September 22nd, 2021

No matter how ugly our past, we can't keep it hidden forever.  I woke up early in the morning to find Katerina reading my journal, face illuminated by the tablet, and I snatched it out of her hands.  I started yelling at her for not only wasting what little charge was left, but for also going through my private thoughts.  She sheepishly apologized like a 12 year old girl, and I immediately felt like an asshole.  I told her to forget about it, said I was sorry for snapping and to go back to bed.

We were up just past dawn, and the first thing we set out to do was patrol the mall.  There was a popcorn shop with its gate open, and we tried one of the packages of kettle corn, but it was awfully stale.  Still, to have something sweet that wasn't chocolate from trail mixes and Power Bars was a nice treat.  There was a computer store that reminded me of the games I used to love playing.  Ironically, the banner for Zombie Survivor VII was still prominently displayed above the opening.  I went inside to see if I could find anything, and to my wondrous surprise, I found an extra battery for the tablet.  I wanted to get it charged in the sun immediately, so I left Kat for a sec and ducked down an access hallway to get the tablet in the sun.

When I came back to the computer store, I saw Kat looking concerned.  She apologized again for reading my journal, but then asked if she could ask me a question.  I already knew what she was going to say, and I said no.  That didn't stop her.  She asked again, and this time I barked back "NO!"  Then, she threw some logic at me.  She said that she needed to know for her own survival, like I needed to see her in her underwear to make sure she wasn't bitten. If I didn't answer her today, she'd just ask again tomorrow.

I told her, and so now I'll tell you.  I began dating a girl named Johanna shortly after I started my DJ gig in Beaver Cove, ME.  She was a night owl, thus she became a fan of my show.  I played a mix of everything from jazz to hip hop to country to even metal.  I got the job at the station because my producer enjoyed how I could make great playlists out of just about any genre.  Johanna loved that, too.  She'd stay up until four in the morning when my shift ended.  After a few days, she got up the nerve to call and made some requests.  She also complimented my voice, saying it was pretty damned sexy.  I obliged her requests, and thanked her for the compliment and the next day, she called again.  The day after, again.  The fourth time she called, I told her to stay on the line while I programmed in the next playlist.  We chatted and I asked her if she'd like to come down to the station and meet and we could get the cliche cup of coffee.  She actually hated coffee and I laughed, because I hated coffee too.

From that point on, we clicked.  Physical attraction, compatible personalities, same likes and dislikes.  It was no wonder we had sex by the end of the first week.  Normally when I would sleep with someone, I'd actually sleep afterwards, but I'll never forget that morning with Johanna, because we didn't sleep at all.  We talked more, snuggled more, had sex more, all that mushy stuff you see in movies.  She was the one, and she felt the same about me.

I don't need to tell you all the back story between her and me.  Let me just speed it up to when things went wrong.  People were becoming sick left and right as vivensmortua moved in to Beaver Cove.  The airborne strain was spreading, but we didn't know what it was yet.  We thought it might have been a new bird or swine flu.  Right around the time the outbreak was announced on live TV, we started noticing the dead coming back.  Panic ensued and many people got in there cars to leave, and we decided we were going to as well, but remember what I told you about mass exoduses? Interstates get jammed and suddenly no one can go anywhere.

While we were stuck in the car, Johanna had a massive coughing fit and after close to a minute, she held her hand away from her mouth and saw blood.  I saw it as well, but the look on her face was horrifying.  She knew that very instant she was sick with whatever that thing was that was killing people.  I told her we needed to find a hospital right now, so we had to get out of the car and try to get help.  She fell on the ground and had another coughing fit and when I went to help her up, I heard a door open behind our car, and a man got out.  I asked him to please help and I thought he was going to, but before I noticed what he was doing, he pulled out a gun and ... and shot her!  He shot my beloved Johanna in the back of the head!  He said he had to do it, that she was going to be one of them, but at that point I wasn't listening to the man.  All I felt was seething rage.  This stranger shot my Johanna before she even had a chance to be cured!  I know there's no cure, but .. maybe it wasn't vivensmortua.  Maybe it was something else.  Bronchitis or something!

Covered in her blood, I felt sick to my stomach as well as infuriated.  I didn't know whether to throw up or charge the man, but the rage overcame the nausea and I ran into him with such force, that it knocked his gun away.  Still driving forward, I picked him up and then rammed him into a car and began punching him as hard as I could in the face.  He tried to block with his hands, a white flurry of fingers but I batted them away as I battered him.  Not realizing I already knocked him out, I grabbed him by his ears and began slamming his head back on the windshield.  I did it again, and again, oblivious to the cracking of the windshield, the small pieces of glass flying everywhere until... his head sunk into the glass.  At that moment, I let go and the driver of the car came out with a shocked look on his face, his jaw hanging lower than a necktie.

"YOU KILLED HIM!"

Hearing that snapped me out of it.

"YOU KILLED HIM!"

I... killed him.  I was so lost.  I just lost my Johanna and now I took a man's life.  I backed away from the car, numb.   I honestly couldn't feel anything.  I was oblivious to the concrete under my feet, the head of the sun on my face, the rustling wind through my hair, the smell of Johanna's blood on my shirt.  I stumbled backward and fell, and then... the vomit came.  I saw the gun in the adjacent lane of where I attacked that man, and I picked it up.  The man who witnessed my murder immediately put his hands up and yelled "NO NO NO!  DON'T SHOOT ME!" and ran off.  I just held it at my side, blank expression on my face, and raised the gun to my head and pulled the trigger.  It clicked, but it didn't register with me.  I just kept pulling the trigger, it going "CLICK CLICK CLICK" with each pull.

After 10 or so pulls, I finally realized it wasn't going to happen.  I pulled the mag out of the gun, and sure enough, it was empty.  He had one bullet in his gun.  ONE FUCKING BULLET!  IT WAS HIS GOD DAMNED SUICIDE ROUND!  He used that fucking bullet on my Johanna!  That only made me more furious and I returned the dead man and gun butted his already unrecognizable face until there wasn't a face anymore, just a fleshy pulp with bits of bone.  I slid off  the hood of the car, collapsed to the ground and wept.  I wept harder than anyone's ever heard.  I wasn't even aware that people were getting out of their cars, surrounding me and taking in the horror show that just happened.

I told all this to Kat and she said, "I'm going to be sick."  Told her I already was.  I looked at her face, and I saw the distrust growing.  She slowly inched back from me and I got up to leave.  I told her, "I understand.  You're with someone who killed a man, and now you can't trust me.  All I can tell you is that's only time I killed out of anger.  I lost my mind. I don't like killing.  All I can give you is my word that you're safe with me.  If you want to go, go.  I won't follow you."

She just stared at me remaining quiet.  Well, sometimes it's not a good idea to keep bugging someone to share their past.  You may not like what you're going to learn.

Anyway, I wasn't going to stick around in this mall any longer, so I grabbed my pack and my bat and I left the store.  I still wanted to hit I-80 today, and that was at least 10 miles.  I didn't bother looking back at Kat, but before I left the mall, I heard the clopping of feet on the dirty tile flooring, and she yelled, "WAIT!".  I just kept walking, letting her catch up.

We walked in silence almost all the way to I-80 and then she spoke up.  She said she was really sorry she kept asking about my girlfriend and had no idea how much pain I went though.  I turned around, and she hugged me and my first instinct was to push her away, but then I hugged her back.  Before I knew it, I started to cry.  She pulled back, and then I turned away embarrassed, when she grabbed me by the shoulder and brought me to face her.  She blotted my eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and hugged me again.  Two strangers, just hugging each other in the middle of an abandoned highway with zombies following us.  What a sight...

We're on I-80 now, but the sun was going down and we were too far away from any buildings to camp in.  We found a car on the side of the road, a Buick LeSabre.  I gave her the backseat, because I felt she'd be more comfortable, and I leaned my seta back as far as I could without taking away any of Kat's space.  We put the blankets over ourselves and talked quietly, waiting for the zombies that were following us to tap on our car.  We remained silent and still and they moved on.  We talked a bit more, and then said good night.  The grind continues once again at dawn.

Until tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow.