Dark Recollections Read online

  I packed up, made sure everything was good to go, and headed back up here. Doing all that took up pretty much every bit of daylight I wanted to spend down there, which worked out perfect. Once back I got everything inside and organized.

  Major items of note that are cool: 120 cans of various foods. Lots and lots of the canned pasta crap, which is pretty yummy, and surprisingly nutritious for shitty food. I got the concrete, 20 more blocks and a handful of bricks, as well as 8 sheets of plywood from the 2nd house. Major score on the plywood. He also had a handful of 4x4’s and 2x4’s.

  Toiletries were a heavy score as well, and someone in the third house was a nurse or something, because their hallway closet upstairs looked more like an emergency room than a place to store linens. I was a little bummed I didn’t find much in the way of medicines, but between the three houses I did get a lot of pills like aspirin, Ibuprofen, ex-lax etc. Lots of rubbing alcohol, bacitracin, and hydrogen peroxide too, which is great. Household remedy stuff. I got a bunch of razor blades for shaving, extra socks out the ass, some properly sized boxers for my ass, and best of all, about a hundred new CDs and DVDs.

  Mr. Journal, a wonderful day. I secured all those supplies and cleaned out three houses using only 3 bullets. I plan on doing more of the same the next few days. If I can keep this pace up, I will have the entire neighborhood clean in 14 more days. Mmm… doubtful.

  Well, I gotta get something to eat here, and Otis looks hungry too, so I am off. I’ll write more entries in the next few days as I get time and energy. Hopefully things will go well and I can talk more about some of the other crap that happened before I started writing in this diary. There’s a few good stories left in me still. Plus I haven’t even scratched the surface with anything about me really. Although I’m not a terribly interesting guy.

  Have a good night Mr. Journal.

  -Adrian

  November 22nd

  Guess who is Oprah-rich?! Mr. Journal I bagged a motherfucking deer. Right out the second floor window of Hall E as I was getting my frigging shoes on this morning! I sat up, scratched Otis’s head for a minute, got my feet dressed, stood up, looked out the window and saw a good sized buck at the stream. Snagged the hunting rifle, slowly cranked the window open and about 15 seconds later I was balls deep in venison.

  Mr. Journal I hope you aren’t a Bambi fan because venison is fucking delicious! After I dropped it I got all geared up and headed out to gut it and get it back here to dress it up. I’m not an expert at dressing deer, but I did a great job all things considered. It’s frigid out right now still so I think the meat will freeze if I get it outside and leave it in the shade. That means most of today will be spent getting the meat preserved, and finding a way to store it.

  Fresh frigging meat. Omfg. Seriously.

  -Adrian

  November 22nd (2nd entry)

  I am doubly Oprah-rich. Got me some potting soil today! Oh man, what a day though. I turned one of the small brick sheds into a smokehouse. Pretty easy really. Got everything out and stored in a different building, then strung up some of the wire I found months ago to hang the meat off of. I made sure to cut the deer up into small enough chunks that it’d smoke/dry a little quicker than normal too. Hung all the meat from the rafters, then went out and found a maple tree. Conveniently maples are more or less everywhere up here, so I didn’t have to go far to find one.

  Unfortunately I had to use the little chainsaw again, but campus has been empty of zombies for a long time now. I haven’t seen shit on my patrols lately, so I’m thinking it’ll be okay. Anyhow I got the maple down, chopped it into logs, got some in the center of the brick maintenance building, and started a really slow smoldering fire. Now wet, fresh wood burns smoky, and that’s exactly what I want. I want a little bit of heat, but mostly just the smoke to seal the venison and preserve it. Plus the maple flavor will get into the meat too. Mmmmm.. maple flavored venison. Boing, boner.

  I had enough salt in the cafeteria tubs as well to brine up a few of the venison chops. Those will last a few weeks too and it preserves a lot of my variety in what the venison choices are. I don’t want all the venison to just be maple flavored. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it’s 2 or 3 days of smoking will preserve the meat. Brining is done already, so that meat should keep in a plastic bag in the cold outdoors indefinitely.

  Enough of that. Before I went off campus today I dug out the propane grill from staff housing and cooked up a venison steak. I really don’t have words. It was transcendent. I gave Otis a few little bits too and he was rolling around and rubbing up on everything. I think he got his own kitty sized boner. We were the happiest people in the whole world earlier. God that was good. I mean so good. I could theoretically have fresh venison for like 4 or 5 weeks easily. Straight to January, assuming I live that long. I’m going to have an erection over this for days. I am fucking tent poling it. I need sweatpants.

  Feeling positive though all things considered. I have meat now, and I got some potting soil earlier which means I can start a little indoor garden in some pots. Fresh tomatoes and herbs sound pretty sexy. Gotta figure out what to do about growing shit tomorrow night after I get in from clearing houses. I am typing 900 miles an hour right now. So excited.

  After I got the smokehouse set up I ate the shit out of that venison. I don’t mean that I went out to the deer corpse and ate the poo in the deer’s butt, what I mean is that I voraciously and eagerly ate the venison I cooked on the grill. I felt that needed a little extra explanation. After that I had enough time to clear one house. Sticking with the plan, I went back down to the area of the gas station, and went to the house next in line to the one I did last yesterday. Speaking of yesterday…..

  Cleared 3 more houses on the 21st. I previously mentioned there are 15 houses around the gas station that needed clearing, and I had already done 3 of those. I cleared three more yesterday, which leaves 9 remaining on Route 18 coming into today. Yesterday’s haul was decent, but not as overwhelming as the first day. Little bit of food, bunch of cleaning supplies and minor medical crap. The best thing that came out of yesterday’s clearing was two five gallon spare gas cans. That’ll improve my gas runs. Speaking of which, I should probably do one soon again. I’ve had to run the generator much longer during the day than I would like to keep Hall E warm. It has gotten very cold very quickly this year.

  So yesterday I didn’t encounter anything dead, undead or alive. Just empty dusty houses. I think the three families or residents or whatever cleared out and took the majority of their shit. Lots of stuff missing from the houses that you would expect to see. Picture frames, lots of office drawers open with paperwork missing, and empty fridges. Yes I know I swore I wouldn’t check fridges again, but two of the three houses had the fridges open already, and I couldn’t resist opening the third one. Refrigerators are my Pandora’s Box apparently.

  Anyhoo, moral of the story is I didn’t kill anything, but I also didn’t find much of anything. They can’t all be winners I suppose. Did I tell you I got venison? Win!

  Today was different on both counts. I knew from looking around yesterday that one house had several zombies in it, and I kinda made a plan to hit that house today. I thought it was a good idea to remove them before they broke a window, or managed to get a door open. Contained zombies (at least on paper) are a little easier to deal with than the roaming ones. Less likely to sneak up on me.

  So the house with the zombies, the one I went to today is a cape. It’s got a detached two car garage, and has cedar shingle siding. Dormers on the second floor, very nice really. I would even say it’s upscale. There were four zombies inside that I could see. Two adults and two kids. I tried the truck plan again, but it didn’t work for shit. Backed it up into the yard like normal, and jacked up the Pat Benatar music, but I couldn’t get them to come my way and stay that way. I’d get one or two over at window, but after a bit they’d walk off, or when I tried to slip away, they’d follow me around the house. Kinda sucked. I even brought
a small selection of CD’s with me from the other day, and tried a few different bands. They were not fans of Chevelle, Crosby Still & Nash, or Rihanna. Sad really. No taste these dead guys.

  Plan B was to set the house on fire and say fuck it. But once again I realized that the only thing that scares me more than zombies is zombies that have been set on fire. I could just picture the house burning down enough that the zombies would escape, chase me down, set me on fire, and then eat me. Sort of like what happened to that deer this morning.

  Sooo… plan C. I did not have a plan C. Plan A worked to so well up til now that I hadn’t really developed a way to deal with this. The dead family was wandering around on the first floor, so smashing out a window and having them fall seemed decent, but not as effective as when I did it on Hall C back when I was clearing campus. I thought of ramming the house with the Tundra, then letting them come out and running them over, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the truck. I also thought of opening the door, backing away, and hoping they came out single file.

  None of those ideas appealed to me, and finally I decided to tank. Mr. Journal if you’re unfamiliar with the term, it means to use your body as a meatshield. You block doorways and prevent your foes from escaping. I know, it wasn’t ideal, but I had my Greenfield Spartans football helmet handy, and I was feeling a little invulnerable with a full belly of venison. Did I tell you I got venison? It’s delicious!

  I went to the side door of the house near the garage. I situated the Tundra so it was aimed out of their driveway, and I got the passenger side door open so that if I had to bolt, I could run and dive into that door and be off in a jiffy. I got the shotgun, slapped the helmet on, and propped their screen door open. This side door opened into their kitchen, and I could kinda see down a hallway, and sort of into the opening that led to the living room. The mother came to the door as I was getting ready, and started scratching and hitting the glass pretty hard, so I leveled the gauge off at her head through the window, and annihilated her face. Point blank like that with the glass in the way it was just frigging spectacular. Not in the creepy gory way, but…, you know actually there’s no way to say spectacular in regards to decapitation by shotgun and not have it be in the creepy gory way. Disregard all of that Mr. Journal.

  Her head blew the fuck up.

  It was at that point I realized I didn’t have to open the door. If I just stood there and waited, theoretically I could shoot all of them just like that, as they came to the door. So I took a step back, and let it happen. 15 seconds later, their little boy came around the corner from another room, and came at the door. I couldn’t bear to shoot him with my eyes open, so I closed them once he got to the door, and shot at the space I thought his head was in. He was bumping into the door, reaching up through the shattered glass at me, cutting the flesh on his arms to ribbons. Thankfully I got lucky on the first shot and hit him right in the head. I think the venison high is keeping me sane today. Right after I shot the little boy, their daughter came straight down the hallway, and I had to do the same thing. Just couldn’t pull the trigger while looking. Reminded me too much of seeing dead kids in Iraq. I am concerned about being rushed by a bunch of kid zombies now though. I’m not sure how I’ll react to that.

  Gotta keep telling this story or I’ll dwell and get all depressed about it. Sickens me. Dad zombie never came to the door. Maybe it was creepy uncle zombie? I never found any family pictures in the house either, which was weird. I’m starting to think that these people didn’t live here before all this shit went down. Maybe they were squatters who stopped for some reason. You know that does make some sense, because there were no cars in the garage, or driveway.

  Anyway, squatter zombie dad (or creepy uncle) never came to the door to get shotgunned conveniently. I reached inside the shattered window on the side door, unlocked it, and let myself into the kitchen. The center island provided a good barricade, so I went around it the long way to have cover from anything coming out of the living room. I couldn’t see him in there, so I slowly went down the hallway. I got about halfway down the hall when I started to hear this.... chewing, crunching noise. It was coming from room at the end of the hall. I kinda hastily cleared the room in the center of the hall, and moved down to the end, shotgun up.

  All I could see at first was the dad zombie crouched down in the doorway, holding something to his mouth. I figured out instantly he was eating something, and he was totally absorbed in it. I slung the shotgun real quick and pulled out the blade. One quick downward stab at the base of the skull and he went flat on the floor. I had to curbstomp his face a couple times to get him to stop twitching, but eventually he was down. Turns out he was eating some kind of mouse or something. Couldn’t tell really seeing as how he had it mostly fucking chewed up by the time I killed him. Stomping on his head most likely didn’t help either. Bet that was why he never came to the door. Found a more convenient meal. You know that really frigging befuddles me. How the hell was he fast enough to catch a mouse, but they’re too slow and stupid to get me? Have I discovered the better mousetrap? Hm.

  Cleared the rest of the house with no issues. Basement was creepy as a motherfucker, but it was empty. It had the open stone foundation, and had a low ceiling. Cobwebs all over the place. No electricity meant using my little flashlight, which does not make for a comforting experience. Finding a zombie in a dark ass basement with a flashlight might give me a heart attack. I can see it now. I come around a furnace, or a pile of boxes, I’m sort of distracted by falling dust, I look away, and when I look back BOOM! There’s a bloody zombie right there in front of me. I won’t need to be eaten alive at that point, I’ll just drop fucking dead of a heart attack. Luckily, no coronary seizure today for me.

  The house had very little in the way of food or supplies, which lends more credence to the idea that the original folks left with everything. I did find a few little useful items here and there, but nothing really outstanding. However… when I checked the garage, I hit the “mother load.” Apparently the original residents had a garden, and they were very serious about that garden. There were an assortment of fertilizer bags, top soil, ulti-chem-nutra-food or whatever you call it, and tons of tools, pots, dowels for propping up plants, and even two or three really good books on gardening. Mega score in my book. The ubah.

  Heavy as shit though. Loaded up the truck, did a once over of the house again, moved the bodies outside into the garden area, and came back up here to get everything all settled. I did a quick patrol of the grounds just in case. I was a little paranoid about using the chainsaw earlier, but nothing was up here that I saw, so I think I’m all good. Oh shit I forgot to mention that house had cat food! So Otis is still in supply for his needs. I was a little worried the bag of dry food might’ve been rotten, but I checked it earlier and it’ll be fine. There was also a half dozen cans of the wet food, which I’ll save for special occasions for him. Thanksgiving is coming up after all.

  As for tonight, I think I am going to burn a handful of CDs for my house clearing enjoyment. I found a stash of burnable discs back when I was searching the dorm rooms a few weeks ago. That seems like something to do. Maybe I’ll throw some Gaga on there for experimental purposes. Strictly scientific reasons of course.

  Still need to figure out what to do with this boner though.

  -Adrian

  November 25th

  Happy turkey day Mr. Journal. Here in America we call today Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving we usually eat turkey, hence the turkey day greeting. Today though, I am eating venison. Why break with tradition you ask? Well, I don’t have any turkey, and because venison is fucking delicious. Really yummy. Wouldn’t lie. I guess the point of Thanksgiving is to take some time out of our lives and realize what we are thankful for.

  I thought I would talk about what I am thankful for with some of this entry today. I don’t think I ever sat down and really, truly thought about what I was thankful for before the world came to an end. Well, the end as we know it. The world is sti
ll moving along I guess, we’re just disappearing off of it. I’m off track here.

  I am thankful for being alive. I don’t even know how many people across the world have died because of whatever is happening, but I am thankful that thus far, I have avoided being eaten, or getting sick, or whatever causes this.

  I am thankful that I still have Otis my cat. Otis is my homeboy. No one really ever got along with me as well as he did, and the fact that I still have him with me keeps me far saner than I would be otherwise. I’m thankful for his purring when I scratch him, I’m thankful for his killing of mice, and I’m thankful for his warmth on cold nights.

  I am thankful for all the weapons my man Phil at Moore’s sold me the day the shit hit the fan. I am thankful for all the ammunition. I am thankful for the spare magazines. I am thankful for the additional ammunition and the rifle I got there when I went back. I am also thankful for the .45 I found at the gas station.

  I am thankful for all the food I got at the grocery store the day the zombies first appeared. I know I took more than I needed that day, and I know I was kind of a prick to the people there, and I do kind of regret that, but at least I am still alive, and thankful for the opportunity to try and help others. I am thankful I survived the trip back there right after all this shit started too. What a fucking nightmare that was.

  I am thankful for my family. Well, I am thankful that while I still had them, they were for the most part good to me. Mom, Dad, three brothers and sister. I don’t think I have ever fully listed their names off anywhere actually. Here’s the list Mr. Journal; Margaret and Thomas are (were) my parents. In order, we are; Caleb, Myself, Thomas Jr., William, and littlest sister Rebecca. There you have it, the Ring clan. I am thankful for their merciless beatings (eat my ass Caleb), their blaming of their mistakes on me (fuck you Tommy), and all the detentions for beating up my sister’s suitors. (love you Becca.)