Wednesday, December 12, 2007

You have to Start Somewhere

[Austin Entry]

Homer and Chants had come back into the sports health center before the first lightning bolt hit the tower. The sun had begun to set when Jackson and I, discussing our options, noticed the thunderhead. Maybe it was what we had been going through or maybe it is the cause, or just an effect, of this plague but the storm didn’t look right. The thunderhead was thick and gummy, the clouds moved like the jerking of a living thing. And when the lightning would flash the grey-black front would show a sickening yellow-brown.

We had all stopped what we were doing and were just staring at the storm in abject terror and revulsion. That is when I realized that this wasn’t just a plague on man, but on the earth entirely. In this silence we all heard Adam gasp.

Jackson and I stood but didn’t approach. Sandra was grabbing at Adams shoulders and chest as he gasped wide eyed trying to take a breath that never seemed to come. Adam was like a fish out of water, back curved and arms shaking. If any of us had been medical students maybe we would have known his lungs were full of fluid and he was drowning in mid-air, instead we stood and watched as he died. Sandra was controlled enough to close Adams eyes with a kiss on each eyelid before braking down into huge gasping sobs.

I turned back to the storm, unable to look at the best friend I had failed. Not thinking about the consequences of his death but only of my own pain and sorrow. I failed the only other person he had cared for more than himself.

Sandra stopped crying. Adam’s eyes were open and staring into her own. Sandra leaned forward to kiss the young man she thought she had lost, before anyone could stop her.

Adam gripped Sandra’s head and shoulder and bit down on her cheek sending a spray of blood across the blanket that had been keeping him warm. Adams teeth clamped down onto the right side of Sandra’s jaw bone, forcing her mouth partially closed and changing the pitch of her scream to something feral and wrong. Adam, not quite getting what he wanted with the first bite he reared his head back and drove for her throat and the warm blood still flowing there.
Jackson grabbed two handfuls of Adam’s hair trying to keep Adam’s teeth from their target, and Homer grabbed Sandra around the waist lifting her from the ground. As hard as they pulled they were unable to separate the two lovers. With a rending sound, like biting into a ripe apple, Adam shot toward Sandra’s throat and Jackson fell backward, his hands still gripping Adams hair and scalp.

Homer hadn’t expected such a sudden loss of resistance. He fell to the floor bringing Sandra and Adam down on top of him. In utter revulsion and fear Homer skittered away from the writhing pair, moving across the floor on his back. In an instant Sandra’s scream had gone from ear piercing, to a forced gurgle, to nothing as Adam tore away her wind pipe leaving it hanging from the ruin of her neck and returned for more meat.

Chants stepped up and delivered a kick into Adams side that hit so hard the sound of breaking ribs echoed through the room, but Adams grip only tightened. Chants kicked again and again, and finally stopped when Homer, having regained his feet, picked up his bat and drove it into the slick red exposed skull of Adam, as though her were chopping wood.

Homer reached back to deliver a similar blow to Sandra, but I stopped him. I had stood frozen through the entire incident, unable to come to either of my friends aid. But I couldn’t let Sandra be clubbed to death she deserved more, they both did. I walked to my back pack that had been left on a table upon entering the room. fished out the 9mm and fired one shot between Sandra’s eyes.

We gathered our gear in silence and moved to the other side of the sports medicine facility. We ate what we could and are going to sleep in shifts. We’re going to need all of our strength tomorrow to make it to the Army Base, but first we’ll need a diversion something to draw the undeads away from our movements. And I can’t think of a better way to honor Adam and Sandra than the first step of our plan.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Run

Before the quarantine Jackson Henry was a “red shirt” freshman, a paragon of athletic ability poured into a 6’1, 235 lb. running back. Now he’s a crazy strong, and fast man and more importantly one with access to the keys to a new Cadillac Escalade. Also known as my hero and his chariot of freedom. Jackson had been hold up in a dorm suite that he shared with two other freshmen football juggernauts. The three had been put through some of the harshest practices of their lives in their first weeks on campus and then tormented by the upperclassmen on the team. Hazing isn’t allowed at the University, at least that’s what the front office says. So when the three athletes had a night off they locked and barricaded themselves into the dorm suite and didn’t notice the lights and alarms of the quarantine until the next day. They slept in their oversized dorm beds, still far to small for their size, protected and safe.

They had spent weeks watching the horror unfold from their rooms. Thanks to a University supplied 42 inch plasma television in their suite the three had learned of the danger of stepping outside before their first bowl of cereal. They had attempted to reach out to family and friends but nothing had worked. So with plenty of electricity and a stocked fridge the three had stayed locked in there suite until the fridge wasn’t so stocked and the company wasn’t as friendly. Finally the decision was made to stretch their legs and maybe skip town.

Jackson didn’t like to talk about it but I know they reached his roommates escalade and had begun making their way out of the parking garage before his suite mate turned. He was a freshman defensive tackle, and thanks to being an avid fan of the schools football team before this all began, I can tell you the fact Jackson made it out of the escalade unharmed with a 6’7” 305 pound zombie lusting after his flesh is well beyond a miracle and speaks to Jackson’s speed better than any highlight reel. He ran straight back to the suite, alone.

Luckily the day we needed a savior he was watching the street from his barricaded dorm room and was brave enough to try and join the only other living people he had seen in weeks.

We ditched the escalade inside the aquatic centers lobby after smashing through the glass doors, the trucks loud exhaust and flashing wheels seemed to draw as many of the un-dead as the blood leaking from Adams head. The gymnasiums on campus weren’t very good for hiding in thanks to all the windows and large open rooms but we needed to get to some medical supplies for Adam and the swim centers proximity to the stadium made it the best place in a bad time.

Jackson had carried Adam up six flights of stairs and then back down five, we probably ran a mile through hallways and offices until there was no sign of the undead that followed. We watched them come from the windows in the football teams sports medicine facility. The swim center next to the stadium, where we left the Cadi., was being over run with the walking dead, it had to be some kind of communication, what I call the hive mind, that called them. We hadn’t passed by, or over, more than a couple hundred of the things before entering the aquatic center and yet there were now thousands.

Adam was sleeping, breathing slow and steady, he just looked so pale. Sandra and I were watching Adam’s chest rise and fall neither willing to look at each other because we both knew that if Jackson hadn’t shown up out of the blue we would all be dead. We had ignored the weakness of one of our group and it nearly caused the death of us all. That can’t happen again.
I was mentally berating myself when the first explosion shook the windows.

I looked around and saw Jackson standing at the closest window with tears streaming down his face. I followed the direction of Jackson’s wet eyes and saw fire. The zeds were packed so close together that at least fifty of them were burning and spreading it to others as they tried to crush their way into the aquatic center. Before I could even make sense of what was going on another ball of fire erupted about thirty feet from the epicenter of the first. Jackson wiped the tears from his face and told me Chants and Homer had found gallons of rubbing alcohol and other cleaning and medical supplies. They had taken what they could carry along with the head of kinesiology’s old fashioned coke bottle collection to the top of the south stairwell to “Clear out the crowd.”

Maybe I’ve pushed them to hard.

Jackson and I sat and talked by the light of a thousand burning corpses. We knew we couldn’t stay on campus, there are just too many of the undead. Before the power went out in his dorm room, Jackson had heard of military refugee camps being setup around the state. The decommissioned Army base, Camp Mabry, sits just a couple miles to the west of campus. On the other side of Fraternity and Sorority Row and a neighborhood of million dollar homes. We decided it is our best option, but we doubted all of us could make it.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Fallen

[an austin entry]
 
Adam spoke to me again. Right before he passed out in the middle of Speedway, the street that bisects campus. This was two days ago, when we attempted a food run. The heat had just been too much for him to handle. He hadn't been eating or sleeping much for days. I was in the lead with Adam behind me when I heard "Dagan" between panting breaths. I turned to see that he had already dropped to his knees five feet behind me. Adam's bag of canned food pulled him backward and his head bounced of the pavement with the sound of someone thumping a ripe cantaloupe. It's hard to explain what happened next, time didn't really slow down like I've heard it described in books. For me time began to flicker. Spastic, wrenching visions I could hardly understand.
I saw blood on the pavement below Adam's head, then Sandra kneeling at his side. I was there, I grabbed Adam by the shoulder and something grabbed me by the shoulder. I wasn't thinking. Yellowed teeth dripping. I didn't turn. I saw a flap of hair hanging from the back of Adams head when Sandra lifted it to cradle in her lap. The sour taste of vomit in my mouth. I think I saw a small pool of blood actually begin to boil on the man hole cover that had stopped Adam's head in its fall to earth. Homer's knee hit me in the chest knocking me to the ground as he rushed forward putting all of his 200 pound weight behind the bat that had just zipped past the top of my head and into the outstretched mouth of the zed that had grabbed my shoulder. I saw none of it. I saw a cloudless blue sky with a hint of purple.
Then I was jerked to my feet. Time clicked back into place.
That's when I realized I had dropped my oar when I saw Adam fall, as had Sandra. Both of our weapons were now out of reach and Adams bat had rolled into a sewer drain. Of the five of us only Homer and Chants had held onto their weapons, and blood was in the air.
Hundreds of un-dead co-eds surrounded us. Mine and Sandra's sharpened boat oars were only out of reach due to the sheer number of zed's that had filled the street. They flowed in around us like a wailing stream of stinking death.
Then with the sound of a Detroit V8 pushing notes of fury out dual borla exhaust, there he was. Rolling in on twenty-four inch chrome wheels, a hero in a Cadillac of salvation.
Our hero plowed the shiny Escalade into the thickest group of zeds before yanking the wheel and pulling as tight and fast a loop around our position as possible. The turning radius was so poor that he actually had to put it in reverse to get close enough to our tattered group to throw open the locks and let us board. Homer and Chants kept their backs to the Escalade dispatching the few remaining zeds the cadi. hadn't flattened while Sandra and I loaded Adam in.
We're safe for now, but moving is still a necessity. The Cadillac had to be abandoned for the time, but I feel it will facilitate our ultimate survival once all plans are in order. Jackson Henry, was our hero that day and many since, but I'll save his story for another day. The moans grow louder.
Godspeed.


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Monday, July 30, 2007

Is there hope?

I envy you. I would give anything to have a place with defendable walls a supply of food and cache of weapons. Did you know that the University of Texas at Austin has over 50,000 students? After nearly four weeks trying to stay alive with the effects of this disease raging all around me I have estimated that the rate of infection is around 97%. But that's just those who caught the initial disease. Then of course you have to add in the number of people that contracted the disease through direct contact. I'm guessing the current survival rate is at .07% and falling.
 
40 acres of limestone, glass, and red tiled roofs, dorms, labs, cafeterias, with so many people in such a small space the disease bloomed here like a match dropped into a bucket of kerosene. Now there are Zeds or "once livings" everywhere, it's impossible to stay in one location for long.
 
We only have one gun, a 9mm pistol I took from the scant remains of an Austin police officer, it seems the Zeds can eat enough of a human that the disease cant bring them back. And to tell the truth, none of us are exactly good shots so we keep the gun and its remaining seven shots for ourselves if it comes to it, if we get cornered. That's the one good part about not having a defensible location, no pitched battles. We move throughout campus as a small band searching for food and information. In close quarters bludgeons work best, something with a little length. Baseball and Cricket bats are good to crush the skull and destroy the disease ridden brain, but a good broom handle or an oar can save your life by keeping them at a distance. As Alexis recently learned even a small scratch across the back as you're running between groups of the undead, to make it to the next door with a lock, can mean death. I guess there is only six shots in the gun after all. I don't know how long it takes for a person to change, and I'm not about to sit back and find out.
 
There was a moments revolt after that. Adam of all people thought I had lost my mind and lunged for the gun. Luckily, for him, Sandra's calm logical mind won him over. Adam wont speak to me any more though, and he hardly eats. I'm not sure how long he'll last. Tomorrow we'll have to make another trip to the Jester cafeteria for food. We make the trip in three layers of denim and canvas, jeans, jackets and coveralls we pilfered from the custodian locker room. It's hotter than hell but it limit's the chance of a glancing blow causing any damage. I don't know if Adam will have the strength.
 
I don't know if anyone has had the opportunity to actually study these things, but they're not dumb. They're not brainless heat-seeking flesh-craving automatons. I'm not sure if it's a hive mind or some form of communication but they are finding us much faster than before. We can't risk more than an hour in the open. And even the thick doors can't hold them back when they stack up against each other, they'll mash the ones in front to nothing but the door will eventually buckle. I'm losing hope.
 
I hope you are holding up better then our sorry group.


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Hell on earth

We've been under siege for the last week and a half. There have been thousands upon thousands of Zeds streaming from every corner of the city. It has been a constant battle 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we were lucky, there have been a couple of hours to allow us to clear some of the bodies from the walls. We had to abandon all attempts at keeping quiet and not drawing attention to our position in our effort to hold back the hordes of creatures attacking us.

During the past week we have sustained heavy casualties, not only from Zed, but from inside our defenses as well. Accidents from falling over the walls took the lives of fourteen men and women trying to fight back Zed. These accidents could have been prevented if our defenses had been under the direction of one individual coordinating our forces. But the real tragedies came from inside, when one of our own suffered a mental breakdown and actually tried to open the doors. No one can really fault her for suffering mentally, but we can't deny that she caused a major breach in our security.

In her attempts to escape, she suffered injuries caused by a Zed pushing his way in the door. She hid her wounds from those who pulled her back inside. In our attempts to restore the defenses, no one checked on her. Four hours later the inevitable happened and she turned. She was able to wound six more people before we could subdue her. She was, terminated, and her body was destroyed along with the other Zed bodies outside. The six wounded took it upon themselves to end their lives in order to keep everyone else safe from what was going to happen to them. These brave souls made a sacrifice to protect us, and we will always remember them and their courage.

We have since elected a leader to coordinate our efforts in defense and survival. I was elected into this position...regretfully. I'm not sure that I am the best person for this job, but I will do everything in my power to get us out of here safely. We are planning scavenger missions in the surrounding area to shore up our food and supplies. We are also making plans to expand our defensive perimeter to keep Zed farther away from our central defensive and living area. We can't keep reacting and expect to live through this; we have to start fighting back.

Monday, July 23, 2007

While Austin Sleeps

While Austin Sleeps
*****************************************

I don't understand how a disease can do this to a person. How can it spread so fast? I just. . . . I'm sorry this is one of the first chances I've had to get to a working computer since this all began. I'm really not sure how to begin. Just...

My name is Dagan Moore, and up until a few weeks ago I was a junior at the University of Texas at Austin in the Mechanical Engineering program. I was taking summer classes in the hopes of graduating in 4 years instead of the usual 5. Now I'm bashing in the skulls of my professors and classmates or worse, watching as they devour the living.

Three weeks ago I was in the library, the PCL 11th floor. I have been putting off my science courses as long as I could and this summer it was time to pay the price. It looked like it was going to take an act of God for me to pass Bio. Chem. I guess in a way that's what happened. I had a corner that no one else knew about, it was my exam spot, no one to bother you and no guard to kick you out. I guess I had fallen asleep around 2:00 am. The sun was still tucked behind the horizon when my roommate Adam, Adam Berskin, and his girlfriend Sandra Nguyen woke me up.

Sandra is in my program but happens to be one of those lucky SOB's that hardly has to lift a finger, in other words she's about twice as fucking smart as I ever think I could be. Adam's a Lit. major and I'm not sure how the two of them got together, but barring classes they never leave each others' side. It was Sandra that showed me the tunnel system under the school. That's how they got to me that night. They had heard the alarms going off and turned on the TV in time to catch one of the last reports coming out of the east coast about the plague.

The "Quarantine," or as I like to call it marshal law was being put into effect while everyone slept. It seemed like a thousand flood lights kicked on and lit the sky while Adam, who was very out of breath, tried to explain what the report had said. My arms were raised above my head in a stretch when the night sky lit up. If it hadn't I wouldn't be writing this now. Roughly fifteen feet behind Sandra was Amir, an amazing mathematician I had met a couple times in different classes, but something was very wrong with him. His eyes were all white and he was moving like he didn't have total control of his body. I would have thought he was drunk if I hadn't known him to be a very devout Lebanese Muslim, then I noticed his lips. What looked to be a crazy smile was in fact the look a face gets when a person chews off their own lips.

Amir's skin was so pale it almost seemed grey and open wounds had begun to fester all over his once olive skin. I gasped and let out a pathetic scream while yanking both Sandra and Adam behind me and away from Amir's outstretched hands. The skin and meat had peeled back from the tips of his fingers leaving little more than red tinged bone dripping with gore. Out of sheer terror I grabbed the chair closest to meet and hurled it at Amir with everything I had. I must have gotten lucky with the way the chair hit or maybe the way Amir's head hit the study table behind him when he fell either way he was the first. Some since then hardly even rate a blur in my memory but the second death of Amir at my hands is crystal in my mind, and I fear it always will be.

I've gone on too long as is. There were 17 of us when this started now there are 5. I try not to think about those we have lost and only hope those that remain can find a safe place. For those that may be reading this and curious, the survivors are Adam Berskin, Sandra Nguyen, Chants Bennividas, Alexis Johns, Homer Gaige, and myself.

We have to keep moving, but I'll try and write again soon now that I know others are out there to read it.



--
Brent Acuff
"I drank what?!" -- Socrates

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Success

Our bow and crossbow training has been a success. We've been using these weapon systems almost exclusively for the past couple of days and the results have been dramatic. There has been a drastic reduction in the number of Zeds that have been attracted to our compound. I takes a couple of shots for some, especially if our aim is off just a touch. These aren't the most accurate of systems, but they do have their advantages.

Not everything is good news concerning this new tactic. Because we had to wait for Zed to come in to the walls itself, it forced us to have to stand at the very edge of the roof line to line up a shot. We didn't think about a safety harness and we paid for it -- well, Benton paid for it. A gust of wind knocked him off balance and over the roof. We heard him go over, but weren't able to get a shot at Zed before he tore into Benton. God he screamed! No one knew what to do for him, but in reality, there was nothing we could do. Well, almost nothing.

I asked for the rifle of the bow teams backup. He never saw it coming. At least he didn't have to worry about becoming one of them. His wife is pretty angry with me. Murderous is more appropriate. We've taken her off of any duties for the time being and some of the other wives are trying to help her. I'm sorry for what I had to do, but we had to do it. Letting an infected person inside would be signing our own death warrant.

More contamination removal details are being sent out in just a few minutes. We've got to clear the walls and collect our spent bolts and arrows. We can be lax in our defense or else we'll doom ourselves.

To anyone else out there, keep strong and safe.