I was right journal, today DID suck! But it sucked in a mostly normal way that has been an amazing change from how things have been going since ‘they’ appeared. Our cul-de-sac remains blessedly clear and so far none of ‘them’ have tried to wander in, so that means I mostly spent this time working on home fortification – that’s a fancy way of saying that I grabbed spare wood from the nearby houses or their sheds and nailed them over the windows. It’s a heck of a lot better than nothing, that’s for certain. I’ve seen how quickly ‘they’ can shatter glass, and I can place the boards apart enough for us to be able to peek through just fine. And-

Well, actually, let me start from the beginning so this all makes sense instead of just rambling it out cliffnotes style. I really want that A after all!

Evan wakes slowly, groggily, and painfully. His alarm is beeping, and it had been doing so for a bit now. He’s just too sore and too tired to get up. He could wait for just a bit longer, right..?

“… Mister Evan? Your alarm is beeping.” Ruth’s voice is soft but easily heard, closer to him instead of across the room in her bed. So it is that Evan forces himself to crack his eyes open and confirms the truth for himself. The girl is standing next to his bed, staring down at him and waiting for a response.

“Yeah… yeah, so it is. Sorry Ruth, did I wake you up letting it go too long?” Evan begins the slow process of carefully pushing himself upright without straining the injuries he received yesterday. It was… well, it was a work in progress. Everything sort of hurt constantly anyway and moving at all made it worse. He’d need some painkillers if he wanted to be of any use today.

“No, I was already awake. It made me get out of bed, though,” Ruth says, her eyes never leaving Evan as he sat all the way up. It was as though she was trying to keep him in her vision so she knew he was still there…

“Huh, is that so? You know you can get out of bed without me if you want, right?” Evan says, only for her to shake her head. “Well, alright. If you get bored though, I won’t be mad if you play on the gameboy, okay? You can try out Kirby and see if you like it as much as Sonic.”

Ruth considers it for a moment, and then nods. “But I won’t like Kirby more. Sonic is blue and a hedgehog, so he’s better.”

“Well, I suppose there’s no point arguing against that logic.” Evan huffs in amusement at the pure certainty of children. It’s nice to see Ruth having these moments of pure ‘kidness’ after everything she must’ve been through; it makes him think things might work out for her okay in the end. “C’mon, I gotta get cleaned up and these bandages changed. Then you can get a shower while I work on breakfast. Sound good?”

Evan checks his watch: 5:17AM. Plenty of time to take care of himself and then get to work on the essentials. He was cooking for two now, so he would need to keep that in mind. He might even take the time to go and finish ‘borrowing’ supplies from the other houses, not only to reinforce his home, but to take care of both of them.

“Buff-!” Bagel makes himself known, emerging from beneath Evan’s bed, winding between his ankles, and hopping up to put his paws on Evan’s leg as he begs for attention. Evan givesit to the good and loyal hound by patting his head and rubbing his ears, all while Ruth runs a hand along the dog’s back a good few times as well. It seemed she wanted to capture whatever she could in her eyes that wasn’t the hell around them.

Both girl and dog follow Evan to the restroom and watch as he removes his shirt and then set about taking care of his injuries. He wet and soaped up a washcloth and cleaned himself from the chest up as best as he was able to ensure he stayed clean, and makes extra certain to gently clean the areas around the wounds as well. As for the injuries… well, he had been lucky so far. They were hardly pleasant to see, but they were healed over and not turning an angry red or showing any other signs of infection, and seem to be normal stab and cut wounds – as ‘normal’ as such things can be. He still makes sure to clean the area, apply medication and then re-dress the wounds; there was always a risk of reopening them if he was careless. Besides, the dressings have a better chance of keeping the wounds clean and ensuring no risk of infection. Still, looking at them like this leaves him with the feeling that at least the shoulder wound would scar. Hopefully it would make a good story to tell, once all of this is over. ‘Why yes, ladies and gentlefellows, this is a knife wound I got from an insane fastfood mascot during the Knox Event’.

He’d probably want to come up with a better story than that though. Maybe something with ninjas, or having to fight off seven muggers at once. Yeah.

“Alright, I’ll get breakfast started. You get a shower, okay Ruth? I’ll look around later and see if I can find any clothes that will be more your size. Uhm… or, I can check your house?” Evan offers, but Ruth shakes her head.

“It’s all the way across Muldraugh. Don’t, please,” she pleads.

“Okay, I won’t, I promise,” says Evan. “Hey, Bagel? You stay here with Ruth until she’s finished and make sure she’s nice and safe, alright?” Bagel lets out a quiet whuff at this order, wags his tail, and promptly sits down. Good dog, smart dog. “Yell if you need anything, okay, Ruth? I’ll get breakfast ready by the time you’re down and then we have a whole day ahead of us.” Evan waits for Ruth to nod before he nods back and takes his leave, and the sound of the shower starting reaches him as he’s making his way downstairs – time to get to work, then.

Evan brings the portable radios to the kitchen as he gets to working, setting both to different stations: one to the local news channel he had come to favor, and the other one (closer to the stove) he uses to flip through the even more local channels he’d recently discovered. The pastor is up early and giving a firebrand speech about Revelations and how it applied to what they were going through now. Evan isn’t sure he agrees with that, so he flips over to another channel, this one from a lady who said she was also inside the boundary, and was in a location she couldn’t mention (something about getting in trouble). But the more important thing is that she would play music from her collection of CDs over this frequency throughout the day while occasionally hopping on to chatter about her job being a pain. It’s so banal and normal, and yet from someone in the same circumstances as him, that it really puts Evan’s mind at ease – just listening to her complaining about her pointy-haired boss and how he got kicked upstairs to be everyone’s problem fills him with a sort of nostalgic peace.

Almost as nostalgic as these cheesy scrambled eggs are making him. He has plenty of milk after he had ‘borrowed’ what was left in the store, and plenty of eggs, too. He has a feeling that once he does a full search of the other nearby houses he’d pick up any other remaining perishables and get full use out of them too… only for the duration of the situation, of course.

Now, the important thing Evan knows about scrambled eggs is that the difference between normal and good scrambled eggs is timing. People see scrambled eggs as a simple dish, and they’re not wrong. However, if you want it be just right you had to put the work in and do it in stages. One of the tricks he uses is to actually spice very early, when you first crack the eggs into a bowl. That way they get mixed properly into the scrambled solution and you don’t end up with overly or underly spiced sections. The next most important part is the ratio of milk to egg. There’s no egg to tablespoon measurement for it, you just have to rely on experience and your gut! Evan likes to lean towards using one glug per two eggs, but a good visual way to tell is to stop your pour just before the milk hits the edge of the bowl. That tends to be a close to ideal amount for most mixing bowls he’s used and ensures you don’t end up with overly soggy scrambled eggs. Lastly, and most importantly of all for cheesy scrambled eggs, is when to add the cheese and what kind to use. Evan found a whole lot of kraft singles so he’s going to be using those after tearing them up. The thing about them though is that you needed to get them in pretty early to make sure that they melted properly and mixed in with the eggs so you didn’t get the most horrible result of all: cold cheese bits.

He also has some bacon crackling in the second pan and, once he had a moment, pulls out the paring knife to cut up some fruit slices for both him and Ruth. The toast is put into the toaster once he hears the shower turn off so that it was still crisp when he applied butter to it and didn’t even up a miserably soggy loaf for them. It was a well planned meal…

… and while preparing all of it, Evan listens to the music in one ear and news with the other. There was violence in the streets, and lockdowns being enforced in other cities as they decided to riot about not being told what was going on. At least, that was the excuse they were using. Evan remembers his mother telling him about rioters, and how most of them are just people looking for an excuse to get angry or using the protests as covers to loot and steal. Using the Knox Event like this just to get themselves a new TV… how low can you get? It’s not that Evan doesn’t get people being upset about being left in the dark. He thinks that the President should be telling them what’s going on too, or at least some of it. They have to know now that ‘they’ aren’t people anymore, and that there’s no curing ‘them’. Just putting them down. ‘People’ don’t amble around missing limbs. They don’t have blood that’s a deep red like a thick, dark, aged syrup. ‘They’ don’t bleed properly, because they don’t have blood anymore. Just… whatever that horrible gunk is in them. Not real blood, but not dried out either. A parody of the fluid that allows life. Even assuming it was possible to ‘cure’ them… you still wouldn’t be able to. You’d just have an empty, rapidly dying husk left behind. People who turn into ‘them’ die. They’re gone, and you can’t bring them back. Only put their body out of its misery.

That is the truth Evan embraces.

“Mister Evan?” Ruth almost startles Evan, but he hides it and finishes buttering the toast before he turns to her with a smile.

“Breakfast’s ready Ruth. I hope you’re hungry, because I went all out! My mama loves my breakfasts, and I’m sure you will too!” Evan enthuses, grabbing both plates and setting the table for them before stepping away to crack open a can of food for Bagel, pouring it into a bowl for him. Nice, wet, meat chunks with gravy. Yum. At least, Bagel seems to think so. They’ve got plenty of canned dog food for the moment so he’ll keep feeding Bagel that. It should be enough to last for at least a month at the rate it’s going, and he can’t imagine this situation lasting any longer than that.

Evan takes a seat at the table as Ruth takes the first bite of her eggs, and he’s gratified to see her eyes light up just a little bit at the flavor of them. She eats another forkful before drinking a swig of her milk and then speaks. “It’s really good. Better than crackers.”

“I hope so!” Evan laughs, the smile coming to his face easily as he does so. “I’ve had lots of practice cooking, but especially breakfast. All the breakfast recipes I’ve got are the best ones I know… though, personally, I think my soups are pretty good too. Mama says my jambalaya is lacking though.”

Ruth smiles, and Evan’s heart is warmed further. “Yeah, my mom makes jambalaya too! My dad loves it, but mom says she has to make it extra mild for him because he’s ‘white bread’.”

“Huh… I thought you ate bread when something is too spicy?” Evan muses, which gets Ruth to giggle. Perhaps it was the extra exaggerated thinking face he put on? Perhaps. Perhaps.

He gets to eating as well before his eggs got cold and congealed, and both of them wolf down their food while engaging in occasional bits of meaningless chatter, made meaningful by the relief it gives them. The days of suffering bleed out of focus for just a short moment as warm food and warm company soothes their ragged souls.

Evan may have saved Ruth from that roof, but she and Bagel have saved him from himself. The isolation and desperate compartmentalization he put himself through to survive would have destroyed him eventually, if only mentally instead of physically. Before he only focused on surviving… but now he has two bright little lives counting on him. Now, he has to focus on living with them to ensure their well being. And while he fights and works for them, they shall care for and protect his heart in turn. No man is an island, just as no tree is a forest. However, the three of them make up perhaps a small copse at best. This is becoming a strangled metaphor, so let us move on.

The meal finishes just before 0600, giving them enough time to get the dishes into the sink and get setup in front of the television as they bring the portable radios back with them. Both were now set to different news channels as Evan tries to keep an ear on what they were saying: nowthe government was making more promises, and the event boundary had been expanded further, now even closer to Louisville – a few miles away, at most. Valley Station and everything south of it were included now, too. Evan supposes that it’s to ensure that there’s absolutely no risk of anything getting out. If they can set up multiple layers of fences with a mile between them, then maybe it’ll be easier to make sure no one is breathing the bad stuff and none of ‘them’ can slip through? At least, he hopes that’s the reason. He can’t think of any other reasons for them to do that that sound good for him and Ruth.

Also on the news channels are people claiming that the Knox Event isn’t real, instead being ‘crisis actors’ attempting to ‘mislead the public’ about… something. Evan doesn’t care to listen to that nonsense. On the television, he sets the channel to Life and Living just in time for Aunt Kitty to start doing her cooking show.

“I love this show,” Ruth says, gathering her legs up and pressing her chin to her knees as she watches from the floor. Evan settles down into an armchair to not stress out his body as much as the floor would.

“Yeah, Aunt Kitty’s really nice. She taught me how to make a better pie,” Evan says. Today Aunt Kitty was doing a show on cutting and using your own meats and vegetables rather than buying them ‘pre-cut’ at the store. Those sandwiches looked really good… especially the one made from thick-cut bacon slices with fresh lettuce and tomatoes straight from her garden. Now that’s an idea. Evan doesn’t think it’ll last long enough to be worth it, but… maybe giving Ruth something to do would be a good idea? He knows he feels better when he’s busy.

“… She’s your aunt?” Ruth sounds in awe of the idea that he’s related to super public TV star Miss Kitty.

“Well, my uncle is Dean. You know, from ‘Exposure Survival’?” Ruth looks a bit less impressed, but, importantly, not unimpressed. “I’ve been helping him with his show this summer, and I got to meet Miss Kitty and Mister Woodcraft, and they said I could call them Aunt and Uncle since they’re one big family at Life and Living.”

Ruth nods when he finishes talking. “That’s cool.”

“It is pretty cool. Uncle Dean went to visit Louisville to pick up my Mama from the airport, but then the boundary went up and… well, now we’re here and he’s there. I’m glad they’re safe, but…” Evan shrugs.

Ruth nods and shrugs too. He family situation… he wouldn’t be surprised if it was similar. He’s pretty sure that school runs a summer program for kids to be involved in so that they don’t have to stay home alone if their parents are working, so if she was at that… then her parents are probably elsewhere too. Lots of people in Muldraugh work somewhere outside of town. Most of them, even, either doing something for the military down in Fort Knox or working in one of the factories or industrial jobs elsewhere nearby. Some of them even have to drive an hour or more to get to where they work, putting them well outside of the current lockdown, and with phonelines down none of them will be able to get a message in to anyone here… and the same is true for people in here going out.

Miss Kitty is showing how to make an excellent egg salad now for delicious sandwiches. Evan knows that recipe already, but Ruth seems to be engrossed with it as the show goes on. He’s glad for that, since it lets him listen to the news without having to worry about her hearing anything distressing. Bagel sits at her side, and she’s stroking his back in long, slow pets from neck to tail and then starting over.

On the news… something interesting, finally. Knoxtalk covers it first. Rumors of shots being fired on civilians by the military, claims from individuals to have seen it happening themselves from the other side of the border. Nothing substantiated but… it makes Evan think that ‘they’ must be getting closer to the original boundary line. That’s probably why the military expanded it and moved everything back.

All of those people gathered right at the border, making all the noise and producing so many ‘healthy human’ signs… it must be like a signal flashing ‘buffet’ to ‘them’. They’re easy enough to avoid if you stay low and quiet on your own, but once they detect something whether by sound, sight, or maybe even smell… they’re relentless. Evan’s seen that, given how they plowed through the thick windows of a school to chase after the alarm going off on the other side of it. They don’t care what’s in their way, and if they keep receiving stimulus they’ll keep going that way. … And with how much noise Evan is sure that the refugee camp is producing, it’s probably possible that ‘they’ are hearing them from a mile off or more. At least, potentially. Evan can only pray that the military are being smart about this and that everyone else will be as well. If only the president would tell people what was going on so that they’d move away from the boundary, he’s sure that the military could handle it then.

LBMW runs the rumor as well eventually, but they don’t seem to give it as much credit as Knoxtalk did. They do promise to demand more information from the military on what’s going on and to look deeper into the matter. Here’s hoping they manage that and things don’t get any worse outside than they already are.

Aunt Kitty’s show comes to a close and an ad for Kitten Knives, Fine American Cookware plays. Uncle Dean has a full set of those knives, probably as a gift from Aunt Kitty. They’re not just a sponsor to her, as she’s a huge fan of their work in general. Apparently they produce great products at an affordable price for your average American household. Aunt Kitty says it’s the closest you can get to Restaurant Grade without having to pay for Restaurant Grade. Evan assumes that Restaurant Grade is good because it sounded like it was capitalized like a proper noun. He likes them at least, since they’re nicer than the knives that he and mama have at home.

“… What are we gonna do now?” Ruth asks, turning her attention to Evan now that the show is over.

“Well, you can play some Sonic or watch some cartoons or read a book,” Evan says. “Whatever you want. I am going to get some new clothing on and check out the cul-de-sac and the houses again. I’ll grab anything that looks useful and bring it back here for us. We’ll need to get some wood to board up the windows with now, so that no one can get into them too easy. After that, well, we can get the house in order and maybe have some fun!”

“… Can’t I do anything to help?” Ruth’s eyes bore into him, and Evan is glad that he came up with something beforehand for her to do if she sprung this question on him. He doesn’t want her to see any of the messes or scenes left in any of those homes he has to search through, so… stained as the area around Mister Johnson’s place may be, he cleaned up everything as much as was possible and there’s no bodies or bloodstained carpeting.

It’ll have to do.

“… Tell you what,” Evan says. “My neighbor next door had a garden he liked to take care of. I think he kept veggies and flowers both. Why don’t we take a look and see how it’s doing, and if you want you can take care of it and plant some more if he has any seeds? That’d help out a lot.”

She’s quick to nod with a bit more enthusiasm than she had for just sitting around the house, so Evan’s happy enough to let her do it.

“Okay then, first thing’s first. Let me get changed and then we can head over there and take a look at things. I grabbed some of his tools earlier and put them in the closet. Why don’t you take a look and see if anything there will be useful for gardening?” Evan asks. “Be careful not to cut yourself, okay?”

“I know how to garden.” Ruth’s deadpan delivery makes Evan think she might be asking if he thought she was an idiot. Of course, it could just be her more usual flat way of speaking.

“Well, that’s great then! I’m sure you know more about it than me! I only learned a little bit in the scouts and from Uncle Dean about how to care for edible wild plants in the wilderness,” Evan says, which she responds to with a content nod. Glad to see she’s happy, Evan heads upstairs to get changed.

Uncle Dean is bigger than him, but Evan decides it’s worth the awkwardness to borrow one of Uncle Dean’s leather jackets. His jean jacket barely even slowed down the knife from that psycho, but hopefully this jacket will do better if it needs to. Besides, he’s pretty sure that ‘they’ will have a harder time biting through treated leather than cloth. His regular clothing is a pair of jeans, an undershirt, and a normal t-shirt with a picture of an apple on it. He’s not sure why it has a picture of an apple on it, but his mama bought it for him so he loves it. His belt is the only complicated issue now since he technically has two. He decides to keep using the police officer’s belt and swaps the sheaths for his hatchet and knife over onto it where he can find space for them. Between them and the other spaces for attachments on the belt, he’ll be able to carry all the tools he should need at hand, which means he has a nightstick, a knife, a hatchet and (after a moment’s consideration) the S&W Model 10 on him. It pays to be prepared, and though he hopes he doesn’t need to use the gun… well, he never saw for sure that psychopath died. Still, with how many of ‘them’ were coming his way from all sides and a gut wound on top of it, Evan didn’t see him getting away safely. Which doesn’t mean he won’t be taking precautions! Hence why he’s going to be fortifying their house and stripping their neighbors of anything useful for their continued survival. The neighbors wouldn’t need it, and this close call with death and having a little girl and a dog counting on him makes it a whole lot easier for him to decide to just ‘borrow’ everything that isn’t nailed down.

… and then to take the nails, since they might need those.

Evan trots down the stairs and grabs his hiking bag. Ruth is ready and waiting for him with her shoes on, so he hurries up and ties his own sneakers before peeking carefully out the window and glancing up and down the cul-de-sac.

… no sign of ‘them’, or anything else. He eases the door open, and when nothing jumps or attacks them he steps out and Ruth follows after him. There are no sudden ambushes, or attacks by mascot-uniformed psychos, or hordes of ‘them’. Just an unusually quiet cul-de-sac. He could hear insects going about their daily lives, birds chirping and singing in the trees around Muldraugh, and nothing much else of notice. Ruth has Bagel on a leash, and the dog is quick to sniff and snuffle about with interest in their front yard. “Keep him close and keep a look out, Ruth,” Evan says. “I’ve taken care of the ones I’ve found around here, but others from further out may come. Bagel will help keep you safe, but if you see anything I want you to run back inside and lock the door, okay?”

“What about you?” Ruth turns her solemn gaze onto Evan, the further meaning of her questions more than evident.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll handle things and let you know when it’s safe. If you need me, just yell and I’ll come running, I promise. I’ll stay in the cul-de-sac today anyway, so we should always be in line of sight of each other for the most part. Now, let me show you to that garden I mentioned…” Evan starts off on their journey, trying to limber up by moving his shoulder and stretch his side while he walks. They’re sore, even with the pain meds and dressings, but they’re not agonizing so he should be fine.

He and Ruth get a better look at the garden, and it’s… in better shape than Evan thought it might be. There’s a number of beautiful flowering bushes and plants, and-

“Oh, wow,” Evan enthuses, crouching down to examine one bush in particular. Is it..? He thinks it is! Wow, maybe Mister Johnson grew it for his arthritis or something?

“It’s pretty.” Ruth agrees with him, but perhaps not on the right point.

“It is, but it’s more than that. This is Salvia Mellifera, or Black Sage. It’s used in lots of common medicinal recipes and is good for all kinds of things, but especially for helping with pain. You can make it into a tea for to help with throat problems or just general pain. You can also eat it, if you don’t mind the stronger earthy flavor. Oh, and look! This is comfrey! It helps handle inflammation and aids in the body recovering faster from bruises, sprains and the like.” Evan moves from plant to plant, detailing which ones are herbal remedies. Much of the garden is still simply beautiful flowers… or flowers that Evan doesn’t know the medicinal use of. Still, there’s that and more. “And that’s-”

“Wild Garlic flowers. This garden… it’s got a lot of wild flowers. Native ones. It’s…” Ruth draws in a deep breath through her nose and then smiles. It’s small, but it’s there. “It’s really pretty, and nice.”

“… Yeah. It is,” Evan says. “You keep taking a look at it, I’ll check out the shed for any more gardening stuff I might have missed. Bagel, bark if I’m needed.”

Bagel wags his tail and eagerly accepts his role. Ruth hums and crouches down next to the garden to look over the flowers and other plants and make sense of what is which and which is what. Evan’s more familiar with identifying edible wild plants and medicinal ones than their common relatives, so hopefully she’ll be better than him at that. Though he’s pretty sure that those big, round, red things are tomatoes and there are peppers on the plant next to it.

Leaving Ruth to it, Evan heads into the little shed and suppresses the memories as the slowly fading scent of blood that fills the room assaults him. It’s cleaned up as it can be, so the scent shouldn’t be that strong. It’s just the memories, and nothing more. Even so, Evan works quickly and efficiently to strip anything useful out of the shed. He finds seeds, soil, a basket and a number of small tools and objects he had passed over the last time he was here. Using the basket to carry things, a trowel joins the gardening fork he had taken in his previous visit, a few sets of thick gardening gloves in various sizes, a bucket and a watering pail, and he checks each drawer and all the rest of the shed for anything he might have missed. Nothing else jumps out at him… except for a few stacked pieces of wood tucked onto the worktable and against the back wall – the first volunteers for his fortification project. There had to be more in other houses or backyards, intended to mend fences.

Hefting the basket and his other loads, Evan takes his leave of the place and returns to Ruth already working patiently on the garden as she moves weeds with her bare hands. “I’ve got a gardening fork and trowel for you,” he says. “That’ll help, right? Oh, I also found a bunch of seed packets he had in the shed…”

He sets the basket down next to her, and she’s quick to go to work on it as she sorts through the tools inside. “Mhmm. These will help. I think the smallest gloves’ll fit me, and… the trowel and fork are good. Some of the plants are getting thirsty, so I’ll water them.”

Ruth takes up the watering pail and heads over to an external faucet to do just that, filling up the pail and standing beside it as she waits. She shifts in place, swaying as she hums some nameless song. Evan listens and watches as butterflies flutter by. His attention switches to them, and wanders to various insects going about their daily lives. They don’t know about what’s going on. To them, the world hasn’t changed at all. Heck, maybe it’s gotten better with fewer people out weeding and spraying pesticides. It must be nice, he thinks, to be a butterfly. To simply flutter wherever your wings carry you without a care. Of course, Evan knows that butterflies are often eaten or die before fulfilling their purposes as that’s a science fact and it’s why they breed so much and there are so many of them.

Still, the romantic idea came to mind and he can’t quite ignore it.

“They’re pretty. Monarch Butterflies,” Ruth says. “They must like the milkweed in this garden. A lot of people don’t bother planting it, but monarch butterflies love it.”

“Is that so? Neat. Thanks for telling me.” Evan appreciates it as they watch the butterfly land and begin to sup on the nectar from the flowers. It will live, move on, and reach its destination. Evan is sure of that. The butterfly has its fill and rests, occasionally opening and closing its wings.

Ruth’s pail fills up, and she turns the faucet off and begins the task of watering the plants. “… Do you have more stuff to do?”

“Right, yeah. I’ve lollygagged enough. I’ll be right inside. I’ll check for anything else that could be helpful to us. Maybe one of the houses will have clothes in your size…” Evan says before heading into Mister Johnson’s house. He doesn’t think that there will be much left inside of here since he was pretty thorough last time,and in terms of essentials, he’s right. There just isn’t much of use since he’d already grabbed the medicine and the food. He makes sure to package up any remaining cans he happens across or anything he finds stored away in drawers, though. Pens, pencils, maps, books… he takes those this time. Any of them could be useful, either as reading material or for planning things out. There’s no car or car key of course. Evan isn’t sure what happened to Mister Johnson’s car, but it’s not there. Perhaps someone took it, perhaps it was in the car shop for work? Evan doesn’t know, so he can’t factor anything into it.

He finds little else of use in the house nor any clothing that looks like it would fit him or Ruth, so he leaves Mister Johnson’s house for what will probably be the last time and moves on. Ruth waves to him as she sees him, and he waves right back. He hustles over their house and quickly puts away the things he’s recovered from it.

There are five houses in his little cul-de-sac. His, Mister Johnson’s, the sports house, the house he got Bagel from… and the one he hasn’t touched. He’ll do all the others first.

He recovers a surprising amount from the house with ‘that woman’s’ grave out front. He’d grabbed all the things for Bagel he might have needed, but there were some other supplies he’d passed over: medicine, tools, nails and screws and the like, plus some clothing that Ruth might get use out of. It would be too big for her, but not so much that she couldn’t find some use for them. At the very least, the nightgown looked like it would be handy for her, even if it did probably go down to her ankles.

He also finds the woman’s identification – ‘Karen’. He takes the time to attach that ID to the cross over her grave; due to the dead, and leaving the job unfinished had been bothering him, just a bit.

Ruth is tickling Bagel’s belly as she takes a break from digging more dirt to plant more seeds. Apparently some of the vegetables in the packets he’d brought to her would do well in Fall, and they’d have plenty of time to get a good harvest going. Between that and all of the canned goods… Evan thinks that they will be fine.

“Will we have to eat those?” Ruth scrunches her nose at the mention of the frozen dinners. “I don’t like them.”

“They’ll be better than starving,” Evan counters with the only argument you can make about frozen dinners. They were practically depression in a box, the saddest fake steaks known to man… but they were better than starving. Besides, it would be better to use them first once the fresh food was gone rather than crack open all the cans.

Ruth doesn’t have a counter-argument, so she goes back to petting Bagel. Evan leaves it at that and heads off to the Sports House. He… very much isn’t looking forward to searching this one. He makes certain to put on a face mask and gloves before heading inside. The stench of blood and rot are even worse than they were before, growing stronger rather than fading away. Evan steels himself and searches the place from top to bottom this time for anything that could be useful. Knives, nails, hammer, tools of all sorts, sealed packages of food and drink that he’d left here out of wanting to get out with his Sega before…

All of these get claimed, and he also finds something even more useful: among the baseball paraphernalia is a number of good, high quality baseball bats of various sizes. Most are made of wood, but some are made of metal. Either will be an excellent tool for self-defense, and some of them are about the right size for Ruth. Searching the rest of the house’s second floor turns up a great deal of clothing that would be in her size, and some of which could also fit him. He also makes sure to grab various cleaning supplies as those would be invaluable as well.

Perhaps most important of all is his exploration of the room that had contained the glorious Sega Genesis. Taking it fully apart, he recovered a tremendous amount of precious books for entertainment value… and a more glorious find. More game cartridges for the Genesis, tucked in a shoebox under the bed. Shining Force, Golden Axe, Phantasy Star II and III, After Burner II, Sonic II and… Aerobiz? Huh. Apparently it was a game about running an airline company. That’s… neat? Evan will try just about anything once, so it goes into the bag as well. The hiking bag which is now full of many, many useful things, so much so that he grabs a school backpack he found and stuffs more in there to haul it all back. He doesn’t find any extra wood, but that doesn’t matter when he has the ridiculous amount of goodies he has now.

He makes it a point to heft up the backpack to show it to Ruth on his way back to their house. She waves back at him and seems happy with it, so he heads into their house to put away the spoils and then makes a beeline to her to drop it off.

“This way you’ve got a pack to carry what you need, just like I do,” Evan explains as he hands her the backpack, which has the Knocker’s mascot on it. Thank goodness it wasn’t a Spiffo backpack…

“Thanks. I’ll use it,” Ruth promises as she sets it down next to her, “I’m planting radishes, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce. There’s already tomatoes, peppers, peas, and kale. This garden already had its spring planting brought in, and most of these seeds are good for summer and fall. Some will grow in the winter too… if it’s mild.”

“Wow… you’re working fast Ruth! Great job!” Evan praises her, and is graced with another little smile again as thanks. Bagel lets out a plaintive whine and wiggles, so Evan crouches down to rub the dog and shower it in affection as well. “You too Bagel, you’re being a brave little guard!”

“… Having a garden is nice. Doing things… is nice.” Ruth looks away, the smile slipping off of her face, “I was… I was on that roof since the sixth, I think? Just… up there. Waiting. Watching. Hearing it all. There were police, down the way, a couple days before you found me. They tried to take out all of the changed people but… there were too many of them.”

Evan’s heart aches, and he reaches out and gently puts a hand on the girl’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, wanting to let her keep speaking if she wants but give her the support she needs.

“That’s why… I wanna help. I don’t want to just sit around and wait and do nothing. I want to do something. I need to do something,” Ruth insists.

Evan just nods. “I understand. You’re helping out a lot right now with this. Let me know how the other plants are doing healthwise, and we’ll see where to go from there. I got one more house to check out before it’s noon and we head back in for lunch and Woodcraft.”

“Okay.” Ruth nods as Evan stands up and prepares to head to his last unexplored neighboring house. “Mister Evan? Do you think we’ll be here long enough to see these plants grow?”

“… I dunno. Might be. Maybe the military will take care of all of ‘them’ but they won’t be able to let us leave for a while. They don’t know anything about the sickness, so it could be like that?” Evan says,keeping his tone lighthearted. They might get evacuated before then, but it’s also possible the military might just drop them more supplies. Evan just doesn’t know.

He’s starting to get a feeling that they’ll be here for longer than just another week, though.

“Okay. It’s better than doing nothing either way. I’m gonna get back to work.” Ruth turns and starts to sort through the plants. “There’s only been a few weeds, and I haven’t seen any pests.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it and check out that last house.” Evan sets off to do just that. This is the only house he hasn’t cleared yet, so as he gets closer to it he slips the hatchet into his hand and circles the house front and back. The windows don’t show anything moving inside the kitchen, living room or dining room; in fact, the entire first floor seems to be clear. He checks the back door and finds it to be unlocked, and slowly inches it open and enters the washroom.

The first thing he finds are several packages of toilet paper and tissues. There isn’t even any detergent. He moves on and raps on the door leading the rest of the way into the house… but it’s silent. Peeking it open, he gets a look into the kitchen and finds it just as empty. So he steps in and quickly peeks into a few cupboards to find…

… more toilet paper and tissues? What? Checks all the other cupboards in the kitchen. Toilet Paper. And. Tissues.

He fearfully opens the refrigerator and finds… it’s… it’s full of milk. Milk, eggs and bread. Opening the freezer shows it to be full of frozen milk, eggs, and bread.

… is he in a psychopath’s house? Evan can feel the hair going up on the back of his neck as he starts to move out further into the house. Everywhere he looks, he finds more toilet paper and tissues. The closet has jackets with tissues shoved in their pockets and shoes filled with tissue. There’s packages and rolls of toilet paper just scattered around the living room, there’s a commercial on the television for toilet paper… that to his horror Evan realizes seems to be a recording of the commercial, as it immediately jumps to another commercial for another brand of toilet paper.

Oh, he’s definitely in a psychopath’s house.

Hatchet in hand, Evan creeps up the stairs, ready to fight on this flight if it’s necessary.

He doesn’t find a fight on that flight. Instead he finds the end of a roll of toilet paper reaching the stairs from all the way down the hallway, where the trail turns into a room at the far end. Oh yeah, he’s definitely in a psychopath’s house, and said house is also haunted. Despite every sensible instinct telling him to leave, Evan begins to follow the trail while carefully checking each room he passes. All of them contain either tissues, toilet paper, or both. He reaches the end of the trail and looks into that last room to find…

… a dead body, on the toilet. They’re folded over, fingers just barely missing the end of the roll that lies just out of reach. Beside them are several bottles of bleach and detergent, all emptied. Did they… did they drink all of those to commit suicide and just sit on the toilet to wait?

“Hey,” Evan says. The body doesn’t stir, so he speaks again. “This is seriously messed up, you know that? What do you even need all this toilet paper for? Where did you get it, actually? I’m pretty sure this is more toilet paper than the rest of Muldraugh has combined. Including the hotels!”

The body doesn’t stir.

Evan makes his move and drives his hatchet into the back of its neck, and the body lets out the loudest, rudest, most awful sounding fart. The stench alone is enough to make Evan desperately gag behind his face mask, which does nothing to stop the warcrimes-level stench that now pervades this room. Fleeing in a panic, Evan throws open a window to try and get some air circulation. Desperately breathing fresh air, he take a moment to rest…

…

He can’t help it. He just loses it and starts to laugh, smacking an open palm against the windowsill at the sheer absurdity of what he’s just been through. Seriously, what the heck? It’s just… what is this? What kind of random event is this? What is his life that this is what has happened to him?

Eventually, he gets control back of himself. He takes a deep breath and marches into the bathroom to throw its window open to try and air out the nightmare. Still holding his breath he opens the cabinets under the toilet and behind the mirror to grab anything useful and then scram. Inside both cabinets, he finds cans of ‘Canned Bread’. Evan closes the cabinets, gives a swift kick to the body on the toilet and storms out. Yeah, that’s enough of this place. The body unleashes a long, drawn out, squeaky poot as it falls from the toilet and hits the ground. Evan can hear it even as he goes downstairs, and only when he closes the front door behind him is he finally free of the sound.

At least he knows where to go now if he needs tissues or toilet paper.

He collects Ruth and then heads back inside to scrub himself, make lunch, and watch Mister Woodcraft. He’s got at least some wood now, so he can reinforce the windows after that. Maybe later he can take apart something to get the rest of the wood he needs… or he can check one of the other houses across the street, though he hesitates to roam that far.

-And that’s how my day went. No, I’m not exaggerating or making anything up. That’s really how it happened. Ruth even laughed at it, if you can believe that. I mean, sure, it was definitely kind of funny but seriously what the heck? The mood changed so rapidly it almost felt like I got whiplash.

I ended up taking apart that doghouse two houses over for wood to reinforce the rest of the first floor windows. I gave what was left of that poor dog a burial and nailed his tags to them as a memorial. I can only hope Griffey can rest peacefully now. The wood of his house will go to good use keeping another puppy and his family safe.

One last thing. On the news, they talked about how someone got a photograph out of the Boundary. A photograph that included one of ‘them’ in it. A body, walking, despite being horribly savaged. Its one working arm raised towards whoever was taking the picture, mouth open in a snarling hunger.

Everyone outside is panicking now that they’ve found out about. The President should’ve told them something before this, because now no one’s going to trust him or the military nor anything they say. They should’ve figured you can’t keep something like this covered up forever. Especially not when people can just take a boat across the Ohio and get right in the middle of lockdown territory.

Still, maybe it’s not all bad news. Maybe this means that we’ll get more help from the military?