Jim beam wood pellets

Lore: It is said that the divine held great power in his fingers. By releasing them from his hand this power guided by his will shaped the universe. We too have great power within us and by removing our fingers we can imitate the acts of our god.
Premise: By removing one's fingers they can bring themselves closer to the image of god and gain the ability to manipulate aspects of the world in a similar manner to the divine
Aspects: Each digit has represents an aspect of the universe. By severing a finger one gains the ability to control said aspect. The left hand holds the outer aspects represents pieces of the cosmos while the right hand holds the inner aspects represents pieces of the earth
Side note: As far as magic goes the right hand grants elemental manipulation while the left is a bit more abstract. If you have any other suggestion for what sun, moon, etc should represent let me know.

• Thumb:
  • Left - Sun - light manipulation
  • Right - Fire
• index finger
  • Left - Moon - create illusions
  • Right - Wood or Plants
• middle finger
  • Left - Gravity - gravity manipulation
  • Right - Water
• ring finger
  • Left - stars - unsure I had 3 ideas
    • Create beams of pure force
    • Make starlight constructs kinda like green lantern
    • Coat objects in starlight strengthening them and providing more durability
  • Right - earth or geo
• Pinky
  • Left - Space - create portals to anywhere you can see or to a place you can recall in great detail
  • Right - Wind

Only members of the church, the monarchy, and royal army may cast aside their fingers. Those that do so unsanctioned shall be marked with a holy prothesis grafted to their hand in place of the finger. This act restores their image so they no longer resemble god removing their power.
What do you think?

I'm on version 1.9 of the randomizer. This pastebin contains the spoiler log so you know where I am. Essentially, I've beaten both the forbidden woods and dragon roost cavern completely and have completed the first couple of rooms in the tower of gods after getting the boomerang and all three pearls. I'm at the point in the playthrough section where it wants me to get bombs from Hyrule, but here's the problem: The warp to hyrule is not in the center of the tower of the gods. There simply isn't a golden beam. I've tried going to the place it's usually in to see if it was just invisible, but nothing happened. I need bombs to progress because the walls in the temple of the gods first floor require the cannon to open and access the rest of the dungeon.
I legitimately don't know what to do. I can't tell if this is just a glitch or if there's something I'm missing here. Does getting one of the progressive bomb bags count to getting bombs? Because if that's the case, I can only think to try getting treasure chart 23 and getting the bag that spawned in diamond steppe island.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

I spend all of my daylight hours scared and alone in this musty old cellar.
It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything around here turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swearing. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago when I got a tiny sliver of signal) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe the splendour of nature. Then, when all is done and dusted, I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
This was a bad idea.
*
Okay, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing else I can do down here. I’ve rooted through every cardboard box a hundred times, organised and reorganised my supplies, I’ve even built a fort. So, I’m back. Hello. Again. God, this diary is going badly.
But there’s just enough light coming through the boards I nailed over the cellar’s tiny window to type by. So I may as well type. Stops me staring up at the window just waiting for a shadow to pass by.
Maybe I'll just write and not hit Submit. Right, where to start? Well, my name is – actually, I think I’m going to refer to myself as ‘X’. That sounds mysterious. If you’re reading this and want to know my real name, I still carry my purse. My railcard is in there and, if you really want to know who I am, go find me and fish it out. I won’t bite...
So, my name is X. I live in a little English village in the middle of nowhere. Before all this happened, I had a mum, a dad, a sister and there was a boy I liked, his name was Jonah.
*
I couldn’t think of anything else to write so I waited until I came back from my rounds. That’s the stupid name I have for when I go outside at night scrounging for stuff. Drinks are the hardest. I only trust bottles or cans, or did, and I was running out of places to search for them. But I guess that doesn’t matter now.
My leg is doing alright actually; didn’t hold me up at all. I saw Jonah too. He’s looked better, I have to say. It’s strange because this is only the second time I’ve seen him since we came here. Maybe his ears were burning.
Anyway, I found some tinned pineapple in a creepy old caravan I hadn’t searched yet. Had to bust the door open with Old Trusty – which I thought might attract some unwanted attention – but it was fine. I’m actually eating the pineapple right now, tastes good. I also found a radio in there. I already have three down here, but none of them work. Not that the caravan radio works either, all you get is static. It’s just nice to collect something. You know, to have a hobby.
*
I can tell the sun is rising. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up after a bad dream. I know some people can remember their dreams, but I never do. I wake up and grasp at them, but I never manage a hold before they fade away. It’s like trying to pinch the corner of a wisp of smoke; the harder you try, the quicker it fades to nothing. I’m just left with a sensation, a kind of imprint which sums up the most intense part of the dream.
And a cold sweat. That’s new.
*
I’ve been through the box of photo albums I found at the back of the cellar again. I’ve looked through them a few times now, but I always notice something new.
There’s a photo of this little girl playing with a pretend guitar. I can tell it’s pretend because it doesn’t have strings, only brightly-coloured plastic dials. Kind of like My First Guitar Hero or something. The girl has dark hair and she looks a tiny bit like my sister did a million years ago. I don’t have a picture of my sister. I suppose I could go and get one from my old house, but it’s right in the middle of the village. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to shreds the last time I went back. So, what I’ve done is put this girl’s photo in my back pocket as a substitute.
I guess I should probably write something about my real sister now. But I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.
*
Daylight is starting to fade and I’m getting ready to go out on my rounds. I always take my satchel with me, packed with useful objects. I have Old Trusty (a crowbar) which sticks out of the top for easy access, a small toolbox, a pair of heavy-duty gloves (there’s a good story about how I got those, I might write that one down later) and a hammer. I carry a penknife I found down here in my pocket, my purse and phone, and a torch in my hand.
I don’t like to use the torch because its battery is running out and there’s always the chance it might attract them. I probably shouldn’t have used it last night when I got back. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this writing malarkey? I need to be careful with luxuries.
*
Okay, that could have gone better.
Picture the scene: I’m using Old Trusty to try and lever a kitchen window open, when one of them just walks right through the garden hedge. Seriously, straight through it. It’s not the mightiest of hedges but, still, it just appeared like it was walking through one of those Japanese paper walls. My satchel was on the ground, but I legged it anyway. I’m not stupid. I know I can go back for it tomorrow. I felt strangely naked without it on the way back here though.
Like I said before, I need to be careful with the torch so I think I’ll try and get some sleep now.
*
I slept pretty well last night; no nightmares or cold sweats. Maybe a midnight chase was just what I needed to blow away the cobwebs.
I actually woke up wondering about you. If you’re reading this, who are you? If you’re like me, living through this village nightmare, how have you managed to go this long without being killed or whatever? Maybe you’re Army or some such. Maybe you’re just some kid who’s played so many videogames that surviving all of this was already second nature to you. Or maybe you’re like me; living on borrowed time and searching for a good place to die. Maybe Future Me was brave enough to tap Submit on my diary and you're currently reading this on your phone or computer.
Here’s an idea. Maybe you can carry on this diary from wherever I left it at. God, I really hope this isn’t my last entry, although I suppose any entry might be. If you do carry the diary forwards, and I'm a corpse, maybe it will become cursed. Spooky.
*
I’ve been preparing for my next excursion.
If I know I’m going somewhere I’ll likely run into an ugly, I like to take extra precautions. And I want my satchel back. It was a present from my dad, and I know it cost him a lot of money.
So, I’m taking a pair of shears from the shelf of old tools down here. That way, if I lose Old Trusty, I’ll have a backup weapon.
If you are local, I wonder how you like to kill them? Pretty morbid question I know, but everyone around here seems to have their preferred method. The last villager I saw alive carried a pair of mini cricket bats and seemed to have bludgeoning down to an art form. He never saw me though, I was watching from a grove of trees as he killed his way along the main road near the village.
That was before I decided to stay inside during the daylight hours. We can at least see a little bit at night; ambient light and everything. They can’t though. I’ve seen them, they bump into things. It’s pretty funny to be honest. If they hear a noise, they walk in the direction of the sound, never trying to avoid any object in their path. They either bash said object out of the way, or, like that hedge, blunder right through it. Obviously bigger things stop them dead (ha!) though. If that happens, they sort of shuffle backwards and then try again a few times. Eventually – and I’ve seen this too – they just give up and stand there, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
That’s not how it works in the daytime though.
*
I think it’s about an hour before the sun sets so it’s nearly time to head out. I’m going to change my bandage. One minute.
Okay, it didn’t look that bad really. The original scratch wasn’t too deep and now the wound seems to be doing that scabbing thing I remember from normal injuries. It just doesn’t smell very good. A bit like when you walk past a bin that needs emptying.
Anyway, I’ve applied more antiseptic and redressed it. Time to go.
*
That was fun. I’m glad I had those shears with me.
I got my satchel back you’ll be happy to know. And I got inside that house I’d been trying to break into as well. More through necessity than choice in the end, but I’m pleased I did. I found more batteries! That means I can justify writing at night a bit more. In fact, the people who used to live there (I think the husband owned the local garage) were pretty well kitted out. There were a lot of tins in their cupboards, and they’d even left a shotgun. It wasn’t loaded though.
Not that I need a shotgun. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have my grandpa’s old service revolver. He always told me and my sister that it was decommissioned, but my dad apparently knew otherwise. I keep it tucked into the back of my jeans at all times. It had three bullets, one of them is gone, so only two left.
I’ll only be needing the one of course.
*
Morning. I’m feeling pretty low today. I think concentrating on getting my satchel back took my mind off things, but now I feel pretty deflated.
Surely that’s understandable? The village I knew and loved has been replaced with this sodding hell. I miss my family, my friends, TV and hot dinners and Instagram. Before all of this I was a pretty positive person. Sure, I had a bit of trouble getting up in the morning, but, once I was up, that was it. I’d meet the day’s challenges head on, try to enjoy myself as much as I could. Not today though.
Maybe if I write about Jonah I’ll cheer up. Not Jonah as he is now of course, Jonah when he was all smooth-skinned, curly-haired and bright-eyed. Now he’s like the anti-Jonah or something. His face looks like it lost a fight with an angry lobster. No, wait, I’m supposed to be writing about Jonah version one here.
He’s one of those people that I can’t remember meeting. My family has always lived around here and so there are lots of people who have just always been, if you get me. I always thought we would drunkenly get it together at a party – that’s what I’d usually do if there was a boy I liked. Classy.
*
I’ve perked up a bit. Out of sheer frustration I went upstairs (naughty, I know) and looked out of a window. Sure, I saw an ugly, wandering aimlessly as they always do, but I saw that the trees are starting to turn too. That means it’s nearly autumn, and I love autumn!
My sister and I always used to go out and kick leaves at each other in the autumn. I don’t know if it was because of her low centre of gravity, but my sister was amazing at it. She could somehow whip up a blazing whirlwind of golden-yellow and fire-red, surrounding us both in a leaf storm that I couldn’t help but flail my arms madly at. Then we’d both fall backwards into the leaves laughing, me wondering how on earth what had happened was possible. She was that good.
God, I let her down in the end.
*
I think I’ll stay away from the house with the shotgun tonight. It usually takes a day or two for a group of uglies to disperse once they’re all riled up. I could use the rest of that tinned food I suppose, but I’ve got plenty to be getting on with for now.
Instead, I think I’ll swing by another farmhouse I was scoping out before I decided to turn nocturnal. I never met the people who used to live there, but I remember Mum telling me they liked their privacy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me visiting now though.
Also, there’s a woodland between here and there and I might be able to find some leaves to kick about a bit. I think that would make me feel close to my sister again.
I’ll check back in later.
*
I’m still alive, but only just.
I made it through the woods just fine (only the odd leaf on the forest floor at the moment though, sadly), the trouble started at the farmhouse. I couldn’t get in – the doors and windows were barricaded – so I tried one of the outbuildings. Locked. It had a cat flap though.
My first instinct was to leave it, but then I wondered if there might be something useful inside. Lord knows what thinking about it now. I lifted the cat flap with one hand and shone the torch beam through with my other. That’s when an ugly dived at my pinkies. Luckily, it misjudged its leap and got a mouthful of plastic cat flap instead. As for me, I fell backwards onto my bum.
Next, the damn thing started bashing on the door from the inside. I don’t think it could ever have got out, but the noise attracted more uglies from out of nowhere. I only just managed to outmanoeuvre them and hightail it back into the woods.
That’s not the worst of it though. On the way back my leg started to hurt. A lot.
*
I woke up this morning and I’m walking with a limp. It’s funny, Dad had a limp when he and Mum died. He was nailing planks of wood across our windows and doors because there was no signal (as per bloody usual) and we thought that what was happening here was probably happening everywhere. It's only recently that I realised this was an isolated, local outbreak. Anyway, Dad dropped the hammer onto his toe, he always was useless at DIY. I think it was only a couple of hours after that when he and Mum were taken.
It was like a wave of death. No, not like, that’s exactly what it was. A hoard of uglies swept through the village, probably originating from the secret research facility in the woods we're not supposed to know about. My sister and I wouldn’t have had a prayer if Mum and Dad hadn’t charged down the first few that got into our house. They gave us just enough time to escape, to run away and leave them to die. My sister was screaming all the way and I had to drag her like she was four again.
She wouldn’t speak to me for a few days after that. I didn’t blame her, I hated myself too. But I would have hated myself even more if I hadn’t done what I did next. On my own, I snuck back into our house with the crowbar I found here. Then I dispatched my parents. I can’t bring myself to type it any other way. It wasn’t like in the movies, I didn’t pound their skulls into mush whilst sobbing, ‘Why?’ over and over again. I just found them, or what was left of them, forced the crowbar through each of their eye sockets, and came straight back here.
Then came the crying.
*
I haven’t told you about the heavy-duty gloves yet, have I?
After I got back from our old house, my sister started speaking to me again. A shared, day-long cry will do that for sisters. Once we felt up to it, we decided to explore the parts of the farmhouse we hadn’t searched yet. All the bedrooms were empty, only a few belongings flung about the place (I suspect the previous tenants left in a hurry). The problem came when we investigated the attic. Once we’d opened the ceiling panel in the upstairs hallway, once we’d pulled the compact staircase down, I went up. My sister stood at the top of the hatchway shining the torch beam over my shoulder. And that’s when it touched me. Terrified, I fell to my left, screaming as the thing came crashing down on top of me. I was yelling things like, ‘Shoot it!’ and, ‘Run!’ but my sister was just laughing her head off. I soon realised that my attacker was in fact a shop-window mannequin.
I think the people who previously lived here must have been arty (or into some seriously freaky stuff) because the mannequin was dressed in scarves, bandannas, ties, watches – loads of things. The rest of the attic was pretty empty but at least we got the mannequin’s gloves.
*
I’m not feeling good at the moment. I’ve got a sore throat and I’ve coughed up blood a couple of times. My leg pain is getting worse too.
I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I have enough tins left and one of them is a Full English In A Can. Sounds pretty disgusting, but intriguing at the same time. I’ve been saving it for near the end. A sort of consolation prize.
*
There are two mattresses down here. Obviously one is mine, and the other one was my sister’s. After she died, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I don’t have a photo of her, only Guitar Girl’s. Her bed is the only thing of hers I have left. And she didn’t even sleep in it that many times.
*
The tinned Full English was vile! You’ve got to laugh though, what else can you do?
*
I’m crying as I write this. Tears of sorrow, shame and regret.
It happened as we were searching a cottage just off of the main road. We’d used Old Trusty to get inside, and I’d rushed straight into the kitchen to find the food. We’d run out more than a day before and I was famished. My sister followed me into the kitchen, a wide grin on her pretty little face because I was sitting there with an open can of beans. Then one of them came at her from behind. I must have walked right past it on my stupid way to the cupboards. It bit into her neck and blood gushed over the tiles in a torrent. As she yelled out in agony, I leapt up and implanted the crowbar right into the thing’s skull. It crumpled to the floor, but the damage was done.
‘Don’t let me lose myself.’ That was the last thing my sister whispered to me before she passed out. Her wound was much more severe than mine is, and much closer to the brain. That seems to make it quicker. I took grandpa’s revolver from behind my back and blew her brains out.
I buried her in the back garden.
*
After my sister died I went kind of crazy. I took Old Trusty out across the fields and pulverised every ugly I could find. I don’t even remember it that well, it was just, find, kill, find, kill…
We’d only been going out in daylight before then but, in my anger, I carried on through the nights. That’s how I learned about their inability to evade in darkness. Eventually, though, one got me. I found three munching on a dead cow and ran straight at them. Took out the first two easily enough, but the third managed to scratch my leg with a bloody fingernail just before I clobbered it into oblivion. Once I realised its nail had broken the skin, it was like a switch had been flicked inside me. That’s it, I’m dead too. I lost my bloodlust and came back here.
*
If none of this had happened, I think my sister would have eventually gone into medicine. I was doing okay at College but she was top of her class at school. And she had a really kind nature too. She’d never squish any bugs that got trapped in our house; she’d get a glass, scoop the little critter up and seal it inside with a book. Then she’d take it outside and release it, even if it was a wasp.
*
I’ve decided that here’s not the place. I'll hit Submit and then I’m going to do it in those woods I wrote about; consider this diary as my Note. I’ll be able to find a nice spot to sit and look at the trees, some place that's calm and peaceful. I’m going to leave the picture of Guitar Girl in this cellar, she belongs in this house. The tree leaves will remind me of my sister more than any photo ever could anyway.
I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for listening.
I know it’s possible that no one will ever read this, but that’s not really the point is it?
Love,
X

I spend all of my daylight hours scared and alone in this musty old cellar.
It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything around here turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swearing. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago when I got a tiny sliver of signal) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe the splendour of nature. Then, when all is done and dusted, I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
This was a bad idea.
*
Okay, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing else I can do down here. I’ve rooted through every cardboard box a hundred times, organised and reorganised my supplies, I’ve even built a fort. So, I’m back. Hello. Again. God, this diary is going badly.
But there’s just enough light coming through the boards I nailed over the cellar’s tiny window to type by. So I may as well type. Stops me staring up at the window just waiting for a shadow to pass by.
Maybe I'll just write and not hit Submit. Right, where to start? Well, my name is – actually, I think I’m going to refer to myself as ‘X’. That sounds mysterious. If you’re reading this and want to know my real name, I still carry my purse. My railcard is in there and, if you really want to know who I am, go find me and fish it out. I won’t bite...
So, my name is X. I live in a little English village in the middle of nowhere. Before all this happened, I had a mum, a dad, a sister and there was a boy I liked, his name was Jonah.
*
I couldn’t think of anything else to write so I waited until I came back from my rounds. That’s the stupid name I have for when I go outside at night scrounging for stuff. Drinks are the hardest. I only trust bottles or cans, or did, and I was running out of places to search for them. But I guess that doesn’t matter now.
My leg is doing alright actually; didn’t hold me up at all. I saw Jonah too. He’s looked better, I have to say. It’s strange because this is only the second time I’ve seen him since we came here. Maybe his ears were burning.
Anyway, I found some tinned pineapple in a creepy old caravan I hadn’t searched yet. Had to bust the door open with Old Trusty – which I thought might attract some unwanted attention – but it was fine. I’m actually eating the pineapple right now, tastes good. I also found a radio in there. I already have three down here, but none of them work. Not that the caravan radio works either, all you get is static. It’s just nice to collect something. You know, to have a hobby.
*
I can tell the sun is rising. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up after a bad dream. I know some people can remember their dreams, but I never do. I wake up and grasp at them, but I never manage a hold before they fade away. It’s like trying to pinch the corner of a wisp of smoke; the harder you try, the quicker it fades to nothing. I’m just left with a sensation, a kind of imprint which sums up the most intense part of the dream.
And a cold sweat. That’s new.
*
I’ve been through the box of photo albums I found at the back of the cellar again. I’ve looked through them a few times now, but I always notice something new.
There’s a photo of this little girl playing with a pretend guitar. I can tell it’s pretend because it doesn’t have strings, only brightly-coloured plastic dials. Kind of like My First Guitar Hero or something. The girl has dark hair and she looks a tiny bit like my sister did a million years ago. I don’t have a picture of my sister. I suppose I could go and get one from my old house, but it’s right in the middle of the village. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to shreds the last time I went back. So, what I’ve done is put this girl’s photo in my back pocket as a substitute.
I guess I should probably write something about my real sister now. But I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.
*
Daylight is starting to fade and I’m getting ready to go out on my rounds. I always take my satchel with me, packed with useful objects. I have Old Trusty (a crowbar) which sticks out of the top for easy access, a small toolbox, a pair of heavy-duty gloves (there’s a good story about how I got those, I might write that one down later) and a hammer. I carry a penknife I found down here in my pocket, my purse and phone, and a torch in my hand.
I don’t like to use the torch because its battery is running out and there’s always the chance it might attract them. I probably shouldn’t have used it last night when I got back. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this writing malarkey? I need to be careful with luxuries.
*
Okay, that could have gone better.
Picture the scene: I’m using Old Trusty to try and lever a kitchen window open, when one of them just walks right through the garden hedge. Seriously, straight through it. It’s not the mightiest of hedges but, still, it just appeared like it was walking through one of those Japanese paper walls. My satchel was on the ground, but I legged it anyway. I’m not stupid. I know I can go back for it tomorrow. I felt strangely naked without it on the way back here though.
Like I said before, I need to be careful with the torch so I think I’ll try and get some sleep now.
*
I slept pretty well last night; no nightmares or cold sweats. Maybe a midnight chase was just what I needed to blow away the cobwebs.
I actually woke up wondering about you. If you’re reading this, who are you? If you’re like me, living through this village nightmare, how have you managed to go this long without being killed or whatever? Maybe you’re Army or some such. Maybe you’re just some kid who’s played so many videogames that surviving all of this was already second nature to you. Or maybe you’re like me; living on borrowed time and searching for a good place to die. Maybe Future Me was brave enough to tap Submit on my diary and you're currently reading this on your phone or computer.
Here’s an idea. Maybe you can carry on this diary from wherever I left it at. God, I really hope this isn’t my last entry, although I suppose any entry might be. If you do carry the diary forwards, and I'm a corpse, maybe it will become cursed. Spooky.
*
I’ve been preparing for my next excursion.
If I know I’m going somewhere I’ll likely run into an ugly, I like to take extra precautions. And I want my satchel back. It was a present from my dad, and I know it cost him a lot of money.
So, I’m taking a pair of shears from the shelf of old tools down here. That way, if I lose Old Trusty, I’ll have a backup weapon.
If you are local, I wonder how you like to kill them? Pretty morbid question I know, but everyone around here seems to have their preferred method. The last villager I saw alive carried a pair of mini cricket bats and seemed to have bludgeoning down to an art form. He never saw me though, I was watching from a grove of trees as he killed his way along the main road near the village.
That was before I decided to stay inside during the daylight hours. We can at least see a little bit at night; ambient light and everything. They can’t though. I’ve seen them, they bump into things. It’s pretty funny to be honest. If they hear a noise, they walk in the direction of the sound, never trying to avoid any object in their path. They either bash said object out of the way, or, like that hedge, blunder right through it. Obviously bigger things stop them dead (ha!) though. If that happens, they sort of shuffle backwards and then try again a few times. Eventually – and I’ve seen this too – they just give up and stand there, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
That’s not how it works in the daytime though.
*
I think it’s about an hour before the sun sets so it’s nearly time to head out. I’m going to change my bandage. One minute.
Okay, it didn’t look that bad really. The original scratch wasn’t too deep and now the wound seems to be doing that scabbing thing I remember from normal injuries. It just doesn’t smell very good. A bit like when you walk past a bin that needs emptying.
Anyway, I’ve applied more antiseptic and redressed it. Time to go.
*
That was fun. I’m glad I had those shears with me.
I got my satchel back you’ll be happy to know. And I got inside that house I’d been trying to break into as well. More through necessity than choice in the end, but I’m pleased I did. I found more batteries! That means I can justify writing at night a bit more. In fact, the people who used to live there (I think the husband owned the local garage) were pretty well kitted out. There were a lot of tins in their cupboards, and they’d even left a shotgun. It wasn’t loaded though.
Not that I need a shotgun. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have my grandpa’s old service revolver. He always told me and my sister that it was decommissioned, but my dad apparently knew otherwise. I keep it tucked into the back of my jeans at all times. It had three bullets, one of them is gone, so only two left.
I’ll only be needing the one of course.
*
Morning. I’m feeling pretty low today. I think concentrating on getting my satchel back took my mind off things, but now I feel pretty deflated.
Surely that’s understandable? The village I knew and loved has been replaced with this sodding hell. I miss my family, my friends, TV and hot dinners and Instagram. Before all of this I was a pretty positive person. Sure, I had a bit of trouble getting up in the morning, but, once I was up, that was it. I’d meet the day’s challenges head on, try to enjoy myself as much as I could. Not today though.
Maybe if I write about Jonah I’ll cheer up. Not Jonah as he is now of course, Jonah when he was all smooth-skinned, curly-haired and bright-eyed. Now he’s like the anti-Jonah or something. His face looks like it lost a fight with an angry lobster. No, wait, I’m supposed to be writing about Jonah version one here.
He’s one of those people that I can’t remember meeting. My family has always lived around here and so there are lots of people who have just always been, if you get me. I always thought we would drunkenly get it together at a party – that’s what I’d usually do if there was a boy I liked. Classy.
*
I’ve perked up a bit. Out of sheer frustration I went upstairs (naughty, I know) and looked out of a window. Sure, I saw an ugly, wandering aimlessly as they always do, but I saw that the trees are starting to turn too. That means it’s nearly autumn, and I love autumn!
My sister and I always used to go out and kick leaves at each other in the autumn. I don’t know if it was because of her low centre of gravity, but my sister was amazing at it. She could somehow whip up a blazing whirlwind of golden-yellow and fire-red, surrounding us both in a leaf storm that I couldn’t help but flail my arms madly at. Then we’d both fall backwards into the leaves laughing, me wondering how on earth what had happened was possible. She was that good.
God, I let her down in the end.
*
I think I’ll stay away from the house with the shotgun tonight. It usually takes a day or two for a group of uglies to disperse once they’re all riled up. I could use the rest of that tinned food I suppose, but I’ve got plenty to be getting on with for now.
Instead, I think I’ll swing by another farmhouse I was scoping out before I decided to turn nocturnal. I never met the people who used to live there, but I remember Mum telling me they liked their privacy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me visiting now though.
Also, there’s a woodland between here and there and I might be able to find some leaves to kick about a bit. I think that would make me feel close to my sister again.
I’ll check back in later.
*
I’m still alive, but only just.
I made it through the woods just fine (only the odd leaf on the forest floor at the moment though, sadly), the trouble started at the farmhouse. I couldn’t get in – the doors and windows were barricaded – so I tried one of the outbuildings. Locked. It had a cat flap though.
My first instinct was to leave it, but then I wondered if there might be something useful inside. Lord knows what thinking about it now. I lifted the cat flap with one hand and shone the torch beam through with my other. That’s when an ugly dived at my pinkies. Luckily, it misjudged its leap and got a mouthful of plastic cat flap instead. As for me, I fell backwards onto my bum.
Next, the damn thing started bashing on the door from the inside. I don’t think it could ever have got out, but the noise attracted more uglies from out of nowhere. I only just managed to outmanoeuvre them and hightail it back into the woods.
That’s not the worst of it though. On the way back my leg started to hurt. A lot.
*
I woke up this morning and I’m walking with a limp. It’s funny, Dad had a limp when he and Mum died. He was nailing planks of wood across our windows and doors because there was no signal (as per bloody usual) and we thought that what was happening here was probably happening everywhere. It's only recently that I realised this was an isolated, local outbreak. Anyway, Dad dropped the hammer onto his toe, he always was useless at DIY. I think it was only a couple of hours after that when he and Mum were taken.
It was like a wave of death. No, not like, that’s exactly what it was. A hoard of uglies swept through the village, probably originating from the secret research facility in the woods we're not supposed to know about. My sister and I wouldn’t have had a prayer if Mum and Dad hadn’t charged down the first few that got into our house. They gave us just enough time to escape, to run away and leave them to die. My sister was screaming all the way and I had to drag her like she was four again.
She wouldn’t speak to me for a few days after that. I didn’t blame her, I hated myself too. But I would have hated myself even more if I hadn’t done what I did next. On my own, I snuck back into our house with the crowbar I found here. Then I dispatched my parents. I can’t bring myself to type it any other way. It wasn’t like in the movies, I didn’t pound their skulls into mush whilst sobbing, ‘Why?’ over and over again. I just found them, or what was left of them, forced the crowbar through each of their eye sockets, and came straight back here.
Then came the crying.
*
I haven’t told you about the heavy-duty gloves yet, have I?
After I got back from our old house, my sister started speaking to me again. A shared, day-long cry will do that for sisters. Once we felt up to it, we decided to explore the parts of the farmhouse we hadn’t searched yet. All the bedrooms were empty, only a few belongings flung about the place (I suspect the previous tenants left in a hurry). The problem came when we investigated the attic. Once we’d opened the ceiling panel in the upstairs hallway, once we’d pulled the compact staircase down, I went up. My sister stood at the top of the hatchway shining the torch beam over my shoulder. And that’s when it touched me. Terrified, I fell to my left, screaming as the thing came crashing down on top of me. I was yelling things like, ‘Shoot it!’ and, ‘Run!’ but my sister was just laughing her head off. I soon realised that my attacker was in fact a shop-window mannequin.
I think the people who previously lived here must have been arty (or into some seriously freaky stuff) because the mannequin was dressed in scarves, bandannas, ties, watches – loads of things. The rest of the attic was pretty empty but at least we got the mannequin’s gloves.
*
I’m not feeling good at the moment. I’ve got a sore throat and I’ve coughed up blood a couple of times. My leg pain is getting worse too.
I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I have enough tins left and one of them is a Full English In A Can. Sounds pretty disgusting, but intriguing at the same time. I’ve been saving it for near the end. A sort of consolation prize.
*
There are two mattresses down here. Obviously one is mine, and the other one was my sister’s. After she died, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I don’t have a photo of her, only Guitar Girl’s. Her bed is the only thing of hers I have left. And she didn’t even sleep in it that many times.
*
The tinned Full English was vile! You’ve got to laugh though, what else can you do?
*
I’m crying as I write this. Tears of sorrow, shame and regret.
It happened as we were searching a cottage just off of the main road. We’d used Old Trusty to get inside, and I’d rushed straight into the kitchen to find the food. We’d run out more than a day before and I was famished. My sister followed me into the kitchen, a wide grin on her pretty little face because I was sitting there with an open can of beans. Then one of them came at her from behind. I must have walked right past it on my stupid way to the cupboards. It bit into her neck and blood gushed over the tiles in a torrent. As she yelled out in agony, I leapt up and implanted the crowbar right into the thing’s skull. It crumpled to the floor, but the damage was done.
‘Don’t let me lose myself.’ That was the last thing my sister whispered to me before she passed out. Her wound was much more severe than mine is, and much closer to the brain. That seems to make it quicker. I took grandpa’s revolver from behind my back and blew her brains out.
I buried her in the back garden.
*
After my sister died I went kind of crazy. I took Old Trusty out across the fields and pulverised every ugly I could find. I don’t even remember it that well, it was just, find, kill, find, kill…
We’d only been going out in daylight before then but, in my anger, I carried on through the nights. That’s how I learned about their inability to evade in darkness. Eventually, though, one got me. I found three munching on a dead cow and ran straight at them. Took out the first two easily enough, but the third managed to scratch my leg with a bloody fingernail just before I clobbered it into oblivion. Once I realised its nail had broken the skin, it was like a switch had been flicked inside me. That’s it, I’m dead too. I lost my bloodlust and came back here.
*
If none of this had happened, I think my sister would have eventually gone into medicine. I was doing okay at College but she was top of her class at school. And she had a really kind nature too. She’d never squish any bugs that got trapped in our house; she’d get a glass, scoop the little critter up and seal it inside with a book. Then she’d take it outside and release it, even if it was a wasp.
*
I’ve decided that here’s not the place. I'll hit Submit and then I’m going to do it in those woods I wrote about; consider this diary as my Note. I’ll be able to find a nice spot to sit and look at the trees, some place that's calm and peaceful. I’m going to leave the picture of Guitar Girl in this cellar, she belongs in this house. The tree leaves will remind me of my sister more than any photo ever could anyway.
I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for listening.
I know it’s possible that no one will ever read this, but that’s not really the point is it?
Love,
X

I spend all of my daylight hours scared and alone in this musty old cellar.
It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything around here turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swearing. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago when I got a tiny sliver of signal) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe the splendour of nature. Then, when all is done and dusted, I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
This was a bad idea.
*
Okay, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing else I can do down here. I’ve rooted through every cardboard box a hundred times, organised and reorganised my supplies, I’ve even built a fort. So, I’m back. Hello. Again. God, this diary is going badly.
But there’s just enough light coming through the boards I nailed over the cellar’s tiny window to type by. So I may as well type. Stops me staring up at the window just waiting for a shadow to pass by.
Maybe I'll just write and not hit Submit. Right, where to start? Well, my name is – actually, I think I’m going to refer to myself as ‘X’. That sounds mysterious. If you’re reading this and want to know my real name, I still carry my purse. My railcard is in there and, if you really want to know who I am, go find me and fish it out. I won’t bite...
So, my name is X. I live in a little English village in the middle of nowhere. Before all this happened, I had a mum, a dad, a sister and there was a boy I liked, his name was Jonah.
*
I couldn’t think of anything else to write so I waited until I came back from my rounds. That’s the stupid name I have for when I go outside at night scrounging for stuff. Drinks are the hardest. I only trust bottles or cans, or did, and I was running out of places to search for them. But I guess that doesn’t matter now.
My leg is doing alright actually; didn’t hold me up at all. I saw Jonah too. He’s looked better, I have to say. It’s strange because this is only the second time I’ve seen him since we came here. Maybe his ears were burning.
Anyway, I found some tinned pineapple in a creepy old caravan I hadn’t searched yet. Had to bust the door open with Old Trusty – which I thought might attract some unwanted attention – but it was fine. I’m actually eating the pineapple right now, tastes good. I also found a radio in there. I already have three down here, but none of them work. Not that the caravan radio works either, all you get is static. It’s just nice to collect something. You know, to have a hobby.
*
I can tell the sun is rising. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up after a bad dream. I know some people can remember their dreams, but I never do. I wake up and grasp at them, but I never manage a hold before they fade away. It’s like trying to pinch the corner of a wisp of smoke; the harder you try, the quicker it fades to nothing. I’m just left with a sensation, a kind of imprint which sums up the most intense part of the dream.
And a cold sweat. That’s new.
*
I’ve been through the box of photo albums I found at the back of the cellar again. I’ve looked through them a few times now, but I always notice something new.
There’s a photo of this little girl playing with a pretend guitar. I can tell it’s pretend because it doesn’t have strings, only brightly-coloured plastic dials. Kind of like My First Guitar Hero or something. The girl has dark hair and she looks a tiny bit like my sister did a million years ago. I don’t have a picture of my sister. I suppose I could go and get one from my old house, but it’s right in the middle of the village. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to shreds the last time I went back. So, what I’ve done is put this girl’s photo in my back pocket as a substitute.
I guess I should probably write something about my real sister now. But I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.
*
Daylight is starting to fade and I’m getting ready to go out on my rounds. I always take my satchel with me, packed with useful objects. I have Old Trusty (a crowbar) which sticks out of the top for easy access, a small toolbox, a pair of heavy-duty gloves (there’s a good story about how I got those, I might write that one down later) and a hammer. I carry a penknife I found down here in my pocket, my purse and phone, and a torch in my hand.
I don’t like to use the torch because its battery is running out and there’s always the chance it might attract them. I probably shouldn’t have used it last night when I got back. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this writing malarkey? I need to be careful with luxuries.
*
Okay, that could have gone better.
Picture the scene: I’m using Old Trusty to try and lever a kitchen window open, when one of them just walks right through the garden hedge. Seriously, straight through it. It’s not the mightiest of hedges but, still, it just appeared like it was walking through one of those Japanese paper walls. My satchel was on the ground, but I legged it anyway. I’m not stupid. I know I can go back for it tomorrow. I felt strangely naked without it on the way back here though.
Like I said before, I need to be careful with the torch so I think I’ll try and get some sleep now.
*
I slept pretty well last night; no nightmares or cold sweats. Maybe a midnight chase was just what I needed to blow away the cobwebs.
I actually woke up wondering about you. If you’re reading this, who are you? If you’re like me, living through this village nightmare, how have you managed to go this long without being killed or whatever? Maybe you’re Army or some such. Maybe you’re just some kid who’s played so many videogames that surviving all of this was already second nature to you. Or maybe you’re like me; living on borrowed time and searching for a good place to die. Maybe Future Me was brave enough to tap Submit on my diary and you're currently reading this on your phone or computer.
Here’s an idea. Maybe you can carry on this diary from wherever I left it at. God, I really hope this isn’t my last entry, although I suppose any entry might be. If you do carry the diary forwards, and I'm a corpse, maybe it will become cursed. Spooky.
*
I’ve been preparing for my next excursion.
If I know I’m going somewhere I’ll likely run into an ugly, I like to take extra precautions. And I want my satchel back. It was a present from my dad, and I know it cost him a lot of money.
So, I’m taking a pair of shears from the shelf of old tools down here. That way, if I lose Old Trusty, I’ll have a backup weapon.
If you are local, I wonder how you like to kill them? Pretty morbid question I know, but everyone around here seems to have their preferred method. The last villager I saw alive carried a pair of mini cricket bats and seemed to have bludgeoning down to an art form. He never saw me though, I was watching from a grove of trees as he killed his way along the main road near the village.
That was before I decided to stay inside during the daylight hours. We can at least see a little bit at night; ambient light and everything. They can’t though. I’ve seen them, they bump into things. It’s pretty funny to be honest. If they hear a noise, they walk in the direction of the sound, never trying to avoid any object in their path. They either bash said object out of the way, or, like that hedge, blunder right through it. Obviously bigger things stop them dead (ha!) though. If that happens, they sort of shuffle backwards and then try again a few times. Eventually – and I’ve seen this too – they just give up and stand there, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
That’s not how it works in the daytime though.
*
I think it’s about an hour before the sun sets so it’s nearly time to head out. I’m going to change my bandage. One minute.
Okay, it didn’t look that bad really. The original scratch wasn’t too deep and now the wound seems to be doing that scabbing thing I remember from normal injuries. It just doesn’t smell very good. A bit like when you walk past a bin that needs emptying.
Anyway, I’ve applied more antiseptic and redressed it. Time to go.
*
That was fun. I’m glad I had those shears with me.
I got my satchel back you’ll be happy to know. And I got inside that house I’d been trying to break into as well. More through necessity than choice in the end, but I’m pleased I did. I found more batteries! That means I can justify writing at night a bit more. In fact, the people who used to live there (I think the husband owned the local garage) were pretty well kitted out. There were a lot of tins in their cupboards, and they’d even left a shotgun. It wasn’t loaded though.
Not that I need a shotgun. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have my grandpa’s old service revolver. He always told me and my sister that it was decommissioned, but my dad apparently knew otherwise. I keep it tucked into the back of my jeans at all times. It had three bullets, one of them is gone, so only two left.
I’ll only be needing the one of course.
*
Morning. I’m feeling pretty low today. I think concentrating on getting my satchel back took my mind off things, but now I feel pretty deflated.
Surely that’s understandable? The village I knew and loved has been replaced with this sodding hell. I miss my family, my friends, TV and hot dinners and Instagram. Before all of this I was a pretty positive person. Sure, I had a bit of trouble getting up in the morning, but, once I was up, that was it. I’d meet the day’s challenges head on, try to enjoy myself as much as I could. Not today though.
Maybe if I write about Jonah I’ll cheer up. Not Jonah as he is now of course, Jonah when he was all smooth-skinned, curly-haired and bright-eyed. Now he’s like the anti-Jonah or something. His face looks like it lost a fight with an angry lobster. No, wait, I’m supposed to be writing about Jonah version one here.
He’s one of those people that I can’t remember meeting. My family has always lived around here and so there are lots of people who have just always been, if you get me. I always thought we would drunkenly get it together at a party – that’s what I’d usually do if there was a boy I liked. Classy.
*
I’ve perked up a bit. Out of sheer frustration I went upstairs (naughty, I know) and looked out of a window. Sure, I saw an ugly, wandering aimlessly as they always do, but I saw that the trees are starting to turn too. That means it’s nearly autumn, and I love autumn!
My sister and I always used to go out and kick leaves at each other in the autumn. I don’t know if it was because of her low centre of gravity, but my sister was amazing at it. She could somehow whip up a blazing whirlwind of golden-yellow and fire-red, surrounding us both in a leaf storm that I couldn’t help but flail my arms madly at. Then we’d both fall backwards into the leaves laughing, me wondering how on earth what had happened was possible. She was that good.
God, I let her down in the end.
*
I think I’ll stay away from the house with the shotgun tonight. It usually takes a day or two for a group of uglies to disperse once they’re all riled up. I could use the rest of that tinned food I suppose, but I’ve got plenty to be getting on with for now.
Instead, I think I’ll swing by another farmhouse I was scoping out before I decided to turn nocturnal. I never met the people who used to live there, but I remember Mum telling me they liked their privacy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me visiting now though.
Also, there’s a woodland between here and there and I might be able to find some leaves to kick about a bit. I think that would make me feel close to my sister again.
I’ll check back in later.
*
I’m still alive, but only just.
I made it through the woods just fine (only the odd leaf on the forest floor at the moment though, sadly), the trouble started at the farmhouse. I couldn’t get in – the doors and windows were barricaded – so I tried one of the outbuildings. Locked. It had a cat flap though.
My first instinct was to leave it, but then I wondered if there might be something useful inside. Lord knows what thinking about it now. I lifted the cat flap with one hand and shone the torch beam through with my other. That’s when an ugly dived at my pinkies. Luckily, it misjudged its leap and got a mouthful of plastic cat flap instead. As for me, I fell backwards onto my bum.
Next, the damn thing started bashing on the door from the inside. I don’t think it could ever have got out, but the noise attracted more uglies from out of nowhere. I only just managed to outmanoeuvre them and hightail it back into the woods.
That’s not the worst of it though. On the way back my leg started to hurt. A lot.
*
I woke up this morning and I’m walking with a limp. It’s funny, Dad had a limp when he and Mum died. He was nailing planks of wood across our windows and doors because there was no signal (as per bloody usual) and we thought that what was happening here was probably happening everywhere. It's only recently that I realised this was an isolated, local outbreak. Anyway, Dad dropped the hammer onto his toe, he always was useless at DIY. I think it was only a couple of hours after that when he and Mum were taken.
It was like a wave of death. No, not like, that’s exactly what it was. A hoard of uglies swept through the village, probably originating from the secret research facility in the woods we're not supposed to know about. My sister and I wouldn’t have had a prayer if Mum and Dad hadn’t charged down the first few that got into our house. They gave us just enough time to escape, to run away and leave them to die. My sister was screaming all the way and I had to drag her like she was four again.
She wouldn’t speak to me for a few days after that. I didn’t blame her, I hated myself too. But I would have hated myself even more if I hadn’t done what I did next. On my own, I snuck back into our house with the crowbar I found here. Then I dispatched my parents. I can’t bring myself to type it any other way. It wasn’t like in the movies, I didn’t pound their skulls into mush whilst sobbing, ‘Why?’ over and over again. I just found them, or what was left of them, forced the crowbar through each of their eye sockets, and came straight back here.
Then came the crying.
*
I haven’t told you about the heavy-duty gloves yet, have I?
After I got back from our old house, my sister started speaking to me again. A shared, day-long cry will do that for sisters. Once we felt up to it, we decided to explore the parts of the farmhouse we hadn’t searched yet. All the bedrooms were empty, only a few belongings flung about the place (I suspect the previous tenants left in a hurry). The problem came when we investigated the attic. Once we’d opened the ceiling panel in the upstairs hallway, once we’d pulled the compact staircase down, I went up. My sister stood at the top of the hatchway shining the torch beam over my shoulder. And that’s when it touched me. Terrified, I fell to my left, screaming as the thing came crashing down on top of me. I was yelling things like, ‘Shoot it!’ and, ‘Run!’ but my sister was just laughing her head off. I soon realised that my attacker was in fact a shop-window mannequin.
I think the people who previously lived here must have been arty (or into some seriously freaky stuff) because the mannequin was dressed in scarves, bandannas, ties, watches – loads of things. The rest of the attic was pretty empty but at least we got the mannequin’s gloves.
*
I’m not feeling good at the moment. I’ve got a sore throat and I’ve coughed up blood a couple of times. My leg pain is getting worse too.
I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I have enough tins left and one of them is a Full English In A Can. Sounds pretty disgusting, but intriguing at the same time. I’ve been saving it for near the end. A sort of consolation prize.
*
There are two mattresses down here. Obviously one is mine, and the other one was my sister’s. After she died, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I don’t have a photo of her, only Guitar Girl’s. Her bed is the only thing of hers I have left. And she didn’t even sleep in it that many times.
*
The tinned Full English was vile! You’ve got to laugh though, what else can you do?
*
I’m crying as I write this. Tears of sorrow, shame and regret.
It happened as we were searching a cottage just off of the main road. We’d used Old Trusty to get inside, and I’d rushed straight into the kitchen to find the food. We’d run out more than a day before and I was famished. My sister followed me into the kitchen, a wide grin on her pretty little face because I was sitting there with an open can of beans. Then one of them came at her from behind. I must have walked right past it on my stupid way to the cupboards. It bit into her neck and blood gushed over the tiles in a torrent. As she yelled out in agony, I leapt up and implanted the crowbar right into the thing’s skull. It crumpled to the floor, but the damage was done.
‘Don’t let me lose myself.’ That was the last thing my sister whispered to me before she passed out. Her wound was much more severe than mine is, and much closer to the brain. That seems to make it quicker. I took grandpa’s revolver from behind my back and blew her brains out.
I buried her in the back garden.
*
After my sister died I went kind of crazy. I took Old Trusty out across the fields and pulverised every ugly I could find. I don’t even remember it that well, it was just, find, kill, find, kill…
We’d only been going out in daylight before then but, in my anger, I carried on through the nights. That’s how I learned about their inability to evade in darkness. Eventually, though, one got me. I found three munching on a dead cow and ran straight at them. Took out the first two easily enough, but the third managed to scratch my leg with a bloody fingernail just before I clobbered it into oblivion. Once I realised its nail had broken the skin, it was like a switch had been flicked inside me. That’s it, I’m dead too. I lost my bloodlust and came back here.
*
If none of this had happened, I think my sister would have eventually gone into medicine. I was doing okay at College but she was top of her class at school. And she had a really kind nature too. She’d never squish any bugs that got trapped in our house; she’d get a glass, scoop the little critter up and seal it inside with a book. Then she’d take it outside and release it, even if it was a wasp.
*
I’ve decided that here’s not the place. I'll hit Submit and then I’m going to do it in those woods I wrote about; consider this diary as my Note. I’ll be able to find a nice spot to sit and look at the trees, some place that's calm and peaceful. I’m going to leave the picture of Guitar Girl in this cellar, she belongs in this house. The tree leaves will remind me of my sister more than any photo ever could anyway.
I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for listening.
I know it’s possible that no one will ever read this, but that’s not really the point is it?
Love,
X

Coir is cheap. But it's even not the cheapest option out there. A 12 pack of 650g blocks of coco coir (so almost 8kg) costs around 20 bucks, but I can get 25kg of straw pellets for about 15 bucks.
It's as easy to use, it's comparatively nutritious, has a similar water holding capability and you can also grow gourmet wood lovers Like oysters, Lion's Mane or pioppino on it. On top of that it doesn't get shipped across the whole world to end up at my place, so it's definetly more Eco friendly.