The Summer Journal of Evan Daniels

July 9^th, 1993

I’m going to keep writing in this journal every day from now on. Maybe when this is all over it’ll be useful for record keeping or something, or maybe it’ll help someone who finds it if I have to leave it behind. Mostly it just makes me feel better to put my thoughts to paper and it’s the closest I can come to having a conversation with Uncle Dean and Mama on the other side of the Boundary Line.

That’s probably the only good thing I’ve got going for me right now, knowing that they’re both safe and not stuck in here with me and everyone- well, what’s left of everyone else at least. It’s gotten a lot quieter after three days of this ‘infection’ that they’re calling it on the News. No one outside of the boundary seems to know what’s actually happening in here, or what people get turned into by this sickness.

I guess I skipped a few days in here, so I should explain-

Evan sat on the floor, a mere foot from the television and with the radio sat right next to him. Both were set as quiet as he could manage to make them, for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention just like one of his neighbors had. He hadn’t seen any of ‘them’ on the front or back yards the last time he’d managed to work up the courage to move the heavy curtains and sheets and peer outside, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t hear him if he got too loud.

It was better to be safe, quiet, and to stay put. That’s what he kept telling himself as he stayed glued to Triple N’s report on the situation while listening to WBLN’s local news. The contrast in the way it was presented was interesting, at least – Triple N’s anchor was presenting the known ‘facts’ of the situation while continuing to urge for calm and not-quite criticizing the people who’d taken up residence on the boundary line to try and demand more information or access to their loved ones on the ‘other side’ of the line, while WBLN had taken practically the exact opposite stance and was all but tearing into the government and military for their handling of the situation. He was sure that Mrs O’Malley would love to use the example in their Social Studies class for a real life example of bias in media and ‘history being made in the moment’.

He’d been thanking and would keep thanking God that he hadn’t seen his Mama or Uncle Dean in any of those crowd shots that the news channels had been showing of the camps on the Boundary Line. Probably Uncle Dean had convinced Mama to stay in Louisville for now rather than go to the camps and risk who knows what happening. At least, that’s what Evan hoped for.

Quietly, careful to avoid making any unnecessary noise out of still intense fear that refused to leave him, Evan stood up and all but tiptoed his way out of the living room and into the kitchen. His stomach was complaining to him again even though he’d eaten breakfast a few hours ago. It hadn’t been much of a breakfast, to be fair, but it was still frustrating. Especially since, well…

A look in the fridge showed him a single peach in the fruit drawer, and little else. The freezer had some still-frozen meat and a pack of peas, which he considered moving to the fridge but closed the door anyway. They were frozen, and it would probably be better to let them stay that way in case the situation… well, it case it kept going any longer than it already seemed to be headed towards. There were some canned foods as well, thankfully. Uncle Dean always kept some around, but his advice kept Evan from just opening them up and gorging himself.

In a survival situation, Uncle Dean had said, you need to always be mindful of your resources and how you spend them. Eat your perishables first, and don’t touch food that’s shelf stable unless you have to do so. That’s how you keep your supplies up for when times get leaner.

All of that was definitely true, Evan admitted, and Uncle Dean was rarely if ever wrong… but that didn’t change the fact that he was hungry. He’d always been able to just get a snack whenever his tummy had acted up before, but now he was understanding just how lucky he’d had it up until now. He’d never had to experience real hunger in his life before this all started. He and Uncle Dean had been planning on going shopping once he’d brought Mama back from the Louisville Airport, so that Mama would have a say in what they ate and wouldn’t be stuck upset at all their ‘man meals’.

He was starting to regret being that considerate, given that if they’d gone shopping he’d have plenty to be eating right now and could sit cool and calm through it all. He wouldn’t be feeling this stir-crazy frustration to want to go outside and get something… which he’s terrified beyond words to try and do, given what’s out there right now. Or maybe it’d be better to phrase it as who ‘was’ out there right now? ‘They’ were all over the place now, and with how things had quieted down he had no way of knowing just where the majority of the danger was.

On the first day, it had been so loud and terrifying he’d just shut all the curtains and hid under his bed for the whole day, clutching his gameboy and trying to block it all out as he just played Kirby. The screaming, the yelling, the gunshots and the horrible sounds ‘they’ made. His closest neighbors were all gone by the end of that first day, either to the sickness itself to the ‘them’.

On the second day, it was both better and worse. He had passed out sometime late in the night only to be woken up to the horrible sounds of some woman shrieking her death who knows where who knows how far away. Following that, he’d heard a lot of gunshots from the west side of town, and the peek he’d been brave enough to get had let him see that most of ‘them’ were moving that way towards all the noise and ruckus. It might’ve been the police, at least he’d hoped so. He’d hoped maybe they’d manage to save the day and someone would come to get him and this would all be over, but that didn’t happen as far as he could tell. It just ended up becoming real, real quiet as darkness settled in. He couldn’t even hear ‘them’ anywhere nearby anymore.

And now, today, it sounded almost normal. No screams, no gunshots. He could hear the birds outside twittering and tweeting, and sometimes he’d hear something in the distance but he couldn’t discern what it was. A glance at the clock told him it was 8:45 and he knew already that all the news would be talking about other matters until at least 10 or 12, so he wouldn’t be getting any updates about that for a while longer.

Try as he might, he couldn’t work up any interest in the rest of the country right now when he was the one who was stuck in the middle of history in the making.

It would be fifteen minutes later when he’d finally caved in to his stomach’s complaints and was in the middle of eating the peach when he heard it. A constant, repetitive dull sound echoing in the distance but growing slowly louder. At first, he couldn’t place it, though it sounded to him like a fan chopping the air.

It took longer than he’d like to admit for him to realize what such a ‘chopping’ sound meant, given the circumstances. He connected the dots just a few moments longer before he heard a muffled voice booming out of a loudspeaker, probably attached to the chopper passing over head.

“Attention Residents! Remain Indoors, safe where you are! We are passing over and will drop supplies! When you are safe and able to do so, retrieve them and the pamphlets distributed and follow the instructions within!” He was sprinting up the stairs, uncaring of the noise he made and sliding along the polished wood floors as he scrambled on all fours to duck into his room.

It took all the effort Evan had to not just throw the curtains open, instead only shifting them aside just enough to peer outside, looking up towards the moving speck in the distance moving almost parallel to him as it drew ever so slightly closer. At this rate… it must have been angling to pass over the neighboorhood grocery! Yeah, that must have been it! They were planning on dropping supplies at the grocery store!

They were close enough now that he could make out the shape of the lumbering double-rotored helicopter now, and the green shade on it clinched it! It was the army! The Good Ol’ US Army was gonna bring them supplies and…

… apparently not evacuate them yet but the instructions must be about the evacuation! They’re bringing us supplies to get everyone ready and then they’ll bust us all out of here, that’s what Evan’s thinking right then! His hopes were rising up in his chest and practically bursting out of his throat, but he didn’t let them actually do that because he didn’t want to attract any attention from ‘them’, which he was now starting to realize that helicopter would certainly be doing.

Maybe… maybe their plan was to drop the supplies and then draw ‘their’ attention away from where the military thought the survivors were? Helicopters were loud and would be certain to draw ‘their’ attention so it would make sense. The voice from the helicopter started to repeat their message… and Evan heard another voice, this one from the other side of the house.

Now Evan had to rush over across the house and into the bathroom, so he could slide apart those curtains and peer through them, all while hoping that he wasn’t hearing what he thought he was hearing. Unfortunatelyy he was, in fact, hearing what he thought he was hearing, and a woman he vaguely recognized as one of Uncle Dean’s neighbors was out on her lawn, waving her arms and jumping up and down and yelling to the helicopter – the helicopter which did not turn towards her, or do anything but continue on its straight line course and keep broadcasting its message. This didn’t seem to discourage her as she yelled louder, letting him hear clearly her ‘over here, I’m over here, help me’ through the glass. It was a lucky thing that helicopter was low enough and loud enough to cover up her screaming at any further away, or else every one of ‘them’ in the area would be swarming this way any moment.

… But he could see ‘them’ already, at least what couple of them were out and about nearby still. He couldn’t tell you what drove ‘them’ or why they did what they did. ‘They’ were awkward, stumbling shells of their former selves, the damage on their body plainly evident even from a distance. One and then two stumbled around the high fencing surrounding these clusters of houses and caught sight of the woman outside.

“Run.” Evan’s voice was a hoarse whisper, unused for days at this point. He didn’t raise it, didn’t try to shout a warning to her. He couldn’t. His throat was clenched tight, swallowing anymore than just that single, desperate plea for her to run. Maybe she could get away, double around behind something and then sneak back into her house if it tricked ‘them’?

She didn’t though. She saw them, and she screamed all the louder, yelling for the helicopter and doubling down on her forlorn hopes. They’d already stumbled further down the little cul-de-sac- that Uncle Dean lived in, locking their attention onto her. He could see them better now, their faces. Some torn open, others hauntingly intact. Lips pulled back into a rictus bearing of their teeth, jaws working on nothing. He couldn’t hear ‘their’ horrible sounds from here… but he would hear what would happen to that woman.

He could shut the blinds, cover his ears, and wait for it to be all over again. Crawl under his bed and play Kirby over and over so he could pretend this was happening. He could do that. He could do that. He could do that. He could do that.

The woman stopped relying on the helicopter and looked about, casting her eyes here and there in a desperate hope for salvation, mouthing her desperate plea for help even as he couldn’t hear her anymore. A few more of them had appeared. Perhaps five or so of them now, the ones from the main street joined by a few stumbling out from the backyard of the house right next door to his.

If she just had something to defend herself, then maybe she could make it? ‘They’ used to be people, so they shouldn’t be any tougher than people, right? She could still save herself.

Her eyes moved back across everything, and for a moment he felt as if she could see him peering carefully out through the crack in the blinds he’d pulled apart. He felt like he could hear her yelling ‘Help me, Evan! Help me!’

Evan had taken the steps three at a time before he’d realized it, using the banister to spin himself around and not slow down as he threw himself at the door. What am I doing? He had to wonder to himself. What am I doing right now? He had to ask as he undid the lock and pulled the door open, sprinting outside into the sunlight in the first time in three days.

The clock on the wall said 9:00 on the dot as he put foot to the pavement, running down the driveway and across the grass as his hand reached for his belt – ‘they’ were already starting to approach her and she was left desperately, weepingly backing up, calling out names to them and begging them to stop. Muldraugh was a small town. It was likely she knew the people ‘they’ used to be.

Uncle Dean had gotten him his own ‘survival gear’ this summer as a birthday present. This included a belt with all sorts of cool loops and latches to hook things onto so you could carry all that cool gear you’d need in the woods, as well as two things in particular that he told him to always carry on him… well, that and the paper clip, but he’d learned that one years ago and didn’t need Uncle Dean to buy him one of those.

As the woman turned his direction, he saw her eyes light up with something. Recognition? Hope? Evan couldn’t say. What he could say is that it was better than anything else he’d seen in the past few days. A light in the darkness he didn’t even know that he’d been drowning in. It filled him with determination.

The closest one of ‘them’ had been a woman before, in life. It was wearing a tank top and shorts, and had short cropped hair. Its skin was greying, losing the warmth of life that didn’t belong to it. It never saw him coming, though it may have heard him as it paused for a moment just before impact.

Evan tackled it, slamming into the thing’s back and ramming the knife Uncle Dean had gotten him right into the base of her neck. He felt the blade catch on something for a moment before his weight and inertia forced it the rest of the way forward, and both he and it slammed to the concrete. Thankfully, it had absorbed most of the fall. Less thankfully, it smelled foul and he would never forget the scent.

The next closest of them turned, eyes locking onto him as it learned out a creaking, croaking groan through the hole that used to be its neck, the skin of its face having been stripped off by others among ‘them’ before it had risen up as they had.

“Run..!” Evan managed to speak again, gulping down desperate air as he tugged and tugged on the knife stuck into the back of the one he’d tackled. It was stock still and ‘loose’ for lack of a better word now, not tense or moving in the slightest. It gave him hope that ‘they’ could still be killed, or at least made to stop moving.

The woman, blessedly, listened to him as she ran the best she could. She had a limp in her step, all but throwing or leaping each time she could on her left leg while nearly falling when she used her right, but it was still enough to out pace those among ‘them’ that had decided to keep chasing her.

Five. There were five of ‘them’ left. The faceless one was twisting at an ungainly angle as it tried to get ready to come for him, and another one wearing a high-visibility vest seemed torn between chasing after her or targeting Evan like its fellow.

Struggling to his feet and using the leverage he could, Evan yanked the knife out of the dead woman’s neck, the blade coated in dark red blood and other fluids. “C-come on, assparagus!”

As far as battlecries went, it could probably use some work. Still, it gave him the courage to stand his ground as the Faceless one lunged his way, arms snapping out as it moved with a level of speed and focus far beyond what ‘they’ normally showed when someone was further away.

However, years of video games had honed his reflexes to a razor sharp point. Just like THIEF from Final Fantasy, he used his knife to FIGHT.

Real life was rarely as clean as fantasy was, though, and as he drove the knife up and into the underjaw of Faceless, it kept coming at him no matter how deep he dug the knife in. The thing’s jaw was pinned mostly shut now, and he could see the blade of the knife through the gaps between its gnashing teeth. Its fingers clawed and grasped at his denim jacket, staining the material in blood belonging to both it and others, and it keep advancing, desperately trying to bite him.

Evan dug his heels in, grappling with the nightmare whose teeth were clicking and clacking just inches from his face, his bravado flying away in an instant as pure, mortal terror filled himwith vigor. A keening sound came from the back of his throat as he ducked back from its latest lunge and used the leverage he had to yank it further, using his leg to trip its own and sending it falling to the ground behind him. Conveniently enough, it did so such that the hilt of the knife was driven deeper into its head, and it let out a cut-off gurgle and shuddered before going loose like the tank-top woman did.

Distracted in the moment and sucking in a desperate breath, Evan stepped back a few more paces, which helped protect him from Mister High-Vis advancing on him, hands coming up in a grasping motion that made it clear what was coming. This one wasn’t as torn up as Faceless, nor as greyed out as Tank-Top was. Instead he almost still looked human… save for his filmy eyes and the trails of black-brown leaking from his nose. Evan knew that must have meant he died of the same ‘flu’ that others started to come down with before this nightmare began, though perhaps more recently.

A wet, gurgling snarl came from Mister High-Vis as Evan’s empty hand grasped nothing, realizing he’d left his knife behind in the head of the last attacker. If it weren’t for Uncle Dean, he’d be defenseless now… but Uncle Dean made sure to teach him to always be prepared. That’s why he’s got two tools on his belt, not just the knife. Since this whole thing had started he’d kept it on, just for the comforting weight. Undoing the latch, he hefted his next tool and took in the weight and balance of it. Uncle Dean had shown him how to use it, how to swing it and where to hit… but that had been on wood, and not the head of one of ‘them’.

… If you thought about it, though, the neck was kind of like the trunk of a tree, right?

Growling right back, adrenaline flooding his body and washing away the terror with primal survival instincts, Evan lunged towards the attacker, putting the whole of his weight and body behind the swing as his two-handed swing buried his hatchet into the neck of Mister High-Vis, sending ‘it’ staggering to the side, stumbling unsteadily as Evan yanked the hatchet back out – then twisted his whole body to slam it back again, just as High-Vis recovered and attempted to lunge at him, burying the blade up to the center of its neck and sending High-Vis to its knees as the lunge turns into a fall.

High-Vis still tried to move, the side of its body furthest from Evan still responding even as he kicked into its side and sent it crashing to the pavement. It was pure instinct, pure drive to kill the threat, that spurred Evan on as he brought the hatchet down onto High-Vis’ head again and again, as flesh parted and muscle was shorn and bone finally cracked under the power of high carbon steel, and black, gooey material that used to be a brain started spilling out.

Evan staggered back, away from the now properly dead High-Vis, and clutched his hatchet tightly enough that he could feel every rib of the rubber grip as it dug into his skin. Three. There were three left. The still-living woman had made it back to her house and had gotten her door shut and locked behind her again. That was good. Less good was the fact that ‘They’ were slamming themselves against it, beating on the door with all the strength they possessed. Evan wasn’t sure how long a door could take that kind of abuse, but a glance down the length of the cul-de-sac showed at least two more doors that had been beaten and broken down by someone… or more likely somethings in the previous two nights.

‘They’ were ignoring him now. He could just leave, slink back into his house and hide to hope that they wouldn’t come after him, or that ‘they’ would forget that he had been here at all. He’d already saved her once, after all. He didn’t have to just fight all of ‘them’, right?

Evan kicked the body that still had his knife buried in its underjaw, but it didn’t stir. It took a bit less than a moment to come to a decision on what to do. He dropped his knee into the middle of the body’s back to just make certain it couldn’t try to move and took hold of its remaining hair to yank the head back to get easy access to his knife.

It still didn’t move.

Careful to make sure it wouldn’t be able to reach him if he sprung to life, he angled his arm under and took hold of his knife by the hilt and began to wriggle and pry it loose, tugging it free and whipping his arm away, just in case.

Faceless remained still and unmoving. As dead as the dead could hope to be. At the very least, his knife hadn’t just somehow pinched a nerve. It seemed to be well and truly dead now.

So Evan knew now, he knew that ‘they’ could be killed. They could be beaten.

He took one more moment to wipe the blades off on the remains of clothing still on Faceless, leaving them as relatively clean as he could make them before he stood up. The hatchet he stowed back into its holster but left it unlatched and ready to be pulled free at a moment’s need. His knife he kept steady in his hand and he began to stalk towards the door that ‘they’ were trying to batter down.

He could hear, over the horrific, inhuman noises they made, the sound of the woman sobbing on the other side of the door, no doubt pressing against it to try and keep it upright and intact against the beating it was receiving.

Picking up the pace, Evan speedwalked towards the trio and braced the knife in his hand, tensing his body before he swung as he lunged and rammed the blade right into the upper back of the middle of the group, sending it thumping into the door with a short, cut-off grunt. Its fellows took a moment to realize what even was happening as they began to struggle against the weight of their comrade on them, giving Evan time to redraw his hatchet and swing it into the side of the head of the one on the right.

It collapsed, taking the middle one with it, which left Leftie free to make its move on him, lunging for him and getting a hold of his shoulders as it tried for his throat. Evan jammed his hatchet blade into its mouth as they struggled for dominance for a handful of seconds before he gathered all his strength and shoved it back, sending it falling to the ground as it lost its grip. He was on it less than a moment after it landed, bringing his axe down on its head once, twice and then thrice before it stopped moving and the deed was done.

Sucking in a breath through the horrid stench, Evan composed himself… and very nearly suffered for it as a hand grabbed his ankle and tried to yank on it, nearly knocking him to the ground. Rightie’s corpse lay on top of Center, who was still moving despite the blade shoved just below his neck. If it weren’t for its comrades weight, it might have actually been able to pull itself close enough to get a bite into him when he wasn’t looking.

Overconfidence could be a slow and insidious killer, it would seem. It was luck in this moment that saved him. Luck that gave him a chance to bring his axe down on the crawler’s head and to end its threat. He brought it down on Rightie’s head too, just to be certain. Each breath was drawn deep, no matter how thick the stench of blood and viscera was, as Evan took his time to make certain he was safe, looking over his shoulder to make certain more of ‘them’ weren’t planning to spring a surprise attack on him and that one of his previous targets hadn’t gotten back up somehow.

But they were still, and so was the air as the helicopter faded away into the distance, its loudspeaker silent. A large crate was falling towards the ground now, kept from simply slamming to earth by a parachute, presumably thrown from the helicopter and containing those supplies. Not just that, but papers were fluttering through the air now as well, thrown about by the wash of the helicopter’s rotors. They were falling all along the path that the helicopter had taken over town, and some were only just now landing in the little part of Muldraugh he’d called home for the summer.

“Miss?” Evan spoke up, thinking to offer the woman on the other side of the door more help or perhaps to assure her he’d bring her supplies as well so she didn’t need to risk herself. Already he was starting to think of how to do more to survive than just hide in his house and wait for rescue. Depending on what the fliers said, maybe the military would even be coming soon to take back the town?

But, all those hopeful and forward thinking thoughts were shut down with a few words shouted in a trembling voice.

“Murderer! Get away from me! Go away!” The woman stared through the glass viewport of her front door at him with frantic, terrified eyes. An all consuming, primal fear was overtaking her just at the sight of him. She was looking at him like he was…

Like he was no different from ‘them’.

“Get away! Go! I-I’m armed!” Her trembling voice was backed up by trembling hands holding onto a decidedly less tremulous weapon. More specifically, a gun. Even more specifically, an H&R Pardner Pump Action Shotgun, a high quality product for a budgetary price. At least, that’s what the ads for it said in the magazines. Evan had thought it looked pretty neat on the pages, but it was a lot less neat in the hands of someone who was seemingly terrified of him and prepared to use it. His hand, wrapped around the knife buried in the back of Center, yanked on it as he tried to step back, pulling it out of his former attacker. He thought about raising his hands, before thinking better of it as he realized that might make her think that he was threatening her.

“Okay Miss, please just-” Evan tried to speak, tried to soothe her, but he never got the chance as the sound of glass shattering broke the peace, drowning out the song birds yet again. The woman wailed, waving her gun in the direction of the sound as Evan took the moment to all but dive to the side in order to avoid being in her line of fire.

He saw what was making the noise. Across the street, one of ‘them’ in the red uniform of the local baseball team had broken through a second story window and was now leaning part way out of it as it leaned out towards them, grasping. It hung there for a moment before gravity asserted itself and it fell to the first floor and then made an immediate stop at rock bottom, slamming into the rocks and gravel of that house’s front garden with a painfully impactful thwack.

For a moment, nothing. Then, a single low moan that sounded almost like a long, drown out complaint of pain. Evan couldn’t help the whoof of startled, surprised amusement that slipped out of them, that huff of unexpected near laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Then all the windows on the first floor of that house were broken out in near synchronized timing as many of ‘them’, all clad in the same uniform, poured out out of the windows, some two at a time or one on top of each other. Behind Evan, the woman screamed murder and ran from her door and his means of seeing her, leaving him to look back across the street as the fielders, basemen, shortstop and catcher all were struggling to their feet. Their pitcher, who’d toppled out of the 2^nd story window, was letting out a gurgling hiss as it dragged itself through the rosebush, crawling along the ground as it dug its fingers into the lawn and pulled itself towards him.

It was at this point that Evan realized that Final Fantasy had lied to him and that being a hero really isn't all its cracked up to be.