From the letter written by Charles March, April 15

From the letter found by Kelly Vargas in a crossroads country store. The writer was found in a skeletal state with only the shreds of clothes left and this letter in his lap.

April 15, 2017

     My name is Charles March. I have no idea where I am now, I've been on the road for days and days, the last few by myself. For most of my journey, I was accompanied by my girlfriend, Willow Long, since neither of us ever figured out what happened to most of our family. My Dad died right at the beginning of March while he was on the phone with me. He'd been in Denver at a medical conference and they were overrun by the zombies and I heard him die, gurgling, and sounds that sounded like he was being torn apart and eaten. I never found out about my Mom. She and Dad had split and she was in California at her parents house when everything started.

     I was staying at my Aunts house when the horde came through. I was in the living room with Willow when we heard them. Her parents were with my Aunt and most of the other adults in town at a meeting at the High School. We heard the undead coming, so we hid in the attic of my Aunts house and watched through the little octagonal window as the undead filled the little street outside. It seemed like they kept going on and on forever, but really, it was only like 20 minutes and the horde was made up of hundreds of zombies, not thousands like some people will claim.

     We waited all night and all the next day, but neither my Aunt or her parents were seen again. We stayed in our little town for a couple of weeks in the hopes that someone else would come through before leaving to look for others surviving out there. That was several weeks ago.

     Last week, we ran into a group that was bad, evil, right from the start. They tried to separate Willow and I. I knew they were going to kill me and keep her for sex, so I got us out of there by running over some of them and their bikes. They followed us and shot at us. We fought our way away from them and I had to kill a bunch of them to get away. But we didn't get away clean. Willow was shot in the side of her stomach and she died within a few hours. I loved her will all my heart and I had to stab a knife into her brain to make sure she didn't come back as one of those things.

     Then, yesterday, I was found by those guys again. We had a long car chase and I ended up killing the ones who found me, but not before I crashed the truck I was driving and broke both my legs, left arm and right hip. I'm dead now. There's no way to survive this, especially since I am out here alone.

     Mom, Dad, please forgive me for not being there when you died, I now I forgive you for it now. Aunt Alma, I'm sorry I didn't go to the meeting with you and Willow's parents. Maybe if we'd been there, we could've kept you all alive. Willow, please forgive me for now being able to protect you, baby.

     I am not going to wait to be found by those things and be torn apart. I will end this on my terms. If you have found this letter, be wary of any strangers you run across. People are letting themselves be evil now and do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. Keep the faith, keep your humanity and keep on surviving.

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.

From the journal of Kelly Vargas, July 5

July 5, 2017

     The last couple of days have been uneventful, but my mind was still back at that gated community. It seems like every time I blink or close my eyes, I see those skeletons with the strips of decomposing flesh and remains of cloth. I see the remains, splayed out where they'd fallen. I saw the larger skeletons with the smaller ones, trying to cover the smaller ones with their pre-decomposed bodies. I saw the pictures on the walls of the two houses we'd gone through. The smiling faces of the families, the happy life they'd lived, shown through pictures, snapshots of normal lives.

     Then, I'll flash back to the skeletons on the lawns, some dragged there before death, some after when they'd managed to kill themselves before the bad men got inside their houses. All of them had been hit with blunt objects, the bones showed the cracks and breaks. Hopefully, most of them were already dead or too far gone to feel the additional pain from the breaks. That was just adding insult to injury.

     The last few nights, I've dreamed about that place. In the most horrific dream I remember, the skeletons started moving. At first it was just little wiggles, like someone starting to turn over in their bed. Then, they started getting up, if their legs were still close enough to the rest of the skeleton, others just dragged themselves on the ground. Even the arms and legs that had been separated from the rest of the body were moving, wiggling, and pulling themselves towards me.

     The skeletons started making that horrible moaning and growling noise that the undead make and I turned to run. But, you know those dreams where you try to run and try to get away, but no matter what you do , it's like you're standing in molasses and you can't move. Well, that's what was happening in my nightmare. I kept trying to move and trying to run, but my feet just wouldn't move. They were stuck to the ground like they'd been super glued and the skeletons were coming right for me from all sides. I was alone and screaming and trying to push them away from me and then I could almost feel their hands grabbing onto me and that's when I came awake.

     Now, I don't want to sleep and keep trying to think of anything else to keep my mind off that place and those skeletons. That's when my mind starts wandering towards what happened at the church and last night I had a dream that combined the two. Not only were there skeletons coming after me and mixed in with them were the undead from inside the church. It was terrifying but at least in that dream I had Manny, Connor, Alicia, Alex and Marny at my back. That made this dream, even with skeletons and the undead coming after us, not as scary as the one where I was alone with just the skeletons.

     Today, we pulled into this little market on the crossroads in the countryside. When we went inside, I found another skeleton, this one all by itself, lying on the office floor with a letter very messily written on it's lap. It was so far decomposed, I could only tell it was guy by it's hair and by finding it's wallet on the floor beside it. We took all the snack food and drinks left in the back and went to find a house for the night. I'm going to include the short letter in my journal, just in case someone besides me is interested in what it has to say. I wrote down the location of the store where we found it and the date and time, at least to the best of my knowledge.

     Tonight is going to be another hard night. Seeing that guys remains has brought back all the other messed up stuff I've seen lately. Please, let me get some sleep tonight without nightmares!

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.

From the journal of Earl Thompson, June 23

June 23, 2017

     ^th. There's a huge horde of zombies between us and the Greenbrier, so we stayed here instead of trying to work our way to the hotel. I went for a drive early on the 21^st, to scope out roads or at least cleared spaces to fit our truck. I got to the edge of the forest to see if there was a road right there and instead was surprised to see hundreds of undead all stumbling along together.

We've been stuck in the Moshannon State Forest since the 20

     I stayed and stared at the horde for quite a while. Some of them were just regular zombies, starting to decompose. Others, though, were black and crispy, or melted looking and covered in soot. I wonder where those zombies come from. There was obviously some kind of fire and it must have been a big group of people killed, since there were crispy kids and entire families. I wonder if it was one of the emergency shelters that went up? I know the one we saw but didn't stop for was really over crowded and it wouldn't have taken much to set that tinderbox on fire.

Most of the centers started out in buildings, churches, stadiums, any big place that could hold people. But eventually, they all became over full and tent cities sprung up around most of them. And we all know that tents, blankets and kerosene lamps plus campfires and it's surprising they all didn't go up in flames.

     When I made it back to camp, the girls were disappointed and Phil was not happy either. None of us wanted to be stuck, basically in the middle of no where and with the minimal protection of the large rocks on the sides and back of us. If the horde had come through the forest instead of skirting it, we would've been trapped and up shit creek.

     When I got up today, I went to check on the horde and found it was still going, but it is thinning out a little bit from when I first saw it. I hope it doesn't keep us trapped here much longer, we will run out of food and water soon. I might have to go in the opposite direction of the horde and see if I can scavenge more supplies. I had enough for myself for months, but with Annie, Lisa and Phil, the supplies go a lot faster.

     Here's to hoping the horde is done soon and isn't headed towards our final destination, the Greenbrier and it's hopefully safe bunker system.

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.

From the letter written by Karen Gallagher, April 18

This letter was found in the Archive by Ruth while she was organizing the entries. It was written by a teenager who ended up alone after the pandemic hit and decided to head for another relations house. It was probably more common for this to happen in the beginnging than people want to believe. How many kids and teenagers ended up alone? And how many of them ended up surviving past a couple of days, let alone for longer?

April 18, 2017

   

 My name is Karen Gallagher and I'm totally screwed. I'm only 13 years old and I'm totally alone. My Dad came home from work at the Home Depot and he'd been bit by one of his coworkers who was in the back room for who knows how long.

     My Mom still hasn't come home. I'm not surprised because she works in an eye clinic at the local health center. After watching the last news show, and I mean the last because the TV went off after that, I bet she got killed at work. They said that most hospitals were overrun by undead who came from the morgues and sometimes someone dies in a room and is not discovered right away and was able to turn. These first zombies were able to infect whole hospitals of patients who were not able to get away from them because they were already sick or hurt. This next wave of undead spread out from the hospitals to the neighborhoods around them and then even more from there!

It's been two weeks since Dad came home bit. I took care of him for a week before he died. He got really sick and I knew he wasn't going to make it that first day. The news had told us that anyone who was bit or scratched could turn, especially if the person got sick. They never said if anyone had lived after being bit, but I bet no one has.

     Dad got a fever and cough that first day after he came home, then he started shivering and shaking. I had to keep turning him on his side when he threw up or coughed up the stuff in his lungs and I didn't know what to do most of the time. The aspirin didn't help his fever and I had to throw him in the tub with cold water to bring his fever down, and I only knew to do that because I saw it on some TV show.

     By the end, he looked like a zombie that was still breathing and just hadn't realized he was dead yet. I was relieved when he finally died, sad, too. But I was relieved it was over. He was suffering so badly and I couldn't stand to see him that way. He was my Dad, he was always strong and brave and now he was dead.

     I was alone for the first time in my life and so scared I went to bed and huddled under the blankets for the rest of the day and night. That was a week ago. I've just been on auto pilot for the last seven days. But this morning, I woke up with a plan kind of formed last night. I'm going to head to Aunt Stacey's house. She is the closest relative to our house and is only 30 miles away.

     I wrote this letter in case you make it home Mom. This will let you know what has happened and where I'm going. The old Toyota is in the driveway and Dad has kept it running this whole time. The gas tank was filled up a month ago when Mom's car was broken.

     Mom, if you see this, I did what I could for Dad and hope to see you at Aunt Stacey's! If someone other then my Mom sees this, know that it wasn't Dad's fault that he died or Mom's fault she never made it home.

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.

From the journal of Alanna Morgan, July 3

July 3, 2017

     I let Leslie read my first entry and he said I should explain why I'm writing this down. I was voted by everyone else to write down how we got to where we are. I don't know why I'm the one that was chosen, but I agreed to do it.

     Well, let's see, we left the little New Mexico town we had been staying in, I don't remember the name. I'd stayed in dozens of them over the years of making low budget horror films, all of us had. That's the life we lived. Moving from place to place with each new production, not making enough to always go home between movies, living from a bag in hotels and eating food other people made.

That night, we made it to this old, abandoned adobe house just over the Colorado border. We huddled together and made a fire in the middle of the roofless living room. We had set up a watch schedule and the ones on duty had the two pistols I owned and had brought with me for personal protection.

None of us slept very well. Every little sound made us jump and any movement made the ones on watch turn on their flashlights, which would wake up any of us who had managed to get to sleep. Most of us had given up before the sun rose the next morning and were up, making camp coffee over the fire. By around 9 am everyone was up and ready to move on.

     We got back in the truck and headed out after breakfast and by around 1 pm, we had found a compound of people who, while suspicious, were willing to take us in. They called themselves Alive Farms and had around 30 people already in their community. We met with their leader, Jose Pina, and were interviewed about who we were, where we came from, and what we had experienced so far. Jose thought it was amusing that when the zombies attacked, we didn't know because of the extras in make-up. Then he wondered if we could use this skill, along with something he'd seen in the Walking Dead, to get around the undead. In the show, they cut open a zombie and rubbed its smelly decomp on themselves to fool the zombies sense of smell. Jose wondered if this would work and we decided to try it sometime in the near future. They had tried to just do the smell thing, but the zombies could still pick them off, so if we do the make-up too, maybe, it will fool them.

     We spent a week settling in, everyone was given a job and a schedule for patrol duty, and we became part of their community. We've been here ever since and most of our skills have been appreciated. Jason, who was one of our carpenters to build sets and set pieces, has been teaching people how to properly build and fix the buildings that are already here. We also brought people from the catering team, who know how to cook and they've been working with some of the older wives to come up with recipes for what we have to eat.

     This place, so far, has been safe and secure and we are grateful they took us in. We had no where to go, since we all lived in Southern California, and we were going to die if we stayed out on the road. Whether it would've been death by zombie or death by mishap or death by people who turned to the dark side, it wouldn't have mattered. We would've been dead. And now, we have a chance to be part of this group, surviving and living. Please, keep us safe, anything listening out there. God, the universe, Odin, anyone listening. Please, keep us safe.

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.

From the journal of Alanna Morgan, July 1

This journal came to me from a woman who was part of a zombie movie production when the pandemic hit. She survived to live in a large community that eventually got in contact with out community.

July 1, 2017

     My name is Alanna Morgan. I used to work on low budget movies doing make-up for horror and zombie movies. That's what I was doing in the desert in New Mexico when news of the pandemic hit. The crew all wanted to go home, but our director, Rick Hathaway, wanted to finish his picture on time, come hell, high water or zombies. I don't know why. Who would want to go see a new B, or really D, zombie movie when real life zombies were making an appearance and the end of the world is here.

     That was on March 1^st. Three weeks later, we'd just finished shooting a scene in a barn where our few survivors were overrun by undead and fought them off to escape and live another day. I think the crew thought the real zombies were some of the extras in costume, at least at first. Once they started attacking and eating people, though, I think everyone got the message. Our little bubble of safety, from being in the middle of no where in rural New Mexico, had burst and we were up shit creek.

     I was standing next to the open cab of one of the big trucks used to haul equipment and props from location to location. I heard the screams and turned in time to see one of our production designers go down under four undead, thankfully, she didn't scream for long. I immediately jumped into the cab of the truck and closed my door. I turned to the open passenger door and yelled for a couple of the other make-up artists to get in. Delia, Lori and Leslie made it into the cab. But Gene and Sabrina didn't make it. Leslie screamed, like the girl he has always wanted to be, and slammed the door shut just before the wave of zombies reached us. I rolled my window down a bit and started yelling for the others, fighting for their lives, to get in the back if they could.

     We ended up getting 27 people from the 250 or so people on set that day into the truck we were in and away from the carnage. I just drove down the dirt road towards the little town we were staying in. We could hear the screams for quite a ways as we drove away, but it did eventually die away. The 40 minutes it takes to get to town felt like it took hours. I kept seeing flashes of people I knew getting torn apart and eaten by those things. Sasha, one of the sound techs, surrounded by a group of them and torn limb from limb. Lucy, one of the caterers, trying to hold off the undead with her chefs knife. She did take out one before they pulled her down and her screams were cut off with a gurgle. Mario, the camera guy who I was supposed to go on a date with tomorrow night, pulled off his camera and his throat bit out by one of the zombies before others started eating his insides while he was still dying.

     We pulled into town and my foot slid off the gas pedal while everyone else just gaped. The whole street was covered in blood and body parts, some of the towns folk had reanimated, or at least, what was left of them reanimated. One of these newly undead things was just the torso, left arm and head. It was trying to pull itself towards the rumbling truck we were in, trailing its insides behind it. I put my foot back on the gas and ran it over. It made this little bump and a small popping sound, like one of those New Year's party favors that look like a champagne bottle and you pull the string.

     We drove down the four streets of the town and found the same mess everywhere we went. I made it to the little B and B I was staying at and the place was a disaster. The lady and her husband who ran it were torn apart on the front lawn. There wasn't enough of her left, but he had come back as a torn apart torso with a head and stumps for arms, waving them around and growling like the animal he now was. I stopped the truck and got down, Leslie kept asking me why I'd stopped. I finally told him I had a couple of pistols in my room and we needed them. I put the proprietor out of his misery and went to my room, got my pistols and went back out to the truck.

     I told everyone in it to get out and we had a meeting about what to do. The first thing we decided was that anyone who had been bit or scratched had to go their own way, or we could take them out. But they couldn't stay with us. Anyone who wanted to stay with one of them was free to stay. But anyone who wanted to come with me and the rest of us. We got out a map and chose a direction, North. Then we figured out who was staying and who was going. Of the 27, five were bit, three had scratches and two decided to stay with their friends. We collected everyone's personal things, it was least we could do to make ourselves feel a little more stable, and then we drove into this new world with no destination in mind.

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.

From the journal of Rebecca Martin, June 21

June 21, 2017

     I can't believe we lost Brad. It's like a century of time just disappeared and things that used to kill us that we thought we'd conquered are killers again. The flu, pneumonia, water born illnesses, food born ones, too. Illnesses that we were able to cure with antibiotics and other medicine. We were able to keep people alive with machines through illnesses until they got passed the worst symptoms and were able to recover. We had pills for high cholesterol, heart disease, intestinal tract diseases, hell, we even had pills for people who couldn't sleep or people who couldn't stop falling asleep.

     Now, you can die of anything and everything! Any disease or illness someone had before all of this began could be deadly. A small cut could get infected and kill you. You could drink bad water and die of a intestinal bug that dehydrates you to the point of death. It's like being back on the frontier and have no modern medicine. And even if you do have some medicine, it's only good for so long.

Marvin Alexander

     Our elderly have been really helpful to the rest of us since they lived in a time when some of the same things were deadly, before modern medicine. Marvin told this horrible story of his neighbor as a child who died from bad water. He saw his neighbor basically shit himself to death and it took a week for it to kill him. He said the guy raved near the end, when he was so dehydrated he was out of it, raved about seeing all the people he knew who'd died. He said they visited him when he was alone and talked to him about what was going to happen. It was traumatizing to Marvin, especially since during the same time his family was dying of tuberculosis, one by one.

Walter Mandel

     Walter told us about his aunt who drank bad milk and died milk sickness. It's when dairy cows eat white snakeroot. It causes appetite loss, weakness, vague pains, muscle stiffness, trembling, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, severe constipation, bad breath, coma and possibly death. Some people recovered from it but not completely and a lot of people who got milk sickness never got better at all. His aunt died from it but and she lived in their house, so he watched it all happen.

Ginger Leigh

     Ginger talked more about losing her mom, brother and sister to tuberculosis. She talked about playing board games with her siblings while they were in bed, because it was all they could do. They couldn't run and play, they couldn't even play on the floor with dolls or blocks. They had to stay in bed and keep warm and not over exhaust themselves. She remembered that her mother was the first to get sick, but outlived both her sick kids. She talked about her loss and her mothers heartache that she watched the two young kids die. She talked about her father being broken after the three of them died and how she was sent to live with her mother's sister because her father never recovered from it all.

Ralph Stephenson

     Ralph talked about other family members who died of illnesses that became treatable. His aunt who died of the flu, his cousin who died from milk sickness, his pastor who died from cholera. He spoke about watching people die in the home before there were hospitals to take them to. He talked about his father, who probably had congestive heart failure, but there was no doctor to treat him.

     Then we all talked about loosing people and how long it can take to get over the initial grief. We are probably going to stay here tomorrow as well, then we'll figure out how we're going to approach the Greenbrier. Please, let there be other good people surviving there!

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.

From the journal of Charlie Fast Fingers Pearson, July 1

July 1, 2017

     We thought the cruise ship was a rare thing, but in the last two weeks, we've had three more ships squeak by us. All of them were undead love boats and we could see the undead mingling on the deck an falling into the sea. One of he ships went by at a different angle and ended up going aground within sight of our little village, if you walk to the end of the beach. I looked through binoculars at the ship and could see at least a couple hundred on deck, and who knows how many more below where they were out of sight. For the last four days, we've watched undead fall overboard and we knew it meant we're going to have a lot more zombies walking out of the ocean onto our beach.
     We had a meeting last night and have revised our schedule so that everyone is assigned shifts of watch and still have shifts at their other assigned tasks. We had been covering the shifts every day, but without it being assigned and that ended up causing a couple issues where someone had to be chosen at the last minute because the one supposed to be on watch forgot or just didn't show up. After the third time, we had the meeting.

     John and Mark both said they don't remember seeing this many cruise ships in such a short time, even before the pandemic. Usually, one ship a month or so would go by but none had ever gotten as close as the ones we see now. Of course, no one is at the helm, so the ships are going wherever they want, I think they used to call them Ghost ships. How appropriate now that they're full of the undead.

     None of us know how many people were on those ships before whatever went wrong happened, but now, they are floating death bombs. Wherever they land or crash or go aground, they let hundreds of those things go and anyone alive and trying to survive is in danger. A fucking wave of undead swarm out of the ocean and try to overwhelm the world.

     We've had at least a hundred walk out of the ocean and get trapped on our beach, but if too many more come at once, our little fence of spikes will be overrun. At the meeting last night, we decided as a group to really ramp up our efforts to keep our village safe. We're going to cut more wood from higher up the mountain to make the fence deeper where they mostly come from the sea while we continue to finish circling the village. This place will be safe for us to survive, it just might look weird to do it.

     We're going to also cut some trenches deep enough to trap the zombies until we can get to them. Most of these will be in areas it's hard to patrol since they're a little ways out from the village, places like the cemetery or at the edges of the garden's cultivated area. That way, we know zombies won't come at our backs from that way and we can stop worrying about patrolling such a large area in pairs. I think this is a good idea, since two people could easily be surrounded by just a small group of undead.

     Hopefully, we'll be able to handle any undead who come out of the sea and be able to keep surviving. Maybe, some day, we'll make it off this island. Of course, we could make it off to find that no one else survived. That would suck!

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.

From the journal of Nikki Feather, June 30

June 30, 2017

     Today, a couple walked out of the rain and into the farmyard of the old house we've been staying in. The rain was still pounding down and Jackson and I were downstairs, fixing some soup for lunch when something made one of our sound alarms go off. We grabbed guns and headed outside together. We found a man and his wife, Charles and Marcy Cook, standing with his legs tangled in the string attached to the cans filled with rocks. His wife, Marcy, put her hands up as soon as we came outside and Charles stopped trying to get himself untangled and put his hands up.

Charles and Marcy Cook

     Jackson and I had to decide what to do, so we talked about it and we did let them into the house to get out of the rain. They were in their 30's and had been teachers before the pandemic. Charles taught English and Marcy taught American History. They hiked on the weekends and school breaks and had a good supply of survival supplies when the pandemic finally got to them. They packed up their SUV and then left their city to head into the hills. Since then, they said they've been hiking around and staying away from people.

     This seemed a little suspicious, since they came right into the farmyard and made contact with us. Jackson and I decided that we would take a watch each and relieve each other, just to make sure they don't try to steal from us or hurt us.

      I do have to admit, it's been nice to have someone besides Jackson to talk to. He's never been the most talkative person and having Marcy to just gab with while we cooked up more soup so everyone could eat, well, it was nice. We talked about our jobs before this all started and about people we knew and funny things they did. We talked about people we lost and people we don't know if they're still alive. We talked about her students and the last day she saw them.

     Lunch was good and warm and they were appreciative because it was the first warm meal they'd had in a week or more. We ate, talked a little more, then Jackson and I read out loud for while. Charles and Marcy fell asleep and Jackson is taking the first watch. He'll wake me up in four hours for me to take over watch.

     I really hope we can end up trusting these people. They said they don't have a plan about where they were heading, so maybe we can travel together. It would be nice to have another woman to talk to, and I bet Jackson will like having another guy, too. More people just mean more people to watch each others backs and that's good for us. If they turn out to be trustworthy. We've seen evidence of too many people who were killed or tortured by people that they must have trusted long enough to let in. We need to be careful, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they turn out to be just what they seem.

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.

From the journal of James Cohen, June 20

June 20, 2017

Brad Crosby

     Brad died this evening. Yesterday and today he sounded like someone who should've been in an ICU somewhere, but of course, there are no hospitals anymore. His fever shot up to almost 104 degrees and he just laid  there and shook with chills. He threw up all the broth he tried to drink and the last two times he did, there was blood in the throw up. He coughed so hard all day today that Jackie is pretty sure he broke a couple of ribs just by coughing.

     This afternoon, his shaking changed. He started having seizures and there was nothing any of us could do but help to hold him down so we minimized any injuries he could give himself. He had so many seizures for the first couple hours after they started, I wasn't sure he would survive the seizures themselves.

     We brought his fever down by pouring water over him in the bathtub, but we knew it wouldn't last for long, and it didn't. Within two hours of our having bathed him, the fever spiked back to almost 104 degrees and the seizures started again. That's when he started coughing up greenish chunky lung stuff with blood mixed in. That was around 3:00 pm today. From that point on, everything just went downhill. More blood came out with every cough, then he started bleeding from his eyes and ears while he coughed. Before long, he had bubbles of blood coming out his mouth even when he was just laying there. His eyes started glazing over and his skin turned grey and clammy.

     By 5:30 pm, his lungs were making this gurgling noise as he tried to breath and his lips turned blue as he got less and less oxygen with every breath. Within an hour of that, he wasn't responding when Jackie tried to get him to fight between seizures and coughing spells. By 7:00 pm, he had stopped trying to breathe regularly and was just sporadically gasping for breathe. Within a half hour, he was dead. Jackie was determined to try CPR, but we all talked her down. His lungs were so full, she wouldn't be able to get oxygen to him, but she might get exposed to whatever he had even worse than she already has been.

    We all gathered in the barn and had a moment to mourn together, but not long. I hated to point out that we needed to take care of Brad before the came back. Jackie says he shouldn't be able to come back since he wasn't bit, but I pointed out that we shouldn't take a chance. Everyone else agreed and I took care of it before we held a funeral with a funeral pyre. We burned him and the blankets and any clothes that came in contact with him. So far, no one else has gotten sick, so we hope we dodged that bullet. It's late in the evening now, so we are staying here tonight for sure, maybe even tomorrow according on how much rest Jackie can get since she is exhausted from taking care of Brad. But we will be leaving for Greenbrier soon.

     Brad, we didn't know you for long but you were a good person and didn't deserve to die like you did. Rest in peace, my friend.

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.

From the journal of James Cohen, June 18

June 18, 2017

     Well, I don't think Brad is going to make it. We ended up giving the antibiotics to him starting on the 16^th, but they've not helped at all. His lungs are full and he wheezes with every breath. They rattle and sound like wet cotton sometimes, well, most of the time. His lips are even getting a little bluish today. His eyes are sunken into his head and he's lost at least 15 pounds because he can't keep anything down and Jackie has been having to give him IV's to keep him hydrated. Plus, his fever just stays around 102 degrees and he just shivers and shakes, even though he has eight blankets on him, plus a sleeping bag below and one on top of the blankets.

     Jackie is really tired and looks exhausted. She's been taking care of Brad and it's become a full time job. She has to turn him on his side when his breathing gets really bad and has even had to use some of Esther's left over oxygen when his coughing and breathing have been at their worst.

     The rest of us have just been hanging around. We stay outside during the day because it's too hard to watch Brad dying. The barn has become the place where everyone sits. We found some old crates and have been using them as chairs. The weather has been nice and it keeps all the elderly people away from Brad but not stuck in the RV.

     Ginger told us about her childhood and watching her mother, younger sister and younger brother dying of tuberculosis. She talked about how it was similar because they made the same wheezing and gagging sounds when their lungs filled up. She spoke about being poor and how now is kind of like then because everything is missing, like extra's and non essential stuff like candy or fresh foods.in

Ginger's little sister

     Walter and Ralph brought up experiences with family members getting pneumonia and having trouble breathing. Walter lost a sister and Ralph lost an uncle to pneumonia before there were hospitals in the rural areas they grew up in.

     Marvin talked about watching two of his grandparents, both his parents and a sister and brother all die of tuberculosis. They all suffered and he watched all of them as a child, knowing he might end up just like them. He said it was terrifying and is the same now because there are no doctors or hospitals or a lot of the medicines we used to take for granted.

     Brenda, the former receptionist from the Care Home, told a story about having pneumonia when she was a child and getting taken to the hospital when it was almost too late. They had to use long needles to drain the fluid in her lungs and pack ice around her to lower her fever. She told us about how it felt to almost not be able to draw a breath. How the lungs feel like they're full of wet cotton and how you can feel the air bubble when you breath. How scary it is to breath but not get enough oxygen.

     Jackie took a break at lunch and we talked about how Brad could've gotten sick. He wasn't bit, he didn't go somewhere by himself, so we all were exposed to the same areas as him. Did he have something inside him that made him sick? Like a tumor or a mutation or something? We're going to have to keep a close eye on everyone to make sure no one starts to have symptoms. If we're lucky, it will stop with Brad, although, I can't really call it lucky. But if we're not, it will spread to someone else and then we could be screwed.

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.

From the journal of John Archer, the Archivist, August 24

August 24, 2017

     I just read the saddest short journal I've read yet. It was written by Lance Roberts, a 13 year old who survived his whole family and was then alone.

     “My nightmare started when my father came home from work on March 29^th. He was a doctor at the local hospital, had been for years, a surgeon, a respected member of the medical community, as Mom used to always tell him. He'd had a really bad day. His patient came in in distress and then died on the table. While Dad was sewing him up, he came back to “life” and attacked my Dad. He bit him on the right shoulder and his left hand, before other people helped to subdue him.

Doctor Roberts

     Dad was checked over by the head doctor and the sent home for a few days, just as the two security guards that were also bit. Everything seemed OK that first night. Dad said he had read material from the hospital that said if he didn't get a really bad fever within 24 hours, then everything was fine. But if he got the fever, then he needed medicine and it would be a fight. We didn't know then that once you're bit, it's a death sentence.

     Dad fought for six days, six horrible days. Fever, throwing up, coughing, for days. He suffered really badly and the “medicine” they told him to take did shit for him. That's right, I cursed and there's no one left to tell me not to. The last two days, he wheezed and was barely able to breath and his eyes glazed over and his fever didn't break, it just got higher and higher. Eventually, Mom kept me and my little sister out of the room and took care of him all by herself. That's why Mom was the next one to die.

     Dad must've died while Mom was cooking his breakfasts in the kitchen because when she went in the bedroom, the screaming started. Mom had gotten in the habit of locking the door when she was in with Dad to keep Sybil out. Mom didn't want her to see Dad so sick. I broke through the door and saw my father, holding my screaming Mom down with one hand while his face was buried in her stomach. Blood was everywhere and Mom was screaming and squirming and when Sybil screamed beside my, Dad turned and snarled at both of us.

     His skin was grey and his eyes were clouded over. He didn't recognize us and immediately started coming after the two of us. I pushed Sybil out the door and closed it between Dad and us. He started this weird moaning and growling sound while pounding on the door. I put Sybil in her room, closed the door and grabbed the hatchet from the backyard that Dad used to make the kindling.

     Then, I went back in the house to take care of Dad, but when I walked down the hallway, the door was already open and Dad was in the hall with a Sybil lying under him, blood was pooling on the cream colored carpet runner Mom loved. He had taken out her throat, all in like a minute, that's all I took in the backyard. I had failed my little sister and what used to be Dad had killed her. He was chewing on her throat like it was a turkey leg and when I screamed out in rage, he turned on me. I buried the the hatchet in his head as he started to stand up. He fell to the floor and landed on Sybil. It took a lot of effort to get the hatchet back out of his skull, but I've watched enough zombie movies and show to know that Mom and Sybil needed to be taken care of before they come back like Dad.

Lance Roberts

     Once that was done, I sat in the living room for hours without moving. I don't even think I was thinking, just zoned out. When I came back, I knew I couldn't stay here. I've decided to take the car and head for Grandma's house out by the lake. She's far enough out, there's a chance she's still OK. It's the only thing I can think to do. I wanted to leave this note in case any of our other family comes looking for us. At least they'll know what happened here. I burned Dad, Mom and Sybil, at least what was left of them, in the backyard, packed my stuff and all the food and water I could get and now, I'm going to sleep tonight and leave in the morning.

     I'm 13 years old and alone. I really hope Grandma is still there or I really don't know what I'm going to do. And that's if I can get the 75 miles from here to there. Please, God, let me make it.

Lance Robert”

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.

From the journal of Nathan Sanchez, June 25

June 25, 2017

     Life is good. Marianne and I are going out still and I really enjoy just being with her. Her and Shiela, who is dating Darren, joined us on our team and we get to spend lots of time getting to know each other. I bet it won't be long before either Darren or myself switches rooms with one of the girls so Darren and Shiela can live together and Marianne and I can do the same.

     Before the pandemic, it could take months, or for some people, even years, to date someone and decide to move in with them. Now, everything is sped up. I've only known Marianne for a month and eight days, but I feel like I've known her for years. We spend hours talking about everything, from our childhoods to our past relationships, to what has happened since this all started. Nothing is off limits and I can't imagine life without her now.

     But, it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Seven couples came from the groups merging and one of those didn't stay together long. Victor and Janet broke up on June 20^th and it has been World War 3 ever since. Every time they're in the same area, they start yelling at each other and have to be separated. It's funny how angry they are considering they were only together like 3 weeks.

Mario and Lisa

     Thankfully, the rest of the couples seem to be doing better. My cousin Mario is dating Lisa, one of the former drummers, and they are totally stuck on each other. He had played drums in school himself, so they set up the kit in one of the barns, which has now become a music room, and they're teaching the kids who want to learn how to play.

Jazmin and Bruce

     Jazmin and Bruce just started dating last week, but can be seen walking around this place holding hands and making moon eyes at each other. They take turns bringing meals to each other when they're on duty and sit, looking at the stars together for hours on end. They talk about everything we all talk about, including what our old dreams for our lives were and how they've changed since the pandemic began.

Rosiat and Evan

     Rosita and Evan bonded over working in the kitchen and have enjoyed working together to perfect their guacamole recipe. They spend time cooking, picking produce from our garden, and taking walks around the secured areas. They hold hands and laugh and talk.

Miranda and Manuel

     Even one of their teachers, Miranda, has started dating one of the older cousins, Manuel. They spent time together at first on the team finding everyone someplace to sleep when the band first joined us. It took a lot of work to get everyone settled, even temporarily until we got more RV's, and they spent hours and hours listening to what everyone thought they needed and trying to give what space they could provide to make everyone as comfortable as possible. From there, it became walks in the evening, dinner together every night, and now they're a couple.

     Though some of the family has been annoyed having to deal with Janet and Victor yelling at each other, still the new people were badly needed to keep our community growing. Otherwise, there were only a few couples that could've provided kids and everyone else was related. Now, we can get couples together and babies born and we can grow and thrive and help to bring civilization back to this undead infested world. At least, if that is what God wants to happen. Please, please, let it be what will be.

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.

From the journal of John Archer, the Archivist, August 19

August 19, 2017

     I finally got a few free moments to find another journal to read from the archive. I chose one at random and sat down to read it after dinner. It's now around 4 am and I had to finish it once I had started. I couldn't put it down!

     The man who wrote it, Milton Tanner, started the journal the day the news reported the pandemic to the public. He lived in a small town back East and they were a close knit community that supported each other through all situations. He wrote about the widow on the edge of town whose house the town men painted right before the pandemic started. He wrote about the mayor and his daughters, and how they always drove through town too fast and got tickets he had to pay off for them. He wrote stories for almost everyone in his town and the surrounding area, then he started explaining what had happened since the news report heard round the world.

     The first thing to change in Milton's world was the municipalities: power, phones, gas, water and sewer. They saw the news reports around March 1^st and the municipalities turned of around the 10^th. People were upset, but most everyone had a fireplace or wood burning stove, so they could at least stay warm. The church opened their pantry and made sure everyone had enough candles to light their way at night. It was decided at a town meeting that some people or families were going to be paired together and would move into the best house between them, so less wood would be needed and the elderly or sick could be moved in with others to help them.

     It took a week to get everyone organized and moved. Once it was done, it did work better. The town decided that all the supplies should be centralized and then passed out to everyone to make sure no one was going hungry. They turned the town hall into the main distribution point and even boarded up the windows and made sure the building was secured to be the last point of defense, in case the worst happens.

     Then, things went well for quite a while. They sent out teams to scavenge for everyone and were building a fence around the whole town. They held meetings and made plans for the future for growing crops and surviving as a group.

     But something happened to change everything. A horde came through and they didn't have enough sentries to get enough of a warning for everyone. By the time enough people knew what was coming, they didn't have time to do more than run for the Town Hall. Over half the town made it inside before the undead came into sight. Milton and the other men secured the doors and went around to make sure all the windows were completely secure.

     The undead surrounded the building and pounded on the walls while making that creepy moaning and growling noise everyone now associates with the zombies. The last entry is included below:

     “We've been stuck inside this building for two weeks now. The food and water are getting low and so is morale. The noise from the hands of the undead pounding on the outside of Town Hall never stops, just as their moaning never stops. It's enough to drive everyone crazy and makes it hard to get any restful sleep. The boards on the doors and windows are starting to crack and split, so we know it won't be long before the undead are breaking through and we're all goners. Now the question is, do we just wait for it to happen? Or do we use the guns we have and take ourselves out and just leave our meat for them to eat? I know what I'm going to do, even if others decide to wait it out. I'm going to shoot myself and make sure I don't feel it when my body is torn apart by the monsters outside.

     If you're reading this, know we didn't want it to end this way. We would have kept our community going and civilization going if this horde hadn't come through. We should've had more guards and sentries posted to give us warning. We should have had a plan in place for this situation, but we didn't. We just went along, blissfully unaware of what could come through. This is going to be my last entry. Tonight we vote on what the group wants to do and tomorrow we follow through. May God have mercy on us all.

Milton Tanner”

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.