Z Diaries

Z Diaries 1

It was Carol who saved us. Things had escalated so quickly, so much more quickly than we come to expect this far from any urban centers. We ended up running headlong through the brush at the edge of the forest. Stupid. But when James was attacked Anne panicked, and the fear spread like wildfire. People shouted, shots were fired. Stupid, stupid. They probably heard those shots for miles. One became ten became twenty. There are probably hundreds of them out there now.
Carol. She saved us when she spotted the barn. I was reading myself the riot act because I left the hatchet AND the ax behind. For some goddamn dumb reason I grabbed Anne's guitar. The fucking guitar we'd all been too scared for her to play in months. What an idiot. After everything we've been through, everything we've managed to somehow survive, I pick up a fucking guitar. A fucking guitar.
And now Carol's dead.
I could say it was her own fault, waving her flashlight and screaming at the rest of us. I could say she should have known better, should have hid herself, should have run away, should have survived.
But she stopped running. And started waving, and screaming that there was a barn, a barn, to get inside to get upstairs. Standing there waving her light, screaming. And if she hadn't we would have all died to tonight, alone or in small terrified bands. Only seven of us made it here. Ten dead or missing. The quiet blond kid made it, and Travis and Tanisha. Anne is here, but we'll probably lose her too. She lost her sister and her man tonight. I tried to get her to sit with the kid and she scratched my arm something fierce. The other two I don't know, they're new from yesterday. We picked them up coming south out of Hygiene. Found them hiding in a little kids tree house. They had it wrapped round with barbed wire, all around down the trunk, and they were climbing down and tapping out the zees by hand.
Risky business that. It was Carol noticed them first too.
Carol who I could've saved with an ax, or even a hatchet. Carol who I couldn't save with a fucking guitar that didn't do no goddamn good against that fucking zee. Not a bit. Just splintered, and tore off more of that nasty stinking flesh, and it bit her anyway, bit her close. A fast bite. She twisted around and put a .38 through it's head and it slumped toward her. She side stepped it neatly, so efficient in her moves, like always. Go to the barn she said, Sorry, she said. She apologized. I couldn't see her well in the dark.
And then she shot herself.
Because I picked up a guitar. I could've picked up anything, a fucking rock for christ's sake.
And now we are seven.
And outside, scratching the flesh from their fingertips, scratching without no end, trying to get in, there are hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Millions.

And we are seven.