Day 40

There were several others living in the building. On lower floors. We made out way to the top in order to give us a good view. After going up and down five floors several times to get the supplies out of the Hummer my leg begins to ache as well as my broken, or nearly broken fingers. By the last trip, (three total), Josh is carrying most stuff and I am limping, using only one arm to haul up supplies.

We then do our best to barricade the stairwell doors, using furniture we found in several other rooms and wedging it against the door. We have enough food for several days, even longer if we make it last, and it won't be too much of a hassle to remove the furniture.

We choose a room that faces east and south to see the majority of the city around us. There is chaos everywhere. The infection spreads faster than I thought possible. There are fires in many locations and soon we start to hear gun fire. The zombies screams also echo through the city, mixing with those of others. They are muted for the most part, but occasionally, even with the windows closed we hear them loudly and know that someone is being attacked outside. The sense of fear, then, is overwhelming.

The first day we do nothing but sit around. Charlotte is irate and paranoid. She no longer has her gas mask and is not satisfied with one of the medical ones that Seeley and Dawn are and have been wearing. Seeley is still weak, and barely eating. I can tell he is getting better, but I think he was affected the most. And having to rely on others for food makes it harder for him to recoup.

* * *

We sit around through the day, listening to gun fire and screams. We check out side occasionally, but there is not a lot going on near us. Down town, and towards the facility we were held, from what we can see, look to be the most heavily occupied and where the fighting is going on. I watch as a tank rolls by our building and it shakes the window frames. I watch it turn and fire. At what, I cannot imagine. I see no explosion or any point of impact and assume the target was further than I thought.

The fires blaze brighter at night. They are everywhere in the city now and it only adds to the apocalyptic atmosphere that this city has grown into. One of the last, I suspect, to have no infection, and now we have a front row ticket to the show.

I suppose that I feel, on some level, that it is my fault that this broke out on the city, but it doesn't affect me in the same way many of the other deaths I've witnessed did. Maybe it is too broad and vast for me to clearly comprehend, or maybe I feel that those doing the experiments brought this on themselves and so blame them. However, I do not feel the guilt I felt when killing that man on the highway so long ago, or even Crystal, or Clive, or Chad's death. They mean something to me and so they affect me. These are unfortunate deaths that I can do little about.

I volunteer the first watch that night and sit in a chair by the window. I stare out, watching the street in front of us and watch as an occasional wanderer is attacked by multiple zombies. And as I watch I notice something. They work together. They are not completely mindless killers but coordinate their attacks. It still looks sloppy, and maybe it is, but there are definite markers of a plan. This thought, above almost any other, terrifies me.

I wake Charlotte at one o'clock in the morning and lay down next to Dawn. I am tired but my mind races. My leg still aches along with my hand but I try to ignore them, soon closing my eyes and falling asleep.