From the journal of Rebecca Martin, June 11

June 11, 2017

Today, we pulled into Shelbyville, Kentucky. It's a small town on the 64, which we made it back to a couple of days ago. We had taken a detour to stay away from the bikers, but thought it was probably safe to travel on the 64 for a few days. We're going to have to detour again before we get to Lexington, just like we did around Louisville, but we have been making good time.
The town is really sweet and we were enjoying glancing around and then we saw the stadium. There was a sign hanging on it that said "Alive inside" and we all talked about checking it out. It took us a half hour or so to make our way over there and then we saw that the sign was not in as good a shape as we thought from farther away.
We put it to another vote and it was decided that James, Jackie and I would go take a look, while everyone else stayed in the RV. It was a good thing we did this, Brenda, the receptionist from the care home, is really sensitive and wouldn't have been able to handle what was in there.

We entered through one of the entrance tunnels and it was really dark for a few steps. When we came back out into the light, the sceen was horrible. Bodies were decomposed everywhere, or at least, pieces of  bodies were decomposed everywhere. Arms, legs, heads, all chewed on and with not enough left to reanimate. There were a few undead who turned from where they had been just standing and waiting for something to stimulate them, but not so many we couldn't handle it.
There were cots, suitcases and bags of clothes sitting all around, on the levels of the stadium, in the halls, on the field. Women's clothes, men's clothes, kids, babies. There were toys, blankets, and all manner of personal possessions, all covered in blood and gore and strewn all around.
The three of us walked around, half in a daze, taking out the undead we came across. There must have been thousands of people in this place when the shit hit the fan. What happened? Where were all the people who had been here? Were they all dead? Undead? If they were undead, where were they?
We decided to check the kitchen and snack shack for any food that might be left and then get out of this little town, before we found the thousands of undead that could be around this town. The kitchen was a gold mine and we filled a couple of the wheeled town bins and rolled them out to the entrance where Melissa and Brad came and wheeled to the RV.
The three of us headed back in and straight to the snack shack where I tried to open the door. It was locked from the inside and James had to break it down. Inside, we found five bodies. One had obviously turned and had it's head bashed in by the others. But all four other woman had wholes in their heads. It looked like one of them had killed three of the others and then herself. She had an envelope on her lap and I took it to look inside later.

We found some food, mostly stale chips and candy, but it wasn't much so we were able to carry it back to the RV. Once we were inside the RV, we told everyone some of what we found, enough to make them understand we had to leave the town. We had originally been planning on staying there for the night, but there was no way we were staying now. We left town and pulled over about 10 miles later to look at the map and decide on our route for the detour. We've found an old gas station to stay at and tomorrow will continue on our way. Hopefully, we won't run into any of the people who turned in the stadium. I wonder where they went?

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.