Written in bent, but legible font with a pen that was clearly leagues beyond the rough scratch of a cheap ballpoint a simple college ruled notebook shoved in an aluminum police clipboard holds the thoughts of Isaac Vickers, starting long after the end.

“Fourty nine.

Month and a half. it shows I think… Even with power and running water it’s hard to get the blood out. But you knew that, didn’t you? Shit, if you’re reading this you know me or you’ve lasted, but that’s cliche isn’t it?

How about I talk about the bright side. There’s still a bright side i guess. Things are simpler. I found a nice spot to go fishing. Don’t know that I trust the fish but, fuck it, we’re all dead anyway right? Okay. bright side, got it. They’re tuna I think, yellow fin. Never was great with picking out fish but, I’m fairly certain I’ve got that right. So, fresh food, that’s always a bonus, thankfully working KP on the Echo taught me how to clean a fish.”

” Fifty two? Fifty three?

I’ve been scavenging a lot… Ever since Jack convinced me to move my kit into her hovel I’ve been staying away from the mainland, but I still like to hike the bridge once in a great blue moon. Realized yesterday that me and her met before Christmas, but, I didn’t have nothing to give her, and it wasn’t like I could go to walmart… right? Found a couple things in this old guys house, must have been a photographer as well as a pack rat. I’m not sure the Walkman will work, but she picked the camera anyway, and this guy.. fuck, he took care of those camera’s. I’ve seen jar heads with dirtier rifles. and those assholes love a clean rifle. I was excited, i don’t know why, I told her to pick a present, Christmas time, all that shit, she was wary but, i don’t know, I think I saw a crack when she opened it up, even if she blinded me with the flash by sneaking a picture. Guy had a photo lab and a shelf covered in fucking books, maybe I’ll hike back down that way with her some time, figure out how to develop her sneaky snapshots.”

The next entry is on a blood spattered page written with a rough ballpoint pen as opposed to the smooth ink from before.

“Fifty four.

Almost two months, sort of, It has to be Februrary by now, yeah? Yeah. Working at the hospital makes me depressed. Seeing people come in tore up, hoping it’s from a broken window or a fight with the living. It’s funny that the ones that come in bit arn’t even the worst part, it’s the people who just lay in the beds, lethargic, almost looking dead for how little they move. the same faces again and again, the same people in the same beds. It’s a little frightening sometimes. More sad than anything else however. I try to be out in the field more than at the hospital. Helping people who are too stubborn, too stupid or simply too afraid to come to the hospital. Not a lot of people wan’t help… some people are beyond it. It’s too soon after to be thinking like this but.. maybe it’d just be better to see nothing rather than something. I knew some of these people. theres a guy.. I say guy but… a ghoul that shambles through the woods wearing a turnout coat carrying a helmet… still holding his helmet. There’s a stain on my vest; a vest which I have no confidence in anymore by the way. it’s so soaked with blood, mud and who knows what else that I doubt it’d stop a knife let alone a bullet… anyway, the stain. It was old Rev Rob. From the church. Lot of good God did him.”