After The Fall

2 full MRE

3 bottles of water

1 map

1 Pencil

1 M1911

2 Magazines

3 .45 caliber bullets

1 hatchet

Well, fuck. Mistakes have been made. I should have brought someone on this supply run. That wall needed repairs though. Our defenses are too important. In hindsight, returning with some supplies would go a long way to making sure we live long enough for the defenses to be important. I guess it doesn’t matter now. Not for me anyway. There are too many of those things out there. After a year, I still can not bring myself to call them what they are. Zombies. It’s like something out of a bad horror movie. Now, stuck in this run down house. Down to three bullets. This movie has come to life.

I normally use this notebook to keep track of supplies I brought with me and things I find. I’m still going to do that. However, if I am going to die, I might as well write down what the last year has been like. Since civilization fell. Who knows, Someone might find this interesting.

The first thing that began happening was reports of people getting high on a drug called “Bath Salts” and attacking people. Then video came out of some of these incidents where police would empty every round they have into the persons chest, and they wouldn’t stop until someone hit them in the head. Then all the so called Fake News sites started talking about how they had “confirmed” that it was actually people who had returned from the dead. Then, naturally, the memes started.

You remember memes right? Pictures with words on them that spread like wild fire online. I can remember one that use to make me laugh. Someone took an image from an old black and white zombie movie and edited it so that the zombies were saying Bath Salts. Thinking back on it now, that stupid meme still makes me smile.

The first time I learned that it was real, it was already too late.

I was a normal college kid studying psychology. Bartending at night to work my way through. Needless to say I was always tired. So, it wasn’t unusual for me to sleep until noon or 1pm on days that I didn’t have class. I woke that day sometime after noon, done my normal bathroom thing before going to my dorm window to see how the weather was outside. The quad tended to look like a play ground for college kids with people running around, throwing Frisbees and things. So seeing someone chasing someone else wasn’t out of the ordinary.

What was out of the ordinary was when one tackled the other and looked like they were trying to rip them apart. I don’t think I have ever run out of my dorm room so fast, even when late for class. I was halfway across the quad before I even knew what I was doing. What I was doing was running across mildly wet grass in nothing but the shorts I had just woken up in. I didn’t even take time to process what I saw until I was almost too close.

Now would be a good time to mention that the movies never quite get it right. You see someone get killed by a zombie and when they turn they have already decomposed a bit. Their eyes have already cataracted, or whatever the term is. When in reality, that isn’t how it is. They still look like they did before died, except whatever wound killed them. So, when this woman looked up at me while her teeth ripped through the flesh of some guys throat my first thought was how beautiful her eyes were. They were the kind of brown that reminded me of looking through a bottle of whiskey at the sun.

My second thought was something along the lines over “What in the ass is happening? Oh shit, she’s running at me!” Which is exactly what happened. She started fast crawling her way into a standing run my direction, leaving her fresh kill on the ground. I turned on a dime and began sprinting back towards my dorm like I was running for a gold medal.

This is the second thing most movies get wrong. They aren’t stumbling and slow at first. That happens after they have overused their muscles repeatedly. Since to build muscle the muscle damages itself during exercise and heals back stronger during rest, a zombie going full bore all the time will damage the muscles but with no rest not let it heal. That’s when they slow down. This women had to be freshly turned because if this was a race she would have just about won.

I can remember slamming the door to the dorms shut just as she slammed into it. I can still hear the door frame crack from the impact. I didn’t even wait to see if she opened the door, I just made a bee line back to my dorm room.

I slammed the door, locked it, changed my shorts and tried to call the cops. As I was calling and getting the “All phone lines are busy” message I looked out the window and got my second shock of the afternoon. The man she had just ripped the throat out of, began moving. Crawling at first before standing up and running towards where the woman was still banging on the front door.

I did the only thing my scared mind could think to do. I made some ramen noodles, grabbed a Powerade. Melon, don’t hate. Then using my laptop began binge watching every anime I had downloaded on my laptop.

I was scared, leave me alone. Oh, I know. You thought this was going to be a story about how I heroically went out looking for supplies and other survivors. No, this first part is the story of how the college student pissed himself with his first zombie encounter, ate some ramen noodles and hid in his dorm room. That other stuff comes after I ran out of water and ramen. However, that will be the next entry. For now, I need to go check the hurried barricades that I made in this house. I can already hear that the dead are trying to get in. Hopefully, I can survive to tell you the rest.

Oh, I almost forgot. My name is Connor. Connor Campbell.