From the letter written by Charles March, April 15

From the letter found by Kelly Vargas in a crossroads country store. The writer was found in a skeletal state with only the shreds of clothes left and this letter in his lap.

April 15, 2017

     My name is Charles March. I have no idea where I am now, I've been on the road for days and days, the last few by myself. For most of my journey, I was accompanied by my girlfriend, Willow Long, since neither of us ever figured out what happened to most of our family. My Dad died right at the beginning of March while he was on the phone with me. He'd been in Denver at a medical conference and they were overrun by the zombies and I heard him die, gurgling, and sounds that sounded like he was being torn apart and eaten. I never found out about my Mom. She and Dad had split and she was in California at her parents house when everything started.

     I was staying at my Aunts house when the horde came through. I was in the living room with Willow when we heard them. Her parents were with my Aunt and most of the other adults in town at a meeting at the High School. We heard the undead coming, so we hid in the attic of my Aunts house and watched through the little octagonal window as the undead filled the little street outside. It seemed like they kept going on and on forever, but really, it was only like 20 minutes and the horde was made up of hundreds of zombies, not thousands like some people will claim.

     We waited all night and all the next day, but neither my Aunt or her parents were seen again. We stayed in our little town for a couple of weeks in the hopes that someone else would come through before leaving to look for others surviving out there. That was several weeks ago.

     Last week, we ran into a group that was bad, evil, right from the start. They tried to separate Willow and I. I knew they were going to kill me and keep her for sex, so I got us out of there by running over some of them and their bikes. They followed us and shot at us. We fought our way away from them and I had to kill a bunch of them to get away. But we didn't get away clean. Willow was shot in the side of her stomach and she died within a few hours. I loved her will all my heart and I had to stab a knife into her brain to make sure she didn't come back as one of those things.

     Then, yesterday, I was found by those guys again. We had a long car chase and I ended up killing the ones who found me, but not before I crashed the truck I was driving and broke both my legs, left arm and right hip. I'm dead now. There's no way to survive this, especially since I am out here alone.

     Mom, Dad, please forgive me for not being there when you died, I now I forgive you for it now. Aunt Alma, I'm sorry I didn't go to the meeting with you and Willow's parents. Maybe if we'd been there, we could've kept you all alive. Willow, please forgive me for now being able to protect you, baby.

     I am not going to wait to be found by those things and be torn apart. I will end this on my terms. If you have found this letter, be wary of any strangers you run across. People are letting themselves be evil now and do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. Keep the faith, keep your humanity and keep on surviving.

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.

From the journal of Kelly Vargas, July 5

July 5, 2017

     The last couple of days have been uneventful, but my mind was still back at that gated community. It seems like every time I blink or close my eyes, I see those skeletons with the strips of decomposing flesh and remains of cloth. I see the remains, splayed out where they'd fallen. I saw the larger skeletons with the smaller ones, trying to cover the smaller ones with their pre-decomposed bodies. I saw the pictures on the walls of the two houses we'd gone through. The smiling faces of the families, the happy life they'd lived, shown through pictures, snapshots of normal lives.

     Then, I'll flash back to the skeletons on the lawns, some dragged there before death, some after when they'd managed to kill themselves before the bad men got inside their houses. All of them had been hit with blunt objects, the bones showed the cracks and breaks. Hopefully, most of them were already dead or too far gone to feel the additional pain from the breaks. That was just adding insult to injury.

     The last few nights, I've dreamed about that place. In the most horrific dream I remember, the skeletons started moving. At first it was just little wiggles, like someone starting to turn over in their bed. Then, they started getting up, if their legs were still close enough to the rest of the skeleton, others just dragged themselves on the ground. Even the arms and legs that had been separated from the rest of the body were moving, wiggling, and pulling themselves towards me.

     The skeletons started making that horrible moaning and growling noise that the undead make and I turned to run. But, you know those dreams where you try to run and try to get away, but no matter what you do , it's like you're standing in molasses and you can't move. Well, that's what was happening in my nightmare. I kept trying to move and trying to run, but my feet just wouldn't move. They were stuck to the ground like they'd been super glued and the skeletons were coming right for me from all sides. I was alone and screaming and trying to push them away from me and then I could almost feel their hands grabbing onto me and that's when I came awake.

     Now, I don't want to sleep and keep trying to think of anything else to keep my mind off that place and those skeletons. That's when my mind starts wandering towards what happened at the church and last night I had a dream that combined the two. Not only were there skeletons coming after me and mixed in with them were the undead from inside the church. It was terrifying but at least in that dream I had Manny, Connor, Alicia, Alex and Marny at my back. That made this dream, even with skeletons and the undead coming after us, not as scary as the one where I was alone with just the skeletons.

     Today, we pulled into this little market on the crossroads in the countryside. When we went inside, I found another skeleton, this one all by itself, lying on the office floor with a letter very messily written on it's lap. It was so far decomposed, I could only tell it was guy by it's hair and by finding it's wallet on the floor beside it. We took all the snack food and drinks left in the back and went to find a house for the night. I'm going to include the short letter in my journal, just in case someone besides me is interested in what it has to say. I wrote down the location of the store where we found it and the date and time, at least to the best of my knowledge.

     Tonight is going to be another hard night. Seeing that guys remains has brought back all the other messed up stuff I've seen lately. Please, let me get some sleep tonight without nightmares!

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.