[color=0054a6][i]Father Logan Dubois’ Journal-February 16 2017, So, I’ve never had a journal before but the state of the world requires recording. My name is Father Logan Dubois, I am a Catholic Priest and exorcist. I am currently thirty-one years old and my birthday is October 22. Two days ago the world ended, and I mean that in a literal sense. I was in the middle of my homily in Mass, hopefully whoever finds this will be able to understand what I just said. One of my congregation, a man with who I was great friends, bit into the neck of his neighbor killing him instantly. In what seemed like forever but was probably no longer than a few minutes, the entire church was filled with blood. Only four people, including myself, were able to escape the church. We ran out of the back doors where a lone woman police officer was standing, gun raised. She fired behind us, hitting many of the crazies before we were all safely in her car driving away. I must have looked a mess, my clothing drenched in stinky, smelling blood. It didn’t take long for the survivors to discover that these events were connected to the disease that had been spreading rapidly across the world for the last few weeks. We have taken shelter at St. Jude’s Catholic High School, of which I was the chaplain. This ‘colony,’ as it is being referred to, is headed by Marcus Schroder, the father of the young officer who saved my life only days ago. It is fitting that we hide under the arms of the patron saint of desperate situations. Maybe God will have mercy on those of us who are left. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.-Revelation 20:13[/i] [/color] [b]May 5, 2017[/b] Stacey Schroder breached the door to the next house quietly and efficiently like she had done hundreds of times before. She had her Glock 22 raised searching for any sign of trouble within the structure. It was a single story house with a garage on the left side. She entered into the living room with her partner, a man from the ‘colony’ whose named was Jake. Or at least she thought it was Jake. He was one of two newbies on the crew for this trip. The other three scavengers in her group were spread out in the other two houses on the street corner. She wore her navy blue police uniform and Kevlar vest as she did for every scavenging run. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail. The man next to her was a black man who was much taller and much larger than she was. She allowed him to check the living room and kitchen while she checked the bedrooms and bathrooms. She breached each carefully, luckily there were no creeps in sight. She entered the first bathroom and threw her backpack on the floor. The first thing she checked was the medicine cabinet. Of course it was mostly empty except for a half empty bottle of aspirin and a small pink razor. That goes in my personal stash. She put the two items in one of her side pockets and checked the shower for any hygiene products. Nothing. For the hour or so it took for them to clear the house they came up with relatively little supplies. It was almost as if someone had been there before them. “Hey Jake, did you get anything good?” “Nah, only like one can o’ beans and some nudie mags.” The large man said. Before she could respond she heard a loud pop from outside, unmistakably a 9mm sidearm. “Fuck” She cursed under her breath. The two scavengers ran to the front door to see who had been dumb enough to fire off a round. Probably the kid. She thought. Sure enough, when she got to the door she saw Kevin. He was not quite in the position she had expected though. A burly redneck man held the kid with his arm around his neck and a sidearm pointed at his head. Stacey raised her own weapon in less than a second. “What the fuck is going on here?” She demanded, the redneck laughed. Which irritated her to no end. “Northern girl huh, why don’t you put the gun down and we can come to a little agreement?” He said not hiding the fact that he was observing her body. “Put the kid down and I won’t blow a hole through your damn skull.” She said demandingly. As if on cue, four more rednecks all as dumb as the first stepped out of the house Kevin was scavenging. Also as if on cue her back up walked out of their house. The group stood in a circle each pointing their weapon at someone else, a regular Mexican standoff. “Baby, you can have the kid back if you show me that ass. Been a long time since I’ve had any cop pussy.” The lead hillbilly said back. She had had enough of him. “Stacey, just give him what he wants. I don’t want to die.” Kevin was on the verge of tears. Pathetic, and he volunteered for this job? “He’s not getting a damn thing.” Stacey said back. “Now hol’ up,” Jake said before approaching with his hands raised, “I’ll give you what I got if yo’ just hand over the lil’ man.” “You tell your nigger to stay right where he is.” The leader said, with that one of the others pointed a shotgun at Jake’s chest. “Stace please.” Kevin asked, his voice even more shaky. “Kid if you don’t shut up I’ll shoot you myself.” She replied. He sunk down a little, almost as if he had accepted his fate. The redneck responded to that with a smile. Jake again tried to approach but was quickly stopped by another curse from the shotgun wielder. The two other men in Stacey’s group held their weapons at the ready. “Alright honey bun, I’m about tired of this shit. Drop your stuff or we’ll kill every last one of you.” The redneck had lost his ‘charm.’ He pointed his gun away from Kevin and straight at Stacey. That gave her the shot. “No.” She said in a matter of fact tone. “Have it your way bitch.” The boss said. One loud boom was heard before Stacey could get off a shot. She hit the leader right in between the eyes before he could fire a round. Kevin fell to his knees and ran in her direction with his hands over his head. She turned to her right and fired two bullets into the shotgun wielder’s chest. He fell back to the ground with a thump. It was then that she realized what that boom was, Jake’s body lay on the ground in a puddle of his own blood. He was done for. Within seconds another of her team was dead. The odds were even. Kevin hid behind the doorframe inside the house completely useless and the bandits were pressing in on her third partner’s location. She backed up inside the house and grabbed the kid by his shirt and pulled him up. He had tears streaming down his face. “Make yourself useful and go get the damn car.” She yelled before reaching into her right pocket and pulling out the keys. “I.. I never got a license.” He said, still crying. “GO GET THE FUCKING CAR!” She yelled as she smacked him in the face. She was pissed off and couldn’t think of what else to do. He obliged and took the keys from her hands and ran out of the back door with his hand covering his face. Maybe I hit him to hard. She thought for a second. She looked over to where her other companion was. Michael, another cop. He seemed to be holding his own, he had even killed one of the bandits. That wasn’t the end of their problem though, some creeps were being drawn to their location. Luckily they were moving slowly so she assumed they were just ones and twos. She fired her pistol at the nearest bandit but couldn’t get the shot, he was taking cover behind a dumpster and pouring on fire in Michael’s direction. She heard her cruiser speeding in their direction so apparently the kid had gotten there without getting killed. He sped into the center of the road, hitting two mail boxes and putting himself in the direct line of fire. She ran out with a curse. My dad is going to be pissed when he sees the car. She fired four times into the back of one of the bandits, the one not behind the dumpster. She jumped into the passenger seat and Michael ran to the back. The creeps were getting closer. When they were all three in the car Kevin floored it. It seemed like he smashed into every possible zombie on his way out but they eventually got away. She turned around to see a similar scene with the last surviving redneck, who apparently had a few more friends parked some distance away. Within a minute they were speeding in opposite directions. [color=0054a6][i]Father Logan Dubois’ Journal-May 5 2017, Stacey’s scavenging team returned today with two casualties. That drops our total to 42 survivors. God only knows how many more we are going to lose. I’m going to the colony council meeting tonight, apparently there are many more of these Texas bandits out there. The young man who accompanied the group this time, Kevin Fairbanks, is taking it pretty hard. I’ve often spoken to this young man, he seems to have trouble with letting things like this linger. It took two months for me to help him recover his self-esteem after he arrived. His family was turned and he ran. Hopefully he doesn’t fall back into depression. [/i][/color] “You’re completely sure there was no peaceful solution?” Father Logan asked Stacey. He stood there with his arms crossed slightly annoyed. Most of the ‘council’ was talking in circles. It was time to end this discussion. “No you jack ass, there was no peaceful solution.” Stacey was obviously upset. She still hadn’t quite calmed down. It didn’t help that Marcus had berated her not thirty minutes ago. “What, do you think I just shot those guys for the hell of it?” “No, but I do think you got excited and didn’t look at the situation from all angles.” He replied. “Regardless, what’s done is done. We need to figure out what we do next.” He continued before she could respond. “Agreed.” Lieutenant Marcus spoke up. “If this group is as big as young Kevin was led to believe we need to prepare for battle.” He said. The six other council members that sat around the circular table were silent. Father Logan, still standing grunted. “Something to say father?” One of the other members, a former city council woman named Sarah… Something asked. “I agree with Marcus, we should prepare for the worst.” He said. “But I don’t think we should shoot at first sight. Both groups lost people, we need to try to solve this without further killing. Humanity is spread thin as it is.” “Agreed.” Marcus said again. Logan began wondering if he should have accepted that offer to be on the council after all. “What I want to know is how we even know these guys know where we are.” Stacey spoke up again from her seat. “Kevin told them, he had a gun to his head.” Logan answered. “He should have taken the fucking bullet.” Stacey said, flashes of Jake’s dead body and later reanimated corpse lingered in her mind. “Oh, wonderful advice. Maybe you should tell that to all of our teenagers who volunteer to help the colony.” Logan said, his tone was sarcastic and humorous but he meant every word. And it was supposed to sting. “Alright enough, if we see these Texan bastard approaching we will arm everyone who is older than 15. Father Logan, you and councilwoman Jules will be our negotiators.” Marcus said. Jules, that’s her last name. The priest just nodded, and with that the meeting was adjourned. [color=0054a6][i]Father Logan Dubois’ Journal-March 10 2017, We finally met with the Texan group. It didn’t go well, the former city council woman lost her life along with one of our body guards. 40 survivors. We returned a little over an hour ago, Stacey’s open hostility towards me has never been more evident. The entire colony is on high alert, and we have turned away at least six survivors this week against my advice. Hopefully God protects those poor souls. The colony is going to war, its first war. Hopefully it will live through the conflict. “For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you.” Deuteronomy 23:14 [/i][/color]