From the journal of Marie Costa, April 29

This journal entry was written by Marie Costa, a women who worked in the produce department at a large chain grocery store. It was brought to me with the Greenbriar Hotel information stash, which came to us around seven years after the virus caused the apocalypse, with other East Coast sources. It shows the resilience of people and what lengths they will go to, just to survive.

April 29, 2017

     We have finally gotten out of the produce walk in after three weeks of freezing and rationing any food we could find. I found this notebook in the file cabinet in our area and have decided to write about what has happened and happens to us from now on.
     We were able to survive on the food in the walk in. With Produce Cut using the same walk in for our ingredients for preparing the pre-made salads and other fruit and vegetable items. Besides using the produce in the walk in, we also had several cheeses for stuffing mushrooms and making seven layer dip, cream cheese and bacon bits for the stuffed jalapeno's, deviled eggs that came in a package of boiled eggs and pre-made sweet relish egg mixture, and yogurt for the parfaits. There was also a few other items, like the soy meatless products, that are in most produce departments. These all help keep us alive, although all of us were craving meat.
     When the zombies attacked the store, we were having a short safety meeting in the back produce area. Alice, one of the Courtesy Clerks, had just walked through our swinging doors when screaming started in the front of the store. Paul, our manager, told us all to wait there and went out to see what was going on. I watched through the window in the door and saw him walk through the department and peek around the corner towards the registers. He turned and ran back waving his arms for us to stay there and behind him, I saw something I couldn't believe at first. Dead people, walking towards us. There was this one, he must have been no more than 20 when he died, or turned, or whatever. His face was still perfect, except for the blood ringing his mouth. He neck though, it was mostly gone, his spine shining through the raw meat remains of his throat. His flannel shirt was covered in gore and there was a big whole where his stomach should have been, but his abdomen was empty, except for a small pile of his intestines.

     Paul only made it halfway back when another group of zombies came down the next aisle and followed the sounds of heavy breathing and running footsteps. He stopped running and looked around before dodging through the produce tables. But he didn't have a chance. More of the undead surrounded him and the last thing I saw before looking away, was Paul being pulled to pieces and being consumed by the group around him.
     Jake, one of the guys who worked in Produce, pulled Linda and I away from the doors and suggested we all go into the walk in and used the pallet mover and put pallet of watermelons in front of the swinging doors. Next, we stacked the heaviest boxes of produce on top of that to form a wall of produce. The undead would have been able to push the doors in without it, but they weren't smart enough to try to pull the doors the other direction. We stayed really quiet and listened to the people in the store being killed and eaten by the zombies. We left a small spot to look out and saw a couple of the meat department employees being pulled apart and eaten.

     We all spent hours huddled together, ate small amounts to make our food last as long as possible. We watched the area immediately outside our walk in and after three weeks, the area was quiet enough for us to venture out. Over the last three days, we have taken some of the areas in the back receiving area and have enjoyed eating other foods, canned meats and sardines, beans and dry cereal. We have found four other employees hiding in the back and have stayed together since. The store itself, only has around 15 undead wandering around it, but the doors are open and we could see shadows occasionally pass by the one set we can see.
     Now, we have to decide when to take the rest of the store, how we are going to secure the doors and do it all as quietly as possible. Yeah, that's all.

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.