The Dead Lands Diary (Book 1) Read online

  THE

  DEAD LANDS

  DIARY

  S. David Staggs

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  DEDICATIONS

  My Mother, for her undying support and unconditional love.

  My Father, for being all he never had to be.

  My Daughter, my greatest blessing and heart.

  Alex & Anthony.

  Justyn, Cameron, Jeremy, Dizzle, Jason, Rudy, Hassan, Nick, Paul, Boosh, Budders, Stix.

  Kaycie, Kendra, Ashley, Krissy, Rachel, Lish, Yvonne, Kayla, Deb, Ann, Andrea, Miranda, Samantha, Lisa.

  Tommy, Donny, Donny Jr, Rodney.

  Darlene, Kerry, Linda.

  Grover Vaught, My Mentor.

  The world died. It died in the month of July in the year 2016. Looking back it seemed like it started off slow...but in reality it all fell apart relatively fast.

  I think it is important to keep a record of the events that unfolded and are continuing to unfold. If the world ever again even slightly resembles what it used to then such records will be viable. I know others have to be keeping records from around the country...and world. They will be a wonderful collection to our history records. At least, if we have a future.

  My name is Jack Reeds. From the now destroyed Akron, Ohio. Most places are destroyed now. Relics of a world lying in ruin.

  Shortly after Independence Day people began getting sick. It started in South America. People were being attacked and bitten by rats...bats...stray cats...all carrying something. Something from the jungle most certainly. Who knows what things live within those dense vast miles of vines and water. New things are discovered everyday. Something new...maybe technically old...found its way out. The worst thing. Deep within that dark wilderness something was attacked. Something died. Something...changed. Changed into something else. And it attacked. It spread its way out of the Amazon until it found civilization.

  At first...it appeared harmless enough. Some rat bites. Strays bite. Infections occur. Flu like symptoms that lingered awhile longer than normal.

  It acted differently at first in people. Eventually it mutated to cause the same effects it already had in many animals. It wasn't until later, before it got bad...that people noticed over time these animals were decaying. Walking, biting, attacking....but decaying. Animal control captured a dog 10 miles outside San Antonio, Texas. Sedation had zero effect. It was muzzled and strapped to a table at a local vets office. They confirmed what other doctors had already stated in different parts of the world. Some just needed to see it for themselves. Up close. Otherwise they'd maybe never have believed such a thing could actually happen.

  The rats found their ways onto cargo ships and they made their way to all four corners of the earth. The rats found other healthy rats...they found cats. Now the rats and mice were chasing the cats. In the beginning some thought it was some new strain of Toxoplasmosis. A parasite that can only reproduce in the stomach of cats. It infects the brains of rats and makes them purposely seek out cats so as to be eaten. Then the parasite can reproduce within the cat.

  That was quickly ruled out once it was apparent the cats were being attacked and not the other way around. Disgusting little bug.

  The infected people traveled as normal. Planes and ships...trains and buses. Infected people going state to state, nation to nation. Vacations. Business. Personal reasons. It was a small spark that slowly grew into a flame. The more it infected and spread the more it began to mutate. The more the fire grew out of control.

  And then it happened. The last mutation. Those sick, as well as the ones more recently infected, began to fall. They fell in the streets. In hotel rooms and lobbies. In restaurants. At concerts and night clubs. Most were still attending social events...most only felt they had a slight lingering cold. Then sudden fevers hit. Rapidly. It brought them down within minutes...sometimes seconds.

  They slightly bled from their eyes. They convulsed and twitched. They died. Then...just like with the fever...within minutes they began to twitch again. Slowly at first but then violently. They began to growl and their eyes began blinking through the blood. They would make it to their feet and attack the first person within reach. Biting and clawing. Chaos ensued and the virus erupted into full wildfire. The cities were the first to fall. Naturally. The military tried their best to quarantine them. New York, Chicago, L.A., London, Sydney, etc. It didn't matter anymore.

  For a short while it seemed to work. But keeping healthy people in and infected out...that wasn't the problem. That was working. Especially in Manhattan. No, it was the animals. You just can't catch every cat, rat and dog. Other animals were getting infected as well. Before the power went out, I watched a woman on the news get mauled by a ferret. A fuckin' ferret.

  There were unconfirmed reports of total nightmares at city zoos. No footage was ever shot. If it infected all these other domestic animals there's no reason it wouldn't infect larger ones. I hope I never come face to face with one. The thought alone is an absolute nightmare.

  The people quarantined within Manhattan felt very secure in that first week of isolation. Across the way they watched the rest of the city fall apart. They listened day and night to the sounds of screams and pleas. To the helicopters flying above and gunshots ringing out.

  Eventually the military started firebombing the streets. It was a last ditch effort. Manhattan watched their beloved city burn. Soldiers in choppers hovered over Times Square firing shots off...trying to attract as many of the infected as possible. They flew over all nearby streets and led them in.

  Within hours tens of thousands of infected roamed Times Square. Firebombs were dropped. Times Square destroyed. But it wasn't enough to change the tide...New York was lost after 2 weeks.

  They tried to nip the early infections inside Manhattan but it was too late. They inadvertently helped in the islands demise. Small pockets of infections were popping up and once reported were throughly delt with. But when the firebombs lit New York up like lynch mobs of old to kill the monsters....the rats fled in masse. Most of which flooded directly into Manhattan.

  The military knew it was lost. They withdrew their forces to focus on other areas where their help might have been needed. The residents of Manhattan were on their own now. I wonder if any of them are still alive. I'd like to think so.

  Los Angeles has a smaller rat problem than New York. Still, the city only lasted about a week longer. Infected coyotes wandered the streets adding to the problem quickly. I watched the Hollywood hills burn on the TV.

  Authorities in Chicago tried to use other strategies when they saw New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas were quickly falling. Instead of trying to quarantine the entire city they focused on trying to quarantine small sectors within and outside the city. Everyone in between were on their own. Anyone trying to fight their way into any of the sectors were gunned down. Marshall law was naturally in full effect. Looters and rioters were eventually shot on sight as well. The way some of them would charge at authorities it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between them and a newly turned infected. The new ones are fast...they charge after anyone they see. After awhile decay would slowly set in. Especially if they haven't eaten to slow it down. The more decay that sets in the slower they become.

  Chicago's sectors fell by the end of July. They were swarmed by hordes of infected. Fences came down like cardboard...they flooded the streets and killed everyone and everything they could find.

  Las Vegas lasted a week and
a half. From the start they had too much chaos to contend with from the population. They focused too much in the beginning on the looters than the infected. It cost them quickly. Not that it would have mattered anyway. All cities had fallen. There was nothing left. All the cities belonged to them now. I suspect there's pockets of survivors in each and everyone of them. Surely there has to be.

  The military vanished from population centers completely after three weeks. By August none were seen anywhere. Except in small groups wandering to their homes in various parts of the country. Looking for their families. In August the United States fell. Our great and powerful nation was dark. The power grid went out in the final days of July. Information after that was garnered from CB radios...which slowly began to get quieter over the weeks. Now it's mostly static. This nation lasted one month after infection. Hard to believe. We never had a chance. No place did.

  London fell in a week. The middle east was gone in a matter of days. The region was already falling apart...the infection swept through the war torn areas like a fast moving fog, devouring everything in its wake.

  Australia fell July 25. Sydney a week prior. Russia collapsed sometime in mid July. But not before they detonated a nuclear weapon within Moscow in a desperate attempt to turn the tables.

  Pakistan and India, along with North Korea, used the plague as an excuse to attack their enemies once and for all. India and Pakistan destroyed each other with nuclear exchanges. India hit by five. Pakistan hit by three. Both sides lost. North Korea launched nuclear strikes on Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan. Both of which were destroyed.

  China used the full might of their massive military to guard its borders and keep all refugees and infected out. But again...rodents are hard to combat. China fell around the same time we did.

  All of Europe was fallen in the first week of August. Paris fell in a matter of two days. Britain gave the dead hell....but lasted only a week.

  My home in Akron, more specifically Kenmore, was where I stayed in those first weeks. I live in...lived in...a suburban area near Kenmore Blvd. Row after row of houses block by block. Normally I liked the busy city life. It was never quiet. Even at night. On the weekends I would sit out on my front porch of my one level, two bedroom house and smoke a cigarette or two. Or three, depending on how shitty my day may have been.

  I lived alone. Worked first shift as a rent-a-cop at Chapel Hill Mall. Some might call that petty work but I quite frankly enjoyed it. The food court was very nice and there was plenty to choose from everyday on my lunch break. Always so noisy there. Loud conversations. The carousel. Kids laughing or throwing fits. Everything is so quiet now. The silence is so loud. I never understood that until now....loud silence.

  My neighbor Jim and his wife Kelly on the right of me were fantastic. Great people. As were those on my left; Anne and her sister Rebecca. Jim and Kelly had gotten married last year. A young couple. He 27 and she 25. His dark complexion in extreme contrast to her very white tone. She had shiny red hair and bright green eyes. He was dark in every regard. Black hair and eyes so dark you'd almost swear that they were black too.

  Anne was a 59 year old woman keeping company with her older sister Rebecca who just turned 65 the previous month. Both were sweet old ladies and continuously lectured me on my smoking habit.

  In the first week of the spread of infection I made sure they were always taken care of. Made sure they had all the food and water they needed. Jim assisted in those efforts. The neighbors across the street mostly stayed to themselves. One was a drunk named Stan. All he did was bitch about any little thing in the neighborhood. Pot bellied bald asshole with no courtesy for anyone other than himself. Those on the sides of him seemed friendly enough. They smiled and waved at least. Two couples. Larry and Jen on the right, Eric and Ashley to the left. Both of which would often glare in Stans direction when he was out around his house tossing bottles back all day. Everyone else really kept to their own...except Reggie. He was a hyper man who lived at the end of the street. You know, the type that walks down the sidewalk and strikes up conversations with everyone he spots. Sometimes you had to duck inside until he passed if you weren't in a conversing mood. Even if you displayed a sour look to show your mood, he'd quickly run up to ask what was wrong. Everyone loved the man. He brought so much levity to the neighborhood.

  As was the same with every neighborhood in America, when the TV became nothing but coverage of the outbreaks, the community felt a little more knit together. With the exception of Stan. He just stayed inside. Quarantined himself and shunned the rest of us. To none of our surprise. Honestly, we preferred it that way. He'd only cause us problems otherwise. He would look out his windows a few times an hour to make sure none of us were too close to his home. A can of beer or bottle of liquor always in hand as he eyed us all cautiously.

  Reggie was only home at night. During those days he was up and down the street discussing the news reports and checking to see if any of us had heard anything new that he hadn't. All of our televisions were turned on and the volumes up enough to hear through the windows as we sat outside. Day after day we watched cities begin to crumble. The busier areas nearby were in the early breakdown. We stayed close and we stayed vigilant. Another day and looting had started. Stores had been closed for nearly a week at that point. It was just too dangerous. Once food goods and weapons began to diminish people got violent and desperate. Most store owners at that point just closed shop. I wonder now if any of them thought they'd never open up again...

  The military had begun to set up refugee centers outside of population centers. Eric and Jen, Larry and Ashley, decided at the start of week two that it was a good idea. Something they discussed among themselves and with us. They were taking in as many as they could help. Trying to relocate people from the camps to far less dense areas.

  To Anne and Rebecca, the thought of rushing out into that chaos, along with abandoning their home, was terrifying. I was inclined to agree even not being their age. Everything in my gut told me it was a bad idea. The news coverage alone screamed loudly at how little control the government had on this. Almost every available government worker and military worker were being used to combat the infection and defend cities, which was failing, so how many resources could be left dealing with camps?

  Jim and Kelly agreed with me and were absolutely against the idea. Our minds were definitely made up. I urged the others to think about it. Sleep on it. But they said they already did. Although we didn't know each other, aside from a friendly wave and hello, we all gave hugs and wished them the very best of luck.

  At the end of the week...almost all camps were overrun and destroyed. Including the one our over-the-way neighbors ventured to outside of Cuyahoga Valley. That was something that weighed on us for a bit.

  Stan was still locked inside his home. He was surely pleased his neighbors were gone...wether he knew of their demise was unknown to us...but likely since he had a TV and surely was watching. He still peeked out from his windows. Not as often, but enough to let us know he was still alive and watching.

  Over the weekend of week two a small group of looters, young teens, made there way into our streets. There were five of them. Four were between 16 and 18....but the one, clearly the leader, was probably in his later 20's. The younger ones jumped out of the back of a small pickup truck. The driver had parked in the middle of the street and stepped out. It was a little after 9:00pm. I was watching closely from my window...I hoped Jim and kelly were as well. I quietly pulled a chair to the livingroom window and placed my 9mm pistol onto my lap. I also, before hand, placed my security officer badge inside a wallet to pass off as a police badge in case something like this happened. Society was collapsing and many knew it...therefore many didn't give a rats ass about having troubles with law enforcement. Still worth a shot though. The advantage here was the fact they were young.

  They visibly took note of the homes with televisions on, and the darkened ones. The "leader", in his blue hoodie, pointed at the houses
on each side of Stans. The younger ones split into groups and headed for the homes of our likely dead neighbors.

  This was good. They didn't appear to want any trouble or altercations. They were looking for supplies. I watched as a curtain flicked open at Stans livingroom window. His head darting around like a cats. He happened to look across and lock eyes with me. I raised my finger to my lips and shook my head. I then pointed to the houses to his sides and tried to mouth the words "it's okay." he gave me the finger and the curtain flapped shut. Miserable drunken bastard.

  The young looters eventually started making their way back out. I was honestly expecting to see them carrying stupid ass things they were never going to need....but they didn't. As I sat expecting to observe TV's, radios, game consoles or whatever the fuck else, I instead saw water bottles, boxes of cereal, and the like.

  They may have been young...but they sure as hell were not idiots. These were not little criminals. They weren't looking to rob people, or harm them, they were seeking empty homes for things left behind. They were just trying to survive. Trying to survive all that was coming.