From the journal of Sarah Richards, April 27

April 27, 2017

Not much has happened since the last time I wrote. We've just been surviving. There hasn't been any sound that wasn't made by the undead or by us. There have been a few shots heard from the Towers. Most of the time, we'd hear a bunch of shots really fast and then nothing. Like the zombies got into one of the apartments where someone was still surviving and then the live person got overwhelmed by the undead and then silence. Every time it happens, we huddle together in a group and comfort each other. There's nothing else we can do.
Even if we made it back through the tunnel and back to the Towers, there's only a few of us and hundreds of zombies. There's no way we could rescue anyone and we would just die trying. At least, that's what we keep telling ourselves and each other. It still hurts though. The gunfire could be coming from someone we know, our friends or neighbors, and we are helpless to help them.

I miss the Towers and our apartment. It was warm and I miss being that warm. We've used wood, cloth, and any pieces of furniture we could find, to try to close in the space we are in. It's hard enough to heat one room without lots of holes for the heat to go out. We have to be careful to not fill our space with carbon monoxide, but we have a 55 gallon drum and have kept a fire burning in it since we got here. We got a grate to put on the top to heat food on and we use foil to keep the food from burning. There's a lot of wood around, since the building is falling apart, and we should be good for a while. We got most of the food, from both of our apartments, to our hideout, so we were good on food too. Water is the main issue. We put out container we cleaned in a bunch of the upper apartments to collect as much rain water as we can. It's not enough, but it has rained a couple of days and the water helped us save some of the bottles of water.

I was feeling so useless, I convinced Mandy to go with me to the port end of the tunnel. We made it all the way to the end and crept up, really quietly, to see what was out there. We could see some buildings, but neither of us spent a lot of time in the port, so we had no idea what buildings we were looking at. I was surprised to see that the streets in view were mostly empty. We only saw, like, fifteen or so in the two hours we watched the street. We tried to push the metal gate open and go search the buildings we could see, but the grate was padlocked and we didn't have the key. We'll have to come back another day with bolt cutters. Then we headed back to Buckner and told our parents we were searching apartments on other floors.
Mandy and I need to go back to the port and look for water. Mom will never agree to us going, especially without her, so we are going to have to sneak away. I talked to Mandy and we are going to have to smuggle things out slowly, over a couple of days. Tomorrow, we are going to try to get our backpacks out and hide them in the tunnel. The next day, we will get the bolt cutters out and then the day after, some food and a couple bottles of water. That way, if something happens while we're there, we can find somewhere to hide. The food and water would give us a chance to come up with a way to get back to Buckner. Mom'll be freaking out by then, but we need the water.

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