Nicole didn't make it.
I don't know what else to say about that. I don't want to talk about what I saw, just know that she was very brave for trying to find her boyfriend and it should be remembered that she did not go down without a fight. I don't know what my words can do for those who knew Nicole, if any of those people are still alive. I'm sure she's spared herself an increasingly bleak-looking future. If this is the world she leaves behind -- perhaps, even, to join her boyfriend in heaven -- then she isn't missing out on much. Although I haven't put it out of my head that I'll see zombie-Nicole on my way out of the prison tomorrow.
When the sun comes up I'll have the courage to leave. Until then the two tall filing cabinets, heavy black-lacquered wooden desk, and overturned desk-chairs will protect me from the shuffling horde of zombies in the hallways. When Nicole and I got the prison -- after crossing the freeway, another story entirely -- we didn't find a whole lot of hope. The parking lot was littered with bodies, garbage, and the crispy skeletons of burnt cars withering in the wind. Lots of prisoners meandered around, zombies, probably escaped from their cells during an attempted evacuation or an exceptionally violent riot. Maybe someone was visited by an infected spouse and they shared a viral kiss. Then that prisoner converts overnight and eats his cellmate's brains, then attacks the guards the next morning when their gunshots are ineffective. Let that ensuing outbreak spread through the prison and spill out into the neighborhood, and you have the scene that Nicole and I came across. We snuck in through an emergency exit door held ajar by a dead body and saw more of the same inside -- hallways crowded with zombies bumping into each other, moaning.
I don't know what Nicole was thinking. If she thought Steven would be the only guy who managed to survive this place -- like he found a closet somewhere, or a big vent to hide in. But there wasn't a living person to be seen anywhere. And we even got into the security room and checked all the working closed-circuit feeds. Zombies everywhere. Blood, guts, body parts... The closed-circuit televisions are off now, each screen reflecting a washed-out image of me, because I don't want to see anymore. Nicole and I figured out how to barricade the room, thinking that we'd both be staying in this room tonight. We'd decided it was the strongest room in the whole building because it only had one entrance and the windows -- one way mirrors, really -- were thick and bulletproof. From the second floor, the windows look down at the tables and benches where inmates have supervised visits from guests. If I were to look again I'm sure it would be the same twenty zombies locked in that room because none of the six zombie guards has the cognitive awareness to slide a keycard through a door scanner and twist a doornob. With the way things looked when I was on the outside and knowing how hopeless it appeared inside, too, I don't know what drove Nicole to make one last search for Steven.
I turned on the closed-circuit monitors to watch her. I won't tell you what I saw happen.
After that I barricaded the door again. Now I'm sitting at the desk in front of eight blank television screens and this glowing laptop. I moved the computer that was here before me and stole its Ethernet cable for internet access. First thing I did this time was check my e-mail. No messages. No sign that anyone but me has survived. Remember Belen? I'm assuming her and her family were eaten weeks ago. I feel like she would have called me if they'd had an escape plan, too, because I know that we're better friends than that. She wouldn't ditch me here. But while that thought is comforting, it also means that she's probably dead.
Or a zombie.
Worldwide news is grim, too. Not just the alarming amount of outbreaks registered within the past five hours, but the list of fully-evacuated cities, an estimate of which cities will soon be evacuated, and a quickly diminishing list of safe-zones categorized by location. Reliable sources of information are starting to drop off. Websites are being updated slowly. Nothing I looked at online was published in the United States since last Sunday. Almost a week ago. And everything the overseas articles are addressing, I remember reading about when the invasion began here. Tips for what to do, where to go, who to contact... Information that sounds good on paper and matters so little once you spend your first sleepless night listening to the endless moaning, that collective cry for a bite of human brains.
I want to think I'll meet Steven someday. Maybe he did survive. And I'll be able to tell him about when I met Nicole and how much she loved him and how she died in the quest to reunite with him. That's love. That's a good love story. But I don't get my hopes up anymore.
Not all has been for naught, however. A locker in the back of the security room had four pump-action shotguns and four handguns and two big automatic rifles. All these weapons, metal-black and shiny, with cases of bullets for each on the shelf below. I'm intimidated more by the shotgun than the rifle, but know in some part of my brain that I'll rather have the blast-radius of the shotgun than the rapid recoil-crazed firing of an automatic rifle. I found a bag and put two handguns in there with all the bullets. All the shotgun shells. I found a vest that lets me strap the shotgun across my back like a real-life action movie star. I have to assume that what I've see on television is as easy as it looks. Pump to load, squeeze trigger to fire... How to reload the thing, I'm still not sure. It didn't come with a manual.
Tomorrow I'm making a break for home. Or, well, I'll probably go back to Nicole's apartment. There's food and shelter waiting for me there. Peace and quiet from the echoing murmur of a hundred lost souls. It was a bad idea to come out here. It was. No one's going to say it was all worth it because I came back with weapons. Nicole died when she didn't have to. And I can't help but feel a little responsible for that. Survivor's guilt starts quick when your mind is working ten times as fast as normal. It also passes quickly. You see enough death in one day and it'll never bother you again, you become detached. It's been five hours since Nicole went out there. I went through all the five stages of grief before sunset. Now I'm just thinking about tomorrow, about what might happen. I think about all the abandoned cars on the freeway and I wonder if any of them might have gas left in them. The commuter zombies bouncing around the parked cars weren't much of a threat on the way across because there were enough cars to leap from hood-to-hood or roof-to-roof, like crossing a river by a trail of rocks.
I need to get some rest. I must get some rest.
I don't know what else to say about that. I don't want to talk about what I saw, just know that she was very brave for trying to find her boyfriend and it should be remembered that she did not go down without a fight. I don't know what my words can do for those who knew Nicole, if any of those people are still alive. I'm sure she's spared herself an increasingly bleak-looking future. If this is the world she leaves behind -- perhaps, even, to join her boyfriend in heaven -- then she isn't missing out on much. Although I haven't put it out of my head that I'll see zombie-Nicole on my way out of the prison tomorrow.
When the sun comes up I'll have the courage to leave. Until then the two tall filing cabinets, heavy black-lacquered wooden desk, and overturned desk-chairs will protect me from the shuffling horde of zombies in the hallways. When Nicole and I got the prison -- after crossing the freeway, another story entirely -- we didn't find a whole lot of hope. The parking lot was littered with bodies, garbage, and the crispy skeletons of burnt cars withering in the wind. Lots of prisoners meandered around, zombies, probably escaped from their cells during an attempted evacuation or an exceptionally violent riot. Maybe someone was visited by an infected spouse and they shared a viral kiss. Then that prisoner converts overnight and eats his cellmate's brains, then attacks the guards the next morning when their gunshots are ineffective. Let that ensuing outbreak spread through the prison and spill out into the neighborhood, and you have the scene that Nicole and I came across. We snuck in through an emergency exit door held ajar by a dead body and saw more of the same inside -- hallways crowded with zombies bumping into each other, moaning.
I don't know what Nicole was thinking. If she thought Steven would be the only guy who managed to survive this place -- like he found a closet somewhere, or a big vent to hide in. But there wasn't a living person to be seen anywhere. And we even got into the security room and checked all the working closed-circuit feeds. Zombies everywhere. Blood, guts, body parts... The closed-circuit televisions are off now, each screen reflecting a washed-out image of me, because I don't want to see anymore. Nicole and I figured out how to barricade the room, thinking that we'd both be staying in this room tonight. We'd decided it was the strongest room in the whole building because it only had one entrance and the windows -- one way mirrors, really -- were thick and bulletproof. From the second floor, the windows look down at the tables and benches where inmates have supervised visits from guests. If I were to look again I'm sure it would be the same twenty zombies locked in that room because none of the six zombie guards has the cognitive awareness to slide a keycard through a door scanner and twist a doornob. With the way things looked when I was on the outside and knowing how hopeless it appeared inside, too, I don't know what drove Nicole to make one last search for Steven.
I turned on the closed-circuit monitors to watch her. I won't tell you what I saw happen.
After that I barricaded the door again. Now I'm sitting at the desk in front of eight blank television screens and this glowing laptop. I moved the computer that was here before me and stole its Ethernet cable for internet access. First thing I did this time was check my e-mail. No messages. No sign that anyone but me has survived. Remember Belen? I'm assuming her and her family were eaten weeks ago. I feel like she would have called me if they'd had an escape plan, too, because I know that we're better friends than that. She wouldn't ditch me here. But while that thought is comforting, it also means that she's probably dead.
Or a zombie.
Worldwide news is grim, too. Not just the alarming amount of outbreaks registered within the past five hours, but the list of fully-evacuated cities, an estimate of which cities will soon be evacuated, and a quickly diminishing list of safe-zones categorized by location. Reliable sources of information are starting to drop off. Websites are being updated slowly. Nothing I looked at online was published in the United States since last Sunday. Almost a week ago. And everything the overseas articles are addressing, I remember reading about when the invasion began here. Tips for what to do, where to go, who to contact... Information that sounds good on paper and matters so little once you spend your first sleepless night listening to the endless moaning, that collective cry for a bite of human brains.
I want to think I'll meet Steven someday. Maybe he did survive. And I'll be able to tell him about when I met Nicole and how much she loved him and how she died in the quest to reunite with him. That's love. That's a good love story. But I don't get my hopes up anymore.
Not all has been for naught, however. A locker in the back of the security room had four pump-action shotguns and four handguns and two big automatic rifles. All these weapons, metal-black and shiny, with cases of bullets for each on the shelf below. I'm intimidated more by the shotgun than the rifle, but know in some part of my brain that I'll rather have the blast-radius of the shotgun than the rapid recoil-crazed firing of an automatic rifle. I found a bag and put two handguns in there with all the bullets. All the shotgun shells. I found a vest that lets me strap the shotgun across my back like a real-life action movie star. I have to assume that what I've see on television is as easy as it looks. Pump to load, squeeze trigger to fire... How to reload the thing, I'm still not sure. It didn't come with a manual.
Tomorrow I'm making a break for home. Or, well, I'll probably go back to Nicole's apartment. There's food and shelter waiting for me there. Peace and quiet from the echoing murmur of a hundred lost souls. It was a bad idea to come out here. It was. No one's going to say it was all worth it because I came back with weapons. Nicole died when she didn't have to. And I can't help but feel a little responsible for that. Survivor's guilt starts quick when your mind is working ten times as fast as normal. It also passes quickly. You see enough death in one day and it'll never bother you again, you become detached. It's been five hours since Nicole went out there. I went through all the five stages of grief before sunset. Now I'm just thinking about tomorrow, about what might happen. I think about all the abandoned cars on the freeway and I wonder if any of them might have gas left in them. The commuter zombies bouncing around the parked cars weren't much of a threat on the way across because there were enough cars to leap from hood-to-hood or roof-to-roof, like crossing a river by a trail of rocks.
I need to get some rest. I must get some rest.
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