From the journal of Nathan Sanchez, April 1, 2017

April 1, 2017

      This morning already seems like a dream. We were just getting to the morning chores when we heard loud rumbling coming from the main road. I had no idea what was going on and no one else did either. Uncle Ramon yelled for us to get ready for whatever was coming. We all took up our assigned defensive positions and waited.
     It took more than 5 minutes for a dust cloud to come into view coming down the driveway. From the amount of dust being kicked up, we knew something big was coming. Either a huge zombie horde was coming with chainsaws, or a large group of vehicles was approaching. I was voting for the vehicles.
     The first thing I saw was a motorcycle. Then more and more of them with hardened looking men riding them. There were also a few trucks and a couple of school buses too. There must have been at least 25 men and with the buses, there could be more than that. Shit, we were in trouble.
     Darren and I stepped out into the driveway and blocked their way. A couple of the cousins had moved cars to made a gate behind us and were leaning on their hoods with weapons drawn.  The biker in the lead stopped his bike about 10 feet from us and motioned for the others to stop.

     They had no idea how many of us there were and where we were positioned. Before anything was even said, the bikers reached for their weapons and we all started firing. Darren and I dove to the sides and zigzagged back to the car gateway.
     We had been working on defensive strategies on and off for a couple of days, when time permitted, just in case. Diego, one of the cousins, had convinced us that we needed to make ourselves even more secure than we had after the horde came through.We had concentrated on setting up a defensive area for the undead, according to Diego we had not done enough to protect ourselves from the inevitable encounter with other live people. He had us set up firing stations in all the buildings on the ranch and we had built platforms into the larger trees. Everyone had been trained on how to use all the weapons, even the teenagers. The younger kids were in the basement with the oldest and weakest. We had reinforced the house and all of  our firing stations with old tires filled with concrete, another one of Diego's ideas. He also had us dig trenches and set up secure firing stations all along the drive way for at 100 yards from where the car gate was set up. He said he got the idea from watching documentaries on World War II.
     We had the group flanked and were able to fire on them with most of our family behind cover, as safe as we could make them. It seemed like hours had passed while we fired on each other, even though it was only minutes.  When it was over, there were moans and groans from the men who were injured. We followed the plan and walked carefully up to what was left of the bikers and their destroyed vehicles. Everyone still alive was disarmed and moved to the right of the driveway where there we put under guard while the dead bikers were taken care of to stop them from coming back. We gathered all of the bodies and piled them next to the injured, then we had a meeting in the yard about what to do with those who could survive their injuries. Or should I say an argument about what to do.
     It lasted over an hour and in the end, we all agreed that we could not keep the men alive and risk them trying another attack. A lot of us had strong feelings about having to do this, but what choice did we have? They had rolled up and attacked us without even saying hello and we had no idea why. Once the choice had been made, we spent the next hour arguing about how we were going to do it and who was going to be the executioner. It was finally decided that  several of the older generation would handle the duty and would do it by firing squad. They went to where the injured were under guard right away and the rest of us listened to the guns go off. Then Uncle Ramon used his backhoe to dig a large whole where the bodies were buried. The bikes and other wholly vehicles were used to make our defenses better.
     It has been a very quiet day since we finished, even the children have been unusually quiet. Most of us have been subdued and the men who handled the deadly duty were even more silent than the rest of us. This was going to be something that effected us all for a long time. And now we knew just how evil some of the people surviving out there had become. No one thinks Diego is nuts anymore and we have already made plans to set up more defenses. We had been living in a dream, thinking that we were safe here without having to protect ourselves from both the undead and the living.
     We will not make the same mistake again. We will be prepared for whatever comes down our driveway.

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.