From the journal of Nikki Feather, June 16

June 16, 2017

     We left the cabin this morning and headed West. Trying to make a plan just wasn't working so we decided to wing it and chose a direction. I think most of the people from my town were planning on heading West and if we're lucky, we might run into them, or at least some of them, before too long. Wouldn't that be funny, running into old Mr Dumphrey or Mrs. Abbey Milner or any of the other people who got out ahead of the horde.

     The little bit of plan we have right now is to start out on the 90 to the 15 to the 70, headed into Colorado. We'll have to detour around the larger towns and cities, but we know the direction we're heading in. Jackson says we should try to make it to Cheyenne Mountain Complex and that if there is anything left of our government or military, it would more than likely be there. I don't know about trying to get all the way there, but we can keep our eyes open along the way and we might find somewhere to stay along the way.

     While he was talking about the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, I realized that I don't know much about the place. I know it's built into a mountain and it used to house NORAD, I remembered seeing that in a movie. I know it has blast doors and a bunch of space for people to stay, if need be. But besides that, I don't know anything else. Could it be a good place to find survivors? If one person was infected inside, though, would it become a holding tank for zombies? What would happen if you opened the door then? I just don't know.

     Jackson is doing a little better today. Leaving the cabin seems to have eased a little of his pain. I bet he had memories everywhere he looked and especially the spot where we found his father. He's looking forward now and not back. I'm glad we decided to go somewhere else, it will be better for him.

     Yesterday, he was wavering on leaving until around noon. That's when we heard some of our primitive traps start making sound. The noises were coming from multiple places around the cabin and we had to go see what was going on. It could be the undead or the living, either way, it sounded like there was more than one. We decided to stay together so we could watch each others backs and headed for the nearest sound. We snuck up quietly on the ditch we had dug and the cans on strings we used as an alarm. Once we were in sight, I sighed in relief. It was a group of undead, four of them, tangled in our alarm and stuck in the ditch on the stakes we had put in the bottom. Jackson and I took them out, quietly, and headed for the next place we could hear more.

     We made our way to the place we had set up some rope traps and found five more undead stuck in our net. They were easy to take out, since they were stuck, and then we stopped to listen carefully. From the opposite side of the cabin, I could hear more sounds of struggling in one of our traps and there were other sounds of movement in the trees past our perimeter. We were in the middle of another horde, not as big as the one that stopped us in the truck, but not a small group either.

     Jackson and I spent the entire afternoon and evening moving from place to place around our safety perimeter, taking out the undead in our traps and resetting them. We had to stop to eat and we sat in the yard of the cabin, listening to the sound of movement all around us. We had a whispered conversation about not being able to stay there and then went back to work. The sounds started tapering off around 8 pm and by 11 pm, no more alarms or traps were set off. We made our way back to the cabin, ate another meal and went to bed.

     This morning, we got up, packed up all our supplies and anything that might be useful and then I sat on the porch to wait for Jackson. He spent a few minutes talking to his fathers grave before coming to get me. We don't know where we're going to sleep tonight. We don't know who we'll run into on the way. We don't know much at this point but that we can't stay here. Hopefully, we'll have good luck on the road and make it somewhere safe, with other people to survive with. Hopefully.

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.