November 30th, 2021

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Fowler,

This is Katerina Healy, Martin's fiance.  I'm writing this letter to you in his journal in case I don't survive in my attempt to make it to you in Mariposa, CA.  If you're reading this, it means I didn't make it to you.  If I did make it to you, then I would have deleted this entry so I could tell you in person what happened.

Your names weren't in your settlement's registry of survivors when Martin last checked the website, so we assumed you most likely didn't survive the fire.  We were going to settle in Rhinelander.  After I recovered Martin's tablet, I checked the website again and saw your names Evelyn and Peter added to the registry.  That's when I knew I had to seek you out.  I want to deliver his journal to you.  It was a record of his last two months alive.

I have to let you know what happened to your son after he turned.  I killed him, like I promised him. After several days have passed without Martin returning, I grew worried and convinced Theresa, who was now the mayor of Rhinelander, to organize a search party.  It took a week of searching the highway from here to Terre Haute until I finally spotted his car from the interstate at the truck center.  
I will spare you the grizzly details, but he ate Hector and Temperance.  Martin was still stuck in that truck center, still recognizable as the man I loved.  He did not recognize me at all, crawling along the floor toward me with his hands out, fingers like claws.  I didn't want to do it, but it wasn't the first time I had to kill someone I loved for losing them to this evil disease!  Just know even though he looked like your son, he was far from it. Martin Fowler was dead long before I put the bullet in his head.  He wanted it this way.  I fulfilled his last wish.  My only regret was that I wasn't there to do it before he completely turned.  

Martin's accomplishments have been well documented so there's no need for me to go over again what he did.  Even though he couldn't save everyone he came across, he saved me.  He saved your grandchild.  Martin will live on through it.  I love him so much, I still can't go a minute without crying.  He meant everything to me, and if I wasn't pregnant with his child, I would have shot myself next.  I'm so sorry that there was nothing I could do to save him. I really wish I could have met you two,  Martin was so amazing, and I'm sure it was because you were such amazing parents!   I hope you don't get to read this entry. I really, really don't.

Your daughter-in-law to be,

Katerina Hearly

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To whomever finds this journal,

I ask you that you take it to Mariposa, CA and give it to Evelyn and Peter Fowler.  I hope you read through it all and understand how important it is that it reaches his parents.  They need to know what happened to their son.  Put yourself in their shoes.  Imagine being separated by from your child for two years on completely opposite sides of the country.  If there was some kind of information regarding what happened, you would like to know, wouldn't you?

I know what I ask of you might be hard, or even impossible to do but if you have any way of doing it, please attempt to get this tablet to them.  Also, like Martin had asked at the beginning of his journal, if you find me walking around somewhere, please pay me the same courtesy of putting me down.  I don't want to be one of those things, killing and turning people, walking to nowhere for forever.

Thank you for doing this. I hope there will always be a tomorrow for you.

Novumber 18 20 21

I turning. Mus knot have chop leg offf in time.  Feeleng sick and hot and ichy, want to tear skin off.  can bearly think straight. Growwing hungree. Can't discribe the sensashun. Like want food but nnot food. want something elss.  Them.  Want them.  cant remembur names.  Hec...hector.  Hector. Womun. married to Walllllll walter.  Walter. belly huge. want wat's inside

sleeping. they are sleepng.  shudnt eat them.. stil humaan. Must fight. not be won oof them. i cahn smell tehm. Smell good.  ichy wont stop!! hav to scrach. bones hurt. Feel them thinin. jooints acheing and mussles on fire. have to feed. Food will hellp. need blood and fleshhh. eat.. EAT them

no NO! human! Martin! i'm still Martin Fouler. lOve katthrine . need kat.  to eat kat.  so hungry! loosing baddle with viruss. feel it inside head taking ovur. hurs so much.  becuming somnneone else. Somethin else..

bbullet. kat supspose to kill meeee. promsied she'd do it. cant try eat them. They willll kill me. hav to run but cant bcause one legg.will crawl.  must leev now. kat will find me and finnish me off.

TEMPURANCE! i remember her name. i will ate herr belly then leve.

no toomarrow................................................................................................................

November 17th, 2021

I can't believe it.  I just can't believe it!  After all this time of me being so careful, of everything I've done while writing this journal... I'm bit!  They were in the snow!  They were in the damn snow! Those fuckers hid in the snow and waited until someone tripped on them!  I'M SO STUPID!  SO FUCKING STUPID!  How could I have let it happen!

Ok.. ok.. let me just write down what happened here.  This morning when we woke up, it was still snowing, but it looked like it was about to let up.  I decided to go out to the car and brush it off anyway.  I told Hector to tell the others that I'm going to the car and staying there for about a half hour until the car gets enough juice to drive it down and pick them up.  No sense in all of us trudging through the snow.  It wasn't even much, just a couple of inches, but I wanted everyone else to remain comfortable.  

There was nothing out there but white, and if I saw a zombie coming from anywhere, they would stand out against the snowy canvas and be easier to see.  I got to the car no problem at all, and then ate my breakfast of canned pineapple.  There wasn't much to do while in the car, so I got a bit of extra sleep. Roughly nine in the morning, the car had a charge of 10 percent, so I decided to turn it on and drive it back to the apartments.  

We gave it a couple of extra hours to charge up at that point, while the four of us debated whether or not we should attempt to reach Rhinelander.  The car would need a full a day, maybe more, of being in the sun to have enough energy to take us more than 400 miles north.  We ultimately decided to leave now, coast when we could, and make it as far as possible before dark came.  And that was a HORRIBLE IDEA!

Because we didn't make it.  We were just south of Rockford, IL, until we ran headlong into a mean blizzard.  It was literally like driving into a while fall of fury.  It must have been dumping an inch of snow every ten minutes, and we soon couldn't see where the road was anymore.  I drifted off the road and got us stuck in a snowbank.  Dammit, if only Thaddeus would have let me go when I wanted to, I could have grabbed them and beat this storm!

We couldn't stay in the car.  We had to brave the blizzard and walk through roughly a foot and a half to two feet of snow to find shelter.  We spotted a sign almost nearly covered in sticky wet snow and were able to make out that it was for a truck center.  That was our destination, but just as we were about 100 feet away, I felt something grab my right calf deep in the snow and bite me.  I screamed out in surprise, panic and pain, in that order.  I fell backward and yanked my foot away when the leather rose from the snow.  I heard its skin creaking and crinkling, obviously near frozen and trying to advance toward me.  My screams alerted everyone else, and they rushed over to help. Hector ended up throwing his ax at the zombie aiming for its head, but he missed and it sunk into the leather's shoulder instead.  It didn't even turn to them; it just kept coming towards me and fell on top of me. 

I grabbed its face trying to keep him from biting me.  If it weren't for it being nearly frozen, I might not have been able to fend it off.  Even its current condition, it was still pretty strong.  I damn near lost my fingers trying to force his jaw shut.  Just when I thought I was about to lost the fight, I heard the bone shattering crunch of the ax being driven into the back of its head.  Wallace got to him, yanked the ax out and swung it at his skull.  

But that wasn't the end of it.  During the commotion, we failed to notice the two other leathers rise from the snow behind us, both moving as slow as the one that just attacked me.  Wallace must have been infuriated by the leather attacking me, because he charged at the two raising the ax.  In a split second, I realized what was happening.  I yelled at Wallace to stop, to let the zombies come to him, but he didn't.  On his way rushing through the deep snow, he was tripped by another zombie at the bottom and a fourth rose from the snow right where Wallace fell and was on him instantly... There was nothing any one of us could have done.  

And then I remembered the rifle.  I had it slung behind my pack because I felt I didn't need to hold it since I would have seen them coming, even through the blowing snow, but I cursed myself for remembering it so late.  Once I had it out, I immediately fired on the four zombies.  The two on top of Wallace, I took out first, and they erupted in flames, burning him in the process.  There was nothing to be done about that.  He was already being eaten.  The two that were walking towards him began coming towards me, so I shot each one, their immolating bodies falling in the snow and melting a hole around them.  

My mind went numb.  I was bit.  Wallace was dying.  I was waiting on more leathers to rise from the snow.  I don't even remember hearing Temperance screaming.  When I finally snapped to, I noticed her holding his bloodied, charred remains.  I saw Hector with his ax again looking around for any more undead surprises, and that's when I knew I had to do something, a last ditch effort.  I told him he had to chop off my leg.  His eyes went wide, but he nodded.  

It didn't go well at all.  There was so much deep snow everywhere that I had no solid place to lay down.  Hector tried to clear snow away, enough so that I could lay down on the ground, but I told him I didn't have time for that.  It had to happen now.  He needed to swing as hard as he could at my leg with me standing up.  I yelled at Temperance a few times until she turned to me, and I told her what was about to happen to me and I needed her help.  She has the makings of a true nurse, because she was able to leave her husband behind to rush to my aid.  I had her strip some cloth from Wallace's shirt and tie a tourniquet around my leg, above the knee where Hector was going to chop.  I pulled  my wallet out of my pocket and used it as a bit, and then nodded to Hector.  I closed my eyes and turned my head and I heard the swishing of the snow as Hector ran to me and then I was hit with explosive pain.

It was not a clean hack.  I don't know what I felt worse, or felt more pain from.  The ax cutting into my skin, severing my muscles, or chipping into my bone.  He must not have gotten a good angle with the swing. I groaned in agony through my wallet bit, surprised I was still standing, and motioned Hector to do it again, but just as ax came a second time, I started to fall and Hector landed a glancing blow on my knee instead.  I fell backward on the snow, having lost my bit and I cried out.  I yelled at Hector to just hurry it up and he stood over with the ax, bringing it down again, but it only drove me further into the snow.  I was on the verge of passing out when after the sixth swing, I felt the ax finally go all the way through.  

The tourniquet held, and I lost very little blood compared to what I would have without it.  Then Temperance pulled out some rubbing alcohol and Wallace's old flint, and I knew I wasn't done with the pain yet.  She sprinkled the alcohol all over my stump and then used the flint to light it on fire. THAT'S when I passed out.  

We managed to make it to the truck stop, dragging me behind.  I've been up for about twenty minutes or so, trying to keep my mind off the pain, but I can't.  It really isn't helping when I'm writing about it.  Temperance has already changed my dressing once, and said that the cauterization seems to be doing OK.  She tried to hide her anger, but let's just say she'd never win at poker.  I know she blames me for Wallace's death.  I do, too.  

Hector came over after Temperance tended to me, and he cracked a joke saying that together, we add up to a full man.  I don't know how, but I managed to laugh at that.  I told him how much this sucks, that I know fully now what he had to go through.  He asked me if I could still feel it, my leg.  I made a conscious effort to move my leg where there used to be one, and surprisingly still felt it.  I even felt the wiggling of my toes.  It's an extremely eerie feeling.  He said I'll eventually not feel it anymore. The brain just had a hard time letting go.  I had to thank him for what he did for me, but I also told him I'm worried that we may not have done it soon enough.  We both remembered Carmello, how when he got bit on the hand, he chopped it first, and THEN killed the zombie.  That was a hardcore man.  The virus literally did not have a second to move up his arm.  Me on the other hand, several minutes passed before he started chopping off my leg.  Even though the ax was covered in zombie blood, I knew because of my Class 3 immunity that it wouldn't infect me, only the bite would.  Was it able to travel up my leg fast enough?  I don't know.  I'm feeling okay now, but we'll have to wait and see how I feel in the morning.

God have I fucked up, and it's all because of me forgetting those fucking batteries!  We could have made it back by now!  Wallace would have been alive, and I wouldn't have been bitten.   And what happens now?  Even if I'm perfectly fine tomorrow, the car's stuck in the snow.  There's AAA to tow us out, and there's no department of transportation to clear the roads!  We still have 300 miles to go. How are supposed to make it back there on foot?  Winter's already appeared, and it will only get worse.  This isn't even close to the worst kind of snow storm I've seen.  

Night three without Kat.  I can only imagine her reaction when she see me - if she sees me - come home.  I wonder if she thinks I'm dead yet.  I just want to see her again.  I'm starting to feel scared that I won't.  I try to remain positive, but I'm so afraid Hector didn't chop my leg off in time.  I need to see her again.  God, I know I haven't believed in you much and I've said some pretty blasphemous things about you, but please forgive me for all that.  I know this is just the desperate attempt of a man trying to ask God for one last favor, but please help us make it out of this!  I really, really could use a deus ex machina... 

Until tomorrow...hopefully...

November 16th, 2021

How could I be so stupid!  With all the packing that I did before I left for Terre Haute, why didn't I grab a few extra battery cells for the car?  For starters, the car was almost drained this morning, and we had a late start letting the car charge up with the solar cells a bit before leaving.  We made it a good 100 miles until the batteries were so low that we couldn't go much farther.  To make matters worse, when we pulled over to let the car charge back up in the sun, the skies went overcast and now the damned thing wasn't charging at all!  I'm so stupid!  I should have anticipated something like this.

We're in the northern part of Champagne, IL right now.  We left the car on the side of the highway and we walked down the road to look for some shelter.  We didn't have to go very far until we ran into Baytowne Apartments, a complex that surrounds an amoeba-shaped pond.  There was also clear evidence that it was attacked by a horde some time ago.  There are several mostly eaten corpses lying on the ground, but only a few draggers were still lurking around the place.  Their state of decay was so advanced, they tripped and fell trying to move towards us and just crawled along the ground.  Wallace and I stomped their skulls in while Hector stayed back with Temperance to make sure no draggers snuck up behind us.

The leathers must not have found this place, because I haven't seen any sign of them.  It's nice to know that the vivensmortua virus doesn't just spontaneously mutate.  A mutated strain needs to be transmitted to other hosts via actual contact in order to propagate.  This means there should be pockets across the country where the zombie population is nothing but draggers.  If they didn't find any humans to eat, then they could simply rot to the point where they become immobile and pose even less of a threat.

It makes me wonder if there aren't more settlements like Rhinelander within these pockets.  I know there's a website that lists some settlements, but I'm sure it doesn't contain every one of them.  There has to be some places where they have no access to the internet at all.  Doesn't really matter, though. The only interested settlement I care about right now is Rhinelander, but it we're not making it back tonight.  Kat's got to be worried to death about me, about the rest of us.  She expected us back by now.

We planned on taking up residence in the first unit, but we were hit in the face with an overwhelming smell of mold and mildew.  Something must have happened in this building, maybe a pipe burst or there was a fire and the sprinklers came on to put it out.  Whatever the case, with so much mold, it wouldn't be healthy for our respiratory systems to spend the night here.

We ended up settling in Unit B just off to the right.  It smelled dusty and the air was stale, but at least it was dry. We decided just for safety reasons, we were all going to spend the night in the same apartment.  Luckily, the one we picked had a fireplace, so we looked for things to burn.  We broke off legs from tables, and I hacked at the table itself to break it into smaller pieces and threw them all into the fireplace, but then we had a hell of a time getting the fire to start.  Wallace went Boy Scouts and started rubbing two sticks together over a wad of crumpled up newspapers until we got an ember to light the fireplace.

The fire was a real treat to have.  It was also getting extremely cold.  Wallace wanted to be left alone with her wife for a bit, so Hector and I went to explore the rest of the complex to see if we could find anything useful.  Of course, the very first apartment we search, we found a box of matches.  If we ever need to start a fire again, though, they would definitely come in handy.  We also found food in one apartment's cupboard - some baked beans and canned mixed vegetables.  That would be our dinner, and we could even cook them in their cans by placing them in the fire.

I talked to Hector a bit while we continued to search, asking how he was adjusting to not having his right arm, and he said it was incredibly difficult at first.  He's right-handed, so its made some things harder for him to do.  I told him I was worried about him snapping and killing Wallace, even Temperance, for what Wallace did to him, but he said that desire long went away.  It honestly was just a horrible accident.  He considered himself fortunate to just be alive.  I'm glad to see he's been able to keep his sanity putting my worries about the virus making him crazy to bed.

When we returned to the apartment, the bedroom door was shut and either they didn't hear us come in, or they simply didn't care, but they were making love noises.  Some may find that sick, a pregnant couple having sex, but not me.  I find it beautiful.  Kat and I have already done that but of course, she's not showing yet.  When she gets as big as Temperance, that won't affect me in the slightest.  I'll still find her beautiful and I'll still want her, because I love her.  Hearing them in that bedroom simply puts a smile on my face, because I know they love each other.  It's something this world needs a hell of a lot of right now, even before it all went to shit.

They came out about 30 minutes later, and they saw us looking at them.  I smiled, and they became embarrassed as they looked at other's red faces.  Temperance asked when we got back and Hector started to speak, but I nudged him and said just a few minutes ago.  She just gave an "ahh" and Wallace coughed and asked if we're ready to eat dinner yet.  So, I pulled out the canned food Hector and I found and we put in the fire to heat up.  Once we started eating, I told them more about Rhinelander, and the defenses they had and how awesome the solar panels were.  I said how much they were going to love it.  We also played some poker with Hector's deck.  Yes, he still has those cards.  He even found a way to shuffle one handed.  He said so long as he still has one hand, he'll be playing cards.  If he loses his other arm, he'll play cards with his feet!  I chuckled at that.

And now it's snowing outside.  The flakes aren't all that large but they're many of them, and they're being whipped around by the wind.  It's almost as if we're in a snow globe and someone's just shaken us.  I'm not one to pray, but I really do pray it doesn't become a blizzard, because that's all we need with more than 400 miles to go in an electric car that needs solar energy to charge.  Regardless, I'm going to get up before dawn and clear the snow off the car so the sun can hit those solar cells.

Twice in a row I'll be sleeping without Kat.  Heh, it's gotten me thinking about why I've been writing this journal.  It started out as a record of events and a list of survival tips to keep whoever's reading this alive, but it's become more personal than that to me.  I know at times it sounds like a love story, and well, it's both a love and survival story.  Kat's a major reason why I'm still alive today.  Of course, who knows what my life would have been like had I not met her.  She was the reason my life was in danger to even begin with, but I could have also found myself in a different situation without her, a much more dangerous one.  I could have even stumbled into a river and drowned.  Or, I could have gone insane from being alone and who knows?  I might have become another Rampert.  Yeah, if you can, let yourself fall in love with someone.  I haven't given you survival tips in a long while, but that's a really good one right there.  Let yourself fall in love.  Just remember to be smart about it.

Until tomorrow.

November 15th, 2021

I woke up a little earlier than I planned, because I wanted to spend a bit of time with Kat.  I told her since the drive was going to be roughly eight hours long, I was going to spend the night at Wallace and Temperance's place, that is if everything was still OK.  She said that made a lot of sense, that I shouldn't risk driving back during the night.  So, I whisked us up some omelettes and we had breakfast.  We talked a bit more about things, mostly how I was dealing with what happened at Stephen's Point.  She said I was proud of the decision I made to keep secret that there was no cure.  We were both angry at first, but honestly, we saw the wisdom in the move they made now.  It was getting close to eight, and I really needed to get going so I could make it there before the sun set.  I kissed her goodbye and got in the car and left.  

The car's an all-electric Hyundai Harmony, state of the art at the time.  From a full charge, the car gets 250 miles from the main batteries alone.  Its mirrored surface is crammed with photovoltaic cells that help keep the batteries charged while in use.  The car generates electricity from the motion of the axles and wheels to further recharge the batteries. The Harmony also senses when you're going downhill and it will reduce power consumption in the engine making this one of the most energy efficient production vehicles ever made.  The mayor of Rhinelander before Thaddeus had ordered a fleet of them when they were first being made, but almost every single one of them were traded away for goods.  I was remarkably fortunate that this one was kept.  It allowed me to make it to Terre Haute in one day.

When I got there, though, it was already dark. I didn't want to use the headlights because I was no longer getting solar energy and the batteries were nearly dead.  Using the headlights would only speed that process up.  Unfortunately, it was getting so dark, I had to use them,but I limited it to a few seconds here and there.  I finally found the road that led to their house.  It looked just like I remembered.  There didn't seem to be any signs of distress or disturbance, so I parked the car in the driveway and got out.  

Upon hearing my door slam, I was met with a shout of, "WHO'S OUT THERE?"  It was Wallace.  I couldn't see him well, but I was sure he had his rifle aimed at me.  I answered back that it was me, and he cussed up a storm out of happiness to see me.  He eagerly invited me in, and shook my hand so hard, I thought my arm was going to fall off after my hand was crushed.  He yelled up to Temperance to come down, and he brought me into the den where Hector was reading.  Hector looked up, and he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing.  I made it!  I made it to Rhinelander, and came back for them!

When Temperance was down, we gathered in the kitchen.  They had just ate and offered me some left over stew and biscuits.  I took a bowl of stew (those biscuits...so easy to pass on them).  I had so much to tell them.  All the good.  All the bad.  All the extremely ugly.  I saw the horrified look on their faces when I described the gargoyles and the nest they came from.  I also told them there was no cure, and when I bring them back to Rhinelander, they'll have to keep that front going.  After a moment, they decided they could handle that. Hector noticed Kat wasn't with me, and I told them she's back in Rhinelander helping the children with the grieving process.  She's doing just fine.  

They asked what happened to Johnathan, and I simply failed at concealing a reaction.  My face went to anger, then quickly to sorrow.  I didn't know whether or I should tell them exactly what happened, but I decided this was something I shouldn't talk to them about without Kat being present.  I just said Johnathan didn't make it.  They asked what happened, and I told what little truth I could.  He was eaten by a cannibal.  Their faces went aghast, and Hector looked like he was ready to tear off someone's head with his one remaining arm.

Speaking of Hector, he looks good.  He actually seems to have packed on a few pounds (obviously not picky about the biscuits).  They've been treating him rather well, and Wallace has been doing a lot of hunting to keep everyone fed.  Wallace also told me he noticed the zombie population thinning out recently, like they had some other place where they had to be, and my face went pale.  He asked if I was alright, and I just told him I had a bad feeling about that, but I didn't know exactly why.  I thought I'd wait and get them in Rhinelander before I talked to them about it.  

Temperance is getting bigger, nearing seven months.  Carrying triplets, she looks even bigger than she should be for how far along she is.  I'm so glad they're all alive, especially Hector.  He's the last remaining survivor of Lock Haven aside from Kat and me.  Temperance would be a great help not just for Kat when it's her time to deliver our child, but to the community as well with her medical knowledge.  Having Wallace there to help with hunting would only further cement his need in the community, and well, it would just be nice to have more friends there.  

I told everyone to grab all their essentials and pack them in the car.  We're heading back to Rhinelander tomorrow as early in the morning as early can be.  I'm not going to get caught out in the dark again.  Temperance gave me an extra set of blankets to make a bed out of the lounger in the den, and I just realized this is the first time in a while that I'm going to bed without being next to Kat.  I know it's only one night, but I feel like I'm missing her so much as if I'm never going to see her again.  Why am I even thinking like that?  I'll be next to her in bed tomorrow.  

Yes, there's always until tomorrow.

November 14th, 2021

No nightmares tonight, because I didn't sleep.  At all.  Not only was there too much on my mind, there was also the throbbing pain in my right upper leg where I got shot.  The painkillers seemed to be on break every 15 minutes or so.  They must have belonged to a union.  Unfortunately, the medication one of the nurses gave me to get some sleep didn't even bother to show up for work.

I spent all morning in Theresa's office at the police station filing the report.  I recounted in every detail what happened in that hangar - every detail sans Thaddeus shooting me and me shooting back.  I wrote about my bullet wound being a result of friendly fire as one of the men went down.  She thanked me for everything I did for Rhinelander, but I expressed my concern that gargoyles may be growing in other places.  They would need to keep a huge stock of those tracer rounds and maybe see if they can acquire a mounted machine gun the next time they trade for weapons.  She noted my suggestion.

Anthony disappeared.  I went to his house after I was done with Theresa, knocking on it several times.  I broke the window in his door to unlock it but found no sign of him.  He could have simply just been out and I caught him not at home, but the look he gave me last night when I told him I killed Thaddeus was enough for me to know he wouldn't be around anymore.  In a way, I'm glad I didn't see him, because I have no idea what I would have done.

We held a memorial service for Thaddeus later that evening, along with the 17 others that gave their lives in defense of our town, and so many people showed up, we had to hold it outside.  Funerals are funny things, though.  You end up learning a lot more about people's lives than you did while they were alive.  Granted, I only knew Thaddeus for a few days.  Still, I learned a lot. His wife Tabitha delivered his eulogy among a great many tears and sobs and sniffles.  He was one of six siblings and a father of five children, all who were lost to the undead.  Even through the pains of losing everyone closest to him, he reached out to everyone in Rhinelander as his next family.  He was so profoundly loved by the people here, and he considered himself blessed when "Saint" Anthony discovered the much needed cure to quite everyone's worries so his new family could stay together.

What surprised me was that I was offered to speak.  I don't know why I didn't decline.  I guess I didn't want to be rude, so I took the podium.  I started by just saying his name, "Thaddeus..." trailing off.  I thought of Chloe, and how she got bit by Michael, how the result of that bite had both her and Calista kicked out.  I thought of the possibility of Michael biting someone again.  These people were living a lie, and I almost said "... was a liar."  Instead, I told them only the truth they really needed to know.  "... fought valiantly"  He did.  Regardless of his attempt on my life, he shot and killed so many zombies last night and risked his life to the save the lives of his men.  "He will be missed." "But not by me," I said in my head.  I looked at Kat sitting off in the back expecting to see a look of disapproval.  Instead, her face was just forlorn.  I walked off the podium and  headed back to my seat. Kat looked at me, and I thought she was going to ask me why I didn't tell them the truth about the cure, but she knew.  Instead, she rested her head on my shoulder and grabbed my hand.

A part of me still felt like they needed to know.  They needed to take precautions so that another Chloe incident wouldn't happen.  But honestly, what good would that do?  It would only cause another panic among the townspeople  That had the potential to ruin a lot more lives than just another person being bit every blue moon.  I thought for a second that by withholding the truth from them, I'm no better than Thaddeus and Anthony, but they were the ones who lied to them.  Not me.  I merely wasn't saying anything.  If I am to be judged for that, let it be then.  The sad thing is, Thaddeus had to die for nothing now along with Anthony running off, because I ended up not saying anything in the end.

After the service was over, I talked with Theresa about the deal I had with Thaddeus, where he was going to give me a car and allow me to pick up my friends in Terre Haute.  Of course, I left the part of the leverage out.  Theresa said it would be fine.  She also said she was going to ask the people to elect her as the next mayor.  I don't know much about her, either, but I did get the feeling she was well liked by everyone, so there's no doubt about her being elected.

To spite my leg, I felt like doing a bit of DJing at the radio station.  Music helps to wash away all our problems, even the physical ones.  During one of my breaks, I recounted the events of what happened at Stephen's Point to my listeners and soon, the switchboard lit up.  I had so many people congratulating and thanking me and it was an immeasurable feeling.  I have never felt so appreciated in my life.  This only made it harder for me to ever want to tell them the truth now.  I made a final decision right then and there to keep it hidden.

When I came home, I found Kat holding my tablet.  She had a blank expression on her face and it almost seemed like she was somehow upset at me for some reason.  I was getting ready to ask if something was the matter when she flipped over the tablet and a handwritten message said "YES!!!"  She threw the tablet on the couch and ran to me and I swept her up in my arms hugging her and then lifting her in the air, forgetting about the pain in my leg.  It quickly punished me for my neglect and buckled on me causing me to fall to the ground taking her with me.  We laughed and kissed and kissed some more, eventually making love right there on that very spot.  WE'RE ENGAGED!  As soon as I get our friends back, we can get all settled in and then we can get married and have our child and start our family!  This is it!  This is the place!  This is everything I've wanted in life since the outbreak first happened!

I paid Charles and Glenda a visit shorty after and gave them the good news, both Thaddeus allowing me to leave to get my friends and the engagement to Kat.  They were so happy for me and offered congratulations.  I asked them if I could still use their car, because the one I managed to run in was all bloodied up.  They said of course I could use it, and they couldn't wait to meet Hector, Temperance and Wallace.  They gave me the keys, showed me to the garage and I got in and started it up.  I drove back home with it, parking it in the driveway of our house ready to leave in the morning.

I asked Kat if she wanted to come along, but she said that Margaret's going to need a lot of help tomorrow.  A few of the kids' fathers were among the 18 killed last night, and they need people to help with grief counseling.  I understood, and told her with a car, there shouldn't be any problems.  It's a long drive, though, eight hours each way, so we loaded up the car with food and other supplies along with a rifle and a few clips of the remaining tracer ammunition.  Personally, I would much rather just stick to the machete, but I'm no good fighting on this leg.  I just really hope they're still OK.  Going to call it a night.  Got a long, long drive ahead of me in the morning.

I'M ENGAGED!!!

Until tomorrow.

November 13th, 2021

Where the hell do I even begin.  Mission successful, I guess.  We headed to Stephen's Point 19 deep across three cars and a minivan.  The ride was about an hour and a half long.  Thaddeus left all the wall guards stationed at Rhinelander, so that meant we had to use some volunteers that never saw much action.  And Thaddeus wanted to send 100 men to Stephen's Point?  That would have been a slaughter, on us.  Thaddeus came with us to help lead the attack.

When we approached the border of Stephen's Point, we got out of the cars and walked into town.  Driving the vehicles in would have immediately alerted the zombies, and it seemed their numbers have grown these past several days.  We plotted a route on the map and pinpointed four buildings of interest that we were going to check out first.  There was a warehouse, an office building, a factory and a hangar.  I suggested to Thaddeus that we not investigate buildings that didn't have a horde of zombies around them.  They'd most likely be protecting the nest.  

That's when we saw them all over the hangar.  Hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. You couldn't even see the doors to the hangar because there were so many.  I felt the tension in some of the men, which was understandable.  Even with our zombie suits on, the thought of walking through so many would have unnerved just about anyone.  They were so tightly packed, though, that there didn't seem to be a way through them.

Yosef, a young Jewish man about 19, came forward and said that we should distract them.  Thaddeus asked how, and Yosef held up his rifle.  I shook my head back and forth, not liking the idea at all but before I could stop him, he ran off to the west side of the building screaming at the zombies.  Their heads turned following the noise, but didn't seem to pay Yosef any attention until he started firing on them!  Single shots of tracer rounds into the undead crowd caused random zombies to light up like giant match heads, and that caused them to react.  They all screamed in unison, and most began giving chase to the zombie they deemed a traitor.  Yosef ran off still firing, which opened up a gap in the crowd,  I ordered everyone to start slowly walking to the doors, but I paused a few seconds when I thought I heard Yosef scream.  That was a very brave thing he did... but stupid.  He didn't even let me think of another way.  Yet, it told me something important that I needed to know.  Once we started firing, our cover would be blown.  It now seemed more and more likely that this would be a suicide mission, but we were going to go through with it.  

Once we got in the hangar, we were frozen in our tracks.  Suspended from the beams of the ceiling were what looked to be cocoons, dozens upon dozens of them.  They looked large enough to fit three fully grown people in them, and they were disgusting to look at, like overgrown cysts with veins wrapping around them.  The pods were truly alien looking, and I knew instantly what was growing within them.  The next thing we noticed was that there was no zombies actually in the hangar.  They all appeared to be outside protecting what was inside.  This gave us an advantage.  Once we started shooting the pods, we could focus our attention on the doors as they would funnel the zombies through.  With concentrated fire, we could stand a chance of lasting long enough to make it out.  

I took the first shot.  I aimed up at one and fired hoping the tracer would ignite them like they did the zombies, and to my gratitude, they burned just as bright.  That's when everything went south.  Before we even spread out to start destroying them systematically, one of the men Vernon, eager to start shooting, shot one directly above him.  As the bullet tore through the leathery membrane of the cocoon, it ignited the fluid inside along with the developing gargoyle and the pod burst spilling its flaming contents on the men below.  It splattered on five of them, including Vernon, and they dropped to the ground yelling in agony.  It was like napalm, clinging to them like glue burning through their suits and charring their flesh.  Dan was in so much pain, he was freaking out and started shooting blindly, hitting three of us with friendly fire!

We all scattered, but Thaddeus kept his head about him and shot and killed Dan to stop him from firing on us.  A million thoughts were running through my mind at that point.  We now had mere seconds before the zombies outside would start flocking inside after hearing us attack their pods.  We're already down to 10 men, so I barked out to Thaddeus to put three on the door and the rest of us would run around destroying as many pods as we could.  Zachary, Marcus and Bart already had a late start on the door as those that didn't follow Yosef were already charging through.  There was so much screaming going on that it became impossible to issue any more orders to follow.  The three men at the door flipped to full auto once the horde returned.  So many were trying to get in at once that the zombies were only making it easier to be shot. 

I popped so many pods that I ended up going through five clips of ammo when I heard the glass break.  The zombies were coming in through the west side of the glass windows, four or five at a time.  As I had to turn my attention away from the ceiling to the incoming zombies, I heard the glass breaking from the east side.  We were bring flanked.  Almost instinctively, men and myself firing on the cocoons backed up into the center of the hangar, covering each others backs in a loose circle.  When one man had to change clips, the other to his side would keep him covered.  It's amazing how well we started fighting together.  But it was a numbers game.  I could already feel my trench coat growing lighter as I was burning through the clips.  Whenever we had a few seconds in between waves, we would aim around looking for more cocoons and then shoot them. 

I don't know how many we killed tonight, but there were so many zombies burning that an acrid haze of smoke began to fill the hangar.  The wind outside was doing its best to pull the smoke out, but we started having problems breathing.  We were holding out and for a brief moment, we had that feeling we could even make it, until Marcus ran out of ammo.  Not able to help Zachary and Bart push the zombies back out of the doors, they soon overpowered them.  One lept on Bart and tore his head clean off, while another bit Zachary, but he kept firing.  He crawled backwards while Thaddeus ran to his aid, then picked up some clips from the bodies of the ones Dan accidentally killed.  He gave Zachary everything he could grab and then helped him shoot more zombies that came through the doors. 

The numbers were beginning to thin out, but that meant so too our ammo.  More of our men clicked empty, and they did their best to fight off the zombies that ran at them, but they didn't make it.  When we killed the last one that came in after us, it was just me, Thaddeus, Zachary and Roger.  Zachary was bit, though.  We all looked at each other silently thinking to one another about who was going to do it, but Zachary said not to worry.  He would do it himself.  "Someone just give me a clip."  I gave him my last one, and he slammed it home, cocked it back, and then looked around.  "Did we do it?" I looked around with everyone else. Every one of them was burst open and burnt.  I nodded to Zachary and he nodded back.  I turned away and then heard the gunshot.  

I expected Zachary to shoot himself, which he did.  What I DIDN'T expect was that motherfucker Thaddeus SHOOTING ME!  HE SHOT ME IN THE LEG! I fell to the ground looking at him in surprise and it caught Roger off guard as well.  Thaddeus started laughing at me, saying I did good, but now it was my time to die.  I was going to be remembered as a hero, and then he lowered his breath saying, "A hero who died keeping a secret."  He raised his gun at me to finish me off and he pulled the trigger.  It clicked.  His eyes went wide and he panicked trying to change his clip, but he couldn't find one to put in, and then I raised my gun and shot him square in the chest.  I looked at Roger, and he looked back at me. His mouth was open, and I was trying to figure out what he was thinking when he started pointing at his gun at me.  I called out to him, "Roger, no!" but he just kept aiming, so I shot him as well, the tracer clearing out the right side of his skull.  I fell backward and roared out of pain, both physical and mental.  

It was not supposed to go down like this.  I don't know if I'm to blame for pushing the attack on Stephen's Point.  The men needed training.  We weren't supposed to go in all trigger happy!  Why didn't I think of a plan to get into the warehouse before Yosef ran off and did what he did?  But like I said, mission accomplished I guess.  Who knows what would have happened if we waited another day?  Those gargoyles would have hatched and infected god knows how many other zombies.  I only hope there are no other nests around.  I can't handle the thought of everything we've done here being in vain if it turns out things are worse in other parts of the world.

And Thaddeus.  I knew he couldn't be trusted, but I had no idea he would have picked that moment of all moments to try to kill me.  He tried to kill me right in front of Roger, too!  "A hero who died keeping a secret." Roger was going to ask him about that, about what secret?  I'm sure Thaddeus would have killed Roger as well.  He probably would have loved to leave Stephen's Point and return to Rhinelander as the hero, the only one who survived to make it back.  Instead, that title fell to me.

I was shot bad, and was losing a good amount of blood.  I had to limp all the way back to one of the cars. It was after dark by the time I finally made it back, and it there was no joy to be had among the people who greeted me.  18 lives lost.  Kat was hysterical when she saw me fall out of the car into the snow, blood all down my leg.  Anthony had some people bring me to the hospital where he stitched up my leg, and then gave me a blood transfusion with Kat's blood.  Heh... Kat saves my life again.  I love you so much, Kat.  I know you still try to sneak into my journal and read my entries, so if you're doing that now, then I want you to answer me one question the next time you talk to me.  Katerina Healy, will you marry me?  

Kat's spending the night with me, but Theresa wants a full report of what happened in the morning.  She asked what happened to Thaddeus right off the bat, though.  Anthony was looking right at me awaiting my response.  I put on my best poker face and answered, "He got surprised during the firefight and a zombie bit into him.  We managed to survive the attack, but he was bleeding out from the neck.  He asked me to shoot him, so I did."  I hung my head and even turned on a few tears.  Theresa began crying a bit and thanked me for letting her know, and Anthony just left.  I don't know if he bought it or not.  I'm going to deal with him tomorrow, so....

Until tomorrow.