Day 116: I have been wandering this blasted landscape for far too long. I notice I have been talking to myself. I need to focus on something to maintain my sanity. I found a note stating that a plane crashed on a nearby mountain. Might find something useful.

 

Day 127: I made it to the top of the mountain and the plane wreck. I write this in a cave realizing that there is just too much stuff to bring down the mountain. I think I will take the best and leave the rest. I just don't need it.

 

Day 138: Found an hatch to an abandoned nuke shelter. Can't believe I went past it going up the mountain. Been trying to move onto the coastal highway. I think it leads to the lighthouse. Maybe I'll find a boat or something out by the place.

 

Day 143: Finally made it across this blasted Pleasant Valley. Whoever named it such was a sick sadistic bastard.

 

Day 156: Made it out to the light house. Found my boat. It's marooned on a bunch of rocks and filled with corpses. I managed to make use of the furnace to outfit with some back up tools and arrows. Finding this place to be... nerve wracking. I think I'll head back to my fishing hut on the coast.

 

Day 161: Got bored. Got attacked by a bear and six wolves. Figured, what the hell, my kills, my meat. While gathering it, I found a gas station. Walked in. nice place. Think it's a good place to stash my crap.

 

Day 170: Finished looting most of the area. Lots of food, need more wood, but I got more houses to chop up. Getting bored. I think I'll start restocking the shelves.

 

Day 181: Finished cleaning up the place and piled mucho loot inside. I think it's stupid as hell to make my base camp here, what with the relentless wolf attacks, but they break up the monotony.

 

Day 183: I've started making extra Wolf coats and stocking the shelves with them. I mean, need to give the customers what they want, right? I'm thinking I need something as a unit of exchange. I'm going to fill the cash register with all my matches. Maybe I need to go back up the mountain to get the rest of that stuff before it rots away. I'm sure my customers would want to buy them. if they ever show up.

 

Day 188: I've taken to wandering the area with strips of meat that I scatter about as I walk in a big circle. I have lead up to seven wolves in a parade around the frozen ice. I sometimes wonder if I might tame them. Then I think, maybe they could become my future customers. I'm not sure what they would pay for, but I'm sure some sort of exchange could be made. I contemplate what a race of intelligent wolves would be like and what sort of economic systems that they would develop, given the possible socio-economical and political combinations that are available for an animal that has a pack like mentality. Then I shoot the nearest one in the face and skin him, draping his entrails about my body and howl to the others as a warning.

 

After all, need to stock those shelves with SOMETHING.

 

Day 192: I'm not quite sure if this happened, or if it was a dream. But last night, while I was sleeping, there was an Aurora Event. The usually happened, lights came on, crackling electricity, strange sounds outside... But then the phone rang.

 

That was new.

 

I answered it and there was a warbling voice on the other side that faded in and out and it informed me that he was very happy with my work. He's sorry he didn't have time to come out to meet me personally, but you know how it is.

 

I asked who it was, and whenever he said his name, the sound cut out, but I heard quite distinctly, that he was my district manager. He was looking forward to a long relationship with me as part of the Quonset Family. I tried to ask him to send help, or a rescue plane or something, but he couldn't hear me. What he did mention was that he hadn't gotten an updated inventory report and if I could write that up and load it into the fax machine, that'd be great.

 

Then I woke up to the howling of wolves as the sunlight slowly crept across the concrete floor. Was it a dream? Was I finally snapping? Was it a hallucination or was there really a regional director and I was the newly appointed manager of the Coastal Highway Quonset Gas Station? I knew it couldn't have been real. I knew that it was just a dream.

 

I figured it was a good idea to write up the inventory on the shelves. I should keep track of that stuff anyways, just in case.

 

Day 194: Another Aurora event, but I stayed up this time. Again, another phone call. My Regional Director thanked me for the fax. He apparently couldn't hear me when I explained we didn't have a fax machine. He just went on and on about how we need to synergize our marketing strategies to minimize expenses while maximizing our positive income flow.

 

I tried to explain that I burned all the money and that I was keeping my matches in the cash register.

 

He then informed me that matches were the new money and that it was all good. I also explained that this made no sense as the place is surrounded by corpses and wolves. He then explained that the Quonset Gas, LLC had a government run contract that required them to maintain gas stations in out of the way areas.

 

"Sometimes you can turn a minus into a plus, in the right location. Don't you worry about company profits. I'll worry about company profits." I seem to recall hearing something like that on Futurama or something.

 

Anyways, he then mentioned that if I wanted to get promoted and moved out of that location, I'd have to show some personal initiative and show how I can be a great asset to the company. "HR department has it's eye on you. There's buzz about making you team leader." A team of WHAT, I got no clue. I couldn't get a word in edge wise.

 

That's when I woke up. I'm not sure if I fell asleep and dreamed it, or if I'm just going mad. I really believe I was awake.

 

Day 195: The aurora came back and lasted a long time. Kept waiting for another call, but it never came. In order to stay awake, I declared that we were having a Karaoke Night in the garage. As the lights flickered, I sang songs while swilling expired soda.

 

The wolves joined in as they paced around the building, growling and snarling as they smelled the piles of rotting meat I keep in back. I remember dancing a bit and doing my best to sound like a Las Vegas Lounge singer. Oddly enough, I could only remember songs by Nine Inch Nails.

 

Then I totaled up the sales for the evening and stepped outside to shoot a wolf in the face. The sound sent the rest scattering. I quartered the corpse and dragged the meat inside. I stacked the bags on each other behind the counter and put the wolf's head on top with a spare wool Toque. His ears looked cold.

 

On the sacks of wolf meat, I put a name tag that I found in the back.

 

HI! MY NAME IS:

 

D. Wolf

 

There. Now I have a team to be a leader of.

 

Day 198: Just got back from being stuck out in a fishing hut for three days straight. Ironically, I find it relaxing out there. If I spend too much time here in this spacious garage, I get cabin fever. The solution I have found is to lock myself in a tiny green hut out on the ice along with close to seven hundred pounds of frozen fish in various states of decay.

 

If my therapist was alive, I've sure she'd have something to say about that.

 

I spent the day cleaning up the store. I must have spent three hours alone with a hack saw trying to get this one soda can off the floor. It's just STUCK there, no matter what I do. I can turn entire shelving units into piles of scrap, then turn that scrap into an even BIGGER pile of fishing hooks, yet I cannot remove this one god damn soda can from the floor. I'm beginning to wonder if it's actually a hallucination. I've considered shooting the damn thing, but I'm running low on bullets. I may have to go to this hunting lodge that's on the wall above the cash register. I'm sure they have more bullets there. Long trip, but for a few more bullets, I'm sure it'd be worth it.

 

I have elected to place the boots I have for sale on top of the can, in hopes of keeping it hidden from the customers.

 

Now, I know there are no customers coming, but it actually feels nice to have the store front cleaned up. I wish I could figure out how to bring more of the lamps from other nearby houses into the garage. Sure, they don't work except during aurora events, but during the event, it should light up nicely. Thinking of pulling down all these tires and making a stage for Karaoke night.

 

Any rate, it's getting late. I think I'll total the evening's sales and get to bed.

 

Day 201: I just redid my inventory AGAIN. Some of my stock is MISSING. I'm not entirely sure how. There's items I never use sitting on the shelves, yet, it's gone. Yes, some of the raw meat vanished. I mean, a rodent or something got in. That's explainable.

 

As for the matches, well, I count them every god damn night. So why are four missing? Doesn't make any sense. As well as the pain killers. Someone has been taking the pain killers.

 

You know, I never had missing inventory until... D. Wolf. When I put D. Wolf behind the counter, then things started missing. I mean, it sounds a bit crazy, but ever since I put him behind the counter, things have been... moving around. Things are out of place. It... couldn't be a pile of rotting meat with a wolf's head on top. No. I'm just... having black outs or something.

 

Maybe I'm sleep walking and cooking food in my sleep. That's a possibility. One sec.

 

Just got back from the rear entrance. I must be doing that. There's a fire back there between the wall and the car. I must have done some cooking in the night when I wasn't thinking about it. However... one thing...

 

There's no charcoal in the burned out fire.

 

I have an entire pile of charcoal for sale to the customers. I keep track because I need it for mapping, but more importantly for writing these log notes. So, if I made the fire, I gathered the charcoal afterwords and did... something with-

 

I just noticed. Maybe... maybe I got some on D. Wolf when I wrote his name on his name tag, but the stacked sacks of meat that comprise of D. Wolf's "body" have a lot more charcoal dust on them then I remember. That's...

 

that's very...

 

very...

 

strange.