So where was I? I believe I was left staring at my television (my god I miss television) with a mouth of half chewed food. The drooling man was staring back at me. He looked healthier and was smiling. I wondered just what he had done to put himself in such a terrible condition and why the authorities were hunting him. It occurred to me that they should have been able to catch him at the train station. Why hadn't they? He was barely alive when I last saw him, he should have been an easy prisoner to control.

  I wasn't able to entertain those thoughts for very long because the list of hunted employees was interrupted. A wispy haired newscaster came on the screen. She looked terrified and confused. Her entire body seemed frozen, and she was unable to speak for the first few seconds the camera was trained on her. She stared off to the side as if she was listening to someone and then abruptly began to speak.

  "We have some breaking news to report. Just a few moments ago an order for Martial Law has been put into effect. The military is calling in all available personnel, including the National Guard, to enforce this decree. The President has put this into effect nationwide and there is a press conference scheduled in about an hour to address the country. We will be there as soon as it happens. For now, everyone is instructed to stay inside of their homes at all times. Please do not leave for any reason unless you are instructed to do so by military personnel. Do not open your door for anyone who does not provide official credentials from the military or law enforcement. If you have anyone who is injured, treat them as best as you can in your homes. All emergency services are being suspended due to the hospital closures in the area. We will have more information as it comes, but for your safety, please just... just stay inside...."

  The station abruptly cut to a shot of an empty podium in the press conference room. The newscasters continued to repeat the trivial information they had while waiting for the President to arrive. I can recall it all so vividly. The words she was saying, the look on her face as she tried to keep her composure. But I could tell she wanted to break down and run. She didn't want to be stuck there while everything was happening. She definitely knew more than she was letting on.

  I remember looking down at my phone. Someone was calling me. I also had a text message. The call was from my mother frantically asking me if I was watching the news. The text was from one of my friends asking me if she should try to sneak out and come over so she wouldn't be alone. After calming my mother down and telling her to just lock her door and sit tight I called my friend back. Her name is Alison and she is one of the few people on this planet who understands me. We have been friends since high school and we are a lot like sisters. She knows when I need space and when I need a hug. She doesn't pressure or annoy me the way most other people would. She is simply the best friend I could ever hope for.

  She asked me again if she should try to come over. She only lived a few blocks from me. Alison lived alone but she wasn't one to deal with a situation like this by herself. She said she had seen a few military vehicles passing by her street, using a bullhorn to give out instructions to the residents in her neighborhood. She was scared to death. I told her that she needed to follow the commands that the military were giving her. I told her to stay put. No reason to get caught by them and possibly arrested. We ended up talking for a while, trying to get our minds off of the strange things that were happening.

  It was one of the last times I was able to talk complete nonsense to anyone. I had no idea how much things would change, how in just a few days my world would be completely destroyed.

  When the President came on the television forty five minutes later, we both stopped and listened, staying on the phone.

  I may not have had many friends and I may have enjoyed being a loner... but there was something almost essential about being connected to someone at that moment. The President looked pale and afraid.

  It was not a comforting sight.

  I have to stop here.

  I need to rest while I can. The moonlight isn't much for writing since the clouds have rolled in. I hope that it doesn't rain on me tonight.

  I hope I can find a place to stay for longer than a few hours soon.

  I hope I find someone else who is still alive.

  49th Day - 9:00 AM

  I'm still on the balcony and it's clear in the street below. I guess my tracker monkeys were thrown off by the stench of rot in the apartment behind me, but I don't know that I always want to camp out this way. I don't like the smell either. And the insects are everywhere. I didn’t know there could be so many of them. It’s disgusting. I’m wearing a bandana across my face to protect me from it all, but it really is uncomfortable.

  However, I'm thankful that the sky is clear again and I won't get rained on.

  After I write a while I'm going to see if I can make it to the roof. Rooftops are good places to hold up because they are generally hard to reach without assistance. But they can also be dangerous if you get surrounded. Since I haven't been smelled out yet, I think I'll go there. This balcony is cramped.

  I'll have to leave tomorrow though. My supplies are low.

  Inventory:

  1 granola bar

  2 packages of ramen noodles

  1 half gallon canteen of water

  3 matches

  1 crowbar

  1 backpack

  I can't believe it's been 49 days. I can't bear to think of the actual date yet. It's almost as if the actual reality of the time passing will drive me crazy. It's easier to just think of it as days passing with no real meaning.

  Maybe one day I'll try to figure out the month and day and year... but I'm scared of realizing a birthday or holiday or something else that used to mean something to me has passed by in this messed up wreck of a world.

  Do those things even matter anymore?

  So I left off at the press conference from the President.

  It's weird the things we remember. I remember that he was solemn and pale and sweat was glistening on his forehead. I remember him clearing his throat a lot and staring at something off camera as if pleading for answers he didn't have. I remember all that, but I just can't remember what he said exactly. He wanted us to listen to our local law enforcement and stay inside according to the rules of Martial Law. He said our local news would have more details on where to obtain medical attention or other essentials in the event that the hospitals stayed closed. There was also something about supply stations being set up.

  Somewhere in the midst of this, the press launched into a flurry of questions and it almost looked as if our leader was going to cry. He simply shook his head and referred their questions to a doctor from the CDC that was also present. As he moved back from the podium I could see him wincing. He looked as if he was actually in pain. The image of his face still sticks with me.

  At this point, Alison was screeching into my ear. She was in a complete panic. She wanted to come to me, but she kept talking herself out of it while she simultaneously tried to convince me to ask her to come. I knew that it was best to just listen to what we were told. Something very wrong was happening and if we didn't pay attention, it could possibly get worse at our own expense. I snapped at her to stay inside and call me in the morning. We would work out something from there. She reluctantly agreed and told me that she loved me and she was going to try and ride this weird situation out with me.

  She hung up saying she would call me after she took a shower to clear her head.

  I didn't hear from her again that night.

  I think a sort of "fog" fell over me. I don't really remember what else happened that night. I know that I stayed up until sunrise watching the news. It was a constant loop of useless information. They kept playing the same sound bites from the president and the doctor:

  "Stay inside, do not approach anyone who seems ill, listen to local authorities for further instruction..."

  It felt like the world was fragmenting into strange weird pieces. Nothing was normal and here I was, alone, not sure what to do.

  I went to sleep as the sun started to burst into my window. I was obviously not going to be heading to work that day. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be allowed out of the parking lot of my apartment. I didn't think about eating or cleaning. I was still trying to process the fact that there was some sort of illness that was so dangerous that we were being quarantined to our own houses.

  It really didn't dawn on me that I hadn't heard from Alison again until I was jolted awake by a loud banging on my door. I was still sitting up on the couch and my neck screamed with pain when I jerked awake. The pounding was insistent and I thought for sure that it was the police or the military coming to do... something... make sure I stayed inside... give me some gas masks... evacuate me.

  I wasn't sure. My mind felt like someone had wrapped it in cotton.

  I stumbled to the door and peered through the peephole. What I saw made me jerk back.

  It was Alison, but she wasn't alone. Her left shoulder was covered in blood and she was leaning on the shoulder of one of my neighbors. He was the one beating on my door.

  He looked as if he has just seen a ghost.

  49th Day - 4:15 pm

  I'm on the roof now. It was pretty uneventful to get here and it's still quiet below. I'm not sure if I should be worried about that. I can only imagine where all those creatures are. On second thought, I really don't want to imagine.

  I just want to get through the story. It's almost clawing at me to get out. There isn't much else to do except to think of where I'm going to run to next. I'm really surprised I haven't seen signs of anyone else alive in this area. It’s sad to think that they could really all be dead… if that’s what you can call it these days.

  Everyone just gets back up if you don’t destroy the brain. At least, that’s what I’ve noticed so far.

  Back to my story.

  I left off earlier because my legs were cramping and I just wanted to move off the balcony as soon as possible.

  So I had just seen my best friend and the older guy who lived in the apartment below me bleeding and looking scared to death at my front door. Sadly, my first thought was to leave them there, why should I let them in? What if they had whatever this illness was? They looked okay, but how was I supposed to know?

  I will take a moment now to say that before all this happened I was a big movie buff. One of the genre's I enjoyed the most was a good zombie horror flick. Everything that was happening was way too similar for me to overlook. The pattern of events was all too surreal and I could just see my friend turning into a flesh eating maniac right in front of me while I tried to save her when I knew she was beyond help. I didn’t want to make that kind of mistake.

  However, it would seem that I hadn't lost all of my humanity yet. After a quick check out of the window to see that the rest of the area was clear and nobody was following them, I let them inside. Alison instantly screamed and threw herself, blood and all, into my chest. I caught her and with the help of my neighbor (his name is Ryan) we lowered her to the couch. As soon as she was lying down I noticed the perfectly circular hole on her left shoulder in the middle of a gush of blood.

  "She's been shot!" Ryan exclaimed just as the same conclusion made it to my head.

  "It would seem so," I responded. I wasn't a doctor. I wasn't even a nurse. The closest I had come to first aid was cleaning a wicked paper cut that a co worker had gotten once. "She needs a doctor."

  Ryan shook his head. "There is no way out of here right now. She got tagged by a military unit on her way in. They didn't chase her, but you should have seen them. They weren't playing around. They have our entire complex on lock down. I'm not sure why... I was trying to get a better view of things when I saw them go after her. She was sneaking over the fence..."

  Ryan’s words were rushed and I could tell that Alison was losing consciousness quickly. I had to think or else my friend would bleed to death on my couch. I instinctively reached for my phone to dial 9-1-1. I got a busy recording that asked me to call back later and to consult my private physician if possible for medical advice.

  I was stunned as I turned to see Ryan holding a towel he had found on my floor to her wound. The blood was already soaking through it.

  I had no idea what to do, so I just let my instincts kick in. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a bottle of alcohol and some cotton cleaning pads. I doused her wound with the alcohol and dabbed at with the pads. She had already passed out and didn't seem to feel any pain. The blood was still gushing as if an artery had been hit and I felt completely useless.

  "Do you have any idea what to do?" I called to my neighbor.

  Ryan seemed to be lost in shock. Blood was covering his hands and arms and soaked through his shirt. He didn't respond to me and I was still unsure what to do. He had to be in his late 50’s to early 60’s and should have been able to take charge, but he just seemed shell shocked. Right then something inside of me snapped.

  "Well you made it far enough to get her here, now help me! Go look on my computer about how to treat a gunshot wound! I'm gonna see if I have anything I can bandage her with..."

  Ryan seemed to take direction well because he walked over to the desk that was against the far wall and instantly pulled up a search window. I ran to my room and threw open my top bureau drawer. I shuffled through the socks and underwear until I found the rolled up ace bandage I had used when I had sprained my ankle. I grabbed it and ran back into the bathroom and took the rest of the package of cotton pads.

  When I got back to the living room, Ryan was scanning a web page.

  "It really isn't helping much. Just a lot of advice to seek medical attention and to control the bleeding. Damn…"

  I guess I was going to have to wing it. I tried to think of all the things I had seen on television as I went back to her side. She looked as if all the blood had drained out of her body. Her lips were dry and trembling and her skin was pale. I ripped off her shirt and went to work cleaning the wound again. Without knowing if I was doing the right thing I packed the wound with the cotton swabs and wrapped the ankle bandage tightly around her shoulder, securing it with the little metal clips that came with it. While doing this I noticed that the bullet had gone all the way through and I was glad I wouldn't have to try and figure out how to remove one.

  After that I simply didn't know what else to do. I tried to make her comfortable, pulling a large t-shirt over her head to replace the one I had ripped and covering her with a blanket. She didn’t wake up at all and I wondered if she ever would.

  I backed up and stared at her. Ryan came to stand with me.

  I couldn't feel anything anymore. I didn't want to cry or freak out or think at all.

  All we could do was stare at her.

  She looked dead.

  49th Day: 6:48 PM

  I saw a large group of them shambling below. I didn't make a sound but I don't think that's the only way for them to sense me. I have a hypothesis. I think it's almost like infrared or something. Once I was hiding in a room with no windows and I made not a single sound for hours and they still found me. I think they sense heat or smell me or something... and since they are dead of course they will go after hot things or something that smells “alive”. I wish I had something like a heater or something that would conduct a wave of heat to see if they would be attracted to it. Or perhaps a way to see if it was actually my scent that drew them close.

  Anyway, back to the story.

  I'm not sure how long we stared at Alison unconscious on the couch. I could tell that I was getting increasingly numb inside. I wasn't really processing anything. I didn't want her to die, but the whole situation was just a crazy mess and I wasn't sure what else to do. I was entertaining the thought of trying to bring her to the same people who had shot her and demanding that they fix her, but that idea quickly faded when something on the television caught my ear.

  They were finally answering questions.

  Information was being confirmed at record paces.

  It was an illness, virus, bacteria, and infection (they used these words interchangeably, as if they weren't quite sure what to call it). They categorized it as highly infectious and proclaimed that we were in the throes of a code four epidemic. They said that it was afflicting the entire continent as well as several other countries simultaneously. They had no more information on its origins or how it could be treated.

  They even gave it a name. The Lazarus Virus.

  As soon as they said that, I held my breath.

  It seems that several of the people confirmed to be infected with the sickness were observed to be clinically dead before seeming to come back to life. A few medical personnel that had been interviewed from the quarantined hospitals said that the original cases had been declared deceased for at least 3 hours before any sort of reanimation took place.

  Of course, the newscasters and medical analysts all said this couldn't be possible. There had to be some other reason for it. Some sort of extreme degradation of the heart rate and pulse that led the doctor's to believe their patients had passed. They failed to explain how doctors all over the world could be wrong simultaneously.

  It didn't get any better. They went on to say that it was extremely hard to subdue them after their initial "death like state" and they were known to behave violent and irrational once they had succumbed to the illness. The most interesting thing was that every original case had started inside of hospital intensive care and chemotherapy wards. The general conclusion at the time was that the virus did not come from an outside source like an insect or animal. It was believed that it was something that originated in the patients at the hospital. Someone briefly mentioned how all of the first cases were part of a new cancer treatment that had just been approved by the FDA. They also said that some administrative personnel were thought to be carriers due to exclusive contact they had with certain patients who initially presented signs of the illness. The symptoms were much like the flu with fever and muscle aches, but involved a skin degenerative rash and hysteria.

 

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