Chapter 7 - Smoke Without a Fire
(Mini J)
Steel your stomach for today... you're gonna see something you're not gonna like.
(Joseph)
January 12, 2021
To the wind,
We're finally gonna go to the town... see if we can find anything useful there. Hopefully we can get a car, though that shouldn't be hard considering how there should at least be a few there.
Also, Mini J, thanks for the heads up. Really appreciate the fact that I now know that I have to worry about something my stomach can't handle.
Anyway, we'll be going to explore the place now. Can't delay it by too much. Might piss Jake off. He's been getting more and more agitated about the car breaking down.
Ciao,
Joseph
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To the wind,
So, it looks like entire place has been ransacked of cars specifically...
What the hell is up with that?! Who targets all the cars in a town?
Jake says it was probably Elpis Hope. That's the name of the leader of his group. In any case, we gotta start looking around for a car that isn't on the streets.
Just means we gotta do a door to door kinda search for anything to try and fix the car. Kinda sucks, but we gotta do it. On top of that, there may be there was a car left behind. So we parted ways. Jake went with May to one end of the town, I had the other.
Now what was it that Mini J was on about?
Be back later,
Joseph
-
To the wind,
Well, good to know that this leader person is thinking about others that could pass by considering how I've searched an entire block with no results.
No luck in terms of spare parts either.
Hope Jake had better luck with this.
Joseph
-
To the wind,
I found NOTHING.
Found a car workshop and searched the entire place and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING was left behind.
There's taking stuff from a place and then there's ransacking the place till there's almost nothing usable left. Would it hurt to be a bit more considerate about people?
Anyway, we're starting to have to eat the canned food. At least for now, Jake's making soup outta the corn. God forbid the day we have to drink it right outta the can... The shit tastes bland as all hell as is.
Anyway, Jake told me that there's one place that he skipped.
Apparently there was this crazy looking person taping things up inside.
He wants me to go inside...
Way to make me feel like you want me to get out of this alive ass hole. I have to go anyway. Not like I have a choice. He's got a kid to take care of and on top of that he's got two huge reasons attached to his shoulders that could knock my brain around in my skull like a pinball with a backhand.
I'll be back (hopefully) after that,
Joseph
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13 January 2021,
Fuck! What was that?!
Right...
To the wind and all that,
But that guy... he should've died... how was he still alive? He still died but he didn't stop moving for a few minutes.
So, here's what happened.
I was going up to the house I was talking about when I saw smoke, but it wasn't very thick... just like a light fog or something on the roof.
I thought he was just stoned or something... maybe that's an explanation for the way he was acting when Jake saw him... I don't know. I'm not an expert on drugs and I haven't had any to this day so I have no clue if something anything can cause that.
I knocked on the door and no one was responding...
I heard a buzz... a lot of buzzing... bees?
Who keeps bees in their homes?
I assumed that it was just some kind of audio track or something and walked into the house. There was a dead bee near the door but I just ignored it and and went in.
I searched the entire house for anything to repair the car with.
There was nothing! Nada! Zilch!
At least we could find some food and water so we could resupply.
Still, the buzzing was still going on so I decided that I would take a detour and investigate.
It was late... almost today at that time. I opened the door to the bedroom, which was where the sounds were coming from...
There was a mass of bees on the ground, but they were so close together it almost felt like they were a singular mass, writhing in whatever membrane held it in place. As all this happened, smoke rose from within the mass of black and yellow as it seemed to be burning whatever was within it.
The Aggregate noticed me.
I don't know why I called it an Aggregate, but that isn't too far from the truth.
I slammed the door shut and as soon as I did, I heard the sound of hundreds of bees hitting the door... It sounded like rain. Like there was heavy rain pouring onto the roof.
Then a hoarse voice rang out from inside, "Selena... where are you going?"
I opened the door again and the bees were gone. Not even a single bee was there room.
Instead, there was a man on the floor... at least I think it used to be a man... but now his skin was all shrivelled up and his skin was a a dark shade between golden brown and black, almost like a roasted chicken only this was a person.
This was the source of the smoke, the man was being roasted alive.
He lifted his hand to reach towards the door and as he did, the skin that was touching the floor peeled off, leaving behind exposed muscles as blood began to drip onto the floor.
He sat up, his skin left on the floor.
"I can't see... where are you?"
He got up.
"It's dark, Selena... what happened to me?"
He took a step towards the door.
"Where are you?"
He took another step forward.
"WHERE ARE YOU?!"
I stepped back, stumbling on something, landing on my back.
It's neck snapped to look directly at me.
"THERE YOU ARE!"
It lunged at me, landing directly on top of me.
I saw into his mouth.
There was no tongue.
Isopod. Tongue louse. That's what it was. Just looked it up. I knew the isopod part though.
Back then, all I knew was that it was something that only happened to fish. Guess humans are free game after the apocalypse.
Then his left eye burst open and maggots came pouring out falling on top of me. A few got into my mouth, a few under my shirt, mixing with the blood and skin of this person on top of me. I saw the other eye begin to pulsate and with a rush of adrenaline, I managed to push him off.
Even as a shrivelled up corpse, this man was bulky enough to need a bit of effort to push off. That and I'm weak as all hell.
I ran out of the house and started trying to cough out the maggots but they were gone. The that were on me too.
Did I just manage to shake them off?
I looked back at the man.
He lay motionless on the floor.
Who was Selena?
I went back to complete my search. There was nothing, then again, I wanted nothing to do with the place so I may have rushed it a bit. Still, I found a phone that was recording this entire thing. Looks like it didn't have a password on it.
I'll look through it later. Might help me find out what happened to him
That's when I noticed that the time was 11:59 PM. We were leaving at 12 AM no matter what so I had to leave that for another time.
That brings us to now. I'm writing this while sitting down on for a short break. We're having breakfast right now and I could use some sleep. These fuckers got some while I was getting pinned by a rotting grilled human.
Jake doesn't want to stop except for food or to sleep but he only allows for that at night, when they're sleeping as well. He says we need to cover as much ground as quickly as possible and that if I drop, he'll leave me for dead.
Real cheery fellow, that one. One minute, he tells you to go into a possibly crazy person's house and when you come back covered in blood, asks if you found anything useful... a simple "are you okay?" would've been nice.
That's it for now. Be back soon.
Joseph
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AN: I'm skipping a few days cuz it's just him complaining about having to walk all day. Here's a sample.
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17 January 2021,
To the wind,
Would it kill him to just take a few hours off of walking? I mean, we only have a minute or two to eat our fill and then it's back to walking.
May's fine cuz Jake's carrying her on his shoulders but I have to walk all the way.
What is up with this dude's stamina? He's pushing forward like he's on borrowed time or something.
Write later,
Joseph