Z Day is Here: One Year Later (Book 2)

Day 381

The explosion could be felt all the way up the side of the mountain where I was standing. I can still remember the feeling of the heat wave that blasted my face. I can remember the smell of the rotting flesh as it burned. The sounds of the explosions almost completely drowned out the cries of the others, mourning the man who brought us this far. The sounds even drowned out my own cries.

When the smoke and fire cleared, we were left with a huge crater in the Earth, large enough for no one to be able to climb up its walls. The plan worked exactly as it had been intended. We were on a mountain where the sides were so steep that nothing could get to us. The one path leading up or down the side of the mountain had been completely destroyed. We were safe. We were also trapped, doomed to spend the rest of our lives stuck on top of a mountain.

The first few days were the hardest. Everyone tried to be the boss; no one wanted to listen to anyone. Fights broke out over who needed to do what. We were all scared and hungry. As we argued more and more, I could hear the moans growing louder and louder around the base of the mountain. I think everyone else heard it as well, but no one wanted to talk about it. After about a week, it seemed like everyone had just had enough of the arguing and began working together as a team. We began planting gardens and securing structures for us to sleep in. Things began to feel normal again…well, as normal as they can be.

Tonya has become my mother. Jeremiah has become our unspoken leader. Darcy is getting back to normal every day, and every night she cries for her lost love that she will never see again. Ed, Mego, and Shaughn have become our hunters and gatherers. Matthew has become like a brother to me; he is my best friend. Some of the other survivors have also become like a family to me. I will talk more about them later.

It has been 280 days since the explosion. We eat what we have grown, we sleep when we are tired, we wake up when we want, and we tell stories of our previous lives. We don’t discuss what is going on directly below us at the base of the mountain. We also don’t discuss the sights we see from the top of the mountain, the human clouds of the undead moving, shifting like the waves of an ocean. As the weeks go by, the waves become fewer and fewer. Also the numbers of the undead seem to be shrinking every day. It looks as though we are beginning to win this war of the waiting. Without food, everyone and everything dies. After all these weeks and months of being trapped on this mountain, we are now running out of food fast. The past few months have been hard; there has been very little rain, so we are running out of drinkable water, and the few crops we are able to grow are dying off. I decided to write partly out of boredom and partly to keep from thinking about food. I can’t remember the last time I actually got to eat meat. We have killed and eaten every creature on this mountain, much like the undead below us.

People don’t like to talk about things, but I know if we don’t get off this mountain soon, we will starve to death.

Well, I better stop writing for now, though. It is getting late, and at night we have to turn off all lights so we don’t attract any unwanted attention. I am going to try to write something every day, in honor of my predecessor. If he was able to do it on a laptop during the first days of the infection, I should easily be able to do it with this old notebook while being safely away from the undead. Good night, journal.

Oh, I almost forgot, my name is Cole.

Day 382

Same thing, different day. Matthew and I spent most of the morning bowling….and by bowling, I mean grabbing big rocks and rolling them down the side of the mountain to see how many zombies we can hit along the way. Darcy yells at us every time we do it, so we have to go to the far side of the mountain, where we won’t be seen and where it is the steepest. I don’t really mind though, because we can really do some damage over there. One time I had a rock almost the size of my head that I rolled down the side; it hit some girl in a yellow dress and nearly took her face clean off! We got hours of amusement out of that one. Most of the time, though, it will just knock someone down. Then they get right back up and keep meandering around as if they have nothing better to do, which I guess they don’t.

Some of the other survivors have started hooking up since we have been up here. I guess it was only a matter of time. I just wish there was someone for me. Almost everyone is older than I am, except for Matthew, and I am definitely not going there.

Jeremiah has been hanging around with a really nice lady named Elise. She has been helping Tonya and Darcy teach me and Matthew math and science. I guess she was some kind of math wiz before everything went to hell. Another one of the survivors named Trish has been hanging around Ed quite a bit, though I think he is still hung up on his wife and kids. Not that I blame him for that. I would probably be the same way.

Yesterday evening, I was standing guard as the sun was setting. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. Just as the sun began to sink, I looked around and saw the destruction that was once a huge city. Now it is crawling with zombies. On the other side, a forest at first glance appeared to be peaceful and serene, but upon further investigation, I could see the hundreds of undead wandering around. It reminded me of fleas moving around in the fur of a dog. Four months ago, I could barely see any landscape without seeing rows and rows of zombies. Now though, you can actually go hours without seeing any of them.

I talked to Jeremiah last night about leaving the mountain to look for food. I truly expected him to brush me off, but he said he had been thinking the same thing for quite a while. He said he felt weak from a lack of food and water. Looking around, everyone looks very thin, much thinner than we have been. We have no mirrors up here, so I can only imagine how bad I look. I was pretty thin to begin with. Now when I look down, I can easily see all my ribs. I have noticed Tonya has been giving me extra portions while she has been taking less and less.

Ed and Shaughn got into a fight last night. Not sure what it was about, but it got pretty heated. Jeremiah threatened to shoot them both if they didn’t calm down. I noticed as they got louder and louder, Darcy got more and more upset. She left the group and went to the back side of the mountain. Even though she seems normal for the most part, I can still see something very dark inside her. Mego refers to her as bat shit crazy. Tonya says she has issues deeper than any of us realize and that we need to keep her calm. It seems like everyone constantly walks on eggshells around her all the time. Elise lets her help teach, but I see her watching every move Darcy makes.

Jeremiah is calling us all together. Gotta run, until tomorrow.

Day 383

Last night, we had a long discussion and debate about what to do for food. Most of us believe we need to leave here in order to find something to eat or we will starve to death. It’s not like how it was before the outbreak, where if there was a drought, you could just drive to the store and pick up groceries and all you had to worry about was not watering your lawn. Now, because of the lack of rain, nothing is growing. I can’t remember the last time I ate more than a few slices of tomatoes and cucumbers. We haven’t had any meat in months. Jeremiah believes we should just stay on the mountain and wait out this drought. Elise says she agrees with him, but I overheard her talking to Tonya about leaving here also. When we spoke of leaving, Darcy would shake her head and disagree. She believes we were brought up here for a reason and therefore should stay right here. I can see this darkness creep across her eyes when we give her reasons why we should leave.

So we decided to sleep on it and talk about it later tonight. I know I am all for leaving this big rock. I am a little scared and really don’t want to be on the run any more, but if we don’t find something soon, we are as good as dead anyway. Plus it has been a year, and according to Tonya and Elise, the rate of decomposition would have sped up so much so that the first few waves of zombies would be mostly skeletal and little muscle, which would explain the lack of them below us. I think the ones we would come in contact with would be so weak they shouldn’t pose much of a problem. We still have some guns and some bullets lying around here, so we would be going down there protected. I plan on talking to Darcy and Trish and Jeremiah about it later. Hopefully we can get through to them, but since Jeremiah is our leader, whatever he says goes.

I spent most of the morning bowling with Matthew. We did this until we got caught and yelled at by Tonya. She said what we were doing was just bringing more attention to the mountain. Then she peeked over the edge and smiled. She patted me on the back and said, Good shot. After that, she made me take watch. There is this really big boulder that sits off to the side of the mountain and overlooks the shallow part. We have someone that sits on the rock and watches out in case a large group of them gets close to us. Not that any of them could get up here, but we still want to know what’s going on. I hate taking lookout, because it gets so hot and is boring. Matthew usually keeps me company when I am doing it, and I keep him company when I can, but it still gets old fast. Ed or Shaughn yells at us if we get too busy playing instead of keeping a look out for the undead. Here lately it has gotten really bad. Where there used to be hundreds of them below us, today there was barely twenty. One of them actually dropped to the ground and stopped moving all together. I plan on telling the others about this later tonight.

I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything with my stomach hurting like it is. It has stopped growling all together now. I feel like it is trying to eat itself. I don’t know if that would be a bad thing either.

Day 384

So it looks like we are leaving! We all decided to pack all the weapons and any food we have left. We are going to leave first thing in the morning. I am so excited! Just the thought of food is making me even hungrier! I don’t know what kind of food we will find, but I’m sure it will be more than what we have up here. Ed has been talking about hunting for deer once we get down! Now that really makes me excited!

I guess saying we all agreed is not completely true. Darcy is still against it and was very vocal last night, so much so that I was actually a little scared. She got a crazy look on her face and got up in Tonya’s face. I know Tonya was a little upset, because she sees Darcy as a friend and her feelings got hurt. At one point, Darcy got up and ran over to where Tonya and I sat to yell at her. Tonya grabbed me and pushed me behind her to protect me. I think everyone held their breath a little. Jeremiah separated them and gave his final decision for us to leave.

Other than that drama, today has been fairly drama free. Shaughn and Ed got into an argument again, and Tonya ignored Darcy most of the day, but everyone’s spirits have been pretty high. We are all looking forward to getting off here as soon as possible.

I sat with Matthew while he was on watch. We talked about the meeting last night and about what we wanted to do once we got off the rock, as he calls it. I really don’t know what I want to do. I guess eat something is at the top of my list and then maybe sleep in a nice bed. I’m hoping we can find a nice big house to stay in for a long time! I remember there being really big houses around here that belonged to basketball stars and rappers. I hope we can find one of those.

Jeremiah and Ed are talking about the plan to get down, which I never thought about before. I guess it slipped my mind. We blew up the one part of the mountain we would normally be able to hike up and down, so now we are going to have to come up with a new plan. Even at the shallowest part, we are still a couple hundred feet off the ground. I’m sure they will think of something. I am willing to do anything to get out of here and get some food in me. I think we should….

…

Something is going on. I hear Darcy screaming.

Day 385

Trish is dead! Somehow she fell over the side of the mountain. She is laying…or I guess I should say she was lying at the base of the mountain with her body completely mangled. Her legs were twisted in a strange way, and her head was crushed on the rocks below. Supposedly, Darcy found her that way. As we watched, three zombies came out of the woods and pounced on her corpse, ripping the skin off her bones. Ed couldn’t watch them do that, so he ran and grabbed a gun and started shooting the undead below. The bullets ripped through their skin, but they didn’t even flinch; they just kept eating her body. Finally, he struck one in the head, and it dropped on top of Trish’s body. One of the other zombies pulled her lifeless body into the woods. Ed screamed at them and emptied the bullets into the woods. He dropped the gun and sat down crying. Tonya put her arm around him, but he shoved her off and jumped to his feet and ran over to Darcy. He started screaming at her and grabbed her by the throat, choking her. They both fell to the ground with him on top of her, choking the life out of her. He was screaming that she killed Trish and that she was a lunatic that didn’t deserve to live. We all pulled him off of her. She lay on the ground, looking up at the sky, and began laughing. Ed heard her laughing and went crazy himself. It was all we could do to keep him from killing her. He got in her face, began screaming at her, and threatened to throw her over. She continued to lie on her back looking up at him. Tears streamed down his face, and as he screamed at her, spit flew everywhere. He grabbed her by the hair and began dragging her to the side of the mountain. Everyone jumped over to help her. We wouldn’t allow Ed to do anything without proof,