Friday, February 25, 2011

Day Ninety One:

Day Ninety One:

Today was good. First day in a while where we all just got to talk and occasionally *gasp* even laugh! Got to hear another one of AJ’s theories of the universe which is always a real treat.

His new theory is that the ex-humes are nothing new. At first I thought he was going to say they were like Bigfoot or vampires, always lurking in the shadows and waiting till now to spring their trap. But no, his idea actually seemed somewhat possible even if it isn’t very likely.

He said that maybe we had done this before, maybe mankind had made it to where we are now, maybe even further and at some point we created something that just sort of, shorted out almost everyone’s brains.

We asked how that could be possible? There would still be evidence of something if that was the case. But he countered with, what if this happened millions of years before our earliest records of cavemen. What if some of the craters that we thought were asteroids that killed the dinosaurs, were actually something as simple as a nuclear reactor meltdown. What if we had been here before, and accidentally reset the world. What if it had happened more than once.

And what if we were really trapped inside the Matrix!

AJ didn’t laugh when I said that, but Victor did.

I will give AJ credit though, because it definitely seems possible. Although the idea of mankind constantly erasing all of its accomplishments every billion years of so isn’t exactly a topic to cheer up the mood so we drifted away from that and focused in on stories from Victor.

He asked if we knew about the islands?

We said we knew that they were masses of land surrounded by water but outside of that, no.

According to Victor the government had taken the brightest and the best, and quarantined an island somewhere down south. Probably off the coast of Florida. He said that if we could make it there we would be safe. I explained that before we could do that, we would have to decide whether to take the red pill or blue pill which made him laugh again.

He told us more about his swarm experience and the people he was with. Told us where he grew up, about all the hands on medical experience he had been forced into since this thing started, and how he thought that before long the swarms of 1000 would probably combine into some sort of mega swarm. When that happened, food would start to get real scarce.

I changed topics to McDonalds ice cream which spiraled into an hour long conversation about all the food we missed. This was followed by all of us eating the last pack of twinkies I had in my backpack.

In the words of the late Ice Cube… Today was a good day.

Sort of funny that from here on out… 99.999% of every quote will be considered to be, “In the words of the late…” Ah well

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Day Eighty Eight, Nine, Ninety:

Day Eighty Eight, Nine, Ninety:

 Victor asked us all sort of questions. Where we had lived, how we survived, if we had met others (Poor Arnie), and then he started telling us stuff we didn’t know. He asked if we knew about the Swarms.

Obviously we had not so he explained how sometimes the Ex-humes move in groups which we already knew. But sometimes, those groups combine with other groups until eventually they are one super group. When that happens, they apparently act almost like locust and just lay waste to everything in their path.

The first time he encountered a swarm was with his initial group. Back then he said, they had at least forty people, probably closer to fifty, and wouldn’t have been nearly as easy to pick off when they got to that rape/labor camp but when the swarm hit…even with everyone armed they almost got wiped out.

They made the mistake of trying to fight, but the ex-humes group must have been at least 1000 deep and outnumbered them 20 to 1. Kill one, another one jumps over it. Kill that one, repeat step on. After killing about 100 of them, the remaining 900 were at the walls of their camp.

Victor asked us, “You ever try fighting a war in a full biosuit? It ain’t fucking easy.”

When it became clear that they couldn’t stop them, they retreated to their vehicles. By then they were down to 20, maybe 25 people. But as soon as they pulled off the perimeter the things swarmed in. Victor an a handful of others were lucky enough to make it to their military truck. Everyone else that ran for a regular car, truck, or house was devoured in seconds.

Victor and a few others fired out the back of the vehicle while a hair stylist named David Jenkins drove them away from the camp. When they were far enough away, the only surviving military guy in their group hit a detonator and blew their camp and most of the swarm back to hell. Then he shot himself in the head since he had been bitten.

By the time they made it to the Slaver camp, they were down to 5 people including Victor. The survivors had fought for their lives and watched their loved ones die only to be murdered by a group of psychopaths.

After hearing his story, we figured it was probably best to get rid of Bossman as well. We went to work finding spare bio-suits and doing our best to make the camp look as normal as always. Sort of tricky since, we only had three men to accomplish this and according to Victor their Bossman had at least 4 others with him.

Fortunately though, we had two more days before he was expected back. During that time we dug a hole inside the compound just past the main gate. Not just a hole, a grave. A grave that would fit an entire car and all of its occupants. A grave Stephen King would be proud of.

Once we were sure the hole was at least big enough to fit two cars driving side by side, we covered it with a brown tarp that they were using as a make shift tent at one of the guard outposts.

Unlike the disaster we encountered upon arriving at this horrible place, when Bossman returned everything went as planned. AJ notified Victor and I as soon as the car was approaching causing Victor and I to immediately the hole 1/3 of the way full with their gasoline reserves. When the car arrived, we opened the gate and watched it drive forward at its normal speed before going end over end into our hole.

The trick was to make the hole deep enough so that when it flipped, it would have enough room to go all the way in and have enough momentum to flip it over onto its roof which is did.

And then they all got to enjoy the sweet release of burning to death before hopefully going off to the afterlife and burning for eternity there as well.

We talked about staying at the camp but, after a brief discussion we decided that we would have better luck finding survivors and hopefully avoiding swarms if we stayed on the move. After packing up all the supplies we needed we left a note stating our direction of travel and where other survivors could locate the remaining food and supplies.

After today I will try to go back to 1 day entries. It has just been a crazy week. Sort of hard to stop what you’re doing and fill out your journal when you are planning to murder a car full of people.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Day Eighty Five, Six, Seven:

Day Eighty Five, Six, Seven:

The next day when the guard came back he decided he actually wanted to talk to us for once. He sounded scared and desperate. Despite what we had been through and the fact that we were naked and being held against our will in a home made prison I almost felt sorry for him.

He was talking quiet but he wanted to know if we had done anything to him, he promised not to tell anyone if we had. We lied and said we hadn’t. We told him that after he had freaked out yesterday, we went over by the door to see what had scared him and saw there was the tip of a rusty nail sticking out.

Now if he hadn’t of been terrified this might have screwed us since he could have asked a lot of questions starting with, “Where is the nail?” Because it wasn’t like we had a claw hammer to pull it out of the door with, and we couldn’t exactly pound the sharp end of a nail back into the door with our bare hands. Fortunately, he was so freaked out that all he said was, “Oh shit”.

I lied and told him he might have tetanus and that if he let us out I could get him to an abandoned hospital and treat him. He said he would think about it but after that, we never saw him alive again.

So our nasty little viral friend jumped ship from him, to all of his friends over the course of about 6 hours. By day Eighty Six damn near everyone in that place was suffering from an acute case of the “About to be deads”.  Our plan was to simply wait it out. Wait till we were as sure as we could be that everyone was too sick to move, and then kick down the door. After two of our meals were skipped and we couldn’t contact any guards we decided it was time to make our move.

Here’s the thing though, have you ever tried to bust out of a reinforced door while you’re naked? No? Because it is damn near impossible. We beat the living hell out of that door for over an hour and all we had to show for it was a bunch of bruised and bloody body parts.

As Day Eighty Seven approached we had gone over a day without any food or water. This might not seem like a big deal, but when you have no concept of time and no plan of escape… things get really scary really fast. Every itch, every body hiccup, every everything feels like the acute stages of something you should know more about that is probably going to kill you.

However, half way through what must have been Day Eighty Seven we heard gunshots. Lots and lots of gunshots. Not like, machinegun fire. More like, BAM! Then, three minutes later… BAM! This went on for at least an hour or two until eventually, no more gunshots.

A half our passed and then the slot in the door where we got our food from slid open and a man said, “Hello, I’m Victor, how are you?”

He pushed some bottles of water through the door along with glorious food and clothes. Unfortunately, after hearing all the gunshots AJ and I were convinced that the water was poisoned, along with the food. We got dressed quickly and then voiced this concern to him. He laughed before saying, “You must have heard all the gunshots, why would I poison you instead of just shooting you?”

Touche.

The water was gone in seconds and the food shortly after that. Apparently Victor didn’t want to be living there either. He had also come with a group of people and had been forced to sit naked in a room. He lied and said he was a doctor, which was sort of true since he had been working on a degree to become a male nurse but… the other people in his group were unable to impress their captors. As a result, the women were handed out like candy and the men were murdered after having been worked nearly to death with no provisions.

He told us the only reason we were being fed was because they were waiting for their boss to get back from an expedition he had gone on. If bossman had been around, we most likely would not be around to enjoy his company.

We asked if he was immune to the disease like us and he said no. He explained that he kept his biosuit on at all times and only showered once a week. The other people there took to calling him Icky Vic because of his smell but he didn’t care. He laughed when I said they would be smelling a lot worse real soon.

He asked us where our camp was and we told him we were it. He said we didn’t have to lie, he was there to help and we explained that we weren’t. He managed to get the door open and asked if he could come with us. I explained that we didn’t have any idea where we were going and he said that sounded perfect.

So after gathering up a bunch of supplies, he led us to the garage where they were storing our vehicle and off we went. A trio once more.

Day Eighty Four:

Day Eighty Four:

Another day passed, or did it? Without any windows time gets real hazy. I guess we could have kept track of time with the light shining through under the door or, by counting our meals but when you are fairly certain you are going to be murdered shortly… time loses its importance.

What doesn’t lose its importance is striving to find a way to keep yourself unkilled. I know I could say “alive” but that word doesn’t apply here. Eating crackers and drinking some water will keep you “alive” most days. When you are locked naked in a makeshift prison, what you want is to keep yourself un-fucking-killed.

It came down to us using good old fashioned biological warfare. Because lets face it, neither AJ nor I were professional ninjas previous to this plague. Neither of us could break a man's neck with our index finger and neither of us knew how to use hypnosis, or magic, or whatever else might have saved us.

What we did know was that AJ had been bitten by the ex-humes. What we didn’t know was whether or not that meant his blood was contagious as shit to anyone without a natural immunity like us, or if the virus died as soon as it entered his blood stream.

However, any chance was better than no chance so we went to work crafting a plan. The guards barely acknowledged our existence. The only time we ever saw them was when they threw our food to us and even then, all we saw was there hand coming through the slot in the door.

Sure, we could have grabbed his hand and sliced it open with the razor blade and dumped some of AJ’s blood into it while he struggled. But I was 99.9% certain that would result in him killing us. If not him, then his boss would shoot us in the head.

Had to look like an accident. Something he could be blamed for and still feel like maybe he would be ok. Had to use the same tactic you would use when dealing with rats. Give one poison food and let him bring that shit back to the nest to poison the others.

So we carved a little niche into the door with the Swiss Army knife, inserted the razor blade so that just a small edge was poking up. Small enough to be mistaken for a nail. Then moments before we expected breakfast or lunch or whatever the same shit they fed us every time was… we cut AJ a little with the razor and left his blood on the edge of it.

Fast forward to the guard sticking his hand through, then immediately dropping our food and pulling his hand back incredibly fast. Hearing him whisper to himself, “Oh fuck oh fuck” and then to us “Did you do this?”

We pretended to be confused and AJ asked if we could help, asked what was wrong. The man told us to shut the fuck up and left. As soon as he was gone we pulled the razor blade back out and hid it. If anyone came to figure out what cut him, no point of leaving evidence of what we did just lying around. Although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t say anything to anyone.

And then we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Day Eighty Three:

Day Eighty Three:

WWMCGD

You know, sort of like What Would Jesus Do but, replace Jesus with MacGuyver and you get WWMCGD.

So heres the plan we came up with. AJ would use the matches to melt down the boat key holder over the middle of the paper clips. Then, after tieing the string to one end of the paper clip, we would tie the other end to the doorknob. I would knock on the door and get the guard to come check out the commotion. As son as he touched the door handle and began to open the door, AJ would plug in the paper clip into one of the rooms power outlets.

When the guard got zapped, I would grab the gun and then quickly subdue him in our prison. One of us would wear his regular clothes, and one of us would wear his biosuit. We then would act as a guard and escort and breeze out of the facility without anyone being the wiser.

Also, if you think that would have worked you're a fucking idiot. Because it wouldn't. What would happen is, as soon as the paper clip went into the outlet a fuse would blow. Then we would probably be left naked in a room while someone tried to replace a fuse. Either that or they would figure out the bullshit we were up to and shoot us.

Either way we would lose because in real life, MacGuyver nonsense does not work ever.

Yesterday when I listed our inventory I did forget to mention one thing. In addition to all our useless MacGuyver shit, we also realized that we possibly had in AJ a strain of the most deadly virus known to mankind. So we had that going for us, and that's nice.

Oh yeah, AJ also pointed out that after today our captors would probably decide we weren't infected. At that point, one of two things would happen.

1. We would be welcome into this camp of end of the world survivalists with open arms and be considered their equals!

2. We would be forced into slave labor or rapesville.

3. A variation of number 2, we would get raped while performing slave labor.

As much as I wanted to believe it would be number one, having the guard that morning say, "I've got dibs on you" certainly didn't help my outlook. I believe a young Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers expressed our intentions the best when she said, "Kill em all Mickey, KILL EM ALL!"

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Day Eighty Two Pt 3:

Day Eighty Two Pt 3:

One razor blade
One pack of matches
One 3 foot length of string
Two paper clips
One very small swiss army knife w/ the usual attachments

That is what AJ and I were left with. Oh right, and a boat key holder covered in body secretions. I probably didn't need to tell you that but I don't want someone to find this journal 100 years from now and be all like "Wait a second! I thought there was a boat key holder! What a fucking liar!"

Additionally, even though there weren't any windows on the door I was pretty sure there was a guard stationed outside since every now and then I would see him walk past the door. Could we have jumped the guard? I don't know, probably. But who knows how many other people were in there. Not to mention, one mistake would result in us being severely shot.

Not just regularly shot. No, severely shot. Which is much worse.

First thing I did was tie the string to the boat key holder and then tie the other end to a vent in the room. That way, until we figured this horrible situation out we could leave our stuff hidden in a vent. I knew watching those Prison Lockup shows would pay off one day.

At some point we were given food that day. But it was just bread and crackers on a paper plater. So I guess I could add a paper plate to the inventory as well.

We spent the night naked, on the floor, waiting to die.
Which is actually quite a bit worse than spending the night in a car waiting to die.

Its strange how comforting clothes are.
And how terrifying life can become without them.