Zombie Files: The Cadence of the Dead

 “You hear about the end of the world all the time on TV, in books, and in classrooms. You never think that it can happen to YOUR world. Well, it did happen…and not a single human being was prepared for it.” –The President of the United States

Zombie Files: Maya's Calendar - Part Two

Photo: creativeuncut.com

Autumn 1: The Heart Grows Fonder 
They remind me of mannequins. Sometimes when it's really quiet and dark, they look like black mannequins littering the streets. They can no longer be considered human because they are dead. Dead humans don't walk or feed tirelessly on the living. These lifeless monsters are not the same as me. I'm sure that the world will fall to these Mannys and they will be the only "life" left on Earth. I just don't think anyone has the willpower to survive and reproduce all that has been lost. I pray I don't become a Manny. I pray I don't end up like my mom and brother. I must get to New York...
~Maya

Zombie Files: Exiled at Sea - Part Two

Adrift. . .

    After the Sun had beaten Gerard into submission, he struggled to stay afloat the freezing waters.  He began slipping in and out of consciousness after night had fell, and his arms had grown weary from being shackled together.  The ocean water stung at his red wrists and swollen hands.  Inescapable blackness threatened to swallow him whole if he were tempted to give into its underwater allure.

 

    Memories of his childhood danced across his mind like synaptic home-movies.  Playing catch with dad, his mother teaching him to read, running to their bedroom during a thunderstorm and other recollections swam along side him in the water.  His father had been a successful, mechanical engineer, and his mother worked as a nurse in the ICU at the local hospital.  The whole family had decided on a cruise vacation that summer because of his parent's 15 year anniversary.  It was supposed to be a two-week trip around the Bahamas, but it turned permanent once the feeder plague had decimated the world's population.  Gerard's father had even helped The Hyperion's crew repair their engine after a critical failure had immobilized the large vessel days after the initial outbreak.  The surrounding islands had turned into a tumultuous war-zone, so they were forced to stay at sea for a long while.  Whole cities burned, and the putrid smoke filled the air for weeks on end.

Zombie Files: Bartle Four

I try shifting my weight across the door to get a better look at the man lying across the room. Watching the man carefully I decide the twitching is just dying neurons sending their final signals because it is too soon for him to be changing. Black spots are dancing around my vision’s outskirts for every tiny movement results in excruciating pain. This bullet in my gut feels like a termite trying to burrow its way deeper into my internal organs but I have to be ready for when he changes. The thing that unsettles me the most about them, the Vacant, is the emptiness in their eyes. The Vacant appear as nothing more than a shell of someone from long ago that refuses to die. Endlessly shuffling from one place to the next consuming life and leaving a wake of death. They almost remind me of myself. I check my Jericho 941 F and see I only have three 9mm bullets left. Sliding back the chamber I flip the safety off and wait for my friend to come back from the dead with the one desire of eating me.

Zombie Files: Maya's Calendar

 Photo: andywarthol.com

Summer 1: Skulls and Fire
I miss my mom and my little brother more than I can handle. Practically every day I cry harder and harder because I know that they are never coming back. The world isn't coming back. All of my hopes and dreams, including finishing high school, will never happen. I will never see my mom again or laugh at my brother's corny jokes. I will never go on more dates or ever get married. Sometimes I wish that I had the guts to kill myself. Any place is better than now. I have survived two years alone. In the times that I had companionship, it was usually against my will. The dead walking seems normal to me now. There are ten times as many Mannys than live humans. The people left behind have to endure the hell that remains. I have only one mission. I must get to New York...
~Maya

Zombie Files: Exiled at Sea

The Hand or the Drink?

     

 

    Saltwater invaded Gerard's nostrils as he awoke to the laughter of his captors.  It seemed the guards had chosen to wake him less than gently that morning; the day of his trial.  His sentence would be decided upon by a tribunal consisting of three different ships' captains.  Unfortunately, the only vote that actually mattered was decided by Admiral Moore, the self-appointed captain of the massive cruise liner named The Hyperion and the Savior of The Fleet.  Once the U.S. was overwhelmed with feeders, Moore's group had no choice but to look to the sea in hopes of finding an uninhabited island to hold out on.  His savior moniker was earned by leading an exodus of ragtag ships off the coast of Florida nearly five years ago in search of such a place.  Some say he had killed as many humans as he had feeders.  These were stories that Gerard had heard growing up as a child that seemed heroic if not so apocryphal.    

    Moore was not a forgiving man however, and Gerard had accidentally killed a captain's son in the galley two days prior.  Working late, Gerard was in the kitchen when a drunken stranger had approached and insulted him for working such a lowly job.  Gerard had quipped back, “Not everyone can be born a captain's son.”  The man's face had gone blood red with that jibe and he waited til Gerard finished his shift to resume the hostilities.  However, it wouldn't have ended the way it did had the man not pulled a knife on him.  Gerard would have been hanged and thrown over the bow of the ship immediately for his crime had he not been only 15 years old.

Bloggaroo 2012.

Bonnaroo is now over, and it was easily the most successful, satisfying festival experience I've had so far.  After the jump a ton of photos and videos from Bonnaroo 2012.