They never group together for long. They fan out and scout. The only time you'll see a horde for longer than a half hour is when they're feeding. The snarling and howling you hear is them alerting any zombies in the area that there's food. After there's nothing left to eat, they disperse. They don't stick around, dragging their feet, easy to slip by like most zombie movies portray them to be. They're alert, always listening for movement, always looking for food.
As I was crossing New Hampshire into Vermont, that's when I started watching them, studying their behavioral patterns. I felt I needed to understand them to better avoid them. I found vantage points on top of semi trucks. patio awnings, balconies. Any place where I could watch them without them watching me. I learned something. Not every zombie eats every person it attacks, but will try to kill whoever it's attacking. After it rips the throat out of someone (similar to how lions go for the jugular), it may occasionally leave the body alone. I'm positive it's the virus's way of further propagating itself. If every host was eaten, there would be no more hosts to spread the virus. No virus on the face of this Earth has that much behavioral control over its victims. That's why I say it's alien.
I need to eventually leave this house, though. It's amazing the houses you come across that were abandoned, and you take a look what was left behind. Pictures of family are almost always taken, but money and credit cards usually aren't. The house was ransacked for food before, but the pantry I found the Cinnamon Toast Crunch in yesterday was locked. Why it was locked, I dunno. Maybe to keep their daughter from eating up all the junk food. The lock was a simple one, merely screwed in to the wooden doors. The fact that the cabinets and drawers were raided but the pantry wasn't suggests that whoever looted this house had very little time to grab supplies, so they didn't try to hassle with the lock. I had the time, though. I took out my pocket knife, the one that saved my life back in Maine, and unscrewed the screws to take off the lock. Most of the food was dry goods; pasta; oatmeal; rice. Things that required water and heat to cook. Things I didn't have. There was, however, that lovely Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I'm going to grab some boxes of dry goods anyway, because who knows? I might be able to cook it in the next place I find.
Plenty of suitcases and bags, though. The big giant suitcase looks to have some pretty good wheels on it, and I can load it up with supplies. I'm too tired to start packing tonight, but I've made up my mind that I have to get out of this house and keep moving. I'm not looking forward to dodging zombies again, but I am not going to starve to death either.
Until tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow.
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