Dear Diary 12 20 to 30

December 21, 2012, 3:00 PM E.S.T.

Rained again. Saw some weird blue lights around
three AM; thought it was the Mayan blue comet but
when I went outside there wasn't anything there.
Must have been a plane. Stayed up till five AM and
crashed.

  My husband went to work this morning; told Mom
he'd be home very late. Didn't talk to me. The party
continues.

December 22, 2012, 12:06 AM E.S.T.

The 21st has come and gone. So have the party
goers. Brother and family went home, sister and
nephew are at her boyfriend's and youngest sister is
with my niece. Husband still isn't back.  

  A fierce wind is picking up outside...then again it is
the first official day of winter. Still I have a certain
sense of...forboding. Armed my outdoor booby traps:
no one lurking around at this hour is going to be up to
any good. Only the path to the front door is clear...a
key in the lock won't activate the trap in the hall.

December 22, 2012, 5:00 AM E.S.T.

Rude awakening this morning...still can't wrap my
head around this,

  Thought I saw blue flashing lights through my
window some time in the night...ignored them and
went back to sleep. I couldn't ignore what happened
next.

  Sat up wide awake when I heard a crash outside.
Husband was not in bed. Shoved feet in sneakers,
grabbed coat and ran out front door. Heard moaning
from the pit and raced to the edge. There, stuck on
the spikes was a neighbor of mine...a dead neighbor.
Dead for TWO YEARS.

December 22, 2012, 5:10 AM E.S.T.

Zombies. Logically one would assume if it was
possible it would be some kind of weird disease. But
this...doesn't make sense. Living people catch diseases.
Maybe someone freshly dead could be re-animated by
bacteria. Like Walking Dead. But this? I know it's her...
went to the wake. Recognize the dress...the jewelry...
the bad dye job. She'd been Embalmed. This was no
disease, it was...like...a Biblical Curse.

Mom appeared in the doorway, looking peeved.
I told her who was in the pit.
  'That must be her daughter!' Mom gasped, 'what
have you done!'
'It isn't,' I was still in shock, 'her daughter doesn't
dress this tacky.'
  Mom came out and looked in the pit. We stood
there staring as the zombie struggled on the spikes.
Whatever we were thinking was interrupted by
someone yelling down the block. I looked up and saw
a large crowd advancing from the direction of the
river.

December 22, 2012, 5:15 AM E.S.T.

Took Mom into the house, handed her a baseball bat
and ran downstairs to get my flail. When I got back
outside a group of neighbors had engaged the approaching
horde: the man next door was on his porch, dressed only
in a robe and slippers with a cell phone up to his ear. He
asked me what was going on; who was fighting and why
weren't the police answering the phone?

I gestured him to the pit and showed him its
contents: his very own deceased wife. His face grew
pale, he dropped the phone and gasped. 'It's the
judgement of God!' he cried and ran off, hysterical,
down the street, losing his slippers. He was zombie
bait for sure. By now dogs were barking everywhere,
car brakes were screeching and all hell broke loose.

December 22,2012, 6:00 AM E.S.T.

I don't know how we survived the first wave.
I barely had time to put on my braces. I stood behind
the pit and let them come to me. Luckily I was not
fighting alone. Other neighbors answered the call to
arms. Though many fled in their cars they managed
to plow down a number of undead in their efforts.

These zombies were mindless, yes...but unless they
were mutilated they were faster than expected.
Soon the pit filled up and they began walking across
their trapped bretheren. Adrenaline kept me going,
but my arms were getting tired. At least the rotten
zombie heads were easy to crack...the embalmed
ones, not so much. As the last of them breached my
defenses I heard a ruccus behind me. I didn't look; I
took down the ones in front of me. When I turned,
I saw my mom standing near a little pile of corpses.
  'I broke your bat,' she threw the pieces on the pile.

December 23, 2012

Most of the neighbors have gone already. A few
offered us rides: Mom refused. 'If it's happening here,'
she reasoned, 'it's everywhere.' Mom was not one to
run away from a fight. Must be the Irish.

  My arms ached, but I finished off the pit zombies
and began clearing them out. Stacked them around
the perimeter of the yard as a barricade. It isn't very
tall but I suspect it will get higher.

December 24, 2012

Another zombie invasion. Apparently we aren't the
only ones to stay behind. A gang of guys calling
themselves 'The Zombie Slayers' are patrolling the
streets. A bunch of dudes who played too many video
games, in my opinion. Let them play. Less zombies for
me to worry about.

December 25, 2012

The power finally went out...been expecting that.
Radio and television have been dead since the first
attack. Cell phones too...it's like something is blocking
them. Moved Mom into the secret room. For some
weird reason she didn't seem surprised. Put the cats
down there too. Sadly, the reptiles won't make it. I'll
eat them later. The dog will be a problem. She needs
her epilepsy meds, which will run out quickly, and she
barks at everything. How can we hide if she has a
seizure and whines, or makes a racket if looters
come? Mom will be angry, but I must silence her.

A few hours later, when the drowsiness wore off, I
carried her down to the secret room, gauze bandages
around her throat. My experience as a taxidermist
has some small use for the living.

December 26, 2012

More zombies arrive with the rising sun. So far
haven't seen any at night...which is good, because as
it is I haven't had much sleep. But the anomaly
troubles me; according to popular lore, though the
creatures do forage during daylight hours they are
most active at night. Biblical curses not withstanding,
general consensus postulates the zombie apocalypse
would be an infectious plague; not the case here as
most of these corpses appear to have been embalmed,
and those that aren't don't look anything like a fresh
kill. They DO all have a strange odor and distinct
greenish hue. I don't have a 'lab', but when I have the
time I'll hunt for my old microscope and dissection kit.

I don't believe in curses.

December 27, 2012

Mom is not thrilled with hiding in the basement.
The days are getting colder and the nights more so.
The hideout is surprisingly warm, but not quite
enough to suit Mom. And she's bored. The radio is
useless and I don't want to waste batteries for
things like reading. Put her to work hand sewing
armor plates into our clothes.

Spend most of my time these days patrolling the
house, spying out windows with my binoculars.
I've heard gunfire. The Zombie Slayers have joined
forces with another group and have been looting the
abandoned homes in their spare time. They haven't
bothered us. They probably look at the dilapidated
state of our property and figure it isn't worth
fighting over. Yet.

December 28, 2012

The zombies arrive in waves. The game-drunk yahoos
and their gangland pals are becoming a nuisance. They
drink and make too much noise at night.

  I haven't seen any zombie animals, which is a good
thing. Caught some squirrels with a rod and reel. They
like peanut butter and chocolate. Pickled their meat.

December 29, 2012

Went into the attic and got my biology equipment,
But rain and snow prevented me from gathering
samples for study, and anyway there wasn't enough
light to use the mirror on the microscope. The
weather sucked, but that didn't stop the zombies.
They were a bit slower though.

  The 'Zombie Squad' as I was calling the local gang,
didn't show and I wound up handling the slack.
Luckily the same conditions that made fighting
tough for me also hindered the undead. There weren't
a lot of them today...or at least not in my area of
town.

December 30, 2012

Set myself up on the patio in the back yard....my
weapons within easy reach. Donned a surgical mask
and gloves and went to work

The opened zombie reeked of...a large pile of grass
clippings rotting in a summer pond. The body had a
myriad of greenish fibers running throughout; all led
to the 'brain', which had apparently been replaced by
a spongy green mass. I'd damaged it when I'd bashed
the creature's head in, but the remaining bits held
what I assumed was their original consistency. Under
microscopic scrutiny the fibers appeared to be...a sort
of oomycota. The overall green tint of the flesh was...
chlorophyll. Had this been a living being I would have
concluded that it had been completely taken over by
some form of parasitic mold.

This was like...The Walking Dead meets The Invasion
Of The Body Snatchers.