As the first hour of darkness came to a close, Al sighed and closed his journal for the night. The creak of floorboards caused him to turn and look over his shoulder. Jack had entered the room with a thermos and two mugs. “Coffee?”

Al smiled and nodded. He removed his glasses, placing them gently on the cover of his journal without folding them. He turned in his chair and beckoned for Jack to sit in the chair across from him. Jack pulled a small end table in between them and sat the thermos and mugs down. Al reached over, dimming the lantern slightly.

Jack twisted the cap off of the thermos and began pouring steaming coffee into the mug in front of Al. “So how goes the research?” Al sighed, waiting for his mug to be full. As Jack began filling his own mug, Al took a long slow sip and then sat, holding the mug with both hands for warmth before replying, “Slow and fruitless, my friend.” Jack nodded, seeming to expect the answer.

Beyond the limbs of the palm tree just outside their window, a whitish gray cloud which had been blocking the moon slid out of the way and the perfect half circle of silver reflected a slightly purer light into their small room, mixing with lantern light to create illumination that was both warm and lonely. A seagull squawked somewhere. The smell of coffee had overpowered the seaweed salt smell of the ocean that Al found strangely comforting, but it returned briefly as a soft gust slipped in through the window across the room that was ajar. The ocean waves weren’t audible over the noises of moving crowds just outside.

They had nearly finished the thermos before Jack spoke again. “What have you been writing in your journal?” Al shrugged, replying, “Trying to keep the data straight. Organized, you know. If something presents itself I’ll need to be able to find the proper pages of notes at a moment’s notice. Plus we’re limited on supplies here and I don’t want to go wasting paper or ink. So it’s been laborious keeping it all manageable.”

Jack smiled. “Not those Journals, Al. That one.” He gestured with his mug hand, nearly sloshing a bit of his lukewarm coffee over the lip. Al gave a look over his shoulder though he knew exactly which one Jack was referring to. “Oh, that one. Personal notes. Just something…” He trailed off. After a moment, as though to justify the silence, he took a sip from his mug. The coffee was cool and bitter. Al had been looking off to the side but he shifted his gaze back to Jack before saying, “I just want people to know how it came apart here. So that they don’t let this kind of thing happen again. If they get into that situation, you know, I just want the words down so somebody can find them if they don’t find us.” Jack nodded again. “Is it finished?” Al seemed to consider the question seriously. “Yes, I think it’s done,” he said.

Jack, not smiling anymore, asked, “Can I read it?”

--

My name is Al Camus. I am a doctor of genetics at the local university. I am leaving this notebook behind so that any survivors of this plague who might find it can know how and why this town succumbed. This is important because, of all the cities and towns that I am aware of, we had been the most prepared for the arrival of this pandemic and as such we should have been safe and able to defend ourselves, and yet we succumbed to a different enemy; the most unlikely enemy. This notebook is meant to serve as a warning to groups of survivors who will eventually attempt to reestablish civilization: you greatest enemy is not the walking dead but rather the fear of them. It is the failure of logic that destroyed us.

Things began slowly for us. There were a few isolated cases. We got reports from neighboring towns as well. The understanding of what we were facing came to us quickly enough that we were able to defend ourselves. Precautions were taken against the recently deceased. Funerals were all by cremation. Anyone suffering from a bite or otherwise showing signs of illness were quarantined and, if death followed, immediately taken to funeral. We can assume the surrounding towns were not as fortunate. We lost contact with the rest of the world within days. Being a coastal town, we had the advantage of having some of our borders naturally blockaded by water. However, the rest of the town was quickly and carefully secured. The outskirts of town were abandoned; a smaller area was easier to protect. About ten city blocks along the coast were barricaded from onslaught using supplies leftover from the last hurricane. As the corpses of the surrounding towns’ population began to arrive, the barriers held. We appeared to be safe.

I volunteered to head up a research team with our goal being the capture of one of the reanimated corpses, preferably still animated, for study. We hoped to find a vaccine or at least gain an understanding of what we were dealing with. We were encountering something the likes of which stood to wipe humanity off the face of the earth; knowledge was paramount.

Our team, which included a few armed individuals, approached one of the barriers and managed to successfully rope one of the corpses and pull it to our side of the road block. The process involved a bit of balancing across the high cement barriers and a makeshift rope and pulley system. The point is the corpse was recovered and safely contained. We returned to the basement of this building which we had converted into a laboratory. The dead man was strapped safely and securely down to an operating table, and though it did not respond to sedation, we agreed that there was no feasible danger of it escaping.

This is where things got sour. A mob of people arrived. I don’t know how they got wind of what we were doing. We’d purposely kept our operation a secret from the general public to avoid such a panic. Nevertheless, the locals who had been holding up in the church just down the street figured out what we had done and came in some sort of protest. They greatly outnumbered us. They stood outside, shouting and making accusations of heathenism and blasphemy. They cursed us for breaking the “sickness of the devil” into our safe haven. I came to the balcony on the second floor and asked for silence. The crowd quieted somewhat and I shouted that we were on the verge of important scientific experiments which might prove to save mankind. A stone was thrown at me.

They broke the door down, clearly intending to locate the creature and destroy it. I now regret having insisted that it be kept alive. If we had just killed it, this wouldn’t have happened.

As the crowd gathered around it, there was considerable amount of pushing and thrashing about. A few individuals were attempting to bludgeon the creature but continued to miss its head. Then one person got too close. It lunged out and bit. In the commotion, no one realized at first. But the victim had been bitten deeply in the thigh and was bleeding profusely. It was only a matter of minutes before that person was dead. Meanwhile, the original corpse had somehow gotten loose. The crowd’s anger transformed to panic. I could see from the stairwell leading up and out of the basement as this happened. I was surrounded on all sides by people and I watched as two corpses began to calmly tear through their prey, two becoming four, four becoming eight, and so on. The crowd in front of me was pushing in a panic to climb the stairs. The crowd behind was still trying to force its way down. Somehow, I managed to slip through them.

Ultimately, nearly the entire basement’s mob was killed before the crowd upstairs began to realize what had happened. As people fled in panic, the barriers were destroyed. A few had tried to use their cars to escape, but the crowd outside the barrier dwarfed the crowd inside. And with that, our security was breached.

I do not claim to be free of culpability, but I only offer this warning: do not underestimate the power of fear on the mind of man. Some men want to be helped and some will walk willingly into the fires of their own lack of understanding. Be sure that they don’t take the last of us with them.

--

Jack closed the cover of the journal. “I detect a note of disgruntlement.” Al let out a short, sharp laugh. “You think?”

“And supposing the ones who find this journal are themselves churchgoers?” Jack leaned forward, looking into Al’s eyes with concern.

Al scoffed. “Please. You really think any zealots like that are still alive? Not so, if we’re lucky. That type of blind faith leads men to walk off cliffs. That’s why they call it blind faith. You can’t see what’s right in front of you!” Al huffed, turning to one side slightly.

Jack leaned back again, crossing his legs. “Just because you don’t subscribe to it doesn’t mean it has no value. You know I don’t buy that stuff either, but some people need to feel like they aren’t alone.” Al turned back, squaring himself with Jack again. “But we are alone now, Jack.”

The two sat in silence for several moments. A few moans emanated from the street below.

Al spoke first this time. “So what are you suggesting I do?” “I don’t know,” Jack replied. “All I’m saying is what does it solve leaving this here? The notes, the research, that solves something. What does this solve?”

--

On the beach, the waves crashed gently on the legs of hundreds of rotting corpses standing upright. The stench of death mixed with the delicate salinity of sea water, creating something unfamiliar to any who had never spent significant time away from land. In an otherwise dark town, a single lantern light shone from a building, triggering something akin to memory in the simplistic circuitry of the corpses that saw it. Then, the light was extinguished. Many of the corpses continued to huddle around the base of the structure, still clinging to the slight aura of life, but not able to conceive of any action to bring it to them.

Then, from the darkened window, a bright flaming object suddenly flew out into the night. The eyes of the dead were glued to it as it soared, and cries of something like glee could be heard from a couple of them. Many of them turned to follow the flight path and came to group around the thing where it had landed harmlessly in the middle of the road. They approached it, backing away from the heat and then closing in again until they found the perfect distance to observe in a silent lack of comprehension the peaceful orange flames licking the cover and pages of a small journal.