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UNDEAD DIARIES
Chapter 10 text by Jenna Pitman - photo by Donald Holman
Sarah is the first person who has lived in this room that I’ve felt comfortable with in months. Since Morton left we’ve really gotten to know each other pretty well. We whisper mostly, neither of us trust that our words will go unnoticed out of these walls. We built them for shelter, not to keep secrets, a fact that brought grief to many back in the height of our revelry but also a fact that has worked out in our favor. Our captors have never stopped to think that their words might be overheard and have not been terribly tight lipped. We haven’t learned much but it’s been enough. I hope. Harton, that slimy bastard, is still alive. In some capacity or another. These aren’t his men though. I think they used to be, but not anymore. It seems Morton is in charge now. My savior, the man we chose to protect us should another crisis come our way, sold us out the first opportunity he had. As far as what’s going on… Well we’re not quite sure. I’ve pieced together some of what they’ve said and Sarah has a theory but I can’t… I can’t accept that we would do that to one another. Even after all I’ve seen I don’t want to believe that we are capable of doing such condemnable things to a fellow human being. There’s one thing Sarah, those people outside with guns, myself, all can agree on. We’re stranded out here. The systems we’ve set in place to keep us alive are going to be the very things that kill us in the end. They’re going to be what gives these assholes the freedom to follow through with whatever it is that they’re doing. It’s sort of funny, in a particularly macabre sort of way, that it’s not Them who will be bringing us to our knees but our fellow human beings. Sarah was saying that the world outside of here has gone mad. In the world of Before, information and communication was near instantaneous. You wanted to speak with someone halfway across the world, no problem. You could do so in real time, no delays, and hear that person perfectly. Every citizen with access to a computer and internet connection had a practically limitless library of knowledge at their disposal. We had access to breaking news twenty-four hours a day and portable devices that allowed us to never feel alone or bored. All of that is gone now. Families, separated by rivers, mountains, and oceans, on the pretext that it would always be simple to send an email with pictures or hop on a plane for a visit, have been completely cut off from one another with no way of knowing if their loved ones are even alive. Individuals are being forced to rely solely on their own senses to know what is happening around them. There was apparently a massive effort, at least in our corner of the continent, to organize and recover what had once been ours. Unsurprisingly it was a highly disorganized affair fraught with mistakes and blunders. It seems as though no one had even the slightest clue as to what the others were doing. Maybe, given time, we could bring ourselves back to the place we were when great things like pyramids and railways were built, but we’re fighting an uphill battle. Every moment we waste is a boon to the Roamers and every life we lose only makes Them stronger. Now we have something even bigger to worry about. Ourselves. From what Sarah knows, from what we’ve both heard, it seems as though someone out there thinks that they have found a way to make a profit off of this plague of walking, shambling death that surrounds us. I find it hard to believe that either Harton or Morton are the masterminds behind this operation but one or both of them are certainly involved. Hell, for all I know, they both had the same plan. Th thought that there is more than one person trying to sell dead bodies as weapons makes me sick. They’ve made Haven into some sort of farm and are hoping to turn it into the backbone of their twisted little enterprise. We’re all stock. And it’s easy too. Keep us alive and fed here, away from everyone where no one will know what’s happening then kill us when they need an army. Freeze the bodies or something for transport, then it’s as easy as thawing us out, pointing us at whoever they want dead and crossing their fingers that their side doesn’t take too many losses. Seems too risky but apparently someone likes the idea. It’s pretty horrifying, if that’s what’s happening. I’m afraid now. More afraid than I think I’ve ever been. Even more afraid then I was before I found Haven or when They got in. If we’re right, if this is what’s happening, we have to do something. We have to stop it. |
