The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

Hello! Matt here again, but I promise that it’s not bad news this time. I told Faith about my unfortunate pattern with this fun little blog of hers and she told me to do something more regular.

Between you and me, I think she was glad for the excuse to take a break from this. She’s still kinda strung-out after all the stuff with Dillon, though she won’t admit it, and now there’s something going on with Tia. The girls won’t say what it is, but it’s bad enough to make them both unhappy. Faith has that worried face she gets when something’s eating at her.

I hope the kid isn’t getting Sick. Maybe she’s got a burn. I can’t imagine staring at that future rolling up the road towards me, waiting for the cough and the fever and knowing just how hungry I’ll become.

Dammit, I gave myself goosebumps.

 

Anyway. So there was a bit of excitement today. We’re searching everywhere we can find for supplies, but we haven’t had any luck in days. Not since we hit the mountains, really. Now that we’re out of that area, we had hoped to find stuff again.

We stopped at this little town on the way towards the suburbs. Everything was fine, just as it always is – we shut off the engines and piled out of the vehicles, stiff from sitting. I slipped on the ice and nearly ended up on my ass; grappling onto the big tree that is Thorpe is all that saved me. The less said about that, the better.

The open doors were our first clue that we weren’t going to find much. We wanted to look anyway, just in case whoever was here before us wasn’t as desperate or thorough as they could have been. Who are we kidding – is there anyone around that isn’t desperate and hungry?

Hungry. That brings me to what happened as we moved towards the nearest doors. Terry and Dale were calling to each other, making bets and taunts, and I joined in for the hell of it. Then we heard something down the road.

That thumping. It’s unmistakable. I think my heart was trying to beat a warning, matching their rhythm as they finally figured out how to get onto the street. They fell out of doorways like grains of puffed rice. Or like roasted coffee beans, scorched and tumbling more than walking.

Then Faith was shouting and pushing me back towards the vehicles. I ran along with everyone else, scrabbling to get them ready to move again. What I wouldn’t do for an ignition that worked. Half of us had to grab weapons to deal with the shamblers closest to us, while the others bumped the engines started.

Dan is a demon with a bat. I’ve never noticed it before – hasn’t exactly been high on my list of things to check out – but he stepped right in front of me when I was pushing the offroader. I saw it perfectly: whap whap, and then he was moving on, cool as you like. It’d be scary if he wasn’t on our side.

To my surprise, Faith was one of the fighters, too. She usually deals with the vehicles. Today, she picked up a bat and went to town. More determination than finesse, but she got the job done. I didn’t start worrying about her until we were ready to go and she wasn’t answering us. I had to grab her arm to get her attention, and nearly got smacked for my trouble.

I didn’t like the expression on her face or the way she looked at the sticky end of her bat. Then we were busy cramming ourselves into the vehicles and getting the hell out of there. She said she was okay but I didn’t believe her. She’ll talk to me when she’s ready.

 

We were much more cautious when we selected a house to hole up in for the night, further down the road. We checked every room, every cupboard, and not just for food. We didn’t find anything, good or bad, but at least we had a place to bed down.

Pickings are slim and spirits are down, but I can report that dog biscuits are actually quite filling, if hard on the teeth. I have no idea how Shaggy ate Scooby Snacks on a regular basis. They really suck the moisture out of you. Cat food is much easier to get down, though it does spark some arguments. I prefer the beef, if you please; fishy ones make me gag.

You know the world has ended when you have a favourite flavour of cat food.

Tags: Matt