Patty is Barbara’s sister.  Yes, that Barbara.  The one who opened the door to Paley Library when we were running from a huge group of zombies and saved us.  I understand that I’m writing this as though it was all one unbroken string instead of some of it being on my laptop in my dorm room, some of it being on my iPad back at the car where I died in the crash, and the rest of it on a legal pad that’s pretty beat up and almost out of paper.  Things are coming back a lot more now.  I remember what I wrote then.  I remember what I did before I died.  I remember that Ashleigh didn’t make it because she fell against Tom, and I remember that Tom didn’t make it because he couldn’t run as fast as Caitlin and I.  The panic, the terror: I remember all of it.

The other stuff is still fuzzy.  It comes and goes in waves for some reason.  One minute, I can remember the exact circumstances of me losing the tips of my fingers (it was in the Battle of the Faithless Soul’s Regret when a thrown axe nipped them off), and the next, I forget what Sang’s face looked like.  Why that should be is a mystery.  The only real proof that it happened at all are the chirurgeon’s marks on me, with the scars and metal plates and prostheses that make me look like a freak who’s way too much into body modification.

Patty is amazed that I wound up here, but she thinks I’m just a retarded kid who got hit in the head on vacation.  She doesn’t believe me about what I did and where I went.  She’s kind of taken me under her wing, though.  After all, if I know her sister Barbara, we’re practically family in her eyes.  She doesn’t have any kids of her own.  She sells real estate and looks it.  She’s scared like everyone.

Her assumption is that I took a class with Barbara and that’s how I know her, and that I’m making the rest up because of my head injury.  That’s fine.  It works out.  She does the talking for me when I want something like a pair of shoes or a meal, and if I had steak she’d probably cut it for me, too.  Of course, there won’t be steak for us for quite some time again.  At least, not the kind we’re used to: plastic-wrapped on a foam tray in the meat department of an air-conditioned Acme supermarket.

Five guys dressed in army uniforms came in not long ago.  They’re talking with Roger, the dude who’s kind of in charge around here.  From the expressions on their faces, none of it seemed like good news.  Patty wanted to go over there and asked just what was going on and when did they expect to have things back to normal, but I distracted her by asking if she knew where the first aid kits were, because my head was killing me.  Ironically, she almost missed the news looking for aspirin when Roger asked everyone to gather ‘round.

The Army guys (Florida National Guard) have been ordered to go to places like power plants and other state-owned assets and guard them for the time being.  This came from the Commander-in-Chief.  The president.  POTUS is now micromanaging the safety of the country.  However, a few of the National Guard guys here have family in this town, and some aren’t leaving.  So they’re gonna stay and patrol around and gather as many people as they can to bring them here where we can all be protected.

That’s a mistake.

I have mixed feelings about what Governor Scott did.  On one hand, he kind of erased hope, but on the other, he freed the people of his state.  The immediate problem is that chaos will rule across the board as a result, and just trying to get by in the next week in the great state of Florida will be exceedingly difficult as both zombies and looters pile into the streets.  However, if he’s right about the people of Florida, it’ll be better in the long term.  The bottom line is that he believes in his people more than I do.  He hasn’t been where I’ve been and seen what I’ve seen.  He understands a lot, but not enough.  He doesn’t understand futility yet.  It doesn’t get any better after you die, unless you take the easy way out and go to the Focus.  If that is indeed the easy way out.

Once I got out of the bathroom, there was a hubbub around the television they’d wheeled into the gym, and everyone who could fit was trying to watch it.  Everyone else was on iPads, phones, and radios.  Governor Rick Scott was about to give a speech to the people of Florida.  I couldn’t record it myself except for a pencil and paper, so I just stole glimpses of the TV and listened and wrote down everything I could.  This is, more or less, what he said:

“Less than two weeks ago, I gave the State of the State Address from this very podium, and I described to you my expectations for the future of Florida.  Had I known then what I know now, my speech would have been very different.”

Governor Scott has a kind of pausing, halting talking style, like he’s not used to giving speeches.  It’s kind of weird for someone to have achieved public office without having given a lot of speeches, but go figure.

“I would like nothing better than to be laughed out of office for saying this, but you and I know that it’s true beyond any shadow of doubt: people who were once thought dead are now mobile and hostile.  We can’t call them ‘alive’ as such.  They don’t communicate.  They don’t think.  They just attack living people.  Anyone they can catch, they eat alive.”

The Frank who typed his little fingers to the bone trying to collate media reports of this “disaster” just a few days ago would right now be creaming his jeans over this admission, at long last.  The Frank writing this diary is just tired and wishing he had a good pair of shoes.

“We don’t know if this is a virus or simply a new state of being for the dead.  We do know that this is widespread.  Nowhere we can monitor is free from this plague of, for lack of a better term, zombies.  It is happening across the world.”

Thanks for treating us like adults, Gov.

“Police and emergency personnel are already overwhelmed.  President Obama has taken control of Florida’s National Guard, and I cannot issue orders to them, but I can say that they are also overwhelmed by this disaster.  What this means is that it is now time for the people of Florida to come together in a way that we have not had to before.  Your safety is entirely up to you, from now on.  Your neighbor’s safety is now up to you, from now on.  Unless this disaster miraculously ends somehow, you, as citizens of Florida, are empowered to do anything and everything necessary to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your neighbors from harm.  Calls to 911 will not be answered.  There are no more police to dispatch.”

At this point, people in the gym started crying and talking, and other people were shushing them.  I was writing as fast as I could.

“The only way we will survive is if we stay together.  And we can survive.  If you can still access the internet, a list of survival hints and tips has already been uploaded to Florida.gov.  If you cannot, please listen closely and I will give you the highlights…”

I started to drift away at that point.  I knew what was going on.

Did he know something he shouldn’t?  He seemed pretty convinced that this was the end of the world.  How did he know?  More like, how could he not know?  He at least was able to connect the dots.  I doubt he’s got angels on the government payroll, so he’s probably not being fed information.  He’s just figuring it out.

I didn’t realize that I’d sat down against the wall and was just staring into space when I heard someone ask, “Are you all right?”

I looked up to see a red-haired woman in her 40’s or 50’s looking down at me with some concern.  She had very sharp features and reminded me of somebody.  “Yeah,” I said.  “I was just, uh, thinking.”

“It’s not all doom and gloom out there, I don’t think,” she said, then snorted.  “Here I am being a Pollyanna.”  She pointed to my legal pad.  “Are you a student reporter or something?”

I didn’t want to crane my neck looking up at her, so I got to my feet.  “No, I’m, uh.  I just like to write things down.  So I don’t forget them.”  Jesus, I sounded like a retard.

Her eyes flicked to my fucked-up hand, then my face.  “Are you from around here?  Do you have parents or something nearby?”

“My parents are dead,” I said without thinking, then dropped my pad.  “Oh, uh.  I mean, they died a long time ago.  My name’s Frank.  I’m, um, I’m from.”  At that moment, I totally forgot where I was from.  It was all still so murky.  My hands bunched into involuntary fists.  “Philly!”  I said, a little too loudly when it came back.  “I’m from Philadelphia.”

“Oh?” she asked, and she got that look on her face that people get when they realize they’re talking to somebody mentally handicapped.  “It’s where I’m from, too.  I have a sister in Philly.”  She kind of looked like she was going to take a step back.

“Barbara,” I said, remembering.  “You look like Barbara.”

She gave me a very long look.  “Yes, my sister’s name is Barbara.  How did you know that?”

I don’t know why I’m writing this.  It’s not like anyone’s likely to read it.  There was the assignment that I was given in class a few actual days ago, when the zombies first rose up: analyze the news media’s coverage of the disaster, and when it’s all over, we’ll return and discuss what we’ve analyzed.  That part I do remember.  There are two significant problems with this assignment now: first, in subjective time, it’s been decades for me since I was last in class.  Second, the “disaster” isn’t over.  Because it isn’t a disaster.  Like I’ve tried to say before, this isn’t something that’s going to happen for a while and then just stop happening.  This is it.  This is the new state of things.  Hurricane Katrina was a disaster.  This is not a hurricane.  It’s not going to blow over and then we’ll all return to class.

I hold out no hope that future generations will find this and read it and learn from it.  If my personal experiences of fucking dying and going to Heaven are any indication, this is the last generation Mankind will ever have.  That’s why I went AWOL along with the others.  I lost hope.  It’d be nice to be proved wrong, but I doubt I’ll see that either way.

I need rest, but I don’t sleep anymore.  It’s doubtful that I’ll be with people long enough for them to notice.  It’s just a thing.  I’m tired all the time, yes.  And I’ve tried to sleep.  But it’s a thing that is no longer relevant for me, if you can believe it.  I mean, we slept in Heaven.  We had our hours of sleep when we could get them, and very occasionally we had R&R.  And there were women soldiers there, but it wasn’t like the Forever War or Starship Troopers where we all bunked and showered together and had sex in-between battles.  There were no co-ed garrisons except for the married couples.  I’ll explain later.  Anyway, something happened during my escape that wiped the sleeping part from my brain.  My spirit-turned-flesh isn’t the same as your born flesh, especially when it’s come back here.

I’m right now in the Bayshore High School gymnasium in Bradenton, Florida.  Like most of Florida, it seems like Bradenton is not a lot more than a poorly-drained swamp with towns plopped on top of it.  The Red Cross got here yesterday and set up a place for people who’ve been displaced to go and sleep and eat MRE’s and try to get cell reception (they can’t).  With my scars and general dirtiness from spending last night in a drainage ditch, I was a little concerned when I wandered into town that they wouldn’t take me in, but they did.  It’s the Red Cross.  They’ll take in anyone.  Unfortunately, they’re almost out of food, and they’re not going to get a resupply until half-past never.  They’re starting to realize that.

Have to stop starting every paragraph with the letter “I”.  Okay, I broke the chain.  I am writing this now while sitting on a toilet in the boy’s locker room.  The MRE’s were the first actual food I’ve eaten other than manna for over twenty years, so my body isn’t used to it.  Or it could be that my insides are so fucked up from being on my outside every once in a while that they won’t tolerate anything other than, I don’t know, breast milk or something.  Knowing what your own intestines and liver look like is not an image you want floating around in your head, but there it is.  So I’ve been a bit ill.  I’m pretty sure I’ve shit it all out by now, however.  Or at least I hope so.  At least I am still capable of being hungry and thirsty, so I’m still sort of human.

Don’t know if my, um.  Well, it’s indiscreet, but I don’t know if my dick still works.  I haven’t used it except to piss through in, well, you know.  Years.  It hasn’t been significantly damaged, let me put it that way.  I was lucky in that respect.  Gharghm, the closest English approximation of a name that can’t be pronounced on Earth without bringing the attention of the forces that would love to drag me back to the endless fight Upstairs, had a special appreciation for male parts, and in the Battle of Chilblains Anguish, I personally witnessed what she did to those poor men she got her misshapen hands upon.  If I think about it too long, I’ll have to switch places on the toilet again and lose the MRE I tried to eat.

Occasional gunshots ring out, audible even in here.  There’s a cadre of National Guardsmen who are patrolling outside, picking off zombies.  They have to fight.  Look, I know it’s hopeless.  I know that…well, I just know it’s hopeless.  But I’m not going to be the asshole who goes out there and says, “Hey, dudes.  Give it up.  You can’t win, and here’s why.”

Ugh.  I’m not done sitting here yet.  I’m sure I’m blowing out stuff I haven’t eaten by now, like my own pancreas.  Or meconium, the stuff newborn babies shit.  Where was I?  Oh, right.  Married couples.  They get to stay together unless they don’t want to.  Sang’s wife died of leukemia four years ago, for example, and she decided to be a Conscientious Objector when she went upstairs, so she went to the Focus.  Sang could’ve gone right to the Focus if he wanted to, but he thought it was more important to fight.  Now think about that for a moment: Sang loved his wife like I’ve never loved anything in my life, but he thought it was more important to fight this war than be with her in Heaven.  Thing is, you don’t get to visit the Focus for R&R.  You go there and stay, or you don’t go there at all.  That’s what they told us.  Sang was a believer.  So was I, until I wasn’t anymore.  Sang remained a believer, and yet he helped us get out.  I don’t understand that.  We were battle buddies, yeah, but…maybe it was just that.  He was helping his friend no matter what.