This is my 3rd day in the bathroom. It is also my last. I hold no delusions that anyone will ever read this, or that it has some vital scientific knowledge that must be preserved, I mostly just want to make myself believe that I might have left something to the world. If you are reading these hand towels you took from a chubby, balding zombie then just please remember the name Matthew Nicolas Edgewood, and if you ever see a Bailey Lynn McDonald tell her that I loved her more than anything. This is a brief rundown of my current situation and the last three days. Please forgive the grammar, spelling, and horribly dark sense of humor. I wish I had something really important sounding to say, but I keep coming back to “If I had known hell was a bathroom, I would have brought more reading material.”

The Basics:

Food: My half a pac of Tic Tacs lasted about 20 minutes.

Water: I have to cup my hands and get a drink from the faucet. Every time I do it immediately brings the pounding to the door.

“Just a minute!” I reply sweetly. I keep grinning at my own joke. It seems like it’s the bajillionth time I have told it. The things pounding on the door do not need the bathroom. Their biggest problem is the incredibly heavy door and metal frame separating them from me. Usually they calm down in about 10~20 minutes.

Shelter: The power is still on. It’s a brick building, single story. Lots of windows (bad) but apparently pretty strong glass. It is a secure call center, which means two really large open areas, secured with badge entry. The training area, the break room, heck most places need a key or a badge to get too. This is great as long as the power stays on, but for safety reasons its a lot less secure without power. I am just off the receptionist area, but I can tell that area right outside my door is occupied by a few of the creatures. (More noise than one or two could make.) If I could get past them, I am close to the exit, but if the power goes out it will take longer to get out of the building because I may have to push the doors open. Even if there is power, it takes a couple of seconds for the badge reader to slowly open the doors.

As it stands I am stuck in the bathroom with one toilet, one sink, a mirror, 5 rolls of toilet paper, and two paper towel dispensers. One automatic, and one regular. I don’t know why. There is a sturdy door between me and them, and a flimsy bathroom stall wall door separating the toilet from the sink. I don’t know why that’s there either. It’s a bathroom for one person. I guess it doesn’t matter.

Communication: I work at a customer service call center. There are literally hundred of phones and thousands of phone lines within 100 yards of me. My cellphone is on its last bit of power from all the repeated attempts. The words “No network coverage” mock me. I turned the phone off to conserve power, but not before I take one last look at the picture of my fiancé holding our fat cat and small puppy. I have no proof that anyone else on the planet is alive, and haven’t seen any since the 2nd day.

The Enemy: Zombies seem to be the best word for it. From what little I can see, they are dead (or should be.) I have seen them run over by cars in the parking lot and they get back up. Except one whose head was smushed. They seem to ignore each other, but they chase anything that’s alive. I watched one chase a cat, and about 10 are standing by a distant tree with their heads pointed up looking at the birds on low hanging branches.

Important Notable things from May 13, Day 1

Apparently the world ended approximately 30 seconds after I locked the company’s bathroom door. The stupid bathroom has a huge window. They wanted it to look like all the other call centers on the outside, so a venetian blind was installed to preserve some modesty. I should probably be thankful for the window as it allowed me to view the end of the world. I thought the frantic door jiggles and furious knocking at first was merely the desperate need for the bathroom. I was well into my business when I heard the first screams. Peeking through the blinds I saw a few hundred stumbling, dirty, “people.” It looked like a bad zombie movie. Michael, one of our agents, made a break for it out the front door. He managed to dodge most of them, and get around the large crowd headed for our main entrance. Unfortunately they tracked him as he ran around the crowd and kept him from making it to his bike. He took off around the building towards the back. That was the last I saw of him. Three more agents, from a different account than mine, used him as a diversion and made a run for it. Two of them made it to their car and got out of the parking lot. One made it cleanly; the other had to plow through the zombies. It was actually a few minutes before I digested their escape. The third person out the door in the group stumbled over something I couldn’t see from the bathroom window. They didn’t fall, but it slowed them enough she was caught by one of the creatures. She was pulled into him and bitten on the arm. She screamed louder than I would have expected. Others closed in quickly and in short order she was buried under a group of them. Thankfully the screaming stopped quickly and I couldn’t see the feast.

I jumped back from the window as one of the creatures smacked up against the window with its bloody mouth gnawing at the glass. Stumbling over the commode I nearly killed myself because my pants where still around my ankles. I wanted to run, but I reevaluated the pounding on the door. It started again when I had been startled. I didn’t think I had screamed very loud, but it had been loud enough. I cleaned myself up and made sure I was decent. I really didn’t want to be found in the bathroom dead with my pants down (literally).

The next few hours I heard lots of screaming from inside the center. The pounding was intermittent. I saw about 30 people make dashes for their cars. Three people made it. It would get quiet outside the door for brief periods of time, but I had no idea if they are gone investigating the screams or just staring at the door. I peeked out the window as often as I could, but eventually it would draw the attention of the zombie outside the window. He would bang on the window until something distracted him. Thank God for strong glass.

To be perfectly honest I cried a whole lot that first day. Actually I cried quite a bit all three days, but I’m still focusing on day 1. I work mid-shift so I come in at noon. I had only been at work for a couple of hours before I had to go to the bathroom. SO I figure my world ended around 2:00. It was about 8:00 before I started feeling sick. It was pretty dark, and I had to turn off the lights in the bathroom because my shadow on the blinds was attracting the zombies. The good news is, I could look out to our parking lot and they couldn’t see me. I saw one more person make a run for it, but they didn’t make it. My stomach informed me that if we saw another person eaten, he would make me vomit even though I was running on empty. I also started to get a headache towards the back of my neck. I figured it was from hunger.

I convince myself numerous times that I am mistaken about the zombies. I didn’t see how that many zombies could have shown up where we where. We are just outside a small town in Kentucky. We are close to a large school (Job Corps) and a Wal-Mart. It must have hit big on the school. They are within walking distance and the only place with enough people to swamp the area. We have a few hundred here, but they have probably a couple thousand kids. They fly them in from all over the country to learn new job skills. A few have worked here. I have had about 8 on my team. Two where great kids who I still kept in touch with. I guess I probably won’t get any more reference calls from their prospective employers. The whole situation was preposterous. There where no zombies outside. I got quite good at convincing myself it wasn’t happening. Though a quick peek out the window always returned me to reality. My adrenaline eventually ran its course it got quiet enough that I cried myself to sleep with my head on a new roll of TP.

Notable things from May 14, Day 2

A loud chorus of moaning, followed shortly by the thundering of a helicopter, served as my alarm clock. My phone still had most of its charge, but no network coverage. I peeked out to see if I could see the helicopter. It was moving slowly over the nearby school grounds.

There where probably 300 zombies outside our building, and quite a few of them I recognized from work. A few of out HR personnel had joined the crowd, but I’m pretty sure they where dead on the inside before this. I saw the new hot trainer. Poor thing she had a kid. I saw two people on my team, and about 7 more from my account. Later, I decided to write down every name I could remember. I’m sure when this is over many people will wonder what happened to their loved ones. I placed that list in the empty paper towel holder with a note so I won’t repeat the names here.

Just as confirmation that they are in the room just outside my door, I saw the receptionist. Her entire face was missing, but I would recognize her blond beehive hairdo from a mile away. Honestly she may have gained a IQ point or two from her zombification.

The helicopter started hovering over the school. I watched what I assumed to be about 15~20 soldiers rapel repel slide down a rope from the helicopter. It moved out slowly, and I heard what had to be automatic gunfire. I actually was pretty happy at this point. I was sure it was just a matter of time before the army cleared things up. I figured platoons of soldiers would be showing up to escort us few survivors out to safety. I spent a good 5 hours imagining my fiancé waiting right past the blockade as the army trucks pulled past with all the survivors. I spot her red hair right away, but she takes a minute to see me then waves happily. This fantasy (or a similar version) plus mentally reviewed every menu from every restaurant in the tri-state area kept me quite occupied.

About noon, I realized I should be on a rescue truck by then, but no such luck. In fact there where even more zombies outside. Worse yet, one looked to be a half eaten soldier. Three different zombies spotted me and started pounding on the window. This was the first time I really noticed the blue shimmer. It looked like blue static would roll across the window when they where beating on it. Yeah, I know how stupid it sounds. I looked at it for a couple of minutes as they pounded, but my headache was really getting to me so I closed the blinds and hoped they would quiet down. Eventually they did. After the pounding stopped my head eased a bit, but not much.

My stomach, the noises outside the bathroom door, and crying about my situation are the three things that distracted me from my migraine level headache. The clicking noise of my cell telling me that there was no signal had been the only non-zombie noise I heard since the gunfire died down that morning. I definitely seen a few guys that looked “army” wandering around outside amongst the ranks of the dead. The window pounding started and my anxiety and headache got the better of me… I threw the blinds aside and saw 3 of them pounding on the window. The blue static flared even brighter than before. I figured it was the migraine making the light hurt my eyes. I started pounding on the glass from inside screaming at them to go away. I pound the window with both hands and the shimmering blue really hits my eyes. I must have spooked them because they jumped back and fell to the ground. I drop the blind back in place and oddly my head felt a bit better. Mercifully the pounding did not return.

It probably would have, but a shrieking siren started blasting coupled with a pulsing light. My headache came back in full swing. I realized the sound was the fire alarm. A little red speaker and flashing light on the wall became the worst thing in the world at that point. My head was killing me, the light was driving me nuts, and the echoing of a fire alarm in a small 7×7 bathroom was making everything worse. I could barely hear the moaning over the noise, but I could tell every damn zombie in the building was screaming too. Maybe they hated the noise as much as I did. I spent about 3 minutes hating the noise when I actually had the thought… “What if there is a fire?” I probably lost it then. My head screamed and I woke up on the floor. The siren was still blasting but I didn’t remember falling down. The pounding had resumed on the windows and the doors. I laid still for a few minutes and the pounding once again ceased. The alarm and headache did not.

With a bit more calm, I realized we had tiled ceilings. If I could stick my head up I might could see smoke and tell if this was a real fire or something else happened. I hoped it was a survivor setting it off to try to get help or maybe a zombie snagged one of the levers by mistake. I moved to the toilet and stood on it, but it wasn’t quite high enough so I moved up to the window ledge and it did allow me to poke my head up high enough to knock a tile out of place and look around up top.

The good news was, I did not smell smoke or see a glowing red. The bad news was it was so dark there could be smoke a good distance away, and I might not be able to see it. I was perched rather precariously, so I came back down. I checked every few minutes, but no smoke or fire. I did notice a few boards beside some wiring up there. I couldn’t see over the whole center, but it did look like I might be able to crawl around up here. The closest board was about 7 feet away, and I was absolutely certain this cheap, crumbly tile would not support my fat butt. So I would have to figure out how to make it that far.

The alarm stopped! I hopped back down and checked the window. Still nothing but zombies. I guess I had been expecting a fire truck and soldiers outside. They noticed me again and started pounding on the window again. The blue shimmer started, my headache jumped up a level, and I realized a new crew was at my window. Gale was slobbering and trying to chew through the bottom of the glass. Tom and Chad were pushing each other aside for the right to pound on my window. It was much worse knowing the people who wanted to eat you. Though it was also kind of funny seeing them pound on the glass. Gale was a huge woman in life. If she held true, I am sure she would need to eat 4 times as many people as other zombies. I closed the blind and laughed for a couple of minutes, and then I started crying. Gale had always been nothing but nice to me and I was making fun of her dead body.

I have no idea how long I sat there crying. Chad, Tom and Gale didn’t appear to give up. My head was screaming at me. The stupid bluish light seemed to be creeping in from the edges of my vision. I do know I eventually turned the lights off again because it was dark. Finally my friends outside stopped, and my headache eased a bit. I wanted a drink of water, but I didn’t want to start any pounding again, so I went to sleep.

Notable things from May 15, Day 3

I woke up to more pounding on the door. I scooped another drink from the sink. I realized if I lost power the sensor in the sink probably wouldn’t work. I was pissed. I drank my fill, told my “Just a minute” joke again, and resolved to get some aspirin, some pancakes (they sounded really good), and get out of this bathroom before dark or die trying. I have a little multi-tool in my pocket that has many little useful devices. None of which where helpful in getting the bolts out of the flimsy bathroom stall door and wall. I would close the utility tool over the head of the bolt and clamp down tightly to try and unscrew the bolt. It took about 4 hours and I bloodied most of my knuckles. I hadn’t cried yet. The pounding, the almost constant blue tinge, and the grumbles from my stomach fueled my anger and kept me focused..

The attempt to get the door and the wall up to the ceiling to bridge the gap to the crawlspace almost broke me. I dropped it numerous times. I shouted numerous profanities. I cried some. I made so much noise that the pounding on the door and the window was worse than it had ever been. At this point my head was hurting so bad, everything had a blue tinge. I knocked down every tile, but I could not climb up without both hands, and even the door was too heavy to hold with one hand. In a rage I tried to throw it up through the ceiling. Technically I just pushed really, really hard and it slid along the top of the wall far enough and tipped over and landed perfectly. I was dumbfounded for a second. If I had seen this sitting in a movie theatre I would have called shenanigans.

Now here I sit, writing all this crap down, and hoping its not for nothing. I update the list of names in the towel dispenser. I really don’t expect to live for much more than an hour, much less get those pancakes. But I am not going to starve to death waiting for the army.

I plan to use the boards to get over to the maintenance closet which is about 30 feet away. It is normally kept locked, and has access to the roof. I should be able to hop down one story and make a run for it. If I have too I should be able to scream loud enough and attract them to one side. Hopefully I can make it to my car. Either way I won’t be dying in a fucking bathroom. Even if I die, I doubt anyone will read this. I’d say wish me luck, but this is all over. So I’ll simply ask that you pray for my soul, wherever it is.

The End (Hopefully not)

Apparently not. I made it up to the platform, its shimmering blue around the edges where it pushes into the various tiled areas until I made it to the board. That’s not why I pulled out this journal. I just wanted to say the window broke two seconds after I made it up here. Maybe God is watching out for me. I’m outta here again.