Day 27 – A Semblance of Normalcy

I just found out that May 18th was Hunter Woolsman’s birthday. (I snagged this image of Hunter and Lance together from a pic he had on his phone. Hunter is the one in the green smock. I know, two soulless gingers in a single photo? I am actually amazed they even showed up on film...) He turned 18 on the 18th. When I asked him about why he did not say anything, he told me that he didn’t want people making a fuss. Plus, he and his dad always had special birthday rituals going back as far as he could remember. Not strange “let’s sacrifice a goat to Baal” rituals but little things like his dad would always make him blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Hunter got to choose which restaurant they went to that evening. Most of the time, he let him take the day off school. His dad did things to make that day special…
But I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode when they talked about birthdays. “It’s a bad day. You’ve got all these people in your house. You’re looking around. You’re thinking, ‘These are my friends?’” Truth be told, I have never really felt comfortable about my birthday either.
I always wanted the day to be special but I didn’t like the idea of people making a fuss over me. I mean my idea of a perfect birthday is a nice but not out of the normal breakfast, not having to do any of my daily chores, and a good dinner, finished off with a romp through the garden of earthly delights… if you know what I am saying.
But often times, a party is not so much for you as it is for the people around you. People love a good party and we missed an opportunity to celebrate a pretty big milestone… especially if you consider that we all might not live to celebrate our own next birthday.
So I think we need to really go all out for people’s birthdays. Not just for them but for everyone. We have a fully functioning bakery with all sorts of decorations for a professional icing. We have everything for great birthday parties. We need to implement that. I need to assign someone to be the official “party planner.”

Day 27 – Chain of Fools

I commented before on how we have this eclectic catalogue of music. It is really amazing how different everyone’s music collection is. The sheer variety is astounding. So, this morning, everyone was going about their morning routines. I cannot go so far as to say that I enjoy cleaning the bathrooms but I certainly do not mind doing it. I think it is more that I like to poop in cleanliness. There it is, really. I mean, it is the end of the world but that does not mean we have to live in filth. And we have an entire aisle in the store dedicated to cleaning supplies, so we have plenty to go around…
So, I was wheeling the mop bucket and my variety of cleaning supplies and I passed by Janet Chambers as she was going about with her morning routines. So I am wheeling down the aisle and Janet is doing her thing and as we make eye contact, Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” comes over the intercom music thanks to Kim. It was completely random, totally spontaneous. What happened? Janet and I started dancing. Just flat out, two white people dancing like white people to one of the most soulful songs ever produced. And through the whole thing, you could not have sandblasted the smile from my face. Hers either.
Amidst the absurdity of this insane world that we now live in, you have to find moments of entertainment. Of levity. I am a big book reader and I like to watch movies. But you need some sort of entertainment where you are forced to interact with your fellow man. We already eat together but we need more. We need to play games together. We need to set aside specific times where EVERYONE has to join in and we all interact with one another. Even the wallflowers. Because of our showering situation, there is really not much left to be embarrassed about.
So Janet has suggested Dance Party Thursdays. And I think it is a fantastic idea….

Day 26 – Nightmare Storms & Once More, Miss Opportunities

Today should have been the kick off of Memorial Day. It is typically the second biggest weekend on Grand Lake (second only to Fourth of July) when all the Tulsa yuppies would come up to their lake houses and tool about the lake before retiring for a nice supper at the local yacht club… while I would drive home in my pimped out 2003 Honda Civic to eat Hamburger Helper and day old bread. As you can tell, I am not bitter or jealous at all. But all that changed when Patient Zero showed up at Grand Lake… Memorial Day barely seems a blip on the radar. I do appreciate it because it gave us flags that we still have hanging upside down from the roof… but holidays just don’t seem to have any real meaning anymore.

But as for current events. So for the last several evenings, we have been battered by terrible storms. You don’t live in Oklahoma for 20+ years and not learn to take thunderstorms seriously. It is called “Tornado Alley” for a reason. Of course without the local weathermen breaking into your favorite TV shows with raging hard-ons to show you all their fancy radar data, we have to just kind of wing it as far as bad storms. We had to almost drag Lance and Brad down off the roof from their sniper positions. Lance is practically living up there now. Could be an issue later.
Still, when you see those storm lines come rolling through with the dark swirling clouds, well, it makes your butthole pucker a bit. And there was a pretty terrifying moment when we had a brown out. It might have been just a tree limb hitting a power line or the winds whipping about. But thankfully, we do still have power. But it did provide me for an interesting bit of information.
When weather got bad at my house, the animals always sought shelter. Whether we are talking about the semi-wild cats or our dogs that we could never seem to hang on to, they knew when the weather was getting bad and would seek shelter.
Here is the thing… Zombies do the same thing.
They actually sought shelter from the storm and cleared out from the parking lot. Tornado or rains be damned, we used the time to our advantage. You would be surprised how quickly a group of people can loot through front pockets and discarded purses to find keys. Damn near every vehicle has a keyless entry system these days and the parking light flash when you hit the unlock key. So we started parking big pickups and vans up against the glass doors. This now gave a second exterior barricade to keep the zombies from hitting the windows and doors directly. We chanced using the parking lot lights. A few shots needed to be fired but the high winds and heavy winds really muffled the noise and everyone was back inside with only a few close calls. Nothing to write home to Mom about.
But this made me look at the zoms in a different light. We thought that they were just wandering mindless creatures but they seem to have some sort of inherent instincts still hardwired into their mushy brains. I have heard a theory about “genetic memory” where you have instincts at birth. Too many of our ancestors did not fear that slimy tube of flesh crawling through the muck and decided to pick it up. We would later learn that a water moccasin was something to be feared. And because of all those encounters, today, we just know it instinctively.
If this theory holds true, then maybe zombies have some base instincts hard wired in. I say that but I have seen these guys run smack dab into a chainsaw hoping to chew on the flesh of the operator. So, I am not Carl Jung. Sue me.
Still, this gives me hope for a future plan that I have been postulating. I am still kicking around this plan but I want to test a theory. Are zombies warm-blooded or cold-blooded? Because if they are cold blooded, we could gain a real advantage in the winter…

Day 25 – Honoring a Last Request

After Keith’s untimely loss, one of our survivors, Judy Myers, had a wonderful suggestion. Everyone took a sheet of paper and wrote out their final request pending “contamination.” Their request was then sealed in an envelope with their names on it with the expressed intent that they only be opened in the event of being bitten by a zombie.
If this happens to you, there are four possible outcomes:

1. A person of your choosing can walk up, with you see it coming, and shoot you in the head.
2. A person of your choosing can walk up, without you seeing it coming, and shoot you in the head.
3. You can wait to turn as a result of the virus and then be shot in the head.
4. We can give you a pistol and you can handle the situation yourself.

Now, no one had to reveal their choice. And truth be told, there is no right or wrong answer.
Is it suicide to take yourself out? If you have the virus, you are already dead. On the other hand, what if we wait for you to turn and something goes wrong? What if a person misses the shot and gets bit? Now, because we let you live to your last breath, we have condemned someone else to the exact same fate. But don’t you want every last breathing moment? Are you kidding? Who wants to go through the unbearable pain that turned Keith into a fireball of rage? But what if you off yourself and, five minutes later, the CDC arrives in the parking lot with a cure and a host of .50 caliber machine guns? Wouldn’t you rather the last thing you see in this world to be a friend that is willing to end your suffering? What if your transformation goes faster than anticipated? What if you turn quick? How can you selfishly put my 14-year-old son – and everyone in this store! – in jeopardy?
So everyone had to decide what they wanted their final request to be. We then locked the collection in the store office with the intention to only open them “in the event of…” And I truly hope I never have to read a single letter.
And while these decision have been fairly tough, I cannot imagine the disagreements that could arise if we encounter stranded refugees. Every extra person we bring in lessens our overall resources and risks us to potential exposure of the virus. Then again, what is the alternative? Leaving them outside to die?
I am afraid that this is a subject I am going to have to bring up with the group…

Day 24 – Ghetto Bastards Gettin’ Their Groove On

It’s funny the things that can make you laugh in even the most horrible of situations. And trust me, it doesn’t get much worse than the zombie apocalypse. So back during that first week, I was working on our renovations to the store and listening to my MP3 player. Thankfully, I always keep my MP3 player at work to keep me entertained during boring lunch hours.
I graduated high school in 1993 – Go Warriors! – so I still really enjoy the ‘90s rap songs. So up in my queue was Naughty by Nature’s “Ghetto Bastard” – which some of you remember as the radio edited version called “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.” The story in the song is just freakin’ horrible about this kid who just lives in terrible circumstances but the chorus is a sample from this happy song that sings several times, “Everything’s gonna be alright.”
So I am dancing on the aisle while I am working and thinking to myself, “Everything’s gonna be alright.” Surrounded by the undead. Don’t even know what tomorrow will bring. But this song made me laugh as I thought the same thing Trech asks, “Why me, huh? Why me?”
But it gave me a fantastic idea.
Ask anyone that works in a store that plays Musak, employees hate it. Especially if it is the same songs over and over again. Modern musak is not just a hit song performed by a small section of classic instruments anymore. Now places have all these promos and junk that just drive you batshit insane and makes you wish the zombies would break through and end it all. It took us about three days to disconnect the satellite system that broadcasts the Musak. We thought about keeping it up to see if they would do any broadcasts but that was a no go.
For a few days, we just ran silent. But a grocery store is a pretty big place and when the power goes down, it gets a lot quieter than you would think. So I had this idea. Kim is a really big music fan and she has the best iPod I have ever seen. So using the USB cord from my aircard, we cannibalized (pun intended) every iPod, iPhone, MP3 player and music storage device we could find. Thanks to the video department, DSD, and the employee training centers, we have quite a few computers in this place.
So we set up one computer and freed up all the memory we could and transferred every available song to that hard drive. The store is set up with an intercom network. So we grabbed a phone, dinged the trigger that activates the intercom and wedged a folded segment of paper in it to keep the trigger depressed. Placing the receiver next to the computer speakers, we now broadcast music that we actually like to listen to over the speakers.
Kim went through and set up all kinds of playlists. She selected all the mellow songs and set them to play at night while we are sleeping. The thing with MP3 and the mix of people and all their different music tastes, we have a pretty eclectic mix of music. And then when Kim puts her playlists on shuffle, it becomes even more awesome.
It is not very often that you get to hear Lady Gaga followed by Hank Williams Jr. followed by Eminem followed by Michael Buble. Still, the music really helps people. We keep it at a low enough level so as not to attract the zombies but not so low that you have to strain to hear it. Surprisingly, spirits have really lifted since we brought this plan on board.
And now we can afford to sleep without earplugs. The zombies are more active at night and they let out these moans that seem to slice through the air. It happens at random intervals but sometimes I swear they use them as some sort of call to one another. They are like wolves howling in the night and if one lets out an odd scream, they are all going to. The music has helped drown them out quite a bit. It at least makes the nights more manageable.

Day 23 – Status Update

Just a quick update. We are able to communicate via our Intranet with the Reason’s store in Claremore. Still no contact with the Tulsa locations. Claremore has been completely overrun and I can only imagine what Tulsa would be like. I can only hope that my wife did not drive smack dab into the center of an outbreak hot zone. We are trying to decide how to get the Claremore crew rescued.

Things are still too infested outside to bury Keith so we have placed his body in the ice cream freezer.

Brad’s arrival from ACE has caused us to rethink our situation. With the right teams, training, and gear, I think we could actually begin to venture outside. I am still not 100% sold on this plan. After all, do you know the best way to avoid getting bit by a shark? … Don’t go in the water. 0% of shark attacks happen up on the beach. So if you never go in the water, you are not getting bit. Still, there is a motel and a small private resort not too incredibly far away from us. Real linens and mattresses would be streets ahead over the inflatable pool mattresses we have been using. And, the underwear situation is kind of starting to become a real issue. There is a Dollar General right next door to ACE Hardware which would have clothes and other sundries that we do not have being a grocery store.
Also, we share a parking lot with a convenience store and a liquor store. While I can claim that it is for medicinal purposes (sterilization and such), I think people could use a little more liquor in their lives. We have our beer but Oklahoma liquor laws prohibit the sale of liquor in grocery stores and while people have been doing “beer rationing,” there is enough liquor in that one store to keep us all tanked until rapture…

So we need to start training sweeper teams…

Day 22 – Zombology 101: Migratory Patterns

I know this is pretty pathetic. I am a slave to pop culture. And when all this was starting to go down, during the quiet time of Week 1, Charles and I slipped off and had a DVD viewing party. We watched movies like Zombieland and Dawn of the Dead to try to understand what we are dealing with.
I really like Zack Snyder’s take on zombies with all the running and the savagery and it was a really good movie. However, in their version of zombies, they all just clustered at that mall wanting to get at the humans inside. It made for a thrilling escape and was a great movie finale. Thankfully, that is not what we are dealing with. This is one of those instances where Hollywood made a great movie but they got the reality wrong.
Back in the first week of this blog, I discussed alligators and crocodiles. They are opportunistic hunters. Thankfully, zombies are the same way. Case in point, not all of the same zombies that popped up in the area on Day 1 are still in the area. Several of those transformed in those first few hours came along initially and banged on the windows and doors. Truth is some still do that now.
I have this theory that a lot of these zombies are “locals” and have it engrained in their subconscious that Reason’s translates to food and they are showing up on some intuitive level. But they all seem to react the same way. When they realize that they cannot get in, they move on to look for greener pastures. We’ve worked very hard to cover up our visual and auditory presence. In the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith, he often covered up his scent by using some chemical. (Bleach maybe?) I need to look and see if that movie is in the video department. (Yes, I know technically those were vampires but the theory is still solid.)
So the zombies come looking for food. Perhaps they can sense that we are in here and they come up moaning and banging and when they realize that they cannot get in, they shamble on down the road, looking for easier prey.
Therefore, by these observations, I think we can say that zombies are migratory. How do they know where to migrate to? Of that, I cannot be certain. Why do birds just know to fly south for the winter?
Still, it seems clear that zombies’ sight is not nearly as sharp as it is in life. Their hearing appears to be about the same. If I didn’t know better, I would say their sense of smell actually improves (at least when it comes to hunting). Not really certain about touch and taste. But I often wonder if zombies have some sort of ESP to be able to detect flesh and that is why they keep coming up and banging on the doors in the first place.

Day 22 – Survivor Profile: The Chambers

If you have never worked in a small town environment, I highly recommend it. I know a lot of people would look down on multigenerational employees (think Jakob Dylan or Randy Orton) as saying that these guys only made it to where they are because of their fathers (Bob Dylan and “Cowboy” Bob Orton respectively). But multigenerational employees are often a staple in small town stores like Reason’s. Truth be told, when Alex was old enough to drive, I looked forward to introducing him to our Resource Coordinator and getting him a job.
One of the biggest success stories is The Chambers. First off is Janet Chambers. “Mama Janet.” “Janet the Invincible.” She is known by many names. Okay, so Janet was one of two “original” employees from when Reason’s opened its doors in Langley. The only other one was our store director who was lost to us in the opening salvo of Zero Hour.
Janet is this little spitfire of a woman. She just celebrated her 50th birthday and had worked for Reason’s for over 32 years. That really showcases her loyalty and dedication. I cannot imagine doing anything for over thirty years. Still, Janet ran the show in there. She is this little woman who has an indomitable spirit packed into a frame that is far too small. She has this wonderful spiritual presence to her and for one of the older ladies in our little funhouse of horrors we are living in… Janet has it going on. I bet she was a slice a pie back in her high school days.
She worked in the office managing all the money and all the paperwork that goes on in there. Stuff way over my pay grade.
Note: It was not a mistake that I put “worked” in that sentence above. I think it is pretty safe to say that the Reason’s company does not even officially exist anymore…
Janet reminds me a lot of my mother. I know that makes the slice of pie comment earlier seem down right creepy. But I could just see Janet and my mom sitting at a kitchen table pounding back glasses from a box of wine talking about their kids. I wish they could have met.
So, getting back to my multigenerational thread, when the time came, both of Janet’s children picked up jobs at Reason’s. First was Brad.
Brad Chambers led the show over at ACE Hardware and helped his crew get over here to Reason’s. However, before he worked at ACE, Brad did a fairly long stint at Reason’s. Brad and I would always talk movies when we worked together and even wanted to make his own army film. He loves Sylvester Stallone and is fascinated with all things military. I think this is part of the reason why he was attracted to Kasondra because of her involvement in the National Guard. And, admittedly, there is nothing sexier than a woman that has fired a .50 caliber machine gun from the roof of a Hummer.
So a few years ago, Kasondra was promoted to manager and her and Brad were dating. This was going to cause a conflict of interest as she was going to be Brad’s boss. So Brad decided to move across the road to work at ACE Hardware. (And I am sure all the survivors over at ACE thank God for that fact.) You all know the story of his harrowing escape to get back to Reason’s and his lovely bride-to-be. Kasondra and Brad were supposed to be married this past weekend but the whole Zombie Apocalypse kind of put the kibosh on their plans. That really is the most aggravating thing about zombies ending the world: They have no consideration for your personal life…
Brad is a bit of a momma’s boy… but in the best way possible. He loves his mother very much and I would say it was probably about 55/45% Kasondra/Janet motivation for Brad to get over here. However, Kasondra has confided in me that post-apocalyptic Brad has remained much more clothed than pre-end of the world Brad. And I kind of thank him for that. Apparently, the extent of Brad’s wardrobe consisted of boxer-briefs once he got home from work. Still, he is man pretty…
Now the third leg of this race is Kim. Kim works in the pharmacy and aside from our conversations about music or me pretending to fend off her constant sexual advances towards me, I have to admit, I don’t know her that well. I mean we have exchanged all the pleasantries when we go about work but I don’t know her hopes and fears. Not like a Kasondra or a Lance. If I were going to officially label us, it would be “buddies.” I would stop and say hi to her if I saw her at Walmart. I would definitely stop to help her if her car battery died. But we were never one to hang out on a Friday night. Where as Charles shows up at my house regularly and Kasondra has come over to play Rock Band and poker with me.
I need to get to know Kim better. And I want to. She seems like a nice enough girl. We just never really connected much before all of this. Still, there is that nagging feeling in the back of mind because of what happened to Keith. Maybe I should distance myself. Maybe I shouldn’t get too close to anyone. After all, statistically speaking, there is a percentage chance that I might have to put a bullet in her head.
Still, with the familial unit that the Chambers have up here and with Brad and Kasondra reunited, in a way, it gives me hope…

Day 20 – Contact in Claremore

As the days continue to pass by, the zoms clearly own the outside world. However, we have been given some flashes of hope. Kasondra knows the sound of military helicopters better than anyone and while we have not seen any, we have heard them roaring in the distance. So, I believe there are safe havens out there somewhere.
Reason’s works on an intranet – which is this closed internet where you can talk with one another via the computer system and access certain approved websites. So we are all extremely excited that we have made contact with the Claremore store. We are talking with an individual named Tommy Holt.
Claremore is a midsized American city with a large enough population and a small enough police force to quickly be overwhelmed and overrun. Tommy and his crew did not do so well securing their store and it took them quite a while to reclaim their turf. But they are now back up and operational. And just like us, they are looking for contact with the outside world. Unfortunately, there are only five of them left and they do not have the luxury of the weapons that we do. So we are going to vote on a fairly big decision.
Should we go and get them?

Day 19 – Zombology 101: Contagion

First rule of warfare: Know your enemy.
THIS IS JUST A THEORY. WE ARE DOING OBSERVATIONS TO PROVE THE VALIDITY. BUT WE COULD BE WRONG.
Thankfully, we have a roof hatch access inside the store. We had to pry off the pad lock to use it but it is positioned above the ice cream freezer in the northwest corner of the store. With all of the windows blocked off and now barricaded, it is pretty hard to get a true sense of what is happening outside, so we have been using the roof. (Lance has some plan that he has been talking about where he is going to rewire the security cameras but I cannot tell if he is full of crap or not. Still, he was taking electrician classes at Vo-tech when all this went down so…)
Given that our structure would probably be the equivalent of a three story building, we cannot fathom any possible way that the zombies can reach the roof. They can climb stairs but when it comes to the physical coordination required to actually climb a hand-over-hand ladder, they just don’t have it. So from that aspect, we are pretty safe on the roof. And it is from here that we have done a lot of observations.
This is what we have extrapolated given what we have seen as a first hand account of victims. This is pretty gruesome stuff but people need to be told the truth. So bear with me.

Somewhere out there is Patient Zero – the one who started this whole epidemic. Truth be told, we may never know who that is or was. But obviously it got up here somehow. Patient Zero must have bitten someone else and that is where it all took off.
Unless this is some sort of doomsday contagion, this thing is not naturally occurring. It is not airborne or waterborne which is why we feel pretty safe using the tap water. If it was in the air or the water there would be no escape and we are just delaying the inevitable. Might as well slit our wrists now if this thing can be contracted by drinking water.

So we are fairly confident that this is how it works. The virus is transferred via body fluids, which means if you get bit, you have it. If you are fighting these guys in melee combat, slashing at them with chainsaws and get their blood in your eyes, mouth, or an open wound, you are in trouble. Fingernail scratches are dubious.
Now, as we were discussing this, someone joked about having sex with a zombie. Obviously disgusting but my theory is that this thing started (at least in our area) in the Reedy Nursing Facility. [More on that later.] Before they realize what the virus was, crazy Ms. Glick bit Orderly Sam. Just a bite, no big deal. They may have thought she was delusional. Sam finishes his shift and heads home. His girlfriend meets him at the door for a quick round of hide the salami. Bam. Infected. They both wake up the next morning with a hankering for human flesh. And suddenly, you have two spawning zones for the zoms. So it is not tremendously far fetched. I am not saying that is what happened but it certainly could have.

I am by no means a veterinarian but you hear stories all the time about dogs contracting rabies and they have to be put down. I remember shortly before all this happened about a police officer putting down a rabid squirrel in a school yard because they were afraid it might attack the kids. This is what these things seem to be like. They are rabid. They are mean, aggressive, and just want to eat.
So let’s say this is some form of mutated rabies or it at least shares the same qualities. As near as I can figure, filmmakers in the past must have consulted doctors and such when they wrote their scripts and all the theories and postulating has just happened to turn out to be correct. The zombie must carry a virus strain that is transferred by fluids. It acts like most other pathogens. (Is that the right word?) Keith’s wounded started to show signs of serious infection within a few hours. And it was like he was hit with a double dose of anticoagulant because we could not get the bleeding to stop.
If it seems like dying from a few bites seems unrealistic, look at what a hungry man can do to a steak even without utensils. Combine that with five of these things surrounding you, chomping furiously, a few doses of the anticoagulant that they give you and a major artery. Add all that together and you have a deadly combination…
Okay, so, you encounter a zombie and you get bitten. You don’t automatically turn and start eating human flesh. It starts off as a virus in your system. I don’t believe that an antidote could reverse the effect and amputation would be very risky. If you get bit on the ankle, could you cut off your leg fast enough before your blood circulates up from your leg to your brain? I doubt it.
Now, the virus gets in your bloodstream. It immediately starts attacking your organs and systems because it wants you to die. That is the whole goal. But at this point, you are just sick. You are not a zombie yet. Eventually, the fever burns you out, your organs shut down and you die. Once you die that is when this virus really goes to work.
I have not had enough exposure to infected test subjects to do a true scientific analysis but I am guessing it takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours and then the virus kick starts your brain. You sit up and become like poor Orderly Sam from earlier in this blog entry.
My theory is that if you die by the virus, reanimation is a matter of minutes. I say this because before we blacked out the windows, we saw a customer get hit outside by a pack of these things. She was loading groceries into the back of her van when several of these monsters jumped her. All we could do was watch.
Now she did not die from the virus. She died from blood loss and the fact that her guts were chewed out by these monsters. Her body was sprawled out in the back of her van for over a day. Then we watched from the roof as she reanimated and limped around as best she could on limbs with bites taken out of them and meat chewed away. [The happy ending to this story is that Lance put a bullet in her head and ended her unlife.]
So in theory, if your immune system is compromised, you are stressed out, extremely old, or something along those lines, the virus burns through your system pretty fast and death is pretty quick. It also takes very little time for your body to “reanimate.”
Now, one saving grace is that the dead are not popping up out of the cemeteries. It does not work like that. Corpses are not busting out of their caskets and running around. You have to be infected to reanimate. So this is a viral outbreak. Either there is a cure somewhere in nature or we just have to outlast it.
I keep going back to that scene in the movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding Jr. In that, the very lethality of the virus was actually a benefit. It killed everyone so fast it did not have a chance to spread. Do we have that option here? This works in conjunction with our One Year Plan. If we can just outlast these beasties, we can wait it out and be part of those last vestiges of humanity that will inevitably reclaim the world.
At least, that is the plan. I just hope to God that it works.
More soon…

Day 18 -- Nightie-Night, Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite.

I can’t remember the last time I had a bed time. Still, it was the consensus of the group that certain rules and procedures need to be followed if we are going to last a year in the store. I have yet to find a conch for speakers to hold during our meetings. For some reason, seashells are kind of difficult to come by in a landlocked state. Who knew?
Still, everyone has agreed on a set bed time. Truth be told, once you cannot watch The Colbert Report or Conan, there is not a lot of reasons to stay up uncomfortably late. The other side of this coin is that with aluminum foil covering the windows, we have little sunlight in our lives. We need to make adaptations for that.
Still, we have all established that it is Lights Out at 10:00. Generally speaking, people start winding down around 9:30 and begin to go to their respective corners. It is a nice quiet time. Some of us are still old enough to get the joke, “Good night, John Boy.” And that gets called out about once a week.
But people go lights out at 10:00 pm and we do between a 6:00 and 6:30 am reveille. I really thought Kasondra would be the one to lead this charge but Lance’s gung-ho spirit is typically the one that gets it going. Rather than go from person to person, he likes to call out over the intercom system to get people going.
I know that a bedtime may seem kind of childish to an outside observer but there is actually pretty good reasoning behind it. Whenever Reason’s would do their wellness screening for employees, it seems like one of the comments that most people got on their form answers was that they needed to get more sleep.
A solid eight hours of sleep keeps you healthy and alert. It improves your immune system – which I feel is pretty darn solid considering there is a killer virus floating around out there. And statistics have shown that a drowsy driver can be even more dangerous behind the wheel than a drunk driver. I just keep thinking back to Hicks in Aliens. “I want you two patrolling the perimeter. But stay frosty... and alert. We can’t afford to let one of those bastards in here.”
I need everyone frosty. Mad Eye Moody preached, “Constant vigilance!” (Maybe two movie references in a single blog entry are too much…) Still, that is the situation we are dealing with. And you have to stay at the top of your game at all times, especially in this hellscape that we have been thrust into.
So if you are out there, if you are a survivor, and if you are reading this, then get your beauty sleep. It is more important than you realize. You can’t run on fumes forever. That gas tank does run out. So get somewhere safe and recharge those batteries. The life you save may be your own…
More soon.

Day 17 – Our Official Plural Listing

Okay, fish swim in schools. It is a pride of lions. A pod of whales. A heard of cattle. A pack of dogs. We are officially referring to a collection of zombies as a SHAMBLE. It is a shamble of zombies.
Zombies shamble along. They don’t pick their feet up. Maybe they don’t have the strength. But they only run if a food source is near. So this is just our word for a group of them – a shamble of zombies. For anyone still alive in the trademark or patent offices, that is our phrase. Can you trademark a phrase or a word? Well, if you can, that is what we are doing here.
Unfortunately, Urban Dictionary is down. This is unfortunate because I used that website to learn what an “Upper Decker” was. But it also taught me the difference between a Cleveland Steamer and a Cleveland Steamroller. It is a HUGE difference. Well that and an Alabama Hot Pocket. Eww.
(For those survivors who happen to be reading this, I hope this offered you a moment of levity…)
I’m off to bed, kiddos. Sleep tight.

Day 17 – Supply Status: Dairy

Today, officially, our milk went out of date. On May 1st, the oldest dated milk in the store was officially today. Audrey has been doing a wonderful job with our rationing and dating of supplies. She has even recruited Kelsey and Amber into helping her to make them feel more integrated to the group.
I know this is the “sell by” date. It is not like all the milk immediately spoils on the day that is stamped on the jug. And we have been making sure to drink the closest dated milk first. Truth be told, we knew we were going to run out eventually. And secretly, I really thought we were going to lose power (knock wood) and lose our refrigeration anyway. So we have been doing a lot of cereal eating for the morning breakfasts.
One unique thing we did very early on was stake claim to certain cereals. The store features probably over 100 different brands of cereal but everyone got to choose their favorite to be their private stash. After that, things just kind of went up for grabs. We had a full draft where everyone drew numbers for their selection order.
Hey, when it came time to choose I was happy because Cocoa Krispies were still available. Suckers. They don’t know what they are missing. Alex got his Cap’n Crunch so he is stoked. One fool actually chose Total as their draft pick. I won’t say who but LOSER! You wasted your draft pick on a kicker when you clearly could have taken a linebacker early and the kicker probably would have gone undrafted…
Some cereals like the Chex varieties and the other Rice Krispies have been held back for things like Chex Mix and Rice Krispie Treats – recipes that do not require milk.
Now there is that military ration milk-in-a-box that is highly pasteurized and has dates that go well into February. And we do have that powdered milk for when things really start to turn desperate. My theory is that we will use that for cooking down the road once we deplete our supply or it turns sour.
We have also been eating a lot of sandwiches and sliced deli meats for lunch as those have a limited shelf life too. Our bread only lasted about two weeks before it started to get really stale. Thankfully, we have a baker that can literally make us fresh bread with all the flour and yeast that we have on hand.
So we have really been smart about watching our dates. Produce is almost gone (as we expected) and Sharon has really been working overtime with Charles to smoke, cure, and dehydrate or meat supplies so that they do not go to waste. I have never really liked jerky but I guess I am going to have to learn to like it.
We are also going through as much of the frozen foods as we can (again, because of the fear of losing power and thus refrigeration). This will leave us with only canned foods left but I still believe that with proper rationing, we can make it a year. Our supermarket is a pretty big place, even with twenty-two people living in here. The canned food aisle (soups, beans, potted meats, etc.) measures 68 feet in length and stacked five shelves high. And that is just one side. With rationing, we will make it. Still better safe than sorry…

Day 16 – Let The Sun Shine In….

As we are now in Day 17 of our life inside our little grocery store, I have to admit I have seen a change in some individuals and I think I know the reason. We had a major flaw in our plan with the aluminum foil over the windows. We originally blacked out the windows using aluminum foil for two reasons:
# 1) We believe zombies hunt by sight so we wanted to remove external stimuli. We did not want them to be able to see the food walking around inside here and come smashing through the windows. (Granted, we have them reinforced and when things thin out a bit, we are going to do an even better job. Still, why tempt fate?)
# 2) We did not want to broadcast our presence during the night time hours. Unfortunately, like most businesses that are open 24 hours, Reason’s set up is a freaking beacon of light on a hill. The gas station next door is the exact same way. You can see it from miles away so that it is inviting at night to people who need a fill up with gas. Unfortunately, that is also like ringing a dinner bell for these walking dead. Combine that light with sounds like gunshots and the zombies come a runnin’.
So, almost from night one, we tripped the breakers that control the parking lot lights and the exterior lights for the store. (The store front sign and the illuminated signs on the side of the building that say things like “bakery” and “video.”) I can only imagine but at night, this place has to look just like a hole in the world to the zombies.
There was not much we could do about the convenience store next door or the Sonic restaurant across the street. But we have a theory that if those businesses are lit up and the zombies stay over there the better off we are.

To those that still have use of their cerebral cortexes, they will see zombie bodies littering the parking lot (from the ones we have taken out), the windows all boarded up, and we are locked down… Yeah, we probably do seem like a pretty strong fortress of solitude. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anyone with a functioning medulla oblongata for days. [I don’t even know what those sections of the brain actually control but there were the only sections I could remember from my 9th grade science class. It was a long time ago.]
But, our big problem is that if you take aluminum foil and cover your windows, zero light gets through. Zero.
And believe me, it gets pretty freaking dark. I have worked the night shift before and said that as long as you didn’t look outside, you didn’t really notice what time it actually was. But I want us to have some semblance of normalcy. We need to see at least some small section of the outside world from time to time. We can’t just live in Jodie Foster’s panic room. What kind of life is that?
So with that in mind, we are amending the aluminum foil plan. We are still going to keep it up but we are developing a system where the bottom two-thirds of the windows will remain covered at all times. But we are making sections in the top third of the windows (above the pallet reinforcements) that we can open up to allow light inside. Then we are going to assign people to start closing the “shades” at sundown.
And I was pretty proud of this idea. One thing a grocery store has plenty of is cardboard. With all the boxes that cereal and mayonnaise and canned vegetables that used to come in, we usually bailed up one pallet load of cardboard per day, sometimes even twice a day if we were really busy. We worked together and rigged up these cardboard booths that you can sit in and look through peek holes at night without light shining out through the aluminum foil. It’s pretty effective.
But we do need more outdoor activity. I could have sworn I read something one time about lack of sunlight causing a vitamin deficiency. There was an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocked out the sun and Homer joined a posse to tear the machine down. “I’ve had it up to here with these rickets.” I don’t know what rickets are but I am fairly certain I don’t want them.
So we are going to work on projects that will get us up on the roof. Lance loves to go up there and shoot zombies. There is a ton of free space up there that we know is zombie free. We have seeds in packets in the Produce Department and there are pallets of potting soil outside. We need to start our own garden. Everyone could be involved. Fresh vegetables. It’ll be like Little House on the Prairie up in this mug.
I guess I list this to show you that we are not always perfect in our plans. We have to make modifications. And you will too. The only difference is that if we make too big a mistake, people can die. And that is a pretty scary thought.

Day 16 – A Message For My Wife

This entry is really more for me than for any historian or member of the government that might stumble across this. As I mentioned before, I emailed this blog address to my home and I am hoping that she might see it…
Amy, I hope that you have made it home and are safe. I know we had lots of food at the house and your Mom & Dad’s place is like a fallout shelter with all of their groceries that they buy from Sam’s Club. Still, with every passing day, my hope diminishes a little more. Are you safe? Did you even make it out of Tulsa? God forbid, are you shambling about as one of these horrors?
We have been studying these things for sometime now and I honestly believe that if you can get into a car, Langley has thinned out enough to where we could get you in the store. Alex took a number of your dad’s weapons and ammo but he said he did not take them all. I only had him unload one of the safes. So there is plenty of ammunition and pistols lying around. Combine that with the speed of your Mustang and you should be fine. Just go through Strang and come through the backside of Langley.
I miss you, honey, and I truly hope you are reading this. I hope you are still alive. I feel that you are. I hope. I love you…

Day 16 – Survivor Profile: Ryan Mathews

Admittedly, the group is trying to move forward after the loss of Keith. It has not been easy. Still, everyone seems to look around at each other quite differently, as if sizing them up and wondering how the group would handle the loss if this person or that person gets bit next. So we just have to make sure not to let that happen. With that said, let’s move on…
If this is going to be a record for history, then history needs to know about the wonderful people that survived this horrible event and, truth be told, they are some wonderful people. Then there is also my ego that hopes that if you have been reading this from the beginning, you might be wondering who the other person on the end of this blog really is. Stroke a man’s ego, ladies. That is how you get him to pay attention to you.
So if I am going to tell you about the survivors, who better to start with than me? Unfortunately… I don’t really know where to begin. Normally, I am my favorite subject. ;-P
At the time of this writing, I am thirty-six years old. I worked in the Produce Department at Reason’s. This was actually my old job back in high school and the plan was for me to work here while my wife went back to school to get her RN license. We could really use her medical training right now. Don’t get me wrong, Kasondra is great. The army has trained her well but I kind of get the impression her medical training is more about patching holes and keeping soldiers alive. And Kim and Jennifer know which medicines are for which ailments. Still, a bona fide nurse would be a tremendous addition to our ragtag team… But rather than have her nursing skills, I miss her more as my wife.
Amy and I’ve been happily married for 14 years. (Note: I may speak about my job and society in the past tense but I still consider my marriage ongoing. She is out there somewhere. I know it.)
The greatest thing in our marriage is our son, Alex Ryan Mathews. He is with me here in the store. He safely navigated his way here from home during Zero Hour of the outbreak. Quite a feat considering Alex will turn fifteen in October and his only real time behind the wheel is either on the Xbox or out in the cattle pasture with his grandfather. (Note: During the only time he drove Granddad’s pickup, he did sideswipe the pickup with the trampoline.) Strange but I am happy he was too sick to go to school that day and I got him here with me. Don’t freak out. It was the flu. He was really on the mend and probably could have gone to school but I wanted him fully rested. He was getting all A’s anyway so I figured he could use an extra day of video games and lounging around the house since his illness did cost him a weekend.
But when I called the house, Amy had already left. She was going to Tulsa that morning and I am afraid that Tulsa is a hotspot of zombie activity. For all we know, all the major cities are. There is no telling where all this has spread from.
So Alex is my son. He is a good kid. I know all parents say that but he really is. Even at 14, he has one more growth spur and he will be as tall as me. I volunteer coached for his football team this year and at the end of the year, Alex had all his coordination going and got everything working in consort. He left bruises on me and the fellow coaches. He was also the biggest kid in his class. But at a charity basketball game earlier this year, one of his female classmates told me they call him “The Gentle Giant.” Part of this is because of his size but I think it is because he takes after his old man and roots for the New York Giants.
Still, he is tremendously protective. He sticks up for the little guys and was always encouraging of the underclassmen. It also made him a great offensive lineman. And he has a heart of solid gold. I could not be more proud. Still, I know the thoughts about his mom, his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… It is all weighing heavily on him.
I have to wonder what the future holds for Alex. I am going to talk with Kasondra and have her begin Alex’s training with firearms. The bigger the better. He plays the Nazi Zombie levels of Call of Duty. It is time for him to go beyond a game now.

Day 14 – No Entry

No entry today. We are still alive but I cannot talk. Too consumed about what happened to Keith. Maybe tomorrow…

Day 13 – Making the Hard Choices

I watched a man kill himself today.
I want you to take a moment and let that really sink in. Keith Morris was a twenty-year-old kid who was going to school to be a professional welder. He split time working for his dad’s dock building business and ACE Hardware. He had a girlfriend and a little dog named Spooner. He liked to ride his motorcycle and the music of Gary Allen. Apparently, he also had a bit of a hetero man crush on Mark Wahlberg. (Hey, who doesn’t?) He was a good friend of Brad Chambers and was supposed to be in the wedding party for Brad and Kasondra’s wedding. He helped Brad take control of the situation at ACE when Zero Hour struck. And, quite unapologetically, Keith had the intestinal fortitude to put down quite a few zoms that breached their defenses. If it wasn’t for him, the five other members of his party would not be with us.
Brad parked as close to our produce dock as possible and Keith was freaking hustling to slide all of their acquired supplies inside: ammo, weapons, tools, things we would need for our survival. The zombie that tagged him was hidden underneath our scissor lift dock. There was no way our spotters could have seen it. It got him on the calf, breaking skin with its fingernails and taking a bite from his leg. But he had the wherewithal to shoot that beast in the head three times and then limped inside.
After that, my whole quarantine plan kind of went out the window. Before they made it over, everyone was healthy. They all breathed the same air, drank the same water, and ate the same food. Then, Keith got bit and one hour later started showing symptoms. The five other survivors agreed to a total 100% strip search and examination for wounds by same sex examiners. Everyone came back clean.
So apparently, the movies have it right. This virus is transferred via bodily fluids. You get bit, you have it. There is no cure. You are dead. It is only a matter of time.
After one hour, you could see the clotting of his wound begin to turn necrotic and the veins nearby turning purple and sickly.
Keith starting showing more signs quickly. Pain, nausea, stiffness. I could only watch as his temperature rose to 103-degrees in what seemed like a blink of an eye. He tried to remain calm but he had this aggressive streak. He would snap angrily at simple questions. He just wasn’t himself anymore. He grew increasingly irritable even when people were trying to help him.
Everyone began to whisper, wondering what we should do.
So, without any aggrandizing here, he asked and Brad provided. He asks his friend for a pistol and he took the decision out of our hands. For those that may look down upon this, Keith made it quite clear. In his eyes, this was not suicide. He was dead the second that zom bit him. And his argument was that we might not have “the stones” (as he put it) to put him down after he changed. So he said he was doing all of us a favor.
We fully intend to give him a proper burial in the field we have out back behind the store. Until we get a clear enough section, we have put his body in the ice cream freezer. But I don’t want to talk any more. I just want to sleep and try to forget about this nightmare world. I think I am going to hit the pharmacy and see if I can find a Xanax or a sleeping pill or something.
This sucks. And as much as I hate it, I know this will not be the last time we will have to deal with this…

LOST MEMBER: Keith Morris* – 20, Disney, OK

Day 12 - Miracle Across Highway 82

It took a pickup truck and a collection of firearms not seen outside of a military convoy but Brad and his crew have arrived and made it to the store. I wish I could say that it is all good news but one of their members was bitten in the exodus from Ace to Reason’s. We are all struggling on how to deal with this.

So first, the good news. Brad and his crew made the jump early in the morning after the zombies had kind of settled down after wandering about at night. We had the early morning light on our side. As per Brad’s request, we had shooters on our roof looking to cover their escape and clear a path. As it turns out, Brad and the group left a pair of chainsaws revved and locked on at full throttle. They then took the chainsaws and dropped them inside metal trashcans and wheeled them out in wheelbarrows outside the front of the hardware store. That awful noise brought the zombies running. Then, they took their pickup in the opposite direction. As the chainsaws drew the attention of the zombies in the area, they made the mad dash to the back of the store. But I understand their confidence in their plan… Her name is Shannon Fox.

Shannon works as a police dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. This means she operates the radio and tells officers where to go. This means she was working at the ground floor level when all this broke out. I full intend to go through a “debriefing” with her to figure out what happened in Langley on May 1st. But more over, shortly before her office was overrun, her and a fellow deputy were loading up all sorts of ammunition and weapons into a pick up. Her deputy did not make it out of the station but Shannon did. And she saw signs of hope at Ace Hardware in Brad and Keith so that is where she stopped. Now, thanks to her, we have a plethora of weapons from which to defend ourselves. I am not savvy enough to tell you exactly what all the weapons are but they are like something you see in a Schwarzenegger movie.

So Brad brought with him Kelsey Cameron. Kelsey worked the register at Ace Hardware. He also brought with him Shannon Fox (as mentioned above), two customers shopping at the time of the attacks – Ashlynn Clary and Dawn Smith – both locals, and fellow floor employee Keith Morris. Unfortunately, between exiting the pickup and getting inside, Keith received a bite on his leg from a zombie that was under our scissor lift ramp that we use at the Produce dock to unload semi-trailers.

We kept the Produce roll up door closed until the very last second and given the vantage point of our “snipers” on the roof, no one could have spotted the thing. But now we have a serious situation on our hands. I cannot believe that I am typing this out. We are going to have to kill Keith…


UPDATED SURVIVOR LIST
Audrey Blair – 22, Female, Langley, OK
Jennifer Brown – 25, Female, Langley, OK
Kim Chambers – 25, Female, Adair, OK
Janet Chambers – 50, Female, Langley
Dillon Hernden – 18, Male, Ketchum, OK
Kanen Kraig – 19, Male, Jay, OK
Nolan Lang – 20, Male, Vinita, OK
Charles Lucas – 27, Male, Jay, OK
Sharon Massey – 59, Female, Locust Grove, OK
Alex Mathews – 14, Male, Adair, OK
Ryan Mathews – 36, Male, Adair, OK
Judy Myers – 37, Female, Langley, OK
Jean Nibert – 49, Female, Langley, OK
Judy Savage – 55, Female, Strang, OK
Kasondra Taylor – 22, Female, Langley, OK
Lance Wiggins – 18, Male, Spavinaw, OK
Hunter Woolsman – 17, Male, Vinita, OK
Newest Editions
Kelsey Cameron – 23, Female, Spavinaw, OK
Brad Chambers – 21, Male, Langley, OK
Ashlynn Clary – 33, Female, Disney Island, OK
Shannon Fox – 33, Female, Afton, OK
Keith Morris* – 20, Disney, OK
Dawn Smith – 24, Female, Langley, OK

Day 11 – Quarantine Zone Completed

We have officially finished the Quarantine Zone. I have to admit, if someone is going to be isolated in here for a few days, we have made it as comfortable as possible. The area is fairly large and we have six bed stations set up. We took stacks of pallets and set them up with air mattresses and blankets to serve as bunks and blankets.
I swiped a pretty good cross section of movies from our video department along with some books and magazines.
I mean, there is a heck of a lot more room than a prison cell. It is not going to be too bad. Now we just have to get those six souls from over there to over here. It is not far. It is maybe 500 yards away but we really don’t know how the zombies are going to react to this fresh meat.
Whatever Brad’s plan is it better be a good one…

Day 11 – An Apology For an Altercation

So today has not exactly been a good day. Kasondra is a friend of mine and Janet and I have had far too many conversations over the years to not consider her a friend. So I had to explain to Janet, Kim and Kasondra my plan involving the quarantine zone for Brad and his group. Friday is coming faster than you can imagine and I had to let them know.

Kasondra is not happy with me. I understand her frustration and I want to sympathize but I will not risk exposing Alex to infection. I refuse. The argument got rather heated. Kasondra asked me if I would implement the same safety protocols if Amy was part of that group. I have to admit, I paused. And she used that as an opportunity to assert her side of the argument. Emotions took over. I tried to remain analytical and I can do that because Amy is not part of that group. Her fiancé is 500 yards away and that stress is wearing on her. So when we took our argument to the next level… she took a swing at me. I landed awkwardly and there was no real malice behind the punch. The crew separated us and got the two of us away from each other. I did not retaliate in any way. Kasondra is about to crack and I can completely understand why. Still, I kind of lost my temper when she could not see my point of view and I called her something. I think I might have used the word “stupid.” I didn’t call her stupid but said she was being stupid. I think there is a big difference.

Still, Sharon stepped in. (Again, thank God for her.) She was able to use that Grandmother tone that I just do not have and was able to settle everyone down. I am even writing all this to kind of blow off steam and keep my perspective. But everyone has agreed to the QZ plan. But all this is for nothing if Brad and his group don’t get over here safely tomorrow. We are still trying to decide when they should make their run.

In theory, the cover of darkness would give them an advantage but it also cloaks the zombies. They could be running into a crowd of them and not even notice. Broad daylight gives us plenty of vision but also keeps them highly visible. Maybe if I discuss this with Kasondra, it will show that I care about their survival and will give us common ground to focus on. But we have to hurry. The clock is ticking…
More soon.

Day 11 – Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Okay, sue me. In my last entry, I talked about the Meat Department coolers when I realized that I hadn’t even explained our sanitation solution. Sometimes we have too much stuff going on and it is difficult for me to decide what all to report on. But given how we are surrounded by the undead, I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear us say that cleanliness quickly became an issue.
And I think how we solved this problem is pretty darn genius.

Highlighted in red are our bathroom facilities. We have a total of 5 toilets and one urinal which has been more than enough for everyone thus far. The bathrooms have been established just for “waste extraction.” People get ready for their day in separate areas just to keep the congestion down. And if you ever have to follow Charles or Lance after a Mexican TV dinner, you want to find somewhere else to shave. (I can say that because Chucky is my battle buddy and I love him.)

We knew from the very beginning that the Produce Department and the Meat Department had limited shelf life. (Even now as I write this, the Produce Department is down to almost nothing and it has only been 11 days. We are still transforming it into our QZ.)
Charles disconnected the cooling units in the Meat Department cooler that you see highlighted in blue on the map. This area has concrete floors equipped with drains and features stainless steel walls and ceiling. The meat guys used to hose out these coolers every night to clean them so it seemed only natural to transform this area into our shower area. We have hot water and plenty of hose length.
We modified the aluminum racks and plastic trays used in the department to make shower stalls with shelf space for shampoo, conditioners, bars of soap and all the showering needs. Then we used length of bailing wire from our cardboard baler, elephant clips from the office and plastic table cloths to make shower curtains to provide a small level of modesty. The bailing wire really allows the curtains to slide back and forth very easily.
The cases where the vegetables and fruit are stocked in the produce department have this mirrored acrylic that we have disassembled and mounted in the shower stalls for shaving. It works pretty darn well.
Both Jennifer and Kim are kind of clean freaks (hard to believe considering they both worked in Pharmacy) so they went through and assigned flip flops for everyone to wear in the shower. They sized everyone and used Sharpie pens so everyone would know which pair is theirs. It is a very cool system. And thanks to the fact that the store was gearing up for the summer season, we had plenty of beach towels and flip-flops on hand. The towels are not very thick and pretty scratchy but it is better than drying off with paper towels.
We are working on a scheduling system to keep everyone happy but it quickly has degenerated down to a locker room mentality. Men try to avoid the women and vice versa and I think everyone just kind of pretends not to look. Speaking of the flip-flop dispensers, it’s pretty tough if Jennifer is in there and Kim’s fake boobs don’t make it easier either. (I thank goodness Janet doesn’t access this blog. Note: Kim is the one in the sunglasses.)
Personally, I’m way too self conscious about my weight so I pull the curtain on the stall first. Some are more modest than others. But the pendulum swings the other way too…

Case in point, Kanen barely keeps his clothes on period and he will just let the sausage swing regardless of who is in there. But he works out constantly and I think he has a tapeworm so he has nothing to be bashful about. (Want proof? I had Kim pull this pic off his cell phone. Cannot even be certain he is wearing pants in this pic.)
Most people just pretend not to notice or they try not to encourage him. There was one time where last Tuesday, I think Sharon had had enough and held like a twenty minute conversation with him in the shower while Kanen was in the buff. It was like a naked version of a Mexican standoff. Funniest thing I had ever seen.
Still, with an entire store stock to pull from, soap, shampoo, conditioner and all those beauty aids are just up for grabs.

It may be the end of the world but we certainly do not smell like it…

Day 10 – Fashioning the QZ

In order to accommodate the arrival of Brad and his crew, I am working on a Quarantine Zone that we have taken to nicknaming The QZ. (Note: We know it is Brad and his two coworkers Kelsey and Keith and local customers named Amber, Ashlynn, and Shannon.)
The only real choice was to convert the Produce Department’s Prep Area into the QZ. It has only been 10 days but the Produce Department is already starting to thin out tremendously. Dairy is going the same way. With the oldest dated milk we have on hand being the 18th, dairy is shrinking fast and I think we could even afford to condense the dairy and the produce into one cooler. So we have been working on that. When you assign 10+ people towards a task, it gets done pretty quick. Many hands make light work.
The produce cooler is a lot like the meat department cooler in that there are drains and we have one hose (but no control over water temperature). The two doors that lead out of the produce cooler are pretty old and all we have to do is remove the exit pins from them and the doors cannot be opened from the inside. (Yeah, if there are any fire marshals out there, come give us a ticket!) That leaves only one entrance from Produce to the rest of the store. And we can easily close that area off with a stack of pallets.
Now, the Produce “Back Room” has a lot. There is a prep sink, drains, and we have buckets from bakery that we could fill with cat litter from the pet food aisle. (Crude, I know.) We have this little TV with a DVD player that we use for product demos. We have magazines and a small assortment of books from that section of the store. Produce does have its own computer which does feature Solitare, Hearts, Spider, and Mindsweeper. And we have already set up pallet stacks along with full length pool rafts. (We have been using inflatable pool rafts to sleep on.)
The produce prep room is equipped with a security camera so we can monitor them from the Store Director’s Office to make sure everything is okay. We even have an intercom system so we can talk on the internal phone lines.
If Brad and his survivors want to come into our area, we have to quarantine them. Who knows? What if other survivors show up down the road? We need to be prepared for them as well.
So we let them come in the store and they have to hang out for two days to make sure they are not showing any symptoms. It is going to be harsh but I think we need it for the safety of our collective group.
Selling this idea will not be as easy. I need to sleep on it and figure out the best way to sell this to the crew.

Day 9 – Operation: Rescue Dawn

Okay, I am not certain how this is possible because when we asked him, Brad simply replied with a giant smiley face emoticon. I don’t know who he is with but apparently Brad has more weapons than we do. A lot more. And they have a plan. We are not going to get them. They are going to come to us. They just want us to have the doors opened for them when they get here.
They have enough food and supplies to get through to the weekend. They can last until Friday. Yeah, Friday the 13th. Don’t think that little nugget isn’t lodged in my mind.
But I have a serious problem with this. So I pulled Sharon to the side and we have discussed this quietly in her office because I know how Janet and Kasondra will react to what I am proposing.
Obviously because of all the glass, there is a reason why we barricaded the front doors. The only other entries are either through the back door into the Produce Department or through the Rear Vendor Entrance. This means they are going to have to circle around the back of the store to get in. And there is no telling how many zombies will either be chasing them or be between them and the door.
Granted, we fully plan to cover their entry into the building from the roof with what weapons we do have but there are still lots of hidey hole places where a zom could be lurking. And we still have not settled on a time frame. But that is the least of our problems.
If we are going to let them in here – around my fourteen-year-old son – I have to be 100% sure than none of them are infected. I am not letting anyone else into this store until they agree to serve time in a quarantine zone for a sufficient amount of time until we know they are not infected. I have to find a way to approach this to the group and I need some time to get ready for their arrival.
I already have a plan lined out but I need to get to work.

Day 9 – A Gift From Heaven

Holy crap. Brad Chambers made it. I cannot believe it. Well, no, I can believe it. Like I said earlier, if anyone was going to have the mindset to stay rational when a bunch o’ zombies are chowing down on customers in your parking lot, it is Brad.
Not only did he make it, he has five survivors with him. Two coworkers and three customers. Kasondra is sending messages back and forth with him via the white board right now.
Honestly, I cannot believe it. Don’t get me wrong. I am ecstatic. To be brutally truthful, God, you kind of owe us one or two. Brad and Kasondra were supposed to get married this month so I think it is divine will that these two have survived. (I swiped this pic from Kasondra’s iPhone.) Tell me these two don’t deserve to be reunited. (Secretly, I am wondering if we will ever get to just stand by a lake and take pictures again. Is a normal life even possible anymore?)
But we are not out of the woods yet. They are in a hardware store. I am by no means a hardware guy but I have been in there a few times. I am sure they have to have snack crackers and some breakroom food but after nine days, they have to be running low on supplies. We have to get them over here. God may send us some assistance but it is going to be up to us…

Day 9 – Hoping Against Hope

I think Kasondra slept on the roof last night. At some point between this entry and last, she literally ripped the white board off of the wall in the produce department and carried it up to the roof along with dry erase pens, a cleaning rag, and the pair of binoculars that Hunter brought inside when he entered the building back on Day 1. Thanks to Hunter and Alex, we have a few firearms and a small amount of ammunition. (I swear I will explain Zero Hour. It is just that things are happing way fast.) Still, we do not have enough weapons to pull off what Kasondra is going to ask me.
Kasondra is waiting nervously on the roof to see ACE Hardware by the dawn’s early light. Part of me is really afraid that she is setting herself up for a huge fall. But another part of me is really hope it is him…

Day 8 – A Light In The Darkness

Absolutely astounding news.
First of all, I need you to understand the mindset. After Phase 1 was complete and we barricaded ourselves in the store, everyone was more or less emotionally shattered. Once the zombies were trapped outside and we were safe, everyone was able to do what I call an “emotion dump.” We were able to stop and think about what was really happening. Once your own security was established, you began to start thinking about all your friends and family. I don’t even want to start typing about it or I might not be able to continue. Needless to say, the first Wednesday and Thursday of this chaos was f**king traumatic. I didn’t think it could get much worse.
God bless Sharon. Sharon is the head of the bakery department and she is naturally a wonderful cook. So she took it upon herself to begin preparing hot food for everyone. It is funny, in a grocery store stocked with everything you can imagine, I don’t if anyone ate for a few days. But on Friday the 6th, everything changed. Sharon cooked this wonderful meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni & cheese, corn, peas, bread rolls, some pies for desert. I mean this was as close as you can get to a Thanksgiving meal in May.
It was here that we all got together as a group. A lot of people were isolating themselves in their depression, speaking in hushed tones, or trying to cry where others would not see. But this was the first time that we all came together without working. Everyone worked to reinforce the windows and hang the tin foil. But unless we had a safety releated-mission, people stayed away from each other. But Sharon brought everyone together to eat. Maternal instinct I guess.
It was over that meal that we came up with the theory of the Year One Plan. I can honestly say that this meal turned everyone around. This is because we finally had an end goal in sight. And the general game plan was to adapt this store to be able to accommodate us for one year. This is why my entries have been sketchy lately. We have been busy adapting this place to make it livable for the next year.
And I have to say, some of the stuff that we have come up with has been pretty ingenious if I do say so myself. I will share some of the stuff that we have done over the next couple of days. But right now, I have much more important news to report.
Lance spends a lot of time on the roof zombie watching. Grocery stores stock fairly well in advance. When you all are picking out turkeys for Thanksgiving, we have Christmas candy waiting to be displayed in the back. So with Memorial Day on the horizon, we got a lot of patriotic stuff in. Lance took to hanging all the American flags from the top of the building. He even attached floral balloon weights to the bottom so they would not flap tremendously in the wind. To those in the know, a national flag hung upside down is a signal of distress. Zombies milling about aren’t going to notice it but perhaps a military convoy rolling down Highway 82 might. I was really proud of him for that idea.
Tonight, after it really started to get dark, Lance came sprinting down from his zombie watching, yelling about a flashing light. So we all clamored up to the roof. And then we saw it. The flashing light.
Across Highway 82 and less than a section line north of us is our local ACE Hardware store. The message was coming from their rooftop. Now, I am not a Morse code expert but damn near everyone knows S.O.S. from the play walkie-talkies your parents got you as a kid for Christmas. Dot, dot dot, dash dash dash, dot, dot, dot. And by means of a flashing light on the roof their building, we got that message.
I cannot help but think that whoever is over there saw zero light coming from our windows when we are normally lit up to a point where you can probably see us from the orbital space station. Then they saw Lance’s flags hanging upside down. There is one guy over there at ACE who would understand that message…
Now, it is too dark to tell who is sending the message but it is everything we can do to keep Kasondra and Janet contained. Kasondra’s fiancée and Janet’s son, Brad Chambers, works at ACE Hardware and he is this gung-ho, military, Sylvester Stallone-loving guy who wants nothing more than to be Rambo. And if I had money to bet, when the Zombie Apocalypse started, Brad would have the wherewithal to react the same way we did in barricading himself with the store.
It is too dark tonight to tell who is up there. But this is not some random sparking light. This is an intelligent signal. We should know more in the morning.
I am exhausted but wanted to report this. Now I am off to bed but I bet those girls don’t sleep a wink.
More soon…

Day 8 – The Battleground

This is our battleground. This is our sanctuary. This is our local grocery store Reason’s Foods. Even though it is spelled like “reason,” it is pronounced “Ree-sens.” We are the grocery store that all the people stop at before heading on to their lake houses and their ski boats. There are times where I wished I would have worked at Walmart or Weapons R Us but you get what you get.
I want you to be able to see our layout so you can better understand what we are dealing with.

PHASE 1: BARRICADES
On Day 1 of this nightmare, we began barricading the store but I have not really had an opportunity to describe what we did specifically. (I am still not comfortable talking about Zero Hour yet. I will but… not right now.) After a week of living in here, we are pretty confident that what we have done is working. With that being said, barricading the store was not easy but it was easier than I expected.
I know the sheer size looks difficult to defend but it is actually quite the opposite. Except for the front of the store, all of our doors are security doors which means they don’t have any handles on the outside and can only be opened from inside. And these are heavy steel doors. It is impossible for anything to break these doors down without some sort of battering ram. So, most of the exterior doors that you see on the map were secure to begin with.
Our store features 3 roll up doors that are roughly the size of your standard garage door. One is positioned for semi-trailers to back up against and sits so high off the ground that I doubt the zombies could even reach it with enough leverage to do any damage. But that is not even an issue because a semi-trailer was backed up against the loading dock at the time of the attack. So that area is secure. We didn’t know what happened to the driver but as he is unaccounted for, I can only assume the worst. (Note: Pardon the expression but we cannibalized the CB radio from the semi truck and have been attempting to make contact with the outside world with it if we can adapt a power source.)
The store uses a fully functioning forklift so we placed a couple of tons of pig iron against the second roll up door. That bad boy isn’t moving unless we want it to.
The only other roll up door was in the Produce Department. We blocked that one off with pallets of product. Shipments arrive to grocery stores on pallets. Imagine a bale of potatoes. They come in ten pound bags and five bags per sleeve for a total of fifty pounds. You can fit five bales on a pallet layer. That equals 250 pounds per layer. So, ten layers of potatoes equals 2,500 lbs. of product. That is a lot of weight. Much like the door barricaded with the forklift, this door is not moving unless we want it to. [Note for later, produce is going to be our entry and egress point for later but that is another blog entry.]
Now, the main points of concern were the three front doors and the large windows that serve as the front of the store. We believe that these zombies hunt on instinct. They hunt by way of sight, sound, and smell. So our first step was to cut off sight. We covered up all the windows using aluminum foil.
Foil is light, easy to work with, and completely blocks out the light. When we started covering up the windows, I really didn’t think we would have enough but a single roll of aluminum foil spreads out to 75 square feet. Combine that with packing tape from our office supply section and we were not even through the Always Save cheapo brand before we had all the windows covered.
Using the same weight formula as with the potatoes, you can imagine how much a pallet of pork and beans weighs. I don’t care how many zombies you get pushing on the door, they aren’t shoving the door open with – literally – a ton of dog food or soup lodged behind it.
If we get to a point where we can make it outside, we intend to park cars against the doors so that the zombies cannot lay hands on the doors or windows directly. So the doors were covered and secured.

We then double-stacked pallets of products using the store’s Walker-Stacker and placed them up against the large windows at the front of the store. This plan has seemed to work pretty well so far. I really thought the windows would be a giant liability but now that we have them reinforced, I really think we are safer than I thought we would be. Thing could change. If the zombies do get overly violent and hungry, they could still smash the windows in somehow but with all that weight up against it, I just don’t see it happening. Still, it is better to prepare for the worst case scenarios.
More later…

Day 6 - The Year One Plan

Last night, we all got together for a big dinner. God bless Sharon and her tremendous cooking abilities. We got together to all talk and our dinner conversation took a seriously dramatic turn. For the first time since the outbreak, we collectively talked about the future.
If our theory is correct, there has to either be a cure for this terrible disease or we have to outlast the infected. The best we can tell, these creatures are not alive. So, based on the laws of nature and science, microbial organisms have to be chewing through these things like no tomorrow. I seriously doubt that are story is going to end like War of the Worlds where all the aliens all keel over and die because of bacteria. But it might be something that simple.
Take a piece of meat and throw it out in the July sun. Without wild animals devouring it, how long would it take for that meat to become rotten and decayed enough that it wouldn’t stay connected to the bone? So that it wouldn’t support a skeletal structure? How long does a deer or dog carcass remain on the highway, cooking in the summer heat before it all just deteriorates into nothingness? Eventually, these zombie bodies are going to rot away and die off.
The virus may still be alive and contagious within their dead flesh but if their bodies are so deteriorated that they cannot support the skeletal structure… Well, I think you can see where we are going with this.
We are better off than most people. We are in a fully supplied grocery store. We have food, water, medicine (because of our pharmacy department) and thanks to a few of our survivors, we have weapons. We are safely barricaded inside.
So all we have to do is outlast the horde.
We have taken a vote and we agree on a target frame of ONE YEAR.
We are going to isolate ourselves for one year, still broadcasting on any available frequency, hoping to outlast this apocalypse until we can find a refuge or safe haven provided by the government… if there even is still a government left. Sorry about that presidential bid, The Donald. I really wondered how an election would have played out between you and Obama.
So until then, we are going to remain safe within our new home.
Hey, no one is saying that this is going to be easy. It is going to be a long year. But what is the alternative? I for one don’t want to be shuffling my feet walking around mumbling “Brains…” But in order to survive in here, we are going to have to do some serious modifications.
So it is time to go to work…
More soon.

Day 5 - Survivor List – Alphabetical Order

For members of the authorities (if there is such a thing anymore), the following is a listing of the survivors inside the Reason’s Foods Grocery Store in Langley, OK. We have also emailed this link to every email addy that we had on hand, hoping it might reach a family member that is still stranded in their homes.

1. Audrey Blair – 22, Female, Langley, OK
2. Jennifer Brown – 25, Female, Langley, OK
3. Kim Chambers – 25, Female, Adair, OK
4. Janet Chambers – 50, Female, Langley
5. Dillon Hernden – 18, Male, Ketchum, OK
6. Kanen Kraig – 19, Male, Jay, OK
7. Nolan Lang – 20, Male, Vinita, OK
8. Charles Lucas – 27, Male, Jay, OK
9. Sharon Massey – 59, Female, Locust Grove, OK
10. Alex Mathews – 14, Male, Adair, OK
11. Ryan Mathews – 36, Male, Adair, OK
12. Judy Myers – 37, Female, Langley, OK
13. Jean Nibert – 49, Female, Langley, OK
14. Judy Savage – 55, Female, Strang, OK
15. Kasondra Taylor – 22, Female, Langley, OK
16. Lance Wiggins – 18, Male, Spavinaw, OK
17. Hunter Woolsman – 17, Male, Vinita, OK

Day 4 – The Enemy At The Gates

I don’t want to waste a bunch of time talking about how there is no such thing as zombies. Tell that to the mindless things shuffling outside our doors and see if you can convince them they don’t exist. While you are at it, go ahead and slather yourself with barbeque sauce. I am sure things will turn out well.
Okay, I am not a medical expert but I play one on television. My real medical knowledge is limited to what I have seen on televisions shows like ER, House or Scrubs. In fact, when my wife was going to nursing school and the doctor on TV would ask the interns a medical question, I would pause the TV and see if Amy could answer it. So I know a little bit about uric acid, menegitis, and too much pure protein turns your gas into a Level 4 biohazard (thanks, Lance.) But this is what we are dealing with. I don’t know who it was amongst us that threw out the word zombie – it might have been me but I am not certain. But that is the closest word I can find to accurately describe what we are up against.
These “creatures” were once human beings. I know that because I have watched people turn. Clearly, they have been infected with something that transforms them into these nightmares. Ordinarily, I would say something like “slit your wrists now” or “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” but there are a few saving graces. This is not the end of the world. This is just the end of the world as we know it. But we do have some hope.
This is what we know. It is NOT an airborne pathogen. If it was, we would all be infected and I wouldn’t even be writing this. You have seen this all the times in the movies. I don’t know if George Romero or Zack Snyder were privy to some top secret information. I kind of doubt it. Maybe there are documented cases that just never made it into the public. Maybe it is in that President’s Book of Secrets that Nicholas Cage was searching for. Maybe the CDC knows more than we do. But that is neither here nor there.
Near as we can tell, this is a disease that is transferred via bodily fluids, bites and maybe scratches. These creatures react more on instinct then cognitive thought. It is like their brains are only running on emergency power. Not all the neurons are firing. They react instinctively and all they seem to do is hunt. They seem to have some natural instincts and have some sort of brain function. I watched one pick up a rock and use it to attack a car window. But I seriously doubt these things are going to be doing geometry on a scientific calculator.
So, Point #1, they are dumb.

Zombies are not overly strong. At least, they are not stronger than they were in real life. If you are imagining that these things have some sort of vampire strength, they don’t. That is not to say that you are not going to come across some weightlifter zombie in the future with Olympic athlete strength. But near as we can tell, these creatures are either as strong as they were in real life or less so because of their muscle deterioration.
Point #2, they are not super strong.

They don’t have fear and feel no pain. All they want to do is devour flesh. I have seen these things take gunshots to the chest or the leg and still keep coming. They emit this horrible noise that is some sort of blend of human wail combined with an animalistic shriek. And if they get you, they want to feed. We watched helplessly as a swarm of them devoured people in our parking lot. It was disturbing to say the least.
Point #3, no pain and they just want to eat.

Thankfully, they are not tremendously fast. This is what we have discovered. (I credit Charles for this theory.) In video games, your character has an “aggro range” where if you get within a certain proximity of a bad guy, they turn and come after you. But you have to get within that aggro range for them to come after you. So 90% of the time, the zombies just shuffle around looking for food. I have actually seen one give up and take a seat in a car. (Again, I think it is just instinct kicking in.)
But then if something gets within that aggro range, they get back up and start shuffling towards their target. Now, these guys don’t flat out sprint but the closer they get to their target, the harder they work. So you can outrun them. I don’t think they can “track” you over incredible distances. Once you get out of their aggro range and they lose you, they are going to go back to that instinctive hunting cycle. One zombie will not track you down if you drive away in a car.
The trick is to stay out of their aggro range in the first place. They seem to hunt the same way we would – sight, sound, and smell. Do your best to remain undetected and you start to gain a fighting chance. But it is not a question of if. It is a question of when. You are going to encounter one of these things eventually.
Point #4, you can outrun them and get off their radar.

What we have discovered is that what you see in the movies appears to be true. A shot to the head puts the zombie down. And near as we can tell, that is the only surefire way to stop them. So whatever you want to call this disease, once the affliction takes hold, in order to put these things down, you have to shoot them in the head. I know the movies make it look easy but it is much harder than it looks. You have to scramble the brain. If that means gunshots, sledge hammers, whatever. Destroy the brain, you destroy the zombie.
Because of this strategy, one of these horrors by itself is relatively easy to take down. Okay, I am not going to say that it is done easily but it can be done. But if you get in a pack of twenty of them or a hundred of them… Well, you have to reload sometime and that is when they are going to get you.
Point #5, shoot ‘em in the head.

Still, I do not want you to think that now is the time to go on the offensive. For now, we are choosing to play a defensive game. The key is to keep a low profile. Reduce your noise signature as much as possible. Hide out wherever you can. And I am not terribly certain how to reduce your smell. But do this and your odds increase ten fold.
They do seem to be more active at night. We don’t really know why so extinguish lights whenever possible. Using aluminum foil to cover the windows works well if you have enough of it. Keep your windows covered and just don’t go ringing the dinner bell. At least, that has worked for us. Reduce your signature. Do that and you have a chance.
I saw on Mythbusters once that alligators and crocodiles are opportunistic hunters. If they come to grab you and you can survive the initial attack and escape to land, they don’t chase after you. They are more comfortable retreating back into the water and just waiting for easier prey to come along. Predators are lazy, man. They don’t want to work unless they know they are going to eat.
Thankfully, these zombies have a similar mentality. They come and bang against the doors and the windows but when they realize that they cannot get in, they move down the road, looking for easier prey. So if you can hole up somewhere, you can outlast them and then move safely when they have moved on. Of course, as the days and weeks wear on and food starts to get scarce, their mentality may start to change. Use this information as best you can in your attempt to survive…
More soon.

Day 4 – Blogging to the Outside World – We Are Still Here

This is Day 4 of our time barricaded inside the Reason’s grocery store. The zombie infestation seems to grow every day. We look outside and the collection of these things staggering about…

I scarcely know where to begin. But we are trying to put things together. It is just very difficult with such limited information. I don’t really want to talk about Zero Hour yet. At least, that is what we are calling it. But this is my account of the events leading up to Zero Hour.

So the morning of Day 1, something had gone screwy. I just didn’t realize it at the time. I always wake up and turn on my local news to get the weather and the top stories. However, on that day, the four networks that run live broadcasts in the morning just had their station logos up. The channels that were just showing old reruns or syndicated programming were still up and running but there was no live news. NFL Network was running a recap of the draft. I guess in retrospect I should have flipped it over to FOX News or CNN but I didn’t think anything about it at the time. I mean it was strange but I didn’t really have time to think about it because I had to get to work. I certainly didn’t think it was a sign of the apocalypse.
I normally listen to the Big Mad Morning Show on 92.1 The Beat and I was getting a lot of static on my radio, like multiple stations were overlapping a single signal. So it was a lot of squelching and static. I had just made a new CD filled with some really cool music so rather than listen to a distorted signal, I just listened to my CD player instead of my radio during my 22-minute commute to work.
When I got to work at 7:00 a.m. that morning, people were complaining about their phones running slow. I still use an old school Xenon cellular telephone. It is not an iPhone or a Droid – one of those phones you can surf the web with. But some “techies” at the store live and breathe by their smart phones. All these phone geeks were complaining that they couldn’t log on to all their social networking sites. (Yes, we are not supposed to carry personal cell phones with us but everyone does. They just keep them on vibrate. You would be amazed at how many tweets and FB status updates are done while someone is pooping.)
No one could log into Facebook. Some of the guys were complaining about not being able to access the Twitter accounts. Now, I use Facebook but I don’t use Twitter because I am not important enough for anyone to follow so I cannot speak to that. But people didn’t know if the sites had been hacked or crashed or if it was a local thing. And if you tried to do searches on Google, it would either just spin endlessly or pull up that 404 error. (Don’t ask me what that even means.)
News organizations off the air, Twitter crashing, unable to see status changes on Facebook? I didn’t realize it at the time but, looking back on it now -- four days removed -- I realize how much trouble we were in.
As for right now, thankfully, I am lucky enough to have my son with me and he brought my laptop computer and my portable air card which has allowed me to connect to the internet. While Google is highly limited in their searches right now, I ran several blogs in the past – just personal sites so my family could see what I was up to, post movie reviews, talk about books or comics I was reading, or just philosophical thoughts in general. When I found that www.blogger.com was still active, I thought to create this blog that you are reading now in hope of contacting the outside world.
Earlier this year, it seemed like social networking was the best way to get the “on the ground” perspective of things like the revolutions in Egypt or the environmental disasters after the Japan earthquake. Everyone is talking about how social networking has changed the world and here it has collapsed. Is it because everyone is tweeting about zombies and the massive influx of tweets crashed the servers? Or did the government go in and seize control to keep all the information from getting out? I am not some right wing conspiracy nutbar but it stands to reason that if a massive viral outbreak occurred, the government would do everything possible to keep it covered up to avoid mass hysteria. We may never know if that is what has happened.
Nevertheless, this is why I am here. I am trying to contact the outside world because our CB broadcasts have seemed to have garnered no responses. (Yes we actually have a CB radio. Kids, ask your parents about it.) The cell network won’t connect and when you pick up a landline phone, I would say three times out of four you get this busy signal like the network is down. And if we are lucky enough to call out, no one answers the phone numbers that we dial.
We are still here. And while I hope that there is someone out there that can get us help or get us to a permanent safe zone, there is really only one person out there that I want to read this. Amy, if you are seeing this, if you have made it back to the house and you got the links or my emails, I have Alex. We are safe. We are at the store.
I hope that Tulsa is not a hot zone but I know that is where you were going. You could be driving into a hellscape. If you are at home, if you are reading this, go through Strang. Do not go through Adair. That route worked for Alex. He has your dad’s pickup. Please make it here if you can but take your time if it means getting to us safely.
I love you, honey. I hope you are still alive.
More soon…