Day Seventy Seven:

Day Seventy Seven:

Jesus... Arnold is dead.

The fire came out of the West while we were all asleep. Before we even knew it was there it was burning down the houses down the street and moving rapidly towards us. We did what we could with the time we had. Fortunately we already had the car loaded up for the next day, but if we hadn't...

I don't want to think about what would have happened if we hadn't.

I don't want to think about this as it is.

We loaded up what we could and left, with enough food and supplies to last for the next couple years going up in flames.

We drove to our back up location in the East since, Arnold had suggested we pick out and fortify some alternative locations just in case of some disaster. We pulled in, locked up, and felt like the worst was behind us. Then, Arnold had a fucking heart attack.

I almost wish the things had got him. Then at least I would have a way to vent this anger/depression that is coursing through every inch of my body.

We escaped, we did everything right. Everything except bring some nitroglycerin pills or whatever the fuck you are supposed to give to someone when they are dying in front of you. Instead, we just stared at him and I don't know, tried to make his awful death better?

We would have buried him except, on several different occasions we had all watched as ex-humes dug up the ground only to pull out some mangled corpse from a coffin or animal that was buried there. In this future, everyone is either cremated or leftovers. Did I write about this before? I don't remember, everything is cloudy right now.

Arnold talked about sailing as a kid so we decided to give him a Viking funeral at a nearby lake. Whether or not that’s what he wanted I don't have any fucking clue. What he probably wanted was to not die from a heart attack. What he probably wanted was for us to be able to call 9-1-1 and not only have someone answer, but send us a doctor that wasn't a God Damn monster.

What has this taught me? That just surviving isn't working. I wouldn't behave this way in my normal boring life, so why in a crisis when the world needs more "real" people than ever to form a collection are we all hiding and waiting for an invisible authority to save us?

I don't know. Arnold probably would, but he's dead. And AJ just seems like he blew a fuse. Its one thing to know that there are horrible mutated humans waiting to rip out your intestines. Its another to know that even if you have the strength, intelligence, and resolve to defend yourselves against them... you still might lose because you ate to many doughnuts, or didn't properly clean out a minor cut, or just came down with a slight case of the God hates yous.

We are alive, but if we don't make an effort to move forward we are just as fucked as those miserable ex-humes. I will give AJ a week to grieve, but after that week I am moving on. If he wants to stay put, so be it. But Arnold's death has reminded me that I am still here, and I refuse to waste that anymore.