First day ( Brown book ) 1

{ 12 April }

Dear book

The day was harsh .

Father was awake when I came for breakfast.

He hit me when I was quiet .

He hit me when I talked.

Mom served me sliced peaches and apple .

Father ate my peaches .

I went to school but I was late . Again.

The punishment was the same as last week; pick up trash on the playground during break.

I enjoy it . It gives me something to do.

In class I answered two questions. The answers were both wrong.

Someone stole my lunch but I still had some from K . He is a good person. Don't tell him I wrote that.

After school I went home .

Mom was out getting food . Dad was at work.

I was here writing in you.

Then I heard the news.

People were turning into monsters.

The monsters were at the mall. Mom was there .

I wanted to go...but I'm scared.

I'll wait for them.

Then I'll go out.

Wish me luck

M.

*******************

Lesley frowned at the page he had just read and looked around the bedroom. Outside it was midafternoon and the sun blasted a wave of heat across the city . The stale and mouldy smell got worse as a result but after nearly two weeks of living there , Lesley had gotten used to the stench.

He was still in the apartment and he hadn't left . It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to , but more like he couldn't.

The zombies would not allow it .

He'd woken up in the morning, feeling numb and cold inside. He'd cried all night about Ricky and his fear of becoming a zombie. But after not turning into one yet, he was just going to hope it was a miracle.

Anything else was too scary too think about and he was not in the right headspace.

After a few minutes he had decided to go back to the citadel, maybe he could call Martin. He hadn't know if it would help but he just wanted to try again.

Unfortunately when he went into the corridor there had been a group of zombies waiting for him. The moment they'd seem him , they'd pounced and he'd been overwhelmed.

But they did not bite him or eat him.

Instead they grabbed his arms and legs , lifted him up and threw him back into the apartment. Lesley's confusion had reached new heights and he had tried to escape again to see what would happen.

Obviously he been thrown back into the apartment.

So Lesley had been stuck , unable to leave . He'd even thought about jumping through the kitchen window but it was pointless with the zombie horde down below.

That left him little options but to wander the apartment some more. He'd gone into the bedroom, noticed the pile of clothes , bones and the skull. Using the clothes ,he'd removed them and placed them under the bed , out of sight.

Afterwards , he'd tried to remove the shards of glass from the broken mirror. It was the first time he saw the thing and he wondered where it came from. Cleaning up the glass shards took about thirty minutes , because Lesley did not want to leave even a single one behind on the carpeted floor.

By early afternoon the temperature had risen up and Lesley had taken off a layer of his squad uniform. The squad uniform consisted of black and red lined trousers , a dark blue shirt and coat . The coat had red lines on the collar and red crosses on the cuffs, buttons and breast pocket . On his feet were black combat boots . He took off the coat and worked with it tied around his waist .

Afterwards, he'd tried to clean up the living room but only managed to flip the sofa over onto its right side. That's when he'd seen a large blood stain on the backrest. As if someone had been slashed across their back and told to sit. It was then that Lesley decided to take a break and layed back on the bed.

Then he noticed the brown book .

All the time he was cleaning up the glass and bones , he'd forgotten about the object he'd come into contact last night. Finally, in day light , he could get a better look at it. It had strange doodling on the cover that looked like amateur art.

He'd opened the first page and then seen nothing there but a giant ' M '. Flipping over to the next page he'd seen a piece of poetry that really surprised him. He couldn't remember last time he'd seen poetry on paper instead of on digital material. The poem was as follows;

#I fear a kiss, tis the kiss of a bee.

I suffer like this, I awake endlessly.

You fear a kiss, like you fear me.#

It was relatively short but to Lesley it was actually pretty nice. There was a deep emotion in the words that even he could feel. Flipping again he'd seen a date and then a few words. Deciding that this was a diary , he'd decided to read it.

Not because he wanted pry into someone's privacy on purpose but because he was bored. He needed something to do before he died from hunger or went insane from isolation.

Yes , Lesley knew he was alone. The zombie would have been back by then if he was coming back. Since he had not returned, Lesley assumed he was gone for good.

That meant he was trapped in a dirty old apartment with a pile of bones under a bed and a blood soaked sofa. Not to mention the Legion of zombies preventing him from leaving. So,yep , Lesley was at rock bottom. That meant he had good reason to read the diary.

Also because he wanted to read into someone's privacy.