July 2, 2023
Dear Journal,
We began searching Whitfield at dawn.
The town is ghostly—frozen in time, as if it gave up and never looked back. Half the buildings are either scorched or sunken into themselves, windows blown out, doors hanging loose like snapped limbs. The roads are fractured, weeds breaking through the asphalt like nature's revenge.
We moved as a unit. Naomi took point. I covered the rear. Marcus handled the map. Nora stayed behind in the hardware store with the baby—still too weak to risk exposure. We left her with a hammer, two knives, and the flare gun. It wasn't enough, but it was all we had.
Our first stop was a small grocery store three blocks down. "Gilda's Market" the sign read—letters faded but still intact. Inside, the air was musty, thick with the rot of old produce and mold. Most of the shelves had been looted. Anything left had either expired or been torn apart by animals.
But we found something.
In the back, behind a toppled shelf, Marcus spotted a metal trapdoor.
A basement.
It took the three of us to pry it open. The hinges screamed, and the darkness beneath yawned like a mouth waiting to swallow us whole.
We went down anyway.
Flashlights in hand, we descended into the dark.
The basement was cold. Dry. Rows of preserved goods lined makeshift shelves—cans, water bottles, sealed emergency rations. A survivalist's hoard.
Naomi whistled low. "Jackpot."
We packed as much as we could carry—beans, corn, powdered milk, iodine tablets, instant coffee, even a crate of vacuum-sealed protein bars. Enough to last us a couple of weeks if we stretched it right.
Then we saw the mattress.
Worn, bloodstained. Someone had been living down here. For a while.
There were drawings on the walls. Dozens of them.
Faces.
Smiling, crying, screaming.
All drawn in red. Not ink. Not paint.
Blood.
We left quickly.
The second building we searched was a pharmacy. The front had collapsed, but the back rooms were intact. Most of the pills were gone, but we found some antibiotics, gauze, antiseptics, and baby fever reducer. Nora will be relieved.
We kept moving.
Naomi said she wanted to check one more place. "A house. Two streets over. Used to be a safehouse for hikers. Might be supplies left behind."
I was hesitant. Marcus too. But Naomi insisted. Something about it "not feeling finished."
That's when we came to Redwater Lane.
It's a narrow road flanked by thick oaks, all leaning like they're whispering secrets to one another. Half the street is flooded—hence the name, I guess. The house stood at the very end, gray and brittle, but upright.
The front door was ajar.
Inside, it smelled of damp wood and mildew. Faded photographs still hung on the walls—families long gone. A broken clock ticked faintly from the living room. The second hand twitched but never moved forward.
We found signs of recent activity: muddy footprints on the stairs, a still-warm cup of something in the kitchen, a bloody bandage in the sink.
Someone had been here.
Maybe still was.
Naomi motioned for silence. We split up.
I searched the ground floor, sweeping each room with my flashlight. Marcus took the basement. Naomi went upstairs.
I found nothing but decay.
A child's room with drawings still taped to the walls. A moldy dining table with a single overturned chair. An old radio with a cracked dial. Dead silence.
Then I heard Naomi call out.
A single word: "Here."
I ran upstairs. She was standing in the hallway, staring at a half-open door. She looked pale, jaw tight.
Inside the room, on the bed, was a man.
Dead.
Long dead. Mummified, almost. He had a revolver in his hand and a hole through his skull.
But that's not what froze us.
It was what was written on the walls around him.
Words scrawled in charcoal or soot—again and again:
"They come at night.
They whisper through the walls.
They wear your skin."
Over and over. Hundreds of times.
And carved into the doorframe:
"THE WATCHERS ARE REAL."
Marcus came up then, pale and out of breath. "We need to go. Now."
He didn't explain. He didn't have to.
Back at the hardware store, we told Nora what we'd seen. She listened, holding the baby close, her knuckles white.
And then she told us something else.
While we were gone, someone had tried the back door.
She hadn't seen them. But she'd heard the handle jiggle. Slow. Careful.
And then… the softest knock.
No words. No footsteps walking away.
Just a knock.
And then silence.
Naomi checked the traps. Two of them had been moved—deliberately.
Someone is toying with us.
Not just watching.
Testing.
We're being hunted. Not by the infected, but by something worse.
Something patient.
Tonight, we sleep in shifts. Lights off. Doors barred. Weapons close.
I don't know what's coming next.
But I know we're not alone in this town.
And I know we're not safe.
Yours in fear,
J.K.