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Working on Volume II - Amazing Grace - Part VIII

 

 

 

Amazing Grace –

 

The El Niño Legend

(Surviving the Zombie Invasion)

Part VIII

By

Carl R. ToersBijns, author

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

Carl entered the kitchen and with tiled floors and solid walls, there were no window in this solid granite fortification, therefore it was impossible to tell whether it was raining outside or not. He was certain there would be no sunshine this morning as that had been the case for the past three weeks since the El Nino arrived.

When he entered the kitchen, he saw Heather and Grace at the preparation island, making something to eat for breakfast, and what looked like they grabbed some cold cereal. Smiling their way, he reached in for his iron skillet and took out three eggs, some virgin olive oil and a package of bacon. Taking his time, he grabbed two slices of wheat bread and poured himself a hot cup of coffee.

Carl had been concerned about Heather’s wellness, as these thunderstorms, day after day, appeared to have caused her some discomfort or mental anguish. Grace had told him that thunderstorms had always given Heather the scares and that it was normal. On the other hand, Carl noticed a sign of depression and wanted to talk about it soon.

Even now, being secured and safe inside the bunker, Heather, a girl of the age of six, it was hard for her to deal with the reality that existed around her, as she was absolutely frightened at the loud claps of thunder and the sudden bright flashes from the lightning.

Sitting here in the dark bunker whether it was day or night, seemed to take on a more frightening quality that was something they needed to worry about.  She had a tough time dealing with all that for the moment.

Perhaps it was time the two adults took her out a little more, instead of leaving her inside here inside her concrete box of a room. The mood was light and Carl wanted to talk to Grace about this sometime soon.

In the meantime, Grace greeted him with a passionate hug as the sight of her splendor brought an extra-long smile that was saying, “Good morning babe.” She crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and tightly hugged him.

Talking low with a low sardonic tone, Grace smiled and said, I don’t know about you, but that cold cereal didn’t hit the spot; do you feel like making me some of your specialty of bacon and eggs? I am so hungry after all that exercise last night.”

Smiling genuinely this time around, Carl said, “sure, give me a moment and I will fix it right up so if you want, go ahead and sit there at the island and I’ll hurry to get your breakfast ready.”

She squeezed his hand and kissed him on the back of his neck with some deliberate slow and sensually and seductive lingering up close and personal, letting Carl smell the fragrance of sweet honey that was so natural and so strong whenever she was standing close to him. She knew it drove him crazy.

By then, Heather had left the kitchen after eating her cold cereal and headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth. For the time being, the two were alone in the kitchen. Grace slid her hands under Carl’s tee shirt and pinched his nipples extra hard. A loud scream resonated through the cavern as Carl yelled out with pain.

 Carl grabbed Grace and boosted her up in the air, showing how strong he was by merely lifting her up without any effort. Swirling her around a little while up in the air, he gently put her down with a little bit of a sign that he was a little out of breath.

Suddenly, he lifted her up soft and tenderly laid his eyes on her eyes, and then slowly put her back down on the tile floor. Catching his breath, Carl hugged her from behind, placing his hands up her front and slithering his hands towards the curves of her stunningly sculptured breasts that were very revealing through the sheer white tee shirt she was wearing.

Good-humoredly, Grace covered his hands that were softly squeezing her while cupping her breasts and then Carl, forcefully, pressed his hard body against her.

Her sexiness was beginning to create a stirring and passionate moment for the two of them standing there in the kitchen.

He could feel her nipples protruding through the thin cloth and once again, just about the time he thrusted his body against her buttocks, his cock was rock hard and erect under his shorts that were pressed firmly against her ass. He wanted her to feel his manhood as it was pressed against her firm and tight buns.

Her nicely proportioned body was attractively shaped and revealed her athletic form well. She had well rounded breasts that were not extra-large but not small as they were perfectly sized, nicely shaped and fitted well in his groping hands. Anything more would have been a wasted pleasure.

He retaliated her earlier torture by pinching her erected nipples hard, as she let out a slightly aggravated yelp and winched with the sting. This kind of roughhousing was their way of foreplay and usually led to a wild moment of sexual pleasure.

After a few seconds, she released his hands and slapped them lightly, teasingly saying, “You’re burning my bacon.”

Laughing, they both sat down at the table and tucked their plates directly in front of them. Sitting on the opposite sides, Carl sipped on his coffee while Grace gulped down another tall glass of orange juice.

Looking up to Grace, he said, “I don’t really feel hungry this morning, I think I made my meal just out of habit and didn’t even think about whether I was hungry or not.” Surprised, Grace responded, “you are always hungry in the morning, what’s wrong.”

“I am not quite sure how I feel about what we did last night, I mean, don’t take this wrong cause the sex is great but I am wondering where this is all going and how do we deal with this so we don’t hurt each other.”

Grace said softly, “I promise you this, I won’t hold anything against you; you are under no obligation to take care of us after we are all free from this madness and back in the routines we had before the El Nino hit us so hard.”

Carl tried to reassure her he was not feeling guilty but that he was concerned about the emotions in this relationship. He was just thinking out loud and sighed loudly. Then he spit it out “I enjoyed it too much to risk doing anything that might stop it happening again.”

Grace, always level headed and calm, paused for a second.  “Perhaps we should cool the jets a bit and not take any more risks like that again” she replied seemingly irritated and somewhat hurt as she said in a caustic voice, “what are you planning to do today?”

Carl had learned a long time ago that when a woman changes the subject, the conversation had ended. Quietly he stood up and placed his cup and plate in the sink.

Then, moving his eyes on a hurting Grace, he spoke very slowly and with a serious expression, he walked over to her and gently rubbed her shoulders.

After standing behind her a couple of seconds, he noticed her shoulders heaving up and down and realized she was crying – she was dismayed and uncertain what just went down and what the problem really was.

He knew her tears were real and didn’t know how to handle this and not make it worse than it already had gotten. Carl reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders and reassured her that all is good and that he just wanted to make sure nobody got hurt.

They had been lovers for about three weeks now. They both loved the demanding passion and fire. There was definitely a clear lust, passion and neediness for each other’s desires.

Ever since that night outside the bunker, they have enjoyed every moment of being together. They usually make love at night and sometimes during the day but are always worried that Heather may walk through the door at any moment. It seems that ever since Grace has been sneaking over to Carl’s room at night, they have been screwing longer and longer and sometimes, before they even make it to the bedroom. Sometimes they drift in the relaxation room and find the couch and chairs useful for their obsessive sexual moments.

A hard confession would lead to an admission of having sex in every room except Heather’s, leaving the kitchen island stand, the laundry room and the shower. When their asses were in need of sex they landed wherever or whatever was the closest.

Carl likes to fuck hard and had great stamina – Grace likes it at anytime, anywhere and was very accommodating how they wanted to fuck. She had never once has said ‘no’ to his sexually unambiguous advances.

Sometimes they go at it for more than an hour as he pounds her hard as she never complains no matter how bad her pussy hurts. Grace had let it be known to Carl she loves to suck his dick. In fairness to Carl, he never complained about her doing him that way.

They have their favorite or preferred positions but no matter how they do it, they always end it laying silently wrapped in each other’s arms, usually perking up after a short rest and start it all over again.

Mixing it up with a wide variety of pleasure and sex games, this changing the rules and styles of making love kept their passion on fire. They experienced euphoria almost every time they were intimate together.

Afterwards, they would stare into each other’s eyes and talk small talk before falling asleep together. Carl saw a reasonable gap in their conversation to bring up his concerns about Heather.

He had talked about it briefly with Grace and told her he was not comfortable leaving her here alone for a couple hours when they went to scavenge or find supplies. She confessed she felt the same.

Today, he wanted to talk about her fear of the thunder and lightning.

It seems she was having real trauma whenever she heard or saw the thunder storms roll up and unleash its fury. At least, this was what Carl had observed whenever she was with them.

Deciding that maybe it was time they asked Heather what was bothering her, Grace called her to the relaxation room. Sitting there and waiting for her to come, Carl whispered to Grace, “don’t be hard on her, she is just a kid. I remember when I was a kid and afraid of the thunder.”

Grace laughed and said, “Hard to imagine you were afraid of anything when you were a kid, stud.” Carl took the joke and patiently sat there quietly as Grace began to talk to Heather about her fear of the thunderstorms.

The conversation started politely and to the point. Grace was being kind and asking for Heather to explain her feelings. Somewhere between the fears of the thunder she started talking about the fear of being alone. It seemed Heather had her own story to tell her mother and the man sitting quietly in this room.

Heather began to speak slowly. For a six year old she was very good at expressing how she felt or what she needed. Suddenly, without a warning, she opened up on something both of the adults were unaware of until Heather explained it in full particulars of her inner fears.

Heather spoke and said, “There were times I woke up in the middle of the night hearing the thunder and reaching for my mommy but I couldn’t find her until the next morning. Knowing my mommy was just right down the hall, I tried not to scream or cry or even get more scared so I waited until it was time to get up.”

Grace and Carl were mummified and shocked. Heather kept talking and revealed more of her story. Heather didn’t stop there. She revealed more by saying, “There were times I walked down the hallway and tried looking for mommy and heard her and Carl inside the bedroom making noises.

I didn’t want to tell, so I often slept in to give her time to get back to the room before I pretended to wake up and say good morning to mommy.”

Spending not too much time outside, didn’t eliminate Heather’s fear of the storms. In fact, she claimed she could tell it was raining and thundering outside even when the bunker was soundproof but when she looked out the square window she saw the flashes.

The thunder was silent but she knew, where there was lightning there was rolling thunder. Although slightly noticed, the ground did shake on some of those wacks especially those close ones.

She said that every time she heard the thunder, the window shook or rumbled. The lightning filled the sky in a flash bulb effect, freezing her to the window and being really scared; so scared she would start running away to hide in her room, where she would cover herself under the blankets.

Carl was stunned. Grace was amazingly calm but disturbed none the less that her daughter had revealed secrets that showed she had more trauma to deal with at the shelter as well as what was happening out side with the killings of zombies and the rolling thunderstorms.

This wasn’t just about the El Nino storms, this wasn’t just about the killings that she witnessed but ad to be done in order to survive. This had to do more with taking a small child out of her own house and moving into a strange house that wasn’t the same for her.

She had no ideas how to act or play inside this new house. She was definitely confused and miserable.

She was sad to leave all the good experiences in her old house behind. She missed her own bedroom and missed her friends. This had completely been lost in the midst of all the zombie generated chaos.

She missed not having an upstairs and her own bathroom. She loved playing on the stairs and missed that so much, it made her unhappy.

Her room had a big closet that had a door that creaked when you opened it and she was used to the noises it made.

She missed her favorite lamp that she knew how to turn on when she had to go the bathroom at night. Heather said it was sad being inside this room she was staying in as it was not her real room and that it made her feel alone and she was scared to be alone.

Heather added, “Not because of the storms mommy, but because I was not in my own house. It wasn’t the same. I miss my room.” It was then that they realized she had not adjusted to the shelter.

Although they coped and functioned normally with a natural adaptation, Heather didn’t adapt and held on to the old days and old ways.  They had to find a way to resolve this so Heather could sleep with peace and mind and not be afraid any longer.

 

Working on Volumie II - Part VII -

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing Grace –

 

The El Niño Legend

(Surviving the Zombie Invasion)

Part VII

By

Carl R. ToersBijns, author

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

Carl was doing some serious research on these water logged and bloated zombies that he realized must have some kind of resistance to decomposing as they appeared to be somewhat half-alive.

He had noticed the disintegrating, decayed corpses but he also noticed that the amount of decay was limited and not as progressive or advanced as science explained it to be under these environmental circumstances. Something was interfering with the natural decomposing process and Carl wanted to know what that was.

This prompted him to look into the mystery as he explained his theory to Grace that the flooded El Nino waters appeared to be aiding the retardation of these walkers and their method of rottenness to a degree that kept them more intact than others he had seen.

His theory was that under ideal conditions, their rotted flesh was a magnet for various species of decomposers he knew existed under certain conditions. Off hand, he knew of three decomposers that were organism made of bacteria, fungi and worms or insects. He was certain there were others but having no extensive background in biology, he was guessing they were the major sources in this part of the world.

Under normal conditions, specifically without the interference or dynamics of the El Nino, he speculated the flooding and pools of water was somehow impeding the decomposition or decaying process making them remain stronger and possess more vigor or vitality even when they are half-life or half-undead.

Scientifically, they should have decayed faster but since they were water logged, bloated and underwater at times, they didn’t attract the usual decomposers such as certain bacteria, fungi, and insect species such as flies, beetles, ants, and other kinds of bugs unable to live under the water.

With a puzzled face he cringed and bit his lip, glancing over to where Grace was sitting and asking her, “Why do these un-dead zombies stop decomposing?”

This prompted him to believe he might be able to find a cure for this retardation of rotted flesh that kept the walkers more upright and rigid longer or so it seemed. His curiosity was peeked and he wouldn’t let go of the matter.

Showing her light humor in this conversation, Grace looked at Carl and said to him, “I got the cure right here baby, a sawed off twelve gauge shotgun with Double Ought [00] buck loaded in it.”

Carl laughed and reached out to give her a kiss. Playfully horsing around and having a good time, they were dealing and coping with the situation at hand light-heartedly and with a good sense of humor. This was healthy under the adverse conditions of confinement and being cooped up all the time.

 Later that night, Grace said to Carl, “do you think that these colder nights and lack of sunlight has impacted the zombie’s body temperature too? Since the landscape is constantly flooded killing most of the insects and keeping the flies and other winged creatures away, does all this water along with colder temperatures and lower levels of oxygen alter the rotting of the flesh process?”

Scratching his head, Carl said, “Using your theory, it would mean that zombies couldn’t’ live in severe cold climates like up North in the Dakotas or Minnesota or even places like Alaska.”

He was beginning to see a correlation between hot and cold temperatures and throwing the retardation process of the water interfering with the natural decomposers in the mix.

Searching on the laptop, he began to dive into the matter and started reading tons of documents related to decomposing properties of the human body and how the environment impacted this process.

Additionally, the El Nino did not impact the northern states as much as it did the southern or central states giving them the drier parts of the weather fronts or systems most of the time. This could explain why the zombie experience was rare up there.

This was important to document for this wild and freelanced hypothesis as this hint was significant information that Carl could use to his advantage somewhere down the line.

Assuming that colder temps makes it more difficult to decompose, he also read in his research how the zombie virus prevents a total undead condition and only creates a half-alive, half-undead creature under the current weather related circumstances. He began to wonder how the El Nino had changed this somehow.

This prompted Carl to believe or speculate that controlling the climate would control zombie outbreaks to a large degree and needed to be communicated with other sources.

Whether or not zombie flesh was toxic was hard to determine unless you are a scientist who was fortunate enough to collect real samples and DNA of these creatures. He was certain the military had the answers to this as they have been sampling zombies for many years now.

Perhaps the infection carried with it an immunity to attacks by bacteria or other fungi substances and insects that would normally create maggots and infest the flesh eating worms to eat the skin.

It would be logical that since a zombie cannot reanimate even after being infected, this same process halts the decomposition of the decaying flesh enough to retard the process to a large degree. One has to wonder if this applied to vampires as well and how scientist have dealt with that phenomena over time.

So was the El Nino stopping the zombies from decomposing? Does it slow down the deterioration of their flesh until it no longer falls off and just dangles there on their half exposed skeletal frame?

Does this process create an armored layer of hardened decayed flesh and in the absence of flesh, a skeletal layer of protection like that of a dinosaur skeleton of a T Rex from the past?

Carl knew that walkers moved even when their limbs had been severely impaired or disconnected. These corpses were resilient creatures that never stopped advancing to find their victims. In some cases, a zombie was found too far and wasted away enough to not be able to stand walk or attack a human being who was not infected.

Curiously, Carl wanted to find the answers to this notion that could reveal how to defeat the zombie’s growth and strength to keep on attacking.

Using the reverse concept, these zombies would not thrive well in warmer climates or high humidity places as these undead would decay at a faster pace than those in the colder climates but the only common denominator was the rain from the El Nino.

This brought the humidity up around 90 to 100 per cent and with the heat, limit the lifespan of the zombies for less than six weeks. Using this theory, a zombie would last longer than six weeks under cold climates and high humidity but with the rains drowning insects, fungi and other bacteria, this retardation could keep a zombie alive much longer.

This is contrary to the theory that at first freeze, the zombie plague is over because it couldn’t continue to scavenging as predators and lack the opportunity to reanimate and multiply in numbers.

Using his research material, Carl found out that according to forensic anthropologists, they will tell you that the human body decomposes in roughly one week when exposed to air or water. Temperature and humidity affect this timeframe: hot/wet will accelerate decomposition, whereas cold/dry will delay the process.

He began to assume that the zombie virus when exposed to the weather conditions of the harsh El Nino storms somehow prevents decomposition of flesh and reduces the speed of the decaying process because the lack of availability of bacteria, fungi or worms and insects have been greatly impaired by the standing water covering the landscape resulting in an absence of these microorganism critter to do their jobs.

He wasn’t sure about his conclusions or theories but it got him thinking. If this was something he could manipulate inside his own world of surviving this ordeal, he could alter the conditions to suit his needs to weaken the hordes of walkers and reduce their numbers over time with manipulating the environment conditions around chosen locations.

Ironically, the idea the flood waters helped retard the zombie decaying process was also a curious subgenre of some typical zombie movies that had been shown on TV and caused Carl to think a bit deeper than entertainment purposes.

He was trying to find a cure (other than the twelve gauge shotgun method) for reducing the zombie population and feared the water of the El Nino was interfering with the natural decaying process.

People eating people was not a natural act. It was surreal and cannibalism at its best. Getting a little angry and thinking about these undead monsters living and thriving around him was created a god-awful obsession inside him.

Swearing he wanted to find out how the El Nino had disrupted the rotting of flesh process was his next plan to tackle during his quiet time inside the bunker. After all this time, he was certain the connection between the El Nino and its weather making dynamics impacted the way the zombies in one peculiar way or another.

Besides the fact these walkers were unable to think, walk in a half-baked manner and execute with bizarre rigid movements was something he had accepted but what was unacceptable to him was the chance they were being preserved by the constant deluge of flood waters perhaps giving them a safe place either underwater or partially submerged water to deliberately delay the decomposition of flesh.

It was hard to picture a zombie as a swimmer and Carl was certain that wasn’t the case. He was particularly concerned with the fact that water delayed the rotting part of decomposition.

He needed to formulate a plan to save the day sort of speak and experiment how the water impacted these water logged slow plodding creatures who moved at an interminable or perpetual pace but yet seemed to cope with the environment. Assuming that zombies are half-alive, then the cure to stopping their growth was to stop the half-alive part from living.

Looking at this from a rational and practical viewpoint, Carl knew zombies had natural predators of heat, humidity, insects, cold and a lack of an immunity system.

By all practical thinking, zombies should have no chance of lasting or surviving for a very long time. They lifespan is theoretically too short to multiple in hordes even if one infected person bites thirty people, the math doesn’t make it real. What was driving the exponential growth of these mindless creatures?

Under realistic conditions, the military, cops and public service agencies evacuate and remain intact unlike the movies showing them all wiped out and only a few survivors remain.

Comparing his current status in society, Carl knew and witnessed the presence of military troops and cops in helicopters but none on land where the zombies lived or existed making traveling the roads, streets and highways unsafe.

However, because the El Nino had dumped several feet of floodwater on these same places, they were unsafe also because of poor traverse conditions, not because of hordes of walkers. This would explain the lack of survivors inside the troubled and partially demolished city streets.

Therefore, he believed the El Nino caused the food chain to be depleted for the zombies and denying them of victims to bite and infect creating a stockpile of infected zombies lasting longer but suffering to find flesh to eat or consume.

Another factor has been the absence of animals, any kind of animal, domestic or wild that have fled the flooded landscape following the humans out of town.

If these animals could survive the high waters and function as nature developed them, they would indeed be looking to eat zombies and consume them as meals since they are all meat and bones even if an animal isn’t hungry, it sees a meal.

Zombies are at a distinct disadvantage compared to humans. Humans are smarter, well-armed and able to hunt with instincts for survival needs. On the other hand, zombies wander out in the open having no weapons and can’t think or plan like the humans can.

Unlike the humans who know they possess a fight or flight instinct mechanism commonly called “self-preservation”, zombies don’t hide or seek shelter when it’s in danger.

Henceforth, the El Nino has decimated the insect population that could have attacked and destroyed the remaining tissue of zombies. The rain has kept away the flies, the smaller insects and other bacteria causing or possessing flesh predators.

With the flies missing, maggots are not swarming these undead carcasses of the unloving. They are not eating away the soft tissue of their eyes and other parts that couldn’t survive such an assault meaning that most of their soft tissues will be infested, and their eyes will be very quickly useless.

Thus Southern California, even in the metro areas have been known to have bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars and mountain lions plus a wide range of meat eating domestic animals.

In most conditions, these animals would be strong but the floodwaters have chased them away or killed them as some can’t endure a sustained swim with the waters being so plentiful and creating large pools of water in the low laying areas of the valley.

Hell, just think of the millions of stray dogs out there who'll quickly learn that zombies are an easy meal but drowned or evacuated due to the high waters.

Carl had already calculated the impact of heat, cold and humidity and found reasonable doubt that this process was being interfered by the El Nino created environmental conditions to a large extent.

So why did the zombies survive under water and how come their bodies didn’t bloat with gasses created by the bacteria unless the bacteria growth was stifled. Then the decomposition was slowed down a lot.

Finally, the spectrums involving the El Nino had upset the eco system of the major environment – the desert, the mountains and the sun. In the sun, a zombie would be quickly mummified. However, sunlight has been sparse due to the constant cloud cover and has dropped earthly temperatures drastically.

While the normal symptoms of dehydration are not a concern for a zombie, there is the problem of desiccation. With no reasonable means of replenishing the water in their cells, zombies walking around in the California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas heat all day are going to suffer cell damage due to direct sun exposure to their skin unless the sun disappeared.

Since the El Nino tradewinds are usually heavily filled with moist wind and not dry like in the desert, their existence can be more preserved realistically and at some point, more and more effectively until, at some point, they simply drop and wait for the scavengers to come pick them up for an easy meal.

Thus it was the time that the El Nino altered, the time to exist in such climate and weather conditions was extended by contributing factors that favored zombies. So these undead consumed by a virus turned into Cujos like rabid dogs do and infect others and as they cope within the better environment, they reproduce effectively.

They reproduce like a disease, one that spreads via a bite from the infected like they have a virus carried by the infected zombie saliva or whatever strange zombie created bacteria (if that is possible) produces such a venom.

But this also means their spread should be subject to the same rules of a normal epidemic, and biting is not the most effective way to spread a disease but it does work over time creating the possibility that the El Nino shortens the infection time as well as the other dynamics created, altered or impacted by this longer lasting El Nino storm disaster.

In the meantime, Grace wanted to work on an assessment process to find someone who could help take care of Heather when they were gone looking or scavenging for supplies.

She needed to create a “zombie safe temperament test” that would give her a better clue about the character traits of the person(s) they found out there and chose to join their survival mission. The freshly molded temperament tests includes:

The "assess-a-hand", which involves offering a large, fake hand to the person to see their reaction was to shake it or eat it. This is threatening and can cause even very calm non-infected persons to react in a manner that may show intent.

Touching each other hands – something that many well-adjusted persons don't like but necessary to determine if the person has self-control to avoid an obsession to bite, claw, or grab the hand.

Testing persons for so-called "food aggression", which is a behavior that may be caused by the environment itself showing whether the person has a normal appetite for real human made food that is consumable as behave like zombies who don’t eat or have the desire to eat.

Face to face staring at each other within a cage or barrier between them to determine if a persons is negatively reactive or easily provoked to other people which is not the natural way a normal person would encounter another normal person.

Conduct a fear test to sense fear or insecurities in the person making sure they are suitable for companionship. The test here focuses on stress test, sweating, speech, decision making and verbalization of the fear stimuli used.

The very small amount of caution these tests may provide is largely outweighed by their negative impact on non-infected people and detect those who have been infected or under the influence of the virus making these tests a virtual death sentence for those suspected of being infected or under the suspicion of being infected.

There is no certain order these tests can be or should be conducted. A loaded shotgun should be available for immediate disposal of all unqualified applicants.

 

 

 

Working on Volume II - preview

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing Grace –

 

The El Niño Legend

(Surviving the Zombie Invasion)

Part VI

By

Carl R. ToersBijns, author

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

The news of these series of perfectly aligned oceanic storms generated by the perpetual and still powerful El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, were creating surging mini-like tsunami waves comparable white foamy ripples of savagely powerful swells.

Lashing out at the now battered and damaged shoreline with absolute brutal force, the destruction was intolerable for Mother Nature to heal. 

High waves of stubborn massive ocean water made frothy twenty foot high white breaker waves creating a violent backlash of foam-covered water splashing and trashing its hurricane force waves against freshly eroding beach front consuming everything in sight on the beach or further inland.

What was once a dormant dry and a long spanned drought season has turned into an agonizing nightmare, that could best be described as a gross contamination of the soil and pollution of the landscape, causing deteriorating eco conditions and making it hard to travel freely and unrestricted without being stopped by the cops.

Even four wheel drive vehicles had difficulties, especially going up the inclines of any accessible mountain roads sloped with steep grades and covered with a massive layer of red clay mud that stuck to the tires, and if traction was lost, it would leave the driver and occupants helpless and stranded on foot somewhere in the dense and water-logged woods.

Having wondered how Grace and Heather ended up near the bunker a few weeks ago, Carl had asked her how she managed to escape death and find a way out of her dilemma of being trapped in the swirling flashflood waters when her SUV was carried by the swift currents to a spot near his road just off the freeway about a mile from his shelter.

She mentioned to him how a strange man, had spotted her trapped and stuck in the deep mud and helped her get out of her partially entombed and almost submerged SUV surrounded by in the thick sludge.

Trying to open the door unsuccessfully, he decided to rescue her by breaking her passenger window and helping her and Heather crawl out of the car, pulling them out by their arms and setting them free.

He told her he too was caught in the swift waters but managed to get up on a high spot that gave him a chance to escape his truck he was driving before it was caught by another wave of surging flood waters and carried further downstream leaving him on foot. It seemed the water came from the top of the mountain in a swell that was like an avalanche roaring downhill at high speed.

Grace told her horror story of this man, who called himself Neil, and how he was telling her to follow him up to the higher ground and that he knew of a cabin that was located up there where they could stay to wait out the storm but they got separated and then, while looking for him, Heather and her got further lost in the deeper parts of the woods when Carl found them.

She didn’t know him well enough to trust him but said she was so desperate to get Heather out of the drenching rain and to a safe place, she followed him before they got separated in the darkness.

Yelling and shouting out his name, she was almost ready to give up on staying alive before Carl came out to rescue Heather and her stranded there under that tree trying to keep the rain from pelting them with what she thought was hail.

It’s been over two weeks now since the storms began and in the meantime the sun  has not come out to dry out any of the flooded landscapes that had turned into marshlands and lakes large enough to go boating on with full sized yachts.

The falling seasonal temperatures were even colder than before because of the lack of sunlight in the air. Between the disappearing now underwater beaches and the major inland deluge of localized heavy rains and unyielding torrential showers, this storm covered hundreds of square miles; the landscape was saturated and consumed with dead bodies waiting to be collected by the military that has declared a national state of emergency and placed Southern California under martial law.

California was deeply exposed to severe flood tolerances that impacted nature as well as its densely populated cities and metro areas in many diverse ways that were hard to understand by anyone seeing the destruction and now the El Nino has captured the entire season of fall and likely leak into winter, the growing seasons will be harmful to the environment and people trying to survive in many ways.

Instead of the long awaited rainwater producing growth, these high waters have cut off the oxygen to many trees, plants and animals now underwater and killing many species. Everything from the city to the valleys was submerged in water or water-logged so badly, it suffocated and died.

More than anything else, it was the depth of the water, the temperatures and lack of oxygen that created the unnatural crisis of tolerating the rain waters and finding shallow waters to travel through. Basically speaking, it was an unreal disaster that would take generations to undo or turn around.

Drinking water was critical as the ground water was now contaminated with chemicals soaked into the soil by the constant flooding and the mixture of human waste coming out of the city and the concentrated amount of salty sea water was killing all that could not resist their corrosive elements.

In the meantime, the personal relationship between Carl and Grace has become a little more complicated than it had been before they became intimately involved and now looking after each other with Heather watching, seeing her mom grow closer and closer to this man she hardly knew.

Just because they kept their sexual relationships hidden from Heather, it was clear to see they still had an exceptional desirability towards each other.

Only a blind man could see the sensuality and caring emotions displayed between each other, as Grace would lay down with Heather at night and remain there with her, cover her up to keep her warm, and waited until she had fallen asleep before joining Carl for their almost predestined nocturnal carnal pleasures.

Making sure Heather was out, she would soundlessly sneak over to Carl’s bedroom and spent the rest of the night in his arms after they had ardently entwined themselves in a moment of lust and fleshly desires, wrapping themselves up in a passionate interlude of love making that was off the grid as far as they were concerned.

Waiting for Grace, Carl had turned the television on to watch the current events around the world. The United States government was still at war in the Middle East where Carl served four years in a ranger outfit helping train the Iraqi army after they were overrun by ISIS and other terrorists groups sponsored by other country’s domination plans.

He remembered those days well and drew much of his subsistence experience for the necessary survival instincts needed to handle this unorthodox catastrophe. Carl was teaching Grace how to survive had turned her into a confident survivor and a battle ready warrior when they faced the zombies down below in the valley.

Zombies were seen roaming all parts of the world that included Australia, Europe and main parts of China and Hong Kong. Every region occupied by zombies had military troops deployed to fight them and contain their destruction.

All in all, this fight was not going too well as the undead were millions in numbers and the troops were spread so thin by wars, there were hardly enough to go around and protect the larger cities leaving the rural areas or the countryside exposed without protection and vulnerable if zombies figured it out that the people they were looking for had escaped and headed for the farms and other open spaces.  

The news channels out of San Diego, Los Angeles and even as far inland as Riverside and Palm Springs were reporting heavy flooding as the storm remained stationary and dumping the wet deluging burdens loaded in the skies onto the already saturated ground.

Calling it a super low pressure area, it was tearing up the countryside and killing people, animals and starving those who had no supplies to keep them alive. Bottled water was now a commodity that brought a good price or kept for ransom.

Lagoons were overflowing their man made dams and retaining walls. Rivers were swollen and raging from north to south and east to west. There was no obstacle the powerful waters couldn’t reach with time on its side.

Bridges were collapsing after and during the heavy rains. Interstates 5, 10, 15 and 40 were experiencing serious stress cracks in their overhead bridges and some sections of the highways, some over 40 feet in length of solid concrete, had been washed away by the floodwaters.

The storm was causing severe soil erosion and washing away the land, the concrete walls as sides of hills and mountains came tumbling down onto the valley covering houses and major streets with mud and debris. Most of these main highways were being closed to general traffic giving allowances to law enforcement and military traffic only.

According to the California Highway Patrol. At least fifteen persons were transported to a Palm Springs hospital after being trapped in a mass pile up of vehicle during a serious traffic accident.

Officials were concerned that the eastbound and westbound lanes may have been structurally undermined by the flooding, and the freeway will remain closed until further notice. The headline read like this, “Interstate 10 is closed completely," spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation, told the Associated Press.

They also planned to inspect dozen of large spanned bridges across the large swath of Southern California where the “remnants of a tropical storm dumped unusual El Nino related deluges,” the AP reported.

"This is a fascinating situation on so many levels. Against a backdrop of climate change, with the global atmosphere setting heat records month after month, we have an El Niño warming the waters of the tropical eastern Pacific.

What was misleading in these reports were key words like “remnants of the El Nino” as there was no relief in sight and there were no remnants but only a series of solidly lined up storms ready to pounce on Southern California for an undetermined amount of time and atmospheric energy.

On top of what Carl had heard on the NOAA weather channel, he had heard “the waters off the U.S. West Coast are also far warmer than average, and we have a mass of tropical storms moving farther north and closer to the Mexican coast than most others in the historical record this early in the season," said weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. 

Carl knew that as soon as the flood waters receded or withdrew to lower levels, the walkers would extend their territories and seek more victims left behind and trapped by the high waters. There was an inevitable showdown coming, a sort of high noon scenario between the zombies and the mortals who were hiding to stay alive.

Whether this was going to be a showdown or a meltdown of the human race depended on preparation and planning on how to beat the zombies at their own game. These walkers were merely wandering without a destination seeking whoever they may encounter. However, up to this point, they had not chosen to dwell outside the city making the bunker a very safe place to be.

Finding his secure sanctuary well-built and soundly constructed, the fear was not the penetration of zombies or undead but rather carelessness and not being aware of the presence of these blood sucking, blood curling creeps.

Since he learned in survival techniques the importance of water, he had an osmosis reversed water system installed that filtered the water, any kind of water and purified it to be safe to drink. Having his own filtering system had given them the gift of life as no man can live without water.

Carl knew there were hundreds, if not thousands of these decaying stiff and smelly corpses roaming, strutting rigidly down the streets whether they were under water or not.

They have been down the valley roads now for at least six trips and every trip they took they saw no survivors but plenty of rotted and decomposed walkers caught in the water or mud and slowly moving without showing any life in them.

Even the water-bloated undead seemed to have adapted to the high waters and tread through the lower levels without much difficulties as their slow deliberate clawing manner to seek and find victims was never ending as they seemed to never quit trying to find a victim.

Dropping them with head shots was easier said than done. The proximity and timing was critical to get that clean shot. Heather was having nightmares of the day they all three encountered the first horde of walkers and their clawing method of clinging onto the truck trying to trap them and eat their preferred prey alive.

Surely, those events of that first time encounter damaged her to some degree and put a severe shock into her that had to be dealt with at a later time. Time will tell.

Using the bunker gave Carl, Grace and the kid a safe place to stay. They knew it was a kill or be killed chaotic situation. There was no morality issue here; either they live or the die. It was that simple and there was no need to agonize about how it got done.

Getting used to the corpses and their grotesque  manner of existence included mutated monstrosities that demonstrated an unusual amount of resilience even with their flesh torn into open wounds and what used to be vital organs hanging or exposed as these walker carry on until they find something to eat or bite or their brain is destroyed.

Dealing with this horror was unique and difficult both mentally and physically. Sleep deprivation caused poor judgments and fatigue while the mind goes into overtime during the night when they are sleeping creating vivid nightmares that causes both of them wake up during the middle of the night in a cold cold sweat.

Needless to say, there were some moments where both were jittery and nervous dealing with the adversity and each other.

Making odd hour runs during the early daylight hours to the abandoned food stores, to bank and scavenge supplies, they needed to survive became harder and more pessimistic in success and gatherings.

Most of the stores have been looted and plundered by other survivors trying to keep themselves alive. Strangely, these survivors, whoever they were, kept out of sight and remained unseen by Carl and Grace giving them an idea there were other sheltered bunkers out there somewhere that kept other non-infected beings safe from the zombies.

The danger of water bloated walkers had increased with the floods as they could pop up unexpectedly from anywhere there was at least three feet of murky or darkened black colored water.

Flooded basements of the stores Carl and Grace scavenged for vital supplies were often infiltrated or hidden just before they exposed their disintegrating and decomposing bodies to the two. They had discovered that the basements were often used as storage areas for items to be restocked when the shelves were empty.

Fearing being bit at the legs or ankles by such creatures was real and Carl had wrapped leggings on him and Grace when they walked through flooded stores or basements where they located the necessities they needed to stay alive.

These wrapped leggings was a trick Carl learned in the Army ranger unit when they were conducting real jungle warfare training in Panama and exposed to venomous snakes day and night. He knew that protecting their legs would give them a chance to avoid getting bit by these half-drowned walkers. It was a good idea and strategy cause it seemed to be working.

Taking a tour of any area filled or occupied by surreal almost invincible walkers was dangerous. Their decomposing bodies were everywhere and some were positioned in a motionless state but not quite out of commission as they still had the ability to attack and bite their victim.

Grace was telling Carl this zombie apocalypse was lasting longer than she expected. Having seen zombies walk in the mud without having legs was both spooky and dreadful. How they kept moving through the mud with their legs disconnected to their bodies was unthinkable and unimaginable for a rational person to understand.

Staying away from the banks of the rushing rivers, the swollen creeks and the mud filled roads that were almost impassable even with the four wheel drive super duty F250 dually, the two hand managed to work out a system that kept Heather safe when they went to town and because the little girl was not with them anymore they were safer.

Grace had agreed that she was safer inside the bunker and kept her occupied and playing in her bedroom until they got back, giving them the ability to search more places and find more supplies than others who had their kids tag along and also subject to attacks by child zombies looking for their own sized victims.

Aggressive and more determined than some adult zombies, they were relentless in finding someone their own size to eat or bite and infect them with the virus. Staying away from the bunker had its own perils thus they did agree to set a time limit of their absence, as they worried that being left alone would also be traumatic for her and cause her to get restless and wander out of the room to other areas of the cavern.

Agreeing it wasn’t the ideal situation or set-up, they had hoped that somewhere along the way they would find some survivors who could help them with watching Heather during such excursions.

It wasn’t one of Carl’s best case scenarios but in the long run, an extra hand who wasn’t infected could make a big difference in the end. Perhaps fate would deliver such a blessings in the near future as the rains kept falling down and it looked like the rains weren’t going to stop anytime soon.