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  There was a lot of discussion and debate, but to me...it seems like we are at war. I wonder if we’ll ever find peace...not just from the walking dead, but from humanity as well. Due to all the logistics...we will be leaving in three days.

  I am going to spend these few days with Meredith. We have no idea when the luxury of just enjoying one another will come. I spoke to Tim before he left for the first cycle of standing watch over the valley. We wished each other good luck. Funny, I think on all the times I bid farewell to friends and acquaintances. I never realized or even considered it could be our last moments together. It has come to such a dire and extreme situation for me to realize that it is important to treat every relationship as something special to cherish and not take for granted.

  I will be sure to say something to all those who I spent all those days, nights...life and death situations with. Meredith also mentioned that if we get back, perhaps we could consider having Joey live with us. That was a surprise on two levels; one, the idea of basically adopting Joey (he lives in a barracks with six other orphaned children), two, Meredith wants to live with me!

  Wow!

  Thursday, May 8

  I almost forgot how horrible it is out here. Oddly enough, I’m not speaking of the undead. We have to cut through the Panhandle National Forest on service roads that saw a wet, cold, nasty winter. No crews have come through to tidy up after Mother Nature. The Hummers are struggling. Also, we are actually at elevations where snow is not only still present, but deep enough to force us to back track and change course a few times. We barely made fifty miles today as we sit camped next to the Coeur d’Alene River just north and east of someplace called Cougar Peak. What should’ve taken a few hours took all day.

  Tomorrow, Steve and I will go on foot north. Scott and Sasha will go south. We will look for a good crossing spot. Best case, of course, is to find an intact bridge.

  The best thing I can say is that, at least on our first day, we were fortunate enough not to encounter a single zombie. Although, about an hour ago we did hear the distinct, yet distant, sound of a gunfire burst. Direction is very tough to determine from our location which is basically a trough carved out of these mountains.

  Friday, May 9

  It is a good thing we made sure everybody was clear that this would likely be a slow process. Fortunately, having two-way radios, we managed to keep communication most of today. When the signal began cutting in and out, we marked the location by tying a white tee-shirt to an overhanging branch of one of the many trees along the river’s edge.

  It wasn’t more than an hour after losing contact that we encountered a roamer. It looked like a hardcore biker, still suited up in its leathers and, unfortunately for us, wearing its helmet. It was making a lot of noise as it charged through the brush like an angry bear. The now blood-caked remnants of a forked goatee stuck out stiffly like a divining rod from its gore smeared chin. I could tell instantly that this thing had been feasting recently.

  Steve and I flared out, forcing it to choose a target. I won. I adjusted my backpedaling to allow Steve to move in from behind. It was a simple maneuver, one we often used on single targets. Neither of us even considered that bikers often travel in gangs...until twelve more of the damn things burst from the woods. I know this was not an intentional ambush (at least I’m pretty sure). Keeping our location a secret quickly lost its priority status. We both drew our handguns aiming for the couple without helmets first.

  I dropped two before I had to return my attention to the first one I had been luring. At least I could see its face. I brought my arm up as it closed to just a few feet away and fired. I think I heard the sound of my bullet ricochet inside the helmet a couple times.

  By the time it was over, two of my four magazines were spent. We hadn’t expected much activity.

  A few minutes later, the victims of the zombie biker gang came stumbling and crawling out of the trees. It was a group of kids! The oldest could not be older than sixteen, the youngest, about nine. They had been torn up pretty bad. Some were missing limbs that had been ripped off in the vile feeding frenzy. Most had gaping holes in their chests and stomachs. The youngest, had to be a girl, was missing both legs, dragging itself through the tall grass by one arm. The other arm was gone from the elbow. A long gray coil dragged behind like a serpent’s tail.

  I could not think about what they might have done to survive this long, or what had caused their demise. Steve and I simply switched to our blades and put the five young bodies to rest. At some point, I had started crying without realizing it. My eyes blurred, and I missed the creeper twice before finally driving the point of my blade through the back of its skull.

  We are up in some trees now. Steve is asleep. I am listening to the gurgle of the water, staring up at the moon. It looks like the face of a little girl.

  Saturday, May 10

  We are camped beside a bridge. Honestly, Steve and I are too damned tired to start back. Plus, we’ve got company. We found the camp that was the home for those kids that the gang of biker-zombies attacked.

  It seems some of those kids were on a foraging mission. They were part of a group of twenty-three kids from Thompson Falls, Montana. When the plague hit, these kids were part of the population that ran for it. They left by bus. There was an accident when the lead bus swerved to avoid a bunch of zombies. The three bus caravan was totaled. One went down a steep embankment on its side. They were the lucky ones. I guess they could hear the screams begin above almost as soon as they came to a jarring stop against a huge boulder.

  Initially there had been about a dozen adults. Two were already infected. It was one of the older girls, Brittany Maldanado, who figured out how the disease spread. However, adults being adults, nobody would listen. Since the kids were kept away from the sick, the adults were all gone in the first week. They had managed to make it to a campground. It was deserted…either abandoned or the keeper had turned and then wandered off.

  There were plenty of supplies at first. But when they had practically stripped the storeroom bare, it had become necessary to forage. Using a map that had all the Ranger Stations marked, they systematically went on raids. A few times there had been a zombie. But they had heard reports on how to dispatch them and everybody carried a weapon of some sort. Against one or two, it seems they have been able to take care of themselves.

  Anyways, those kids actually spotted Steve and I before we saw them. Once they made contact and all the sharing of information was finished (the ten-year-old little girl named September Marie Bluthe and her older brother Rusty were in that group we had just put down) the kids were able to show us the bridge. They will come with us back to the others, showing us a series of logging roads we can drive the Hummers on to the bridge. Then, they will come back to Irony.

  Sunday, May 11

  Making our way back is easier, but slower. Brittany Maldanado is obviously these kids’ leader. Even when Steve and I say something, they look to her for a nod of approval. About half of them won’t talk to us at all. I don’t blame them. I mean really...this world is ugly and messy.

  There are a lot of things I don’t miss...Amber Alerts, the most recent teacher-student sex scandal, another dead priest being accused of fondling his altar boy, and which idiotic Hollywood bimbo lacking any talent or actual contributing skill was seen getting out of her car in a mini-skirt and “accidentally” forgetting her panties. I truly believe that, in some ways, these children are living in a better world.

  What does that say about the world that used to be?

  Monday, May 12

  Made contact with Meredith and the others. It was great to hear her voice. Scott and Sasha have not called in yet. That is only a minor concern since both of those kids are little wannabe-action-figures. The downside is that it looks like we’ll have to hike the whole way back. We can’t have them returning to find everybody gone. I just hope they’ve reported in by the time Steve and I make it back. I wouldn’t want to sit too long.

&nbs
p; Tuesday, May 13

  Tucked all the kids in. They are in huddled little puppy piles in each of the Hummers. Nothing at all has come over the radio. Meredith and I are under one of the vehicles. It’s not quite camping, but the clean air is refreshing and very conducive to nestling in nice and close.

  It was great to wrap Meredith in my arms and just feel her close. The kids seemed relieved when they saw the rest of our group. It was like they held some doubt and feared we may be leading them to someplace (like what my Meredith escaped from) terrible.

  On the bad side, still nothing from Scott or Sasha. We wait one more day, then if still nothing, Meredith and Perry will go look for them. Initially, I said I would go, but Perry argued that since Steve and I had already made a hike, we should stay put and let him do something productive. Meredith piled on in agreement.

  Wednesday, May 14

  Meredith left this morning. Already it is obvious that Steve and I had gone in the easier direction of the two. Perry has been frantic at times on the radio. Between the terrain and unusually frequent zombie appearances, both he and Meredith have expressed wonder that Scott and Sasha communicated so infrequently.

  The unspoken tone from both sides is that we fully expect not to find our friends. If we do, we meaning Meredith and Perry since I’m watching over a bunch of kids, it will likely be just to put a bullet in their heads.

  Thursday, May 15

  Lost radio contact early today. To add to the misery, a storm is steadily dumping water on us, and some zombie activity here in the middle of nowhere got the kids all shook up, which is making for a miserable day. I already told Perry that they should not search more than a few hours once we lose contact. If they find nothing, it will be sad, but we can move out with a clear conscience. And really…that is all this little exercise is about.

  The real focus needs to be moving on, scouting the objective, and getting back to Irony. Not that I think there is a high possibility of danger to the folks back at Irony. At least not from the zombies. My bigger worry was, and always has been, the danger posed by other survivors. Most notably in this situation, the folks from the Air Force base.

  I spent a little time chatting with Brittany Maldanado today away from the others. For seventeen, she has her head screwed on tight. She can’t be much taller than five feet and I would guess her to have about a hundred and seventy pounds packed on. She keeps her waist length hair braided and coiled on top of her head like a black python.

  It is not hard to imagine that she was one of those girls that never gave a flat damn about what anybody thought of her. She is a take-it-or-leave-it sorta gal. I wonder how many of the little cheerleader types that pointed and laughed behind her back are stumbling around with bites out of ‘em, condemned to an eternity of vacuousness that barely exceeds what they exhibited when alive.

  Anyways, Brittany said that about three weeks ago there was a loud noise that took everybody a while to realize was aircraft. They ran to a clear area just in time to see at least seven jets battling each other in the sky above. At least four were eventually shot down, but it was unclear who was fighting who since all of the planes looked the same. One of the boys, Henry Mills, kept insisting at the time that they were all American. Apparently he was a fighter plane aficionado. Unfortunately, he was one of the kids we put down with the biker-zombies.

  Still, it was good to get a sense of this kid. She is obviously the heart of the group. If we hope to make any in-roads with the others, she is our avenue. I told her a little about Irony and how things work. I explained why we were out here scouting and she understood everything perfectly.

  It was after we’d been talking for a while that she exposed the hesitation in the others. The last adult to succumb to the disease had managed to tie up all the boys the first night he had been the final adult. Then, once he had all the girls isolated in one room—he used the pretense that the boys had gotten infected and they had to separate themselves—he came in with intentions of having his way with one of the girls; Marissa Blaney, a fourteen- year-old little gal that had been “cursed” with an older girl’s body, big blue eyes and blonde hair. He had the girl pinned to the bed when Brittany crushed the back of his head with a shovel.

  Like I said, she has it all together.

  Friday, May 16

  We are in the Hummers and on a gravel road that, come tomorrow, will take us to a bridge that crosses the river. The rain splattering with a metallic buzz on the roof is mind numbing. All of us need a little mental Novocain right now.

  Perry is a wreck. But then, he’s the one who found Scott and Sasha. To his credit, he held firm in his refusal in allowing Meredith to see them. When they got back this evening he took me aside and told me everything.

  Scott obviously put up quite a fight. Perry said that he was chained to a tree and showed signs of having been sliced a couple hundred times. Eventually, whoever these sick bastards were turned a zombie loose on him, but only enough for him to suffer. He had one bite on his left hand. The size of the bite indicated that it was a child.

  Sasha likely witnessed it all. Just as Scott probably witnessed the multiple times she was raped only a few feet away…staked to the ground. Even through the discoloration of death, Perry said it was obvious she had been badly abused. Her inner thighs were almost black with bruising, and blood was caked almost to her knees. I didn’t ask what he did to discover it, but he said it was apparent that she had been anally raped repeatedly as well. All of her teeth had been pulled from her mouth. Perry couldn’t be sure if this was done before or after the animals that did this allowed her to be turned. Their finishing touch was to cut her head off and shove it into her ripped open abdomen so that her face stared out. This was particularly unnerving since, while the body did not move, the head was fully animated.

  One oddity Perry observed—besides all the obvious—was how agitated the Scott-zombie got when the Sasha-zombie was disposed of. Perry says that he now wishes he would’ve killed the Scott-zombie first.

  I used to watch movies like The Road Warrior and think that surely we would not devolve so drastically as a species in the event of an actual apocalypse.

  It seems I was terribly, terribly wrong.

  Saturday, May 17

  Found the compound. I’m not surprised that folks were retreating from society. Actually, and this may be the shock talking, I’m now wondering why more folks weren’t doing it.

  We’ve watched all day for any signs of movement. There is nothing living or dead down there. We will respect Grace’s request that we simply scout and then return. There are a couple of populations outside of those small bergs of society.

  First thing in the morning we will head back to Irony. For some reason…I’ve been thinking a lot about the folks back at the old compound: Tom Langston, Monica Camp-inelli, Greg Parker, and Crystal Johnson. I hope they are all okay. Would it have been better if I had stayed there…oblivious to what is becoming of our world?

  Evening

  Nobody spoke much today. I think grief, shock, and horror are all accepted parts of the life we now live. Still, sometimes something happens that takes just a bit longer to digest. While only Perry actually saw Scott and Sasha, everybody knows enough to be shaken. This is an event best left behind. Yet, we cannot do that because it is of the utmost importance that everybody be vigilant for the dangers in this new world. After all, it was our society as a whole that tried to dispel this last and most horrible crisis by ignoring it and keeping the community in the dark about just what was out there on the streets of their neighborhoods.

  I do still believe there are good people out there. Only, you never see their handiwork. It is in our nature to try and allow the bad to define us. We lived in a world where mistakes and wrongdoings were news, and do-gooders were ignored if not mocked. Or worse, suspected of ulterior motives. Think back…at the end of a newscast, sometimes you could hear a story about the person finding an envelope of cash or a bank bag that fell out of a truck. How often
did it spark the conversation on how big of an idiot that person was? We wanted addicted Hollywood stars behaving badly…politicians and theology figures in sex scandals…athletes on steroids.

  Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio indeed.

  Sunday, May 18

  Terrible thunder and lightning started early this afternoon. Driving over terrain that has now undergone almost a half year of neglect…or reclamation by Mother Nature if you want to see it that way…caused us to become just a little bit lost. Unable to see as the rain became worse, we stopped to wait out the storm.

  We had no idea we were just outside of a town called Pritchard. The close quarters with so many of us stuffed into these vehicles led to some squabbles. One of the boys, Randy Smythe, a fourteen-year-old, started picking on a couple of the girls. Steve Morgan attempted to settle things down which prompted Randy to start yelling about how nobody was his boss. At some point, the kid punched Steve in the nose. Now Steve is bleeding, everybody is yelling and young Randy wriggled and squirmed until he got to a door, opened it, and took off in the rain.

  While Meredith and I were trying to settle everybody down, Brittany took off after Randy. Then, Steve took off after Brittany. The kids were almost settled down when suddenly Perry is at our vehicle pounding on the window. I opened the door and could hear screaming. It was a familiar scream, one of pure agony. The sort you hear when somebody is being eaten alive.