Dec. 28, 2009

Dec. 28, 2009

The sun hurts when you haven't seen it in a week.

Bruno warned me against going right out, and he was right. I thought nothing of it and barged right out when we were ready.

I nearly went snowblind--it was stupid of me.

When the zombies caught wind of my presence, they swarmed me almost immediately. Bruno and Diana weren't far behind, and thankfully Bruno shoved me out of the way in time, nearly getting himself bitten in the process. He kicked the nearest zombie down, then shot it in the head.

"Be careful, please," he said, a strange tone in his voice. "I don't want to lose you, too." I stood there in stunned silence for a moment. It wasn't the best way to start a day.

These little warnings tend to wake you up, however, and awake I was from then on.

Thankfully, we didn't have any more run-ins for awhile. The clouds gradually covered the sun, and a light snow started falling. It was at that moment, just as we were entering a small community called Germantown, that we heard some noise that wasn't the moan of a zombie.

"Do you hear that?" Bruno asked, frowning.

"A puppy!" Diana said with glee. "Let's go find him!" Bruno and I exchanged a look, then mutually shrugged. What harm could be done? We agreed to find the dog.

It didn't take long. After some whistling and calling, the dog actually came to find us. I have never seen a happier dog in my life. From down the road, we saw him: a large dog that looked like it was part-husky trotting toward us. He looked thin, but he picked up his pace upon seeing us standing there. Diana

cheered and called loudly to him, and he rushed over.

The first thing we noticed was a red leather collar around his neck, and I checked the tag. "Micky", it said.

"Micky?" I cooed to him. He barked and wagged his tail, then started to lick my hands.

"He looks so hungry," Diana said. "Don't we have anything we could feed him?"

"I grabbed a few cans of tuna back at the pharmacy," Bruno said, reaching back into his pack to dig around. Diana made an odd sound from behind her face mask.

"Dogs don't eat fish!" she said, flabberghasted.

"Fish is actually pretty good for dogs," Bruno replied. "Besides, he's starving. Even if he doesn't like fish I'm sure he'll eat it." He pulled the tin out and twisted it open, and sure enough, Micky got very excited.

"Maybe we should find a place to set up camp," I suggested. Bruno shook his head.

"We have to keep moving. We've only been walking an hour. This will be the shortest stop we make today before we set up camp." He placed the tin on the ground and within mere seconds, Micky had devoured its contents and was wagging his tail, looking for more. Bruno chuckled, and he filled the tin with water from a bottle.

Not long after Micky had drunk his fill, we were on our way. Diana held tightly onto Micky's collar, but he very clearly was not leaving our side. I don't know how he managed to survive this long, but he was very happy to be with human company.

After our week of rest, we were able to walk quite a distance before the sun started to set. By that point, we were all hungry, including Micky, who whined as he sniffed at Bruno's hands.

"We'll break into the next house we come across," he said. "We'll reach Alma by tomorrow."

After another ten minutes of walking, we rounded a corner in the road and saw a house right there. It looked abandoned; there wasn't even a car in the driveway.

"They must have left town while the getting was good," I said sadly.

"Maybe they were just out that day," Bruno said with a shrug. "Come on." We moved to the door and Bruno broke it down with a few practiced shoulder checks.

I'm excited about getting to Alma tomorrow so we can get out of here. I really, really hope Newfoundland is safe. Micky's lying down with Diana right now. It looks like they've made friends really fast! We're all trying to rest up so we can push the final few miles to Alma. We saw a sign that said we were getting

nearby; I guess we're at a place called New Horton right now. Time for bed.