From the record kept by the twins Jenny and Barbie Crow, May 19

May 19, 2017

We finally took them out this morning and were able to retrieve the cart and wagon. We won't have any problems moving between the apartments on this floor. Now, we only have to worry about the the ones that might be in the apartments and we should be able to take them out a lot easier than the group that was in the hall.
Barbie and I had to use most of the sparse furniture in this apartment to make our barricades and hiding places. It took us almost all day yesterday and by the time we were set, we were exhausted. We had moved the bed into the living room as part of the whole shebang, so we just ate some food and lay down to get some rest.
This morning, we ate breakfast, took one last look at our work and then put our plan into action. It took us about twenty minutes of hacking, stabbing, hiding and attacking to take out the eleven undead. It was dangerous and scary but we were getting pretty good at building what we need with what's on hand to get the job done. It worked at the security office and it worked here just as well.
Again, once we were done we were exhausted and filthy from all the undead blood that was flying. We used some of out water to wash up and found some really cool clothes in the bedroom. They were tight on both of us, since neither of us are a size two, but we were able to squeeze ourselves into some of the knit clothes. Tight clothes were way better than the gross ones we were wearing and we could always check the other apartments for clothes that fit better or that can be belted or altered to fit better.
Once we were cleaner, and had eaten again since killing zombies really does work up an appetite, we gathered our stuff and went to the next apartment down the hall. This time, Barbie had the keys ready, just in case we somehow didn't attract one of the undead and it was lurking in the hallway, but we must have gotten them all.

The apartment we walked into was amazing. Not as sparse as the one we had been stuck in, but still, wow! My entire place could fit in the living room alone! From the personal pictures on the walls, it looks like some young CEO owned this place and he traveled all over the world. There was artwork from Europe, a Katana sword from Japan in a case, textiles from South American and statues from several countries.
I had to stop myself from getting absorbed in looking at the cool stuff around us and reminded Barbie, and myself, that we needed to clear the apartment first. We closed the front door to the hall, so nothing could wander in behind us, and then went room by room. Barbie was on point and when she went into the hallway bathroom, she cried out. There, on the floor, was the torn up, desiccated remains of a little hairy dog. Looked like we might have company in one of the un-searched rooms.
We went back into the hall and there was still four doors left to open. I whispered to Barbie that we should make a loud noise to see if anything started banging on the other side of one of them and she used the butt of her machete to pound on the wall three times. We didn't have long to wait before the door at the very end of the hall started to vibrate from the impact of a undead fists on the other side of it. We waited a couple more minutes to make sure nothing was slowly making it's way to one of the other doors, then held another conference.
It was decided that we would still clear the quiet rooms first, just to be safe and then tackle the one we knew had something in it last. It took us about ten minutes to clear the other rooms and then we were standing at the shaking door.

I had my sword that I have had since the beginning and Barbie had taken the Kitana from the living room and we decided that Barbie would throw the door open with both of us standing to the sides of the door in this super wide hallway. Hopefully, the undead would rush out and we could take him out quickly and with no trouble.
Of course, this world doesn't seem to work like that anymore. She threw the door open and the thing in the bedroom rushed out and lunged right for her, following her arm back out of the doorway. He grabbed her arms and started to pull her  towards his snapping mouth and I jumped forward, putting my sword through the left side of his head. He dropped to the floor and took my sword right out of my hands. I just stood there breathing hard and that' when I felt the clawed hands grab my left arm and pull.
I screamed and tried to pull away, but the undead female was stronger than any human would've been. She was making that moaning and growling noise as she snapped her teeth together while pulling me closer still. Her face had no skin on the right side and that eye was hanging out of the socket on the cheek. Her neck and shoulder was just one raw, chewed up mess and her right arm was mostly bone and strips of cloth and skin.
I saw a flash from the corner of my right eye and then her head was rolling back away from us towards the bed. Her body fell over but she still had a hold of my arm and I fell on top of her remains, still screaming.
Barbie pulled me from the now dead zombies grasp and pulled me back to the living room, patting my shoulder and saying things I couldn't understand. It took several minutes before I could calm down and then I started grumbling about how stupid I was for not making sure nothing else was in that room. Instead, I had just frozen when I should've turned to look. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Barbie agreed that we had both been dumb and we made the choice to stay in the living room while we were in the apartment, except to search the closets and bathrooms one time for useful items. We did that fast and then pushed the male zombies remains back into the bedroom and closed the door. That room looked like a crime scene, with black, old blood smeared all over the bed, walls and carpet. He must have turned first and from the looks of it, she was sleeping in the bed when he started eating her alive. She must have run around and tried to put up a fight from the overturned furniture and blood spray. Poor woman.
I'm getting even better at compartmentalizing than I was in medical school, so I put the two undead out of my mind and started looking through the interesting stuff from around the world. Barbie went through the movies and then we moved on to the kitchen and ransacked it for supplies.
The amount of supplies we have found so far, in a couple of apartments, made me realize we will probably have to go floor by floor and go back to our place to drop off supplies between each floor. Unless we find a place we want to move into permanently. So far, I didn't want to live in any of the apartments we had been in. We'll have to wait and see.

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.