Tamberlin's Account Read online

  By Jaime Munt

  ENTRIES

  Into a Rabbit Hole......................................... Sep 16 6:40pm

  Who Said Ignorance is Bliss? ....................... Oct 6 12:25pm

  Conclusion of a Tale ..................................... 2:02am/

  Long Day’s Journey ...................................... Oct 28 5:33pm

  Beating Plowshares into Swords .................. Dec 15 2:44pm

  Siege in a StarCraft ....................................... Dec 19 10:58pm

  Human Worries ............................................. Jan 3 7:37am

  Bitten ............................................................ Jan 18 11:54pm

  My First Life ................................................. Jan 26 9:18am

  Civilization..................................................... Feb 5 5:50pm

  Eve’s Return to Eden ................................... Feb 16 11:19am

  No Longer a Rat............................................ Feb 18 4:43

  Last Pages

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Let me apologize in advance. You’re probably going to read a lot of swearing and other bad stuff. If you can’t watch R-Rated movies, you might want to put this back where you found it.

  Sep 16 6:40pm

  Today, I watched the last living person I knew of get eaten.

  I can’t breathe.

  It’s are there words for what I’m feeling right now?

  Why do I feel claustrophobic?

  I guess I know I’m next.

  I feel like the whole world is rising up against me.

  She’s gone. It doesn’t seem right that it should be left to a stranger to mourn that life. I don’t even know her name. And the strongest impression she’s left me is the image of them ripping her to pieces.

  I guess that’s why I’ve decided to start writing in this.

  There’s no burial, no headstone to tell anyone who we are. Who we were. No obits.

  I spent so much time wondering what was going on in that house. Who she was? How did she end up there?

  I always thought it was sad when people died and they had no family or friends. Everything about them was lost. I don’t like the idea of people dropping off the face of the earth. I think its shitty when people throw each other away.

  I feel responsible to remember her and if someone finds this, maybe they will remember me a little while.

  7:01pm

  I keep thinking of this t-shirt I always wore that said, “The hardest thing about a zombie apocalypse will be pretending I’m not excited.”

  I think about that all the time. Because I used to feel like that all the time. I really did.

  I wasn’t particular about how the world would change, but it had to be something huge, because I hated the way things were… especially with my life. Now it makes me sick how bad I wanted it, for obvious reasons. Regardless, I still wear it, because I’m in no position to be throwing things away. I suppose no one is.

  I take that back. I’m sure there’s somebody. There’s always someone who has more and there are always people who waste without thinking about anyone who has less.

  That is if there is anyone else.

  I’m sure there’s somebody.

  Who am I to be the last?

  I’m not strong. I’m not skilled. I’m not brave.

  If I survived there have to be others. Doesn’t there?

  At first it helped to think about all the people who were probably dead that the world was better off without—call me optimistic.

  But all bad people dead, are more dead, which means more dead.

  And I can’t think about that without thinking about all the people I can’t imagine the world without.

  Sep 17 3:21pm

  Am I supposed to say “Dear Diary” or something? Bear with me okay. I’ve never kept a journal before. What do I say? What matters?

  Most the time I guess I don’t feel like my thoughts really matter. It almost seems vain.

  So maybe we should start impersonal. Small talk?

  So what do you think is going on?

  This, I think, is some kind of parasite.

  Okay, it thrives in a corpse—the eggs and larva are maybe in the stomach and drones or something are in the brain???

  And they stimulate the dead to want to eat the meat that feeds the parasites that creates a new host that breeds more parasites—that killed the rat that lived in the house that Jack built.

  -or-

  People don’t want to eat people, but the world is overpopulated and there are a lot of hungry people in it. So maybe some demented scientist created something that gives people a taste for human flesh to resolve the problem.

  Maybe there was an accident in the lab that ended up combining it with the experiments with resurrection…

  Soylent Green anyone?

  It doesn’t matter why.

  I don’t mean that.

  I think it matters a lot.

  But there’s nothing I can do about it. It is what it is.

  It’s winning.

  We should be able to beat this.

  Maybe we will.

  Sep 18 7:38am

  How long does it take for a brain to rot?

  If we can hold our own—I think we just have to wait until all their brains rot—that’s no different than spiking them, right?

  We just can’t let their populations grow. If we can get a system of fighting them off, controlling this, then I think we will be okay.

  We’ll just have new rules, when society rebuilds. When someone dies they’ll destroy the brain—it’ll be as normal as embalming.

  Who am I kidding?

  What’s a bigger joke—that this will ever be fixed or that I keep saying “we.”

  Sep 19 about 8 am

  I have no idea what the statistics were before all the statistic keepers died, but when I was little it was something like one in five girls will be molested. I had five really close friends, at the time. Five out of five of them had been sexually abused—if the same margin of error was applied to every statistic—I dunno. Just thinking.

  What were the odds before that the dead wouldn’t stay dead?

  I guess the gist of what I’m saying is, we never had a chance.

  P.S. God Bless canned food with tabs.

  Sept 20 5:07pm

  Romero gets a lot of credit for zombies. I’ve heard people say he invented the idea of living dead. Never heard of Frankenstein? How about the Bible?

  I will say he did make them cool though.

  Maybe a lot of people knew this would happen someday – every one of them praying not in their lifetime. The Mesopotamians may have been the first.

  The couple thousands and then some years old (I used to remember) Epic of Gilgamesh describes what happened to the world just a few months ago. It said:

  “I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,

  I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,

  and will let the dead go up to eat the living!

  And the dead will outnumber the living!"

  …I think that about sums it up.

  Sep 27 5:15pm

  On a family trip when I was like seven, I had to the use the bathroom in a bar full of rowdy looking biker men. I thought I would never feel that vulnerable going to the bathroom again. Even though I’m in a house, I just keep thinking, what if something happens right now?

  It would figure.

  The whole world got caught with its pants down.

  I’m on the pot right now- I’ve been backed up, I think. Maybe there’s nothing to pass.

  I have really tried not t
o think about this, but food just isn’t going to appear in the cupboards. I’m going to have to go for a run. One time had been one time too many and it almost cost me everything—even if “everything” is adding up to less and less. What little “everything” is has even more value. Ah, the power of supply and demand.

  So I’m scared to go out there.

  Well, looks like nothing is going to happen.

  Am going to check my supplies.

  Sep 28 1:21pm

  I had raspberries and red clover for lunch.

  It took forever to pull all the little pink blossoms out of the clover, but wasting time isn’t always a bad thing. It distracted me and my rumbling stomach.

  I’m always nervous about eating things from outside—I’d never eat anything I didn’t recognize, even if I had one of those field books I wouldn’t take any chances—there’s no room for taking chances.

  What bothers me is what touched it before I found it. I don’t know how this “sickness?” works, but if a dead person went through it wouldn’t necessarily damage the plant. It might just drip on it. Brush against it. I just think about that kind of stuff.

  Would I rather starve? I don’t know what it feels like to come down with this—when someone’s bit or they get their fluids in us. In some zombie fiction even scratching and clawing will do it.

  All I know is they suffer.

  You suffer when you starve.

  Call it stubborn or stupid—I’d take death that’s not an abomination to reality.

  I want to clean my food. I can’t waste water to wash food. I don’t think I could drink the wash water after—would kinda defeat the purpose.

  So what do you do?

  It looked okay. Down it goes.

  No hospitals. No doctors or nurses. No EMTS. Healthcare workers were the first to go because they were the first to see it. Somewhere in that Danse Macabre were the policemen and firemen and other emergency people, including the National Guard.

  Odds are there are some of them somewhere, but I’m feeling a little bitchy about statistics right now. I go back and forth with the “I’m sure’s” and “I-can’t-really-know’s.”

  How about this? I’m sure I’m not the only person left, even if I don’t have any proof. So that other somebody or bodies might know how to take care of medical stuff, but I can’t really know.

  I don’t feel worthy of being the last.

  Anyway, so I can’t really know.

  Just like I don’t know what to call them. Ghouls, zombies, undead, draugr (maybe my favorite), maybe just dead? I’ll try to think of something unique.

  I am sure what I am though—I’m living and I have no intention of joining their club.

  Sep 28 1:33pm

  Do you like this?

  Busy Bodies.

  Sep 29 7:28am

  It’s so pretty, but it’s feeling like autumn—a little too sincerely today.

  What’s pretty? The sunrise and everything it’s touching.

  I wish I had a gun. There are 13, 14, 16 deer in the field across from me. I bet they have asshole looks on their faces—every one of them is watching me and knows I can’t do a damn thing.

  I’m sure the people who lived around here had guns, but I’m not desperate enough, yet, to try and find out.

  Maybe that’s not planning ahead, but I don’t want to get smoked by someone just trying to protect their place.

  If you thought strangers were not to be trusted before—I’ve watched enough “end of the world” movies to be conditioned to worry that many people can quickly and irrationally degenerate into murderous, raping, feral psychopaths.

  Realistically, we’re all scared, aren’t we?

  I haven’t killed a living person. What will I do if I met someone? What if they were good? What if they were bad?

  How could you know? You couldn’t. So how could you take the chance.

  It’s better to be alone—no chances—not even with plants—so why would I take a chance with a person? Even if I didn’t see anything, I’d have to know they were armed. Who wouldn’t be?

  Their intentions? Anyone’s guess.

  I never tried to contact that woman. Was she my neighbor? Hell if I know. Never met many neighbors. I didn’t trust strangers before.

  Strangers with candy.

  Damn. Damn.

  I’ll say I couldn’t resist—what, that’s the first social warning we learn, right? Beware of strangers. How could they know how powerful the temptation of candy would someday be?

  How tempting human companionship would be?

  I remember when I just ached to have babies. The need was so strong, pretty quickly I started to research how to do it without “help,” because I was single. I’d never want to deal with a baby in this situation but I often dream of dealing with a man. It’s pretty realistic that I’ll die without having been loved by anyone but friends. Not the same thing, is it? There are a lot of things I’ll never know. Most of the time it’s not a big deal. When you’re horny—that’s a BIG DEAL.

  I’m not, right now.

  I’m a couple days from my period and the monthly surge of “Give me a man, any man” has subsided and fear is taking its place.

  Busy Bodies are so aggressive when it’s that time of the month. They can tell. It’s been enough months now that I know—no coincidence.

  Their eyes only have life when they sense life and they’re so fucking creepy—creepier then, but you know that. Don’t you? Maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about.

  You definitely don’t need to be told they’re creepy.

  Oh shit—the deer just took off with a cloud of what looked like a thousand birds—there are zom Busy Bodies in the woods over there.

  There’s a red fox crossing the road. It’s going to come right past me—it looks like it’s on fire.

  Within ten feet. That was special. I’m going to hold onto that one. That memory. It looked right at me.

  I’m inside now. The dead are coming fast.

  The fox may have got me—when it got my dog barking. I’ve battened all the hatches and am now playing the waiting game. I can only wait.

  I don’t know what’s working for other people, but I’ve moved all the cabinet doors onto window frames so I can close up shop quick and securely—I hope, securely.

  Windows that make me particularly vulnerable and/or aren’t good “look outs” I’ve covered with doors, which means there are very few doors left to close between me and them, if they get in.

  Adios bathroom door. Exit doors and my bedroom door are most important. That’s the best I can figure.

  So I have a dog,

  I’m not completely alone and that’s why, right now, I’m not desperate enough to take chances with strangers, but as you know that’s not even an issue for me right now. What is an issue right now is “killing” those busy bodies—because they’re not going to go away. Not when a meal is calling out—barking out at them.

  His bark is high pitched now—doggie puberty—it’s much lower when it’s something living. This breaking, squeaking bark is the dog’s version of a frantic, hysterical scream, I think. But dogs are always doing a duty—so they move forward when they bark—or they brace their paws and stand their ground when they bark—but I’m convinced they still have to do these things when they’re actually terrified, actually screaming—if they’re a dog that holds their ground, no matter how scared they are.

  This thing that kept people from staying dead cost dogs that cower and hide and dogs on chains their lives.

  I guess it has probably taken its share of the brave dogs too.

  Its cost us a lot of heroes.

  This dog is a brave bigmouth.

  His well-meaning bark will be the death of me. If it is, I hope he can take care of himself.

  Okay—I need to deal with this. These pieces of rotten crap will wander off if you hide well enough, most of the time. But the dog is going off- they’ll just stick around.

  Every time
is risky. I hate taking chances.

  I’ll write again soon?

  Sep 30 8:09am

  Hi – in case you haven’t heard it in a while, how are you?

  Don’t need to say things went well yesterday – I’m not going to get sick.

  If I get bit, it’ll be the first and last thing I write that day. That’ll more or less sum up everything, won’t it?

  I hate cleaning up. I’m really nervous about the right way to dispose of the bodies. Should I try to burn them? What if I breathe the smoke – for all I know that could get me sick. There’s no room for fucking up—so far just breathing their rotting flesh doesn’t make me sick in any way I wouldn’t expect it to.

  I’m a little childish with my mess. I just hide it. Out of sight, mostly out of mind.

  That’s cleaning up them.

  Cleaning myself is another challenge. I got several leeches on me when I washed up in the creek the first time.

  When I realized I didn’t have much choice but to use the creek or go dirty, I was caught off guard by some busy bodies because the cattails and reeds are like 8 feet tall where it’s deep enough to bathe. Okay, I could wash up in shallower water—I often do. But if I see someone before they see me and I’m in deeper water I could hide in a split second. I’ve never had to do that. I had a close call with the busy bodies that day… I’ve had a lot of close calls. They have surprised me too many times, but that was before the dog.

  I don’t know what his name was, no collar, but now he’s Mr. Ages.

  When I was little, he was one of my first favorite fictional characters.

  I like rats. I have always like rats, mice… rodents. But mostly rats. I have been drawn to them since I was a child. I think I feel kinship to them. I have always thought about how we, humans, are so much like them. Our adaptability. How we thrive. What we are willing to do to survive. Probably a lot more like each other than most people would want to admit.

  I hope you know Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. If you ever have to shelter in a library maybe see if they have it. Robert O’ Brian.

  I don’t know that a library could ever feel thoroughly “cleared”. Be careful.

  I don’t know how it is for other people, but even with so few things to enjoy, with the way things are, I feel like someone’s slapping my hand and saying, “You’re never going to eat one of those again.”