I am not the original Author of this
journal but I will do my best to document my journey as he did. I found this book last week as I was
approaching Stary Sobor from the northeast.
Had I not literally stumbled over the body I never would have seen it in
the darkness and pouring rain. I’ve been
able to read through his entries and it seems he was a man of great courage and
integrity; hopefully he’s at peace now and free of the demons that haunted him. The fact that his corpse has lain in a field
for an untold number of days, with his gear essentially untouched, reminds me
that the Zeds are not our most dangerous enemy in this land. Whoever killed this man did so, for lack of
other evidence, purely for sport.
Unfortunately for me, at least one of the bullets that struck him also
destroyed the bag of blood and the GPS unit he was carrying.
As for me, until recently, my
travels have been solitary and uneventful.
I’m a killer, or a murderer, depending on your perspective; not
deliberately or for sport, but through negligence, miscalculation and really
bad luck. In the midst of a very heated
battle on Green Mountain, I threw a grenade towards a group of Zeds. Just as I threw it though, I was struck from
behind and my trajectory was ruined; the grenade bounced off the hood of a
destroyed HMMWV and landed near another survivor whose name I hadn’t even
learned. He was killed instantly; it was
the worst throw ever…of all time.
Originally I had no intention of
continuing the Author’s work on this journal, but recent events and my new
companion convinced me otherwise.
Shockingly he patched me up and carried me out of harm’s way, acknowledging
the horrible accident for what it was and not condemning me to a similar
fate. It turns out that he had actually
met and traveled with the Author…which explains his compassion. Mitch, the man who tended to my medical
needs, was the same Mitch written about in this journal. I can only wonder what the odds of that
happening would be, although it seems we’ve been living in the same general
areas for some time. He’s the one who
encouraged me to continue the writing; perhaps it will be therapeutic or at
least useful to someone in the future.
It seems over the last few weeks the
Zeds have become more dangerous, and for obvious reasons humans are even more
so. I sincerely hope this isn’t a sign
of some kind of Zed evolution, but I know my strategies have changed as a
result. Their night time awareness and
perception remains a weakness though, thus most of my activities are nocturnal. As we were leaving the vicinity of the radio
tower on Green Mountain, Mitch and I were hailed from the forest by another
survivor. We were caught completely off
guard and were very lucky that his intentions were noble. The survivor we met is named Aleksey. He has a very thick accent and can be
difficult to understand at times, but seems genuinely thankful for the friendly
company.
Mitch taught us an interesting
technique for daytime raids into places like barns, markets and other large
buildings. Something in the Zed’s
sensory system renders them more cautious and less mobile while indoors. When we got within a couple hundred yards of
our objective, we sprinted as fast as possible into the building. Once inside we quickly set up fields of fire
and simply picked off the Zeds as they bottle necked in the doorways. This was more of a challenge in some of the
larger buildings with numerous entry points, but all in all it was quite
effective. We left Vybor and headed
south, using this new strategy to raid the more promising buildings in
Pustoshka, Sosnovka and Zelenogorsk. The
pace was exhausting, but I have to admit…it was exhilarating.
The most bizarre thing I’ve
experienced yet occurred while we were raiding the supermarket in
Zelenogorsk. As we were planning our
next move, the Zeds outside began going crazy and running south. Moments later a tour bus roared up the road,
haphazardly swerving and running over Zeds left and right. As the bus screeched to a halt at the front
door, the driver and a companion leapt out and ran inside the market, using a
similar strategy to let the Zeds bunch up in the door way and then cut them
down. The driver identified himself as
Meat, apparently in reference to the amazing amount of scarring on his hands
and face, and made it know that he meant no harm to us. The man riding shotgun was named Francis, not
Frank we learned, and was only slightly more reserved than Meat. These two characters had been tearing around
the coast and countryside in their bus laying waste to every Zed they
encountered.
Mitch, Aleksey and I joined Francis
and Meat on their rampage, but the bus blew both front tires in Sosnovka. In our quest to find the parts needed to
repair the bus, the five of us found ourselves as far north as Vybor. We were able to scavenge a wheel and tire
from a derelict deuce and took turns rolling it back south to Sosnovka. Along the way we broke into a tool shed and
discovered a toolbox and another wheel and tire. With the bus repaired we struck out again,
this time headed south and then east into Kozlovka where the bus finally gave
up. Something in the engine let go
completely on our way out of town. We
left it parked in an old rusty warehouse as it may still be of use one
day.
I parted ways with the group in
Kozlovka mostly out of self-preservation.
For now I am comforted knowing there are at least four people I can
trust and perhaps we’ll meet again. My
path lead me east back to territories I’m more familiar with around Pusta,
Staroye, and up to Berezino. I stopped
in my usual haunts around Pusta, Topolka and Msta in the hopes of finding
supplies. Food and water aren’t as much
a concern as first aid; and I’m finding that the biggest challenge to carrying
military weapons is the scarcity of ammunition.
I had used my last auto-injector shortly after leaving Kozlovka and
carelessly alerting a Zed I hadn’t seen; so I set my course towards the
hospital in Berezino. Chernogorsk was
closer of course, but far more dangerous than I’m comfortable with.
By the time I reached Msta, it was
well past dark and a storm was moving in quickly. The conditions were less than ideal for
navigation, but in my experience perfect for raiding a major population
center. I moved north as fast as the
conditions would allow, fearing the weather would break before I could reach
Berezino. When I reached the tree line
south of the hospital, the rain was at the point of torrential downpour, but
the Zed population was inordinately high.
Not wanting to waste the opportunity I crawled through the high grass,
winding my way between Zeds, all the way into town. When I reached the hospital, I didn’t even
have to go inside. Someone had
apparently tried to leave with a large box of medical supplies but didn’t get
very far. The rain had rendered the
cardboard to mush, so I picked out a few choice samples of Type-O blood that
still felt cold, an epi-pen and handful of morphine auto-injectors and stuffed
them into my Alice pack.
The rain stopped and the clouds
dispersed abruptly as I was crawling away from the hospital leaving me feeling
very exposed crawling through the open fields.
The night was thankfully moonless though and despite the return trip
being more stressful, I arrived at the tree line without incident. As testament to the visibility obscuring
capability of the weather, I found a farm tractor in the forest that I hadn’t
seen on my inbound trip. I checked it
out and it was in pretty bad shape, the electrical worked and I got the engine
started, but it wouldn’t budge an inch.
Onboard all I found was an empty canteen and a half eaten can of
sardines…which didn’t surprise me at all.
I stopped to fill the empty canteen
at a lake just east of Dolina. The water
was cold and remarkably refreshing, likely due to the recent weather. As I turned away from the water’s edge my
heart nearly stopped. Through brush I
could just make out a red light in the forest.
The underbrush was thick enough to conceal me since I was running
without any light at all, but it also made discerning the nature of the source
difficult. I tried shifting around to
determine if the light was from a distant road flare or a much nearer
chem-light. Nothing I did seemed to help
and rather than risk investigating I quickly left the area to the south east
and then turned back south towards Msta.
