From the journal of Correctional Officer Steven Williams, March 25

March 25, 2016

     We have been stuck in the Post Office in Fort Morgan for a three days now. I had looked up the population of the cities on the way to the airport and decided that Fort Morgan seemed like the best option based on that information, almost 14,000 people. The other cities on different routes had a lot more so we thought this was the safest way to go.
     Turns out, they have an Amtrak stop in Fort Morgan and it looked like two passenger trains had collided. This probably overran the town right afterward. Both trains could carry about 300 people and from the wreckage, most of them did not survive. If someone did, the dead would come back and come back fast. I know, I saw how fast the doctor turned at the Detention Center. I was only out in the hall for a very short time before he rose. The newly reanimated corpses would have been hungry and any living people in the wreckage would have been a handy snack to get started on.

    The townsfolk, being right neighborly, would have come running to try to help any survivors. From the weeds around the twisted metal, this probably happened right in the beginning. No one really knew about the undead then, they would not have been prepared for what they found. It looked like the town had been hit with a tornado of human bones and there was not much else left besides the undead.

     We drove into town and thought everything  fine. The street only had a couple of moaners that we took out quietly, then we headed for the front of a J.C. Penny's. I guess the sound of the truck reverberated off the buildings because when we looked out a few minutes later, the empty street was shoulder to shoulder full of the undead. They were sniffing around, trying to figure out where the sound had come from and where the live thing they could smell was hiding. We were screwed!
     The entire front of the store was windows so I grabbed Jenna and threw us both to the floor. I whispered to Jenna the danger we were in and we crawled towards the back of the building. The alley ran behind the building and we ran towards E.Kiowa Ave. The safest looking building was the Post Office so we worked our way down the block and when we saw a break, we made it across the street. Of course, we were seen so we headed for the front door to the Post Office. The glass doors and front windows had been broken and covered with ply wood at some earlier point. It looked like someone was going to try to fortify it and make a stand. I know that I was praying for the doors to not be locked as we raced down the sidewalk and for once since this shit started, my prayers were heard. We pushed through the doors and a pile of 2 by 4 posts and a couple of nail guns and no undead in sight. We secured the doors and turned to make sure the rest of the room was clear.
     The rest of the building was clear of people and undead, but it was not empty.Someone had thoughtfully brought a large cache of supplies. Plywood had been placed over the front windows but had only made it next to the rest. Food and water was stacked in one of the banks of mailboxes. Bedding, clothing and other non food items were stacked in the other bay of mailboxes. It sucks that we were stuck, but at least we knew we would not starve or freeze while we tried to come up with a plan to get back to the truck.
     That was three days ago. We had to brace the doors with anything we could find because there were so many undead pounding on them and trying to push their way in. There was so much pressure that the edges of the plywood ran with stinking zombie juice as the ones in front were pulverized by those pushing behind them.  We found three desks and a big table and pushed them against our side of the door. They were all old and heavy, but we managed to get the door relatively secure. Then we started on the windows. We spent the rest of that first day, the 23rd, and reinforcing the covered windows and covering up the rest. Lucky for us the windows on the sides and back did not have a porch and were higher than most first story windows. We finished securing the building by boarding up the doors on the side and back. The roll top doors became our next worry so we pushed bags of mail against them  to add strength to the metal doors. Again, we got lucky because it looked like the mail had piled up but had not gotten any further for a while before the delivery stopped for good. The bags looked like they had been pitched in from outside and then pushed back to the edges as far as possible. There was plenty of mail and the next day we added some of the bags to all the doors to add weight and help the wood stay in place.
     The sound was overwhelming. Hundreds of moaners all making their horrible cries constantly. They were so loud that they were drawing more from the surrounding area. These new undead had no idea what had drawn the initial moaners, but they were as rabid as the ones who did about trying to get into the building. It took hours for the ones on the outer edges to start loosing interest, but three days later, we are down to a ring around the building 10 to 15 deep. These undead were not going to give up. These were the ones who had seen and smelled us before the stink of their kind overpowered the living smell. They know we are in here and pound on the outside of the building creating a thumping background sound for the moans to accompany.
     Now, besides the sounds from the moaners, boredom is our worst enemy. Whoever stocked up this place did not make it to thinking beyond necessities. Maybe that is what they were doing when they never made it back, looking for books or games or something.
     Gonna try to sleep for a while because it is one of the only things to do. Maybe, I will open some mail to entertain us later. I don't think anyone is left to complain their mail was opened.

As a writer and artist, I appreciate any readers and their comments. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan collective, Raven's Castle Creations, on our website at www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the art we produce in our Etsy store at etsy.com/shop/RavenCastleCreations. Follow us on Twitter at @ravencastleart and on Facebook at @ravencastlecreations.