Monday, January 30, 2012

On The Farm

Hey, Roger - I feel guilt about how good our situation is considering what you've been through. Dale and Rhonda have been great hosts. There are 30 people here (not including us) and they worked their asses off this last year raising animals, gardens and fruit. We have been eating like kings.

The main house is huge as D & R have 6 children (all grown up now). Once the news started about people turning into the walking dead they immediately started stocking up. Dale was always a fan of the zombie movies and books so he jumped right in with both feet. He contacted the 2 farms in the area and they made a plan. They gathered any friends and relatives they could and went shopping. Between the 3 farms they had pigs, cows, chickens, gardens, fruit trees and 2000 acres. Rhonda said the 3 farms are housing at least 100 people. Because they are so remote they haven't had much zombie activity. The problem was early on when they were making trips out to gather supplies and zombies would follow them back, so they ended up loosing a few people until they got wise to what they were dealing with.

They have been keeping us busy learning how to use a wood burning stove (I made a loaf of bread yesterday!), churning butter, making cheese and preserving meat. They turned their basement into a cold storage area for when warmer weather comes.

Since room in the house is kind of tight Sarah, her son Danny, Karen and I are sleeping in one of the RV's that we stored in one of the pole barns and Matt, Jacob and Greg are sleeping in the other RV, the rest are staying in the house.

It's been good sharing our experiences with other people. We all have dinner together as a group and after dinner we take turns sharing our stories. It's all been quite a learning experience.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Home, Sweet Home

Since you seem to have found your home for the winter, I guess I'll share our "Homecoming" story. We were pretty much running from the zombie horde that we met in Hoffman Estates and I said the hell with it--if we're going to die it's better to die at home, so we went back to the compound. I guess I wasn't expecting what we found when we got there.

The zombies were still there. All of them. It completely destroys every theory I've ever heard about zombies "sensing a living presence" or smelling fresh meat or whatever else they came up with back when the zombie apocalypse started. There was nothing in that compound except dead zombies, but they were still surrounding it like they were waiting for more people to come out. I don't know if it proves cognitive thought or what. They weren't even trying to get in--they were just...waiting. Then they saw us.

The term "All hell broke loose" was never quite as appropriate as it was at that moment when we saw about 200 walking corpses turn in unison to come toward us. The newbies we picked up were trying to pick them off with their guns, but they really weren't very good. Shawn and I did something we've become very good at recently -- vehicular zombie slaughter. We did laps around the inside of the compound in the trucks, crunching and grinding every stinking one of those things that got close to us. When we were done, we only had to cap about 10 of them with the guns--a great savings of ammo, if I do say so myself. We're going to modify these vehicles and put some nasty Deathrace 2000 shit on them for the next time we go out.

So for the last two weeks we've been throwing bodies out in a big pile and trying to fix the fences and doors and walls. We've got power again and that means the space heaters are up and going. The zombies never made it to the second floor, so a lot of our supplies are undisturbed. I think we're going to be okay.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

A Place for the Winter

We finally found survivors - I should say they found us. We were on Hwy 43 heading towards I-90, the going was very slow as it had been snowing on and off for a few days. As we were getting ready to stop for the night we saw a vehicle coming our way so we had a quick meeting and it was decided that Matt and I would continue and the rest would stay put until it was safe.
As we got closer we saw a man and a woman in the vehicle, they stopped, we stopped and got out to say "Hi". Dale and Rhonda leapt out of their vehicle and started hugging us and asking if we were okay and how many people were in our group and twenty other questions coming at us so fast neither one of us could talk. We gave them a very fast introduction to our group as the snow was coming down real heavy at this point. They had us follow them. We got off on a side road and drove for about 8 miles, then turned off on another road and drove a few more miles until we came to the driveway of a farm. It was truly amazing, as we pulled up people started coming out of the house, barn and a few other buildings that were on the property, they were all really excited to see us. They had us pull our vehicles into the pole barn so they would be protected from the snow storm and got us all into the house.

Roger, I will give more details later. We have been kept really busy helping with "chores" and getting to know everyone. We all wish you were with us - this place is incredible!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Another Zombie Massacre

I'm back online again, but it hasn't been easy. Those gunshots we were hearing kept increasing in frequency, and then we started hearing the unmistakable sound of about a thousand zombies coming in for a feast. The shots increased to almost constant, then they started dying down. We were going to sit this one out, then we saw a half a dozen people running right past our building, firing behind them.at a few hundred zombies. It's one thing to hear someone die and do nothing about it--it's another to see it. We fired up the vehicles, picked up the survivors, and did what I wanted to do for weeks--blasted through the "zombie line" and headed back east to the old compound.

We got five of the six survivors, Annie, Todd, Nate, Larry and a guy who goes by the name of "Mothball" (I didn't ask and he didn't say). Apparently they stumbled on the Cabelas store not long after we did and they completely cleaned the place out. Then they decided to use their unlimited store of ammo to rid the world (or at least our corner of it) of zombies. The two problems with that were that nobody in their group (originally 9 people) was really a great shot and they weren't expecting to see a thousand zombies at once. They were overrun like we were, except they didn't have fully-equipped vehicles ready to tear out. They lost their sort-of leader and they left a ton of ammo and supplies behind, but at least we saved more than half of them. We've retaken our old compound (a story for another day) and we're going to put together a hunting party to go back and get their lost ammo in a few days, when the  zombies have hopefully moved on.

I'm sorry to hear about all you've been through up there. Like the others, I'm a little worried about your medical condition. A flu shouldn't cause your heart to stop. Are they sure your heartbeat wasn't just faint? Have you been bitten at all? Are there any signs of any kind of lingering infection? We still don't have a doctor, but Larry is a vet, so he knows a bit more than the rest of us--maybe he can help. I wish we could get to you and help directly somehow, but this snow is brutal--we were lucky to make it this far. It's funny how you take little things like snow plows for granted. Come to think of it, I don't know how the hell we're going to make it bake to Hoffman estates for the ammo--we might have to wait for a melt. Anyway, I hope you're all doing better and please keep in touch. And be optimistic--survivors are out there! We found some by shear dumb lock; imagine what we might find if we actually look.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Still Nothing

We have been very slowly making our way across Hwy 50 towards Lake Geneva and we still haven't seen any survivors. I think if we go down side roads our chances would be better, but nobody wants to risk it, for now anyway.

I finally found out why everyone has been so weird around me - they have been waiting for me to turn into a zombie! Sarah finally told me what happened while I was sick with the flu. Apparently I was so bad at one point my heart stopped beating for a short time, they did CPR and got me back. They all freaked out since technically I was dead and now they have all been watching my every move to see if I do anything strange. Sarah said they all agreed that if I made it a month and nothing bad happened to me they would consider me "safe" and everyone would relax. I really don't know how I feel about all this - I guess I see their point, how long do you have to be dead before the zombie thing starts. Does heart stopping count or do you have to be brain dead too? I guess I'm lucky they didn't do away with me completely! I told Sarah that I really appreciated her being honest with me and I would just continue on like I didn't know what was up - I just don't want this getting stranger than what it already is.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

The New Year

We have been working our way west on Hwy 50. We happened upon an RV dealership and picked up 2 RV's - we have plenty of room now. It's very exciting to have beds, kitchens and bathrooms with us! (we love propane!)
We haven't come across any survivors yet - we have been checking out some of the small towns we've been going through. There are lots of farms through this area so we are going to check these out. I figure if people are going to congregate they will do so on a farm, back to basics and self-sufficiency.
Now that we are on the move we are seeing a lot of destruction - homes and business have been destroyed. We were so secluded before, we only saw what was around us, now we are seeing it all on a larger scale.
Everyone has been a bit cautious around me since we've been on the move again - they keep asking me how I'm feeling and If I want to stop and rest. I understand that they are concerned because of how sick I was, but they keep staring at me like I've grown a second head or something. When I get a chance I'm going to find out what that's all about.
Wishing all of us a better New Year - Happy 2015.