Days with the Undead: The Series

Days with the Undead: Book One

It’s a journal of survival.

Five people set out to escape the Undead who have risen too close to home. Join the emotional and physical struggle as they began on the third day after the awakening of Brooks VanReit, as they are recorded from the point of view of Julie, a former pathologist and part-time survivalist.

Each entry is geared toward helping those who want to help themselves and maybe give a few that don’t a swift kick in the ass. Join our group of survivors on their journey through these Days with the Undead.

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from Day 3…

The sound of the first shot ricocheted off the surrounding foliage in the relative silence of the early morning. Before my eyes the pimpled face of what was once an adolescent boy exploded, shards of bone along with infected brain tissue flying out like they were searching for their next victim even in death. I quickly turned my face, hoping to shield it from the spray of grey matter and connective tissues. Thank heavens I was just out of splatter range as the Undead kept coming at us in what felt like increasing numbers.

In all truthfulness there were only twenty-five to thirty of them and they were spaced out and slow-moving. Unwittingly, they had made themselves easy targets; having to come up the opposite side of the ridge made our task of their death relatively uncomplicated.

We each had our own firearms along with other back-up weapons in the event that a gun jammed on us. It was moments like those that I appreciated the fact that my husband had been so meticulous when teaching me to shoot. I could hit both stationary and moving targets at a number of distances. That knowledge made me feel somewhat safe and comfortable in what I had to do. I don’t know how each the others felt in that moment but I could read the resilience in their faces.

Given our knowledge and perseverance, we made it through that encounter and plan to make it though many more to come. Survival is what we have chosen and we are all geared to success.

You have to be.

This is a fight to the death and none of us want to think of the consequences of what death will mean for us. I know that each and every one of us would rather die than become one of them. Of that I’m one hundred percent certain.

It only took us a few minutes to quickly dispatch all of the Undead coming up the hill at us. They came at us in all shapes and sizes. Most of them were still fully intact and had barely started to decompose. It’s only been three days since this all started and what I would have expected to see as a pathologist was normal; some bloating and a little skin slippage, even some discoloration of the skin. Their faces were all slack and carried the expression of vacancy.

It made it easier to kill them if you happened to look at their faces. You knew that there was nothing left of the human soul that once thrived inside the shell.

I tried not to make eye contact with any of them. It was unnerving to catch a glimpse of the dead eyes. Eyes that had likely once held such promise. Now they were just limpid milky pools of emptiness. Stare too long and you can get lost.

It happened to Ben the other day as we were just leaving Toronto. He happened to stare a moment too long and ended up mesmerized by the sheer austerity of those eyes. That moment we had to rescue him as the Undead toddler got closer than any of us would have liked. It was another lesson that we needed to learn. Staring is bad in any form when it comes to the Undead. Unless of course you happen to be behind a barrier that’s impossible for the breach. After all, observation is key; you need to observe in order to understand.

But nothing in the movies we watched could ever have prepared us for what we were now facing. Sure, it was always entertaining to watch the way that Hollywood varied the classic archetype of the “Zombie” but to witness something so fundamentally against nature actually moving toward you; that’s another story altogether.

Your fear and panic can take root in your disbelief. You can either choose to believe and move or you will succumb to it.

It’s a sad thing, coming face to face with the Undead. While we realize that they are just monsters now, they were once people. People like you and me. People that have loved and lost. No one is immune to what is happening. Your money couldn’t save you. The only thing that kept you alive these days was a plan and the will to put it into action. Once you started moving, you can’t just stop. If you do, the Undead catch up.

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