So I suppose I ought to continue keeping some sort of record of what has been happening to me lately. I used to have an old notebook that I kept when I was out in the woods, but it got ruined when the rain leaked through one of my stashes. The thing was barely more than mush. It’s been over a week since I came in from the woods, but I just now found this notepad in one of the dumpsters I checked. Only had to wipe off the coffee grounds and it’s good as new, and besides the staining gives the thing character.

Let me introduce myself firstly, my name is Keira and I much prefer being in the woods. I know it sounds crazy but I feel more nervous when I am in the town proper of Arklay than when I am in the forest that fringes the area. In the woods I can hunt, I can climb a tree to avoid a corpse, and it’s just not the same here. Get yourself trapped in the wrong building at the wrong time, falsely convinced of your relative safety due to a locking door and that door can become your death trap. I digress though, I feel more at home in the woods, but I have been calling a place simply called The Palms my home for the past week. But I’m getting ahead of myself – like usual.

I walked into the town with bolts and cigarettes on my mind. I was hoping to get lucky and find the cigarettes, and I needed to buy the bolts for my bow if I hoped to take down a deer anytime soon. I walked into Coach’s Pub grimy, bloody and covered in sweat and mud. The manager there took some pity on me and offered her apartment and a change of clothes if I needed them. It made me stop and think because for once someone hadn’t tried to knock me over the head to take what I had. This was someone who wanted to give me something? I wasn’t sure how to take her at first, but then I realized she could use some help around the place. It was just her running the place with the help of one or two others. I couldn’t believe how resourceful she had been. I liked her immediately.

I ended up getting hired there as a bartender, and now I am there most days except for when I sneak back out to the woods to check my snares or hunt. I figure having someone on her staff that knows her way around the woods and is handy with a bow to bring in meat for the pub is payback enough for the clean clothes and safe place to sleep while I’m in town.

I also recently caught back up with Dalian, the girl who I met out in the woods. She was a tomboy like me, and was likewise a hell of survivor. What she lacked in sheer strength she made up for in speed, damn the girl could run. She could track any deer I hit if it took off running before it dropped for the last time, and I’ve told her many times I swear that woman has hooves the way she gets through the forest. She worried the hell out of me recently though, I made the trip out to check snares and to let her know about Kali and working at the bar in town. Couldn’t find hide nor hair of her at her camp, and it was eating away at my gut until last night. I was working my shift at the bar and lo and behold, in walks Dal out of the wilds. It was such a relief to see her face, this girl who has kept me from completely shutting off human contact. Best part about seeing her was what she had found for me, a full carton of smokes! I couldn’t believe my luck.

Speaking of luck I feel myself and the people around me would be hella lucky to catch one of these dogs that seem to be running around town lately. I hadn’t seen a sane dog in weeks. Only the ones out in the woods who take to running in a pack again now that they’ve reverted back to their feral way of being. I used to train dogs, I know a thing or two about what it might take to train a smart one to detect the zeds by scent and warn us before we’d be able to tell it was there. At worst it could come in handy, at best it might save someone’s life. I miss having a dog to boot, back when I was in vet school there were too many that needed homes, that went hungry as strays and would give their everything to belong to someone, now they are a rare commodity, go figure. Who knew that the answer to the crowding of Humane Societies and overpopulation of dogs and cats would be a zombie apocalypse? I think that will be my main goal for the time being, it will keep me busy at least. One thing I know about the world as it stands now is that you hafta stay busy, else you’re liable to go crazy and then you’re no better than one of those things.