I found a decent laptop in one of the apartments and I'm writing this blog entry from the rooftop of my apartment complex. I'm picking up on someone's wi-fi signal. So the good news, then, is that I'm still alive and I found a laptop and so I can keep updating everyone on where I am. The internet is really my last connection to the world. At least if I stay in range of someone's wireless connection. And that's good. For me. I was going to have to think of some other hobby to help pass the time.
The window was easy enough to break. I don't know how many zombies looked up at the roof when I threw the hammer through it, but by the time I squeezed between and over the broken glass and got to my feet on the slanted rooftop, almost all of them were stumbling toward me. And there are a lot of zombies in the street -- outside the fence -- probably even more than I expected. It didn't surprise me like I thought it would. I've seen more zombies in scenes from Dawn of the Dead. We're talking maybe sixty zombies scattered around the parked cars. I spent a while sitting on the roof watching them meander around. They have very short attention spans. Most of them are just really pale-looking people with gruesome wounds splattered with dried blood. It's like that old saying that we're all equal in death, everyone looks the same. I watched a guy (looked like he used to be a cop) dragging around the upper torso of another guy because they were attached at the wrist by hand-cuffs. I saw a zombie still sitting in her parked car, just staring forward through the windshield, while her nose-less zombie baby was scratching at the window. I scanned the street up and down with binoculars I took from my junk-drawer. Each zombie had some story to tell: the old guy with a bread knife stuck in his shoulder, the teenager wearing a Jack in the Box uniform with a bloody stump where his arm should be, the business woman who carried around and gnawed on a human leg. Those are some I remember. Now that it's night, it's much harder to see details. Now the zombies are a shapeless, morphing form.
What happened after I got onto the roof is I examined the road and then went to see if any zombies were inside the gate, if they were walking around the resident parking lot. I counted six when I first looked early this morning. Then at around 3:00 I came back to the roof and counted four. And I also couldn't make it all the way across the complex to where I could check if the front-gate was closed. There are curved pathways and tall oak trees that split the complex into five seperate structures, cutting me off from most of the other apartments. The zombies wandering around the parking lot might have come in through the gate -- though if it's been open for nineteen days I would expect more -- or they could be residents who wandered out of their homes.
From the roof I can get into seven apartments in my building, if I wanted to, but only two of those are upstairs only -- which is as far as my bravery is willing to take me -- while two others are downstairs only and the other four are two-story lofts, like mine.
So of the two upstairs apartments, the first one I checked out was #5, but the door was locked. Didn't know what else to do but knock, and then I waited scared out of my mind -- the sun was just coming up over the parking lot and I didn't want to be spotted. No one answered the door. So then I tested to see if the window could be slid open and, thankfully, it wasn't latched. The window opened without a problem. This first apartment was empty. Locked, but empty. I looked in every corner of that place -- and it was small, so it didn't take long -- and there were no people. I think the residents probably made a run for it. Or maybe they weren't home when the invasion started and simply never made it back. There is only one framed photo on the wall of a young man and wife (presumably) who could have lived here. Before I felt safe scrounging through this apartment for supplies, though, I moved some of their heavier furniture in front of the staircase leading down to the pathway. I moved their couch and a big wicker chest onto the balcony. This was also how I got back onto the roof... But anyway I grabbed the laptop off the desk and a backpack to carry it with. I checked their kitchen for food and found plenty. A well-stocked refrigerator. Lots of dry food in the cabinets. They don't have the nice TV that I do, but that's okay because only three self-sustaining television channels are still on the air, plus that CNN channel they started up from one of the safe-zones in New York that has been repeating the same information for three or four days since it started up.
I had to drop down to a different balcony on the other side of the building to get to the second apartment. The door was locked and I still felt like I had to knock before trying the window. I knock and wait a minute and then this young kid comes bumping up against the window. He has no fingers on his two hands and one of his eyeballs was twisted askew like someone hit him really hard against the side of the head. I stepped back and watched him watching me, putting his mouth against the window and screeching his teeth against the glass. I watched him for a while. And then I realized that his moaning was drawing the attention of the zombies from the parking lot -- all of a sudden I turned around and two of them were trying to climb the staircase. I recognized one of the guys as my neighbor who I'd never met, the skateboarder. He was missing a lot of the skin from his legs and I could literally see his knee working as it attempted to maneuver the steps. So I just climbed back onto the roof and forgot about that apartment.
I figure this new apartment -- Apartment #5 -- has enough supplies to keep me alive for a long time. Months, even. You can't even beleive how happy it made me feel to open the refrigerator. To find the laptop. To have some good luck tossed my way. I mean, seriously, this place has a collection of movies, books, and stacks of old magazines in the bathroom. It has a big ready-made bed with soft blankets and pillows. The staircase is blocked off with furniture, and the furniture gives me quick access to the rooftop. What I didn't find, however, were any weapons. Nothing better than a kitchen knife and a plunger. I'm not about to fight a zombie with a kitchen knife, though, so until I get my hands on a real gun I don't think I'll even worry about that second apartment. I get the feeling I won't need anything I'd find in there, anyway. Something about killing someone -- even a zombie -- still seems beyond me.
That all said, I think I'll go back inside. It's been getting colder at night. I'm feeling so happy for myself that I might take a shower, too. Imagine real hot water in a time like this.
Until next time...
The window was easy enough to break. I don't know how many zombies looked up at the roof when I threw the hammer through it, but by the time I squeezed between and over the broken glass and got to my feet on the slanted rooftop, almost all of them were stumbling toward me. And there are a lot of zombies in the street -- outside the fence -- probably even more than I expected. It didn't surprise me like I thought it would. I've seen more zombies in scenes from Dawn of the Dead. We're talking maybe sixty zombies scattered around the parked cars. I spent a while sitting on the roof watching them meander around. They have very short attention spans. Most of them are just really pale-looking people with gruesome wounds splattered with dried blood. It's like that old saying that we're all equal in death, everyone looks the same. I watched a guy (looked like he used to be a cop) dragging around the upper torso of another guy because they were attached at the wrist by hand-cuffs. I saw a zombie still sitting in her parked car, just staring forward through the windshield, while her nose-less zombie baby was scratching at the window. I scanned the street up and down with binoculars I took from my junk-drawer. Each zombie had some story to tell: the old guy with a bread knife stuck in his shoulder, the teenager wearing a Jack in the Box uniform with a bloody stump where his arm should be, the business woman who carried around and gnawed on a human leg. Those are some I remember. Now that it's night, it's much harder to see details. Now the zombies are a shapeless, morphing form.
What happened after I got onto the roof is I examined the road and then went to see if any zombies were inside the gate, if they were walking around the resident parking lot. I counted six when I first looked early this morning. Then at around 3:00 I came back to the roof and counted four. And I also couldn't make it all the way across the complex to where I could check if the front-gate was closed. There are curved pathways and tall oak trees that split the complex into five seperate structures, cutting me off from most of the other apartments. The zombies wandering around the parking lot might have come in through the gate -- though if it's been open for nineteen days I would expect more -- or they could be residents who wandered out of their homes.
From the roof I can get into seven apartments in my building, if I wanted to, but only two of those are upstairs only -- which is as far as my bravery is willing to take me -- while two others are downstairs only and the other four are two-story lofts, like mine.
So of the two upstairs apartments, the first one I checked out was #5, but the door was locked. Didn't know what else to do but knock, and then I waited scared out of my mind -- the sun was just coming up over the parking lot and I didn't want to be spotted. No one answered the door. So then I tested to see if the window could be slid open and, thankfully, it wasn't latched. The window opened without a problem. This first apartment was empty. Locked, but empty. I looked in every corner of that place -- and it was small, so it didn't take long -- and there were no people. I think the residents probably made a run for it. Or maybe they weren't home when the invasion started and simply never made it back. There is only one framed photo on the wall of a young man and wife (presumably) who could have lived here. Before I felt safe scrounging through this apartment for supplies, though, I moved some of their heavier furniture in front of the staircase leading down to the pathway. I moved their couch and a big wicker chest onto the balcony. This was also how I got back onto the roof... But anyway I grabbed the laptop off the desk and a backpack to carry it with. I checked their kitchen for food and found plenty. A well-stocked refrigerator. Lots of dry food in the cabinets. They don't have the nice TV that I do, but that's okay because only three self-sustaining television channels are still on the air, plus that CNN channel they started up from one of the safe-zones in New York that has been repeating the same information for three or four days since it started up.
I had to drop down to a different balcony on the other side of the building to get to the second apartment. The door was locked and I still felt like I had to knock before trying the window. I knock and wait a minute and then this young kid comes bumping up against the window. He has no fingers on his two hands and one of his eyeballs was twisted askew like someone hit him really hard against the side of the head. I stepped back and watched him watching me, putting his mouth against the window and screeching his teeth against the glass. I watched him for a while. And then I realized that his moaning was drawing the attention of the zombies from the parking lot -- all of a sudden I turned around and two of them were trying to climb the staircase. I recognized one of the guys as my neighbor who I'd never met, the skateboarder. He was missing a lot of the skin from his legs and I could literally see his knee working as it attempted to maneuver the steps. So I just climbed back onto the roof and forgot about that apartment.
I figure this new apartment -- Apartment #5 -- has enough supplies to keep me alive for a long time. Months, even. You can't even beleive how happy it made me feel to open the refrigerator. To find the laptop. To have some good luck tossed my way. I mean, seriously, this place has a collection of movies, books, and stacks of old magazines in the bathroom. It has a big ready-made bed with soft blankets and pillows. The staircase is blocked off with furniture, and the furniture gives me quick access to the rooftop. What I didn't find, however, were any weapons. Nothing better than a kitchen knife and a plunger. I'm not about to fight a zombie with a kitchen knife, though, so until I get my hands on a real gun I don't think I'll even worry about that second apartment. I get the feeling I won't need anything I'd find in there, anyway. Something about killing someone -- even a zombie -- still seems beyond me.
That all said, I think I'll go back inside. It's been getting colder at night. I'm feeling so happy for myself that I might take a shower, too. Imagine real hot water in a time like this.
Until next time...
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