Brianna

Well, diary, I have failed you. It is all under good circumstances, however.

The little tan Toyota that I followed into the city, hoping there was some human out there besides me without which the virus had taken over, had turned into a parking garage somewhere in the middle of Indianapolis. I had followed it, all the while wondering why a car was going into a parking garage after a zombie apocolypse. There is no building worth visiting or going into any longer when your first thought is of survival.

My heart raced as I caught up to the car on the second level. Out of the corner of my eye, two zombies were shuffling around at the door that led from the parking garage to the nearest office building. The sight of them would have been humorous if it had not been serious; one of the zombies had been a young, 30s-ish business man, and was still in its business suit, although its briefcase was dropped and scattered a few feet away. Its shirt was stained red, and I noticed it was hungry enough to have started consuming its own arm. The other zombie, once a middle-aged woman in women's business attire, shuffled around, then over to the first zombie. She lifted up her fists and hit the other in the chest, almost just to irritate him. The man zombie hissed out an annoyed, animalistic cry, then swung his arm, hitting the other in the head.

Another zombie fight apparently was in the works. So far I had figured out that zombies were dumb creatures that held no rememberence of their past intelligence as humans, creatures that acted on instinct and survival only, not on emotion or thought. Seeing the zombies fight, I wondered if the woman zombie had only started bothering the other to really annoy him. Wouldn't that mean that zombies did have some sort of thought? You have to want to annoy someone to think of an action with which to do it, do you not?

Why bother understanding? Suddenly grateful for the distraction, I grabbed the axe I had acquired at the farm yesterday and slowly, delicately, got out of my vehicle. I breathed a sigh of relief as the two fighting zombies paid the motion no heed, grunting and hitting one another, even throwing in the occasional kick.

I walked slowly up to the driver's side of the vehicle. I knew in my head and heart that the driver was human, but the axe still shook at my side. I saw a blonde ponytail through the windows of the car as I neared the driver's side window. Finally looking into it, a pair of crystal blue eyes met my own, her fingers grasping onto the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. Rolling down the window just an inch or two, the woman's eyes didn't leave mine as she asked the most simple and most important question she could.

"Are you human?"

"I am," I had replied. "I've been hoping you were. I've been following you--"

"I know," she interrupted. "Were you wanting to join forces?"

Her words sounded official: join forces. In reality, we would simply travel together, have another person there with us to save our sanity, and have extra weapons. I couldn't deny that I needed another person--true person--around. I had been talking to myself through verbal words and through you, diary, for the past few days only.

"You're the first actual person I've seen in a few days. I think it'd be safest to group together. I'll share my supplies with you."

"Do you have food?" She asked, and that particular question made me pay attention to the young woman's sunken in cheeks.

"Yes. Lots of it, actually. When's the last time you ate?"

"I was at lunch when it hit. That's the last time."

"Why in the world didn't you stop somewhere and get food?" I was vaguely aware of the zombie fight ending over near the stairwell. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the man had won, and was currently grabbing at the other, fallen zombie's arm. I then made sure not to be aware of what he was doing.

"I..." she trailed off, and she glanced over to where she had seen my eyes. "Oh God...can we finish this conversation somewhere else?"

"Leave your car. Let's use my truck. I have all the food and supplies in the back."

Minutes later we were in my truck, back out on the streets of Indianapolis. The woman was eating straight bread out of a bread bag that I had taken from a gas station just a day or two ago. She had eaten almost half the bag of bread by the time I asked her the question we had left our conversation at.

"Why haven't you eaten?"

"I had no food with me."

"Stores and groceries and gas stations and restaurants are all full of food," I replied.

"Yes, but to take food from them would be stealing."

Her response might have seemed silly, but I agreed with her. The morals one grows up with doesn't change once a world shattering event like this zombie apocolypse happens. Even when you are focused on survival, like I was when taking the bread (among other things such as cans of vegetables, drinks, and other foods), you still wonder if things will ever be the same. If the world returns to normal, will I remember which places I took supplies from? Will I be able to make them whole for it? Will it even matter?

The woman's name, I found out later last night, is Brianna. She is from a community not far from my own. She said she was at lunch when the infection hit. She had taken her younger brother out for lunch for his twenty-second birthday. At this point in the story she always starts sobbing, and I have to simply imagine the way her brother died. I don't make her go on, because if she killed her own brother, she's already dealing with the immense guilt.

Brianna has taught me something I haven't yet figured out. The infection hasn't just affected humans; animals, too, are turning into thoughtless and evil creatures. She told me that most small animals were simply killed when it hit, and that I know. The endless corpses of birds litter the streets no matter where you drive.

It is this fact that she taught me that leaves me with a bit of hopelessness. Even animals are affected, and that simply adds to the enormous stress of the situation. I have to admit, though, that this information gives me strength in only the way that I can share it with another person.