Deals and Strategies - Day 77 Mike's Diary

Yesterday evening, I requested two people to go and find Jack. He had been wondering around all day, and haven't seen his face in a while. The reason is that one of the representatives from the tree house village want to see us, and who is responsible for who. I told him, Moses is the leader, also is my brother. Me myself is in charge of battle plans mostly, and other stuff regarding safety and strategies, and Jack, he is responsible for creating new weapons and different strategies how to survive (farming, etc). Jack is a reader. I said. The representative, Hannah, welcomed us, though it was intense at first, later she realized that we're good people.
We were given the permission that we can stay here (not in their tree houses), but in their premises, and agree to help each other, as long as we protect their people too from bandits, and craze.

*morning*

I have never had any sleep this good before, since this is all happened. I woke up and I saw Julie was using her axe on a tree, probably practicing, or just bored or some sort. Jack is still asleep, and Victor is sitting on a bench. I got up, and unpacked my backpack:
1. 1 axe
2. 1 crowbar
3. a handgun and a hunting rifle
4. amunitions
5. liquor
6. rope
7. sunglasses
8. a compass
9. map
10. snack.

I quickly grabbed the snack and ate it. Man, I was so hungry, I might have even forgotten to eat on the way here after the battle. I finished my snack in seconds, then I drank some of the water that has been given to us last night. I then started making plans as of what we should do to help this place better (Moses is pretty much useless at this point, and let me in charge).

*afternoon*

I then proceed to find a useless table, round table, and this is going to be my new work desk.
I laid my map on it, pin it down with rocks, so it doesn't go anywhere. I took out a piece of paper and started jotting down the stuff that I want to get done for today. After I was done with all of my preparation, I started a fire, boiled some water, and prepare them for everybody. I woke them up one by one (literally, but more like ditch by ditch). I gathered everyone around. From about 160 people, we're down to 125 people because of Valors. As much as I would love to go back, and retrieve the body of our fallen, it was way too dangerous. I grouped the group into several, and divided the jobs.

I called the leaders candidates of each group to the front table, so I can tell them what the plan was.
first up, Victor.

Victor's to do list:

Once I drew a 2 miles radius circle on the map, covering our parameters, I told him to bring 15 men with him. I told him to dig a hole circling the tree house village (ours too). 5 meters deep, and 3 meters wide, and after you guys are done cover it with branches, so craze or bandits don't know that it's there. Now, you have to do this carefully, and divide the physical resources management. I suggest you to have 5 men working, 5 rest, and 5 guarding, and the cycle continues. Bring guns, and make sure they are equipped with silencers. Safety is number 1, and leave no man behind unless they asked you to leave them.

Jack's to do list:

Jack, I know I can trust you with hunting. Make sure with have enough food either meat or vegetables for the next 2/3 days. Bring 20 men with you, divide them into groups 2 each, but keep them close in case of troubles. I want you guys to be safe, don't fool around, and if the group mess up, we're all not eating. No pressure. Safety is number 1, if you guys have little food and there is trouble, signal everybody, and go back. You will be 1 mile away from Victor, so warn them if you guys see anything. One more thing, don't make too much noise.

Moses' to do list:

Moses, you and I will bring 5 men with us each and we go about another mile away from Jack. To patrol in the front line. I'll bring walkie talkie, one for each leader, and each leader must have a whistle. We patrol, if we see anything, get to safety. Bring sniper rifles, melee weapons, and shotguns.

I then said one more thing to them :

I'll contact you guys through each walkie-talkie, frequency 67.9FM. You heard warning from us, blow the whistle twice, and wait for your crew. Tell your crew if you guys can't find each other and heard the whistle, head back to the base. When these whistles are blown, every men is on his own, and head back to base IMMEDIATELY. Pick your men wisely.
Be safe all

They were all then spread out and pick their own men, and after their done, I yelled everyone who is not going, please you're our only defense. Arm yourself, and get ready for anything. Split yourselves into two groups. 1 for farming and planting, and 1 for defense. After things were finally sorted out, we all spread out, and proceed onto our quests. (p.s Julie is with me)


*Evening*

I was watching with a sniper rifle, and Julie had her binoculars. Nothing, then we circle around the perimeters, and still nothing. This is how it went. 3 people, Julie, Craig, and I were patrolling the North to West, Moses and his group were patrolling  the South to West, and two other groups were patrolling South to East, and East to North. Sometimes we see each other, but not for long because we had to keep patrolling. The sun is going down now, and our shifts should be over sooner or later. I was sitting duck with my sniper when Julie said to look 20 degrees to the left. I saw a cutter, walking towards us, but it's very far away. I took this chance to see it's weakness with my silenced sniper rifle. I shot it's face, and blown of half of it, but still nothing. It was confused as if where that (my bullet) came from. Then, I took another shot on its knee cap, and it fell, but later got back up. When it got back up, I notice something behind it's neck. It's a huge blob, yellow-ish color attached to it. I took my chance to shoot it, and it popped. The cutter didn't die, though it just stays there. Not making any moves, as if I had taken of it's nerves. I looked at it curiously through my scope, for about  15 minutes or so, but still nothing. I took this into consideration, and took notes from this. After that was done, I contacted all of the leaders of the team to head back. There was no problem so no whistles were blown.

*Night*

It was a success. The tree house village was impressed on how our group handle things. We even had dinner with them. Now, everyone is drunk, having fun (not loud fun), telling stories, and bond with each other. I have not yet told them about the weakness of the cutter, so I will make sure I will tell them tomorrow morning. I'm writting this, while Julie is right beside me, humming.
"Good shot" she said. I'm just smiling and I told her, good eye for spotting that cutter.


 
This is where we sleep at night, make sure we're not visible to anything (we still have patrols)

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Day 45 - "Hope it Stays this Way"

     I can see that Jack is pretty pissed because I called him a fucking monster the other day, and I can't, well we can't keep going until everybody is cool with each other, so of course. I have to man up about it and apologize (I think that's the best thing to do). We drove for miles and miles, and Jack was there sitting in the passenger seat with his gun laid down on his thighs, looking outside the windows.
     "Hey man, look..." I said
Jack looked at me
     "I'm sorry for being so harsh, and mouthy with you yesterday. I mean, I just don't like it to see other people getting brutally murdered by that. I understand that you were mad for whatever reason, but c'mon now." I said
     "Yeah, it's cool."
     "Why did you do that anyways?"
     "Because." He said, and he stopped. I can say right now that he doesn't really want to talk. He was just sitting still looking at the road, and sometimes at the back to make sure everything is fine.
     " Look Mike, I've been wanting to tell you this, but you gotta stop putting your own ass in danger. Stop going alone and doing stuff alone like last time." He said to me.
Yeah yeah, I admit it, that is one of my flaws, I don't really want anyone to follow me around sometimes (including Lexi) because I just feel like putting them in danger will cause me more than just my own life.
     "Yes. But I just don't want people to follow me around sometimes." I said
     "By going alone without saying anything means that you're putting everybody's life in danger because then I gotta look for you, well somebody else might be worried about you. Lexi, Victor, Jessie, your brother. Hey man look, don't get yourself killed. I was panicked too when you were a hostage. We need you, the base needs you. Though I have to say right now that you should be in charge of the whole base, no offense to Moses." He said.
     "Couldn't do it without everybody's help, especially you. You've contributed a lot, and I thank you fo-."
     "WATCH OUT!"
I dodged a cutter, and now the RV flipped over. I unbuckled my seat belt and stepped outside the RV as soon as possible.
    "Jack go grab the others." I said, he nodded as if he knew that I was going to distract the cutter, then I took his gun.
I ran out, fired his gun into the air distracting the cutter, then I lead him into the jungle. Thank god it's not yet dawn, I can still see what's going on around me. I ran as fast as I could knowing that cutters are pretty slow. I stopped, and hid behind a tree, and the cutter just kept on going. My worry is not getting killed but getting back together with a group. With my sense of direction (I'm pretty good at it) I was able to find my way back to the RV. The gasoline is leaking and there is no way that we're going to use that. It's busted. I figured that if we stay here for the night, the cutter might come back (assuming he knows his directions), so the group and I decided to walk another mile to set up a camp. Now, we are here, in the middle of nowhere, trying to deliver this message to the Valors.
     We are sitting down, Victor stupidly brought his ukulele to play, Jessie sings, Jack is chatting with Lexi (Whatever the hell they're talking about), I'm here writing this journal. Everyone's so happy in this hell, I guess because we're all together, and I really hope it stays this way.

-Mike's Diary

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Jack's Diary - Day 37, October 26th 2013

     It's strange how fate allows second chances in life. If given the choice this time, I'd decline, but quitting would mean that I'd surely lose and I couldn't lose this time. Let me start from the beginning. When I finally left the shed, I saw a large group of people gathered underneath a tarp. When I arrived, I was told that we were going to be establishing a new outpost. I was given a baseball bat, a knife (to add to my collection), and a few assortments of guns and ammo such as a sawed-off shotgun, a handgun, and an uzi (I'm sure they wouldn't have given me a gun if they knew what I thought of using one for a day ago). Mike, Jess, Lexi and I left for the trip. We came across a few soulless on the way (I found out that Mike calls them craze. To each their own I guess). We took care of them quickly and moved on. I didn't expect Mike and the others to be so good at killing, especially for as young Lexi is. We went into a very large old building (I could tell even before entering that it wasn't the most structurally sound, but it seemed safe enough). It was about 8 stories high so it would've definitely been a decent place to start an outpost. However, the mold and mild dew in the building wouldn't have made it a healthy place to live. I'm pretty sure Mike realized this once we reached the seventh floor though. Suddenly, the ceiling collapsed in and separated us into two groups. I was stuck with Lexi and Mike grab my arm and made me promise that I'd protect her.
     And here we are. Once again, I was to protect the life of someone else, a duty I would've gladly handed off. Had it just been me separated from the group then it wouldn't have been a big deal. I've grown accustom over the years to looking out for myself. However, with Lexi here and her being so young, I had to watch out for both of us. Even with Jane and Tim, they were both experienced hunters and we were never confined in such a tight space. There was always room to run or backup. What's worse, the ceiling collapse was loud enough to  catch the attention of many of the soulless in the area so a great number of them were already on the first floor moving upward. Also, the second stairwell was on the other side of the building and we originally came up the other one so we didn't know the condition of it.
     "Come on," I told her.
     I took the lead and looked into each room to make sure nothing was moving. I didn't want to get cornered if a soulless should decide to come out of a room for a snack. We only came across one and I bashed it's head in. Just before we reached the stairwell, Lexi asked me, "We're going to make it out of here, right?"
     I know I should've said something, but it wouldn't have meant anything. Better that she knows what can happen. I tried opening the door to the stairwell, but it was chained shut. Unlike the building, the chain and lock were in decent shape so brute force wasn't going to break it. I remembered I still had the bolt cutters with me. They were a pretty cheap pair of bolt cutters and the chain was thick, but I managed to break through. While I was working, Lexi alerted me to a soulless walking down the hall toward us. I turned around, shot it in the head from a distance, and went back to work.
     I realized why the door was chained after seeing the stairwell. Either it was never finished or something really bizarre happened because there were large sections and chumps of the stairs missing. We also couldn't get off at one of the next floors since nearly all of the stairwell doors were chained shut from the other side. The only hope was that the exit door at the ground floor could be opened. About one floor down after walking around the broken stair sections, we saw a soulless with swords for arms (Lexi called it a cutter). It was jumping over the missing segments and climbing towards us. When it was one set of stairs below us, I shot for its head three times, two of which were a hit. The last one it blocked with one of its swords. This was one of the first times I'd ever seen a soulless learn from experience. It continued to come toward us, covering its head with the sword whenever I pointed my gun at it. Its body looked like it had a thick outer layer to it so shooting at the abdomen wouldn't have done much good without bullet piercing rounds.
     "Shoot at the legs!" I told Lexi.
     We both shot and it fell backwards down the stairs. I jumped down hoping to finish it off without making more noise. As it got up, I smashed it in the head with the baseball bat, knocking it into the wall. It quickly recovered and charged at me. I ducked and it ended up stabbing the wall. I smashed it's head again and I tried again, but it swung its sword hand and cut through the baseball. It charged and swung at me again and I dodged as I took out a knife and my handgun. As it turned around, I shot it in the head and then ran behind it, jumped up on its back, and started stabbing its neck. It slowed weakened to the point where it could only stand, at which point I jumped off its back and kicked it down the stair. It didn't get up. I looked back at Lexi and her eyes were wide and she had a frightened look on her face. I would've asked why she looked that way, but I already knew. I was much more of a monster than that thing was. We continued on, encountering regular soulless and quickly killing them. Sometimes, if they were close enough to the railing, I'd just knock them over it (gravity is a close friend of mine).
     We came to the third floor and the rest of the stairwell was for the most part, not there. I was dumbfounded as to how so many of the soulless could reach us without the stairs until I turned around and realized that the door on the stairwell wasn't chained shut. We could've just went through the corridor and found the other stairwell, but there was too much risk. Also, there were already soulless heading toward us. I decided that I'd try and make it to the bottom floor by climbing down. There were a number of bricks and mortar sections missing so I could use them as footholds. I needed to bring Lexi with me though.
     "Climb on my back. We're going to climb down to the bottom floor," I said.
     "Okay," she said, though somewhat skeptically.
     Once she was ready, I started climbing down slowly.
     "Hold on tight and don't look down," I told her.
     It began to get tougher as we were half way down when my hands were starting to sweat. I lost my grip and fell with Lexi screaming into my ear, but I made sure to land on my feet and arms and not on my back. It hurt, but I was okay for the most part. I instinctively looked around and saw the door to the main floor open. We went through looking for kitchen where Mike said he'd meet us. I was limping a little now. It was then that I saw a large group of soulless heading toward us. We began darting down corridors, away from the many large groups approaching us. I was worried we might come to a dead end. It turned out that that fear came to be a reality in a way. Two groups of soulless approached us, one on each side of the hallway. There were too many in each group for our guns to take down so we ran down to the only door left to go through. By luck, it happen to be the kitchen, but there were already soulless in there as well. I pulled Lexi over to the only window in the room and tried to open it. It wouldn't budge so I tried breaking it open by kicking it, but it was too thick. I was about to take out my gun to shoot through the glass when it opened and I saw Mike and Jess. I grabbed Lexi and pushed her through the window and then jumped out myself with Mike shutting the window and prompting a pipe in-between the window screen and the inner wall of the window, keeping it from sliding open. Lexi hugged Mike who said, "Sorry, but we couldn't stay in there any longer with the craze in there. They had us cornered too."
     "It's fine. Let's just go," I said.
     We headed back to the original outpost. The day was taxing enough, physically and emotionally. Although it was a close call, I was able to protect Lexi. I felt like I had purpose. It felt nice. It was almost good enough to make me forget about my sprained leg.

- Jack's Diary

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Day 12, July 8th 2013 - Her First Kill.

12:16 AM

"Hey kiddo, wake up." I said. "I'm sorry mike." Said she, "About what?" I said, "About your little sister, I'm sorry that I stole the letter from Dion to you too." I guess we can never escape from the past. We ate, we didn't talk, just ate. The craze and the cutters were still outside, so I made a plan. I distracted the the craze and cutters, bait them and I told Lexi to throw both molotov when I give her a signal. I boosted her up on the roof, I said to her, after you threw the molotov, hide in the attic. I will run and meet her back in the attic in 20 minutes, and if I don't I probably need some help. I'm counting on her on this one. "Don't miss." I said, "I know, teamwork?", "teamwork yeah." I said. I went out and yelled as loud as I could and ran for my life. I went pass Lexi and gave her the signal. Boom right on fucking target. "Nice fucking shot Lexi, keep doing it." I yelled while running away. I waited in a store, looted some stuff and made sure there are no more cutters or craze around the house. I found some candy, then went back to the attic. Gave her the candy and she loved it. We got out of the house safely, we walked back crossing the border, we were planning on going to  rural areas like the prairies, but then we encountered some bastards. These guys killed a guy, cold blooded murderers. We followed them into the forest, and then we found their small post. Since she wanted to help, I had to teach her roughly on how to aim her revolver properly. I think she can handle the gun. I sneaked on them, put one of them on choked and killed him. My hope was high but one guy spotted me. I almost died man, but then I heard the first gunshot from Lexi's. Right through the fucking head. I shot the other two guys and that was it, 4 in total. "Keep doin' it kiddo." I whispered to myself. She seemed to be in shock, I understand what it feels like, killing people for the first time. I asked her if she wants to talk about it but she said no. I guess, this is it for today I think, she looks tired and about to fall asleep. Me too actually, kinda sleepy. I guess we'll continue the journey tomorrow. Brother, hope I can find you soon.

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Day 11, July 7th 2013 - That Was a Close One

10:58 PM

We had no idea where to go next after that incident at the military base. We just walked with no direction. I was about to give up and then Lexi give me this radio. We spent hours on it just to keep ourselves up to date to what the government might say. We walked into a suburbs, when we got into a small alley, I tripped a garbage can and alerted the craze, even worse, there were 2 cutters there too. We backed out, we run as fast as we can but guess what? Dead end. I boosted Lexi up the wall and threw my cousin's revolver up there so she could protect herself on the roof. I didn't know where to go so I just hid inside the house. "Geez.. Kiddo, I'll get you. Dont worry." I said to myself. There was an air vent leading to the attic and I thought i could yell so she can hear me. She did. I told her to dig her way down to the attic and I said I'll meet her there. She was panicked, worried. Me too, I was worried that something bad will happen to her. She dug and got into the attic and I cleared the house. I met her in the attic, she almost cried, and I hugged her. "You okay?" I said, "yeah, I'm scared Mike." She said. "Don't worry, I'm here now." I sat down, we stayed there hours and decided to stay. She is sleeping on my legs now, talking in her sleep, poor girl. Im gonna keep her safe, I promised myself. We are too tired, we didn't even bother to eat. Today was a hard day for us, the craze are outside, I can hear the fucking cutters, and hopefully this little girl will hold long enough until we find my brother. 

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Announcement

My second narrated version is up :D

day 2

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Day 9, July 5th 2013, 10:24 AM

I woke up this morning, well Lexi woke me up. "I'm so fucking hungry, do we have deer meat left?" she asked. Yes we did, so I woke up and got out of the car. I told my cousin to make a fire so we all could eat breakfast. I went to the nearest lake just to refill our water bottle, it was peaceful but always, craze are around. We chatted for a while then we continued our  journey, by car now. My cousin was driving, I was navigating him, and Lexi was just there, doing nothing really. We got to the border between Ottawa and Montreal but it was blocked by vehicles lots of them. We stopped and we walked instead of driving, we went around, took the nature way I guess. This time, no craze nor cutter, our hope was high. We thought the military base was near so we kept on going. We took a little rest, drank some water, and continue our walk. Lexi was walking around the branches and she slipped, so we all laughed, big deal. We need some humour nowadays. "Why don't you cry like other little girls?" My cousin asked. "I'm tough, unlike those other wuss." she said. True say, this kid made it this far, she fought hard. We went into this one huge gate but then it was locked from the inside. It didn't look right to me, we decided to boost Lexi in to open the door for us. Well she asked us to do that so we did. "Be careful" I said, "Don't worry". We went in and guess what we saw? An abandoned fucking army base. Looked like it got over run, or raided. But how? We had no idea. We went in the buildings and its empty, no guns, no lootables, no food, no nothing.We got all upset, my cousin was fulfilled with rage and Lexi was there sitting, doing nothing. Thinking perhaps? I don't know. "We gotta make this right. Let's just find everything we could use and get some rest here. The sun is almost out." Even though something happened to the base, at least there are no craze in here. We gotta start find some clues of where the military is heading tomorrow, but tonight we are going to get rested up for the night. 

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Day 6, July 2nd 2013 - Found Her

9:32 PM

I'm exhausted, sad, and I don't even know what's going through my mind. I woke my cousin up, we're running low on food and water. We were too exhausted to even continue our journey, but we gotta keep moving. We destroyed our shelter and repacked everything, and after 3 hours of walk, we finally got to a small lake. We refilled our water bottles, and continued with our journey again. We walked and walked and walked then we found a high way. This high way is abandoned, and cars everywhere. I told my cousin to try to at least hot wire them. We broke the window and then, the alarm goes off. We're fucked I thought, craze are everywhere coming towards the car. We didn't know where to go so we decided to go under cars, and prayed so that they won't find us. We sneaked from cars to cars, and when we got away a little bit more, we decided to blow the cars up. That way, we can at least try to go on foot through the highway. Boom, huge explosions, fun, kinda. It's been along time that me and my cousin barely laugh or even smile. After a while and seeing no craze, we decided to walk on foot, when suddenly we heard something from the bush. We crouched, and all of the sudden, a little girl showed up. My cousin and I backed up and asked her if she was bitten. Turned out that she was fine, only some scrapes and blood, but no bite marks. We gave her water and some gauze to fix her. Fuck, that girl scared the fuck out of me. She looked like she has been surviving alone all this time, only her and her backpack. But how? She's pretty badass I must say, she swears a lot though. I asked her how old she is and she said she was only 13. Okay, so we got another member after we lost Boomer the other day, but I haven't talked much with her since we were too busy trying to walk on the highway without getting noticed by craze. We got to this place, I don't know, some sorta abandoned electric panel. There was no one nor craze so we decided to take a rest there. We made a little shelter, now she guards us and so on, the shift continues. She doesn't look scared at all, I don't know why or how. She had a radio with her and we were listening to it. The government, finally. They said that the military made a base in Quebec, but in order to go in there, we must be checked for bite marks or any signs that show that we're the rebels. Rebels ? I thought, what does it mean? No one knows until now who and what the rebels are, what they do and how many are there. All we want to do know is just to survive another day without losing any of our member(s) again. It's been along week for me. For all of us, and tomorrow we gotta start to hit our way into the city again to loot some food, and weapons and all the necessary needs for all of us. And this girl, we gotta keep her safe. She kinda reminds me with my cousin which I don't know where she is now. Dead? Hopefully not. I still need to find my brother too, hope he survives this hell.

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Day 4, june 30th 2013

 2:18 PM

We continued our journey, we decided  to go take a look at the sports store. We were walking man, it was calm until this frickin dog barked. Though I saw a figure running away from us, he/she was about 5'5 we were about to run after him/her but the craze man. They followed us so we had to rush into the store and locked ourselves in. Now there are 3 craze and I took the first one out easy, put some choke. The next two, we had to co-operate with each other. I took the left and Dion took the right one out. We thought we were clear for a sec there, we looted some stuff, more damn weapons, and cash, thought it's pretty useless in an apocalypse like this. I'm hearing noises now from the safe room inside the building and we decided to check it out.

11:55 PM

Figured. One of the cutter was trapped inside, It took us hours to do so though. After hours and hours trying to figure out what to do, finally we found a way to kill this damn thing. We found an alcohol, put some fuse in it, burn it and set that fucking thing on fire. It worked, it fucking worked.  I'm exhausted, I think I'm going to delay the journey till tomorrow and thinking of making more molovs in case if we encounter one of the cutters again. I'm too exhausted, my cousin and the dog are too. We looted some stuff though, knives, baseball bats, some clothes, a tent, sleeping bags some junk. I'm wondering wether that figure is still alive or not. Maybe, it was the girl that the letter was talking about. Hopefully she's still alive. I'm really thinking of taking a rest for a bit and let Boomer keep the guard up. We have a shift now, 3 hours sleep for me, Boomer, and Dion, then we have to change shift on who's watching what. Boomer truly is a gift.

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