Day 20

So no more views since last time.  I guess my only "friend" is gone.  Hopefully only temporarily.

I have been doing a lot of research as to how a pandemic like this could happen.  I guess that with airplanes, public transportation, and densely packed cities, it was prone to happen.  The interesting part is how another organism could control a mammals body.

The reason I say this is because the behavior I saw before I left was not human.  There was something controlling those people and it was new.  It was like a bad form of rabies or something.  In fact, it could actually just be a bad version of rabies.  According to the CDC, rabies is a viral infection that causes confusion and anxiety.  It also causes death.  However, there is no mention of control over the human.

Toxoplasmosis on the other hand, can control a human.  This is a parasite that lives in cats and when transmitted into a human, it controls them to get more cats so it can proliferate.  In the process, it really screws your head up.  That's why there are "crazy cat ladies."

Lastly, there is a fungus that can control insects so that they go as high up as possible, grab onto something, and die.  This helps the fungus grow and replicate.  This is called Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis.  Read about it.

So there you have it.  There's a virus, a parasite, and a fungus that can potentially control how a live being reacts.  Any of these could be the cause for such pandemonium in the city.  It can also be a very interesting research subject.

In the meantime, I have other things to worry about.  I must have punctured one of my gas tanks while leaving in a hurry because I am losing fuel. The bottom two tanks were almost full when we left.

Day 16

Hello...

I know you're out there...

I saw a local I.P. address read this blog, and it wasn't mine.  I also saw that you stayed on the site for at least twenty minutes before you left.  Either you can't believe what you're reading, or your head got bitten off before the computer was destroyed.

In any case, I will keep posting in case there are any survivors.  It is too risky for me to stay close to the city and I will only come visit twice a week.  I need to conserve fuel you know.  Also, I can still see some of the zombies walking around everywhere and I really don't know if I can trust humans either.

It feels rather strange that everything on the internet seems like it froze after the 4th of July.  Also, I really can't access any server outside of this state.  The strangeness, along with my unusual "free time" has allowed me to come up with a few conspiracy theories.  So let's see how close I am:

Conspiracy Theory "A": Researchers wanted to see how society would react to a zombie outbreak so they just let the zombies go wild while the city was quarantined and the army was taking notes.

Conspiracy Theory "B": I was kidnapped and am being fed some crazy drugs that make me hallucinate being alone and scared while zombies eat the rest of humanity.

Conspiracy Theory "C": This was an accident and the government is paying close attention to see how it pans out.  They have cut all communications in and out of the city so the rest of the world doesn't find out.

So far, I like "C" the best.  It is really strange that there are no internet postings after July 4th, no radio signal, no cell phone signal, no satellite tv, and the city hasn't been nuked.

Oh well, we are starting to run out of beer and canned fruit.  I may need to make a run into town pretty soon.  I found this map where it shows spots to find food, ammo, and other cool stuff.  If anyone is out there, I suggest taking a peek:  http://www.mapofthedead.com/

For now, if you are still reading, please comment.  I would love to meet another live person.

Day 1

I guess I really need to explain what happened, at least from my perspective.  I'm doing this just in case there are live people outside my city and to try and explain things to myself.

In a way, we were lucky that July 4th landed on a Wednesday.  I hate going to the grocery store and I hate using up my weekend time to go there.  Because the Wednesday was a freebie, I figured I could get stocked for a while.

The wife and I did the usual shopping but we also purchased a large amount of freezable food.  She had enrolled in a graduate program and would not be around to make dinner for us.  I'm like a caveman when it comes to cooking, so she thought the best thing to do was to keep it simple for me, hence the freezable food.

As you know, we have been breaking temperature records all over the states.  My city was no different.  And in a way, I think this may have caused some stress on the electric systems of some buildings.  The last thing I have been able to deduce from the internet was that a certain "National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory" in my city had a malfunction due to the inclement weather.  Even though they were not supposed to be operational, they had been conducting some tests and they had gone awry.  The infectious disease ran out of control and the suppression systems malfunctioned.  The infected were out on the streets before anyone could be informed.

We were back at the marina when we started hearing all of the sirens.  To us it was normal, but I always like to check twitter just in case.  Everything was silent.

We had started the grill when we first started noticing more "crackheads" than normal in our part of the city.  I wasn't too worried until one of them attacked some folks right outside of the marina.  People went over to help, and when I was approaching, I started hearing a lot of screaming.  You can call me a coward, but as soon as I heard all of that screaming, I ran back to the boat.  The screaming was definitely not normal.

I guess you could say we are well protected from the outside world because we are surrounded by a moat.  It's not really a moat, but there is a body of water between the "main land" and our dock.  As soon as the screaming started, people started running everywhere.  Everywhere but the water.  We were on the water.  We were relatively safe, but I am a pretty paranoid guy.  I've played plenty of video games and watched my fair share of movies to know how these things pan out.  I fuckin' turned on the engines and started my way out of the marina before the locals learned there was nowhere to run.

On our way out, I tore a cleat off the dock, banged the sailboat next to ours, and scraped a good amount of paint off the starboard side of the boat.  I really didn't care.  At that moment, I felt like Kevin Costner on "The Bodyguard" and was kicking the shit out of everyone in my path.  I got the hell out of there, while my wife was trying to contain the fired-up hot dogs on the grill.

That's the last time I saw other people.  I was really looking forward to seeing the tall ships.

Day 9

Hello....

Is there anybody out there?

Is anyone still alive?

It's been nine days since the incident.  I really don't know what to call it.  I guess I could just call it an "outbreak" since that's what the news or movies would have called it.  In any case, this has been the first day that I have tried getting close enough to the city.  I really wanted to get on the internet so that I could figure out what happened, but was afraid to get anywhere close to civilization.  Now that I can actually get online, it seems like the internet froze in time.

My wife and I have been at sea for the past nine days.  We barely made it out of the city when the outbreak happened.  I really have no clue on how to sail this thing and I dinged the hell out of it.  My father-in-law is going to be pissed (that's if he's still alive.)

We're lucky because we have enough fuel on the boat to last us for several months if we don't sail very far.  The fuel also keeps the generator and the water desalination system running, meaning that we won't run out of fresh water anytime soon.  I also wanted to get an internet connection so that I can learn how to distill water in order to preserve some fuel.  And lastly, we have enough food in the freezer to keep us alive for at least a month.  We are still unsure about fishing since we don't know if the virus/fungus/bacterium or whatever it is that's making people crazy will affect the fish.  In any case, I suck at fishing, so hopefully the internet can teach me.

About that; while the internet is working fine right now, I wonder how long it will take before the power supplies start running out.  At that point, I won't have access to ISP's or anything else for that matter.  That's really why I wanted to get close to the city, even though it was pretty risky.  I want to download as much information as I can before the internet runs out.  I also wanted to see if there are any survivors.  As far as I can tell, there are none or they can't get internet access.

If anyone is still out there, please reply to this message.  I need to know what's going on and what I can do to help.

It was really weird not seeing any cool fireworks on the 4th of July.  I wouldn't call the explosions and gun shots cool.