AJ: blackout

Well, the power finally gave out. It was a miracle that it lasted as long as it did. It was during the recent bit of ice rain that it went down. Luckily the generator automatically kicked in. The thing is as big as a cube van, and has enough juice to keep this electricity hog of a building running at full output for a week before it needs to refuel.

Luckily its not very loud, but we have picked up a few droolers who must have been nearby when it kicked in. It sort of kicked back when it comes on, so thats probably attrated them. This has brought something to a head that I've been arguing for for awhile. Basically we need to start getting ready for winter, and get some fuel in here. We have the food thing in hand, and we have a plan for that. But all this lovely technology we have is going to require things, and upkeep. Most ofthe mechanical stuff is no problem. The generators a dumb diesal thing, and between my father and bobby both of them are pretty good with that. And diesal shouldnt pose a problem. Push comes to shove I start using vegetable oil. No problems there. Other things, tho, thats going to be a problem. We are going to need water soon. The water pressure dropped a few hours after the power went out. I think right now we are just siphoning off of the reserve tank up by the tai namara (howerver its spelled) that had a top off of about 1,000,000 gallons. So god only knows how long thats going to last us. I don't want to rely on it forever anyway, it would probably get stale in there or something. Wish I had more info on how long it will stay good in that tank before it starts to get skunky.

On another note. The power outage must have switched the phones into some sort of emergency mode. Or hung up all those phones off the hook or something. Before we were only getting fast busy signal, or a pre recorded message, but since the outage some of the kids were playing with the phones and got a dial tone. So far no numbers dialed have answered. We have a couple of people doing a 24 hour rotation with the phone book just dialing numbers. We havn't been able to get any circuits outside of the island, so some sort of circuit must be down there. The internet is still sporadic at best, the few sites that are still up arent being updated, and the major news outlet havn't been updated in awhile. Though a few blogs are still posting. Found this odd little russian site that seems to have a recent news report, but its in russian so i have no idea what they are saying. Babel fish has been gone for awhile, so im lost.

anyone speak russian? www.fakerussiannewssite . com

AJ:tedium

It's starting to get colder out there. The weather is starting to turn to winter. It worries me to think of having to scavenge out there in waist deep snow. The food supplies are good. So far we have scavenged the bar/restaurant next door, some of the stores downtown. No major food stores in town though. A few corner stores and what not. But between the close by houses, the couple of restaurants, we have managed to find enough to fully stock the third floor. Things are finally starting to get comrortable.
I saw the hunter a few more times. Scavenging through houses, and generally being creepy. We have sort of a cat and mouse thing going on. He knows I know hes there. He makes his movements, and then disapears like mist on the horizon. Im starting to feeel like commisionair gordon. Im thinking of getting a partner. JJ has proven himself with the scanvengers, and seems generally fearless. He's in shape, he knows what hes doing with a knife. The next time I go out I think he's coming with me. I will make it a simple go, but if he screws up its back to the scavenging with the kiddies.

AJ: The Hunter

I had been watching him for three days so far. I had been making the usual rounds, scouting making bigger loops each time I went out. The mass of creatures that I had led away from town were still thronging on the road, and showed no sign of turning back.
It was when I was going through the Stirling when I spotted him. At first I thought it was another drooler. He was wearing a pair of plaid sleep pants, and a letterman jacket. He was dirty, and covered in what looked like dried blood. He was sort of limping along, and it looked like he was going for the old stirling mall. It was when he turned around and I saw he was carrying a baseball bat did the hair rise up on the back of my neck. The car was across the road, and behind a restaurant. He couldn't see me or even hear me. The Stirling was a pretty active drooler haunt. The militia base had been used to house refugees from the planes, and it had gone badly here. There were signs of destruction everywhere. burnt out cars, houses with all the windows smashed out.
He was shuffling along towards the mall. Baseball bat sort of limply dragging along behind him. There was a crowd of about 5 or 6 of the things around the doors of the mall. He shuffled up to them, and they never even gave him a second glance. He got within about three feet of the first one, what looked like an army guy, only there was no shirt, only camo pants, his chest was ripped open in a number of places. When our baseball bat wielding friend got within range the bat slowly cam up, almost to shoulder length. Thats when I noticed the spikes, big nails were nailed through the end of the shiny aluminum bat. The bat came down quickly on the soldiers head, immediately dropping him. What happened next was almost funny. The droolers turned to look at what the noise was, and just saw one of their own. He got two more like this before he dropped the ruse. He would shuffle to the outskirts of the group, whack one with the bat and shuffle off slowly. The droolers were so intent on the door that the only ones that paid any attention were the ones immediately next to the fallen one. He did this silent deadly schtick for about an hour, and I quietly watched him. I wasn't sure if he was some sort of new kind of drooler, or some scary freaky person. To come up with this plan a person would have to be nuts to begin with.
When he finished with the group, he made his way to the door. He reached over and pulled the door open. I waited outside for about a half an hour. Not exactly knowing what to expect, but kind of hoping to see him come out. Unfortunately the droolers were starting to come again, and another crowd started to throng around the doors. I made my way back home by way of the long route, to lead any of those things away from the real direction I was going. It was hard and a long process leading them away while trying to get back home, but so far i was pulling it off. I didn't tell anyone about what I had seen, I didn't want to worry anyone. They would either be scared of droolers that used tools, or scared for a real man out there alone.
It was about 6pm when I got back. I parked the car in its usual place. and went into the building. The guards had settled into a familiar routine, watch the cams, do the rounds, and make sure things were secure. WE had grown to about fifty people since rescuing Maria and her crew. A few were stragglers that came in through my scouting the area, others had simply driven by the building and stopped to check out why it was barricaded. Some of them had been careless, and led a few droolers to the building. We took them out as quietly as possible. We were working on a way to get people here, but not attract those things. The main suggestion was to barricade the streets around the building so that if they did lead them here they wouldn't get as far in. Sort of widening out the perimeter as they went. I was for that, but in a more honeycombed way. Make more than one line of defense to breach.
We were starting to come together as a community. While I was the only scout, so far. There were groups that went out into things once I got the way clear. They had so far gotten a bunch of furniture from close by houses, and schwartz furtiture. The fifth floor was coming together as a sort of living space. The old communal sleeping on the hard floor was gone, replaced by a nice almost comfortable sleeping space. The cubes had been almost totally dismantled. some rooms had been set up separating into different privacies, family rooms, single rooms, different things for different people. These rooms were different than the first ones we set up, the cube walls were extended, doubled, all the way to the ceiling. Personal privacy was back in some ways. There was still a communal sleeping area on the front of the building, sort of like a firehouse barracks now. This was for new arrivals. The fourth floor in the back was broken down for a sort of rec room. Games for the kids, couches, TV's, anything that could be salvaged from nearby. It was afar cry from home, but it was far better than what it was.
What all four floors had in common was one thing. The planters. Along all four sides of the building were long windows. and inside along all of these windows were the planters, some build using wood and plastic tarps, others simple drums of containers. These were filled with potting soil take from stores and houses. The planters were just bare earth now, but the seeds had germinated and were ready for full planting. We had tomatoes, potatoes, carrots. And a few pots of strawberries. It wouldn't be enough to feed us all, but it would be enough to provide some fresh variety to our diet while we lived out of cans for the next little while. There were plans to lay tarp and plywood on the roof and cover it with soil and plant there too. An idea I had gotten from a TV show on environmentalism before things went to hell. They were planting grass on the tops of skyscrapers to offset air conditioning or something. Right now we were using the roof for our outdoor space. Things were starting to get nippy so fewer people were going up there. Any talk of farming the roof would have to wait for spring, and depend on how winter went.
In the main room on the ground floor I marked more spots on the map. Showing where I saw activity, where there was the most damage. Where there were supplies and things that could be used by us. These things were compared against what we needed, what we were going to need for winter, and what we could reasonably carry. We had regrettably found little in the way of arms. Apparently when everyone had gone nuts guns were the first thing people looted for. I kept scouting around, hoping to find something though.
The things that were marked with red on the white board were places to steer clear of. Places where droolers outnumbered cockroaches. There were only a few places like that, the road out of town, the stirling, down south St where the hospital was. They were all do not fly zones. Blue, blue was another story. Those were areas that had things we needed. Grocery stores, convience stores, big houses with big pantries. Sometimes if something of note was there, something like a generator, or something I would mark that on the map. It was quadded off in sections, and out of the 20 or so sections of town I had scouted only 7. The scavenger teams would look at the map, see what I had marked, and go hunting. The team usually consisted of a five member team. they had similar armour to mine, and the younger guys had taken to modifying theirs. JJ was known for the red stripes he had with red electrical tape over the duct tape. They rarely saw action, I only sent them into clear green zones. places where drooler activity was nonexistent. They were for the most part kids, but they were training, and learning how to take care of things. There were plans for the future to train them in every type of weapon and fighting we collectively knew. Which at this point amounted to some karate, some gun play, some archery. Just the general stuff people pick up. In the common room Karate classes had already started.
The other two times I saw the hunter, what I've taken to calling my stirling enigma he was walking down the street the same way as before. Slowly shuffling. But this time he had a full backpack on him, and his bat was different. He slipped into some bushes, and I lost him again. The third day I saw him he was slipping into a building. A house with the windows boarded up. IF he lived there or was squatting it was impossible to tell. Exactly what he was is still impossible to tell.

Maria: Introduction

Hi, my name is Maria.

Allan asked me to write this up for his journal thingy, so I agreed. I read through some of the other stuff that he wrote. It's pretty scary how things happened so fast. It was the same for me and my family. We live just outside of town, in Reserve mines. My house was about five minutes from the airport. We didn't hear it over the scanner like Allan did. To us it was something that happened in our back yards. The big shootout with the police, those things streaming down the higway. Basically the way it went down was this. those things, droolers, i guess thats what they are calling them. some people want to use the Z word, but that makes it too scary, too much like something out of some nightmare that we have no chance of fighting. Thats why i prefer drooler. Anyway, those droolers got out of the airport, and were making their way down the road.


I was in the kitchen drying the dishes when I heard the first shot. It wasn't totally unusal to hear an odd gunshot. I live next to the woods, so people jacking deer, or goofing off happen all the time. I shrugged, and turned the radio a little louder. then I heard more shots, it sounded almost likea popcorn maker. shot after shot, after shot. It was pretty late, around ten pm if i remember right. My husband john was in bed, and my two sons were in the basement playing that xbox or watching movies or something. anyway, i must have stood there for like half an hour listening to that horrible popcorn noise. I knew it was gunshots, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I did have this horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomache. I just knew it was some sort of invasion, or terrorists, or something like that. What was really happening, well that was beyond what i could ever imagine. About half way through i woke john up. He was kinda mad at first, but when he heard the noise he jumped up and threw on his pants and stuff. He wanted to go see, but I wouldn't let him. We sat in the living room facing the highway and looked for any sign of trouble. the whole time the noise happened, the occasional car would drive by. then, all of a sudden it was like a torrent broke loose. About 12 cars, some of them police cars, some not came driving by like bats out of hell. Two of them cars, white police cars, came screaming through. ONe of them sort of veered too far, and it slammed into the other one. The two cars hit almost in front of my house. the one in the passing lane flipped over the engine hood and slammed into an electic pole. When it hit the lights flickered and went off. The other car, its engine was destroyed, and the man who was driving was laying on the street, he wasnt moving.

John, being the good man that he was told me to call 911 and he went out there. He checked the guy lying on the road first. He must have died in the crash, because John just shook his head moved to the other car. It was wrapped around the pole, and looked bad. But john must have saw something in there moving, because he started to yell stuff. I couldnt make out everything, but it sounded like help is coming, or something like that.

When I tried calling 911, all i got was a weird fast sounding busy signal. John came into the house, he had some blood on his hand. Apparently whoever was in the back seat of the car in the prisoner holding place had bitten him on the hand when John was trying to help him. I poured some peroxide on the bite, and wrapped it in a towel. We didn't know what to do really, we called the boys up, my boys upstairs, my son John Jr, and brucey. they were a little freaked out when they saw their fathers bloody hand. I calmed them down. John jr, or JJ as we always called him was trying the phone again, and brucey was staring out the window at the car wreck when we saw them. The house was on sort of a hill, and we could see about a mile up the highway. The first ones that rounded the hill were in pretty rough shape. Brucey sort of let a scream go when he saw them. They looked horrible in the flickering lamp posts. There was one at the very frton that looked like a stewardess or something. It would walk so far, fall on its face, then get back up and start walking again. We were kind of creeped out. Then we saw the otherones. It was like a wall of those things. They were all the way across all four lanes of the highway, and were swarmed like ants. They werent moving fast at all, but they didnt show any signs of slowing down. Whe they reached a house a little close on the other side of the street they streamed into the front yard. They banged on the walls they banged on the windows, the doors, they banged and banged until they got in.


The house belonged to a good friend of ours, the mcissacs. they were a good family. Those drooler things filled the yard, and were streaming into the house. I didnt know what they wanted, or why they broke into the house until i saw Mikey in the upstairs window, he was trying to get out of the window onto the porch, but someone was in there grabbing at his leg. The thing, or person, or whatever grabbed his leg, and started to bit, other things saw this through another window and broke through. Mikey was about 18 the same age as JJ. they were good friends in school. I thank god that JJ was in the kitchen trying the phone. Mikey fell off of the porch roof. He was ok till he hit the crowd. I don't think he even hit the ground. THose things were tearing pieces off of him in chunks, they were eating him. Im sure that I threw up, im not exactly sure, i think i was a little in shock. those thinsg just ate the mcissac family, and they were coming for us. John, ever the man of action quietly mumbled we had to get out of here.

I didnt have time to get anything. I grabbed some knives, and our lone gun. JJ had a sword he had gotten at graduation. Brucey had some kitchen knives. We all loaded into the car. by this time those things were just starting to come close to our house. They had all flocked to the Mcissacs and that had slowed them considerably. The only way we could go was to glace bay. the things had the other way blocked. We screamed into the road, careful to avoid the wrecked cars. It didn't take long to get to town, a few minues, a year... I dont know what I was doing, or where I was. Our first stop was the police station, there wasn't any cars there. We got in, but we didn't see anyone. When we left the store we saw something. In the parking lot across the street, supervalu, there were like 3 police cars. One of them still had the lights going. We drove over, it took us awhile to realize the police were in the supervalu. It was like around midnight, and the place was closed. The cruiser with the lights flashing had what looked like blood all over the hood. John wouldn't let us out of the car, but he got out and looked around. He hollered in after the cops. One of them came out with a shotgun aimed at my husband. He looked pretty shaken up, but was ok to talk to. He basically told us that those things had wiped out the police, the army, and everything. They were going to use the stores as a base and set up there. We were welcome to come in.


We were there for awhile, a few hours. We were piling stuff up against the windows, makingthe place more secure. John looked really bad, he was starting to get grey in complexion, and sweating a lot. We took some drugs from the drug counter, some anti fever stuf, but John wouldn't stop working. Around Dawn we thought we had everything secured. We started to get bedding and stuff ready. The store had a lot of air mattersses, bedding, sheets, curtains. Itwasn't hard to make a warm nest for ourselves. We laid down, but couldnt really sleep. The boys slept, if lightly. the cops stood by the windows watching all day. The things started to flood in around noon of the next day. Some walked right past the store and kept walking, some walked into the store parking lot, for the most part they were just milling around. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen. The cops didnt really know what to do either. We sat and watched those things milling around for what seemed like hours. We went about the process of securing the place, adn making a home. There were about 30 of us. john started to get really sick on the second day. We broke into the pharmacy. I knew of a few pain killers and antibiotics. The bite on his hand was badly infected.


They started banging on the glass on the second day. One of them must have seen one of the guards, well the banging on the glass was loud enough to attract the attention of others. By the end of the week there was a sea of those things pushing against the walls. Each new one seemed to attract ten new ones. We decided that the windows in the front of the store would not hold for much longer. We started to move as much food, and medecine, and well everything we could up onto the roof. Maybe if we hid up there for awhile those things would think they had won or something and move on. We were on the roof when John stopped talking. He was sweating all the time, and threw up a lot. He was cold to the touch most of the time, other times tho he had the worst fever I have ever seen. I have only ever treated my kids and husband when sick with flue, One time when JJ was sick he broke his leg and I had to take care of that. I was way out of my depth, we all were. We were on the roof for four days when the walls started to come down. Those things banged and banged on the walls until they came down. I watched through a hatch in the roof as they poured in. They searched aisle to aisle looking, searching for us. One of the cops must have freaked out, he started shooting into the crowd. They took it and didnt even blink. They were in the worst condition. Falling apart in some cases. It was horrible, and the stink was even worse. by this time John was pretty bad, he wasnt coherent. He mumbled, threw up, and sometimes cried. It was horrible watching the man I loved go on like this. The infection on his hand had gotten worse it was all black now, and there were red streaks all up his arms. Over time our numbers whittle down. One of the guards got too close to the edge of the roof and fell off. He probably would have survived if those things werent there. THere were a couple of suicides. and the unpleasantness. by the end of it there were only 18 of us left. I dont like to talk about what happened to John. He went quietly one night. Luckily for me and the kids we werent in with him. He woke up like one of those things.He attacked a few people and had to beput to sleep. It was horrible and I do not like to talk about it.


On about the second week something bad happened down in the store. for some reason a fire broke out. We don't know what caused it, but it happened. We hadto huddle on the roof on the far side praying that the fire would go out. Which it luckily did. after it died down we checked down the hatch. It had gutted the bakery, and a lot of the store on that side. The fire sprinklers must have still worked because the floor was covered in water.
It was some time on the third week that allan saw us and led most of those things away. when he came back around with the car he loaded up as many as he could carry and made our way to the stream building. There are only a few of us left. Me, my two sons made it through fine. there are about 8 of us left from that horror.

AJ: Scout

"I wish I was a smoker." I thought looking out the windshield. I had just finished my scouting run, and I was wishing for something, anything to take my mind off of it. Things had started relatively easily. I had armoured up, gotten in the car, and made my way through town. Things, like before were relatively peaceful. There were about three droolers in town. The lady from the other day, still searching for me. I drove by her, and I think she registered confusion, but its hard to tell. The next one was just standing staring in the window of a store. It was staring either at its reflection, or at a collection of African masks hanging in the window. It looked like it was either trying to remember who it was, or what the masks were. It didn't even register me as I drove by. The third was and older guy in life. He was shambling around just before the big iron bridge. he turned surprisingly quickly trying to grab at the car as it drove by.

I knew that the hospital was a horror story, so I didn't drive down that way. I did a quick loop around. The trees were already losing most of their leaves. The dead leaves rustling through the deserted streets. When we this had started this the whole world had been so green. it was so warm, late summer. Now it felt like the world was dying around us, It was just the change of the seasons, but a horrible alone feeling welled up inside me. It felt like I was the last person alive. It had been weeks since we had isolated ourselves, but for some reason the signs of destruction were minimal. Sure, there were plenty of signs of disaster. I passed a row of four houses all burned to the the ground. Plenty of smashed windows, and plenty of bad scenes. I occasionally drove past a dried pool of blood. But strangely there were no bodies, barely any droolers either. It was kind of creepy. If things were this quiet, there should be people?
The one thing that led me to hope was the suitcases and boxes. Plenty of yards had what looked like dropped suitcases, and boxes.. Like they were running in a hurry and dropped something with no time to turn back for it. The clothes were fluttering around some draped from trees. The reason this gave me hope was that there were no cars in the yards. So obviously they had bugged out in a hurry. God knows where everyone had gone though. Hopefully they made it wherever they were going.

Going down Pitt street, then taking my usual path. I drove by my house. The doors were still secured, and the windows looked fine. I stopped to check in. Things were as I left them. I grabbed all the pillows, and bed clothes, and loaded them into the car. It wasn't as much as we needed, but it would help. A few other essentials were packed into the car, some tools, some clothes, two pair of binocs, the usual goodness, and I was off again. Just to be safe, I made sure to pull the steps away from the house, on front and back. The basement windows were boarded up years ago, my grandfathers idea, and the first floor windows were all about 5 and a half feet of the ground. That would keep things nice and secure in there for the meantime. Loading up the car, I heard a moan from the bushes. A drooler was laying in my rose bushes. I didn't immediately recognize him, he was in pretty rough shape. He had several bite marks on his face, and arms, and his legs were pretty much gone. He was almost covered in dead leaves. I didn't really know his name, but his family lived across the street from mine. I could actually see a faint blood trail coming from his back door leading to his general direction. Obviously he had come home, been attacked, and tried to drag himself out to safety. My bushes must have seemed like the ideal place to hide. God only knows how long he had lain there bleeding out. He must have turned there, and hadn't been strong enough to go anywhere else.
I sort of knew this guy, I couldn't leave him like this. It felt wrong some how. A quick trip down the basement provided a remedy. I was standing over this barely functioning monster. He was a mess. Hard to imagine something like this had caused so much worldwide destruction over the last year. I barely felt the axe go through his skull, but the sound... I don't think I will ever forget the sound. He stopped moaning as soon as the axe hit home. I know that whatever had brought him back, had simply stopped when his brain did. He looked like just one more corpse. I didn't have the capability to bury him. The sudden image of me as humanities grave digger sprang to mind. It sent a shiver down my spine...


The car needed some gas, so I went and gassed her up. The power was still holding, and the pumps were still working. I filled the tank, and made sure to put the nozzle back. Images of Vincent Price roaming deserted Los Angeles sprang to mind as I looked down the deserted street. I could see the building, home, I guess. from the gas station. I'm sure if they were looking out the upper windows they could see me. All I could see were the mirrored empty windows. I finished gassing the car up, so I ducked in and grabbed a couple of cold Pepsi's and a bag of doritos. I didn't go too far into the gas station, there had to have been a clerk once, and quite frankly he could stay wherever the hell he was.


I had been fiddling around town for a few hours. It was around noon at this point. So I finally decided to take a look at reserve St. I had purposely avoided that street. It was the main street out of town, and I was a little afraid it might be blocked with cars, like in the movies. Whenever these things happened in the movies the big main roads always got clogged with cars. that was another thing I had to talk to the rest back home about. We had some knowledge about what was going on, it was all taken from movies and books. We had to figure out how much of it applied to our situation. I had proven the whole brain thing to myself twice now, but what about the rest of it?rounding the corner I passed the funeral parlour. I didn't notice any particular traffic. Of course then, I crested the hill. I could see Sobeys, and Supervalu. and the parking lots of both places were full. Completly full of thousands of droolers. the big glass windows of both grocery stores were smashed out, the things were milling around outside, and inside. There were charred areas and the inside of supervalu looked like it was bombed out. On top of the roof I could make out a few what looked like droolers. Until one of them started waving at me. It looked like he was doing some sort of jumping jacks. One of the droolers must have seen him jumping and they all started moaning, it sounded horrible. A few thousand raspy moans is enough to turn anyone away from a good meal. I was sort of transfixed it was almost hipnotic. They were reaching for the roof, some swaying, some just standing. moaning. I guess this is where everyone went. Whoever the people on the roof were, they must have had the same idea as I did; only they failed to see the innate vulnerability to hiding in a building with glass walls.

Thats how I got to the position for wishing I smoked. Staring at a wall of undead droolers. I was just about to slip the car into reverse when they spotted me. some of the ones on the permiter started to turn towards the car, this in turn made the ones around them to turn to see what was so interesting. It was like watching a slow motion nightmare as hundreds of dead faces turned towards me and started to snarl... I almost threw up.

I had one advantage to those poor bastards up on the roof. Mobility, and maybe a little more knowledge on how they worked. The one from the other day, the woman, it had kept following me, the ones that came into town, they were following traffic. I think that when they start following something they keep going in that direction until somehting catches their atttention. Makes them kind of like a juggernaut. Not too smart, but also not too easy to stop. I knew that if i turned aroun those things would stream down reserve street, making town that much worse. Luckily for me I had a plan. Those things were on either side of the street. and were pretty slim in the middle of the street. There were a few stragglers, but not a writhing mass like they were around the two stores. I decided to run for it. I slipped the car into drive lift my foot off the break, and slammed down the gas. I aimed directly downt he middle of the street. The things coming so close as to grabbing at the car. I'm sure that more than one of them lost an arm or a hand trying to grab for the car. I was about half way through, and doing a good clip when I hear a loud bang. One of those things must have been too close. I hit it full on going around 80 kliks. the thing hit my passenger side fender, and did a flip in the air like a ragdoll. It landed with a sickening splat behind the car. I didn't stop to find out if it was dead or not. I kept barrelling down the road. After I got to the top of the hill, I saw that the road ahead was clear. This gave me an idea. I could use their natural instincts against them. Backing the car up i brought it back to the top of the hill, and started to blare the horn. The remaining onces who had been too deep into the crowd to see my car were immediatly alerted to my presence. I stayed there for about an hour. Constantly blasting the horn. and for the first time I felt ok with playing some music. My CD player blasted out hit after hit, at quite a high volume as the rotting mass made its way to the car. When they got close enough that they could almost grab the bumper I sped away again. Making it to the next hill about a mile away. I kept doing this for awile. Leading those things away from town, and more especially away from the people on the roof.

AJ: routine life

Well, it was time to scout. We had little or no knowledge of what was going on in the greater world. Hell, we had no knowledge of what was going on out of eye shot of our building. The bruises from my outing the day before had healed to a somber purple colour, and weren't throbbing as much as they had been.

We were starting to settle into a routine in the building. The Kids were being entertained by some of the older people, there was even talk of starting some sort of class in one of the boardrooms. The food was improving, people were less into a siege mentality now that things had settled down. the explosions had stopped, and we rarely heard a scream of any type. The fact that it had calmed down really settled a lot of peoples nerves, but it only made me edgy. Sure the sounds of distaste and horror had stopped, but so had the other human noises. An eerie calm had seemed to settle over everything.

The others were against me going out again. Their argument was that we had food, we had shelter, why risk myself like that for curiosities sake? I had to try and explain how desperate our situation was without really panicking anyone. Sure we had food and shelter, but we had no idea what was waiting out there for us. The building was safe, for now, and we had no way of telling how long it would be safe. The thing that got the majority of them on my side was the simple fact that we needed to get ready for winter. We live in a rather northern climate, and winter is a constant in all of our minds. The building while being ideal for late summer early autumn, was not perfect for winter without preparation. After this argument settled, I made my plans. Secretly I drew up other plans, plans I couldn't bring up to my family and friends.


Again I woke with a start. We were all huddled in makeshift rooms on the fifth floor. The cubes had been emptied out, or moved around to make rooms. The walls of the cubes had been taken down in places and stacked making uncomfortable sleeping pallets raised from the floor. It was still dark as I made my way down to facilities. My "armour" was hanging from a hook on the wall. Suiting up, I checked the duct tape, made a few adjustments, and picked my weapon. The gun was slipped into my pocket, and my knife was in its sheath at my side. I chose a good club again a support beam from one of the cubes. I couldn't get the thought of medieval knights going off to battle out of my head. Making my way out of the building was easy. A quick survey proved no droolers in the area. So I quickly made it down from the front barricades. I slipped into my car again. Making sure not to make any noise. I had no idea what attracted them, but I was damned well trying my best not to find out.. yet.

AJ: planning

My left leg was still throbbing from my earlier incident. So, I was definitely not
going to do much walking. I was limping a little when I helped load everything into the
building. I laughed it off as tripping over thawed halibut. I wasn't in the mood to talk
about what had happened yet. It was only around 1pm, so, I went in, said hi to everyone.
Reassured my worried grandmother that I was OK, and had a quick bite to eat. Everyone dove
into the new supplies like gleeful madmen. It was awhile since anything good had
happened. we were barricaded in this building for about a week now. So nerves were a
little frayed.

The kids really dove into the toys and candies I got, the adults who were more pragmatic
gleefully dove into the few blankets and clothes I had brought. The better to make bedding
with. So far everyone was sleeping on folded up clothes, with the odd blanket thrown in.
With the few blankets I got from the fish plant and Lawtons this made more to go around.
People had been so anxious to grab food, and other supplies that simple bedding had failed
to make the cut.


After we had finished getting all the new supplies put away I made my plans clear.
We were going to need to know more about what was going on. Simple supply runs were one
thing, but we needed to know what was going on, get the lay of the land. Of course as soon
as I said this everyone was dead set against it. Their argument was that we had food, we
were safe, why risk it? It kind of made me mad, and I had a few choice words to say. Sure
we were safe for now, but what about later? When the food ran out? Where were those
things? What were they doing? We needed more information on those things before we could
start feeling anywhere near safe.

I didn't dare tell them the rest of my plans...

AJ: off to the druggist

I quickly boxed up my finds, got everything packed into the car, and headed out. coming out the street I turned the corner to my next stop. My shopping list. There were two drug stores to choose from shoppers, and lawtons. I chose Lawtons, because it was right next to a Needs, and I could drop everything off on my way through.

The trip to the drug store was prettyuneventful. There were none of those things milling around. I quickly made my way through, getting a few over the counter stuff. A few essentials, stuff for the kids. Now the real problem began. The druggist counter was covered by a roll down metal grid thingy. The only way to get in there was to get past the lock. I could shoot it out, but a gunshot would definatly draw those things. It did no good to batter it, the thing was designed with that in mind.

I was going to have to risk the shot.

Those medications were worth gold now. I took a note from a movie i saw once. I took a 2l pepsi bottle and emptied it out. Taking some tape I put it to the muzzle and taped it into place. I wasn't sure how much that would muffle the sound, but it was surely better than nothing. Taking aim at the lock I said a silent prayer. In the quiet store the boom sounded like a clap of lightning. I couldn't tell if my homemade silencer failed or if my mind was playing tricks on me. Luckily though a repeat would not be necessary. After pulling the tape and bottle off of the gun barrel I opened the cage.


It was a veritable treasure chest once inside. I made sure to fill out everything on the list. Grabbing bottle after bottle. Antibiotics, pain killers, everything I could recognize. I have to admit aside from my list, and a general knowledge of medication I was flying blind. I wasn't exactly in the mood to stop to read up on them either. It didn't take long before my bags were full. It took a few trips before I got all the stuff I knew about loaded into the car. A quick survey of the shelves brought up some toiletries, some treats, and a some toys for the kids.

I was in the middle of loading everything up when I saw the next one. This one was shambling over the bridge in town. It was very clearly a nurse, and had died a horrifying death. It was covered in gore and was missing its left arm. I didn't want to stick around and have to deal with her so I finished loading, and headed out. Keying into one of the walkie talkies I got the building. We quickly unloaded the stuff, and carried it in through the metal pull up delivery door on the side of the building.

AJ: Mourning after

I woke up the next morning, as usual, with a start. Since things got hairy I had been waking up that way, and sleeping fitfully. Which was a normal response. I guess. What was normal any more?I awoke with plenty of time to spare till the sun came up. Most everyone else was still asleep, or at least pretending to sleep. Nodding to the camera I made my way to the bathroom. The water pressure was low, but there was still more than enough to wash up. I was trying not to hurry, I felt the pressure, knowing what I had to do, but I would be damned if I was going to hurry up about it.

After washing up I had a quick breakfast of strawberry pop tarts, the breakfast of champions. After my lone breakfast I started to prepare what equipment I would need. I checked, and double checked everything. The armour, the makeshift weapons. The one thing that made me feel good was my grandfathers knife. It was a nice little thing, not made for skinning rabbits or whittling. A working knife he had during the Korean war. Nicely weighted, and sharp as a razor. Everything looked good. It didn't take much time to suit up. I had the armour on, and the weapons ready. I also had a bag with some essentials, a few first aid supplies, some energy bars, and a couple of bottles of water. I wasn't planning on this being a long term thing, but it was better safe than sorry.

I quietly made my way to the car. careful not to draw any attention to myself. I couldn't see any of those things, but I knew they were there just out of sight. When the car started, the engine sounded like a tank engine in the stillness of the morning. There was a stillness to the air, and a thin sheet of dew on the hood of the car. I had a sort of slow motion surreal feeling. Everything looked so normal, the buildings, the lights in the distance, The sun was only just now coming up. It was like any other morning.

Things went from slow motion to regular really fast. My blood was already bubbling with the potential for an adrenaline rush, but when I heard the low moan I froze. It was like everything went from slow motion to full gallop in the blink of an eye. I still couldn't see it, but I could definatly hear it. I stopped, and carefully looked around. Nothing. Slowly I slipped the car into gear. and started to slowly push the accelerator. It didn't take long at all to get the car into the street. That's where I saw her, or it, well, I'm still not sure what to call them. I didn't know her, at least she didnt look remotely familiar. she had longish brown hair, and was quite thin. Her eyes were white and clouded. It was kind of an eerie feeling, aside from the hunched over walk and the white eyes she looked completly normal. Her clothes were wet with dew, and I could make out what looked to be a purse on her shoulder.

"Just another day" I mumbled under my breath.

It started to walk towards the car, arms outstretched, not in some mockery of a lugosi movie, but reaching out to me, like it somehow hoped that it would get to me faster that way. It was about 30 feet away, and I could make out its finger nails. the shade of her polish was a cheery pink. My stomach wretched as it slowly made its way towards me. the problem was that I had time to think. If it had ran towards the car I wouldnt have had time to wonder what happened to her, how she died. but she was walking, slowly, towards me. Her pink nailed fingers clawing the air. I pulled the car out into the street. I slowly rolled the car past her, she turned and tried to grab at the window as I passed just out of reach. Then she turned, and started to follow after me. Still walking, and clawing at the air. thick rivulets of bloody drool fell from her mouth as she watched me pass.

It didn't take long to get where I was going. Namely the Fish plant. Somewhere that had a couple of things I could use. The place was locked up tight, not a soul around. A few of the fishing boats were gone, and there were a few trucks parked here and there. Clearly someone had taken some boats, and beat a hasty retreat. Luckily, there were no victims around, no signs of struggle, no trails of blood. All good signs. Getting into the plant was easy, the over powering stench of fish making me wretch again. I went from room to room, bar raised, ready to whack whatever I saw. After making sure the place was secure, I started a search. I found a few interesting items. A few good knives, some food, and most importantly gloves. These gloves, the ones they used when processing fish were ideal. Specially made so that sharp knives couldn't cut them. doubtful that any of this things could bite through them. I found a nice box of those beuties in a store room.

After loading up the booty I decided to nose around. Now, I personally hated fish, despised it, but there were a few people in the building who would eat it, and probably enjoy it. The power hadn't gone out, so the freezers were still humming. I decided to be the nice guy and get some fish. the big door to the freezer was hard to open by myself, so when I was opening it, I had to pull really hard, when the door popped I fell flat on my ass. unfortunatly for me the thing that was in the freezer fell flat on its face, at my feet.

It was a bloody mess. It had a big chunk of its neck missing, and it was covered in blood. I didn't know who it was, or why he was in the freezer, but he was a gorey mess. He looked up at me, his one remaining eye milky and pussy, a low hiss came from his shattered throat. The expression on its face was horrible. It's teeth had gone black, and there were several missing. It had been some sort of businessman in life. It wore the bloody remnants of a grey business suit. It's fingers were worn down to a bloody pulp from pounding on the door for god knows how long. It clawed its way up and its head fell in an almost swift motion towards me. The pain as it bit into my leg was unimaginable. Its hands went to the side of its head, as its mouth bit my leg. I literally saw stars. I tried kicking it in the head. All this did was jerk its head, and cause me more pain. I felt around for my club, it was just out of reach. This all felt like it was taking hours, but it must have only been a few seconds. I didnt even think of my knife until it came out of its sheaf due to my thrashing around. Grabbing it, I stabbed towards the things head. Punching through a skull isnt easy, especially from this angle. I gouged big bits of flesh from the top of its head. Shearing off hair, and exposing its skull. It continued trying to gnaw through my leg. Knowing I wasn't going to get throuhg its thick skull, I had an idea. Taking the knife, I swung it towards the things temple... It went in with a sickening noise. Somewhat like what a can of pepsi sounds like when pierced with a nail, only wetter. The thing stopped trying to chew through my leg almost immediatly. Its body suddenly became limp, and as i rolled it fell off of me. I scrabbled backwards on the white tiled floor. Finding myself in the corner holding my knife towards the now motionless lump.

I must have sat in the corner with the bloody knife staring wide eyed at my attacker for about an hour. I didnt move, I dont think I blinked. The thing didnt move. The only thing I could hear was an odd whirring noise from inside the freezer. I don't know why, but I snapped to my senses. Quickly I checked my leg. The tape hadn't been bitten through , it had been sheared in sports, but nothing had made it through the denim. Standing, I walked to one of the cleaning tables, and used the hose to hose the things blood from my leg. It was thick like motor oil, and the colour was darker than normal blood. Under the flourescant lights it almost looked black. When I was all cleaned up I undid my jeans and checked the flesh of my leg. It had a series of bite marks from my knee to my ankle. It was a deep red, and it was already starting to bruise. That would hurt a lot in the near future. Looking towards the wide open freezer door I had a horrible feeling. There was no blood in the plant, but that guy must have been bleeding like a stuck pig. Whatever had happened to him had happened in the freezer.

I was a bit of a mess myself. I knew that I could just close that door and maybe write a note to whoever else stumbled on this. But, I had to know. What was in there? Could I handle it? Taking my make shift club, I walked into the open freezer. The first thing that struck me was that it was warm. The second thing was the smell. The fish was starting to go off. The freezer had obviously been off for days. I made my way through, carefully checking and re checking. Going down each aisle. Thats when I found something interesting. A makeshift bed, a bunch of water bottles and food wrappers. There were also bottle after bottle of over the counter medecines. This is also were the blood started. The bed itself was clear, but around the side of the bed was all blood, and there were two trails leading off. One way the shelves were knocked over, and the trail looked violent, the other led towards the door where mr exucutive was. Following the other trail It only took me a minute to find the cause of all this misery. A woman. well, whatever was left of a woman. It was covered in blood. None of it was hers. All around her mouth, and down her neck was covered in blood. There was a bandage covering her right shoulder. Luckily for me she had already been dispatched. Whoever that executive guy had been he had managed to kill it. A big chunk of the top of its head was missing. Everything from the top of its head, to its left ear was gone. Looking around, I couldnt see any clubs, or knives. Looking around the floor I saw it. some sort of gun had fallen under one of the shelves. Reaching under I felt around. It was just out of reach, as is usually the case. I fished around for a bit with my club and managed to get the gun out from under there. It was a nice gun, not being a gun nut I couldnt tell you much about it. It's a glock, at least thats what the engraving says. the gun was full, well aside from one bullet, that the late mrs executive had eaten. A quick search turned up a box of bullets. which were a nice enough fit for the gun. A good find, but not worth the bruises.

AJ: armour

I hated this. We had the building secured, and we had a fair stock of food. Counting what we had taken with us and what was available at the cafeteria we were well enough stocked for a few weeks/months. The main problems were weapons, and defense. We only had one rifle with fourteen shells. That wouldn't even be enough to defend the place for a five minutes if those things started swarming. We had a few blunt objects, the odd knives, and what not. Unfortunately that would definitely not take the place of a good amount of firepower. Of course that hadn't done the police any good.

Aside from my father, and Bobby there weren't really anyone who could go out and find anything. I wasn't going to leave a group of defenceless women and children alone so i opted to go alone. I knew that those things would be everywhere, and I had little or no defense. rifling through the supply room I managed to come up with an idea. Taking several rolls of duct tape i started to fashion a sort of make shift Armour. I rolled the tape around the legs of my pants. I also wrapped it around the arms of my jacket, and around my neck. On my stomach back I taped two plastic trays from the cafeteria. I looked like an idiot, but at least i was positive that a stray bite or two would definitely not cause me any harm. My mobility wasn't limited, I had the tape wrapped pretty loose, it was pretty loose around my legs and groin. there were only a couple of badly exposed areas. My hands, and my head. Two pretty scary places to be vulnerable. I would need two things to get totally secured, a helmet of some sort, and a pair of gloves. Luckily having grown up in this town I knew where both of those items could be found. Unfortunately their were untoldnumbers of those things between me and my goals.

It took me a few hours to get a game plan in order. I was going to take one of the cars. I knew it would draw hella attention, but it was less risky in the long run. There were two stops I had to make. The first to the local fish plant. To get myself some of those gloves they use when cutting fish. They are designed so that a knife can't ge tthrough them, so a pair of moldy teeth shouldn't pose a problem. I didn't figure that would be a problem as it was on the harbour, and no one was supposed to be there. The second posed more of a problem. It was closer to the highway, and closer to the first swarm. It was also in the middle of houses, and houses meant casualties, and casualties meant those things. Unfortunately that was the most important place. Canadian tire. They had rifles, guns, knives, everything a post apocalyptic shopper could want.

I would have to sneak out in the early morning. Daylight would be important. THose things seem drawn to light, in the nights sometimes they pooled under the streetlights, staring up at it, grasping for it. It was damned creepy to watch. so the key words were silence, and visibility. the car I chose was a 1991 grand marquis. My ar actually. I knew it, it was big, it was built like a small sherman tank. All things that would come in handy. Sure, a hummer, or an actual tank would have been nice. but a boy works with the tools at hand.

AJ: nesting

I don't know how many people there are that are reading this. I put the first journal entry online as a sort of self help therapy thing. There weren't exactly a lot of people around to talk to, and those that are around aren't exactly comfortable talking about what happened. I noticed after I set it up though, that there were outside hits. I have to apologize for the lateness of my posting, I honestly didn't realize that there were so many
of you still left, and still able to communicate this way. When I went ofline almost immediately my email started to get messages from other survivors. I think for now I should just continue with what happened then, and work my way up to now.
Ok, so I left off after the first night. We had the building secured, and were waiting for things to get bad. None of us could sleep, even though we had by this point been up for about 48 hours. We heard the occasional noise from outside, we still didn't see much out of the ordinary. There were the occasional gunshots, a few crashes, even heard an explosion or two. It's kind of hard to keep track now, we were all so scared, so tired. I think most of us were in shock.
It was around noon when I saw the first one. It came shambling down the road, straight down the center line. It was obviously a victim of violence.It left a blood trail behind it. It was hard to tell from the distance who it was. We couldn't even tell if it was male or female. It didn't see us, and we sure as hell weren't going to try and attract its attention. A few of us had to muffle screams, and I know that someone threw up. We had all seen these things before. Of course, that was on CNN, and no one even thought that it was this horrific. We must have sat there for the whole day watching. There were more coming after that one. Some were horrible, burnt, wrecked creatures. Others, aside from the occasional blood stain almost looked normal. They were milling around aimlessly, only occasionally being attracted by a distant noise, or bird. It was like watching bored drunks. All told on the first day after the big noise we saw about two dozen of them shuffling around on the streets in front of the building. From there, i remember going into the bathroom, throwing up for what seemed like an hour, splashing some water on my face, and going to sleep curled up in a ball next to my grandmother and nephew.
When I woke up it was dark. I didn't know how long i was out, but it was dark out. My nephew was sleeping, and my grandmother wide eyed was stroking his head.
"Those, those, things, they wont get in here will they Allan?"
"No, nanny, not if i can help it."
Standing up I could feel every ache, and bump. The concrete floor was not a good bed. Stretching, i made my way downstairs to security. they jumped when I opened the door, but were otherwise calm. The cameras had picked up a lot more since the dozen or so. they were creeping within range of every one of the cameras. taking out some paper we decided to draw up some plans to make this more comfortable and more secure.
The first thing we did was to raid the cafeteria. The food we had could be kept in the reridgerators and cupboards on the upper floors. The cafeteria was far too risky where it was. Sure the cinder block but hut was ok for now. but if anything bad happened those glass doors wouldn't stand a chance. I laughed at myself when i thought about my logic for abandoning the basement and first floor. Night of the living dead, lol. Those things can crawl, they can slither, but there aint a one among them that can fly. I was taking the high ground.
Luckily the power didn't even fluctuate, so moving the supplies up the elevators wasn't a problem. While we were moving supplies the watch schedule I worked out came into play. we had two men always on the cameras, and one man on lookout on each floor. doing the rounds. The exits were all secured, but it payed to be safe.
It took us about day and a half to get everything situated. The fifth floor was designated as living space. We disassembled the cubicle walls in certain sections making rooms of about five feet in height. The second floor was untouched, the only thing being the computers we moved down from fifth floor. It would have been easier to throw them out the window, but I didn't want to draw any attention from the noise, and i didn't want to waste anything at all. Aside from the comfy chairs that were provided, there was precious little by way of furniture. We had sleeping pallets made from blankets, and spare clothes, but that wouldn't do in the long run. We needed to make this more livable. I had a feeling we were going to be there for a long time.

Please, anyone who is out there,send me a message, if your email isn't working send it through the comments sections. I know for a fact most of the main Microsoft stuff is still online, and so is googles. so @microsoft.com, and Gmail.com accounts are working for certain.
Thanks, and keep living!

Chera: introduction

Allan wanted my version of how it all began, but I don't know where to start. I guess I'll have to just tell you how things changed for me. My name is Chera and, like Allan I worked in tech support in this building where we've all ended up, I would get up in the morning, come to work (reluctantly sometimes, I'll admit) do my job, go home and go to sleep.

During this time, however, things were a bit different. My parents had been gone for a few days up to Halifax to visit my aunt Linda after much persuasion on her part. I was blissfully alone in the house for what was to be a full week then back to normal on Sunday. I was on my way out to work when I'd received a call from my brother, he was hysterical, telling me to check out the news. On the national news they were reporting on the plane that had crashed into Halifax, creating a swath of destruction from Bedford almost to Dartmouth. Searchers were limited because of some sort of quarantine and so farthere were no survivors. I'm not sure how long I was standing there, time had just seemed irrelevant. All that kept going through my head was the reporters voice saying they weren't expecting to findsurvivors in the affected areas. I was glued to the news for the rest of the day, but no answers had been given.

The next day I was still waiting for news when I'd heard the phone beside me ringing. I think I only answered it just from habit because I don't remember making a conscious decision about talking to anyone. At that point I was probably in shock and my day was about to get a lot worse. When I answered the phone it was a friend calling, his dad was a retired cop and had been called by buddies on the force about the people infecting others and breaking out of quarantine. They didn't know what it was, what was causing all these people to get sick and what was causing the dead to come back to life, but they told him to get out of the area and to avoid the hospitals and highways - quarantines in the hospitals, the militia bases and at the airport had been breached and the infected were spreading out from those areas. He wanted to let me know because there was a militia base down the road that had a quarantine area.

Snapping out of my daze at his words I realized it was becoming evening and I had to get out of there. I assured him I would be fine but I had to find my brother and his family, they were all that I hadleft. I finally noticed the chaos of my neighbors surrounding me. People running around like lunatics, helter skelter with no plan, just seemingly going in circles. I knew if I wanted to make it to PortMorien I'd have to be smart and move quickly.

Dad used to say half of being smart was by not being stupid. At this point I knew I wasn't dealing with rational human beings anymore, hell... I wasn't a rational human being at that point and I don't think I've been one since before this began. I needed the important things: my dad's crank radio (doesn't need batteries or a power outlet), his shortwave radio (takes batteries, but gets the global radio stations), all the batteries we had in the house, a couple of flashlights, sleeping bag, enough food for myself for a few days and food for the cat, my army knife, a short Chinese sword that looked ridiculous but has a very sharp edge, rifle, shotgun, cleaning kit and ammo. I bundled the cat into a backpack and headed toward Port Morien. It was then only place I could think of to go. Cell phones weren't working and when I tried to reach my brother over the home phone all I got was a fast busy.

Heading from the Sterling area on foot, I had thought of trying to get a ride or a vehicle from the surrounding area, but everything was in an uproar. People were running away from the area as fast as theycould. In the distance toward the armories I could see fires breaking out and people leaving. I actually saw my first... victim?...zombie? I don't know what to call it, then. You would think a lifetime of sci-fiand horror movies would prepare you... you'd know what to do or how to react. I'd like to think that seeing it for the first time, I faced it bravely, head on with some kind of witty or sarcastic comment, thenproceed to be a heroine like in the movies, saving the people around me. In actuality I remember looking at what used to be a person. Someone I had vaguely known, they had lived next door to the armories and I had seen them from time to time in the neighborhood, mostly from going door-to-door on Halloween as a child. The most irreverent thing had crossed my mind that they wouldn't be giving out the cool treats to kids this year. As it shuffled in my direction, I remember being frozen in horror, unable to move and unaware of the chaos around me. Then she wasn't there anymore, just a splatter where she had been and a man was shaking my arm asking me if I was alright. I don't know who he was, I remember thanking him in a vague sort of way and heading off in my chosen direction away from the chaos around me.

That time up until a few hours ago I don't think I was functioning properly. I only remember bits, and most of them are in a sort of Technicolor sort of haze. Allan thinks I was in shock and he's probably right. I remember getting to the gully past Tim Horton's and running into my first ... thing... alone. Thankfully I'd remembered to load the rifle. Dad had taught me to shoot a long time ago; he felt that if he was going to have guns in the house he'd teach us to shoot what we were pointing at rather than ourselves in the foot. I think I put 4 rounds into that thing before it went down. It wasn't until I put a round into its head did it go down and stay down. Fragments of old horror movies seemed to prove the logic of making head shots if I could.

I didn't encounter any more after that. It was getting dark and I was looking for a place to bed down for the night. I was passing work when I noticed movement in one of the windows- fluid human movement, notthe disjointed shambling of the things currently stalking the human populous. Taking a chance I made my way past the barricades and tried to gain entry, thankfully I was let in and finally had a chance torelax for the first time since this fiasco began. Just the feeling of finding friends and not being alone any longer was completely overwhelming, I think I cried for an hour straight. Now here we are, we're safe for the time being, the generators will give us power for a time if necessary and the cafeteria has some cooking facilities and a decent amount of food.

I turned loose Salem, my cat, from the backpack I was carrying him in, who promptly found a dark corner and refuses to come out for the time being. I can't blame him; if I thought I could get away with it I would do the same thing. So here we are, trapped, with those things around the outside. There aren't many people out there anymore and I'm more than a little frightened of what's going to happen to us. My parents are gone and I don't know what's happened to my brother and his family. I think they'll be OK. His father-in-law is a fisherman and has a boat, with a little luck he got them clear before anything could happen to them. I refuse to consider any other outcome; otherwise I'll start to question why I'm still alive and what I'm doing here. I don't think I can cry anymore, I don't have any tears left. Now we're trying to figure out where we go from here...

AJ: begining

Well, I guess I should introduce myself, and tell my story.

My name is Allan Mac Donald, you can call me AJ. I'm from a small island in the north of
Nova Scotia called Cape Breton. Don't worry, I know that none of you
has ever heard of it. it has, or well I guess had about 190,000
people living on it. Nice place to live, good people, nice area.


Anyway, when things started to get scary i was working technical
support for MSN. Living my life as I usually do. going about my daily
affairs. It started here a little differently than it did in other areas.

Remember back on 911 when the US closed all the airports? Well all the
planes were diverted to Canadian airports. You might have heard the story about Gander, where the amount of people from grounded planes actually outnumbered the towns population. Lots of touching stores of families making friends with people around the world.

Well, when the shtf the same sort of thing happened. For awhile there all incoming planes
were diverted from American airports. Not something that was widely
circulated, but considering what was going on in the news, that was
probably completly overlooked. New York was in flames by this time, and I think that the first 747 crashed into Halifax on the same day that pretty reporter from CNN
got eaten on the air. So it pretty much makes sense why no one realized how bad it was here.

Here on CB, we had a few planes, smaller airport, but hey being
nice people we tried to take in as much as we could. Of course
following CDC requests, we did try and quarantine them. It was hard, there
were a few hundred of them. At first it was like before, like 911. People trying to help sick and scared people. Putting them up in their homes, in public spaces, the military base, everywhere that could be reasonably quarantined. Remember, at this time they werent prisoners, they were guests, guests who needed help.

Of course in quarantine a few turned, and they infected others, and so on and so forth.


When they swarmed out of the quarantine thigns got pretty bad. We hadn't had any reports before that, and didnt really take what was happening very seriously. the dead coming back? please, it was like a bad movie. Sure there were scattered reports at this time, and that horrid video coming in from Atlanta and New York. But that was Atlanta and New York. Those places were nuts to begin with, and things like that didn't happen here.

Anyway, im getting away from my point. It started small. A few of the passengers were really sick, and they were taken to the hospital, and a few were fine at first, and were put in with the regular quaranine.Of course this didnt last. I'm sure you all know the story. The ones at the airport did get sick, but by the time they did the ones in the hospitals had already turned and were creating havoc. I was at work, as usual when things went totally nuts. Luckily it wasnt busy at work, too ,many people glued to their TV to give a damn about their MSN, and the areas that were infected, well they had other things to worry about. My grandmother called from
home, and sounded kind of weird. She said that over the police scanner there were reports of a riot at the airport, and that the hospital was being totally locked down. Now, at work things were kind of creepy. I hadn't personally had it happen, but a few friends of mine had gotten calls that had started out normally, but the customers had been attacked. I havn't heard them myself, even since i dont want to listen to that. Now, being the guy I am, a riot breaking out, and things generally getting kind of old testament, i got the hell out of there. I didn't even bother telling anyone, not that they would have cared anyway. I figured a lousy job isnt worth the aggrevation.

The drive home was quick, and normal. Aside from there not being many people on the roads, of course. I dont live far from work so I arrived in the kitchen about ten minutes after the call. My grandmother and father were sitting at the kitchen table and had a really worried look on their faces. My nephew, was playing in the dining room, as usual. The way the world was going lately, plus it was being billed as some form of insanity by the press at this point. We sat and listened to the scanner for what seemed like hours. Things got more frantic as time went by. The police start with standard code, but it quickly degenerated as things got desperate. It was easier and easier to understand what they were saying. The ones at the hospital were contained, but the people in the hospital were dropping like flies, and springin up like daisies. Unfortunatly the ones on the higway werent contained, at all. they had swarmed out of the airport, out of the hangers, and out of the terminal. The passengers, the crews, the airport staff, aid workers, volunteers. Everyone who had been in the airport had turned overnight. There were hundreds of them milling around the airport parking lot, and when the police arrived, well, it really got bad. We sat in the kitchen and listened as our police were butcherd. Calls came out for everyone, and everything they could. Mounties, fire, ambulances, everything that could be called was called. The swarm overwhelmed the initial police, and followed the noise of the highway. when the second wave of police arrived. This time they didnt meet a group of docile dead, they were partially fed and brutal. the sounds of the gunshots over the police radio, the screams, all of it. It was almost too much to bear. These weren't some nameless cops, we knew these guys. Sure, some of them were jerks, but most of the were ok, and they certainly didnt deserve what was happening to them.

The commotion went on for awhile, sometimes it was as slow as a single officer in a patrol car, swamped with them and praying into his mic, cookie the dispatcher trying to get any help she could to him. Other times it was like the old west, cursing swearing, and gunshots, with the dead chorus of moans in the background. Finally, at around 11pm everything went quiet. Even cookie, who hadn't cried, or screamed, but still held her post was quiet. then around 11:45 I heard it, the thing that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. A lone voice, almost whispering.

"Anyone, can anyone hear me? Im in a car, they don't know im here. They can't see me. The cars overturned. those things killed everyone. They're on the higway.... if anyone can hear me, get the hell of the streets it looks like the bulk of them is following the traffic..."

At that last bit my blood ran cold. The mass of those things were walking over the higway towards town, and after what had happened to the police, the thought of what they would do in town made me want to throw up. I had been watching videos out of the states, and france. Stuff they werent showing on the regular news yet. Webcam shots of people being devoured by half rotted monsters. It had worried me, but I had been dismissing it as hoaxes until the screams echoed through my kitchen from the scanner.My father and grandmother sat there, staring as I stood up. The thought of what was going on was too big for them, but I had an idea of what was going to happen once those things got into town. Quietly, so as not to alert my nephew I told them what I thought was going to happen. I tried not to sugar coat it, but my grandmother wouldnt exactly deal well with any graphic descriptions. Despite the things that were said over the scanner, I didnt want to scare her more than i needed. I had a plan, I didnt know how good it was, but it was better than living through night of the living dead. I told my grandmother to bag up whatever was neccesary, food and medicines included. get my nephew ready to travel, call my mother and tell her what was going on. I told her to tell her to try and get the hell into Glace Bay, but to go through New waterford, and avoid the highway all togeather. My father and I, we had other things to do. We called Bobby, my fathers friend, and told him what had happened.

Talking to him my father outlined my plan. I didnt want to leave my grandmother and nephew alone, so i got my father to drive up to bobbys place and get things in order. I went to my neighbors, told them what was going on. A few of them already knew, and had plans of their own. Some were fleeing, some were going to try and hide. A few of them once hearing my plan decided to come with me, and my family. I asked them to try and gather up as much food, and medical stuff as possible., and told them to meet me in an hour.

After awhile, it seemed that everything had gotten sorted out. We had
headed out.

Things were aleady a little hectic, obviously they knew what was coming, there were the odd car accidents, and the sounds of car alarms. Things would get a lot worse, if they ever got better. We pulled into the parkink lot, making sure not to park anywhere near the doors. or the main thoroughfare. Taking as much as we could carry we took the supplies into the building, my card swiping to open the doors. The seurity team, and all the employees were gone, the place was creepy, and empty, but it was going to be home for awhile When everyone, and all the supplies were inside, i made sure to do a permiter check. Me, and a couple of other able bodies went through the building, aisle by aisle. Making sure there were no unpleasant surprises waiting for anyone. The rest were all in one of the back offices, with a couple of people in the security room watching the cameras. The sweep didnt turn up anything, thank god. After that, I called my fathers cell phone, it took a few attempts, got a fast busy signal the first three times. I told him that I had gotten everyone there that could be there, and that we were ready. He asked how everyone was, and told me that he was already ready, and they had all the stuff.

We had setup on the fifth floor, luckily there were lots of well charged walkie talkies to keep the lines of communication flowing. The kids and older folks took their places up on the fifth floor. Keeping the kids amused and far from panicking was the first priority. The second being keeping the adults from panicking. so far we had about twenty adults, and seven children. The numbers would grow as time went on of course, calls had been made, and people were coming. Hopefully the living would arrive well before the dead.
My cell phone rang, which scared the hell out of me. The quiet on the first floor was deafening. Everyone turned and glared at me, the quiet hadn't been forced, but a natural extension of what was happening, like prey hiding from the hunter. Taking my phone i slipped out of the security room and away from the others.
"Allan, those things are already in reserve, they came in through the woods from the airport. We're on our way."
After my father hung up, I0 told everyone what was happening, and what to expect. Not long after that I heard the engines of the buses. The headlights flashing against the Xing sign out front. The buses came in fast and swooped into the front of the building. There were three big buses total, each bearing the name of the busing company Bobby worked for. they took position in front of the building covering the windows. that was the first part of the plan. Securing the front. The sides were basically covered, no windows at ground level. But in front the place was totally open. The buses would cover those windows. My father, bobby, Caroline, bobbys wife came to the main doors.
"We're going to need some help getting this stuff into the building."
At that we started out to get the stuff. There were tools from the garage, and fuel, acetaline, food, clothes, everything the three of them could grab from two houses, and a fully stocked garage. It was thrown in the bus quickly, but there was minimal breakage.
We didnt bother taking the stuff all the way and storing it, there would hopefully be time for that later. Our first priority was getting this place secured.
The front was ok, the buses were low to the ground, and coveried the entire front of the building. The sides were naturally secure. While there were windows and doors in back. Only a small door and few windows were open to the public. Around most of the windows there was a cinder block shell. the butt hutt as it was known created an almost perfect barrier. Securing the remaining windows wouldnt be a problem. On one side there was a roll down metal door for deliveries. A large truck was parked in front of this as a backup measure.