Journal Entry #8

March 26, 2011

Destruction; absolute and wholly consuming destruction. The low, orange glow has yet to cease its ambition to conquer the entirety of the eastern horizon. Out side the gates of our community some alien world exists in a suspended cataclysm, reeking pungently of decay. An intact body is hard to find, not that I am on some grand mission to find one. Disease will surely set in, and if we are to suffer our provisional internment here, then we must disallow it.

Together with a few other neighbors that chose to stay behind (or perhaps were equally forced by some similar run of bad luck) we gathered as many of the dead as we could and piled them into an empty retention pond some ways from our homes. We used anything we could find at the time: nail polish remover, wood varnish, lighter fluid, a little gasoline, some wood pallets, anything to keep the burn going.

In hindsight perhaps it was not the best idea. The smell was sickening and was carried by the wind into the directions of our homes. It also attracted attention, attention we were ill prepared to receive.

I’m still unsure what is driving these….people. From what some of the others tell me, the day at the check point saw more and more barbaric assaults across the county. Large multitudes followed their would-be victims for miles, bringing them down like prey, one by one. The fleeing refugees led most of them south-west, away from us; most of them.

The first of them came from the southern tree line. The fire gave him pause. He was almost dumbfounded by it. An ear splitting cry from one of the on looking women returned his rapacious attention back to us. He moved slowly; they all seem to move slowly, until they get close. Our woefully under prepared group made its way back across the street, retreating into the natural bottle neck of the front entrance. When the others showed up only a handful of us remained at the gate, those of us with the means to repel these animals.

These are no longer rational people we are dealing with. They do not respond to verbal commands. They are not just unafraid of gun fire, but are driven into a furious rage by prolonged exposure to it. They attack senselessly and are unwaveringly violent and persistent. When a couple broke past our unsecured flank and got a hold of Jim, we tried to force them back, but they were so efficient in their task that his body was taken to pieces in a matter of moments. The injuries they can withstand are beyond reason. One had been shot several times before he took a shot gun slug to the shin, severing the extremity. Without a hesitation he pressed on. The sounds he made before his last movements stopped were chilling.

We stopped the lot of them after some intense minutes. We had to leave Jims body for another time. We will be holding a neighborhood meeting here shortly. This has become something new entirely.