2.2 - The Neighbors

This morning, we had the shit scared out of us. There's no better way to say it, really. We were about to go out and start re-packing the vehicles this morning, and when we came out of the basement there were three people walking right toward us, holding guns. We had a brief standoff - there was a lot of screaming and gun waving, but thankfully no one got hurt and we were able to figure out who we all were. The people are what is left of this neighborhood - two men and a woman who lived in different houses on this street and banded together a few days ago after they realized that everyone else around them was dead or gone. Their names are Mark, Louis, and Sarah.

We gave them the rundown of who we were, where we'd come from, and what we had experienced, and they did the same for us. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say they had a harder time than we did. Mark and Louis both lost their wives and children - they are older, in their mid to late forties I would say, but Sarah is thirty and a newlywed. Her husband was working out of town when this hit, so she has no idea where he is but figures he won't be coming home. They're new to the area, so she's totally alone. Oddly enough, we knew her for all of an hour before it was decided that when we leave, she'll be leaving with us.

What's interesting is what the three of them have been doing for the last few days.

The three of them took us on a little walk through the woods behind the house we stayed in last night. Some stayed back at the house with the kids, but I went along with the guys to see what there was to see out there - for one thing, a whole hell of a lot of zombie burrows. Even though we hardly saw or heard anything last night, the burrows show that obviously there are a lot of zombs in the area and they take to the woods at night. Louis says it's because the ground is soft there and easier to dig.

Anyway, I don't want to talk or think about zombies now, not with what we saw up on the ridge.

We were walking through the woods and I could tell we were heading uphill, but I was shocked to see where we eventually came out. It would have been a beautiful vista, looking out across the main road and onto the Submarine Base. We could see almost the entire base from where we were up there, and the river beyond. The place looked like a disaster area, most of the buildings burning or burnt out, cars overturned, bodies left to rot or be eaten, those that didn't turn after their deaths. The hospital, where Demyx had come from, was just a bit higher than we were on the ridge and over to the right. Louis passed around a pair of binoculars and we all got a look at what was going on there - sailors who looked like they were having a good time - a good time pointing guns at men who obviously were doing work that the sailors were forcing them to do. There were worse things going on - worse things that I am not going to talk about, someone else can, if they feel the need to. 

We moved farther along the ridge, behind this group of boulders that shielded us from sight of the sailors, and then Mark and Louis started shooting at the sailors. They shot at the ones who were away from the main group, ones who were alone and unable to see where the shots were coming from. But Mark and Louis took down three of them before I ran back through the woods to the house, terrified that we would be seen and they would start shooting back. 

Come to find out though, they hadn't shot back. It seems as if the sailors either don't know exactly where the shots are coming from or they don't care about each other enough to come looking for the shooters, but they had been doing this for three days when she showed up, and they say they have shot nearly a hundred sailors since then. 

Why? I have to ask myself. I guess I still can't get it through my head that everyone is just fighting for themselves and rules don't apply like they used to. It's pretty clear that the sailors are our enemy now, maybe even bigger of a threat to us than the zombs, because we can see how to avoid the zombs, we've seen that from the beginning... 

The guys are working on a plan now with Mark and Louis. They know some people in a neighborhood close by that have been helping them pick the sailors off, and they want to get together and see if we can do anything about what is going on in that hospital. We are sure that there are women inside, and hopefully some children that they spared. Hopefully. But not likely, we have been told. Children are what the use for target practice, when they set them free and then fire at them as they run away. It's like the Holocaust, I think. When the Nazi's threw babies up into the air and shot them above pits that they would fall into and burn to death anyway, if they missed. This world, the world I knew, it's over.

I've been asking myself this evening, what do I want? Do I want to go after a bunch of sailors, who knows how many, and try to overthrow them and get innocent people out of there? Or do I just want to move on and try to find my family and somewhere safe to survive? 

Either way, I'm here now, with these people and in this place, and it's looking like I'll be joining them, albeit reluctantly, when they go to the neighboring group of survivors tomorrow to discuss a plan of action. After what I've seen and heard, I honestly wouldn't mind kicking a little Navy ass. 

2.1 - The Voyage Out

This morning, after the sun had risen high in the sky and all of the zombies had once again disappeared into their holes in the earth, we all stepped outside of the diner and said goodbye to two of our friends.

Vince and Jenny decided not to come with us. They are staying in the diner for an indefinite amount of time as they plan on searching this area of Groton for Vince's daughter Carolyn, and then they plan on trying to make it - somehow - over to New London to find Jenny's family. 

I didn't keep it together well when I was saying goodbye to Vince. He had been my friend for years, I met him the first week I started working at the diner years ago and have waited on him multiple times a week since then. I know his family, his history, his daily life. I care for him, and love him, and will miss him terribly. On the one hand, I can't blame Vince for choosing not to go. His daughter and family lived only a few miles from the diner - if she survived, there may be a chance of him finding her. A slim chance, for sure, but a chance nonetheless. The chances of us reuniting again in the future, though... 

I know I will never see Vince again. I know this. But I have to just get over it as best I can and move on, because something tells me he isn't the only one we will lose along the way. 

Our plan was to set out towards the submarine base in a very roundabout way - taking backroads and staying off the main routes to avoid the very people we are intentionally going to see. 

Yes, see. We don't intend on trying to get onto the base - not just yet, anyway. But we all feel compelled to see for ourselves what is really going on down there, despite Demyx's warnings, we really just want to see if we can find Bill, and if there is a chance of rescuing any families, women, or children from these monsters the sailors have become, we decided that's a risk we were willing to take. Not only that, but Jim has it in his head that we might be able to 'commandeer' some military vehicles and weapons. I'm not counting on that, but after the day we had, it might not be a bad idea.

So we set out after breakfast and made good time - we did have to cross the main Route 12 at one point to get onto the back roads that led us down to wear the base is, but we made that uneventfully. However, as we were making our way toward the base, we got too close to Navy housing and found out that there are a lot more sailors left than Demyx had led us to believe, and some of them are still shacked up in their houses and shooting at people for fun.

We were chased, briefly. Our caravan of three cars was fired upon by what looked to me like a teenage boy, but I suppose he was a sub schooler who had gotten gun happy after the zombie revolution. Thankfully he was alone, on a four-wheeler, and only had a pistol. He chased after our caravan, shooting at us, and the van that Jim's family was in (the van bringing up the rear, which also carried Tom). No one was hurt, but the van did take some close-call bullets - I guess this is why commandeering military vehicles would be in our best interest. 

I'm not sure exactly what happened to the guy on the four-wheeler - I wasn't looking closely as I was the one driving the supply van with only Mary and Heather in tow - but I looked out the rearview and saw the guy flying through the air. He had hit something in the road, I guess, and wasn't wearing a seat belt. He wasn't wearing a helmet either, so. That's his own fault.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We found this nice house with a basement that's totally underground and free of zombie burrows, so we parked the vehicles in the backyard where they can't be seen from the road and we are going to stay here for the night. 

It's weird not being in the diner anymore. I am sitting against a concrete wall and just have a small candle to illuminate the space around me - everyone else is sleeping now. Maybe it's easier for them to ignore the moans and groans of the zombies outside. There are so few here in the woods compared to the streets in front of the diner. There are a few windows at the top of the walls - those little basement windows that I could never figure out the use for. There are three zombies in the yard right now. A man, woman, and child of about ten. I wonder if they are the family that used to live in this house we are occupying tonight. They probably are. 

1.27 - Leaving Them Behind

This is Sam here - Nora didn't go out with us today so she passed her journal along to me to write about what we did today. The pages in this journal are filling up fast, so I'm glad to say I was able to pick up a dozen one subject notebooks to give to Nora if she decides to continue this account of our survival after we leave the diner tomorrow. I hope she does continue it. I can imagine that there may be, sometime far into the future, a group of people who are going to want first hand accounts of what happened in the beginning when the zombies came to earth. I must admit that I am leaning toward alien attack, here. I never put the stock in zombies that Bill did, but it just doesn't all add up. Any way you look at it, what is going on here with these creatures is alien, and that's something I don't think can be denied.

Anyway, I went back downtown today with Jim and Tom to the strip mall where we went looking for Jim's daughter Katie in the Starbucks. We looted what we could from the supermarket there - bottles of water, cans of soup, bags of rice, jerky, those sorts of things. We filled the back of the van and now we are not sure whether we are going to need an additional vehicle to carry us all AND the supplies we have gathered. It's looking like we are going to need another van.

The store had been picked over pretty good since the last time we were there a few days ago. There are definitely survivors out there, we saw some today, albeit not very many of them. Tom pointed out that the food and supplies from the grocery store could have been taken from the sailors as well, but thankfully we didn't run into any of them down there.

Coming out of the market, we were shocked to see three people, two middle aged women and a young man, peering into our van and pulling on the door handles. Thank god we locked the van, and thank god we came out right when he had or they might have tried to bust the windows open and take off with our van, which still had our seven tanks of fuel in the back.

Jim yelled at them and two of them took one look at us and started to sprint across the parking lot, but the oldest of the women, she was probably about fifty, stood where she was by the side of the van and just looked at us.

'It's been a while since we've seen anyone else alive. Three days,' she said.

We asked if they were alright and she said that she and her friends were slowly making their way out of Noank and down toward the Sub base. Obviously, we warned  her about what was going on down there, and she nodded as if she believed us, but I am not sure whether she cared or not. I think she had it in her that the Navy was the last chance around here, and I'm hoping she took our advice, but...

We offered she and her two friends to come back to the diner with us, but she declined. We told her that there was food and supplies left inside the supermarket, and she just nodded and said thank you. It was a very strange encounter. In a way, she seemed like a zombie herself - no emotion crossed her face, not fear, surprise, hope, remorse.  When we got back into the van Jim said that that was the look of a woman who was on the verge of giving up hope, and we were better off without people like that. I guess I have to agree.

***

It's Nora again. Things are not good here in the diner tonight. The zombies are out in droves, more of them than we have ever seen before. They are just slowly parading by us in every which way direction. Before, they had been coming from the river and walking up toward town, but now they just seem to be milling about, walking in circles, and there are some that have just been standing in the same spot for hours without moving. We don't know what is going on, but something seems to be changing with them and none of us like it.

Well, we were going to be heading out tomorrow but Vince has thrown us for a loop. He's decided not to come with us, and he won't let us take his van. So, we have to get another van or two. But that's not what is bothering me.

I care about Vince. He's never been just another one of those diner guys to me, I really enjoyed his company and our conversations and I consider him to be a friend. But he's leaving us to go find his daughter Caroline, and he's taking Jenny with him, which we are all sort of grateful for.

Unfortunately, this led to another conversation that I wish I didn't have to hear. I am not sure how this didn't come up in general conversation earlier, but there's the matter of Katie, Jim and Margie's teenage daughter, and shit really hit the fan when Margie asked what we were planning on doing to find Katie before we leave.

Jim really laid it out for all of us, though it was directed at Margie. We won't be looking for Katie. We have spent enough time in the diner, we are questioning the safety of staying here, and we need to get out of Groton. Jim refuses to let Margie and the kids leave without him, and he refuses to have them stay with him to search. Basically, Jim said: "Katie is gone. But we're still here, and we need to survive."

Margie, of course, broke down. She took the kids, Hannah and Austin, down into the basement with her and cried it out for a few hours, until Mary and Erica and I went down to try and console her. We did the best we could, but Margie just lost her oldest daughter - it's going to take a while for her to come to terms with it.

Tomorrow, we are getting another van or two, we're going to get them packed up, and we're going to make a clear plan for our first day out. Looking forward to sleep tonight.

1.26 - Maps

I've been journaling for as long as I can remember, but I've never written as much in such a short time as I have this past week. My hand and wrist have been constantly cramping and aching, and though I probably should give it a rest and hand this journal over to someone else for a while, I just can't seem to stop writing.

I find that if I just sit down in the corner booth and face away from the diner to write, people will leave me alone for hours at a time, and maybe that's what I need more than anything right now, just some quiet solitude. There are way too many of us in this little diner - it's time to get out of here, and thankfully the time is coming soon.

Today we got two more vehicles - another van, and also a newish Jeep Wrangler which will lead the way of our little ragtag caravan whenever we finally decide to set off. Getting the cars was easy - it seems that people just abandoned their cars where they stood and ran for safety once the zombs started coming out of the water.

While Jim and Demyx got the cars, Sam and Tom went over to the appliance store and got everything they thought we could use and more. Flashlights, lanterns, all kinds of batteries, hundreds of batteries! Even a few old compact disc players, though we only have a few CDs to play in them, it's still nice to have a little bit of music. They picked up ten pairs of walkie talkies, two of which are supposed to be long range like the ones police use, and two hand crank radios. We tried one of the crank radios and could just barely hear Tate's broadcast.

I haven't been listening to Tate, I can't bear to hear nothing at all but the bad news. Mary and Margie have been listening though, and everything keeps getting worse.

I have no idea where Tate is getting his news from - for all we know he could be making it up at this point.

Anyway, he's saying that contrary to what he first thought, the zombs only come out of the oceans, or rivers in the areas closest to salt water. There weren't any in fresh water lakes or rivers inland , but it only took a few days for them to spread into the middle of the country and beyond.

I don't know what this means, I don't know what any of it means; it's just what we heard, and it's impossible to make sense of. What about this makes sense? Absoultely nothing.

We ate an early lunch today - we're nearly running out of food here. Either it's gone stale or spoiled or we don't have all the ingredients to cook simple things. But the gas is still on, so we're frying up potatoes and using the grill to make really ghetto pizzas that don't involve cheese, because that is all gone now.

Tomorrow, and however many days after that it takes, our mission is to get fod for us - food that won't spoil and needs minimal preperation.

After lunch a few of the guys went out for other specific things we needed - bedding, bags, and maps.

I'm glad that I didn't go with them. I don't know if I would have been able to handle it well, going into people's houses like that and taking their blankets and pillows and sleeping bags. Something seems so wrong and skeevy about it... But I have to admit I'm looking forward to my head hitting a pillow tonight.

Maps were harder to find, I guess, but now that I really think about it, when was the last time I used a paper map? I've had a phone with the internet and GPS at my fingertips for years now - who uses road maps anymore? They ended up searching glove compartments and it took a few roads of empty cars to find maps that Jim thought were good enough - one of this area, New London county, one of the state, and one of New England. 

We still don't know where we are going to go exactly. I guess I'll write more tomorrow, maybe we will have more of a plan by then.

1.25 - Hopelessness

We have to get out of here.

I knew that we wouldn’t be able to stay here for much longer. It was obvious that were were in a place that sooner or later other survivors would find and want to take for their own. We had bulletproof glass and a stockpile of food – if someone found us, and they had the means to do it, they could force us out easily, or worse, they could just kill all of us. But now we knew we had the military to contend with, and they weren’t on our side.

No one seemed all that surprised by the story Demyx told, no one but Margie who for some reason kept saying she couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe that the United States military would turn against their own people, but Jim reminder her that there was no military anymore, and those sailors were just remnants of a group of people who were once in a position to protect and defend us, but now they could do whatever they wanted to do. There was no one in control, and they were a bunch of young mens with guns who were hungry for sex and blood.

We have to get out of here. But we aren’t ready.

Jim, Sam and Tom have been in an intense conversation with Demyx since he finished writing his story down a little while ago. We had fed Demyx and had given him the one thing he kept demanding, which was coffee with a slice of bacon in it, the strangest thing I had ever heard in my long years of being a waitress, but we wouldn’t deny him a thing after the story he had told.

Demyx had gone over the small stockpile of weapons we had collected in the basement and had deemed it inadequate for fighting a horde – a horde of the undead or a horde of ex-submariners he didn’t specify, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. The plan is to set out tomorrow morning and scout the local houses for more weapons, that’s what the guys are doing anyway. I’m going to stay here with the girls and Vince and we’re going to pack up as much food as we can and start loading up Vince’s van for the trip. Another van is something else that the guys will be scouting for, because our group has grown too big to fit into just one.

Yeah, I guess I am not surprised. I would have been, but it’s been a week since this began and no help has come for us yet. I couldn’t imagine what was keeping them, the THEM that were supposed to come rescue us from the diner and take us somewhere safe. The THEM who were going to come and explain away what we had been going through, with the zombies and these rogue militants who had stormed off with Bill, who I didn’t think we would ever be seeing again. The THEM who would gather us survivors together in a great camp and start rebuilding society, because obviously someone had to take charge and do it if there was ever hope for America recovering from this, or the whole world for that matter.

But as far as we could tell now, only a week later, no one was in charge, not anywhere, and there was no hope for America or the world.

I’m trying to keep it together here. I am the one sitting here with this notebook that is already running out of pages, I am the one trying to just take it all down and keep myself somewhat separate from the rest of group, watching, waiting. Yeah, it’s nice that I have Mary and Tom here with me, two good friends from Before, but in a way it makes it harder, too. I think it makes it harder for Jim as well, knowing that he has his family to take care of means that he has to foremost take care of himself, and I can only imagine how easy it would be to give it all up. I can only imagine at this point, feeling the relief that would come from letting go, from walking out into the darkness and letting myself be swallowed up by the sea of the walking dead that parades by the diner each night. It would be easier to do that, I think, than to keep going on and facing more and more bad news, tragedy piled up on tragedy, with the hopelessness of knowing that it would never really get any better than this, that life would never be anything more than one long dark night of looking over my shoulder, waiting for the attack to come.

But I couldn’t let go. Because for better or worse, Tom and Mary were all I had left in the world that I was sure of and that I could trust with my life, whatever was left of it. Maybe they didn’t need me. Tom had fit right in with Sam and Jim, which surprised me after the breakdown that he had had that first night. Mary had already grown close to Margie, helping her out with the kids, Austin and Hannah, and she even seemed to be warming up to Jenny who was mostly quiet as a mouse. So maybe they didn’t need me and maybe I could just slip away, give this all up.

It would be easier, I think. Than to face what must be coming.

Editor’s note: This page of the notebook was torn halfway out, and it hangs by just a few small rings of paper at the bottom of the notebook. It is as if Nora had begun to rip the page from her book, to conceal her thoughts about giving up and abandoning her friends, but had then changed her mind at the last minute. It’s likely that the other people who wrote in the notebook and subsequent books after this first one had read her letter of contemplating suicide, but if that is the case, no one ever mentioned it in later journal entries.