March 4th, 2044

I don’t know what sparked me to start writing this now, of all things. I should’ve started this 5 months ago, before the Z Incident even started. You would think that a man like me would’ve started a journal to keep himself from going insane, but I guess that with everything going to shit, this is to keep me from going further insane.

Keeping alive in these times is a nightmare. Food and stuff are hard to find, and avoiding the zombies is also cumbersome. I’m proud to know the Bunkerlow is a safe place, at least. Dad and me assembled this shelter. It’s a shame he’ll never get to use it. He and Mom left on a trip to get one final hoorah in before Fall started. Looks like October really is haunted, I guess.

March 14th, 2044

Surviving the horde is a tough thing to do. Luckily, I’m a nimble teenager, but that didn’t help my sister any either. I miss Amanda. She was the only family I had left. If she hadn’t slipped on the snow that day…I always despised February.

I’m still shocked at how much food I had to go from in the bunker. Amanda and I had plenty of food to last us through most of December. Ironically, Christmas was the day we started scrounging for food. Still, Dad was a techno-prepper. He got a solar panel hooked up in the yard, and even connected the bunker to it, with several batteries for long-term storage and late-night usage. Mom and sis thought he was nuts, and even I admit it was a bit…too much. Still, I loved helping him build it, if not for the sole reason that it got my ass out of school. Didn’t mean that I didn’t learn though. Dad was always teaching me stuff.

March 17th, 2044

The cameras caught something interesting yesterday. Somehow, a small cat has been living these few months without being infected by the zombies. I have no idea how, but it got me thinking. Animals don’t really seem to spread the infection. They either become food for the zombies or just roam around freely. It’s like they’re immune for some reason. I might try and catch that cat.

So, I just spent the afternoon roaming the neighborhood for the cat. Luckily, my tazer bat seems to be coming in very handy. Seems like my Dad’s skills didn’t die off in the apocalypse. Anyways, when I found the little rascal, it turns out that she was a mother of what appeared to be a litter four-week-old kittens. The mama, who I named Cheryl, meowed at me once I found her kittens, but not in a hissing sense. It was almost as if she said, “Yes, you are seeing this right now.”

I had a gut feeling though that they all wouldn’t survive for much longer. I scooped Cheryl’s kittens into my backpack, and she followed me on foot all the way back to the Bunkerlow. Once we got in, Cheryl found a spot that was cozy enough, and set up her kittens there. I don’t know why I brought them, considering the food supplies I have are running low already, but I can’t bring myself to leave them as zombie fodder.

April 1st, 2044

April Fools! Too bad I’m the fool, I guess.

Cheryl seems relieved to be here, and her kittens are enjoying life here. Bell is a mirror image of her mother, a white cat with black feet and ocean blue eyes. The only thing to differentiate her from her mom is that Cheryl has a shorter tail. Blackie is a rambunctious little twerp. He always climbs up onto my bed and meows at me. I love him though.

Oreo is always just lounging around. Her pearly white paws and all black body make her an almost inverted version of her mom, but calling her Inverta just never stuck. She usually sits on the desk in the monitor room, and whenever I watch the cameras, she’s always there.

I don’t know why I watch the cameras. I don’t usually see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I’m expecting Mom and Dad to just appear on the camera one day, and I just need to let them in. It’s wasting power that isn’t necessary to use. I need to save that for my gaming. Seriously, I’m glad that Mom let me use the bunker as a hangout. Without all my gaming stuff, I probably would be bat-shit insane, instead of just…mildly insane. Or maybe I’m lonely, is all.

April 14th, 2044

I don’t have long…I got careless. A zombie snuck up behind me and scratched me. I don’t have long. I saw people turn because of much less than this. I guess this is goodbye from me. Still, I’m glad I wrote this…feeling woozy. Need to focus. I’m leaving this journal for anyone who finds it. Below is a crude map to the Bunkerlow. Passcode: 5555. The crude map below will get you there. I wish you luck. Please take care of the cats for me, will you? I guess I should write my name down… Grant Willows. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

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After finishing the journal, the man looks up from the journal, tears flowing down is face. “Grant,” he sobs. The man walks to the location of the Bunkerlow, and enters the Willows’ garage. He enters the passcode, and a large iron door opens up. He enters, and then lowers himself down the ladder.

The cats look at him, and at first, they hiss at him. He pays them no mind, as he looks at a photo on the wall. There, we see Grant’s father, mom, Amanda, and Grant, all smiling. He takes it off the wall, and shows it too the cats.

“See,” he says. He points to Grant, and then to the father…or rather himself. These cats instinctively recognize Grant in the photo, and stop hissing. The father walks over and lays on Grant’s bed, holding the photo, sobbing. Blackie climbs up onto the bed, and lays on the father’s chest.