Up to Date | Teen Ink

Up to Date

March 13, 2018
By CJZahner BRONZE, Holstein, Iowa
CJZahner BRONZE, Holstein, Iowa
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

It’s Wednesday and everyone is gone. I am the only survivor for one reason, I don’t have any ties holding me down. My family was gone before I got home almost twenty years ago. So, I just left; nothing was here for me, so I was out.

I’m currently settled in New Orleans. I chose to live here because I am close to the Gulf of Mexico and the shrimp population was not affected by the infection. That was my main source of food in the summer. In the winter months, I had stockpiled soup that I made with the shrimp in my freezer. Occasionally, I will get crab or even lobster, but for the most part my diet is almost pure shrimp.

For transportation I use a dirtbike that I found in Tennessee four years ago. It still runs and operates just fine. It just has to warm up for about ten minutes and it will hit seventy miles per hour. If you don't let it warm up, then it will only do about fifty. It’s a good all-weather bike and will go just about anywhere that doesn’t involve three foot deep water.

My favorite hobby nowadays is rally driving. It involves driving on dirt, mud, gravel, or sand in a usually all wheel drive car. I use a Ford Focus RS. It will go around corners sideways and has a very reliable set of all terrain tires that I stole from a Dodge Dakota. I enjoy rally driving because it requires a lot of skill and is very unpredictable, especially when you throw weather into the mix.
I slowly moved to New Orleans in 2023. I started in Iowa and moved here one state at a time. I was originally going to Georgia, but my old minivan broke down in Baton Rouge. So, I used the dirt bike I collected in Tennessee and drove to New Orleans. I’m currently living in an old plantation style house and it has big open fields in the back that I estimated to be about seventeen acres combined. It also has a barn with an old Bentley in it. I can’t fix because it had been ran into a wall at least at one hundred, but it’s fun to look at.

To pass time, I go hunting. I don’t care if I decrease population of the local wildlife…...drunk people. Just kidding, they were the first to die. I actually enjoy hunting rabbits and squirrels. They make good stew if you know how to cook. I enjoy making stews, steaks, and loins in my smoker.
I also enjoy tinkering with the Ford Focus.

So, the zombies, they are a huge pain in the ass. Like seriously, I will be walking to the grocery store that is half a mile away and there will be like twenty of them inside. It is bullshit, because then I have to waste at least twenty bullets! My personal best is seven zombies and nine handgun rounds, I was proud.

 

Anyway, the zombies are huge and grotesque. When they turned into zombies they grew to one and a half times their height as a human at the most. At the least they grew one and a quarter their previous size. Killing them is a hassle because when you grow so do your bones. Their skulls are around twice as thick as ours and are a b**** to get into. I have to use a heavy sledge hammer or a sharp axe to get through it. Guns will also do the job effectively. Every day I kill an average of four to six.

It’s a daily struggle traveling to and fro. The closest thing I can relate it to is like Black Friday shopping in a wolf’s den while wearing a belt of meat. It draws a lot of attention and so far I have not found a single way to defend from their incredible smell or sight. I noticed that they are easily blinded by strobe lights or just normal LED’s. It surprised me that so simple means can render such a great gift useless. I always have a flashlight on each of my guns or have a headlamp on when going out past five o’ clock.

I raise chickens on my plantation as well as four turkeys which I save for every Thanksgiving. It’s the little things like that that give me such good reminders of what once was and will never be again. It’s kind of depressing living alone in such a big house and eating such a big meal by myself. After a while you learn to live with such a morbid and lonely lifestyle. It is just my burden to bear and I would rather be alone than be the one harming my family.

I only have one goal, and that is to survive to twenty one hundred. I probably won’t make it, but if I keep up with my weekly routine then I will stay healthy and make it to at least seventy. I am pretty healthy for my age. I get a lot of physical activity and plenty of vitamins from shrimp. I have an apple tree in the backyard but it’s a crab apple tree and I can’t eat it’s fruits, but it attracts squirrels which are tasty. Just toss them in a pot with some water and vegetables and you have a nice stew.

I occasionally have to deal with zombies that trespass on to my property. I have razor wire set up like everywhere yet they still find a way to get into my compound and annoy me. I just walk out and it’s time to batter up. By the time I am done causing carnage, I have attracted the attention of a horde of zombies and it’s time to grab the artillery. I blow them all to smithereens with a double barrel ten gauge shotgun. Reloading isn't the fastest but by the time they get close enough I will already have put holes in them.

I think it’s about time to end this log. I can hear the mail man scratching at the door. Not really, it’s probably a zombie I need to blow holes in. So I’ll go take care of that problem with a shotgun. I just need to make sure it’s just one before I open the door. This is me signing out for maybe the last time ever. Who really knows what my life has left for me. So on that note, before it gets to depressing, goodbye.



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