Day 40 – Zombology 101: Herd Mentality

To try to deal with my growing depression, I have been trying to find a way to vent my anger. Some people might punch a heavy bag or break things. I have found that putting a bullet between the eyes of these walking monstrosities is wonderfully cathartic. Now, the rule with the zoms is to put a bullet in the head. Destroying the brain destroys the zombie. It is the only fool proof way to put them down. But this is harder than it looks. I know horror movies show their heroes running through the streets shooting at zombies trying to block their path and scoring shots right in the middle of the forehead with every bullet fired. This is much harder than Hollywood makes it look. Even with a steady mounting, a powerful scope, and a slow moving, unsuspecting target, this is not an easy shot to make. But in sighting in these shambling horrors, I have been studying them more and more…
Before all of this happened, I was a country boy. Well, I liked air conditioning and I could tell you more about programming HTML language than tracking down whitetail bucks. But when you have 120 acres as your backyard, you are not exactly “citified.” I had a riding lawnmower because my lawn was too big to push mow, I would dodge snakes when running out in the back pasture. I could lie in my bed at night and hear the coyotes howl. (In Oklahoma, they are pronounced “kai-oats” not “kai-o-tees.”) And Alex and I would often go down to the creek to measure how high the water rose after heavy rains. I’ve separated cows into their herds, banded a few (don’t ask), bottle fed a small handful, and helped my father-in-law put out feed. Again, I would say I qualify as more country than city.
As I mentioned, I would often run in my back pasture. But being a big guy, it is embarrassing to run on the road. I don’t want what few neighbors I have to see me attempting to exercise and when you are from a small town and people see you walking on the side of the road every other car will pull over to see if you need a lift home.
So I would run out in the back pasture where the cows would graze and I saw my fair share of “herd mentality.” In many ways, zombies are not too different from cows in their behavior. They utilize a herd mentality.
I don’t know how the decided who the alpha is but if you can get one or two headed in one direction (say chasing someone) then it is not too hard to get all the rest of them shambling in that direction. They can be lured. And if they can be lured, that means they can be lured away. That is a huge advantage for us… and I think that it is time we start exploiting that advantage…
More soon.

Day 37 – Depression, A Kind Hand, and Bullets

I have been sleeping a lot lately. I am trying to function and stay strong for Alex but we are pretty darn secure in the store now. People are actually starting to get into routines and our living conditions are tolerable. There are not a lot of improvements left to be made. Sure, we are sleeping on pool air mattresses and the showers are not exactly optimal and we need to seriously address the clothes situation very soon but we are living. It means downtime and as I am struggling with the inevitable loss of my wife, I would rather sleep than face the reality of my situation.
Despite my best attempts to hide this from the group, apparently I don’t have much of a poker face. I guess this is pretty evident to the group because Jennifer came to me quietly while Alex was up on the roof with Lance, Kasondra and Brad. Having full access to the pharmacy, she handed me a prescription bottle filled with these blue capsules.
She wants me to get on an antidepressant. I guess knowing me from before the zombie apocalypse and seeing me now – this shell of my former self – she wanted me to get back on even keel. I am not anti-drug and I am sure they helped millions of people every year. I know they tremendously helped my sister-in-law. But I see medicine for depression being effective when it is anxiety or depression that cannot be explained. “I just won the lottery… and I want to kill myself.” You should be happy as all get out. And if you are not, then something must be wrong and maybe medication is best for you.
But I am not depressed because of some chemical imbalance. I am depressed because my best friend and the love of my life might be wandering around as a flesh eating zombie. Or a shamble of these things are pounding on the front door right now trying to get at her and I cannot save her because I am trapped in here.
Lance seems happy as a big in slop because he spends a considerable amount of time on the roof picking off zombies and bragging about head shots. Maybe I need to turn my attention towards something productive. Still, I look at the pictures I keep in my wallet. I look at the pics I used as my wallpapers on my cell phone. I look into those eyes and I think I will never hold her again. I will never kiss her again. I will never smell the aroma of her shampoo fresh from the shower. I will never feel her breath on the back of my neck as I sleep.
And I think about all the stupid, asinine fights that we had over the years. I regret every missed opportunity to show her how much I cared and loved her with all my heart. And now, for all I know, she is gone. For all I know, she looks down on me from heaven with my mother. And it hurts. It hurts so much it is like I want to tear my own heart out of my chest. And I just want to sleep. Even now, I want to lie down. I just cannot take it anymore.
I need to be strong for my son. After all, he has lost a mother and I know exactly how hard that can be. So I cannot let him see me weak. But I don’t even want to wake up in the morning. Truth be told, with her gone, I want to die too…

Day 36 – Trying to Deal With Mood Swings

I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty positive person. Ask anyone that knew me (if you can find one still alive), I always enjoyed being the life of the party and making people laugh. And I have never really had to deal with depression. But this is Day 36 and there is an unshakable reality that I find myself having to deal with more and more every day.
My wife is probably dead.
Now, if she did in fact make it out of Tulsa, if she did make it home, and if she is safe inside our house or her parents, then there is a legitimate chance that she is still alive. Her mom and dad are the stereotypical grandparents. Their freezer and deep freeze are stocked with food. Her dad is this ultraconservative right winger which means he is fully stocked with guns and ammo. Even with Alex grabbing the weapons he did, I know the guns we have were only a small part of Dennis’ collection.
But it has now been a month. The worst part is not knowing. Right now, I hope that she is alive but I have to assume that she is dead or transformed into one of those hideous creatures. I am afraid I have lost my best friend. If I knew that she was, in fact, dead then I could move on or truly start the grieving process. Alexander Pope once wrote “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” But I am guessing he never saw everyone he knew or cared about transformed into walking flesh bags intent on devouring said breasts.
For that reason (and because I am tremendously influenced by pop culture), I am reminded of The Shawshank Redemption when Morgan Freeman talked about hope being a dangerous thing.
Still, Kasondra had hope. Her and Brad were reunited. But by them having their storybook ending does that mean that all the happiness juice was used up and now there is none left for me? I am still hoping that my wife is alive and fighting to get to me. But, like they say in the movies, hope is a dangerous thing.
I think everyone in here is hoping that we are going to survive this. And while I will never admit this to everyone locked inside Reason’s with me… None of us are going to make it out of here alive. We’re all going to be recruited into that army of the damned that is shuffling around outside banging on our windows and doors.
We’re all going to die…

Day 31 – Eighteen vs. Thirty-Six

So to honor Memorial Day and to remember those that we have lost (family, friends and such), the crew decided to deplete a few reserves of our beer stores. So for the first time in a very long time, I got plastered. Not proud of it and this is why my blog entry is late today and probably going to be pretty short.
I am not against drinking or anything. I am the farthest thing from an alcoholic. The truth is I have the bladder of a woman than is nine months pregnant. If I drink one beer, I am pissing three. So it is not often that I tie one on. And the body of a thirty-six year old guy does not rebound nearly as quickly as that of an eighteen-year-old. But the grills were going and we all spent some time on the roof in the sunshine. If you kept your angle low and didn’t bother to look over the side, you could almost forget we were in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.
It was a good time for everyone. Thanks to Oklahoma’s rather stiff laws regarding alcohol, 3.2 beer is all we have. There is a liquor store next to the convenience store that we share a parking lot with but it is a pretty tough run to score some hooch.
Still, today the temperatures have started to reach into the nineties for the first time of the season which is leaving us with a rather pungent problem. We have a number of bodies littering our parking lot. Many of these are zombies that Lance and Brad have been taking out from their sniper positions on the roof. Once those bodies start to ripen and cook in the heat on the asphalt, we could be in for some serious stench issues, not to mention the health risks.
So we are going to have to figure out how to dispose of these bodies. Burying them does not seem very practical. The time to dig the graves, place the bodies, and then cover them back up would leave team members pretty exposed. Burning them seems to be a pretty viable option but I don’t really know how to start…
Ugg. My head hurts and I am in serious need of some Gatorade. More tomorrow…

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…