From the record kept by the twins Jenny and Barbie Crow, March 25

March 25, 2017
   
     Barbie and I have started watching our street outside at least once a day to see if there is any change in the numbers out front. We have now seen the milling around behavior many more times and have discussed what it means. I think it is the state they stay in until they get a stimuli and then they become active and predatory. The dog is still the only live being we have seen on the street and we don't even know if it made it through the streets or became a buffet on legs.
     We have decided to try to get into the administration part of the building because the security office is located there and they might have more ammo or weapons. Also, I am hoping that we might find some plans or something about the towers and we could learn about the areas that tenants don't go to often. I wanted to know if there were generators somewhere in the basement or anything else that would be useful to us.
     Boredom is something we have to fight daily so we tried to keep busy searching apartments and watching the undead outside. It was our only form of entertainment and it was not really that entertaining. But it was something to do besides scavenging and laying around our apartment. I have started looking for books that I have not read so I have something to do besides not sleep or lay around. What I wouldn't give for the chance to watch stupid reality television with Barbie. I would let it rot my brain and be happy to feel my I.Q. drop.

     Yesterday, we made it to the 9th floor and were getting ready to break into the first apartment from when the hallway filled with the moans of the undead. When I looked down the hallway, I could see 4 doors already open and knew we were in trouble. There were 10 of the undead in the hall and we would never be able to keep the door to the stairs closed if we made it there before they got to us. I forced the door open on the apartment and pulled Barbie inside. I slammed the door behind us and turned to face the living room. There was nothing in sight so I headed down the hallway after Barbie and I pushed the couch in front of the door. Good thing it was one of those really heavy wooden ones with only the seating area cushioned. We almost couldn't move it fast enough, but got it in place before they pushed the door in. It would not hold for long, but we could check the rest of the apartment and decide find the best place to take on the ones at the door. Barbie walked down the hallway and called my name in a really weird voice. When I got to the bathroom, I could see what was disturbing her. In the bathtub, there was one undead. It looked like she had slit her wrist while in the bath and had turned while still soaking in the water. She was now just bones and woman soup from the waist down and a sloppy, waterlogged zombie from the waist up. Her arms were in tatters and she kept trying to reach out of the tub to grab at us. Barbie grabbed her flailing arms while I went in for the kill, but the skin just pealed off the bones and left Barbie holding almost nothing. She got one hand in Barbie's shirt and tried to pull her into the tub. I jumped forward and slammed my knife into her skull from the top. The zombie stopped moving immediately and Barbie pulled away with a sob, bit of skin and tissue hanging from her hands. When we looked at each other, I could see the horror in her eyes and pulled her into my arms for a quick hug. She cleaned her hands, as best as she could with the water in the back of the toilet tank and we searched the rest of the rooms.
     We found no one else in the place and we decided to move some furniture around to make a walkway for the undead to walk through. We made a couple of protected areas for us to hide and be able to stick them in the head as they passed by and decided it was the best we would be able to manage. It took us 45 minutes to take out the zombie and set up the walkway. The undead were pounding on the door the whole time and slowly moved the couch farther into the room. When we were ready, we pushed the couch farther in from the back of the door and ran to our hiding spots. The walkway worked like we hoped and the two of us were able to take them out one by one until there was no zombie still standing.
     I was so tired I could hardly stand and from how she looked, Barbie felt the same way. We had learned a lesson. Don't just blindly walk out into the hallway. From now on, we would look and make sure there were no undead in the hallway before leaving the safety of the stairs. We staggered back to our apartment and I collapsed onto the couches. Barbie went right to the kitchen and put a big pot of water on to boil. I knew she wanted to scrub her hands and arms until the skin was gone. I heard her say she would never feel clean again before the propane stove clicked as she turned it on. Once the water boiled we both washed the undead blood and bits off of us and talked about what to to next. We decided to stay home the rest of the day and return to the 9th floor today.
     We had no problem this morning and only found 3 undead still moving on the entire floor. We found some good food, a .9 mm pistol with 100 rounds and some books that were how to books. Barbie grabbed a couple of board games and I found an electric keyboard with a bunch of batteries. We both had lessons while growing up,  so it would give us something else to do to pass the time. I pulled Mrs. Jackson's grocery cart with most of the stuff we had found while Barbie carried the games and keyboard. It was hard work getting the cart up the stairs but we had found this was easier then trying to carry everything back, either in bags or just in our arms.
     Once the supplies were home, we went for our daily walk around the pool area to watch the undead. Today, there were more of them out front than any day since we started watching. We keep a log of whatever we see so we can look for patterns. We watched for a couple of hours and even went to other points to look around the building and saw that there was a  building on fire a few blocks down and the fire was drawing the undead like moths to the flame. We watched from the street next to the pool and realized it could be sound, smell, or heat that drew them. This was something to keep in mind in the future. That way when we see something else draw their attention, we could figure out what draws them. We wrote what we saw down in our log and made our way back to our apartment. I know the fire made Barbie nervous. If our tower was to catch on fire, we might get stuck and be unable to escape. Even if we made it out, where would we go and how would we get there? The streets were filled with undead and we had no idea what was going on in any of the other buildings around us. We are going to have to come up with a workable plan for how to get out of our building and where we would go. This is going to take some thinking about.
     Time for bed so we can try to get into the administration area tomorrow. Maybe we will find something to aid us in planning our escape. It is getting harder and harder to have any hope that our situation will work out for the best.

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.