The Missing Day

It;s not very often that I miss a day on here. In the midst of the stress all of us deal with every day, from worries about food to the ever-present worries of a zombie attack, this blog is my release valve. Yesterday was a really tough day for all of us, both physically and emotionally. We decided on exile, and as predicted the children of our troublemakers decided to go with the parents. But we have learned our lesson from our first exile, however, and this time we bound the adults to the seats of the vehicles we took them out in.

We dropped them off about fifty miles away. It took all day to get there and back, and we left them with enough food and water to last them a few weeks, more if they stretch it. We gave them some tools and a few weapons, along with some other things they will need to survive. I hope they live, though they might become a danger to us, only for the sake of the kids with them.

But on to more positive and exciting news. Evans gave us his full report on what he has discovered about the zombie outbreak, from studying several of them, and I will sum it up for you here.

Upon dissection of a zombie, he discovered a dense growth in the skull of the creature, covering the brain and creeping through it very thoroughly. This growth, which he believes is a bacteria, seems to pervade pretty much every system of the human body. Based on the behavior of the zombies, he thinks that the bacteria infects us while we are alive, and learns our nervous systems, our brain functions, our muscular control, etc. At the moment of death, it seems that the bacteria gains full control for the first time, which explains why the longer a zombie has been a zombie, the more coordinated and clever they get. Practice makes perfect and all that.

He notes that each area of the body seems to have a specialized version of the bacteria running through it--long, tough fibrous ones in the muscles, soft and porous ones in the stomach, to absorb and distribute nutrients  to the colony and the tissues of the human host. He tells us that the bacteria is both feeding the human cells while secreting something that keeps them from dieing off too quickly, and slows down the deterioration when the body does begin its inevitable spiral into decay.

This is a lot of speculation, of course, but it does make sense based on the observable data. It does leave a few things in question, such as why a few zombies seem to be mindless but otherwise living people. (Maybe they died and were taken over so quickly that the bacteria managed to restart their systems, pump blood and all the like, without allowing any real brain function...if that is the case, then some of these poor bastards might be human again with the right medicine...)

That is what his research boils down to at present. I am sure that more findings will come down the road, and I will pass on to all of you what we discover.

At least we have some clue now why the attacks have become more common, more focused. If we could find a way to keep them at bay so we didn't have to fight almost every day, we could accomplish a lot more. Any ideas you guys might have would be appreciated, just post them in the comments.