The Journal

Six • Eliza • May 2 (later this evening)

We arrived at a gated old folks community, the faded metal letters on the tan cement reading, Sundial Community for Our Beloved Senior Citizens. It's hard to believe anyone could have lived without the common threat of monsters chasing after you in the dark. I mean, the leader of this ragtag group is supposedly sixty, and an ex-military man, so it sounds safe if he could survive for so long at his...experienced age. Amy had told me when we stopped to quickly refuel that he was good people, whatever that meant.

Jack poked my shoulder violently through the cab window. "El! We're here!"

"Good observation," my voice oozed with sarcasm that Jack ignored. He was wide-eyed with awe, watching everything as we drove through the open gates and into what resembled a miniature bustling city. At least, from what I can recall from movies I would watch with my parents.

Adults bustled around, busy with chores, while a group of kids played with chalk on the driveway of one of the duplexes. It was overwhelming. I had never seen so many people in one spot. My body reacted to the pressure by tensing, ready to sprint out of this place.

The truck lurched to a stop and I smacked into the rear window. Paige jumped out of the bed, running around to Jack's door. I cautiously stood and waited for Amy to exit the vehicle before leaping down to join her and my siblings.

"I would offer for y'all to stay with me, but I don't have a spare room," Amy said in her odd drawl, "I'll set y'all up with some good folks, don'cha worry 'bout that."

I nodded solemnly. Amy was the only person I had let myself trust from the group in this short time, and even that wasn't one hundred percent. How was I supposed to let me and my siblings stay in a stranger's house?

That's when a man with very tanned skin and strikingly white hair walked up to us. He wore all military drab, and had a commanding aura about him. Although I hadn't had very much experience with reading people outside of my family, I could tell by the way he walked the man showed that no one was going to mess with him.

"Amy, I see you've brought guests," the man smiled toothily at my siblings, the skin around the corner of his eyes wrinkling, but when his eyes settled on me they turned cold. That worried me.

"Yes, Sarge. This here is Eliza," Amy emphasized the E in my name, "and Jack, Paige, and Madsen."

"I'm glad you've decided to join us," Sarge didn't speak directly to me, more like looked over my shoulder in an eery way. "Since Amy's house is full, I will set you up in Rosemary's Home. It's just temporary until we can find you something more permanent if you decide to stay." Sarge began to walk away and he waved for us to follow. I rushed to grab my bag and make sure my siblings had all their stuff as we walked.

"You will, of course, each have a job to do here. The younger two will probably just help out with the animals, but you and the boy are going to be assigned harder work," Sarge spoke to me, but indirectly.

I nodded. Sarge explained the instructions. I hoped my siblings took better note of what he said because I was too distracted by the community to really pay any attention to his monotone voice. The housing settlement seemed to be organized in an E shape, and we were strolling down the longest part. The three wings each had houses and various work buildings on either side of the street, with a bulbous cul-de-sac on the ends. Most of the houses had the similar appearance of a pale coloured stucco exterior and clay roofs.

As we approached the last wing, on the corner sat a modest, two-storey building with a pale pink exterior and white trimmed windows. On a cement block that had obviously been there before these people found refuge, was Rosemary's Home, in thick, black cursive letters. I wonder what its purpose had been before all this?