I am completely depressed. I started to take my Zoloft a week ago, but ran out.
It's very nice outside. The grass is greening up, tulips have started to pop out. The Boyne Mountain resort, as I understand it from long conversations with Javier, is as popular in the Summer as the Winter with it's great golf course and the beautiful scenery. And it certainly helps to have an indoor water park in the main lodge. We haven't seen a walker in almost three weeks, which for most of the our group is great.
For me? I'm wondering if the constant threat of the walkers is actually cathartic. As I have looked back on my journal and my old blog posts (and if anyone is reading this now, it is because someone found my computer) it is obvious that when I am busy dealing with the rigors of surviving my mental health is at it's best.
But when I am thriving, as I seem to be doing now...well mentally I just don't feel that great.
I may be overstating our situation when I say we are thriving. We could obviously stay here a long time. Food is plentiful. Our shelter is safe and comfortable. There is no current threat from walkers. It's wonderful to have my brother and sister with me. Greg, Javier and Jerry are fine companions, too.
But civilization as we knew it doesn't exist. With no means of communication I don't know if we are dealing with isolated issues in Ohio and Michigan, or in the United States, or if this is a global phenomenon. We have the essentials for living, but not the luxuries. That is if you would consider luxuries to be the Internet, television, restaurants, magazines, sports, work, money, automobiles etc. I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate, but life may be more normal than ours in other parts of the United States.
Or it could be worse...
I have found myself spending more and more time away from the group. Not thinking about anything. Johnny Dog seems to sense that I am troubled again, just like she did when I first adopted her.
My mental health is at odds with my physical health. After my experiences over the last few months I don't need a professional psychologist to tell me that I am healthiest when I have to fight for survival.
I know this doesn't match conventional wisdom as it pertains to mental health. Physical health being threatened leads to better mental health???
I wouldn't want to put our group at risk, but...
Shame on me for thinking this way.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Poster Unknown..."Walker Survivor"
Note: I should explain.
The last three postings that you have seen have been from me. I'm calling myself "Walker Survivor" to keep my true identity unknown. It isn't completely safe yet as the authorities are still trying to figure out the true cause of the so-called zombie outbreak. But the Internet is back up.
I had followed the posts from Dan (you may not remember, but he is the person behind the Johnny Dog Journal) until the Internet went completely black on March 4th 2011. The story he was telling certainly left me with hope of being rescued from my own hiding spot.
Spin forward. I had decided to find my way to Boyne to join their group. Pretty risky, but I was relatively close. (I would rather not disclose where I was hiding.) I never made it there.
This is the amazing part. As civilization has begun to recover (although under Marshall Law) I began to wander outside, feeling I wouldn't be leaving myself open to a zombie attack. On one particularly nice day, I stumbled upon a stray dog. She seemed friendly. She had a black coat, with a white tip on her tail. Her face was gray/white and she had a spot on one of her hips that looked like the Greek letter "Omega".
This dog seemed familiar to me. I had some bread with me and offered it to her. As she approached, I noticed she had a collar, and attached to it was a USB drive. She gladly ate the bread, and I was able to coax her to follow me home.
When we got into my home (loosely defined, more like my hovel) I took the USB drive off her collar and plugged it into my computer. It had a single Word document file. Title-"Johnny Dog Journal"!
This was Johnny Dog! I couldn't believe it!
The document is Dan's entire journal. It also contains the User Name and Password to this site. Although not specifically stated by Dan, I believe he intended for the person who found the file to post the journal, if there were survivors and a recovery from the outbreak.
I'm going to continue to post this journal in chronological order. It's a story that continues to be worth telling.
Johnny Dog is safe with me.
This dog seemed familiar to me. I had some bread with me and offered it to her. As she approached, I noticed she had a collar, and attached to it was a USB drive. She gladly ate the bread, and I was able to coax her to follow me home.
When we got into my home (loosely defined, more like my hovel) I took the USB drive off her collar and plugged it into my computer. It had a single Word document file. Title-"Johnny Dog Journal"!
This was Johnny Dog! I couldn't believe it!
The document is Dan's entire journal. It also contains the User Name and Password to this site. Although not specifically stated by Dan, I believe he intended for the person who found the file to post the journal, if there were survivors and a recovery from the outbreak.
I'm going to continue to post this journal in chronological order. It's a story that continues to be worth telling.
Johnny Dog is safe with me.
Monday, March 21, 2011
3.21.11
So here we are.
6 people. Me, my brother and sister Billy and Jen. Jerry, Greg and Javier. And of course, Johnny Dog.
Spring is here. Most of the snow has melted up here at Boyne. We have gas generators that run quietly and provide electricity when we need it. We have plenty of food from the pantry's at the two lodges here on site.
The townhouse is comfortable. Plenty of room. The elevated porch gives us a pretty good view of the whole Boyne resort. If walkers try to attack, we can see them coming.
Under the circumstances, life is pretty good. And I can't stand it...
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Sunday, March 13, 2011
3.13.11
We had three teams simultaneously beheading the zombies. Some were more efficient than the others. It took us a total of 14 hours to take care of all the walkers that were buried in the snow. Total count: 135!
It got a bit dicey at the end. The temperature had to have reached almost 55 degrees. The walkers had started to thaw and would become a threat if we didn't work fast.
Billy was the first to come across walkers who were showing signs of coming back to life. Hold that. Coming back to life would be the wrong term to use. Showing signs of rising would be the correct way to characterize it.
Thinking fast, Billy came up with a solution to keeping the thawed walkers semi-stationary until the teams could behead them.
Grabbing an axe from the porch on our town home, Billy was able to quickly cut off one leg of the last 30 or so walkers that we hadn't beheaded, so if they awoke from their hibernation, they wouldn't be able to quickly rise and attack. Brilliant move. We decided to let Billy have half a kill for each one-legged zombie.
Good thing, as they started to rise in the early evening (the 12th hour of work that day). We were working by flashlight.
Kind of funny, seeing 20 walkers dragging themselves towards us.
So now we have a new moniker for the one's that can't walk...draggers!
It got a bit dicey at the end. The temperature had to have reached almost 55 degrees. The walkers had started to thaw and would become a threat if we didn't work fast.
Billy was the first to come across walkers who were showing signs of coming back to life. Hold that. Coming back to life would be the wrong term to use. Showing signs of rising would be the correct way to characterize it.
Thinking fast, Billy came up with a solution to keeping the thawed walkers semi-stationary until the teams could behead them.
Grabbing an axe from the porch on our town home, Billy was able to quickly cut off one leg of the last 30 or so walkers that we hadn't beheaded, so if they awoke from their hibernation, they wouldn't be able to quickly rise and attack. Brilliant move. We decided to let Billy have half a kill for each one-legged zombie.
Good thing, as they started to rise in the early evening (the 12th hour of work that day). We were working by flashlight.
Kind of funny, seeing 20 walkers dragging themselves towards us.
So now we have a new moniker for the one's that can't walk...draggers!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
3.6.11
It got pretty warm yesterday. We are definitely seeing the beginning of the Spring melt.
It was sunny. My guess was it reached almost 50 degrees. Greg and Billy volunteered to go outside and see if the scythe and sickles would easily behead the frozen walkers. Jerry thought he would bring out the Samurai sword too. They took Johnny Dog to help sniff out the buried walkers. Quite a posse!
As Javier, Jen and I watched from the second floor porch on our townhome, the posse approached the first few walkers that were now exposed from the melt. These walkers formed the bottom portion of our undead slalom course.
Greg grabbed the first walker by the exposed arm and pulled until the body was exposed. He sat the walker up. No sign of it waking up from it's deep freeze. Javier had told us that a nice two-handed grip on the sickle, with a baseball bat style swing would be the technique to use.
Billy took the first swing. He missed a little low, the blade embedding itself in the shoulder of the walker. We all had a good laugh, which only served to inspire Billy. His second swing was right on target but the blade only made it about half way through the walkers neck.
His third swing did the trick. He hit the neck clean, and the head tumbled down the hill. Johnny Dog gave chase, but when she reached it she just sniffed at it and returned to the posse.
"Let's see what you can do with the second one!" I yelled from the porch.
"I'm just warming up!" Billy yelled back.
Greg propped up a second walker. Billy took his grip, and with a grunt beheaded the walker with one swing!
"That's the way!" Jen yelled.
Billy looked pretty proud of himself.
"These don't count!" I yelled from the porch. "They have to show some sign of life if you want them to count towards Zombie kills on the scoreboard!"
Greg, Billy and Jerry stared back, looking incredulous. "What the fuck, this is a lot of work! This should count for something!" Billy exclaimed.
Jen had the answer. "OK, a half kill for the lifeless one's. But the guy who props it up gets a half kill too."
Jen had ruled. And it was done!
It was sunny. My guess was it reached almost 50 degrees. Greg and Billy volunteered to go outside and see if the scythe and sickles would easily behead the frozen walkers. Jerry thought he would bring out the Samurai sword too. They took Johnny Dog to help sniff out the buried walkers. Quite a posse!
As Javier, Jen and I watched from the second floor porch on our townhome, the posse approached the first few walkers that were now exposed from the melt. These walkers formed the bottom portion of our undead slalom course.
Greg grabbed the first walker by the exposed arm and pulled until the body was exposed. He sat the walker up. No sign of it waking up from it's deep freeze. Javier had told us that a nice two-handed grip on the sickle, with a baseball bat style swing would be the technique to use.
Billy took the first swing. He missed a little low, the blade embedding itself in the shoulder of the walker. We all had a good laugh, which only served to inspire Billy. His second swing was right on target but the blade only made it about half way through the walkers neck.
His third swing did the trick. He hit the neck clean, and the head tumbled down the hill. Johnny Dog gave chase, but when she reached it she just sniffed at it and returned to the posse.
"Let's see what you can do with the second one!" I yelled from the porch.
"I'm just warming up!" Billy yelled back.
Greg propped up a second walker. Billy took his grip, and with a grunt beheaded the walker with one swing!
"That's the way!" Jen yelled.
Billy looked pretty proud of himself.
"These don't count!" I yelled from the porch. "They have to show some sign of life if you want them to count towards Zombie kills on the scoreboard!"
Greg, Billy and Jerry stared back, looking incredulous. "What the fuck, this is a lot of work! This should count for something!" Billy exclaimed.
Jen had the answer. "OK, a half kill for the lifeless one's. But the guy who props it up gets a half kill too."
Jen had ruled. And it was done!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
3.3.11
We needed a plan.
How were we going to deal with the frozen zombies when they thawed out? We didn't want to waste ammunition. A couple of days ago Jen took a walk with Johnny Dog (she broke our rule about never leaving the townhouse without a partner). As we had spent a lot of time trying to devise a plan, she decided to try to do a count of how many potential walkers we would be dealing with.
When she came back (and after being admonished by me for going out alone) she reported that there were at least 120 zombies buried in the snow. There was still a 30 inch base, so who knew how many more were buried that Jen couldn't count.
Javier was surprised. He had thought that most people had evacuated the area. Our guess was that noise from the large generator facility that provided power to the buildings attracted whoever/whatever was left in the area to the Boyne grounds. Since Javier never left the pizza pub he didn't notice.
Yesterday Javier and I took Johnny Dog to the golf course maintenance shed. He was thinking he might be able to rig one of the large fairway mower attachments to to a snow groomer and basically shred the frozen zombies. We had to scuttle that plan when we realized we couldn't get the attachment to the groomers through the 30" deep snow. We also realized that using precious gasoline for that purpose might not be a wise choice.
As we were leaving the shed I happened to notice two sickles and a scythe hanging on the wall. They were rusty and looked like they hadn't been used for a couple of years. But when we took them off the wall we found them to still be structurally sound.
"These just might do the trick!" I said.
Javier agreed. "You may be right. We will need to sharpen them up a bit. I also think we are going to need a little bit of thaw to take place so these things cut through the necks of the zombies cleanly. It will take a little bit of work, but there are plenty of us here."
"It's a plan!" I exclaimed. "But we will have to agree that these won't count towards our zombie kill score."
Javier looked puzzled. "Zombie kill score?"
"I'll explain later. Let's get these back to the townhouse and decide when we will start."
Let the beheadings begin!
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
2.27.11 Swiss Family Robinson
Javier is an interesting guy. He has turned out to be a great addition to our group. An electrician by training, he's been working general maintenance here at Boyne Mountain for about 10 years.
Here in Northern Michigan people didn't panic, but they listened to the instructions they were given by the so-called authorities. I'm a little surprised to hear that as I figured this area was full of survivalists. Of course a few of us (including Javier) figured out pretty quickly that survival mode was the correct course of action, so we ignored the authorities.
Javier said that people left this area as they were told that moving to a more urban area was the smart thing to do. They headed South to Saginaw, Flint and even Detroit. Javier let his instincts drive his behavior, and volunteered to watch the Boyne grounds even as it's operators decided to shut it down and headed South.
That was 8 weeks ago.
He chose the Pizza Pub to live in. He had plenty of food, but lost electricity 6 weeks ago. The fireplace provided him heat. He didn't realize anyone else was in the Clocktower lodge until he saw a walker wandering around in the lobby. He didn't have any idea that it was essentially dead until we told him about our experiences. He also read Jerry's copy of The Zombie Survival Guide which more than convinced him that what we had told him was true.
The one thing he did realize when he first saw the walker was that they were delirious and dangerous. Luckily the first one he saw was alone. He tried to communicate with it, but to no avail. Once again, his instincts took over and dodged the thing when it lunged at him. He then ran to the Pizza Pub, barricaded the door and hadn't come out since for fear of running into more of them.
As I mentioned earlier, Javier has been of great value. He took us to the maintenance garage and we got two gas-powered generators. There is plenty of gas in huge tanks along the ski slopes that are used to fuel the pumps for snow making. So as of now we are living a pretty good life.
But it's now February 27th. And the inevitable thaw is coming. We have been brainstorming plans on how we are going to deal with the thawed zombies and the possibility of unfriendly gangs showing up. Kind of feels like we are going to have to prepare like the Swiss Family Robinson did when they knew a pirate attack was inevitable.
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Here in Northern Michigan people didn't panic, but they listened to the instructions they were given by the so-called authorities. I'm a little surprised to hear that as I figured this area was full of survivalists. Of course a few of us (including Javier) figured out pretty quickly that survival mode was the correct course of action, so we ignored the authorities.
Javier said that people left this area as they were told that moving to a more urban area was the smart thing to do. They headed South to Saginaw, Flint and even Detroit. Javier let his instincts drive his behavior, and volunteered to watch the Boyne grounds even as it's operators decided to shut it down and headed South.
That was 8 weeks ago.
He chose the Pizza Pub to live in. He had plenty of food, but lost electricity 6 weeks ago. The fireplace provided him heat. He didn't realize anyone else was in the Clocktower lodge until he saw a walker wandering around in the lobby. He didn't have any idea that it was essentially dead until we told him about our experiences. He also read Jerry's copy of The Zombie Survival Guide which more than convinced him that what we had told him was true.
The one thing he did realize when he first saw the walker was that they were delirious and dangerous. Luckily the first one he saw was alone. He tried to communicate with it, but to no avail. Once again, his instincts took over and dodged the thing when it lunged at him. He then ran to the Pizza Pub, barricaded the door and hadn't come out since for fear of running into more of them.
As I mentioned earlier, Javier has been of great value. He took us to the maintenance garage and we got two gas-powered generators. There is plenty of gas in huge tanks along the ski slopes that are used to fuel the pumps for snow making. So as of now we are living a pretty good life.
But it's now February 27th. And the inevitable thaw is coming. We have been brainstorming plans on how we are going to deal with the thawed zombies and the possibility of unfriendly gangs showing up. Kind of feels like we are going to have to prepare like the Swiss Family Robinson did when they knew a pirate attack was inevitable.
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