Journal:Elizabeth Turner
Inspired by the Journal:Fuzzytek which recently came to my attention, I have decided that I too intend to keep a record of my thoughts and actions in the days of unfolding Hell. Perhaps others can benefit from this. Or perhaps it is simply a way for me to distract myself from the horrors which lurk outside this building that I currently shelter in.
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Journal Entries
26th of September, 2005
I haven't written anything here for the last few days. I can't say that anything particularly interesting has been happening to me. I guess if I went raiding around at random in other suburbs, I might find something particularly interesting to talk about. As it is, about the most interesting things I have to write about are barricade figures, scout reports and a few zombie deaths - not even many of those. I guess this is what I have been working toward. East Becktown has become a very quiet and safe suburb. It looks like the people here are really rallying round and working together.
I've been sitting here in this deserted building staring at the doors and windows waiting for a break in. It's beginning to get paranoic. Thankfully, one of my friends ran across me today. They scared the life out of me when they appeared. I hadn't seen a trace of them in days. Come to that, almost all other members of PLEB have totally dissappeared. I know a couple of them went off to try and locate the nearest zombie horde and track it, but I haven't heard anything from them in days. This guy though, had been following up the lead on Fort Paradox. Apparently it has taken him five days to get down there and back again. The report is not good. By the sounds of it, a fort is death-trap. This has convinced me more than ever than no single set of buildings will be enough to withstand even a fairly minor zombie attack.
I keep expecting the worst though. When will the horde attack? The nearest sign of any major activity is down in Havercroft and Ackland Mall is back under the control of the living. Still, word is that the SW quad is still too hot to be comfortable in. After that, I haven't heard anything recently about ANY large concentrations of deaders anywhere in the city. Some people have said Shearbank is attracting every zombie in the city from all over like a magnet, but the last report I got through the network said it was pretty clear. Likewise, the Many are supposed to be over in Pitneybank, but again reports fail to confirm this. Where are they hiding, where will they strike next? In addition there are new rumours of the infection getting stronger and taking down more people. It's all making me very nervous.
Looks like it's back to staring at the walls till the sun comes up again. Then I'll hit the streets in a new direction. The bastards could be trying to sneak into the city from a different direction.
21st of September, 2005
Well, thinks were interesting today. I didn't step outside once - unless you count leaping from one window to the next - which I don't. The views of you get of alleys is pretty useless. You can't even tell if there are any deaders around. If there are, they are probably standing at the front door, milling around aimlessly or thrashing against the doors. Anyway, I can't really vouch for the zombie population today, which is a shame. It's the scouting I like best really. I feel the information I can pass on helps people far more than simply pounding my axe into some zed-head's head. Of course, that's worth while too. I guess, eventually I'll learn how to use my pistol properly. Only two bullets left though and I don't fancy trying to scrounge up ammunition. The competition seems pretty fierce.
I spoke to this one guy today who had been on a run off to one of the forts. The one way down in the south east section of the city. Apparently it's been re-christened Fort Paradox. I don't really know what that means. It's a fort but it's not? A lot of people seem to think a fort is a death trap. Anyway, apparently it's pretty easy to find ammo down there. I wonder if it's actually worth the effort of running all the way down there though. Interestingly, the zombie reports he passed on weren't what I expect. The whole of the southern side of the city is supposed to be quiet as a mouse without a zombie to be seen anywhere. On the other hand, Ackland Mall - which I still have nightmares about - still seems to be in their filthy undead hands. It was weeks ago they tore into it. I would have thought they would have dispersed by now. It must be still attracting survivors. I'll have to see what I can do to spread the word about it being a danger spot.
Anyway, I managed to visit every building in the quad. Found one corpse and dumped it out onto the street. I hope if was one of the zombies I saw yesterday and not the bloke standing next to them. A couple of building seemed to be pretty insecure, so I shoved a bed and some furniture up against a few doors and the like before doing my window leaping stuff. Nothing too serious though. What with all the controversy going on recently, it seems better to keep the peace. Was pretty interesting though. I got to see everyone in the quad and check out the inside of every building. This section of East Becktown is much less crowded than some of the other bits I have visited with more than sixty people stuffed into a building. The most I saw was sixteen. What was interesting there was that I am pretty sure, like five of them were zombie spies. I'll have to spread the word.
19th of September, 2005
Gah! Sadly not enough time to write in this thing over the last couple of days. It feels like I have been on the go the whole time. I've crossed this suburb twice, inside and out. I feel pretty good that I was able to take out another deader outside of one of the hospitals and take a pretty good chunk out of another which was outside another. What is it with zombies and hospitals? They seem to draw them like bees to honey. Maybe it's the smell of formaldehyde or something. Anyway, there were four others outside with it, so I hope they managed to finish it off. East Becktown is pretty safe, but I still would not like to stand around on the streets too much. Every time I step outside there is at least one or two zombies around. I checked around one of the other quads for signs of activity. It was a nice condition blue, which was good to see as reports had been scarce recently. I managed to throw a few filing cabinets infront of a door in passing as I used someone's building in passing to get from one set of windows to another. It's almost becoming faster to leap from building to building than it is to take to the streets. I'm getting good at this. Leg muscles building up and all. Anyway, the people could still get out and back in, which was the main point.
The main point of course is the fact that the whole reason I've been running around like a blue-arsed fly for the last two days was trying to put of the fires which have started over the 'Plan' and trying to contact enough of the group to make a decision about. We have to do some serious thinking about this. I still think it's a sound plan and would work well in principal. Apparently though, East Becktown is not the place for a social experiment. Other groups, the LXM and the Warseers were apparently in place here before and they have been pretty vocal. If things don't get headed off soon, we're going to have ourselves a turf war here - which is somewhat ridiculous because we don't even own the turf. Anyway, it's just too damn complicated to go into right now and too many people are shouting their mouths off - me included probably - for it be resolved quickly. I think the main explosion has been headed off and I'll see what happens over the next couple of days.
17th of September, 2005
Another good day today. It feels uplifting to be doing something proactive at last, not just aimlessly running and hacking. I managed to check out about half of buildings in the quad I have assigned myself and throw up a few barricades to make sure that least no zombie could walk in by merely remembering how to turn a doorknob. It will be a few days yet before I can be sure that the whole quad is barricaded extemely heavily, as the 'plan' calls for. That's of course assuming that no zombies try and tear it down from outside and no survivors try and tear anything down from inside. At the moment though I'm concentrating my efforts on buildings which are not heavily populated. Hopefully as the days move on, people will get the hint and either learn how to leap from window to window or else move to the designated entrance points. I really must get myself a spray can and start educating the populace about what is going on.
Slipping outside I managed a quick look around. The streets seemed reasonably safe. I could only spot three deaders, for what it's worth. I laid into one outside a hospital. My axe is pretty good and has kept me safe this far, but after a while my arm really started to ache and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish the damn thing off. Fortunately I had one of those kind of breakthroughs about then. You know the ones? Where you suddenly realise how you were you doing stuff all wrong till about then? Well, I have had this pistol since I was dropped into this mess. Had never used it though. Hey! I'm a medic, not a marksman! Anyway, suddenly I realised that I was probably not so bad at this here pistol thing after all. At least not against this unmoving chunk of infected flesh. So I whipped out the old pistol and blew his sorry corpse away.
Safe, knowing that I had concealed any possible scent trail I might have left, I popped inside the hospital and warned the survivors inside about the remaining Z-Head and slouched off back to my hidey hole to collapse and recover my energies. It was on the way back that I spotted this guy, Lich King. If ever there was a zombie spy, he was one. If I'd had the energy left I'd have laid into him with my axe there and then. Not enough energy though to get into a fight... Another day.
Of course, now I've heard about this guy, Will. He's come over to East Becktown to ask for help. Apparently Richmond Hills is being swarmed. I'm not surprised. That's where I got out of a couple of weeks back, shortly after Ackland Mall fell and the zombies started spreading outward like a diseased ripple. I hope the people who helped me out there, Heather for one are OK. Now I've got another decision. Should I head on over to Richmond Hills and hack up some zombies, or should I stick here in East Becktown and defend the borders and ready the fort? It was always in the 'plan' to make zombie slaying raids into neighbouring suburbs once East Becktown was battoned down, but that hasn't happened yet. Still... Sometimes plans have to change. Maybe that spy has got a extra lease on his life.
16th of September, 2005
It's been some weeks since I realised what was going. For a long time I thought things were as I had been told back at the base. I was going in to help out the citizens against the infected and keep as many alive until we had to stage a final evacuation. I have finally realised there isn't going to BE any damn evacuation. Those bastards have left me here and everyone else as well. I don't know what it is. Some kind of grand experiment? A new alternative to prison? Whatever it is, it's the closest thing I can imagine to Hell.
Still... There are good people here and I intend to do my job and help them. This time, I'm going to do it my way though! I've managed to link up with a like minded woman. Her name's Janet Weiss. Together we have decided to band together and fight these damn zombies back as best as we could. It didn't take us too long to realise that the more of us who could do this, the better. However, we didn't really want to join in with any of the paramilitary groups emerging in the city and we didn't really feel that we were political. There might be a time for politics later on down the line, if we survive that far. For now, I'm thinking of us more as kind of neighbourhood watch... With attitude. So, the People's Liberation of East Becktown or PLEB has been born.
Today I spent a bit of time checking out how well the neighbourhood barricades were holding up. Some of needed a bit of patching up. Eventually, I'd like to lock the whole suburb tight. I haven't got the resources to do that now though. Anyway, we need to show the local populace what's going on fairly slowly, otherwise the more inexperienced will panic. I managed to double my checks on barricades with a bit of scouting out for Z-heads. I was pleased to note that there was only one in whole NE Quad. I had a bit of a hack at it, but I didn't really have the energy to finish it off. I think I spent too long searching for a syringe in that Necrotech Building. Still, I've got one now. It's good to know I can help out the others in the group if I need to. That's what this is all about, Common minded people pulling together to overcome the odds.
Today, for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful.
Musings
'The Plan'
I've been talking about 'the Plan' for the last few days and much of what I've been doing and setting down in this record is related to that. I think I said I was pretty disillusioned with the army. I guess that could be because I'm a medic and am more interested in saving lives that taking them. Maybe we run on a different set of priorities deep down inside. Also, like a lot of other people I don't see the government interfering any time soon and evacuating us. They are going to be too afraid we're going to carry the infection out. To be honest, I'm surprised that they haven't bombed the whole place. They have to be terrified that sooner or later someone will get out. Or maybe someone already has...
That's a depressing thought. Back to 'the Plan'. I figure I have to be doing something proactive. Otherwise, I may just put a bullet in my brain. Of course, I've seen this one who did that. The next minute he was standing up and trying to eat my brains. Instead I had to give him a taste of my axe. If that's what happens when you give up, it really isn't an option. So, the question is what to do?
Well, pretty much the only thing you can do. Try and survive in as safe and normal an envirnoment as possible. That means with as few dead-heads as possible and linking up with some like minded people who can give me back-up from time to time and I help keep me sane. That's something I worry about sometimes. Am I cracking? Maybe writing this damn thing, like it means anything is a sign of it. So, anyway... Kill the zombies and make a safe area. Well, seems to me a suburb is just as good an area to stake out as any other. Try and kill every zombie in the suburb, then kill them again... and again and again and again. Eventually, and hopefully, they will get bored and crawl their way off somewhere else as they'll get fed up being smacked down to the floor only to have the process repeated the moment they dare to stand up.
What else keeps the brain-munchers out? Well, they are bound to get a bit frustrated if every building they come across has so many tables and chairs piled up against the doors that they don't have a hope of getting in. To be sure, I've heard of hordes who seem to get more intelligent the more of them there are and start cooperating to smash into safe houses. The thing is though, if they are looking at twenty or thirty of them and they don't know exactly what's inside or if there are only a few people in each one, then probably wont bother. they'll have their appetite blunted when the first trickle are repeatidly hacked apart. They might launch a concerted attack against a few buildings, but they'll never be bothered to rip down the whole suburb. Hopefully, we'll have enough warning if they do to be sneaking around behind them and boarding up the doors and windows as they pass, picking off the stragglers and winnowing their numbers down hugely.
It's a simple plan... Toss in some organised scouting. Keeping people aware of if there any zombies who have made it into the borders - or if there are any massing on our borders. Add in some people willing to support, heal, provide medicine, then we've got a proper team going on. I don't think there is anything too controversial in any of this. What does seem to be causing a lot of problems is the issue on implimentation and how we are going to go about doing it.
I think we're going to have step back a long way from our original position. Which given reflection was far too hard line. It was the fear speaking there. I've caught glimpses of some of these hordes and without sophisticated modern weaponary we are really fighting a guerilla war here and one which isn't going to end. Still, I've come to the conclusion that hospitals and police stations have to remain open to all, even if they are the buildings which attract spies and the zombies themselves so often. It's the same thing with schools and fire stations and the necrotech buildings. They are all magnets for the zombies, but all needed by those with less experience at surviving than me. I don't really need those places any more. But I did at one point.
Anything else though... Anything else, I'm turning into a rock hard fortress which if nothing else is going to cause a horde a bit of wasted time and effort to break it down to make damn sure there isn't someone inside.
'Zombie Migrations'
Where have these zombies come from recently? The eastern half of the suburb was swarming with more of them than I have seen since I got here. Barricades have been torn down, buildings broken into and I'm pretty sure that in at least once case they got whoever was inside. I just hope that there weren't too many inside. I'm always advising people to spread out a bit more and make yourself less of a target. I know a few places where people are just far too crowded together though. Still, I guess that is a kind of safety in a different way though.
Anyway, this is beside the point. What I'm really wondering is where they came from and what made them come this way. I'm pretty sure they have been spilling over from Richmond Hills. Of course, they could have just been coming in from that direction in response to hearing about some organisation here. Organisation tends to attract opposition. Of course, I've never intended to stand against against anything I couldn't handle. If a horde arrives which is too big for PLEB and the residents to handle, them I'm out of here and will pick them off till they get bored and move on.
On the other hand, they just spilled over out of Richmond Hills, which I have heard has been pretty hot recently. Not exactly deadly, but the kind of place you want to keep your wits about you and you will have no trouble finding a walking corpse if you want some punchbag practice. What are they doing there? Were they driven out of Havercroft when the Mall was retaken? Have they arrived as Eastonwood is being pacified?
Or maybe it's to do with Shearbank and Ridleybank? Those two suburbs are supposed to be heavily infested right now. I've heard suspicious things about Barrville too. If that's the case then other suburbs in between will be getting a lot of spill over too. From there, Richmind Hills is not so far. Are we looking at a sprawling zombie blot these days? Can they be contained? It's a problem and I'll have to give it some thought.
Zombie Spies
Coming across a zombie spy today, I had to wonder about these kind of people. What is that brings someone to this level? Do they think by aiding the zombies they will preserve their own rotton lives? Sooner or later some other zombie who doesn't know a thing about them will get them.
What is a zombie spy anyway? In my book, anyone wandering around with zombie skills is a spy. It could be that I'm being too harsh here. Maybe a revivified zombie can turn over a new leaf. Maybe someone who is turned into a zombie will do things out of their control while infected and then once human again finds out that they have picked up a few things. Is that really their fault? Perhaps not. In a perfect world we might have a trial. We might put these people in prison if we found them guilty. On the other hand, we're at war here. We don't have time for trials and we don't have the resources for prison or due process. These people need to be put against a wall and shot. If they are helping zombies, then they are as bad as zombies, if not worse. If they are they really trying to reform then it's just too bad if they get caught in the crossfire. Their best bet is to stay out of my way though, out of East Becktown and out of the way of PLEB.
Then there are the folks with no zombie skills at all. There are the completely inexperienced scouts who seem to be another popular zombie spy. Able to climb over our barricades and move around more easily than anyone else. The perfect zombie infiltrator, if they happen to be the kind of scum who will sell out their own kind. Still, I can't in good conscience randomly go around executing fellow survivors simply for being a scout. All I can really do is hope than any genuine scouts will declare their true intentions while they are in their early and suspect stages of their careers.
