I had to run downstairs with my bat and get to it as quick as possible. I sure as hell didn’t want it breaking a window or pounding on a door. Sound really carries now in all the silence. I waited for it to get in range… It’s odd. I looked at it without seeing that this thing was a person once. Somebody’s son. A child really. His sickly blue-gray color made his blonde hair stand out in stark contrast. He had a really nasty bite on his left forearm like he had thrown it up to fend off an attack. Since that was the only bite, I’m guessing he got away…then died. Slowly. Painfully. It took seven swings to crush his skull. We’ll leave tomorrow a couple of hours before sunrise…around 5 a.m. Monday, March 10 Early morning Lots of gunshots today. Coming from back the way we came. I am guessing that it is the same folks that got my group. They probably ambushed another unsuspecting party passing through. I wonder if this is what humankind was like in ancient, or even medieval times. Roaming bands…all at war with one another over nothing. It is amazing how truly primitive we are as a species. Evening Reggie and I have decided to creep back towards where we lost everybody. It isn’t that we feel we owe anybody, or that the two of us can pull off some dramatic rescue. It is simply that we need to know what happened. Tuesday, March 11 I feel like an idiot. It turns out that the ‘raiders’ who we assumed to have attacked us out of the blue and for no reason, were actually protecting their homes! The three houses were in fact empty. However, the residents have taken to living on a hill that, on one side, looks down at their former homes, on the other side, is a gradual slope that goes down about twenty yards, then literally drops straight down, These people have a series of catwalks and, for all intents and purposes, tree houses in this small grove of (what I was later told) maples. When they saw us arrive…they were only protecting their homes. They thought WE were the evil raiders!! It was great to see everybody. Once we got past the joyous reunion…we had a serious talk. We will stay a couple of days, but then, it is our plan to move on. We want to find our place. Wednesday, March 12 Today I walked the perimeter of the area these folks call home. I was with a husband and wife: Gene and Marla Baker. They ran a large wheat farm. Their daughter was one of the first in the area to die…and get back up. She came home from school after what she had said was a big fight. She went to bed claiming not to feel well. From there, the story is fairly universal. During our walk, we took out a couple of stragglers that we saw. But it was when we got back that I saw some real action. The other folks not on watch had roped about fifteen or twenty of those damned things; they led them on ropes out past a little foot bridge and into a cornfield. There, they had several posts planted in the ground amongst the rows. They clipped the ropes to eye-bolts in the posts. When we got back, I asked why. Gene said it served two purposes. One—anybody sneaking in would have a nasty surprise waiting, just like the orchard. Two—there seems to be some debate as to whether seeing their fellow zombies in such conditions acts as a ‘scare-zombie’…you know…not quite a scarecrow. Hey, those are their words, I’m just reporting. I think they’re sick and a bit scary. But, it’s their land. They can protect it any way they want. Thursday, March 13 There just seems to be something not right here. I mean, these folks have been real hospitable. But I can’t put my finger on it. I’ve asked the others and they sense it as well. It is a bunch of little things really. For instance, we are never alone. I mean, without one of them tagging along. At first I thought it was just about them watching over their stuff. But today, when I decided to get up early with Samantha and take the bikes to go look for food in a totally different set of houses up the road a couple of miles, this guy, Nate Fellows, insisted on coming with us. Nate worked on the combine belonging to Gene and Marla. He said that those houses had long since been emptied of anything useful, but he knew a house that we could check. He took us the opposite direction about five miles. The whole time he was asking a lot of questions. That’s another thing, it’s like we’re always being grilled. And it is the same questions over and over, only with different wording. It has made me think of Monica Campinelli. I’ll bet that gal would know what to do and how to handle this. None of us have told them about the compound. We’ve all been using Tim’s story about being holed up in the school and making the RV into the fortified vehicle it is now. If I could only put a name to the reason these folks have me and the others on edge… Friday, March 14 Late last night…we left that…place. Tim found out what the deal was. We are pretty sure those folks were from the military! Some Special Forces group most likely. And they had no intention of letting us leave. If it weren’t for the fact that Tim is very particular about this RV, we’d be in big trouble. He was doing a little tinkering and discovered that the fuel line had been cut, and the battery swapped out with one that was dead. Fairly simple sabotage. He never said a word and did the repair himself. Then, in the middle of the night, he snuck out and found a battery. It was while he was sneaking around that he watched a couple of the folks (who had been acting as gracious hosts except for all those questions and never letting us go out on our own) go into one of the houses. He followed them up a small path that led around to the back of the house on the left; he said that he got close enough to see in a window that sat at ground level. In what he guessed to have once been a large recreation room, there were several gurneys set up with those things strapped down to them. On tables right next to the zombies were living people! He said that at the first he thought he was mistaken…until one of them managed to work the gag out of her mouth and scream. There were several people working in that room. Many that Tim says he didn’t recognize. They quickly subdued and gagged the woman again. Then, and this is the reason we didn’t waste a moment and just took off, they started what looked like a transfusion. They were pumping fresh blood from three unwilling donor’s into the zombie. I don’t know if they were trying to see if they could reverse the process or what, but two of the three “donors” died. They didn’t revive…until one of the people working in that room injected what Tim guessed to be contaminated blood into their system. He didn’t wait to see anything more. Neither did we. We’ve made two gas stops and driven in shifts to put as much road between us and them as possible. Only…the roads are really damaged out here for some reason. Lots of craters. Weird.
Monday, March 17 I think we’ve put enough distance between us and whatever the hell those people were. We’ve debated it, and our guess is that they were some sort of government group. For the first time, and that includes the brief time we were held in that prison, we are starting to question our decision to leave the compound. We didn’t say anything with the kids around, but our unanimous choice is to now treat everyone as a threat. It just seems that too many of the people left are bad news. Also, we are making weapons a priority. We’ve been hitting houses located ‘in the sticks’ since it is most likely that those furthest from the city were gun owners. We have decided to make an actual town stop. Shortly after Hwy 395 joins I-90, there is a town called Ritzville. We will be hitting that place in ‘Assault Mode’. The objectives will be guns, and supplies. Also, Tim has made a checklist for each team to get the materials for a second RV. Of course the kids will not be coming. We’ll be finding someplace for them to wait along with Julia and Antonio. The hope is that we can pull this off in a day and be gone.
Wednesday, March 19 Getting to Ritzville was easy…but once we arrived, we came upon something unexpected. In what I am guessing to be a—if not the—local high school, a group of folks have mounted a powerful defense against the zombie hordes. They have reinforced the fencing with what looks to be railroad ties and track. An honest to goodness moat has been dug around the perimeter. I am guessing it is ten to fifteen feet deep. The bottom is what appears to be tar or creosote. Whatever it is, once one of those things fall in, they’re stuck. The walls of the moat are sheer, seemingly perfect ninety-degree angles from the floor. A normal person would be hard pressed to get out of that pit. We are in some brush pine at the crest of a hill that looks down into what I imagine was once a peaceful town. Now, it is a charred landscape. While there remain hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies wandering the area, there is a huge cluster around the school. There is another at what looks to be City Hall, then several more around a few buildings, houses and the local jail. Strange how this town seems, on the whole, to at least be treading water against this situation. We’ve seen a few vehicles out and about on what seem to be supply runs. After a meeting, we’ve decided to at least watch things for a day. We really just need to decompress after that ordeal back in Pasco. Thursday, March 20 Tim is all for leaving. He says that the folks down there in Ritzville seem to be at war with each other as much as the zombies. I asked him what would make him think such a thing. So, he had me come outside and get a look with a pair of binoculars. Sure enough, there was a fairly new fire burning …City Hall. Just a few blocks away, at what we are now certain is the jail, the roof is a den of activity. Men and women in uniform, are shooting at the City Hall building! I have no idea what is going on, but seeing this has me agreeing with Tim. We let everybody else in on things as they woke up and we got moving. Gas stops are becoming increasingly difficult as we find more and more stations have been burned down or dried up. Also, the roads still seem to be deteriorating badly. It doesn’t help that this was such a cold, wet winter. We are encountering some epic potholes and a few complete washouts. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep driving. This vehicle gets even worse mileage with all the ‘armor’ and it is not off-road ready.
Friday, March 21 Reached a small town called Sparrow Falls…it is Hell on Earth here. Today, we suffered some setbacks…and losses. Currently we are holed up in a lumber yard. The good news is that the building is a huge open warehouse. The bad news is that the fencing was already breached in several spots. Fortunately, the roll-down door to the warehouse was simple to barricade and the windows are all up around the six foot area. So, while the constant sound of pounding is annoying, we are safe for the night. The RV isn’t going anywhere until we can get tires for it. That is what brought us here to begin with. When the left rear tire blew, we had to roll on for another three miles before this place sprang out of the hills. Sparrow Falls sits in a small valley. The sign entering town stated a population of 4073. Not one of those folks seems to have survived. The river that offers this place’s namesake has washed out a good section of the highway just before entering town. It is there that things started going bad. Rodney was driving as we reached the section of road that was now an expanded part of the flooded banks of Sparrow River. We already had everybody on the right of the RV to try and alleviate as much pressure on the flat as we could. We were just about through the water when the sound of spinning tires signaled that we were stuck. Greg, Tim, and I went out first to make sure that there weren’t too many zombies in the vicinity. Once we saw that it was clear, everybody else followed. Rodney stayed behind the wheel and we went to work. It took us about twenty minutes, but we finally got the RV unstuck. A few stragglers had shown up, but Samantha and Reggie took ‘em out. No problems. We climbed back in…that is when we realized that Amanda was missing. The sun was just coming up and we could see that we were in a bit of a dip. About a half mile up the road, there was a rise just before the road makes a straight, gradual descent into the actual town. Along this section of road we were on, houses dotted both sides. When somebody goes missing, you can’t just start yelling their name these days. You likely will not appreciate what answers your call. So, we decided that we had to at least look around, albeit quickly. Leaving Rodney and Julia at the RV with Joey, we all took off in separate directions. This was a big violation of our “nobody goes off alone” rule. But, we figured it was an emergency. Plus, how far could she have gotten?