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  I walked down the empty street, through the empty town of Noxon. I spied my young negotiator. Jack Whitefoot is seventeen. He is a couple of notches taller than six-feet and thin as a whip. His long, black braid hangs down his back, all the way to his waist. He is exactly what you would picture when imagining a young Indian—or if you insist, Native American—from the Old West.

  He had pistols on each hip, a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, and an old style M-1 carbine in his hands held crossways in front of his chest like he was about to “present arms” at the command of a Marine DI.

  We spoke. A lot of what eventually passed between us is his own business. In short, this place fell to the plague much the same as the big cities. By the time folks were figuring it out, it was too late. The zombies we killed when we arrived were the friends and families of Jack and a young lady named Julie Barton.

  Jack and Julie are the only survivors. But even more interesting…Jack is immune! He has a well-healed bite to prove it.

  They were able to kill off most of the zombies. Only, neither could do away with their closest friends and immediate families. When they realized he was immune to the bite, they decided that, while they would not willingly allow the zombies to get to them, the need to kill those they loved was not a necessity.

  To each his own.

  Tomorrow, we’ll move on to Trout Creek. The kids will join us. They were given the choice and eagerly accepted. Turk was even a good sport about it and thanked Jack for NOT shooting to kill.

  Sunday, July 20

  I bet this place was absolutely beautiful before death found it. It sits right on this vast sparkling stretch of what I learned from Jack is The Clark Fork River. Trout Creek itself has a few forks and we want West Fork Trout Creek. Still, no reason to hurry or leave behind a potential danger.

  Today, we went systematically through the area and put down every zombie we could find. The only real problem turned out to be a once majestic hotel. We discovered where the residents made their final stand. It is also where the plague seems to have finished them off from within their own ranks.

  I’m no forensic specialist, but the trail is almost too easy to follow. It looks like the residents of Trout Creek retreated to this point with most of their guns and ammo (that made scavenging very convenient). Who knows how many bite victims were in that group. They boarded up all the doors and windows on the ground floor while having presence of mind to leave gaps for shooting through.

  Likely, several of their own turned at once and in short order. The unfortunate element seems to be that it was the children who turned. I say this because when we were looking in, we saw very little activity. When we pried open the main entrance a dozen children no older than ten or twelve rushed us. They were short enough and the gaps were placed high enough that we couldn’t see them. This was made worse by the fact that many of the adults were torn in half. At least two-thirds were creepers.

  When it was all over with, everybody was so completely drained. Even Snoe, who never seems affected by anything, looked drawn and more than a little upset. It will never be easy killing the child-zombies.

  We gathered and inventoried enough guns and ammo to supply a small army. One thing about places like this, it is definitely NRA country. Gun-Control fans, Democrats, and vegans need not bother stopping.

  In one house, we did find something that I’m sure will be a legacy of our dead generation: A meth lab. The occupants obviously decided to make one last batch and die in the clutches of their addiction. Actually, that find was a bit more gruesome than some of the death-by-zombie discoveries we’ve made.

  I had a friend who was into the meth scene. She was so pretty. She had that curvy body that made you so totally envious. A full bust, then a narrow and slender waist that truly exemplified the hourglass figure with perfect hips. Then…she found meth. Her long, shiny, black hair became matted. Her milky white skin erupted in hideous sores and her figure caved in.

  I hope that whatever generation rises out of all this never rediscovers such a terrible thing.

  Tomorrow we hike in and do what it takes to secure the compound. It’s been seen from above and afar, let’s hope that we continue to enjoy the success we’ve had so far.

  God, I’ve probably cursed us.

  Monday, July 21

  We could not have counted on there being so much death in this complex. I remember when that cult in San Diego thought the Hale-Bopp comet was going to whisk them away to some paradise or something and put plastic bags over their heads after slipping into sweatsuits and tenny-runners.

  We are having to go from building to building on extermination runs. Every single building has a basement, and this seems to be where most of them were kept. Each building is done and marked because after a while…it all starts to blend in.

  The operation goes a little something like this: we walk the perimeter and look inside any windows. In the case of two-story buildings, we grapple, scale, and infiltrate from the top down. Once we clear the floor, we fan out and, after a rock-paper-scissors process, the loser opens the door to the basement.

  Of course we had no idea how bad the basements were until we opened the door to the first one. That was how we lost young mister Gus Miller. He pulled open the door and a stringy-haired blonde missing all of her nose returned the gesture. She latched on to poor Gus before he knew what was happening. All hell broke loose as zombies of all ages came pouring out of that doorway and into a rather narrow hallway that made shooting absolutely impossible. We went hand-to-hand which took almost fifteen minutes. If you’ve never been in a fifteen minute hand-to-hand brawl, put on biker leathers and a helmet, now start swinging a baseball bat hard enough to crush an almost ripe watermelon for fifteen minutes.

  We put down the last one and I turned just in time to watch Gus shove his pistol in his mouth and spray brains all over the wall he was propped against.

  Three buildings done. Twenty-seven to go.

  This could take a while.

  Thursday, July 24

  Halfway done. The good news is that we are close to halfway…bad news…we are only almost close to halfway. At least we haven’t lost anybody else.

  Jack and Julie are just like part of the team. It is nice that this place was preparing for some version of Armageddon. They have a lot of non-perishable food, as well as cases and cases of bottled water.

  There are a couple of really large buildings that we are concerned about clearing. The continuous pounding and moans of the undead are beyond description. I’m willing to bet that if there are generators…that is where they will be.

  Saturday, July 26

  Rolled the dice today. We’ve put off until today clearing the larger building for fear of what we felt we were sure to encounter. It was voted on and unanimous that we go into this three-story affair. It is, In fact, the largest building in the com-pound. It sits on what I would guess to be an area that would be two blocks long and one block wide.

  There are large double doors on all four sides of the ground floor. The second floor only offered tall, thin windows that nobody could crawl through if we wanted to access the building from that level. The third-floor is like the top of a wedding cake inasmuch as it is recessed in from the outer edges of the first and second floor. There is a balcony railing all the way around as well.

  We grappled and climbed to discover that sliding glass doors provide entrance on all four sides and thick blinds are still intact on most of the windows.

  This is where they seemed to have brought a good many of the children. Most of them were five and under. To say the very least, this morning was unpleasant. We also encountered two elderly ladies that I imagine brought death with them since neither had bites from small mouths. There were also a few teens.

  We noticed something odd with the youngsters. At first, nobody could place it. The top priority was to put them all down, so nobody was taking a lot of time to examine bodies. However, once we finished, the realization was immediate an
d practically everybody picked up on it. Almost all the baby-teeth have fallen out of the mouths of the zombie-children! And since they are in all respects dead, no adult teeth grew back in. That does not lessen their danger level much, but it helped.

  There were a couple of large rooms, what looked like a big, open, gathering place, and one large bedroom. I’m guessing this floor was ceremonial in capacity. The ceiling is glass which meant this floor was lit naturally for the most part. I’ve found no artificial light source, so I’m pretty confident in my guess here.

  We were going to simply toss the corpses, but there is just something about all these things having been children. So, we lowered them down by ropes and, in a big gravel lot that is full of cars that will probably never leave their spots, we have a pile of bodies growing that we plan to torch.

  Tomorrow we’ll go down to the second floor.

  Sunday, July 27

  Slept in shifts because of the constant racket from the zombies downstairs. Many of which came up the stairwells and spent the night on the other side of the thick oak doors at the ends of the north-south running main hallway.

  We tossed a coin and decided to open the south set this morning. Everything was going fine, but at some point Julie saw somebody she recognized and just freaked out. Do you remember when Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens does the total ‘crazy marine’ bit after he goes through the floor and starts yelling stuff like “Oh you want some?” “Here, eat some of this!” “You too!” All of that right before he dies. Well, Julie’s episode was pretty similar. She started screaming things like “You can’t fight this!” “They’ll get everybody!” and “I told you not to go outside! You should’ve listened!” As she waded into the midst of a pack of those things that were struggling to climb the stairs, she went down and everybody lost sight of her.

  Jack was screaming her name and Sugar did her best to keep him from following. Meanwhile, we were using some ancient war tactic of fighting side-by-side, three wide. Every couple of minutes, the group in front disengaged, stepped back, and were then replaced by the trio behind them. I don’t complain, it works and so I’m happy to try ideas that come from other members of the team. Anyways, the zombies, as of late, haven’t left enough of their victims to return in most cases because there are so many who dive in and feast. The stairwell seemed to have hampered them from finishing off all of Julie because about five or ten minutes later she shambled towards the front three of me, Troy Marsh, and Delmar Jones. She was tore up really bad, but mobile. The worst part, besides most of her abdominal cavity having been ripped out, was the way her head just lolled to one side because most of her neck had been eaten.

  It took us a good part of the morning to just sit and wait and to use our bash-and-slash tactic to eliminate what must be most of the zombies. We killed forty-six when it was all said and done.

  Nobody felt like going downstairs and sweeping the floor for stragglers. At least we have something to do tomorrow.

  Monday, July 28

  Finished the second floor. This was some sort of meditation area. There are several small rooms with speakers set in the walls. The floors are hardwood, but many had mats or remnants of mats. I also noticed a couple of rooms that were not contaminated at all and there were bottles of scented oils. I only recognized eucalyptus.

  The bottom floor was actually a bit easier to clear. It was sectioned into four parts. Each large room was mirrored on two sides. In the center was some sort of reception area on a raised dais. This was also where we found a narrow hallway that led to a single metal door.

  Sure enough we found two huge diesel generators. We also lucked out by finding ten fifty-gallon drums, a dolly, and a hand pump.

  We all agreed not to turn these babies on until Roy gives them a good going over and we’ve cleaned the place out, gone through and shut everything off. It would be bad if we powered up and a fire set off or something equally bad.

  Snoe is leaving tomorrow with Jimmy Mitchell, Caren Pilgrim, Jacob Porter, Tracy Russell, and Cera Lee. They will slip into Trout Creek and scavenge supplies. You can never have enough guns, ammo, and medicine. No matter what, they are to be back in five days. We will have a radio relay team—Gene Tasker and Brad Johnson—who will set up in between our position here and Snoe’s team. I hope that she can get in and out without too much zombie interference. More importantly, no roaming bands of living lunatics.

  Tuesday, July 29

  More killing. Men. Women. Children. After a while there is no difference. Size, age, and sex make absolutely no distinction. You either put them down…or you become one of them. It isn’t safe to try and think of those things as having once been us. I found this written on a scrap of paper:

  They are empty shells.

  Clawing.

  Scratching.

  Biting.

  Eyes devoid of life.

  Hunger never-ending.

  Victimizing victims.

  Fate’s losers, yet champions.

  They are we.

  We are meat.

  Thursday, July 31

  Snoe reached Trout Creek. Reported that there was very little to scavenge. But she and her team will scoop up what there is. The good news is that she said the zombie population was even more sparse than Noxon.

  Here at the complex—now being called Huckelberry Gulch—we are almost clear. Tomorrow we will burn the bodies stacked up in the parking lot in a large clearing a few hundred yards away. It is hot and dry, and at least for now, there is very little wind. We debated our choices and decided that the fire will likely only attract the living. We will be on high alert in case of marauders. That central building we cleared with the windows facing all four sides gives us a distinct advantage over anybody who tries to approach.

  We found a small backhoe in one of the buildings and already have begun digging a trench that is going to be about three-feet-wide and six-feet-deep (sorta the width of a grave). We want it to run the entire perimeter of this place. It will keep the stragglers out. It will also help expose anybody living. To reach this complex they will cross sixty to seventy yards of open terrain that we will burn off the same day we torch the corpse pile. Then, they will have to jump or cross that trench in some manner.

  Of course nothing is perfect. Nothing is impermeable. We’ll do what we must to make this place livable. I’m already considering my next move. Once this place is ready to inhabit...perhaps I’ll head north to that other complex and clear it. I’ll need to get my adventures in now because in a few months...I’ll be too pregnant.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  Friday, August 1

  Huckelberry Gulch is open for new residents. I will wait for Snoe’s team to return—she said they’ll be back tomorrow—and then we’ll have a vote to decide two things: first—do we send a two or three person team back to Irony with the announcement; second—if so, who?

  Personally, the way things were when we left, if anybody goes back, my vote is Snoe and Derrick. There is no way we can send one without the other. Let them go back to the bullshit politics.

  Don’t get me wrong here. I miss the normal world and all the ease in which I lived. I miss being able to walk around and not be on constant alert for my life. But...I don’t miss what our world had become. All the emphasis was on the wrong stuff.

  In my lifetime, I think that the world has only been mostly in harmony one time. It lasted about two days. September 11th and 12th. Then...it was gone. We all went back to hating, killing, and being petty. I think there was potential for greatness to come from that horrible tragedy.

  Now, we’re trying to pick up all the pieces. Only, if we use the same pieces and put them back in the same places...we’ll be no better off. Maybe this is our last chance to get it right.

  Saturday, August 2

  Snoe is back. They brought more guns, ammo, and a decent cache of non-perishables. Also, there was some local mom-and-pop market fully stocked with soaps, shampoo, toothpaste...all kinds of good
stuff.

  We talked and I am shocked to say the least, neither Snoe nor Derrick wanted to go back. It seems that their support of their respective factions is more duty based than anything. Caren told Snoe about my plans to journey to a major city like Seattle—if it still exists—or, more likely, Portland. She wants to do it! I guess I may have to spill the beans about the upcoming natal event. Those two were talking like we’d do that run in the next few weeks.

  Of course...I could still make the trip now. But we’d have to winter on the west side of the state most likely. Something to ponder.

  Troy and Jacob left this evening. They said they prefer to travel at night.

  Sunday, August 3

  Told Snoe and Caren. We talked it over in detail and will make the trip west in a couple of weeks. We want to gear up. Snoe says there were a handful of super-deluxe Winnebago RVs in Trout Creek. With a little work, we could rig them up similar to the one Sam left his original complex in. We decided to include Roy.

  I’m relieved. For a while I’ve felt like a bit of a freak with all my wanting to move around. That was another big difference between Sam and I. He wanted to settle. He had this illusion that he could find a place that wasn’t confined. It just isn’t gonna happen unless those things suddenly all fall down and stay.