November 7th, 2021

Kat and I woke up and looked out the window to see about an inch of snow.  It was still lightly snowing, but stopped after the sun started rising in the sky.  The snow had collected on everything but the solar panel roadways, driveways and sidewalks.  One of the brilliant features of these panels is they generate just enough heat to keep the surface slightly above freezing.  The snow melts the moment it lands, and the water is collected in runoffs and stored for use as drinking water.  

We saw the trenches in use today.  There was an attack on the southwestern wall later in the morning where about 50 to 70 leathers tried crossing the trench to get up the wall.  They were piling on top of each other, something the guards never seen them do.  They opened the sluice gate at Hanson Lake where it unleashed a roaring torrent of water storming the trenches.  It plowed into them with the force of a train hitting a snowdrift, clearing the tracks with its cowcatcher.  The zombies were swept away so swiftly, we lost sight of them in the roaring froth of the water as it emptied into the Wisconsin River and dumped them off as undead flotsam.  After the flushing of the trench, the sluice gate was closed, and the trench slowly drained.

Teresa was on call and arrived at the wall to make sure everything was operating smoothly after the attack.  I asked her how often Rhinelander gets attacked, and she told me usually once or twice every other day.  She was almost certain that they were coming from Stephen's Point, which is why they believed there was some kind of nest there.  Her theory was leathers were sent out to find draggers or other humans, infect them and bring them back to Stephens Point where they would group together and try another attack on Rhinelander.  They've been attacked at other points along the wall as well, and it was always in waves.  They said they haven't seen a single lone zombie approach the town in months.  I asked why they kept trying to attack, and she looked kind of puzzled as to why I didn't already know the answer.  I guess I did.  They zombies know that beyond this wall, there's a massive food source. 

Thaddeus paid us another visit today and began talking to us about vocation.  He said no one gets paid for the work they do, as currency hasn't really served a purpose for quite some time, but everyone has to pull their weight in Rhinelander somehow.  I told him I used to DJ when lived in Maine and to my surprise, he informed me that Rhinelander has a radio station.  He said, though, that if I wanted to get it up and running, it would take a lot of work.  Anyone who used to know how to operate the equipment had long since past.  Just thinking of DJing again had me incredibly excited! Not only would I be DJing, but he said that the station would actually be mine if I got it working!  My very own station! I actually dropped by the station which was on a small hill just up north, and he wasn't kidding.  It would take a lot of work.  Kat and I only stayed up there for about an hour just dusting things off.  I'll take a look at the electronics tomorrow.

Kat didn't have much to offer skills wise.  There was no need for an artist or any kind of web designer, but the one thing she said would love to do is help out in the daycare center.  She had plenty of experience watching children, so Thaddeus got her in touch with Margaret Steinholme, the owner of Bright Eyes Daycare.  She starts her job tomorrow.  

On the topic of Kat, she had her first bout of morning sickness during the night.  I somehow slept through it, and I felt awful about it.  Something like that, you're supposed to get up with your partner and hold their hair back while they vomit.  Speaking of hair, it's starting to grow a little long again.  I'll have to give her a trim tomorrow, not to mention myself.  I've got a pretty scruffy beard by now and I mentioned to Kat that I wanted to chop it off, but she said, "Don't you fucking dare!"  She finds beards sexy, and well, if your woman finds something sexy about you, you don't change it!

 Also, Saint Anthony examined her leg, and found that her ankle still has a slight hairline fracture, so it isn't fully healed.  She said she's walking just fine, but he played the persuasive doctor role and put a new cast on her, although this one did allow for full mobility.  Shock would simply be absorbed through the cast instead of up her foot.  She wasn't happy to have a cast on her again and suddenly, she remembered Sandra and how she decorated her cast.  Kat started crying and I shed a few tears as I held her to comfort her.  

I remembered Hector, Wallace and Temperance back in Terre Huate, and I thought maybe we should try to head back and grab them.  The electric car we rode in also had solar panels on the top, so it would be the perfect thing to travel in.  I forgot to bring that subject up when I last spoke to Thaddeus, so I'll have to remember to talk to him tomorrow about seeing if we can use it, or at least if there's another car like it.  We can get them back here in a day, two at most.  Temperance is nearly seven months along now.  I don't want her having that baby in the dead of winter.  It's obviously safer for her to be here to have it.  

I met Javier today, Rhinelander's civil engineer.  Not only did he help with the installation of all the solar panels for the roads and parking lots, but he also designed the trench system.  He loves to tinker as well, claiming to be a serious inventor.  He was the one that came up with the idea of tazer arrows. They were swift, accurate and had far greater range than tazer guns.  He also showed me a prototype that he was working on.  He called it the Man-o-War, after the Portuguese man o' war.  It looked like a pill-shaped boat with nodes sticking out from underneath, just like the tentacles of a man o' war.  The Man-o-War would float around the edge of lakes, or even down flooded trenches, and it would release a burst of electricity into the water when anything came near its proximity.  

I had never thought electricity worked on zombies.  Javier said it worked just as well on them as us, if not better.  I asked how it could work better, and in turn he asked if I knew that zombie blood is flammable.  Without telling him exactly how I discovered that fact, I simply answered yes.  He said, "Well, if you shock a zombie long enough or with enough voltage, they burst into flames.  He had a theory that if you caught a bunch of zombies in the water and electrocuted them, their blood would catch on fire and they would spontaneously combust.  I asked where he got that theory.  He smirked and said from the Zombie Slayer 5 video game.  See?  Video games aren't pointless!

Kat and I were also formally welcomed to Rhinelander by an impromptu meeting at their town hall.  About 100 people showed up, and the one thing I noticed right off the bat was the high level of diversity.  I recognized people from just about every nationality, culture and creed.  Japanese, African, Hindu, Muslim, German, Native American, Australian, Spanish, Chinese, Nordic.  They all seemed like great people and very welcoming to us.  This is what I like to see.  So many different people living as actual people, not isolating themselves because of differences in culture and race.  This is how it should have been, everywhere, before the apocalypse. I hate how the end of the world has to come about to make us appreciate that were are, after all, members of that same world. 

I also noticed something on my tablet just now while writing this entry, something that I never noticed before.  It was a Wi-Fi signal.  Does this town actually have internet?  I tried to get on, but it's passkey locked.  I'll need to talk to Thaddeus tomorrow about seeing if I can get on.  If there is internet, though, I'd be surprised.  I haven't been on in at least a year, not since I last had my cellphone.  As far as I know, there aren't working cellphone towers anymore, and the internet itself suffered a massive hack back in 2019 that disabled just about every local hub. The hack was only exacerbated by the fact that ISP personnel was dropping at an alarming rate. Nevermind that the world was being overrun with zombies.  People were freaking out because they couldn't get on their fucking Facebook and Twitter.  

Oh yeah, we made snowmen today at West Side Park.  A few of the children were playing with us, and we made a scene where human snowmen were killing zombie snowmen.  It was so much fun to actually play in the snow again, with children no less.  It made us feel like children ourselves. After their parents came and got them, Kat and I made snow angels, individual ones at first, and then we made a joint snow angel, laying on our sides kissing.  We got up carefully and admired our work.  Then Kat had me close my eyes to get ready for a big surprise, and SPLAT!  Snowball to my face!  I yelled at her playfully, "You bitch!" and she hit me in the nuts with another.  It didn't hurt much, but I milked it for what it was worth, grabbing my crotch and falling over.  She ran over to me to check if I was alright, and that's when I stopped playing possum and grabbed and pulled her down on the snow and started filling her shirt with the cold white stuff.  God, we had so much fun!  We laughed so much, the sound of true genuine laughter felt alien to us.  

Today was such a good day.  I had similar feelings when I first arrived at Lock Haven, like this could be a place where I could finally settle in and rest at, but unlike Lock Haven, this place felt so much safer.  Kat and I talked about how awesome it would be to actually live here.  It has everything we need. Food, water, schools, a library (by the way, I finally checked out a book today called Rise of the Fallen King, which I haven't started reading yet), and such an impressive defense system.  I honestly can't see anything happening that would threaten this town.  ... And I feel like just typing that out, I've somehow cursed this place.  I really hope not.  

Until tomorow. 

November 6th, 2021

Saint Anthony was in my tent when I woke up checking my vital stats.  I asked if I could see Kat and he said it was fine, so I got out of bed and went across to the next tent.  She had a male nurse checking up on her as well, and she got out of her bed and ran to hug me.  I asked if she knew what was going on, and all she knew was pretty much what Saint Anthony told us.  We were cured!  God, cured!  I STILL can't get used to that!  It feels so surreal!

After we reunited and got changed, Saint Anthony collected us for breakfast along with a few other people.  He took us up to a sports bar and grill that was converted into a general family restaurant.  Sitting at the table with us was the security chief of police Theresa Caldwell, a couple of guards whose names I couldn't remember and the mayor of Rhinelander, Thaddeus Shaw.  Thaddeus insisted on meeting new members of Rhinelander after they've been purified, and he always brought Theresa and some guards with him just for safety purposes.

Thaddeus seemed to be a pretty likable person.  He was friendly, even insisted on us calling him Thaddeus, not Mayor Shaw or some other formal address.  He gave us a quick briefing of Rhinelander's recent history.  The mayor that held office before him hit the lottery and diverted most of his personal funds into the solar roadways.  The technology was still being developed, so Rhinelander became a pilot town, and even after the zombie apocalypse, the town's still had an uninterrupted completely self sufficient power supply.  They quickly acted to dig the trenches once they were first attacked by a small wave of zombies and when the system was complete, it proved incredibly effective in warding off future advances.

He gave us a quick tour of Rhinelander as we road in an electric car.  The car so quite, you could roll the windows down and hear the tires rolling on the ground.  He drove us around and showed off the library and school.  I noticed that there wasn't a single inch of pavement; the roads were made entirely of the hexagonal solar panels that made up the highway.  Even the parking lots were made completely of solar panels.  Every building had panels on their roofs and a couple sides of most buildings were also covered in panels.  Thaddeus saw me in awe of so many panels everywhere.  The town looked futuristic as a result, almost like it was a city made of mirrors.

He took us up to Hodag Park right next to Boom Lake, and I noticed off in the distance vast amounts of solar panels floating out in the water.  Thaddeus said about 70 percent of the lakes' surfaces were covered in panels, and they're still making them to this day.  I asked how that was possible.  Surely, they'd need resources, and he said they use a barter system.  He explained that Rhinelander, with all their solar panels, produce so much excess energy that they store it in giant batteries and representatives of other cities trade goods for the batteries.  He said just last week, a truck heading back to Texas left with a trailer full of batteries down I-39.  Suddenly, I remembered that truck.  So that's what was in the locked trailer... I didn't mention anything to him about me being the cause of those batteries never making it there.

I asked if he knew how many settlements were out there, and he said 17 that he knew of.  There were cities that were able to barricade themselves off scattered across the entire country.  I told them how we were turned away from Indianapolis, and he said that's what most settlements will do.  They don't want to risk any carriers entering the cities and infecting anyone.  He told me there's a little more than 2500 people living here and my mouth hung open.  2500... It's been so long since I've seen that many people living together at once.  Hell, the last time I was with a group of people was back in Lock Haven Hospital, and we were only 13.

I noticed the kids playing in the park, and Thaddeus said we have several families staying here, and they aren't just living; they're growing.  They had two schools that served as K-12, a hospital and even a justice system.  Fire, police and ambulance were rolled into one emergency service, and they weren't kept busy as for the most part, Rhinelander was very peaceful.

We were shown to where we'd be staying, a small house just along the Pelican River.  It wasn't very spacious, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that it had running water and of course, electricity.  The only thing it didn't have was natural gas, an amenity that was in very short supply.  We had to use small space heaters for warmth, and the oven was gas powered, so cooking anything was out.   They grew their own food as well, and Saint Anthony supplied us with some bread, cheeses and vegetables.  Kat and I broke out the last can of tuna we had and it was nice to have an actual damned sandwich again!

For not doing much of importance today, I sure am beat.  After Thaddeus and Saint Anthony finished with the tour and gave us orientation, Kat and I walked around all over town meeting people and seeing the many lakes and rivers and parks the town had.  The more we saw, the more comfortable the place became.  It was almost intoxicating, like a paradise that shouldn't exist among a Hell on Earth. A little something in the back of my head buzzed in alarm, but I simply ignored it.  I just want to enjoy my stay here in Rhinelander.

Kat and I also made love for the first time feeling absolutely safe, without fear of knowing there were undead creatures just outside.  We talked about staying, but then I mentioned to her that Thaddeus kept referring to use as members of the community, before we even said anything about wanting to live there.  She said I shouldn't think anything of it, that it was expected that we were going to want to stay, but I just said I found it a bit odd.  Sometimes I do over think things.  Anyway, there's still much more I want to write about, but right now, writing in a fresh, clean and comfortable bed is making it too hard for my eyes to stay open.

Until tomorrow.

November 5th, 2021

We made it to Rhinelander today. Just after sunset, we saw the first length of Highway 8 light up; it was the solar powered roadway.  These things were real after all!  The lines that made up the lanes were lit up with LEDs.  Thousands upon thousands of hexagonal panels were connected to one another making up the surface. The surface was made of a special kind of glass covered in nubs for traction that made the ride some what bumpy.

The town itself was a literal fortress.  Highway 8 was the main road of which was guarded by two 15 foot tall steel doors.  Breaking off in each direction where trenches 10 feet wide and at least 20 feet deep. The town was surrounded by lakes and the Wisconsin river, and these trenches connected each lake making for an impenetrable barrier.  The trenches had sluice gates that held lake water back and when opened, they would instantly flood the trenches and wash away any zombies who tried to breach the barrier.  Walls leaned out across the trenches at an angle making them impossible to climb should any zombie try to jump the gap.  It was a remarkably smart design.

As the gate began to appear in the distance, we stopped and I pulled out my binoculars and scanned ahead.  There were two guards patrolling the top of the wall, so I had us take off our leather suits thinking back on what happened to us in Terre Haute.  We started walking up the gate announcing ourselves when one of the guards looked like he was pulling a drawstring back.  Before I could react, he fired an arrow where it hit Kat in the chest, taking her down.  She started convulsing and just when I realized she was being shocked from the arrow, I got hit with one as well.  They shot us with tazer arrows!  TAZER FUCKING ARROWS!

The voltage ran its course knocking us both out.  When I came to, I was in some kind of tent.  Bright lights were everywhere.  My vision was blurry and I couldn't make out anything my eyes were trying to see.  I started moving my arms, but they felt like lead weights and then I registered something tugging on them slightly.  My eyes started focusing and saw the tubes sticking out of my arms.  They were filled with red fluid; my blood.  I followed the tubes until I saw the machine they were connected to.  The tube in my left arm was going into the machine while the right arm was leaving it.  My blood was being pumped out of my body into this mysterious grey and white box and then fed back into me.

I noticed a man sitting at a desk when he turned around.  He was in green scrubs wearing one-piece safety glasses and a facial mask.  Looking at his mask, I suddenly became aware of mine, but it was a plastic one, like a respirator, and my ears turned on.  I heard the echoing of my breath, sounding almost like Darth Vader.  I heard the beeps from the heart monitor and the slow humming from the machine that was pumping my blood.  Just when my vision was beginning to clear and adjust to the light, he shone a penlight into my eyes lighting my optic nerves on fire.  He checked other parts of my body.  I was too groggy to track his progress.  He brought a chair around, placed it beside me and sat down.

"Welcome to Rhinelander," he spoke through his mask.  I tried to speak through mine but didn't have much luck.  It wasn't the mask; it was my tongue not quite awake to perform the task of forming syllables.  "Don't try to talk just yet.  You've been temporally paralyzed.  We're purifying your blood right now, so please keep your mask on until the process is finished."  Purifying?  They were purifying my blood?  Does this mean they were curing me?  I suddenly had a thousand questions to ask and became so excited that someone I didn't even see on the other side of me injected me with a needle bring me back down to Earth.  I was out again.

I've only been up for about a half hour now.  I noticed the tubes were no longer in my arms, and the machine was also gone as well as the respirator around my face.  The man in green scrubs returned to my tent and he introduced himself to me as Saint Anthony.  Saint Anthony?  Is that how he thought of himself?  I knew instantly that whether he was self-appointed or this was a title given to him, he was an important man.

My first question to him was where was Kat?  I wanted to see her.  He told me she was okay, in a tent just next to mine, but that I wouldn't be able to see her tonight.  She was undergoing the same process I just went through and I blurted out that she was pregnant, but he assured me that they knew and were taking the appropriate precautions.  My next question I asked he already answered before I was able to finish getting it out.  I was cured.  What ever process they were doing to my blood had eradicated the virus from my system.  I simply had no response to this.  I was stunned.  That means Kat was cured too!  There was a cure!

I asked how this was possible, and he recited a lot of medical terminology I didn't quite understand. When he saw the confusion on my face, he broke it down in laymen terms.  Basically, they formulated an enzyme that identified the virus, latched on to it, altered its DNA and caused it to replicate itself with the properties of that enzyme.  In other words, the vivensmortua virus began turning on and eating itself like the zombie population it created.  I still had a problem grasping the fact that there was a cure!

Saint Anthony said the procedure was entirely new only just being developed in the past month.  They turned away people coming to Rhinelander before then.  Now that they had the cure, they were admitting anyone who showed up at their gates.  I asked why they had to tazer us with the arrows, and he said it was for their protection.  Before anyone even entered, they needed to be pacified and undergo "purification" immediately.  Only then were they allowed to take up residency in Rhinelander.  I asked him if he was going to let the rest of the world know he had a cure, and he shook his head.  I asked, "Why the fuck not?" His answer made a lot of sense, although I didn't like it. There wasn't enough time to make enough enzyme to cure everyone who would show up to their city at once.  People with guns would try to overtake the city.  Chaos and anarchy would erupt endangering the lives of the townspeople.  No one outside of Rhinelander knew there was a cure, and he intended on keeping it that way until the time was right.

Then, he told me something that I always suspected.  He told me the virus was not of this earth.  I FUCKING KNEW IT!  I KNEW this virus was alien!  There's simply no way that nature as we know it could ever produce something like vivensmortua.  Even mankind, as evil and twisted as itself, would be unable to manufacture a virus that takes over the bodies of the dead.  No, the only explanation for this virus is that it came from some other planet that observed a far different set of biological laws.  He continued on.

It's not the virus that we needed to be afraid of.  It's what the virus was creating.  I already knew what he was getting at.  I told him I saw how the zombies where changing, how they were mutating.  Not only did they develop leather skin and stop decaying, but they also grew smarter.  I had him read the entries in this journal where I talked about my observations of their appearance and behavior.  When he came across the parts where the leathers were biting draggers, he asked me if I knew why.  I told him I wasn't sure, but I thought that maybe they were infecting them with a new strain.  Saint Anthony said I was right.

The vivensmortua virus began to mutate some months ago and created an almost self-aware version of itself.  It began altering its host body, shutting off its decaying process and rebuilding it cell by cell.  Saint Anthony described it as a hyper speed form of evolution.  This new form of zombie virus could only be spread through biting, so it started biting any zombies, and people, it came in contact with.  Humans would turn in just a matter of hours skipping the decaying process entirely, while zombies immediately began repairing themselves.  There was still the need to feed, so these leathers would seek out humans to eat while also biting any humans that turned as a result of the older strains.
I told him about Rampert, and about how he eats leathers.  He didn't seem disgusted by it, more intrigued by the fact that anyone would prefer rotten meat to fresh human meat.  Even the basic idea of normal human cannibalism didn't seem to phase him.  He was truly a man of science.  He went on to explain that the vivensmortua virus is unlike any virus known on Earth, so its properties were quiet unique.  It was strong in certain facets while being weak in others.  If we were to eat infected meat, say with Ebola, we would contract that virus, but this virus simply gets dissolved by our stomach acids.

He also came across the entry where I talked about the zombies that crouched down on all fours, and he said he saw this as well.  Their physiology is also changing, but at a much slower rate.  His people caught one and brought it back so that he could do an autopsy on it.  He stated that what he saw from the skeleton alone suggested they were changing their form to become more agile predators.

Then he asked me where I had come from, and I told him Terre Haute, and he also asked me if I passed through Stephen's Point.  I said I wish I never did, bringing up the account of seeing so many zombies concentrated in one area.  He told me something that I never expected.  There was a nest there in Stephen's Point.  I asked what did he mean by nest?  He said something was growing there, which attracted leathers from all over.  He only heard reports from a couple of people, but it sounded like a new mutation was happening, something immobile that had to be guarded.  He had sent a few men down to investigate and see if they could find it, but I told him if they were the ones shooting when I was there, then they weren't successful.

He hung his head for a bit.  They must have been good men to him.  He brought his head back up and said he need to take his leave.  He had other matters to attend to and I needed rest.  I told him I had many more questions to ask him, but he said tomorrow.  All would be answered tomorrow.  Before he left, I begged him to see Kat just once tonight.  He turned around swiftly with a cold expression on his face and said that is simply impossible.  Tomorrow when the procedure is finished, I can see her but if I leave this tent, the guards outside are ordered to shoot to kill.  I leaned back in bed silent from his sudden abruptness.  Seeing that I had nothing to add, he left.

Kat's in a tent right next to me, and I can't see her!  I hate that, but what else can do I?  It would be pointless to try to sneak into her tent, because as Saint Anthony said, I would be shot and killed. Plus, what if I still pose a health risk and get someone else sick?  I finally just admitted to myself that staying here for the night's the best option.  I have loads of questions to ask him in the morning, after I see Kat first, if I'm allowed to that is.  I also can't wait to see what Rhinelander has to offer.  This place seems extremely safe.  It could be the bastion that humanity needs.

Until tomorrow.

November 4th, 2021

Seven o'clock in the morning, we woke up and took a peek outside hoping to see nothing but an empty lawn.  We were disappointed.  I don't have a photographic memory, but I'm sure that each and every one of them were standing just as still as they were last night.  It was eerie.  They seemed to be frozen in place, almost as if they froze overnight.

I wanted to see if they were alert, so I grabbed a twig from the corner of the tree house and I threw it across the yard where it connected across the back of a female leather's head.  She snapped to, turning around and blamed the zombie standing behind her and shrieked at it.  I heard that kind of shriek before.  It was the same kind they used on their prey, to paralyze them with fear as they moved in for the kill.  The zombie who was being shrieked at was a heavy set old man, and his attention went immediately to her.  He shrieked back as well, but then she was on him, knocking him down and began chewing at his face.  I saw hands going up in the air trying to claw at something, but the ferocity of the attack was too quick and violent for the elder undead to fight back.  Within seconds, the leathery woman gnawed her way into his skull bringing the thrashing food source to a sudden rest.  The other zombies seemed to be oblivious to the altercation, and then the female got up and went back to standing still, letting the fresh zombie blood run down her chin adding a new layer of stains upon her filthy blouse.

That was discouraging.  It meant they weren't hunting, but they were primed and would be prone to provocation.  All it would take is a nudge and they would turn and strike.  We couldn't just continue to wait in this tree house forever.  We still needed to get to Rhinelander, and it was so close.  It was about a hundred miles away.  We could make it tonight if we could just leave now.  Kat and I talked about what to do.  She wanted to wait a few hours and maybe something would happen to catch their attention.  I wanted to move right away and make it to Rhinelander before sunset.  As each day passed, we lost more and more light.  Kat ultimately had a point, though.  What good would pushing to Rhinelander be if we got eaten in the process?

So we ate instead.  We also finished the last of the water, so we would need to find more ASAP. We waited for a few hours like Kat wanted.  We talked while we played some cards, courtesy of Hector. We talked about Hector, how we were hoping he was doing well.  We hoped Wallace and Temperance were taking good care of him and more importantly were simply getting along well. Losing an arm in a world like this, especially when you have to live with the person who took it from you, would be a tremendous amount of stress.  We know that stress is one of the worst things to happen to you, because it opens the gates for the vivensmortua virus to turn you insane.  If Hector wasn't coping, wasn't dealing with the situation properly, he could pose a risk to the two.  With Temperance pregnant, that would ensure that Wallace would not hesitate to kill him to protect his family.  I know, because I'm in that exact same situation with Kat.  I will kill anyone who presents a threat to her and my unborn child, needless to say kill anyone who threatens me.

Noon was setting in.  There was no change outside, and now we had less than six hours of light left.  We wouldn't make it to Rhinelander tonight, but staying here any longer simply wasn't an option anymore.  We were out of water, so we needed to move.  Have you ever seen that monster movie with Kevin Bacon that was out in the early 90s called Tremors?  It was about a monster that wormed its way through the soil to hunt people from below.  The main characters of the film came across a guy who climbed a tower and stayed up there for so long, he died of dehydration.  I did not want to be that guy.  I had no idea how long these leathers would be standing here, but I was tired of waiting and convinced Kat that we needed to go.

Before we attempted to leave, we had to make a plan.  We surveyed all around us the zombies down below.  They were almost completely shoulder to shoulder, but there was a slight path that curved away from the tree house, across the yard and to the back of the house.  We knew that door was unlocked, because that's where we came from with the blankets from the night before.  Now that we had the route, the hardest part was getting to that door.

We slowly climbed down and began an even slower walk; we were crawling standing up.  Some of the zombies we had to pass by were so close together, we needed to turn sideways. An Asian zombie breathed down my neck, triggering a flight or fight response me in, and I had to muster my entire will to quell it, or I'd have lit the fuse for a massive zombie explosion.  If any zombie bit us, the smell of fresh blood would turn this passive group of leathers into an undead pack of piranhas.  I froze and Kat nearly bumped into me, almost causing a domino effect.  We stood still for a minute or two, and when the zombie that breathed on me swayed back a few inches, we pressed forward.  Half way there, the path opened up by just a few inches, enough to give us some breathing room.  It was enough for us to walk face forward, but just barely.  I held Kat's hand and felt the tension building in her.  She was becoming afraid, and so was I.  I was never this close to so many zombies at once, and even the slightest bump on one would cause them to attack.  The nervousness was beginning to twist my stomach into pretzel.  Dogs would smell the sense of fear from us now a mile away, yet the leathers remained perfectly still.  Sorry, Rampert, but I call bullshit.

After what seemed an hour of moving one inch at a time, we were mere feet from the back door when we heard gunshots off in the distance.  At first, it was a KRA-KOW of a rifle followed by a few more and then a THUT-THUT-THUT-THUT of an automatic weapon.  Before we could even register what was happening, all 80, maybe even a hundred zombies in that backyard issued a harmonious shrill that was painfully deafening.  We clasped our ears with our hands and then thunder struck us as a flood of undead bodies washed over us, taking us down and running us over.  Kat was knocked back several feet from me while I was forced to the side next to the house.  She later told me she was screaming, but I didn't know it at the time unable to hear her over the banshee-like wails of the horde.
And just like that, they were gone, chasing down whoever was shooting off those guns.  This is why I don't like guns.  As of right now, whoever's fighting thinks the guns are keeping them alive, but they're only inviting more coming for them.  When I used guns in the past, I was lucky.  Not many zombies were around to attract, but here in this town, they were everywhere.  Which each shot I kept hearing, I knew they were only further signing their death certificate.

I saw Kat lying still on the ground in the fetal position and I ran to her and put my arms around her.  At first, it seemed like she wasn't breathing, but she was traumatized from the horror of being trampled by scores of leathers.  She was taking in a breath before I got to her and was holding it in until her brain would finally let her scream out.  She did, startling me in the process, but I instantly hugged her face to my chest to muffle her scream, picked up her in my arms and brought her in the house.  After her initial set of screams dissipated, she began sobbing. I just held her close, petting her hair and cooing to her until she relaxed. And then... SMACK!  Right in my face.

She was angry at me for not waiting one more hour.  I don't blame her.  I know I rushed it.  Had we waited one more hour, they would have heard those gunshots and flocked to them leaving the yard once again open and safe for us to cross back to the house.  She didn't stay mad at me for long, though.  She knew that we did have to keep moving.  It was just a risk we needed to take.

We did one last sweep through the house to check for anything useful but after we found nothing, we left the house.  Kat got in the wheelchair and I got on the bike and we headed back to the freeway.  We heard a loud explosion from the same direction as the gunshots, so we stopped and waited.  Several minutes went by and no new explosion.  If I had to guess, it was a suicide with a grenade.  If you were going to die, might as well take a few with you.

We traveled up I-39 for a few miles, but the population of zombies just kept increasing to the point where they were blocking our path.  We decided to abandon the interstate for now, taking back roads.  They still had groups of zombies scattered around, but it was nothing we couldn't maneuver past.  We rode past a county fair that still had its tents up.  There was a small rollercoaster and a few other rides that we could see, including a carousel.  I asked Kat if she wanted to stop by and take a look, and she told me, "You must be fucking kidding me!"  Heh, yeah.  Carnivals are creepy enough as it is.  There's no point in freaking ourselves out perusing the apocalyptic aftermath of a carnival. Besides, I have a morbid fear of clowns. Just imagining running into a zombie clown would be enough to make me piss my pants.

We traveled for about 30 miles on back roads and when we noticed the zombie population thinning out, I made a decision to return to I-39, but it no longer was the interstate.  It was now Highway 51. We took that through Wausau and got off 51 just where the Wisconsin River began to curve parallel to the highway.  We crossed a bridge into a small little town called Brokaw and the first thing we saw was a water tower, so we immediately went to the spout and tried to turn it on.  To our surprise, there was water!  Kat went to get under it, but I pulled her back remembering our dip in the Illinois river.  I told her to take the zombie suit off first so that the water wouldn't wash away some of the smell, but then got frustrated with me.  She said what good is taking the suit off in order to bathe if she was only going to put it back on and get stunk up again?  We had a bit of a spat about that.  She was tired of wearing the skins, tired of always stinking and just wanted to feel normal again.  I had to remind her that these skins were the only things keeping us alive, and we never would have made it this far without them. She stormed off to her wheelchair and rolled down the road.  I quickly filled up our water bottles and chased after her.

The first house we came across would be the spot where we'd crash.  The town was a complete contrast to Stephen's Point, nearly devoid of all leathers.  It was almost like that town called out to this town to bring its undead masses there in anticipation of something greater.  I don't know what was going down in Stephen's Point, but something was causing them to behave differently.  If and when we make it back to Terre Haute, I'm plotting a course to avoid that town.

After we did an initial sweep of the house to make sure it was safe, we then started rummaging through the pantries and cabinets looking for food when by the good graces of God (He's a dick, but sometimes He cuts you a break), we found some canned tuna!  TUNA!  I haven't had tuna in over a year!  Cats love tuna, so Kat loves tuna.  We so needed this.  We needed a treat to lift our spirits up.  I took out my utility knife and used the can opener on Kat's can and then mine.  We dined on tuna feeding each other by the dim light of the Solar Flare and although I'd kill for some artisan bread and mayonnaise to make a proper sandwich, the fish tasted amazing straight from the can.  I actually wanted to open the third can of tuna and dig in right away, but I had to exercise some restraint and save it for later.  TUNA!  So fucking happy!

We were content.  Even having to turn the bloody mattress over in the bedroom didn't bother us much.  We got new sheets out of the linen closet and put them over the matress and snuggled.  Then, we talked Rhinelander.  It was definitely happening tomorrow.  It was only 50 or 60 miles away now.  We imagined what a place powered by solar roadways would be like.  We wondered how many people had the same idea and tried to make it there.  How many were currently living there?  Was it going to be militarized like Indianapolis?  So many questions!  They'd all be answered tomorrow, though.

Until tomorrow.

November 3rd, 2021

Maybe sleeping in the tree house wasn't a good idea.  It was a bad idea, actually.  You ever seen a cat treed by a dog before?  Well that was us this morning.  We were the cats, the robber was the dog, and he was doing a whole lot of barking.

I started coming to around seven in the morning.  Kat was shaking me back and forth trying to get me up.  Then I started hearing the shouts.  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and put an arm next to Kat, keeping her back as I leaned out of the door.  A Native American man, pretty tall and muscular, was yelling up at us calling us assholes.  Yeah, we're sleeping in a tree house minding our business, yet WE'RE the assholes.

I asked him what he wanted, although I already knew.  He wanted us to come down and surrender all of our food, weapons, supplies; basically everything we had.  He had a semi-automatic rifle, but I couldn't tell exactly what kind it was.  He was pointing it at me saying there'd be no way he could miss at this range.  I played the role of the scared victim holding out his hands going, "No, no!  Don't shoot!  I'll give you whatever you want!  You can have it!  Food, medicine, all of it!  It's yours!"  While talking down to THIS asshole, I was making a gun motion behind my back.  Kat saw it and pulled the handgun out of her pack.  I knew it only had two rounds left, but I only needed one.  I was sure I could shoot this man in the head, but if his finger was on the trigger, most likely he'd be able to shoot me too.

Instead, I went inside and grabbed my pack, unzipped it all the way and headed to the door.  I kept the gun behind my back and then I tossed the unzipped pack down to him, contents spilling like littered rain.  He didn't know whether to cover his head, get out of the way or try to catch as much as he could, but I used that moment of distraction and indecisiveness.  I swung the gun in front of me, put my left hand under the butt, aimed and fired.  I was going for the head, but my quick draw needed work and I got him in the shoulder.  It took him down like a wrestler jumping from the ropes.  He still had the rifle in his hand and I raised my arm to aim again, this time the site clearly on his head, when he shouted at me not to shoot and threw the rifle away.

I'm glad he did.  This meant I kept the last bullet.  I gave the gun to Kat and told her to cover me as I climbed down the tree to this would-be robber.  I walked over to where he threw the rifle, and it immediately felt light.  Figured.  There was no clip.  This desperate man tried to rob us at gun point with no ammo!  I walked over to him and kicked him in the head as he was trying to get up.  I barked at this dog to stay down. A million thoughts were going through my head at that moment.  I wanted to bash his brains in with the butt of the rifle.  I wanted Kat to toss my machete down to me so I could slice his spinal cord out.  I wanted to do something to the man, because honestly, I miss torturing people.  I shouldn't be excited about that, but I was.  I had to admit, I felt like a monster for wanting to do horrible, detestable things to this...I kicked him again and asked his name... Terry.

I asked him other questions.  Was he with anyone?  Did he have any other weapons?  He said no to both.  I asked him where he was from, where he was going, but during my interrogation, I didn't realize how dangerously close I was to Terry.  Right in the middle of me asking a question, he shot up off the floor as if he was catapulted and rammed into me, with his bad shoulder of all things, and drove me straight into the tree.  One of the ladder's rungs dug itself into my back and I yelled out in pain.  We were right underneath the doorway Kat was standing in, and she had no clear shot.  All she could see were our legs kicking around as one of us struggled to get on top of the other.

He was immensely powerful, finally pinning me down as he straddled me.  He pulled his good arm back to punch me, but I swung my head to the side to dodge his blow and he pounded nothing but grass.  He tried again with his bad shoulder, instantly regretting that decision as his punch lost so much power, it didn't even make its destination.  I used that opportunity and grabbed his arm, wrenching him back down where we were face to face.  I then dug my finger in his freshly wounded shoulder where he lept off me and yelled out in pain.  He quickly got a boot into my side, driving out all the air, and he rose his leg up to stomp me when something hooked his calf and pulled him back where he fell flat on his face.

It was Kat.  During the fight, I didn't even see her come down the ladder.  She had the climbing hammer dug into his leg and she was pulling him away from me.  He twisted around and managed to kick free and reached out to grab Kat's leg, and she swung down on him with the hammer again, piercing his hand and yanking the climber's tool so hard, it tore free.  Terry screamed out yet again, but then I got up and ran to him as Kat got ready to swing once more.  I grabbed him in a choke hold, putting my hand over his mouth to muffle his screaming.  I had no idea how to break a neck, even if I had the strength for it, but I wanted to at this moment to silence him.  It just occurred to me that the zombie population in this area is high, all this commotion might be attracting them.  Kat had the hammer raised looking at me, waiting for me to tell her what to do.  She made a motion to hack at his head, and I nodded.  With one strong overhead swing, Kat sent the hammer's deadly point into his crown just inches from my arm.  I felt the body go slack, so I let it go and it dropped to the ground.

Anger began to build up inside me.  This stranger was going to rob us of our supplies, take the things we rightfully earned, and run off with.  I have no tolerance for thieves.  Even in an apocalypse, it doesn't make thievery right.  All thieves deserve to die.  I needed to channel this rage, get this aggression out, so I held my hand out to Kat and waved for the hammer.  She gave it to me by the handle, and I went to work on Terry the Thief.  I don't know how many times I hit him with the hammer.  I seemed to slip out of the conscious awareness of time.  It was me, the hammer and Terry. Nothing else existed.  It was his blood rising up from his body as I rose the metal claw from his torso and it was the metal claw going right back in.  The hammer took on a life of its own and seemed to be the one driving me to hack away, not me driving it.  The anger only intensified.  I saw the man's face who shot my Johanna superimposed on Terry and I let the hammer fly randomly, like I was tenderizing a giant steak.

Kat had to stop me at that point.  I was beginning to scream myself, and she ran around behind and tugged me off him.  I was covered in his blood, and threw the hammer at him for one last lick. Kat went to retrieve it when we heard growls and snarls of the impending horde.  Hungry monsters were coming-so we quickly climbed back up to the tree house and put on our zombie leather.  We packed up and headed to the door when there they were.  Scores upon of scores of leathers right underneath us.  Some were still climbing over the fence to get into the backyard, hurrying to join the fray that descended upon Terry's body.  It was like a pack of jackals, all of them tearing away at the flesh and scarfing it down.

They kept coming, kept spilling over the fence, filling the backyard, hoping to get a scrap of food.  50, 60, maybe even 70.  I couldn't even see Terry's corpse anymore.  I looked down, and I saw several staring up at me, sniffing the air wildly, picking up on the scent of his blood on me, but then sniffing the blood of our zombie leather and then disregarded us and waited eagerly in line hoping to get at least tiny bit of flesh.

And they stayed there.  The entire day, they stayed there like bums.  Undead, stinking. rotten bums. We were treed. This time, it wasn't by just a dog.  It was by a pack of dogs.  Ugly, stupid, damn dogs.  Kat said why don't we just climb down and move past them; we had the suits.  Something told me that it wouldn't work. For us to get by them, we had to be extremely close to them, closer than we ever were.  We would have to push past them, and I was afraid of triggering a reaction in one of them that would lead the entire horde in this yard to jump on us.  As much as I didn't want to, I suggested to Kat we stay in the tree house and wait it out.

It's just so bizarre to see so many leathers at once doing nothing.  They usually fan out looking for food or to infect new victims.  Draggers are the ones that are supposed to congregate.  Leathers are supposed to be the seekers.  Their behavior keeps changing, and I don't like it.  We're going to sleep here again tonight, and if they're still there in the morning, we're just going to have to figure something out.

Until tomorrow.

November 2nd, 2021

Kat woke me up around three in the morning waving a leather face in mine.  It scared me half to death, as I wasn't expecting that.  She said while I was asleep, she dragged two of the dead leathers inside and began to skin them.  She wanted us to start wearing them again.  I wasn't looking forward to smelling like rotting corpse again, but it was worth a shot.

She was eagerly looking forward to her time to rest, and she wasted no time getting straight to it.  I, on the other hand, had to struggle dozing off as I was finally sleeping solid.  The headache was back, and the pain was helping me from closing my eyelids, but not by much.  I decided to go outside and get some fresh air.  It was roughly 30 degrees out, so I didn't expect to stay out long.

That's when I saw one.  A leather was inspecting a brown Subaru station wagon completely oblivious of me watching.  I decided test out the suit.  I walked up behind he creature, not even bothering to mask the sounds of my footsteps and when I was about five feet from him, he turned around.  I actually jumped back a bit, but I don't think that gesture registered with him.  He looked at me, twitching his head back and forth, his nostrils flaring.  He was sniffing me, but not in the way cats and dogs have to, by being on top of you.  He was studying me, trying to make out what I was.  I walked back and forth from him in normal human strides, and he simply kept watching.  I even jumped up and down which caused him to jolt back, yet he made no movement towards me.  I felt that the only reason why I had his attention in the first place was because I was behaving oddly to him.  Had he been able to smell me, he would have attacked me long before I ever got close to him.

I tried to make myself scared of him, to get the fear hormones going.  I wanted to test out Rampert's theory about them picking up on fear but I had no idea how to make myself scared of something that I just wasn't scared of at that time.  He lost interest in me and went back to poking his head in the windows of the car.  At that point, I lost interest in him and hacked away at his neck, dropping his head inside the station wagon while his body left a brownish red streak on the door.

I began to walk north along the east side of the building when I heard glass shatter followed by a scream.  I raced to where I thought I heard the scream, seeing the broken window and lunged through it.  I got up from my tumble and scanned the room quickly when I saw a zombie attacking a woman.  I immediately ran to the zombie, grabbed its jacket from behind, yanked it off her and rammed the machete into the side of its skull.  I twisted my hip to fling it away where momentum caused its head to slide off my blade that I had extended to my side.

The woman looked at me in panicked horror.  Her brown eyes were full of tears spilling over and down her cheeks.  Her nose ran thick with mucus and tendrils of spit hung from her chin.  She was such a sad sight.  She looked to be in her 40s, maybe early 50s, but she had a real firm build to her frame.  As I was looking her over more, I noticed the bite mark on her right side, just below the breast.  I hung my head and sighed.  She saw my reaction and she knew.  She knew there was no hope for her.  The inevitable was coming for her.

She asked me, "Please, please kill me!"  I put my hand to my head, not wanting to do another mercy killing, because they drain me so emotionally.  And that's the hardest part.  Not wanting to do something you know she needs to be done.  When someone asks you to end them before they turn, they will most likely not be able to do it themselves.  That's why they ask you.  They need someone else to do it, and it needs to be done.  If they turn, they become one of them, and they become a risk.  If they aren't a risk to you, they'll be a risk to someone else.  They might attack and bite someone else causing them to become a zombie and eventually attacking others.  I really, really hate doing it.

She asked me again.  I hate doing this even more, because I don't have a gun with me.  I have a machete.  It won't be an easy death.  You might think all you have to do is chop the person's head off like you would a zombie, but it's not always that easy.  With zombies, their bones lose calcium in the metabolism process, so they're easier to decapitate.  With a human, a healthy human, the machete doesn't always cut through the spinal cord on the first try.  I've seen it happen.  A guy I was with a year ago had to kill his brother who was bit.  The machete took two swings before he even hit bone, and then it took several hacks before his brother finally stopped screaming, and a few more hacks until  his head was completely off.

Now she was on her knees, crawling to me and hugged herself around my legs crying into my crotch.  I just prayed that the Alligator was still sharp enough for this job.  I pushed her from me and looked into her misty eyes.  I said I would.  She mouthed thank you with her hands gripped at her chest.  I told her to close to her eyes.  As she did, I brought the machete back as far as I could, like it was a baseball bat and I was expecting a fastball straight down the middle.  I took a step back, and with all my might and extra that I didn't have, I swung the machete at her making sure my swing was fully extended, the rectangular edge delivering all the energy of the blade to her neck, and I felt the hit.  I felt the thump of the machete cutting through skin and muscle, and the snap as the force drove itself through the spinal cord followed by the release as it exited her neck from the other side.  The swing sent her head end over end until it landed against the foot of her bed.

I slumped down on my knees letting my arms go slack, uttering out a sigh of relief for having a clean kill but at the same time crushed with the weight of another mercy killing.  Once I got back up, I looked around the room when I saw her pack.  It was a mountaineering pack. and it looked quite full.  She was either a climber or a hiker, which would explain her perfect physique.  I took the sheet off the bed, picked her head up and placed it as best as I could next to her body, and laid the sheet over her.   I took the pack and went back out.  I finished my round of the building outside and went back to our room to continue to stand guard.

When Kat woke about eight o'clock, we rummaged through the lady's pack together.  There was a lot of food in there, along with some nutrient gum and both of us took a piece of started chewing.  It would be nice to get some vitamins in our system that we couldn't get from mostly junk food.  She had a few days worth clothes, and Kat said they looked close to her size.  It seems morbid, though, to where a dead person's clothing.  She also had climbing rope, so that meant she was a climber, and she had some professional looking climbing hammers as well.  Those would be great to use for weapons. There was also a cell phone, but it seemed the battery was long since dead.  No solar cell attachments were in the bag so getting any kind of charge for it would be out.  Besides, I haven't seen a working cell tower in months.

We got back on the road about an hour later.  The further north we pedaled, the more and more zombies we saw.  First, it was just a couple here and there, then it became three to four.  We soon saw packs of eight to 10 and that was quite worrisome.  They all saw us but paid no mind, which meant the fresh zombie leather suits were working.  I think it was the swim in the Illinois river the other day that washed most of the scent away.  I'll have to keep that in mind.  Even if rains, we should look to make new suits immediately after.  In fact, it would be a good idea to make new suits whenever we get used to the smell.

We covered about 80 miles today.  Kat's getting stronger.  She did about 30 miles of biking herself.  We're at Stephen's Point right now, and we were eyeing the municipal airport to make camp, but immediately discounted it when we saw it teeming with leathers.  It was the most we saw at once since the migration of the horde that was marching to Indianapolis.  There must have been hundreds, like everyone who was living here turned into zombies and decided to congregate at the airport.  Instead, we rode into a nearby residential area and found a home with a tree house in their backyard.  We thought it actually might be fun to camp in a tree house and spend the night, but we broke into the home anyway and took some extra blankets to keep us warm.

The tree house was a rather well put together house.  It used similar materials as the house on the ground, almost a miniature version of itself but stuck in a tree.  It even had two mattresses, although they were kid sized.  We pushed them together and curled up under the blankets.  Even thought we took our zombie suits off, the stench still clung to us.  Kat didn't seem to care much, though, and started kissing me.  I don't know if I ever told you or not, but "have sex in a tree house" was on my bucket list.  Looks like I can cross that one off!

Until tomorrow.

November 1st, 2021

I had another nightmare.  I was staring at a grotesque creature.  It was a multi-limbed massive behemoth, like several undead monsters fused together.  Imagine an abomination conceived in the womb of Hell where the zygote mutated as each cell began to split, breaking off from one another forming different beings yet one unified mass.  There were so many legs, some weren't even being used, just hanging in the air.  There were so many arms, several of them were used as legs, supporting hulking sections of the hideous monster.

It had about eight or nine faces from what I could tell.  They were lumped together at the center of its body, each one screaming and protesting against its own existence.  Some of the faces shared eyes with one another, and one head's skull was open, its brain exposed and pitted with decay.  The skin of the entire beast was almost like it was molting, coming off in thick patches, not necessarily being replaced by fresh skin, but by a slimy mucus membrane.  Under that membrane, throbbing veins of dark red almost black blood were layered across muscle tissue taking on an orange brownish tint.  

I don't know where I was, or what brought me to this... this thing.  No one was with me; I was all alone.  I don't recall my surroundings.  It was almost like I was in a state of suspended animation, like some kind of giant alien uterus.  This frightening monster moved by flopping a part of itself over and twisting around another part of itself, almost like a starfish whose arms were tangled up in a ball.  It was coming for me.  I couldn't react; I couldn't move. I didn't speak or scream.  My eyes were frozen open in terror as I watched this thing slowly move in pain and anguish trying to get to me.  Knowing I was just out of reach, it only tried harder until finally, it was able to slam me down to the ground as it reached over itself and laid a wet and pulpy appendage made out of ill-formed arms and legs.  It was like a tentacle, and as it had me, it coiled me up with it as it brought me to the center of its body.

The faces began to twist around  until all the mouths aligned in a circle, and the mound of rotting flesh that was its giant head made of heads peeled back like a flower opening, blossoming towards the moonlight.  Row upon row of badly shaped, yet jaggedly sharp teeth pierced their way out of the newly exposed maw.  I was forced into it, the monster so savagely and ravenously eager to eat me, it didn't care that it was going to devour its own tentacle that held me.  The teeth began shredding me, bits and pieces of me falling into its gullet, and I felt myself being absorbed into it.  My flesh was being repurposed, sucked in and threaded into existing flesh, my bones supporting new skin making arms and legs and my face was crammed impossibly in between two other faces as the mouth folded itself back together.  My face, sharing an eye of each face next to me, began screaming.

And I screamed myself awake drenched in cold sweat.  I scared Kat awake, who put an arm around me and tried to comfort me.  I told her all about it, all the details I could remember, and she lowered me back down, gently shushing me holding my face to her chest.  I'm sick of nightmares.  I don't want anymore of them!  I already live a nightmare day by day.  It's enough to be haunted by these things.  Normally, my nightmares are based off something that's happened to me, but nothing I've experienced thus far explains why I had this kind of nightmare.  That horrible monster that I dreamed up.  What caused that?  What meaning does that nightmare have?  I just hope to god nothing like that exists out there.  

We got going about nine o'clock  My leg was feeling much better and my aim was for 90 miles  I wanted to round it up to 100 but I didn't want to be overconfident and overdo it.  As we were traveling up north on I-90, we noticed that the leather population was growing.  We spotted more of them along the road, so many in fact that we had to stop and start killing them or they would follow us in groups that would be too numerous  to handle.  The suits just weren't working anymore.  The stench of the zombie skins must have been wearing thin enough to allow our bodily scents to come through.  At that point, we just took off the suits and left them behind.  I was contemplating making new ones, but every time we thought we were safe enough settle down for a few minutes, we'd spot another leather or a dragger and would have to move again.

At one point, we came across the carcass of a hiker and we were lucky enough that his binoculars weren't already taken by someone else.  I added it to my pack.  Those would come in handy later on.  I also picked off a far better utility knife than my pocket knife, which I handed off to Kat.  Kat got out of the wheelchair several times today to walk around on her leg testing it, and she seems to do okay.  She has quite a noticeable limp, but it's nice to know that if for whatever reason we need to run, she could be able to.  I'm sure she'd only reinjure her ankle in the process, but at least she has a fighting chance to get away if something happens to me.

I've also been suffering from headaches today.  I've forgotten how any times I've been hit in the head while writing this journal.  When Kat would see me suffering from one, she would order me in the wheelchair and take over pedaling for a while.  A couple times, even riding in the wheelchair over a relatively smooth road was enough vibration to bother me to the point where we just simply had to stop for me to rest.  Needless to say, we didn't make my goal of 90 miles.  We got 75, though, which was more than double that if had we just been walking.  I'll gladly take that.

So that brings us to Rest Area 12 in Dekorra, WI.  There are several vehicles still left in the parking lot, but I'll check them tomorrow when its light out.  For now, I just want to get to bed.  Having a really bad headache right now, and I don't want to stare at this screen anymore.  We had to fight off a few leathers on our way to the rest area, so Kat's going to take first watch and wake me up around three so I can be up and alert in case any zombies are still slinking around.  The fact that we have to do this has me unnerved.  Hopefully, it will be a peaceful night.  

Until tomorrow.