Cactus Jack

After the success of Vader's release, I felt encouraged about the state of our collection. Maybe I could train more animals to supply themselves with food and shelter. Soft releases, the term for when an animal is set free into a habitat, but still receives supplemental food and attention from humans, is the only method I can employ. First, the animals here are all hand-reared or captive-bred, unused to fending for themselves. Second, I'm too attached. If I'm methodical and calculating about this, the animals will stay nearby, like Vader, and I won't lose anyone else I love.

But who to release?

Not wanting to disrupt the environment just yet, as it's still clearly reeling from the zombie outbreak, I considered the native Washington animals first. Tahoma, the bald eagle, seemed to be a symbolic and appropriate choice, but with her damaged wing, she would never make it. Yukon, the Canada lynx would be too difficult; I don't want to deal with preventing predation yet. 

So I settled on Cactus Jack, the North American porcupine. He's smart, young enough to adapt, and well-defended, covered with 30,000 quills. "Mr. Jack," I announced to him as I slipped on the thick welding gloves I used when I carried him, "we're going on a walk." Cactus Jack stepped onto my protected hands and I carried him with me to the lush foliage by the red wolves' enclosure. I placed him in a flower bed and let him eat the camellia, rhododendron, and clover while I cleaned.

Each day I gave Cactus Jack a little more time on his own in the flower bed, letting him wander a little farther. The porcupine cooperated wonderfully. He vocalized with a little song that can only be described as humming, and seemed generally content to putter around in the plants or doze on a fallen log.  Adam and Cory porcupine-proofed the red wolf enclosure where the fence had begun to wear--just in case Cactus got any crazy ideas. Eventually I stopped carrying Cactus all the way to the flower bed and began leading him to it instead, rewarding him with pecans and hazelnuts for walking there.

When he would walk to the flower bed and back on his own and could be left to his own devices for several hours at a time, I stayed with the porcupine overnight. I lay on a blanket in the mulch and Cactus Jack slumped against the trunk of a hefty camellia bush. Before nodding off, he stretched, flaring his quills out on end and yawned.

The next day, I didn't walk Cactus Jack back to his enclosure. I went about my business for the morning and had trouble locating my prickly companion at midday. I discovered him resting on a branch farther up than I'd ever seen him climb.

All this sounds simple enough, but it took essentially an entire month of constant vigilance and slow progress. Now, during my morning rounds, I pass two empty enclosures in the building and encounter two friends in the trees.

Journal Entry #7

We've discovered a strange trend in the bodies of the early zombies. The older zombies have large circular marks on their skin. At first they seemed like normal cuts or scrapes from the environment or run ins with other people. But then we continued to notice them only on the early zombies. We have a very non-scientific process for grouping them. Usually simply new and old. Occasionally we'll pull out some pop reference to a type of zombie based on its movement style, but really it's really about whether they are fresh or not.

Suzanne and Cory were the first to put together the connection to the age and marks. Fisherman refer to them as sucker scars. We then recounted the earliest stories of zombies being found in coastal areas. If memory serves, the Pacific Northwest was the first hit. Canada might be able to claim the title but their news is so far less sensationalized that the U.S. stole all of the early attention.

Reading Robinson Jeffers on the Beach

Cory and I were patrolling one evening. We paused on a rise above Salmon Beach. The sunset was going to be one of those odd spring sunsets, the sun not so much setting as looming, turning the clouds unearthly shades of peach. The light played on the water…

I shouldered my carbine and pulled a book from my breast pocket, a tiny volume that was one of the few non-practical books I had taken from my apartment.

“Gray steel,” I read, “cloud-shadow stained,

The ocean takes the last lights of evening.

Loud is the voice and the foam lead-color,

And flood-tide devours the sands.

“Here stand, like an old stone,

And watch the lights fade and hear the sea’s voice.

Hate and despair take Europe and Asia,

And the sea-wind blows cold.

“Night comes: night will claim all.

The world is not changed, only more naked:

The strong struggle for power, and the weak

Warm their poor hearts with hate.

“Night comes: c--…”

“Will you stop that?”

“Okay.” I put the book back in my pocket.

We look at the sunset for a bit. Then I ask him, “You never liked poems, did you?”

“Especially not that one.”

Nevermore

I came to the decision to release Vader the raven over time. During our first meetings, we'd discussed whether to ease the burden of caring for the animals by euthanizing some of them. I don't mind that nearly my entire day is spent doing animal husbandry, or that my spare minutes are spent researching and investigating how to better care for animals I am less familiar with. The real issue was whether we could maintain the high standard of living the animals deserved. In the end we euthanized none of them.

Vader's life was one that any animal and most humans would appreciate. The 22-year-old raven received meals of fruits, vegetables, nuts and meats in his bedroom, chatted amiably with neighbors during the day and slept in the cozy crux of tree limbs at night.

When I would go in to clean his enclosure and drop off his food though, I considered how enriching it would be if he could do some of his own foraging. As a hand-raised bird who knew me well, he took immediately to a new daily routine where I attached a long lease to his ankles with jesses and let him come with me as I cleaned the other birds' enclosures. He hopped excitedly when he heard me unlocking the building each morning, clucking and cordially asking, "How are ya?" I always replied, "I'm well thank you. And yourself?"

I started letting Vader poke around in the fallen leaves and sit in the lower boughs of trees. Eventually, I made him a longer leash, and then yesterday I just let him go. I opened his enclosure to "How are ya?" as usual and took him with me for our usual morning cleaning, but when it was time for me to move on, I walked Vader to his enclosure and left the door wide open. Ravens are native to Washington, there's plenty of food sources... It just seemed like he would do fine on his own.

Today I approached the bird mews with trepidation, unsure of what I'd find. I peeked into Vader's enclosure, half expecting him to be see him still sitting in the crux of his tree limbs. He wasn't there. I wasn't sure if this was good or bad. Was Vader lost, unable to find his way to his enclosure? Was he mobbed by crows and now laying injured somewhere? Or was he cleverly picking through the compost pile for choice goodies, exercising his wings and spying on us from rooftops?

After finishing my morning tasks I passed Vader's open door one last time and posed the perfunctory, "How are ya?" to the empty space.

"I'm well thank you," came the reply. I turned to the willow sapling beside the building and found Vader perched comfortably with a full crop, evidence he'd eaten a healthy breakfast. "And yourself?" he asked me.

"Great." I answered. "Really great."

Journal Entry #6

I've been a vegetarian long enough to feel determined but not so long as to have forgotten what meat tastes like.   The presence of flesh consuming zombies in my day to day life has only strengthened my resolve to continue this dietary choice. Who knew that I'd be adding "witnessed cannibalism" to my list of reasons why I don't eat meat. Cory argues it isn't cannibalism. "Zombies aren't human." It's his standing argument. His rationale for remorseless take downs, for will strengthening, for maintaining resolve in the face of such an awful situation. But no matter how reassuring he is, all I see is a human eating a human. My stomach turns every single time. In all fairness, they aren't human any more. They've changed in so many obvious ways. And in some hidden ways.

We talk sometimes about how they move different. How they act differently. The hunger and killing is one thing. But they have these new movements and a new look in their eye. It's subtle at first encounter. That first time you run into one you're not thinking like Darwin. You're not trying to observe them in nature with an objective eye. You're spewing lines of every foul curse word you know, swinging like a maniac, and praying your heart doesn't explode out of your chest. But sometimes we see them from a distance. Out on our watches. Out on supply runs. We see them. They shift about. Slow. Sensing. Simple. Sometimes even peacefully with this strange sway they have. Like a boat on water. But like water, they turn on you fast and have no qualms in pulling you down to a dark and gloomy death.

The meat though. We are in a zoo. Not a farm. Not a giant biosphere. Not a botanical garden. A zoo. And we are running short on vegetarian options. We forage and scavenge what we can but Ian and I talk about what to do when the day comes that realistic vegetarian options just don't exist any more. He talks excitedly about learning to make his own tofu or trying to find egg laying birds we can add to the zoo's bird collection. I encourage him. Meanwhile, my mind lingers on a fear that I'll end up with blood and flesh in my mouth again...one way or another.

Intercepted, 1

To: ChiefofNavalOperations@pentagon.navy.mil

From: PacCommActual@command.navy.mil

…and the final action item on our agenda today is a strange oceanic phenomenon reported by fishing vessels’ sonar sets and also observed by our Coast Guard assets off the Pacific Northwest Coast. They have reported masses of sonar echoes moving on the sea floor not far off the coast. They are moving toward the coast at about 2 to 3 knots. They are reported to be composed of objects or organisms approximately two meters long, massing about 75 to 100 kilograms. The Seattle NOAA detachment has been briefed. We have also readied our Indian Island Depot Dolphin Security units for dispatch. The NOAA folks think it would be a neat idea to use the dolphins to check out these signals. We also have a team of Coast Guard divers who want to take a look at these things. They may be some new form of pollution from the Japanese tsunami disaster, and we will see if they constitute a hazard to shipping.

Not as big an issue as the Chinese SSBM at large in the North Pacific, Action Item 1, but still within our purview….

Dossier 2: Cory

Penciled In

I’m out of quarantine now. (Fun fact: “Quarantine” is a corruption of “40 days,” for the length of time a plague ship waited in port for approval to land. I got out in somewhat less than 40. ) I feel better. About which, more later.

We face the problem of training Ian and Suzanne to shoot, without benefit of extra ammunition. I found a partial solution.

As the only person in our group (I think) who owned any guns before this current emergency, I’ve tried to contribute to the firearms education. There are only so many things you can teach about guns without live ammo exercises, but I read of a trick years ago.

One of the handguns Adam and his crew looted on the way here was an enormous .45 Automatic Colt Pistol. Just about the right size for his Ian’s huge paw. Anyway, the hammer on a full-size ACP falls with only a little less authority than the Hammer of Thor himself when the trigger is pulled.

I took a short pencil and sharpened it down to a little nubbin, and dropped it down the barrel. When dry-firing, the impact of the hammer on the pin (and hence the end of the pencil) drives the pencil out in a ballistic curve. Not far, but if you “shoot” the pencil into a paper target on the wall a foot or two away, you do get some practice in holding the cannon on target and squeezing the trigger smoothly.

Once I inflated a plastic bag and surprised Ian by popping it right beside his ear just as he pulled the .45’s trigger. Everyone thought this was a cruel trick, but I said part of firearms training is overcoming your “flinch” reflex, which develops after the gun goes BANG a few times. I was just trying to supply a bang.

Dossier 1 : Arrayah

The Irony is Not Lost on Me

Not that I wasn't glad to see Brien alive--I was. We couldn't hug him until after his mandatory quarantine in the animal health care building, but once Arrayah approved of him, we celebrated. So yes, I appreciate that there is one more soul saved, one more pair of hands to work, one more mind with which to collaborate. I like Brien. And I really like his cat, Yin.

But those advantages aside, he wasn't the one I was hoping for when Cory announced he'd found someone along the shore at Owen Beach. Where is Jared?

I'd like to point out that the survivors in this post-zombie-plague existence consist of a bunch of gay guys and one straight girl. The universe has a damn twisted sense of humor.

Escape, part 4

Hours in the cockpit, legs burning from the run for my life, arms limp, ass killing me from sitting slumped in the kayak’s hard plastic seat. I moisten some freeze-dried peas in a little of my bottled water, try to wait for them to dissolve in my mouth. Drifting past docks, restaurants built on piers, waterside parks. No one visible. Could be any winter’s day, if only for the lack of cars. Miles to go and maybe a half mile from land.

A mottled grey head appears ahead of me. Do the plague-victims swim now? Black eyes blink at me. A dog? No, a seal of some kind. I think I see pity in its eyes. As suddenly as it appears, it launches itself down into the depths again, flippers flicking the surface. Soon I see an enormous jelly in the water. The marine equivalent of a zombie, brainless consumer, wandering back and forth. This all heartens me. There is little life in the water down by the docks and the paper mills, but much more up here between Tacoma’s peninsula and Vashon. Wonder if any hippies managed to survive on Vashon. Or if they survived on Andersen. Or in the old federal compound at McNeil Island.

Buoyed slightly with hope, I weakly paddle towards shore, the wind against me now. I can make out the algae covered sea wall and rocky beach of Point Defiance Park. No one visible among the picnic tables on the beach, but who knows what’s hiding on the forested hills? I don’t care. If they meet me on the beach, I will die happy to have had one last kayak tour and to have delivered Yin to someplace more hospitable than downtown. She stands in the forward cockpit, roaring with displeasure, water up to her knees. I forget to grab a bilge pump. Is this thing leaking? Yes. I see drops of water dribbling in through claw marks in the hull.

Waves carry the kayak onto the stony beach. As the incoming tide buffets the boat, I slump forward, waiting for whatever fate brings.

Escape, part 3

I slalom down the steps of the Glass Museum, to the Dock Street Marina. It looks like Pearl Harbor on Monday, listing boats, some smoldering. But I see what I need on a rack next to the water: a long, swift touring kayak. One of these is hard for me to manhandle on my best days. This is not my best day. Launching from dockside is tricky, under the best conditions. These are not them. Throw everything in the front cockpit. Squat next to the rear cockpit, bracing a paddle on the dock. There is a small gathering of stumbling, meandering zombies inside the marina gate. The kayak wobbles as I get in, but I board successfully, and push off.

One of the faster ones throws itself into the water as I try to paddle up to speed. Water shallow here. It bounces off the bottom, brain too addled to make swimming actions, but still it reaches for me with fingers chewed down to bony claws. I dispatch it with a blow from the paddle, right on the bridge of the nose. It drifts away under the waves, claws still reaching up greedily.

Need to pick up speed and get to deep water. More of the slower zombies begin plunging in after me, popping up in my wake. Tide is out. Motion on the beach, a black shadow among the rocks. Yin flicking her tail. I brake with the paddle. Can I get away if I stop for her? Could I live with myself if I didn’t? Paddling on the left side, I turn to the beach.

She jumps into the cockpit, wet and complaining. I veer for open water, her cries syncopated with the beats of the paddle.

Sprinting for the open water of the bay, past the derelict container ships at anchor. Into the deep green water, far from shore. A few plague victims visible on the docks and the coast-hugging highway.

It is a long way to the zoo.

I am lucky. The wind is from the southwest, and tends to make me drift towards the Narrows, Point Defiance and safety. I find it impossible to row anymore. Only a half-hearted stir of the water whenever I start to go in a circle.

Exhausted just from remembering and recording this.

Escape, part 2

Made good time. Kept up a steady jog. Used a compact mirror to see around corners. Attracted a few of the infected right away. Saw familiar faces: the guy who used to cut my hair, a barista. Someone I went out with once. Alright, fine, you want to chase me? We’ll see who’s faster.

Down the hill on 7th, to Commerce. Avoid the Spanish Steps, white-washed territorial-era artifact. Its two flights short-cut to the water but was a place to get ambushed and killed in normal times. Commerce is the wide street with the trolley line. The theater district, now a carnal field. More slow moving zombies. Getting tired. Conscious of how long it has been since I ate. Yin scratches my lip open. Moisten my tongue on my own blood. Must keep one foot moving forward. Then the other. Again. And again.

On Pacific Avenue, I lead a parade through where the Daffodil Parade used to roll, like a drum major from hell. A running zombie darts out from under the freeway overpass, near the Pacific Grill. Unsling Mini-14. Haven’t fired it in years. Eye down the iron sights – why didn’t I buy a scope for it years ago? Or one of those little barrel stabilizers I saw online. Each time I miss the growing target I regret all those hours I didn’t spend on the range. Nooooo, I had to spend all my money on food and medicine, instead of range fees and ammo. Finally I bring him down. Deaf from the blasts, taste of cordite on tongue. Realize the slow ones have caught up.

Lash a few down with the boken, take to my heels again. Toss the gory plague-coated boken away. Stumbling, weezing, I find myself at the gate of the History Museum. And here Yin launches herself from the backpack, scuttles under the wrought iron fence and disappears. Shamblers crash into the gate just as I lock it behind me. Over the bridge to the Glass Museum. A good number of original Chihulys smashed all around, crunching underfoot. Calling Yin. Realizing she’s gone.

Field Sketches

Detection

We rely on the animals for a lot of things here in our community, so it shouldn't have surprised us that Arrayah the pit-bull is a powerful tool against the zombies. We don't sic her on them (usually), rather we discovered she had a special talent.

While Tom and Cory were scouting on zoo grounds, Adam, Ian and I took Arrayah, loaded our weapons and piled into the zoo's giant van with its pictures of wolves, snakes and polar bears plastered on the sides. Most of our stocks are plentiful for now, but we ration carefully and are always thinking of ways to bolster our supplies. Our forays into the city are planned and purposeful affairs, leaving little room for leisurely exploration. I often volunteer to go, fueled by the fire of irrational hope—maybe this will be the time that we find Jared.

This particular day we were at Target, where the glass doors were shattered, shelves were gutted and the generator-powered overhead lighting flickered eerily. Your average post-apocalyptic shopping trip. “I'm going to find a whisk,” Ian said.

While Adam dug through the pet aisle for sturdy dog toys, I mused, “I never could find pants that fit me at Target.” But I had already pulled on a new track jacket and had a pair of socks in each pocket. I also found a pink sequined baseball hat, which I wore ironically, it's garishness flying in the face of our new existence.

“VOICES?”

I dropped the hat and the battery units I'd scavenged from kids' toys when I heard the question, posed frantically from the greeting card aisle. I radioed Ian to be on alert and Adam had already drawn his gun. The disembodied speaker was right to be confused, as were we. Zombies' enlarged glands and tongue made it impossible for them to form words, let alone carry on conversations about Target's need for a petites' section. “Am I hearing voices?” the speaker was a woman, distressed, and by the sound of it, now clattering through a display of photo albums to reach us. “Take me with you!”

She appeared three aisles away, and stopped, her hands tearing at her hair. She wore the red polo and khaki pants of a Target employee.“Take me with you!” she pleaded again, stepping closer. We lowered our weapons warily and began questioning the woman about her activities, how she'd survived. Specifically, we needed to know when, where and how she had encountered any infected individuals. “None,” she assured us, answering shortly, as she'd done all our questions, “I haven't had any contact.”

We decided to take her with us. Adam and I waited at the van where Arrayah had been standing guard and the woman collected her belongings. I started to consider how it might be nice to have another female in our community. The woman reappeared clasping a canvass shopping bag. “Where's Ian?” Adam asked.

Suddenly Arrayah growled low in her throat and before we could stop her, leaped out of the van at the strange woman. “Whoa, whoa! It's okay Arrayah! I'm sorry, she hasn't seen anyone new for a long time...” I explained while Adam tried to restrain the agitated dog, who was now barking furiously. “She's not usually like this--”

“Wait.” The intensity in Adam's voice froze me. “I've seen her like this before.” He turned to the woman, “Tell the truth. When did you last see an infected person? Did you touch them?”

“No, no! He—I didn't--” she stammered. Her face crumpled and she began to sob. “It's been three days! I thought it would be fine!”

“But it's not, is it?” Adam demanded.

The woman whipped a pistol out of her shopping bag and waved it wildly, screaming, “It was fine! I was going to make it!” She sank to her knees and added more softly, “This morning....It started—I could feel it.” Before anyone could move, she turned the gun toward her head and fired.

“Good dog, Arrayah,” I said.

Ian appeared from inside the store, announcing triumphantly, “I found a whisk!”