I changed a couple of things again, but the whole first chapter is here now, from now on updates will be in the form of new posts.
Jaded Earth
Prelude
Most of my days started normal, routine, easy, boring but I wasn’t battling these undead bastards then and I had all of the amenities of a modern life. I will begin by telling you nothing is easy now it seems like people were always whining about one thing or another at work or my social life and in general and things couldn’t have been easier then, most of them thought not having coffee in the morning was a crisis I wonder what they are thinking now? Most of them are probably dead well most of them that worked with me anyways that place is in the “Z” zone.
The Z zones are where zombies are concentrated in large numbers and can’t or have not been cleared out mainly in large cities, but there are exceptions. Zombies in these areas can number in the thousands or millions; there are countless Z zones around the world and at last update numbered around 10 million. Updates are a blessing but sporadic, there is no power grid and what is left of the government has much more pressing matters than restoring power right now.
Before all of this happened I had a decent selection of weapons and a good supply of ammunition for them. My personal favorites are my AR, and Yugoslavian AK. I am best with my AR so it sees the most use I have more ammo for it and it’s lighter, I put a carbon fiber hand guard on it as well as a 14.5” lightweight barrel (no more worries about the NFA laws now) it is a very light but durable weapon and can be humped around for extended periods without being cumbersome. I would say it is more accurate but I am by no means a great marksman and at the ranges we normally engage the AK is just as good. I normally carry my AR, Kimber custom target II, and a cut down Ruger 10/22. My standard load out when we venture out for supplies is 240 .556(or 180 7.62x39), 64 .45, and 250 .22. It is a bit out of the norm but I like to have more than necessary with these zombies bastards.
My two roommates (before all this) and good friends, Jeff and Tyler, are here with me. Jeff and Tyler are both kitted out with AK’s and other various weapons. We are living outside of a small town in western Georgia with a group of people that we knew before this all happened, they refer to our safe haven as the pond, my guess is that’s because the lake here is the central feature of the land. My friend Dan and his father offered to let us stay out here with them as long as we pulled our weight. The lake gives us fish; they have plenty of land to raise crops and the ability to sustain everyone for now and the long term. Dan’s father has a ham radio setup that we use to catch updates and to communicate with others to stay in the loop with what is going on, or to trade with them. The house, barn, and tool shop are far enough off the road you can’t see them blocked mostly by trees and dense foliage. That is what keeps me awake at night nothing perfect ever lasts. Dan and his father have a damn arsenal of weapons and the ability to maintain them as well as plenty of ammo to feed them ,see what I mean too perfect.
Sorry for the side track but I thought that to be important information, here is how the zombies came to be and why I said earlier “what’s left of the government”. The trouble began with the new president he had no experience and made bad decisions, he was also in the business of passing feel good laws and preaching about how the nation needed to be more environment friendly. Part of his friendly environment plan involved studying nano technology and its application to waste disposal; he touted this as being one of the most important projects of our lifetimes. He thought if this was successful we could use the new technology to rid ourselves of landfills and all of the impact they had on the environment. The nano tech could supposedly break down and leave minimal residue that could hopefully be recycled into useful materials. The research team consisted of three researchers handpicked by the president himself; the president also picked the lab location. He wanted the project to reflect well on him and wanted everyone to know how much he cared about the environment. He made sure the lab was somewhere visible and around a lot of people so he picked New York City and had a brand new state of the art lab built in Manhattan. One other thing the president wanted was the lab to be equipped with an audio visual system that could record everything that happened in the lab and even had a live stream made available on the internet so you could “watch history being made”. A week into the project it was announced the three researchers had succeeded and the nano tech had been used to break down some food and some other everyday house hold garbage into a sticky saw dust like form. They had been able to break down 250 pounds of garbage to a little less than 7 pounds of material they called nano deposits, and did it in under nine hours.
The trouble started when they began experimenting with the nano deposits, a small amount of nano deposits was heated in a glass beaker to see what effects it would have and if that would make it easier to work with. According to some lab instrumentation taking readings on the experiment the nano deposits were heating and meshing together fine until they reached a temperature of 100 degrees. When this temperature was reached the video feed showed the nano deposits in the beaker bubbling to the rim then producing a cloud of smoke a few seconds later a bright orange and white fireball erupted from the beaker then exploded violently. The explosion caught the researcher attending the experiment on fire as well as part of the lab and lodged a large piece of glass in his throat slicing open his jugular. The smoke was very thick and filled the lab to the point of complete darkness. The building was equipped with sprinklers but in true government fashion had been installed by the lowest bidder and had never actually been connected to a water source. It was presumed since the smoke was so thick the other two researchers had not been able to make it out of the building before succumbing to smoke inhalation.
The lab was equipped with a security system that auto dialed an alarm monitoring company when no one responded to the monitoring companies call they contacted 911. When the emergency workers arrived on scene there was an unusually thick cloud of dark dusty smoke obscuring the lab and pouring out of the building from every orifice but no visible fire on the outside. The firefighters were the first in and by this time TV crews and helicopters were in the air beaming this footage all around the country and later on around the world, after all this was our great president’s pet project. Shortly after the firefighters arrival the wall of smoke in the air around the building was large enough that the helicopters could no longer see anything on the ground within a quarter mile of the building. The fire was raging inside by this time it was putting out more smoke than could be explained. Visibility was zero inside and around the building, a decision was made to get out of the building and let it burn itself out. Nobody is sure how long the lab took to burn itself out because of the smoke but it was two days before anybody went back in, by this time the lab had been burned to the ground and no traces of the researchers were found. The smoke from the fire blanketed the city from long beach to Union City and halted air traffic in and out of JFK. The news coverage on the accident continued on every channel over the next few days. It took three days for the smoke to start to move and blew north over the length of New York City and finally dissipated after moving over Connecticut, and part of Rhode Island, on the fourth day air traffic to JFK resumed.
Six days after the fire the apocalypse began.
Where exactly the first report came from I don’t know what is certain is that the smoke turned everyone who inhaled it, the smoke cloud infected and turned most of New York City, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, nobody knows exact numbers but the whole area north of Pennsylvania and New Jersey is a Z zone. Last I heard the Canadians had their side secured but didn’t know how long they could hold, hell who knows how long we can hold our side. The fact is the reason the disease or whatever it is, was able to spread around the country and the world is those infected by the smoke showed no symptoms. This allowed the infected that had been stick at JFK to travel back to their home nations or states after the smoke cleared, and allowed even more infected to leave the city before they turned. Nobody knew when the riots began they were zombies not people rioting, no telling how many people were infected trying to suppress the riots. Like I said earlier there were no symptoms and the ones that turned from the smoke just laid down, died in their sleep and when they got up they were no longer human. The original zombies turned from smoke were eventually labeled nano zombies by the media, well what was left of the media anyways. Those that were infected by the nano zombies turned after they were bitten or scratched and show very noticeable symptoms they do not take long to turn, no special name for them they are just zombies. I have seen the turn happen after as long as four hours but I have also seen it happen in under an hour. Those infected start showing the change when the skin on their body begins turning colors it starts by taking a blueish grey tone then eventually turns completely grey, dark rings form under their eyes, you can see the blood in their veins begin to coagulate and turn bright orange. The veins feel like there are metal poles running through them their skin takes a sand paper feel and puts off a fruity smell, you can hear rasps in their voices as they turn. People going through the change will tell you it doesn’t hurt and their whole body feels warm they become very lethargic and tired, there is no stopping the nap they are about to take and when they wake up they are not the person you knew, they want your flesh and nothing more. Once they turn they are slow and can’t walk normally I have never seen one be able to maneuver through even the simplest of obstacles without falling down but they will keep trying if there is food on the other side. The nano zombies are different in appearance from a normal zombie the nano zombies look like a normal human, except their eyes they turn the same orange color of a normal zombies blood veins. The rate of decomposition is very slow and even now they show little decay. Nano zombies walk normally unless otherwise injured, they are not capable of running but the uninjured ones can walk at a normal pace and have demonstrated some level of intelligence.
On the third day with the smoke still lingering but starting to move away the president had visited the site to pay his respects and give a speech. After his visit he returned to the white house for a few days then left for a trip overseas aboard Air Force one to Saudi Arabia. The story about this reports him dying and reanimating aboard Air Force one and attacking several people since nobody knew what was going on they tried to restrain him in the process he managed to bite and infect several people as well as his wife and the vice president. By the time they landed only the pilots and two secret service agents that were able to erect a barrier to keep the others out had not been bitten. During the process of removing the “critically ill” patients from the plane many people were attacked and bitten starting a chain of events that led to the place where they landed being overrun. Apparently our president is responsible for spreading this disease to Saudi Arabia and consequently the entire Middle East.
Chapter 1
7-10-2010
Now that you know how it began I will fill you in on how we got to the pond and get you up to speed on everything that has happened until now. The lab blew up on February 13th 2009 I was at work that day working on a project helping to implement a new Cardio PACs system, I was an IT guy for a regional hospital I enjoyed the job it had been very rewarding up until the apocalypse. When I heard about it I was on my way to eat lunch in our cafeteria with a few other people, the hospital was buzzing with rumors about the president’s project having some kind of trouble. By the time I sat down with my coworkers to eat the coverage was all over the televisions in the dining area. Besides the presidents project being a failure the thing that had everyone captivated was the smoke coming from the building, it did not look normal and was very dark and dense it was growing at a rate that was very abnormal. It would have made sense for this smoke cloud to be coming from a skyscraper but the lab was one story and was made mostly of glass and concrete it could not have been more than half a city block in size. The smoke cloud grew so fast by the time I was half way through with my lunch the news helicopters had backed off to the shore line between Manhattan and Union City to show how large the smoke cloud was. The news reporters on the ground could not see the building and soon after the footage cut to a reporter on the ground the camera was not able to pick up the reporter a foot away from it. They were reporting the firefighters had backed off and decided to let it burn itself out there was no way to see through the smoke and that made it all the more dangerous for them. The coverage continued for a week then the shit hit the fan.
The first signs of trouble began on the morning of February 19th the beginning of the 7th day. That is the day New York City woke up as zombies; Connecticut and Rhode Island were hit hard I think it was reported later on most of the latter two states were turned. It was initially reported as New York City rioting, the morning news consisted of footage on every channel showing large groups of people moving through the city, the groups that were meeting people in cars on their way into the city to work were attacking the commuters, soon the news helicopters showed things on fire and people being killed. The city was in chaos and there was no police or military presence inside or around the city. Other areas the smoke passed over were sharing similar fates. As the day wore on it got worse, the president was nowhere to be seen and there was no government response to all of the chaos. The mobs of people were radiating out from the city and the violence was spreading fast. The question most people were asking was why has there been no local or federal government response to this problem? The whole city of New York was rioting and they were spreading the violence as fast as they could move and people in surrounding areas were joining in. The question about where the president was got answered when reports of rioting in the middle east and our president as well as everyone aboard Air Force One being responsible came through on the television.
I’m not sure about time frames of the next year so bear with me; after the first day there was wide spread reports on the news that most of the attempts to stop the rioting by police and National Guard units were no good and the military had been called in to assist, which worried me since I had never heard of the military assisting in a riot. That night my roommates and I were sitting around at the house in front of the TV catching up, Tyler had just gotten back from working out of town and Jeff had come home from a vacation with his girlfriend. All that was on the television was news about what was going on in New York and the surrounding area. A news station from New Jersey was showing live footage of a reporter driving a news van with a camera mounted on the dash that had been sent to try and talk with some of the rioters. All three of us were glued to the TV watching this reporter driving the van towards a large group of the rioters, the whole time this guy is driving closer he is explaining what he is seeing and stated he was hoping to get to the bottom of this dramatic event. When he got about 20 yards he rolled his window down a little bit so he could try and speak with some of them, when the reporter got within 10 yards it became evident he wasn’t going to be talking to anybody.
The rioters did not look right their eyes looked orange, some of them looked like they had been burned, shot, stabbed, some had pretty bad injuries and looked like they should not have been mobile or alive. I saw one in particular that was missing her arm and part of her chest but was still walking towards the van, all of this was being streamed to us in 1080P HD. None of them talked or screamed there was no sound coming from them at all which made the reporters approach to them even more ominous. As the reporter got within a few feet of the crowd a rioter that was a in front of the news van made a deep grunting sound looked to the left then directly at the reporter. We were so engrossed with the footage all three of us looked left thinking we were going to see what the rioter was looking at, we couldn’t see then but the reporter had decided to try and get out of there about that time, put the van in reverse and nailed the gas he got about 20 feet before ramming something hard and coming to a violent stop. It was then we could see the mob approaching the van from the left side of where it had been moments before.
My adrenaline started flowing then and I was hoping the reporter would get the message they were trying to surround him the reporter’s lack of situational awareness was starting to piss me off and I was yelling at him to get out of there. The group coming at the van from the left changed course and started to spread out, the original group coming towards the front did the same thing both groups were within 15 feet of the van at this point. When the groups started fanning out the reporter started to get a clue there might be no point talking to these people and announced he thought it would be a good idea if they tried this interview later. We could hear the news van door open then slam, running did not do him any good though; through the wireless lapel microphone he was wearing we could hear him use a few choice words as he saw the group closing on him from behind. He ran back past the front of the van out of frame it sounded like he fell down or something then he screamed. He was pushed back in frame onto the hood of the van the rioters that had pushed him started biting him and clawing at him. The orange eyes and demonic faces of the rioters that were attacking the reporter made it seem surreal; soon there was no more sound or movement from the reporter. After they were done with him his head was barely attached to this torso and there wasn’t much left of that either his body slid slowly off the hood leaving a dark red streak of blood and pieces of organs and flesh. The rioters moved off and did not bother looting the van. I don’t think all this is something that normally would have been broadcast, but when the footage cut back to the news room it was empty.
The next morning Jeff woke me up at 5 am I would normally have been pissed but none of us mess with the other sleep it’s like an unwritten rule that we all understand so I knew it had to be important. Jeff gets up at 5 to leave for work so I have no idea his normal routine but this morning he had decided to turn the TV on see if what was being said about the things we had witnessed the night before. Once again on every channel was footage of what was now being called a national emergency. There was a clip running over and over again of more footage from the van the reporter had been driving, the camera had run for 7 more hours after the attack. The clip showed the reporter getting up his head barely attached slumped down on what was left of his chest, when the reporter stood up he was facing the camera. There was no way this guy was alive his rib bones were clearly visible and his intestines and lungs were exposed and hanging out, what little intact skin that was left was grey and he had little orange lines on his skin. He wandered about 15 feet very slowly then tripped over a curb and hit the ground so hard his head came rolling off, he did not move anymore after that. Neither one of us knew what to do but I felt like we needed to be ready for anything. I told Jeff to take my XD .45 with him since he had to drive into Atlanta to meet his father for a job they had been working and he had not been able to pick his own carry pistol up yet. I gave him the pistol and two extra mags I figured if the situation required more rounds than that he would be screwed anyways, Jeff didn’t seem to find that as funny as I did.
I didn’t have to be at work until 8 so I went back to sleep. About two hours later Jeff woke me up again he had the XD in the waist band of his pants and looked like he was running in combat mode this worried me to say the least. Jeff had been in the military and had spent time in Iraq as well as Afghanistan and had seen his share of combat he had been a mess when he first came back. He drank heavily and was reckless but I tried to help the best I could. He didn’t know how to deal with things he had seen and done and would get this look on his face when talking about it that made me think he felt like he was still over there fighting battles. It all culminated when he got a DUI that set him on the course to get his act together. After a few months of not seeing or hearing from him he called me up and we got together he explained that he had needed time to adjust and get his head straight. From then on he seemed collected and cool and was much like he was before he left for the military. Jeff has always been a good friend and I would trust him with my life, he has saved my ass a couple of times since this zombie crap started. Right then he looked like he was ready for battle and this may seem strange but that was what scared the shit out of me. He said he was not able to drive into Atlanta then explained there had been road blocks set up on the Interstate a few miles outside of the city and the police were telling people rioting had started in the city but they had it contained to a small section and that the road blocks were for everyone’s safety. He said he could see the skyline of the city and it looked like there were at least a dozen helicopters flying around. By this time Tyler was getting up and we filled him in on everything and showed him the clip of the reporter getting up. Tyler was another good person and friend that could be trusted to be a solid person and he is the kind of guy that even when things look the worst he has that smile on his face that helps everybody keep going.
Jeff was really anxious to get inside the city and make sure his father was okay he could not get him on his cell phone and there was no getting into the city at that time. His mother was supposed to have flown into Atlanta that day from Seattle after a long business trip but he could not get her on the phone either, I felt bad for the guy his whole family was in the city and not only could he not get in touch with them the city was not accessible. Tyler’s mother and father lived in Florida his sister had married a Marine and moved to North Carolina. My family was spread out over the west Georgia area but all of them were over an hour away. We were all worried now since no calls were making it out on our cell phones and we didn’t have a land line at the house.
It was now time for me to start getting ready to go to work at the hospital; I had never taken my carry pistol inside the hospital before but today was going to be different. Before I left I checked all my rifles and magazines, I had 15 mags for both of my rifles I had four mags loaded for the AR and none for the AK loading up the mags was going to be a priority when I got home from work. All of the pistol magazines I had were loaded already giving me 10 for the XD and 12 for the Kimber. The Kimber was my carry pistol so I stuck it in my IWB holster clipped it on then put on my fleece jacket to lessen the chances of somebody noticing the pistol.
Once I got to work I knew things weren’t going good there were six police vehicles in front of the building doors open with lights flashing and no cops to be seen. I drove around to the back of the hospital to the parking deck found a spot and got on the elevator to go inside. Once I got out of the parking deck elevator things looked like they were going crazy. Billy one of the security guards I knew at the hospital and a sheriff deputy were standing in the lobby and trying to keep people orderly and were talking to people coming in through the side doors of the hospital and getting off the elevator. As I started walking towards Billy the Sheriff noticed me and directed Billy’s attention my way. When I got over to them they looked pissed and tired it looked like they had been there all night. Billy told me the hospital was in a code Orange which alerts staff to an internal disaster. He said he was instructed to tell non essential staff to return home and contact supervisors the next day to find out if we could return. He said there were people in the hospital attacking anyone they saw and the police were here now trying to deal with the situation. I had just asked Billy what caused the code orange when the double doors next to them leading to the short stay unit burst open, two deputies came running through and started yelling for the people in the entrance lobby to get out of the hospital now. One of the deputies took his handcuffs and attached them to the door handles to try and secure them.
About two seconds later I found out why the hospital was in code orange. The short stay unit doors had large windows that ran the length of the doors and they now had three grey skinned maniacs pressing their faces up against them. The deputies had been trying to radio for backup the whole time but could not get anyone on the radio, the grey skinned people were beating on the doors trying to get through any way they could. I could see a larger group of grey skinned people moving towards the doors now and things in the lobby were not going well at all. The deputies had finally got somebody on the radio and I guess help was on the way, it looked like the handcuffs were not going to hold much longer so I guess that was a good thing. I decided it would be a good time for me to get out of there and go let my roommates know what was happening. When I turned to leave I heard the glass break I turned back around and then I saw the larger group had smashed itself into the three grey skinned people that were already at the doors. The grey skinned people in front were pushed to the ground by the large group and got trampled as they started pushing their way through where the windows had been. The deputies ordered the people to get on the ground, when that did not work one of the deputies ran up and tried to taze one of the people in the group. The deputy was attacked by the group they were biting him all over and ripping pieces of his skin off the deputy that had been in the lobby with Billy when I arrived un holstered his side arm and fired two shots into the chest of a grey skinned person. It had no effect; the deputy fired three more shots two to the person’s chest which still did nothing then one to its head. The shot to the head had the desired effect but only served to turn the crowd’s attention to the deputy they came for him then, he fired until his magazine ran dry then tried to reload he did not have enough time and was overcome by four of the grey skinned people. The scene was really out of control by now and there were grey skinned people spreading out everywhere.
I ran out of the lobby and headed for the elevator it was taking forever so i hit the fire exit and ran up the stairs. When i got to the top i kicked the doors open and ran to my truck. As I was backing out I saw the elevator doors open, Billy and two of the grey skinned people fell out. One of them latched on to his throat and bit down when he pulled his head back most of Billy’s throat came with it I had never seen so much blood come out of a body in my life. I knew there was nothing I could do so I got out of there as fast as possible.
When I got back to my house my roommates were waiting on me I filled them in on everything and then we made the decision that we needed to start preparing for the worst. We made a list and divided up the items on it so we could work faster, we didn’t know what was going to happen but one thing was sure then we were going to be ready for the grey skins if they came for us.
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