From the journal of Nikki Feather, June 14

June 14, 2017

When I woke up yesterday morning, Jackson was sitting at the table, already drinking coffee. He looked like he had aged 10 years overnight. I know what it feels like, since both my parents were already dead before the pandemic began, so I got myself some coffee and sat across from him, without saying anything.
It took about 10 minutes before he looked up and said "We can't stay here. I can't stay here. I keep seeing him lying on the floor and I don't want to think of him that way every day. Besides, it's obviously not safe here."
I agreed and we sat in silence for a while before I got up and went to the truck to get the maps in the glovebox. I sat on the couch and opened the first map and spread it out on the coffee table. I found our approximate location and marked it with a pen. Then, I started looking all around us, looking for somewhere that would be easily defensable and a place we could get to in a few days, no more than a week.
Diablo dam might be an option. We could block off both sides and there is space inside where the generators are located. Hmm..

Jackson eventually came over and joined me. We spent a couple of hours going over various ideas of places to go. He agreed that Diablo Dam, or one of the others on the Skagit river, might be good places to go, but there is also potential for disaster. If no one is there to keep debris from building up on the dams, they could collapse and if we were living inside, we would be goners.
Well, then it was back to the drawing board for ideas. We finally decided to think on it and maybe just wing it. This cabin was not defensible because it is out in the forest with no wall or fence and is still close to a couple of larger towns. We needed to go farther into a National Forest or park, away from towns and anywhere people might have been living before this shit started.
We spent the rest of the day trying to make the area around the cabin a little safer. Jackson used a chainsaw to cut down ten big trees around us and made a barrier of them by how he got them to fall. Impressive.

I kept watch and took out the few undead that were drawn by the noise. There weren't many right now, but we needed to make decisions on where to go soon. We took all the cans and anything that might make noise and made some low tech alarms on the cabin side of the fallen trees and about  feet closer to the cabin. We made some stakes and dug a couple wholes that we put them in since there might be live people intent on hurting us out here too.
We spent hours getting dirty and setting up traps and alarms. By the time we stopped, I felt a little better about staying here until we figured out what we are going to do and where we are going to go. We went in and used the gravity fed shower for a couple of really quick, really cold showers and then ate some dinner. I was exhausted and I knew Jackson had to be the same, so I suggested an early night and Jackson agreed.
This morning, he looked a little more rested and we spent this morning checking over our defenses and quietly talking about our options. Hopefully, we will have a plan in a few days.

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.