put for a while. There's an old well that's not great but at least it's clean. There's plenty of fuel for the generator, and every door here is double reinforced steel. It's interesting that we're holed up in what looks like an old lab, considering a lab is where this whole thing started.

John's calling me. I'll try and write more tomorrow.

Day Three

John thought he saw a pack of eaters in the woods today. We hope they were just passing through, but he put us on lockdown and turned off the generator just in case. Not until a little after dusk did he feel safe turning it back on. It wouldn't make any sense for them to be after us; we were so careful to cover our tracks. We thought they all went after the rest of the family.

My family.

I hate that we left them. John keeps telling me we had no choice, and I believe that. If we wanted to live, we had no choice. I still wonder if we should have stayed and died or been turned with them. Part of me has, since this whole thing began, wanted to just give up and die like the sane eaters. At least I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

Finding this ancient computer has given me new hope. Even if no one's listening, I can still write down what's happening.

I'll try to post most days. Unless something happens.

Day Two

If someone, somewhere, is reading this-- most of North America is dead, as far as we can tell. Maybe most of the world. If you're reading this, please respond. Please let us know someone else is out there. 

I'm not cut out for this. John says I'd never have made it without him, and he's right. If I didn't have him, I would have been one of the first to go.

I'm an elementary school teacher. Not a survivor. Well; I guess I'm a survivor now. I never cared about guns and water and food and shelter and staying normal before. I never had to worry about where I'd find those things, or how long I'd have them. They just were. And now they're not.

It makes me sick. So many lives lost, or transformed, or mashed into the same horrid existence John and I lead.

I don't know why I'm typing this into an empty internet. If you're reading this, you either understand or don't care. Maybe I just need to put it out there. Maybe I want to record what happens next, in case someone looks back at all of this one day and wants to know more.

I like that second reason the best. It means that someday the world will be back to the way it was. I can't say it will be normal. Normal has a new meaning now.

I'll update when I can.

Day One

I can't believe it. The internet is here. We found this old place up in the mountains, and it's safe, and John says it's defensible. The generator runs pretty decent, and when I booted up this old computer and clicked on the internet, it . . . worked.

If the internet is working, there has to be someone else out there. Someone with electricity, and enough people to bother keeping the web up and running. Hopefully, someone normal. Who are you? Where are you? Can you send help?

Can you stay normal long enough to get here?

I hope I'm not crazy. I hope this isn't a waste. I don't want to be a voice in the dark.

I don't want to run anymore.