Journal entry 236, week 112
Gout is something you get if you’re a character in a Dickens novel, But apparently it’s also something you can get in a zombie apocalypse.
It’s been two years since the outbreak, and it’s become increasingly difficult to farm and sustainably harvest food. We learned pretty quickly that any and all mammals could be infected with the virus, so we had to pivot to fishing and foraging. In the beginning, we just found mushrooms, but Bryant had their foraging guide so we were able to harvest the safe ones and grow them in old laundry baskets. Relatively recently, we found some wild carrots and potatoes, but they’re still growing in our shed. We’re still camped out on an island in the middle of Lake Erie, well, less the middle than about half a mile out. Either way, the water provides protection from the infected and also has stores of fish that we’ve been farming to eat because the disease can’t be spread through them.
But back to the current problem, gout. You’d think that it would be the last problem to deal with in an apocalypse of all things, isn’t it just a disease that affected old rich men in Dickens novels? Apparently not. Lukas, our resident medical student, says that it’s probably because of our diets the last two years. Combining all the fish and Mushrooms we’ve been eating with the salt curing we did to make them last longer has made our bodies make too much Uric acid, which is apparently the cause of gout. Either way, we’ve all got it, which makes running from the infected a tad bit harder than before. Not to mention that winter is coming again, and when it does, the water will freeze. Essentially, for the next three months until winter ends, we’re screwed.
Journal Entry 237, week 113
Half our people have gout so badly they can hardly walk, much less run, and the other three of us are basically working around the clock to treat them and find different ways to feed ourselves. Bryant, from their bed, suggested going to an off grid cabin their family used to live in, where they had an underground bunker system. We’ve talked about moving there before, but the trek with six people was too far to justify, especially with having to haul our equipment along with us to the place. The infected are stupid, but their sense of smell is overpowering. They walk into the lake on the daily, and while most freeze and starve, some make their way up and onto the beach where we camp out. Usually it’s one or two a day, and we’ve gotten good at dispatching them, but sometimes there are more and they’ve grown a layer of adiposair around them, a fatty, but rocklike armor from being under water for so long. Those ones are the worst. We had to deal with three today, and one managed to scratch me. I’m… feeling okay, but I’ve cordoned myself off on the other side of the island in a pit with a knife to defend myself if any infected fall in here while I quarantine.
It’s been 12 hours, m’ not feelin so good. I’m hungry, but the food here makes me feel sick and more hungry than anything else. Hopefully when the others find my journal they’ll figure out what happened.,
Body Hurts. Need food. Stuck in hole. Angry. So.. tired.