I should be dead. I’m so gross because they’re conserving water and won’t let us shower. My body odor is terrible even, though I try to rinse it off every day. But I only have a couple changes of clothes and the box with my parents’ stuff. No one is taking that away from me.
They don’t have anything here except some disgusting soap.
No shampoo, no deodorant, little toothpaste, and everyone smells.
The safe house is at a local elementary school. But I don’t see any of my friends from high school, just a couple kids I recognize from the halls. We’re all kind of numb. The adults don’t explain much to the people they consider young.
Stupid grown-ups, but all of us just do what the grown-ups tell us. I’m getting kind of sick of it and want to find my aunt. Maybe when I do, we’ll steal a car and get out. Go to her house. I can’t stand this.
She rustled the pages until she found an entry near the end.
October 31, 2020
It’s Halloween!
A fitting day to write with so few left. About one hundred survivors live in the school. The adults keep telling us to wait, it will get better, and someone’s coming to rescue us.
Who will rescue us? There’s no one around anymore, and it’s so disgusting in here. I wonder if there are others outside who are better off?
Recently, the heat stopped, and now, we also must collect water and boil it. Luckily, there’s a park with a lake nearby.
We never regained power after losing it at the end of September. The school had a generator, but that’s not working anymore. Wood for the fire is getting low, and the weather’s turning colder. We have a lot of canned food and bottled water, but I sure miss home-cooked meals. What I would do for a hamburger now.
The cases of the sickness are diminishing, but the adults keep whispering weird stuff. All I hear are scary rumors. They say there are dead people on the streets, some of them all rotted, some with red eyes. Not just the corpses of the dead littering the sidewalks, but dead people staggering around.
That’s crazy, but I don’t know what to believe anymore. The kids, I’m included though I’m a legal adult, having turned eighteen in May, are detained inside the school. I’m sick of it. I want some fresh air. Smells like old people and bathrooms in here. The so-called adults discuss leaving and finding others.
At least Joe is teaching me how to shoot a gun. The only person taking me seriously. He’s not bad for an old guy. This is probably one of my last journal entries. My pens have run out of ink, and this damn pencil is nothing but a stub.
Inching forward, she came to another entry.
November 30, 2020
Vivid dreams haunt me. Maybe they’ll go away now that we’re moving.
Things keep attacking the school, but how? How can they be alive again? How do they know we’re in here?
The journal slapped closed. Not long after the final entry, everyone was dead, well, almost.
Thump. The leather-bound book hit against the other items in the ratty shoebox. A few personal and important mementos sloshed together. These extended hours would drag on with chores unless something worse showed up and needed disposing of.
How had those creatures been human once?
She scratched the scabs on her face—one more scar to add to the collection.
While the group had moved many miles away from her home, she questioned if one of those creatures could be a former friend or relation? It was likely school mates and family had died by her hand, so she could stay alive.
While intelligence eluded the undead, they still resembled the humans they’d been. What if she came across her mother, her aunt? Could she kill them?
They’re empty shells, decaying, or so she told herself. You can’t reason, rationalize, or apologize. You kill them, or they eat you.
It was every horror story told; every menacing thought of doom, every nightmare turned real thanks to a pandemic out of China.
Her eyes drifted upward.
Decay had lined the ceiling. Chunks fell away and revealed stained and damaged pipes—a great analogy for life. When no longer able to ponder the metaphysical importance of the ceiling, she headed to the stove, surrounded by random chairs scavenged from the building.
She waved to Jackie and George who chatted. Victor sat in what was once a comfortable office desk chair, staring at the camp-fire stove. Next to it, another fire simmered in a tall metal barrel, and water in a container boiled, rolling continuously.
Jenna grabbed a drink of cooled liquid and scanned the room. She found Emma and waved her over. “What time is the supply trip leaving?”
“Soon.” Emma checked the temperature of the boiling pot—158 degrees Fahrenheit. “Quentin is getting the weapons organized.”
Billy, without his twin, strolled over to join them. “I’m coming with you on the hunt for supplies.”
“Big day for you.” She punched his shoulder. “Emma, you sharing those army tags with this one for luck?”
“You read my mind.” Emma reached in her pocket and handed the tags to Billy. “Keep it safe, or you’ll owe me.”
He pocketed them.
“What? Not going to wear it?” Jenna asked.
“Kid.” Quentin’s arrival was anything but subtle. At six-plus feet with long arms and legs, the man couldn’t hide. He didn’t need to. No one was more of an asset in a brawl with the undead, except the New Racers. “Did you drop some pounds?” A playful jab and cross hit Billy’s midsection. “You’re skinny as a stick.”
“Shut it.” Billy stared at his sneakers, once bright colors muted.
“Concerned for your health and
