From the journal of Manny Stone, July 3

July 3, 2017

     We pulled up to walls today, cobbled together with whatever they could find. Walls that went on for what seems like miles in either direction. Kinda like that scene in the movie 'Labyrinth', when the girl first gets to the labyrinth and it seem to just go on and on for miles in a straight line. Well, that's what it resembled. I stopped well back from the only gate we could see and we waited to see if anyone noticed our truck. We sat there for a good thirty minutes and no one came to greet or threaten us. I suggested we honk the horn and see what happened and everyone else agreed it was better to do something than sit here and wait for someone or notice us.

     I honked the horn with three long honks and we waited to see if someone,or some zombie, came to the gate. Nothing. We waited over thirty minutes again and nothing came to the gate. Not a person, zombie, dog or cat. Nothing.

     We debated what we should do next and decided to try to drive all the way around the walls to look for breaks or any signs of movement. It took us about three hours to drive all the way around them and we had to drive through a stream and over part of a golf course to do it. We went slowly and Marny and Alicia kept a close eye on the walls with, even using binoculars when they felt they needed a better look. We saw the tops of trees and a couple of rooftops, but no movement, nothing. When we made it to the side opposite the gate we had honked at, we saw that the wall had been breached. A twenty food section of it had been blasted and run over with something like a tractor or tank, something with caterpillar tracks.

     We discussed going through the breach, but I finally convinced the others that it would be better to finish driving around the wall to check the rest of it first. Once we finished, we went back and had another talk about how we should go in. I vetoed going in on foot, since we didn't know what the situation inside was going to be. I suggested we take the truck in, do a quick circuit and see what's going on. Then, if it's safe, we could look around on foot. I put the truck in four wheel drive and drove over the crumbled pieces of wall.

     Inside, it was horrific. It had been a while since they were slaughtered, I could tell by the decomposition. There were skeletons, with strips of cloth and flesh, on the ground everywhere. In the street, in driveways, on lawns and porches, we could see them through the open doors in the houses. Their skulls were smashed and they'd been left where they fell. It was a ghost town. No wonder not undead had greeted us at the gate. There weren't any undead in here and since they'd all been killed by people, it meant that no undead had found them in time for the bodies to still be food for them.

     When we got to the gate, we decided to check one house together before we split up. The first house we chose was a mess. The inside was ransacked and what hadn't been taken had been broken. The walls had been spray painted with every kind of profanity or vulgar message and even a few pictures of dicks. We decided to try a second house, but found the same thing inside. The only interesting item I found was a folded piece of paper in one of the kitchens. It was covered in what had been jam or something like it, but I took it to see what it says. Otherwise, the whole place was a bust. We drove out of the community and two hours later, we found a nice, deserted farm house, with no skeletons in sight to stay the night in. That community gave me the creeps, I'm glad we left there quickly. Tomorrow will hopefully be a better day.

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.