Jack's Diary - Appreciation and Death - Day 67

            As I expected, I didn’t fall asleep. I watched the night turn into morning with a blaze of colors charging over the horizon like a stampede of rainbow mares. I heard birds, a somewhat rare sight in this new world, desperately calling for mates when there are few to none to be found. It was sad to realize they may die alone without a partner or without starting a family. In this world, a happy ending in life is rare, so rare I’ve yet to see one. It may seem weird that I’m writing this, but when all you have to do is listen, see, and feel the life going on around you for hours, you start to think about it and appreciate it and feel sorrow for it. During that time, I think I heard every sound you could imagine from a cricket to a moaning soulless to a hawk squawking. I even heard the sound of a motorcycle or something coming from the city. Probably some survivor trying to get out (not a very smart choice since the sound attracts danger). I was about three quarters of the way up the tree so I had a pretty nice view. I spent most of my time watching a large come and go from a nest near the top of the tree I was in. I’m guessing it is a hawk. I really wanted my own hawk or some kind of large bird. I could teach it to gouge out the eyes of my enemies and to go pick up stuff for me. It would be awesome. I was tempted to climb the tree and take one of its babies if it had any, but the hawk would go completely nuts and probably peck me to death. I’m pretty sure even if I waited until it left, it would quickly rush back and kill me (mother intuition).

            There was one more town near by to search and after that, I’m heading back to base. Mike may have already made his way back, but if he didn’t, there isn’t much I can do anymore except arrange a search party to check the woods since Mike would have to drop 100 IQ points before considering searching any towns or cities further away, leaving the woods as the last option. The morning was quiet and there isn’t really much to talk about. I was hungry, but decided to eat some granola bars I keep with me (I hadn’t eaten in about two days). I also ate some wild raspberries I came across.

            My path to the last town was unheeded by anything or anyone. The town (or city. I don’t know anymore what to call them). It was abnormally quiet. No soulless wandering the streets, no bugs buzzing by, and hardly any breeze at all. Well, I guess there were soulless, but all the ones I came across were dead: shot, bulged, and dismembered. A somewhat disturbing sight, but it didn’t bother me too much: it did bring up some questions though. The town’s buildings were pretty diverse: it had a small community college, an arcade, a public library, an auto shop, a garden and flower shop, and veterinarian office. Lots of books, studying equipment, chemicals products, seeds, tools, and diverse drugs (mostly for pets) to take back. I found so much stuff, I used one of the wagons in the garden store to haul everything out. It squeaked from time to time, but this didn’t matter. There was no one around to hear. The most exciting place was the arcade. I really wished it had a small generator so I could play a game. I miss video games. The saddest of the building was the vet office. When disaster struck, the owners and employees must had run off and left a lot of the pets in the cages. Inside the cages, I found dead, rotting dog and cat carcasses. Nothing was alive except for maggots. Some laid peacefully in their cages as if they just fell asleep while others, I found broken teeth on the floor on the cages and outside of the cages, indicating that they tried to bite through the metal bars. It made me wish I knew about them before they all starved to death. They probably would’ve died even if they weren’t stuck in the cages, but at least they’d have die free.

            I had search the most of the stores when I moved into the neighbor to search there. That’s when things got dangerous. As I walked down the middle of the street, four or five windows opened up and suddenly, bullets were coming at me from left and right. I left the wagon and jumped behind a fence in the yard of what looked to be an empty house; that is, until the front window opened and a man leaned out with a shotgun. I quickly drew my handgun and shot the man, causing him to fall forward and out the window. Quickly, I crawled over with the others still trying to shoot me. I grabbed the shotgun, stood up and shot the person next door though it seems I only got their hand because they only dropped their gun. I dove through the window as more shots hit the wall of the house. I was now in a carpeted living room with a TV and sofas. As I looked around, there was a woman standing in the kitchen, pointing a rifle at me. I barely made it behind the sofa when she fired.

            “Miss!” I called out, “I don’t want any trouble! I was only passing through!”

            She answered back without hesitation. “You got trouble! You killed my husband!”

            A young boy came down the steps across from me with a pistol in his hand and fired; it jumped out of his hand and it missed me completely, but made me roll out from behind the couch only for me to roll back as the woman shot at me again. She was moving closer to the sofa. The boy scrambled to pick the gun up, but when he saw that I already had my new shotgun pointed at him, he ran away to where he came from, leaving the gun. A man looked in the window, asking, “Where is he?” He had just seen me when I shot off his face.

            “This doesn’t have to happen! Just let me go!” I yelled, “I hold no grudge against you.”

            “There’s been too much blood spilled already! You must pay for it!”

            I could tell by the sound of her voice she was almost right behind the sofa. I was leaning against it at the time so I spun around, put me feet underneath it, and kicked it forward, knocking it down and exposing her to the barrel of my gun. Had I been any later in pulling the trigger, she’d be telling this story. As the shotgun bullet pierced her chest, she dropped her rifle and fell background.

            “Shot him! Shot him now! Shot him now!” she yelled and in response, tons bullets pierced through the front of the house and more followed. Luckily, the bullets were always at least 6 inches off the ground so I crawled across the carpet to the kitchen. As I approached the woman, she remained completely still that is, until my legs were near her and she grabbed them with the intention of holding me in that spot until one of the bullets got me.

            “Jacob! Jacob!” she called out. At any moment, I could have been fatally hit so there was no time for mercy. I drew my handgun and shot her in the forehead. It was then only a matter of shaking her stiff arm off my leg and crawling in to the kitchen. From there, I went out the backdoor, only to find a man waiting for me. I dove out and managed to fire off a shot before he got the chance to. The rapid firing up front stopped and the movement of feet filled the once silent air. There wasn’t much time before they surrounded me so I ran around the corner of the house with a knife drawn and handgun out, and they were coming around the corner just as I was. A stab to the neck, a shot to the chest, two dead, and a hop over the neighboring fence. I reloaded my handgun and after a few seconds, I jumped up on the fence and saw three guys looking around cluelessly. I killed two of them and injured the other before having to fall back.

            “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to fight.”

            This must not have set well with the guy because directly after saying this, he charged over the fence and somehow fired off a two-handed shotgun with one hand. It nicked my arm, but mostly hit the fence. Two bullets to the chest and the man was down. I had hoped that that was everyone when I knew this wasn’t true. This town I walked into is inhabited by families, groups of people that did extremely well in eradicating the soulless. There had to be more, at least more mother and children baring arms. As fun as it is to take on an army by yourself, it is much tougher when the people you are fighting are smart, coordinated, and fight for a purpose. I wasn’t going to stay around any longer so I needed to devise a means of escape. There was a garage door on the house I was near so escaping by car was both practical and awesome. It wouldn’t open by hand and as I expected more bullets were flying in my direction so I broken through a window (which looking back on this, it was pretty stupid considering that’s how I injured my arm in the first place). I cut myself up a little, but nothing too major. Two men, a woman, and a boy were rushed into the room armed. I didn’t get too good of a look at them because I was already running for the door leading to the garbage. For some reason, they didn’t fire at me. I pulled a large workbench in front of the door to keep them from opening it and then went to the car. To my luck, it was a big, powerful truck. A broken window, a few wires and sparks, and it was ready to go. I broke through the closed garage door (after which, I found the garage door opener) and barreled down the street, only to stop and pick up my wagon. Dangerous? Yes, but it was worth it. In a short minute, I was out of town, but not out of trouble. As if I was psychic, two large soulless with blade arms got in my way. I was going to fast to stop so I rammed them. They died or at least were stuck under the truck, but the truck refused to move afterward. I really liked that truck.

            It’s sad, really. No matter where I go, I bring destruction and death. Ann probably got a kick out of watching me today. I wonder what she thinks of the times where I am still, like last night. Would she leave me alone if my life was boring or would she try and make it exciting? Perhaps I should draw her out with boredom.        

           With my wagon trailing behind me and the night approaching once more, I climbed the same tree I had the night before and waited for either sleep to visit or for night to pass. Tomorrow will be no different. 

- Jack's Diary

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Jack's Diary - The Morning Will Answer You - Day 56

     Life never works out how you plan. If someone told me it did, I'd know they were lying and probably led a miserable life. If things stayed as I wanted, I'd still be back at The Hill or left with some of the others to build my own base in the woods. No matter how well you plan, you can't escape what you don't know is coming. Our lives intersect with so many other lives and things who all have their dreams and purposes to live out. Life is a battle to deny others their dreams in order to achieve your own and in this world, no one is ever truly a winner.
     We were attacked by a horde of soulless. We almost got out without a single loss, that is until Julie  showed us her right arm. She'd been bitten. I automatically drew my gun (I saw no reason for her to keep living if she was going to turn on us. Besides, I can imagine the worry and suffering she'd go through waiting for her to change or for us to put her out of her misery). Mike stopped me though. Julie claims she's immune and Mike believes her. I've yet to meet anyone who was bitten or scratched by a soulless and didn't turn, but Mike decided to tie her to a tree and said that if she turned, he would kill her. To me, it just seemed like Mike was grasping at straws; he didn't want to lose another and he's taking any excuse to keep her alive. I concluded that if he wanted to waste our time, that's up to him. I'm wasn't happy this was happening to Julie, but prolonging what seemed to me to be an inevitable situation wouldn't help anyone.
     Everyone seemed to go on with their regular activities. Ann sat down beside me and asked me how I was doing. It wasn't long before I started expressing my viewpoint of our current situation. Ann listened patiently. She didn't say whether or not I was wrong and didn't say what she thought about it. I decided to take Ann for what she appears to be: a woman who's interested in me. I'm trying my best to ignore my suspicions. If it ends up getting me killed, so be it. I'll die happy at least.
     Mike spent some time talking with Julie, evening giving her a cup of hot chocolate and covering her up with a blanket when she fell asleep. It wasn't long before everyone went to sleep. No one could bear looking at Julie, knowing what she would become I suppose. It was horrible. Of all the people to get bitten why did it have to be her, the youngest one? Then again, misfortune befell the young long before this all began so I shouldn't be surprised. It did make me think of what I'd want done if I got bitten. My first thought was to find a large group of soulless and kill as many as I could. If by the approach of night, I'm still alive and not a soulless, I would kill myself (in a sense, taking one more soulless out of this world). It was appealing, but just like everyone else, I didn't want to die, even if it meant living a soulless life. Instead, I'd like to be locked in a room somewhere with a pen and paper and write until the transformation was complete, just so people could see what happens to the mind before changing. I also wonder what would happen to a soulless that doesn't eat for a few years. I'd want someone to check on me, to see what my condition was. In a way, my request is selfish and self-serving, but how could someone turn down a man in his final hours?
     I stared at Julie, thinking about how much her death would impact our world. Mike would sink into a depression again (or worse), the Valors may become angry that we let their package get turned, and the time it takes us to bury Julie would cut into the time it takes to get to the Valor base, possibly placing more danger in our path (or less). Just then, I heard footsteps. I looked around and approaching the tree where Julie slept was a soulless. It had just came around the tree when I bashed it's head. Julie woke in shock and fear and began backing away from the tree.
     "It's okay. It's okay. Calm down," I said. She leaned over to see what I had hit. "We had a visitor. It won't bother you now."
     I tried kicking the soulless away when Julie spoke. "You should've just let it eat me." I turned around to face her. "I'm going to turn away."
     I could've said some comforting words and told her everything was going to be alright, but what good would that do? I just took in a long breath. That's when I saw her wrist. It looked discolored now.
     "Can I see your wrist?" I asked her.
     I took out my flashlight to get a better look. The area around where she was bitten had changed to a pale color and was spreading (I could literally see it slowly spreading out across the skin).
     "Which do you value more: your hand or your life?" I quickly asked her.
     "What?"
     "We might be able to stop you from turning, but it would mean losing your right hand. Can you live with that?" I asked quicker and more urgent.
     She looked upset, but she answered, "Yah. I could live without it."
     "I'll be right back," I said as I ran to Mike's tent.
     I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. One of the men who visited the Hill had a prosthetic leg and when I asked him what happened to it, he told me his friends cut, saying "it was either lose the leg or turn into one of those monster". I assumed that his leg was trapped in something and it needed to be cut off for him to escape an attack. I never even considered that they cut it off because he was bitten. I've never seen a person turn before so I didn't know what or how a bite could turn someone. After seeing her wrist however, it looks like whatever causes the transformation stays near the entrance point to the body for a time before (perhaps preparing or mutating) before attacking the rest of the body.
     I opened Mike's tent, jumped on him, and started shaking him saying, "Get up! Get up! Get up!" I yelled.
     "What the hell is your problem!" Mike yelled.
     "We might be able to save Julie, but we need to hurry. Find a shot of morphine and inject it in Julie's arm above the spot where she got bitten."
     "Wait. What are you..."
     "Mike. Get the hell up and go, now!"
     I ran out of the tent and went over to my supply bag. Mike jumped out of the tent and ran into Jess' tent and like a cheetah, was in and out of the tent before Jess knew what happened. Frantically looking through my bag, I found the throwing hatchet I brought with me and I also pulled out a cloth (one good thing about over packing, I suppose). I ran over to Julie where Mike was already beside her. The pale color had already covered her wrist and was working its way up.
     "Did you inject her?" I asked.
     "Yah. What now?" asked Mike.
     "Untie Julie and lay her down."
     While Mike did that, I ripped off a long piece of my shirt and tied it tightly around Julie's arm, just below where I planned on cutting. Julie was crying quietly since she knew what was going to happen.
     "Okay. Sit on top of her and hold her arm down. Make sure she doesn't move."
     I grabbed the hatchet beside me and was lining myself up Mike flipped out, "What're you doing!"
     "Mike! Let him!" yelled Julie tearfully. That reminded me.
     "Here Julie! Bite down on this towel and close your eyes!" I shoved it into her mouth and quickly lined myself up again.On the first swing, I cut through her flesh, but didn't cut through the bone. The blood splashed onto Mike and me with each swing. Even with the towel, Julie's scream was terrifying and loud. I didn't hesitate between swings; I wanted to make this quick. Four swings altogether and her wrist was cut off.
     "Alright. Get a first aid kit and wrap up her arm. Quickly!"
     Mike ran off into Jess' tent again, who was now up and cowering inside, wondering what we were doing to Julie. He was back in a flash. I checked Julie's arm and I didn't see any discoloration or paleness so I guess it worked. Mike took out the bandages and wrapped it around her wound. Julie sobbed the entire time from the pain and probably from realizing she would only have one hand for now on. With the trial done, I kicked her hand over to the dead soulless (it looked like the hand continued to turn paler). I suspected that our yelling and Julie's screams might have draw a few unwanted guests so I told Victor to grab some weapons and we readied ourselves. Jess also joined in. We did get a few soulless, but nothing we couldn't handle. Mike finished wrapping Julie's wound long before we finished, but he stayed by her side. Understandable.
     Although the operation (if you want to call it that) was seemingly successful, I still wasn't sure.
     "Mike, we're going to have to keep her tied up again."
     They both looked at me like I was stupid. "Why?" he asked, "We just cut off her hand! That's the part that was bitten!"
     "This is just to make sure. For all I know, we may have just delayed the infection. By morning, if she hasn't turned, she should be alright."
     "Fine."
     Mike retied Julie to the tree. He went back into his tent for a blanket and sat next to Julie while I explained to the others what we did and why. Afterwards, Mike and I both stayed outside to watch over her. Mike never left her side. After an experience like that, Julie needs someone by her side though I really hoped that the operation was a success because if it wasn't, this would've all been in vane and Mike would join Julie's fate. At least he'd die happy.
     I stayed up until morning. It felt like someone was watching me. I looked at the tent where Ann was sleeping and I never saw her looking out so it couldn't have been her. I've learned that sleep is a state of weakness and the enemy should never catch you weak. Paranoia? Maybe, but I've been stalked before. Besides, I want to watch out for everyone; make sure everyone stays safe.
     The morning came and I could see nothing in the light or shadow that watched me. Julie had eaten Mike so that was a good sign. I lightly kicked Mike awake who preceded to shake Julie.
     "Julie... Wake up," Mike said softly. Julie yawned and for a split second, I thought she'd turned.
     "What?" she answered.
     Mike went nuts saying, "Julie! You're alright!"
     It wasn't long before everyone was woken up and joined in Mike and Julie's happiness. And it all happened on such a bright morning, where nothing dark could linger, not even sadness.
     It is true that life doesn't work out as you planned. Julie never imagined you lose her hand, but I'm sure she was grateful she didn't lose her life. You should be thankful for what life gives you and don't squander it, for everything could be yours tomorrow and everything could be gone the next.

- Jack's Diary


   

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Jack's Diary - Day 25, October 11th 2013

     The morning hit me like a strong wind as it shook my clothes and the thick tree branches I laid against. I peered down to see that Duke was still alive. I broke off a small tree branch and threw it at him as I was climbing down to wake him up. I wanted to get started early so we could get to the city as fast as possible.
     I used to love morning when I was younger. I don't no if it was the fresh cold air, the unique colors of the sky, or just an early sense of nostalgia for when I was much younger, when I was a child who knew nothing of the troubles to greet me with each successive saddening years. The nostalgia has dried up in me for mornings; they're just the beginning of what will soon be the end of another day. I am not happy and I haven't been happy for what feels like a long time. Even at the Hill, with all the smiling I did, most of it was for the benefit of my friends. Saving Jane wouldn't make life more enjoyable for me;  it would only give purpose, a sense that this world still needs me. I don't even know why I'm thinking these thoughts when nothing will be resolved in the end. I only live for the sake of the future and my feelings on life won't change.
     After a few hours of walking, I began to hear some animalistic noises from far away. I knew it would have been safer to avoid the direction the sounds were coming from, but we checked it out on the off chance that there might be someone in trouble (along with my own curiosity prompting me to dive in). The noises became louder and new ones that I hadn't previously heard joined the others, creating a disturbing, annoying symphony of sounds. I've never been to war, but it sure sounded like a battle. We finally reached the source as Duke stayed behind (coward) as I cautiously walked forward. I discovered that there was a battle taking place in a large open field among soulless. Soulless of different sizes and appearances were eating and killing one another. The grass was dark red with blood and the field was already littered with bodies with five or six soulless eating the flesh off the bones of the "dead" one while other soulless shoved others out of the way to get a bite. It seemed that the living soulless were much more appealing to the general population of the field since large groups would gang up on injured. I suppose cannibalism isn't too strange of an occurrence to occur between living creatures, especially when it is programmed into the instincts of the human mind to survive at all costs. I left still picturing what I saw in my mind. It wasn't shocking, but I never thought I'd see such a ghastly and savage battle among monsters in my lifetime. Duke asked what it was and I told him if he wanted to know, he should've come with me. It's best that he didn't though. He probably would've fainted or puked and alerted the soulless that "fresh meat" was only a run and bite away.
     We continued, walking a large distance around the battlefield just in case there were other soulless fighting in the nearby woods. Nothing interesting happened much after that, although, I thought I saw an albino deer in the far distance one time. I had never seen one in my life. I find it funny that such a unique animal survived in a time where everything just seems to be dying off. Perhaps there is more left for me on Earth to live the dreams of my younger self. Or, perhaps not.

- Jack's Diary

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