Meanwhile...

Well. I'd forgotten how much damage we did at that house. I think this is a good place to take a break. A good day to rest, mostly. But but but, you say, wondering why this is necessary. You only write a couple posts a week. Why do you need to take a break on a day you'd normally be telling us another part of the story.

Because it's hard for me. The words come easily, but with them necessarily comes the memories. I have to put myself back in those moments and feel what I felt then. Think like I thought then. It's not just about remembering the visceral fear that a zombie would take me at any moment. Thankfully I lived through it and the telling isn't so bad for that fact.

It's putting myself back in my own shoes while knowing everything that comes after. It's deliberately sectioning off my own mind to shield the story from being contaminated with the events that follow. In that sense, telling this story isn't unlike holding that piece of wood I slapped together. Any given moment might not be that hard, but in total it's a lot of effort.

Adam is gone. Not GONE gone, but away from the cabin at the moment. He's hunting. It's something he can do easier than pretty much anyone else thanks to his special talent. Really, we don't need the meat. This place sits right on the edge of a lake. The fish have had years to breed and they teem. Usually we just net them out of the water. It's easy.

But variety is something everyone needs. I'm a creature of habit. I can be perfectly happy with a set routine and eating the same food every single day. It's just wired into who I am.

There are a few zombies out there right now. I can see them through the window. Adam built a little wall around our solar panels and the cell transmitter. They're as safe as we can make them. I'm not worried about the dead. This place was built by someone afraid of something a lot more dangerous than shambling beasts with human strength. The windows are quarter inch plexiglass set in thick steel frames. The doors? Ha. You could probably drive a car into them without worrying.

I sit here in the little sun room, constructed with the same worries in mind at a cost that must have been astronomical by the way we used to measure things. I sit here, and I write. Or think. Some days I just watch the world in front of me, the good and the bad alike. The spread of wildlife across the nation, thanks to the lack of human civilization, has been incredible. A month ago I saw a black bear casually take down a zombie with a few swipes of its paws.

That's all the variety I need. All the change I want.

Turns out some people need more.