Dec. 11, 2021

Following the river, I can’t seem to find a good spot to cross. I must be in a bad place. It is too far to swim. Good swimmer or not, I don’t have the strength to put up that kind of fight. It was hard enough holding onto that log, and the water is freezing. I need a boat. Bridge would be nice. How did people cross this thing? 

Dec. 8, 2021

Journal, nice to have you back. Miss me? Of course you did. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but still worked. I made it to the river. No zombies in sight. At least for a brief moment. Then some came running out at me. If I had seen zombies, my original plan was to hide my stuff, and then make a run for the river. Jump in and grab a hold of something. Then hope the stupid zombies would jump in after me, and get taken down river. I let my guard down. I was looking at the river to figure out what to do then out of the forest they came. No time to hide anything. I dropped my stuff, and it was time to get wet. Wow that water was rougher than I thought. Good thing I am a good swimmer. I caught a hold of this log that was stuck. Then I started yelling at the zombies. I didn’t realize it but some of them had already jumped in. It was a little scary because some quickly disappeared. I didn’t know if they would pop up, or maybe one would actually be able to swim. The river brought one of them close to me, but luckily it was too much for it. They all went under, or down stream. Now that they are gone, I need to decide how I am going to cross this thing. Good swimmer or not, it is too rough to make it across. Plus I want you to make it safely across too. Can’t wait to write about getting out of Arkansas.

Dec. 3, 2021

It was me or the zombies and the zombies won. Tired of waiting, I have carefully moved away from the river, and back into the woods. I should be moving parallel to the river. A little further and I will head back to the river. Hopefully my friends won’t be there. If they are, I think I have a plan that might work. Sorry journal, if this goes wrong, I might not see you again. I will miss you friend. If you find this, please hold onto it. It maybe the only thing left that proves I exist. Or existed. 

Nov. 27, 2021

Zombies don’t now what they are doing. They are just going in circles. Along the river. Around the trees. So far they have no clue I’m here. Obviously not like the hunter zombies I barely escaped from. Why don’t they just move along? They are going to force me to move.

More laughter at the expense of zombies. Actually I had to hold the laughter in. Just as I was ready to put the journal away I noticed this one zombie walking on some rocks by the side of the water. One of his friends should have told him that was not a good idea. Some of them are clumsier than others, and this was a clumsy one. First it took a nasty fall. Had a hard time getting back up. Apparently with the fall, it lost track of where it was going, or what it was doing. It stumbled over some other rocks, and took another spill. It laid there for a minute then rolled the wrong way. Right into the river. Washed away. Zombies zombies zombies so deadly but sometimes so stupid. 

Nov. 26, 2021

The sweet sound of a river ruined by the sight of zombies. Are they thirsty? Surely they need a bath. Based on my previous experiment, I am still under the assumption they can’t swim. I can’t believe this. I was ready to celebrate finding the river, now what. Hiding in a tree. Think I will watch them from a distance to see where they are going. Hopefully they don’t smell, or see me. Can’t believe this! 

Nov. 22, 2021

A few miles apparently equal several days for my slow ass to walk there. Little food, and no sleep make it hard. Desperately want to get out of here. These zombie dreams have me on edge. I keep thinking they are popping up around me. I started running from nothing the other day. Spooked by a branch that fell. Ridiculous I know. Miss a lot of things, but right now really missing the city. Head hurts. No more writing 

Nov. 21, 2021

Where is this river already? SCREAM!

Nov. 15, 2021

Mississippi! At least the river anyway. I can’t believe I finally found a damn sign. Apparently I am only miles away. Maybe I will be able to figure out where I am. According to my map, that means I am almost out of Arkansas. I could scream, but don’t want to draw any attention to myself. So consider this my SCREAM! Hopefully the next state will treat me better. Sleep time. Motivated to move forward now. 

Nov. 12, 2021

The zombie nightmares have returned! They failed at hunting me down, so now they won’t let me sleep again. Reliving the events from the other day. This time the zombies excelled at climbing trees. Like zombie monkeys. There was nowhere to hide. They were falling from the trees. I would be running and have to dodge the zombies that would fall in front of me. Finally they had me trapped. Instead of eating me, they decided to hang me. Guess I was thinking about the one that hung on the tree. When I woke up I had a hard time catching my breath. Almost like I was under water. Scary. Had to shake that off, and get moving. I think I covered more ground today than I have in a while. However, I must be going in circles cause I am getting nowhere fast. I can’t wait to get out of this forest. 

Nov. 9, 2021

I assumed zombies were stupid. Just driven by their hunger. But I could swear these zombies were hunting me. They seemed to be pushing me in a certain direction. They usually just charge at you, but these zombies were taking their time. Making sure I knew they were there. I thought I was ok because there were only three of them, but to my surprise, and almost my death, they led me to a fourth zombie. They had me trapped. They directed me into this tight patch of trees, and down a small hill. Pretty much a dead end. Apparently it was a dead end for some. There was blood all over the ground. Blood on the rocks that blocked any exit, and some on the side of trees. The fourth zombie was just there waiting for me. Hiding until I had made it all the way down. I couldn’t go around him anyway because of the huge rocks. No way I could scale them. The other three closed quickly in on me so that I couldn’t turn and run. As I looked up at them, I remember thinking that maybe saying my goodbyes was a bad idea. Made it was easy to kill me now that I made my peace. My first instinct as always is to run, but this time they were ready for that. The only place to go was back up through the 3 of them. I had 2 sticks with me, but I knew that wasn’t going to last. I reached down and picked up a rock. As soon as I moved the fourth one came at me. Now that I think about it, I think he wanted to scare me back into the other three. Good thing I didn’t fall for that. I threw the rock at him, and then hit him with one of the sticks. Shitty stick. Cracked right away. I should have stabbed him with it, but dumb me just dropped it. I turned around and the three started to come at me. 1 stick vs 3 zombies. I hate guns, but man does it make it easier to protect yourself. I hit the first one that came at me with the stick, and again it broke. I don’t know where I got the idea from, but I then charged at another one with the remaining piece of the stick. I rammed it right in its stomach, and pushed it back into a tree. I guess I hoped to pin him to the tree, but there wasn’t enough stick left. It did knock him over. I turned around and took my backpack off. I threw it at the next one that came running at me. I think I was aiming at his chest, but I hit him in the leg causing him to trip. I took the opportunity to grab a rock and bash it over the head. I grabbed my bag just in time to use it as a shield as one of them jumped at me. I remember being knocked down the incline that we were on, but not where the zombie ended up. I did land by some more rocks that I just began firing at them as fast, and hard as I could. I have no idea how many times I actually hit them, but I got one of them real good. I don’t know where I hit him, but he fell right over. With two down, it was now or never to run. I was so tired at that point that I really wasn’t sure I would be able to out run them. I faked one way then went the other way. Making it up the hill was hard enough. I looked back and they were right behind me. I should have stopped and threw something at them, but I just kept going. They were having a hard time climbing the hill as well. Not sure if zombies get tired. I ran through the tight patch of trees until finally the forest opened back up. If there was ever a time to stop and think it was then. Too bad they weren’t far behind me. So what did I do, I found another stick, and climbed a tree. Sounds dumb, but it didn’t turn out too bad. I couldn’t run anymore, and if I stopped that would have been the end of me. At first they kind of circled around unsure of where I went. They knew I was close, but they just couldn’t figure it out. I sat quietly trying to catch my breath while watching them. Even though their faces were all messed up, something told me these zombies used to be people from around this area. Probably hunters because they were good at it. I also saw that they were actually smelling around for me. I used to disguise my smell when I was told more than once that they had an excellent sense of smell. Better than when they were humans. I was never sure that was true, but now I believe. Maybe their nose bothered them seeing that it looked like it was about to fall off, but I rather think that they were smelling. Not sure how long I was there before making the sound that would give me away. I knew that was coming. When they saw me they got instantly recharged and did their best to try to climb the tree, but they were struggling big time. I couldn’t help but laugh at them. I mean, it was actually funny watching them bust their ass falling out of the tree. I think I was even laughing out loud at them. Maybe taunting them. Who knew zombies could be that entertaining? After I had my fun, I knew I had to end this before they finally learned to climb, or I took my turn busting my ass. It has happened before. Not many people around these days to laugh at my expense though. I took the stick and carefully moved down the tree. I found a good spot to stop where I could take a good swing at them. As I climbed down, they were even more eager to climb up. I hit them as hard as I could from the position I was in, but it wasn’t enough. I was hoping they would fall on their heads, break a leg, or something, but that wasn’t happening. Just kept getting up, and the stick became useless. Dam zombies. I then broke a branch into 2 pieces, waited, and then jammed the pieces into one of the zombie’s ears as hard as I could. Almost took me out of the tree. It hit the floor, and stayed down. Once again I turned to my trusty backpack. I took it off, and waited for the zombie to get close. I took the strap, and tried to get it around its neck. Wasn’t easy. Swung around the back of him, and braced for him to fall. I held on to the pack and tree when he tried to turn, and fell. I had him hanging by the neck as long as I could before letting go. When I dropped him, I slid back and hit my head on the tree good. Almost fell. Both of them weren’t moving so I climbed down, and made sure they were dead again. I was finished once I finished them off. That is why I’m here just writing about my adventure. That took a lot out of me. I did my best to get out of that area in case there were anymore of them. Been resting as much as possible. 

Nov. 2, 2021

I feel like someone is watching me. I could be paranoid after seeing those zombies. I have to assume they are after me, or I won’t be ready for them. Have slept even less now. Every sound in the forest has me jumping. Sometimes it is too quiet. Sometimes too noisy. Only found some sticks as possible weapons. This is frustrating, but I need to keep it together. 

Oct. 31, 2021

Halloween night tonight. Scariest night of the year. I will be out here under the moon in a forest with zombies roaming around. Scary enough for me. The older I got the more I hated Halloween. Mom has a bunch of pictures of me dressed up when I was little. She loved showing them to people and embarrassing me. Good thing there was less of that once they started dressing up Violet. I had to be a good sport about Halloween for her sake. God I could go for some candy about now. Hopefully I don’t become candy for the zombies tonight. 

Oct. 28, 2021

I knew they were out here somewhere. All these woods and no zombies. No way. 3 of them. I saw them yesterday while resting by this ledge. They appeared to be looking for something. I’m not sure if it was me or not. They didn’t smell me up there so that is a good sign. Maybe there is someone else here. Who knows? I just have to be extra careful now. I really need to get out of these woods. There seems to be no end to them. I also need to find a weapon. Not sure I’m fully recovered and ready for this, but I have no choice. Zombies aren’t going to care what condition I’m in.