The Lake Diary

Chapter 2

I feel like there should be a date or at least the day of the week at the top of each of these entries, but no one has paid much attention to that nonsense in years. It's getting on toward early fall, maybe late September or early October, but specific dates and days of the week died with the rest of the world. Does it matter if you're eaten on a Monday or a Tuesday? Or escape death on a Wednesday or a Thursday? Not really, no. It's not like zombies take the weekends off.

In the absence of importance to times and dates, our bodies have reverted into a fairly natural balance with the sun and the seasons. This morning I awoke around sunrise, as does most of the camp. It works with our body rhythms and makes sense, we get as much done as we can while there's light enough to see and then slow down and sleep when it gets dark. We avoid lights and fires because they attract attention. Even if the zombies can't reach the island, we know that there will be twice as many along the shore the next morning if we light fires. In a dark world, the light is visible for miles, especially over the water.

There are 35 of us currently living on our little island. It had different names at different times in history, surely the Native Americans had a name for it and just as surely some of our ancestors came in later and changed it to something more European-centric. Now, we generally just refer to it as "our island" or "the island". It's the same with our camp, why bother to name it? It's just "our camp" or "camp".

Before leaving my little lean-to shelter this morning I readied all the gear I would need for another long day of scavenging and sailing but as soon as I stepped out the sky told me that wasn't going to happen today. The dark clouds were low and thick, there was a feeling to the air of an impending storm. We're all hungry but it's not worth risking lives and our only working sailboat by going out in bad weather. Better to lay low and conserve our energy on days like this.

So, I had half a handful of trail mix for breakfast, found a quiet place under a large tree near the water's edge and sat down to write. We keep busy most days just trying to scrabble together enough to live on, if I don't take advantage of a slow days to catch up with this journal it's never going to happen.

As I opened my notebook Joshua came over, plopped down next to me and asked me what I was doing. Joshua is one of six children that we have in camp. I'd guess he's about eight years old, no one here knows for sure. Both of his parents died getting him out of Chicago and he hasn't said much since. Two of the other camp members found him in the back of a utility van, where his parents had placed him for safety after they'd been bitten. The survivors brought him with them and eventually found their way to the Patoka camp, like most of us, trickling in small group by small group.

At first, Joshua's question had me stumped, why was I writing all this in here? I mean, if I die and this journal is discovered there's a 99% chance the pages will be used for firestarter or toilet paper instead of being read. Or it'll get read and then used as firestarter or toilet paper. It's either a delusion or some form of narcissism for me to think these words might mean anything to anyone some day. Either they've lived through it like me, they don't need a reminded of the horrors, or they were born after the zombie outbreak and odds are they never learned to read.

We have six children in camp, we still make an effort to teach them their ABC's but school lessons are pretty far down our list of priorities right now. At the rate humanity is back sliding, literacy is quickly fading away. In another generation or two the few humans left will probably be communicating in grunts, painting stick figures on the walls, and hunting with wooden spears. Well, that's if anyone is still alive by then, I'm not sure I'd bet on that.

However, there is one other possibility. The zombies have only been around for two years and already show serious deterioration, maybe in another five or ten years they'll be too decrepit to be dangerous. It's wishful thinking but no one really knows anything about them, so maybe our extinction can be avoided if we just hold on long enough.

So, back to Joshua's question, what am I doing? Am I writing this for some pie-in-the-sky dream future? In a hundred years "The Diary of Frank" will be more popular than "The Diary of Ann Frank"? Posthumous popularity?

Again with the narcissism. No, I don't think that will happen. I don't think humans will survive long enough to even create future generations, and if by some miracle they do the offspring will probably be feral and unrecognizable. I don't think zombies will fall apart on their own, or not soon enough to make a difference. I'm pretty sure we're at the tail end of human extinction.

So, why am I writing? Because I feel like it. Writing has always been cathartic, it soothes my soul in the same way that music does for musicians. It's just what I do. If no one reads this it doesn't matter, I'm writing it for my own sake, to keep myself from going insane in an insane world.

I told Joshua I was writing so that I didn't forget anything. He seemed satisfied with that answer. Though, really, I write as much to forget my current situation as I do to record events. There are plenty of things I don't want to remember, faces that I would do anything to forget, images that will haunt my dreams until the end of my days. But Joshua didn't need the longer explanation, he just needed something simple so he could move on to playing.

He nodded at my answer then jumped up and ran back to the other boys. They found a half-inflated ball somewhere. I think they're playing a form of Soccer, though the rules seem to change depending on who has the ball. Maybe we're already far more feral than I think we are.