A Month Later

06/21/2019

It's been a month after things have gone south. There's nothing left of our town after these creatures came. Roads leading out of town have been destroyed. Folks disappearing then coming back later.

Never the same.

All those who came back always came back looking normal. Only looking normal. They wouldn't act the same. Such as my neighbor, Elisa, had gone missing for a week. Then she came back. Not looking different since the week she had left. Not a hair out of place. But, I felt something was off about her. That there was just not something completely the same.

I was right.

At night, she would leave her home and go into the woods. Something that she would never do before she disappeared. Then she would come back the next morning. Covered in blood.

I think it might've been deer blood. I've never been entirely sure. All I know is that she, and possibly others, were acting off. After this, I tried to warn others about what was going on. Tried telling my family on what I had seen my neighbor doing.

They brushed me off.

I wished they hadn't. Because not long after, the roads were destroyed. More folks went missing and coming back. But this time, there was something obviously off about them. They were corpse-like with this gross green foam leaking from their lips and nose. Biting everyone in their paths. Creating more just like themselves.

I only found out about that when my "Mother" came to visit. Bringing along my "Father", who looked just like them. He wouldn't bite her but, he tried to bite me.

I had to stab him and her in the head.

It killed the thing in the shape of my Father. But not the thing that was pretending to be my Mother. She stayed alive and tried to come after me. Tried to strangle me to death. I had to keep stabbing her until she stopped moving. Her blood wasn't red, it was this thick green slime.

Boiling hot on my skin. So much so that it burned me and left marks on my right forearm. It took so long to wash the junk off of me. I packed some stuff afterward, took the heart shaped locket off my "Mother", and fled. Heading into the hills to the cabin that I bought years ago. One that I never told my parents about. Not, in preparation for what's going on. It was mostly just for vacation purposes and work. Which, thankfully, has been decently stocked for a few months. Not sure how long I have but, I know it'll be a good while.

So far, I haven't heard or seen another person. At least not yet. But, I'm hoping and dreading that I'll find a normal human soon. That not everyone in town has been taken by whatever these things are.

Hopefully.

X Taylor Englehardt.

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06/22/2019

I had fallen asleep for about eight hours or so. Did my usual check around my home. Making absolutely sure that none of those corpse-like creatures came near my home.

None of them had.

At least, not from what I could see from a normal glance outside. So it really doesn't mean much. I then checked the security camera feed from last night. There was nothing until around three A.M. Then a man appeared next to my back deck. He was a normal human.

The copies, from what I noticed, have strange warping effect on the security tapes.

This man didn't. Whomever he was, he checked all the windows and tested my doors. Finding them all locked, he looked like he was about to find a rock. Seemingly heard something then went out of range for my security cameras. One of the creatures came into view but take no notice of my home. Seemingly only following the scent of the strange man.

A little while later, the man came back. Looking highly disheveled but, not injured. As far as the cameras shown. I'll be keeping an eye out for the man. He might be dangerous and I don't need this right now.

X Taylor Englehardt.

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Three Hours Later

The man came back. He came back looking normal and begged me to let him in. This man looks very normal. But, I'm not entirely sure if he truly is.

I still let him in.

Under the condition that I could restrain him to check him over. Of which, he agreed to do. So, I restrained him onto the chair with strong rope. Handcuffs too.

Locked the door and made sure nothing outside could see the lights.

While I checked him over, I got a name from him. It's Joseph Fredrickson. Never heard of the guy but, he seems to know me. Well, my Father. They apparently used to work together and my Dad used to tell him about me. Mostly surface level stuff. Like what I do for a living.

Did for a living.

Which was just working as a cashier. Nothing glamorous but it paid the bills.

So he's perfectly fine and I let him free not that long ago. Joseph hadn't been bitten by the creatures. Nor was he one of the other creatures. I asked him how he managed to not be detected. He said that he'd been hiding in his attic for a few weeks. That one of the corpse-like creatures came after him. Which he barely managed to kill before fleeing his home in the little suburb a few miles away. I was slightly impressed how Joseph managed to get here without weapons.

We're going to be discussing him staying here. I've really been needing the company and it's wiser to have more than one person with me. Especially, with all those creatures out there. It'll be wiser to keep together than to be alone.

Hopefully, things'll get easier for us and we'll find more folks like us. There's no way that it's just the two of us unaffected by these things. And I won't rest until I find more of us to fight back.

We're going to take our home back. One way or another.

X Taylor Englehardt.