Sept. 21, 2009 - 7:48pm

- Transmission from Master Shake

Sept. 9, 2009

I wasn't in the city, but my aunt lives just on the Jersey side. We holed up in her house, just watching the waves of refugees pass by. The smoke was heavy and sporadic gunfire could be heard at all hours. Fighters screamed overhead almost hourly, then slowed. Now we only hear a large plane a few times a day. No traffic from the commercial airports.

For three days there was a non-stop exodus of people fleeing on foot. Some on bycicle, but cars were not going anywhere. A few people broke off from the main artery and "scoped out" our neighborhood looking for food or water or whatever. Most were firmly herded back to the freeway by the old timers weilding shotguns.

On the fourth day there were nothing but stragglers, a few dozen at most. The gunfire increased and we could see more and more of the stumblers on the overpass. We assumed the infected (or whatever we should call them) were following the people fleeing the city. A trickle turned into a mob, and they were so thick on the overpass we could see some of them knocked off the side. One landed near the top of our street. It began crawling back towards the freeway, trying to crawl back up the wall. A few of us went out to see it. When it saw us it began crawling for us, but with two smashed legs and a shattered pelvis it could barely move.

It looked like it had been doused with bleach, or acid almost. Hair clung in tufts, and most of its exposed skin was pure white, though the blackness lurking beneath the white skin was the worst part. Part of the exposed skin was blistered, and the thick chemicle smell coming off its clothes told us that it had been doused in something. Under the chemicle smell was death, rotting meat. We didn't want to get too close. Its eyes were milky and scarred, like it had sand poured into the eyes but no tears to whipe them away. It couldn't see us, but it could hear us as it crowled around swiping with its one good hand. Trying to grab at us.

The rumors were true; they dead really were walking (crawling?). Rather than risk the noise of a shot, we smashed it with a sign post and made out way back to our houses.

We have a lot of food compared to most folks, and a fair amount of water. The pipes are still working so we have been filling up anything we can. We've cleared out the food from the neighbors who have left, so that helps. There are six of us with my Aunt. She's old and in a wheel chair, we can't leave her.

I'm picking up a wireless signal from somewhere, and the generator is still going strong. I'll post more as I can.

- End of Transmission