This Is How They Died

Project Zomboid Character Blog

[knox-county-obituaries]

July 9th, 1993 Knox County, Kentucky A day that started out like any other soon became a day that the world would never forget. For weeks, reports of a mysterious illness had filled up local news, and martial law was declared when the arrival of the military made it clear that this was no ordinary sickness. An Exclusion zone was established, blocking in several main cities. The illness, that turned its victims into the walking dead, spread like wildfire. Soon the military was overwhelmed and all forms of communication were cut. The Exclusion Zone had become a graveyard. The end times were here. But not everyone was infected. Some people were naturally immune to the mysterious disease. They survived, despite having no hope for survival. They survived, despite being - as far as they knew - the last people alive. With little to live for and nothing to lose, they kept on living. Here are their stories. Here is how they died.

[knox-county-obituaries]

June 9th, 1993

It's raining outside. I’ve always loved the June rain. There's something about how clean it feels on your skin that makes me want to run outside and play with my kids as they stomp around willy-nilly.

Except, they’re still in Riverside with their father. And will be, until school starts up. I should be grateful that I get them as long as I do. And, admittedly, it's nice having the house to myself for a few months out of the year. The job is demanding enough that these moments, like the one I’m having right now, feel even more peaceful. The sun has barely risen, and it’s times like these when I think it’s at its most beautiful.

There's some sort of commotion outside. If there was a true emergency I would have gotten a call from the firehouse - still, I’d rather go out and check. It's the neighborly thing to do, and I'm never really off of the clock, am I?

[knox-county-obituaries]

July 15th, 1993. 12:00

Holy fucking mother fucking shit balls motherFUCK. I just got back from the diner. Good god I must have killed nearly 30 of those things trying to get to it. My crowbar nearly snapped in half, I swear. Jesus fuck I'm covered in so much blood.

But I have so much food now. So. Worth it, I think. I mean jars of peanut butter, boxes and BOXES of cereal, a couple of bags of rice and beans and lentils and shit. Uncooked yeah but theres a lot to be eaten.

After I checked the restaurant and kitchens I realized that there was an apartment up above. The door leading to the stairway to go up was empty so I had to take it off of its hinges. You'll never know how nerve-wracking it is to do something like that just smack dab in the middle of everything. The parking lot over, there must have been what, another 50 of the motherfuckers? AND we're right up against the freeway, and by god if I don't know how many dead people are wandering around on that concrete river.

But I wasn't heard or spotted and the apartment was empty. The kitchen was nearly fully loaded though, and - and you'll never believe this - but I found a rifle and a couple a boxes of ammo in the closet of the bedroom. I'm living like a KING, I tell you, the last King on Earth.

Jesus fuck I think I'm going insane. Its been what, a week with no human contact and I'm slipping? Not even a week. I always thought I'd last longer.

God, I feel good. I mean, I'm alive! What else could I ask for? That apartment above the diner is seeming like a preeeeetty nice spot for a base. The farmhouse is nice, yeah, but its so far removed from everything. I know thats one of its strengths, but hell, thats why I haven't even brought the car up to it yet. And the diner, it's next to a parking lot FILLED with cars.

Maybe I'll go finish clearing the diner and the building next to it. I like it here, at the farmhouse, but maybe here isn't where I need to stay? At least not forever.

My arms are mighty tired, though. Those cars in the lot next to it gave me an idea though. I mean, I'm sure their previous owners wouldn't mind if I borrowed them as a sort of advanced battering ram against these cursed hordes?

Jesus I am going insane. And I can't even fully blame those prison literature classes. But I can't just stay here in the house, not while theres sunlight left. I'm gonna go to the diner and see what I can't do. When I come back I'm gonna see about bringing the car up to the house, or at least closer to it. I found a bunch of paint cans in a storage room, did I mention? Maybe that old-ass jalopy needs a new coat before she and I brave this horrible world together once more.

[knox-county-obituaries]

July 14th, 1993. 12:00

I think I'm getting some grave dirt on this entry. I feel like there's something symbolic about that - my story will always be tinged by death. Those literature classes they offered at the prison sure are helping me out now, huh? I got the shovel from the shack. I only had to take out one other person, but there were five or six of them standing in the field. There was this creepy-ass fog that only just now started to lift, and it made them look like ghosts out there. Maybe that’s what they are. Ghosts, ghouls, whatever. I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop thinking of them as people.

It turns out there was a perfectly good shovel in the tool shed right outside the house. Whatever. Journey over destination, right? I buried her though. She was so light, and I tried to put her in gently but I don’t know if I did enough for her. I couldn’t even find anything for a grave marker. Just shovelful after shovelful of dirt. I hope she’s resting down there. Anyway. It’s only noon but I barely slept last night, and those bites still burn like hell. I can wait a day to go find more food. The world can wait.

[knox-county-obituaries]

July 14th, 1993. Ass-o'clock A.M.

I couldn't sleep because of the pain, so eventually I just gave in and got up. This house could be a home. I'm just so far away from everywhere else that I worry. If I run out of supplies, how long will it take for me to get more? If this place gets swarmed (I know how many of those things are out there,) how long will it take me to find somewhere else safe to hide? I don't know. I just don't know.

I'm gonna bury her tomorrow, I've decided. She deserves that much. Fuck, they all deserve it. They're people. They were people, and that's gotta still count for something. There was a shovel in the shack I stayed in, I'll go get it tomorrow.

[knox-county-obituaries]

June 13th, 1993. 18:00

There's still a few hours of daylight left, so I figure I'll take inventory of everything I have before doing one last perimeter check around the farm.

Weapons: - Shotgun (six shells) - Magnum (four bullets) - D-E Pistol (eight bullets) - Baseball Bat (now broken...I need to find some duct tape) - Crowbar (what I've been using now that the bat broke) - Machete - Ball-peen hammer (weapon and tool in one!) - Handaxe The weapons are all thanks to the Wherthers, and the guns are thanks to the police officers I found. I'm also wearing a police jacket I took off of one of them. I still feel a little bad wearing it around, but I figure that if I run into anyone else, it might help to have a uniform on. A criminal in blue, would you look at that.

Supplies - Hiking Bag (I found this at the old cabin - a LIFESAVER) - Five bandages - Flashlight (battery mostly full) - Matches - 2 water bottles - Painkillers (I'm almost out, I've been taking them like. Well, like a drug ever since the group of those people fucked me up. And yet everything still hurts) - Sleeping tablets (I found these in the farmhouse, they'll be useful once the painkillers run out) - Sewing kit - Box of Nails (?) - Screwdriver I'm feeling pretty good about everything I have. I'd like some disinfectant, maybe - my cuts still burn like hell - and some more painkillers will be very very nice very very soon. Ah well. But now here's the part I'm most concerned about. Food - Beer - 1 - Soda, Orange - 1 - Cigarettes - 50ish (thank god) - Canned spaghetti bolongese bogolonse fancy stuff - 2 - Canned beans - 1 - Box of Honey Nut Cheerios - 1 - Sleeve of saltines - 1 - Bag of dried kidney beans - 1 - Pack of dried ramen - 1 - Frozen Ground Beef - Frozen Pork Chop - 1

It's enough food for now. It will have to be. But I'm worried about how soon it's gonna run out. I think I saw a bar on this side of Muldraugh. I'm not sure, but I think that I can get to it through the forest to the north of me.

I'm also very much thinking about cooking up that pork chop. The farmhouse has a nice-sized kitchen and I may as well make the best of what I have while I have it. I feel like I deserve it after whatever sort of fresh hell the last few days have been. P.S. I burned the pork chop a little bit, but still should be good? If only this house had any ketchup...)

[knox-county-obituaries]

June 12th, 1993. 14:10 Chad Steed You want to know the worst part about the last couple of days? I didn't get to finish my fucking bean dip.

Look, life hasn't been great for the most part, to tell you the truth. I was in jail for the better part of last year on some bullshit larceny charge, and when I got out no one would hire me. I got some work in construction but it was one dead end after another. My mom and pop have never been much help either. Living large in West Point, yes they are. Were. I don't know anymore. They only ever sent me one check after getting out - enough for me to "get back on my feet." For me, that meant a two-room trailer on the outskirts of nowhere. Whatever.

It's not that I was ignoring the news, but life was shitty enough as it was without me seeing more and more shitty stuff in the world. But, two days ago, I had just sat down in front of the ancient TV that I got at a garage sale and only worked when I put some tin foil on the ends of the antennae, and I had some bean dip that I got from a client whose fence I had just finished. They're probably dead now. But I had just sat down with my bean dip and I hear these screams outside and I grabbed my bat and went outside and-

Fuck, I haven't had any time to even think about any of this stuff since it happened. Everything's so fucked. 

But in the trailer park, there were a few rows of trailers and then sort of common grassy area where people would park their cars and where the dumpsters were held. A bunch of people were crowded around one of the dumpsters. At first I assumed that there was some sort of argument going on, or some sort of fight, but there wasn't any gunfire or curses being thrown about. Just screaming.

I shouldn't have ran up to see what was happening. I shoulda just stayed inside and eaten my fucking bean dip and maybe I'd be dead by now and maybe that would be better. But I'm here now, and I'm writing this shit down, so that's obviously not what I did.

It wasn't a fight, not really. About three people were hunched over one person, the one who had been doing the screaming. I recognized two of them - Andy and Jojo Hurley. They were married but you'd have thought they were twins. They always wore the same stained camo pants and the same tank-tops, though Andy always wore a Saints cap and Jojo never took the rollers out of her hair before noon. The other one I didn't know, but that didn't surprise me. There was always a rotating cast of trash in the park. I'd seen the Hurleys get aggressive, but never violent. And what I saw was past violence. The person had stopped screaming because their throat had been ripped out - once I saw that I shoved Jojo off of the person and cracked Andy on the side of the head with my bat - should I have? In normal circumstances, no, but he fucked me over the other week in ways I don't want to write about in case any sort of authority figure reads this once all this is over. But he had it coming and he dropped like a rock.

Jojo, on the other hand - she wasn't herself. Sure, she'd always been a cigarette-chewing bitch, but she wasn't...I don't know, crazy? I still don't know how to describe these people. They still look like people, but there's just nothing in their eyes. Her eyes were milky, and bloodshot, and her teeth were stained with blood and what was left of her shirt was drenched with it. I didn't know what to do, I didn't mean to hit her. I mean, I feel bad about it now even after killing how many people? I don't know. But still, that crack that her head made, the way those blank eyes shuddered before she dropped....I keep seeing her when I close my eyes.

My neighbors two trailers over, the Wherthers, were huge preppers. They had come around the other week offering everyone canned goods - for the "end times" that they claimed were soon coming. I didn't listen then, and I thought they were batshit when they boarded up all the windows to their trailer. But those boards were pretty easy to take down, and fuck if they weren't stocked. I'm sorry Joan, and Sean and Dean. I'm sorry you guys got sick and I had to kill you and I'm sorry that I took your stuff. But if I hadn't I wouldn't be alive so thank you for that.

The motel across the street had one car left in the parking lot, so I broke into it and hotwired that thing and just started driving. Thank god there was an almost full tank, or I would have been fucked so long ago.

I drove through most of downtown Muldraugh, and just. Fuck. Whatever this disease is must have affected the entire town. Maybe the entire state? I don't want to think about the implications. Nowhere was safe to park, everywhere I drove they were there, coming out of houses and through the windows of stores. Even the highway was full of them. When night came I almost crashed into a stopped police car. The officers were gone for, I had to deal with them and about twenty other people that showed up. I used my car. I'm not proud of it but I did. I miss my bean dip. I'm sorry, people who I've killed. I'm sorry, officers. I'm sure you were just doing your job but I had to kill you and now I have a shotgun and a pistol and I feel much safer so thank you for serving me, if not protecting me.

I parked my car in some backwoods clearing that first night, and slept as much as I was able to. I think I've slept with one eye open and one hand on my bat for the past two days. When I was getting the car out, a whole group of the fuckers just came out of the woods. I swear they hadn't been there the night before and I thank God that they hadn't heard me drive in. I took care of them but they fucked me up, bad. I mean, I've been fucked up before. Rosewood Penitentiary showed me just how cruel men can be. But this wasn't human, the things these people did to me. I think I have three bites on me? My arm and my chest and my torso. I busted my knee trying to get some distance from them but thats okay now. I just hurt so much. The bites burn, and they bleed like fresh wounds every time I take change my bandages. I spent another night on the armchair of an empty little cabin I found at the edge of some cornfields. It was safe, but it didn't feel safe. When I left in the morning to try and find...somewhere? to go, there were three of them standing outside. It had never been safe but I'm alive. Another officer of the law, too. Thank you, Officer Friendly, for also loaning me your pistol for permanent use.

And then I found the farmhouse, where I am now. I got in through the window because the door was locked. Its so quiet. Empty. Whoever lived here and worked these fields must have packed up and left at the first sign of trouble - but not before locking their sick (daughter? niece? scratch that-) But not before locking their sick kid into her room. I don't know if I'll be able to get the blood out of the wallpaper upstairs. I want to bury her as soon as I can. There was a shovel in that first shack I stayed in, and a trail leads from there right to the farmhouse.

I found this notebook in one of the rooms. There's no TV in this house so I have to have something to occupy me. My hand hurts like hell, one of those fuckers ripped it open, but no one else is gonna be reading this except me so I guess it doesn't really matter how it looks, right? Is there anyone else out there to read it? I don't know that I want to think about that.

I haven't looked through every room, and theres a tool shed outside I haven't looked at yet, but I feel...safe, here? I'm away from anywhere where people would be, and I have locked doors and a bed (oh god, finally a bed) and a moment to breathe. 

Still no fucking bean dip though. And I'm getting hungry. Maybe I'll write a to-do list of everything I need to get done here. That might be nice, a little bit of order.

At least it can't get worse, right?