I’d like to thank everyone who has indulged me and read these little episodes of a zombie apocalypse. I hope that those of my friends and family who did read them weren’t too freaked out before they got to the end of “Chapter 01” and realized what was going on. I also apologize for the high activity on my blog, which I know is duplicated on LiveJournal (Hi, LJ friends!) and Twitter (Hi, Twitter followers!) and FaceBook (Hi, Facebook friends!) . . . and then LiveJournal gets duplicated on Twitter (Um . . . Hi, guys?) and Facebook (Heh . . . Heh? Have I said I’m sorry?)

I really am sorry (really) for all the duplicates (really), but this came up kind of suddenly, and . . . <puppy-dog eyes until you accept my apology> (really) <— Don’t let my face freeze like this!

Google hasn’t seen fit to allow pre-timed posts or automatic cross-posting to Google+, yet. Boo!

Anyway . . . I am actually at Viable Paradise this week. All the places I mentioned in my little fictional account have been true: I should have been in those places at approximately those times, just not under military control or fighting zombies. :) (OR AM I?)

As I type this, it’s early Friday evening in my living room, and I’m about to do my final packing and get ready for bed. Around 10:37 PM, if everything goes to plan. :)

Anyway, I enjoyed writing these little episodes. I hope you don’t pick them apart too badly. I know it’s pretty implausible, but just suspend your disbelief and try to enjoy. We can discuss critiques later. :)

Any further posts by me will actually be about Viable Paradise and what’s going on there. Or here. Because when you read this, I’ll be there, but as I’m writing it . . . Oy. This is why time travel stories are always so hard.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Thanks for your patience! Really!

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I’m almost afraid to type this for fear of jinxing it, but . . . I think it’s over!

The helicopters which have been flying over the whole area for hours started dropping something. Some sort of fog or smoke or something. We can’t see them in the dark, but we can sure hear them, and there’s a haze that settles down to the ground after they pass by. The jets may be doing something, too, for all we know. And the troop trucks have been increasing in number.

When I was a kid in rural Alabama, we used to have these trucks that would come through the neighborhoods in the summer and spray thick smoke out to kill mosquitos. I guess it worked. Who knows? My friends and I used to play in the smoke. Insecticide. It’s a wonder any of made it out of childhood alive.

My point in telling that is to say: I saw the troop trucks doing something similar earlier. Some sort of smoke or fog was coming out.

This all started maybe two hours ago. Some of the zombies broke through just before that and we had to blow a bunch of them away. They seemed to lose their will, then, and wandered off, some of them bleeding or missing body parts. That’s when we noticed all the military activity.

As I look out, now—we re-aimed some of the spotlights—all we see are corpses. Some of them occasionally twitch, but . . .

I THINK IT MIGHT BE OVER!

Not that any of us are going to get any sleep. We hope it’s true, but we’re not going to trust it 100% until the last body is cleaned up. That’s going to be a job and a half.

I just wonder if they’ll ever tell us what happened. Rumors are still flying. It’s amazing. Upwards of 30% of the human race may have died of some sort of zombie plague, but people are people, and rumors travel faster than light, I think.

Genetics experiments gone wrong. Medical research into nanomachines. A new species of virus. Biological warfare . . . It may take years before we actually know. I’m willing to bet the president—if he even made it through; there’s a rumor Joe Biden and quite a few others didn’t—knows.

But for now, who cares? We’re all going to get together down in the restaurant in a short bit and just . . . blow off some steam. The soldiers have been going door to door, from what it sounds like. Well, when they get here, they’re going to find civilized people behaving like humans.

We made it. We MADE it! Hot damn!

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Thanks for reading!

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Taking a quick break to dash off a post during my 20 minutes for dinner. The floodlights being powered by the generator are helping. They’re keeping most of the zombies out beyond the edge of the light, but it’s unfortunately having the side effect of attracting them like moths. We shoot the ones that venture inside the ring. The rest . . . seem to be eating the ones we kill. I’m past feeling sick at this point. When you’ve seen it as much as we have . . .

They’re massing out there in the darkness. First just a few and now there must be hundreds if not thousands. We’re not doing shifts tonight. Every hand is needed to watch and handle a weapon. Every shotgun we could find has been pressed into service. THAT I can fire. It’s point and shoot, basically, although I did have to get someone to show me how to load it. (I suck in a zombie apocalypse, what can I say? At least now I know this and can remedy the situation . . . once all this is over. Assuming we make it.)

The anticipation is killing us. They’re just out there, growling and howling and moaning and yelling . . . and it’s like something straight out of an insane person’s vision of Hell. We smell smoke. Something’s burning, somewhere, but no one is stupid enough to leave to find out.

The zombies seem . . . less vicious than last night. We don’t know what’s going on. The radio isn’t saying much that’s new, but we have been noticing a LOT of helicopters and fighter jets flying over. Seems like we’ve seen more troop trucks, too. They’re blasting a recording from the trucks that warns people to stay indoors and shoot to kill. No shit, Sherlock.

Still no problems with the injured folks. Their wounds are healing normally, or as normally as a bunch of non-medical people can determine. I guess the new “normal” is “not turning into a zombie.”

Back into the fray. We’re all cautiously optimistic, but that won’t last long unless someone, somewhere, figures out a way to stop this.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Stay tuned for more posts!

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After getting some sleep, we have all spent the entire rest of the day gearing up for tonight. The zombies are likely to attack with renewed vigor. The hotel is on a generator, and they don’t want us wasting power on things like laptops, but I had to update lest you think I’m dead or a zombie. I’m not, and I don’t intend to be.

Barricades are in place. All the broken doors and windows are boarded up. We had to scavenge some lumber from other structures, but we got it done. I have blisters on my hands, and those blisters have blisters. Ow.

We eventually let the wounded people out to help, but someone keeps a constant eye on them. If one of them turns on us, we’ll have no choice. Putting them down would be kind.

Got my axe. Bring it, zombies.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Stay tuned for more posts!

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Yes! As soon as it was bright enough, the zombies retreated. We don’t know where they went–probably under buildings in basements and anywhere it’s dark. Again, you’ve probably already noticed this or heard it on the news.

We’re still going to have shifts on watch, but time for some needed sleep. We’ll need to be good and rested for tonight. The two people who were wounded last night still seem OK, but not OK enough for us to trust them completely. Whatever is causing it must not be airborne or blood-borne, but I don’t know what that leaves. I hope the CDC figures something out.

Finally got a text from Arkansas! My mother is fine. Her friend is well-armed and the area is extremely rural, so all is well. Texts seem to be doing better than calls, still. Hell, Twitter is still up. #zombieapoc2012 is a trending topic, even.

Jeez. I have never been so happy to see the sun. But I’ve seen enough for right now. Sleep.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Stay tuned for more posts!

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I finally got a few minutes to update. First of all, we’re all still OK, although a couple of people have minor wounds. We have them . . . segregated. Just in case. The Inn is pretty defensible once we boarded up the doors and windows.

There was an attack last night while I was asleep. The screaming and gunshots woke me up, and I grabbed the axe and ran down the stairs to the first floor to find a scene out of pretty much every zombie movie you’ve ever seen. They were trying to get in the doors and windows. Luckily, we had them barricaded.

Some of the zombies had on military uniforms. So much for ‘airborne,’ I guess. The gas masks didn’t do them any good unless they had it before–Focus.

The military ones had weapons, but they weren’t using them. I guess whatever is causing this is affecting their ability to reason. They just . . . blindly attack anything that moves.

The zombies seem to prefer group attacks and darkness. Over the radio, we heard something about strong light seeming to hurt them. We’ve rigged up a few bright floodlights outside some of the upper-floor rooms. It seemed to help at least some.

They whip each other into a frenzy. One of our guys got scratched pretty bad when a zombie broke through one of the windows and managed to claw him, but a couple of us managed to hack the arm off the zombie with our axes.

These zombies aren’t movie zombies, though. They have blood. A lot of blood. A startling amount of blood. I didn’t faint. I didn’t throw up. But it was a close thing. I had to sit down with my head between my knees, and I don’t think I will EVER feel clean again. I can still feel it on me. All thick and hot and . . . GAH. The arm we hacked had a tattoo on it. “Mom.” Jesus. And the zombies just keep going. You can hack off limbs and they just keep coming until they lose enough blood that their hearts stop. But all the way to the end, they’re reaching . . . If it weren’t so horrifying, it would be hysterical, like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “It’s only a flesh wound!”

We’ve made it through the night, at least. Only a couple of waves of zombies managed to get through. I’m going to go help them re-board up the places they broke through, now. I’ll probably end up helping get rid of bodies and body parts, too.

We don’t know how long this will last, but if we have to, we’ll scavenge for lumber and better weaponry. It’s everyone for himself, now. Although there is safety—at least MORE safety—in numbers.

Don’t know how much I’ll be able to keep updating. You’re watching the TV if you have power, and listening the radio if you have batteries, just like we are, and so you’ll know at the same time we do.

Crap! Power just died. Need to submit this now before the backups all die. I’ll be back. I have to believe that.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Stay tuned for more posts!

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Finally made it to the hotel. I’m on my laptop again. The Inn has power, but who knows how long it will last? Someone said the Inn might have a generator, but we can’t count on it. I’m charging everything chargeable while I can. At least I can tell my previous posts made it . . . if not always at the time I thought they would.

Miraculously, all the Viable Paradise participants made it here. Most before things got so bad. Someone quipped, “I’m not letting something trivial like the end of civilization stop me from attending.” We all needed the laugh.

The whole island is now quarantined. No traffic in or out until further notice. So for good or ill, I’m stuck here. Might as well make the best of it.

Things are not as bad here as on the mainland. Not sure why. The media seems to think that the infection—whatever it is—can only travel so far. Maybe salt water kills it? Day of the Triffids, anyone?

According to the Inn staff, there haven’t been many incidents, here. Everyone pretty much holed up at home as soon as the reports started coming in. The nasty weather doesn’t hurt. Cold and rainy isn’t encouraging for outdoor activities or congregating. The only thing moving are military vehicles that came over on the ferry, which is now grounded. Every once in a while, we hear gunshots. We all just look at one another. What can we do? Not a damned thing, that’s what. Some of the Inn staff is armed.

I only hope none of us have been exposed. No one knows the gestation of this thing or how it passes. Newest reports—as you’ve no doubt heard—put the infection rate at upwards of 30%. So far it’s 100% fatal, but mostly because the zombies have a tendency to take stupid risks that end up getting them killed, or getting shot by either the military or police or heavily armed citizenry. Our group here defies those odds. So far, at least.

I wasn’t able to get through to my mother, yet, because she doesn’t have a decent phone, but I did get a SMS message from my housemate. She’s still alive, and she has joined some of our other friends at their better-defendable house. The cats . . . I don’t know. She had to leave them at the house. Poor Lucy and Zena. I hope they’ll be OK. She put plenty of food out for them both.

We plan to sleep in shifts and take four-hour watches, with teams of at least two looking in every direction. One armed person per team. I last fired a gun when I was eight, so…I’ll be the “other one.” They gave the “other ones” axes, hatchets, baseball bats, 2 x 4s, metal pipes…whatever was on hand. I have a nice hefty axe. I intend to sleep with it.

I’m exhausted. We all are. Gonna get what sleep I can now. More later, if everything comes out OK.

This post is part of Zombie Apocalypse 2012, a multi-blog fictional account of a zombie uprising. Stay tuned for more posts!

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