Day 6: Tell 'Em

“Tell ‘Em” – Sleigh Bells

[No stats today, as my app crashed halfway through my run and lost all of them.]

Today pushed me up until my limit, decided it wasn’t enough, and pushed me just a little more.  It was grueling. 

Do you remember waaaay back to day one  (I Can Change) when I theorized that heading south would allow me to get around the advancing horde and avoid a lot of zombies?  Today basically looked at that theory, laughed at it, then proceeded to try and eat my face.

For roughly an hour, I did not stop running.  That’s what it felt like anyway.  Realistically, it was more like running for a minute, walking for a minute.  And, again, this was not full-blown sprints, but it was still a decent pace for a jog, and I’m still in pretty terrible shape.  Just when I thought I had outpaced a swarm by a pretty good margin, another few zombies would pop up from somewhere else, and I was forced to keep on running. 

After finally getting a reasonable distance from them, I was able to slow to a walk for about 20 minutes.  And then more zombies.  Everywhere zombies.  And so, even though my lungs felt like they were going to explode and my legs were actively thinking of ways to murder me, I ran again.  As it turns out, even when you don’t think you can run another yard, the groan of the undead is more than enough to keep you motivated.

At least I’ll sleep well tonight.

“Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” – Kendrick Lamar

Day 5: Sleep Now in the Fire

“Sleep Now in the Fire” – Rage Against the Machine

Today’s run:

Miles: 2.81

Time: 40:01

Pace per mile: 14.14

Shin splints, man.  Zombies trying to eat my flesh/brains/whatever, and I’m whining about shin splints.  The walking dead helped me stay motivated to keep moving, but I did as little as possible.  Running only if I absolutely had to. 

I vaguely remember reading something about shin splints years ago (one of those times when I tried running for a week, only to come up with an excuse to stop), and this is all I remembered:

1. Stop running until they heal.
2. Try to run more on the balls of your feet than your heel.  It’s the heel strike that causes this.

And that’s it.  All of my knowledge of shin splints based on two small bits of information that may or may not actually be accurate.  Accurate or not, it was all I had, so I rested until it felt healed.  Which was a week or so.  It’s hard to keep track of the days.  It seemed to work well.  The shin splints are gone (for the time being, anyway) and I wasn’t turned into a zombie.  That’s the best news I could’ve hoped for.

I found something curious as I hobbled along this past week.  I was under the impression that these zombies could be killed by removing the head or destroying the brain.  But, as it turns out, that may not be correct.  I was walking when I heard a noise in the tall grass to my right.  I poked around with my bat and ended up finding out that it was a head.  Just a zombified head, sitting in the grass, like it was having a picnic.  When it saw me, it started gnashing its teeth.  It couldn’t move, so it just sat there, staring at me and gnashing.  Just like that head from Automaton Transfusion.

 I think that head was still alive. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie.

I stared back for a minute, then decided to make sure that destroying the brain worked.  Which it did.  So that was nice.

And that is how I dispatched of my first zombie.  Just bashing in a lonely head in the grass.  My mother would be so proud of me.

“Sad & Beautiful World” - Sparklehorse

In case you were wondering, here is what WebMD says about shin splints.

Day 4: The Tunnel

“The Tunnel” – John Murphy [28 Days Later Soundtrack]

Before I get into the (short) story for today, I thought I’d take care of a bit of shop talk.  Part of the point of this blog is to maintain some level of accountability.  If I don’t write, it’s because I haven’t run.  And then you – all 2 of you that may be reading this – will know.  It’s a way to keep myself motivated.  The other motivation comes from me telling myself that I won’t have a creative outlet for my floundering zombie fiction if I don’t run.

It occurs to me that, while all of this is true, it may help if I actually throw out a few numbers from that day’s run, as well as tell you a bit about my process. 

I’ve been using the Zombies Run 5K app from Six To Start, and it has been a tremendous help to me.  On top of giving me a running program to follow, it also helps to motivate me.  I’m still in the beginning stages, so I haven’t really encountered any zombies yet (well, one…but he was a mile away, so that barely counts), but it’s still a fun way to run.  So thanks to the folks who put that together.  It has been amazing.  I look forward to every run.

The app also tracks some stuff: distance run, time spent running, and my pace per mile.  I figured it would help if I posted some of those after each run.  Because, quite frankly, they’re a bit embarrassing at the moment, and writing them down for people to see will only motivate me to try a little harder my next time out.  So, at the top of each post, I’ll be writing down those stats for the day. 

Here are my stats for today’s run:

Miles: 2.85

Time: 43.52

Pace per mile: 15:24

And now, for the story.

It finally stopped raining, and I felt comfortable enough to put my socks out to dry.  Looks like I’ll be keeping my feet after all.  For now, anyway.  Those crawling zombies are death.

I found a little walking path off the main road today and decided to use that.  Maybe it wasn’t my best decision, as it was framed by trees on each side.  But there was enough room on each side of the path to see if anything was coming at me.  The trees also seemed sparse enough that I could make an escape through them if I got hemmed in.  Look at me, minding my surroundings.  I may just survive this thing after all.

As it turns out, I didn’t encounter any zombies, which was nice.  With the trees on either side and a slight breeze blowing, my running today was downright peaceful.  For the first time since this started, I actually felt happy.  Like everything was going work out just fine.  Which probably means that everything was going to go to hell for me tomorrow.  But, at that moment, it didn’t matter.  I slowed to a walk, put on some Englishman, and sang quietly along.  I’m sure it was off-key, but no one was around to shake their head at me.

“Classically Trained” - Englishman

Day 3: High Lonesome

“High Lonesome” – The Gaslight Anthem

It felt like it had been raining for weeks.  It hadn’t of course.  It had only been a little over a day.  Still, everything was wet.  I felt soaked to the bone.  I could deal with pretty much everything but my socks.  On top of being extremely uncomfortable, I had huge fears about what would happen if I ran with wet socks for days on end.  Blisters.  Of that I was sure.  But I was also convinced that running with wet socks for more than 2 days would make my feet begin to rot, and eventually fall off altogether.  I have no idea if this is actually true, but my mind began to convince me that it was. 

The easy solution was to take off my socks, but this brought up new fears.  What if a horde of zombies showed up while I was sockless?  While I had heard that running barefoot was actually better for the joints, I also knew that my feet were soft, and would likely end of being cut up and infected within an hour.  Death by zombie sounded bad, but I could deal with it.  Death by foot infection sounded like a pretty ridiculous way to die.  So the socks stayed on.

I found that the rain brought dangers that were slightly worse than probable foot-rot: with the ground being softer, zombies tended to make less noise.  If I listened, I could still hear them, but I had to be on higher alert than I had been up to that point.  It raised the stress level of an already stressful situation.  I still hadn’t encountered too many, but all it took was for me to let my guard down for one zombie and that would be the end of me.

I learned another very important lesson today, one that may very well save my life.  “Pace yourself.”  At one point, I had a handful of zombies following me.  No big deal.  But, instead of jogging, or walking at a brisk pace, I ran full speed.  I had already done this a couple of times with no ill effects.  Not so this time.  I ran until I felt I couldn’t run anymore.  So I stopped.  It was then that I looked to my right and saw another small swarm of zombies walking in my direction.  I was exhausted.  I tried to run, but it didn’t work.  Luckily for me, they were far enough away that I had time to catch my breath and was able to jog away before they caught up with me.  If they had been closer, I would’ve been hosed.  From that point on, I decided that, when possible, I would keep my running to a light-jogging pace, and always try to stop before I felt like I couldn’t run anymore.  Always keep something in reserve.  Zombies are slow.  I call this “The Barbara Rule”, named after the character in 1990’s Night of the Living Dead remake.  “We could just walk right past them,” she proclaimed.  I opted for jogging (I wanted to put as much room between them and me as I could), but the sentiment remained the same.  Wherever you are, Patricia Tallman, I thank you.  Hopefully you have taken your own words to heart and are surviving this with me. 

It’s just like “Somewhere Out There” from American Tail.  But with zombies.  And an actress I’ll likely never meet. 

When I spell it all out like that, it sounds a little creepy.

"Optimist" - St. Vincent & David Byrne

Day 2: True Nature

“True Nature” – Jane’s Addiction

I knew what the day had in store before I even opened my eyes.  The thunder gave it away.  “Great.  Just great.”

I tried to get some sleep during the night, but it didn’t work out very well.  I wasn’t able to get completely away from civilization, but I had happened upon a little town that didn’t seem to have many people.  I decided that, while there were better places to sleep than the dumpster behind a fast food restaurant in an empty town, there were certainly worse places.  So in I went. 

I knew that I was boxing myself in, but I figured it was worth the risk.  I wasn’t traveling with anyone, and I wasn’t out in the woods or anything, so I had to make do with what I could find.  I wasn’t out in the open, so there was no danger of a zombie stumbling across me in the middle of the night.  And, since zombies were non-thinking creatures, I wasn’t in any danger of having them open the lid and finding me.  If I had been surrounded in the morning I would’ve been screwed, but that was a problem I would have to deal with if it came up.

Still, sleeping in a dumpster isn’t the best way to get sleep, and I was a bad sleeper even on my best nights.  So I woke up tired and knowing that I would be traveling in the rain.  But at least I wasn’t surrounded by zombies.  At least something was going my way.

The fast food restaurant was unlocked, but I didn’t see anyone.  I cautiously made my way back to the bathroom and washed myself off in the sink.  I had a change of clothes with me, so I threw off my dumpster clothes and put on some fresh ones.  I washed my clothes the best I could, wrung them out, and put them in a trash bag, figuring I’d be able to dry them on a tree at some point.  I grabbed another trash bag and fashioned a makeshift poncho for myself.  It wouldn’t do much, but every little bit helped.

Off I went, into the day.  The clouds were dark, but still no rain.  That was good.

I decided to stick with smaller roads as much as I could.  It would’ve been nice to avoid roads altogether, but it didn’t seem feasible.  I was bound to get lost at some point.  I could always jump off a road for a little if I needed to, but I couldn’t just abandon them completely.

I was just getting out of the town when I heard something behind me.  A groan.  I knew what that was.  I was tempted to just start running, but I stopped and turned.  I did this for two reasons:

1. I needed to see what I was up against.  Was this just one zombie or a horde?  I assumed that these would be standard Romero zombies, but what if they weren’t?  What if they could run?  The sooner I found out, the better off I would be.
2. After seeing hundreds of movies, I just wanted to see what a real zombie looked like.  Did the movies get the look of them right?

I realize that the second reason was a ridiculous reason to stick around, but I couldn’t help it.

It was just one zombie, about 100 yards away.  A teenager.  Judging by his attire, I would say he worked at a local movie theater.  He appeared to be a standard Romero zombie.  Blank expression.  Slow, shuffling walk.  Low groan.  Since the outbreak hadn’t hit very long ago, there wasn’t much decomposition.  Still, I would say that Romero pretty much nailed the look of these ghouls.  “Good for him,” I said.

I turned, put my headphones in, hit shuffle, and started running.  The rain started coming down.  Perry Farrell screamed, “Here we go!”  I smiled and started running a little faster, the guitars driving me forward.   I would’ve sung along, but I never really understood what he was saying.

“This is Love (Feels Alright)” – Camera Obscura

Day 1: I Can Change

"I Can Change" - LCD Soundsystem

I didn’t know how it started.  No one ever does.  I had my suspicions.  A lifetime of horror movies and X-Files had bred in me a healthy sense of cynicism and mistrust.  A cover-up behind every corner.  I always suspected the zombie apocalypse sprung from any number of diseases that seem to pop up every year, only to disappear just as soon as they showed up.  SARS.  Swine flu.  Avian flu.  And so on.  Every time I heard about a new disease, only to never hear of it again after a few months, I always suspected a massive government cover-up.  “It’s zombies,” I always thought.  I knew it was zombies.  I was usually laughed at, of course. 

But this time, there was no cover-up.  There couldn’t be.  It spread too fast.  I wanted to go to everyone who doubted me and say, “I told you so.”  But they had probably already turned and were currently coming for me at their slow, shuffling pace. 

I had lived by myself for years.  I could tell the story of how I got to this point, but that’s a boring story, perhaps better lost.  Suffice it to say my days were mostly spent at home playing video games.  I used to be reasonably thin, but those days had long since abandoned me.  I joined a gym, but I never went.  I bought running shoes that were used twice.  My relatively thin, 6 foot frame had filled out to 250 pounds before I even knew what hit me.  I always had good intentions to go out and exercise, but those good intentions usually lost out to McDonald’s and Black Ops.    

But then the zombies came, and left me with no choice.

I lived in a pretty populated city just outside of Cincinnati.  I had no car, because I didn’t really need one.  My job (a desk job, naturally) was easy to get to via public transit.  Which, as it turns out, saved me during the first wave.  Everyone knows that trying to get out the city via car during  a zombie outbreak is death.  The roads are jammed, and the people trapped in cars are easy pickins for the undead.

It’s also common knowledge that heading north is the smart bet.  As it gets colder, zombies freeze, thus making it easier to kill and/or outrun them.  A zombie is slow on its best days.  If it gets cold enough, they’ll freeze completely.  When I figured out what was going on, I ran outside my apartment and started watching the roads.  Within a few hours, I-75 North was jammed with cars.  I can only assume each one was packed with people saying, “Canada or bust.” 

Not me, though.  I figured it was cold enough where I was.  I could even venture a little further south and still have cold enough winters to freeze zombies.  I didn’t need to go to Canada.  All I needed was a place away from civilization (simple math says that fewer people equals fewer zombies, so somewhere in the country was ideal).  Luckily for me, I knew a perfect place.  It was about a two hour drive south.  I wasn’t sure how long that would take me on foot, but I would just have to find out. 

This would also help me to avoid traveling among large groups of people.  I knew that, in many cases, humans are a larger threat than zombies.  By traveling south, I would be going against the majority of people.  I would be like a salmon.  A fat salmon.  A fat salmon trying to outpace the undead.  I figured there was a chance of running into hordes of zombies coming in my direction, but I decided that was preferable than having them follow me.  If I could dodge the oncoming waves of zombies coming at me, I could just slip in behind them and avoid most of them.  I’ll admit that it wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was a plan, which is all that mattered to me at that moment.  I needed to make quick decisions, and I needed to stick with those decisions.  The zombies would be here soon, and I didn’t want to be trapped in an apartment. 

In The Battery, Ben likens himself and Mickey as sharks.  “If we stop moving, we die.”  A lot of other movies seemed to be on his side.  Night of the Living Dead – the film that birthed the modern zombie – showed us this.  As did the opening scene of 28 Weeks Later.  I could go on and on.  And, while I believed I would be able to survive in the right house, my cramped apartment was not that house.  If I didn’t get out before the zombies began descending on me, I wouldn’t be leaving alive.

So I grabbed my backpack and filled it with any supplies I thought I might need.  Canned food.  Water.  Rope.  Travels With Charley.  And so on.  I tied a sleeping bag (good to 40-below-0) on the bottom.  I grabbed a crowbar and my Louisville Slugger on the way out the door (the crowbar slid easily into my backpack, allowing me a hold a weapon at all times and still have another hand free, as well as giving me easy access to a secondary weapon).  Finally – and perhaps most importantly – I grabbed my iPod and headphones.  If I were going to survive this, I would need my music to keep me motivated and sane.

I opened the door and took one long, last look around.  I was leaving my life behind.  And I didn’t really think I minded that much. 

I turned out the door and laughed.  “Looks like I’m finally going to start exercising.”  And all it took was the end of the world to motivate me.

"Faithful Heights" - Night Beds

If you have any songs for me to add to my playlist, please let me know in the comments.  My goal is to find as many songs as possible that I can run to, but give off a kind of creepy vibe to them.  But, really, any running song will do.

Welcome

Welcome to Running From the Apocalypse, where I will chronicle my adventures as I flee from the undead horde on foot.  I have a handful of supplies, but my most treasured possession is my iPod (just barely edging out my crowbar).  Each entry, I'll highlight a song that helped me survive that day, as well as a song that helped me take my mind off the horror at the end of the day.

Zombie apocalypses are rarely fun, but I hope you'll enjoy following me.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll even lose a little weight along the way.

If you have any suggestions of songs to add to my playlist, leave me comments.  I only have 20 songs currently in my rotation, so I'll definitely need to expand that.