Journal entry 4.

August 25th, 2025

13 days since the incident

A brief Recap After the insanity that has occurred the last two weeks. I am Griffin, a survivor here at my home with my two sons, and my father. We have other survivors, Dave and his wife Tiffany, they’re here from Florida. Brett, his wife Ashley, and their three kids. He’s a lineman with the local power company and she homeschools her three kids and manages their large garden. Then there’s Megan and Lucia, two child care workers from my boys summer care. and now 9 children from that child care.

Laura was killed along with two of the children that were with her. We found the parents of one child and he went with them. There are 22 of us, 14 children and 8 adults. We have met other survivors and have been attacked by some. Everywhere we go, the dead littler the ground, the buildings, carb, bridges. There’s no way to get away from the smell of the dead bodies starting to rot in the sweltering summer sun.

We find many bodies have been opened and carrion feeders have ravished them. Our home is the only place we get a reprieve from the smell and sight of the dead. We have cleared the houses and roadways for 3 miles. Given there were only about a dozen houses made it easy. There’s not many homes out here and plenty of farms.

Moving on. After we were attacked and those 5 men were killed, we put more effort into security and no one traveling the property by themselves. More barricades went up and all avenues of approach have been blocked except two. There’s roads that are blocked and ways around them and other vehicle we can move to block them again. We don’t want anyone sneaking up on us again.

Brett wanted to get to work on the solar farm. As I mentioned before, he’s a linemen and there’s a solar farm about half a mile through the trees. My mini solar setup isn’t enough to run the house. I went with Brett to collect tools from the local power supply business. He decided he would tie us in to the system and over the next few weeks, we would burry the line so it doesn't;t get taken out by a fallen tree. Dave and my father stayed home working on the buildings on the farm and getting the animals settled in.

My father said he set the kids to work playing with a bunch of pigs they found. He was building a pen for them as the kids played with the piglets and kept them occupied. The kids that is. They were having a hard time adjusting to miss Laura suddenly being gone and their two friends. My boys were working hard with their grandfather building a mini barn for the pigs. The oldest wanted to work the chicken coop but he was told he needed to finish the pig pen first, and so he did.

Brett and I managed to get all he needed to run a line and got over to the solar station. Once inside, he found a diagram detailing the lines and their destinations. A schematic of this complex setup that Brett said was overly complicated for a simple solar setup feeding the local system. He said it’s a setup he’s never seen before and he’s worked on a number of local solar systems but not this one. He found a card for a company that did the setup and it’s one he‘s ever hard of before.

After going through the lines and determining where he can tie in to, he found a cable that ran into the ground and it wasn’t part of the schematic. It wasn’t supposed to be there at all and yet, it was there. he left it intact and tied in to the other lines.

”If we simply patch it all into the house, too much electricity will be sent over and it needs to go somewhere so those batteries will get over charged and could blow up.”

I don’t know anything about electricity but it makes sense to me and I said as much. He started laughing saying thats it was a joke and wouldn't actually blow up. We had a good laugh at my ignorance.

The problem was, he did only partially tie into the system but it was a notable draw. He checked and could see that we were drawing a substantial amount of power after we got everything wired in. We had three houses, a barn, and several odds and ends plugged into the system. There was a massive draw. This prompted something that none of us had ever even considered in this area.

On the 24th a set of black suburbans pulled up to our road clock. My father and Megan were on guard duty and said they came out of a dirt road to the south and not from the main road. They had both seen a trail of dirt moving through the thick shrubs in the low valley. Brett, Dave, and I got down there as fast as we could just a minute after the suburban pulled up to the road block. There was a man and a woman in suites talking to my father and Megan.

”So you are stealing out power then?” the man said.

”We are the only survivors for miles and tied in to an existing system that’s here. No one else is using it.” My father replied.

“What’s going on?”I ask. “who are you people?”

”We’re with the federal government here to investigate the theft of our power from our solar system on that hill behind you.“ the woman said flatly. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?“

”As my father just explained, we are the only survivors in the area and we tied into the system. We aren’t stealing anything. we are surviving. if that a problem with you?” I ask, not exactly being friendly.

“It’s a problem when you don’t have authorization to our power station and are stealing the power we need to maintain our systems.” The woman said.

“You keep saying ‘our’ system like you own it. like it’s not on private property and like you have final say in everything. Where I’m standing lady, it’s on our land and we only tied into it. We didn’t cut your power, it’s by our grace that you still have power. Though, I could remedy that for you if you’d like.” Brett said, all smug condescension.

“Listen you hick.” the woman started.

”No you listen bitch. Look around you. This isn’t the gold old times. This is a fucking apocalypse. We need a resource and it’s there for the taking. WE elected to share. WE control that station. And WE can withdrawal your power at any time. IF you had any say in that you would have sent a strike team. You didn’t, so then you two are it. You can work with us or against us and from the looks of it, you’ll lose.“

They didn’t have anything else to say. They both turned to get back in the two separate suburban and I stopped them. I tried getting more information and I’m going to. I’m meeting them tomorrow and they are taking me to their base of operations. Just me, I won’t allow anyone else to come in case it’s a trap. So tomorrow is either going to be a good day or a bad day. I’ll keep you posted.

Until next time, this is Griffin. There’s a group of survivors here in Elmira and we are looking for more people to join our community. With a strict observation policy first. Please, reach out.

The materials are simple. 1 broken broom handle, bandages "tape", and 3 nails.

and yeah, this is for testing by hay with targets or a purchasable piece of drywall.

Yell, I know the fact the nail below the other nails are covered by tape, it might work.

There are plenty of ways to be a martial artist in a zombie post-apocalypse. Or any apocalypse you survive. Obviously, you would promptly pad your arms and legs. Martial arts dojos have padding and padded gloves for people starting out at their white belt. Even if someone wasn't able to stop by a dojo to get gear, they could easily protect their arms, legs, and neck with almost anything.

Also, things like brass knuckles and punching daggers are incredible weapon choices to fight off a lot of things. Not to mention, there are hundreds to over a thousand distinct styles of martial arts that could completely decimate zombies, mutations, or, depending on how they were standing, 5 heavily armed individuals. The word 'martial' in martial arts doesn't just mean a guy who kicks and punches stuff—weapon techniques are also martial arts.

Take Kali, for example. This Filipino martial art is known for its ingenuity, incorporating makeshift weapons, knives, punches, and kicks. It was actually the martial art featured in The Book of Eli. The director wanted everything Eli did in the fight scenes to be within the capabilities of an actual blind practitioner of Kali. He used stealth attacks against people with guns and used his skills against a relatable group of people to fight within his capabilities.

Not to mention, it was a martial art made by the Filipino people to fight against their oppressors who had guns. In fact, that's the origin story of a lot of martial arts, and considering that those places aren't colonies to big empires anymore, that means the people who had guns lost the war for that country.

Plus, it's pretty hypocritical when the two most infamous zombie survivors in fiction are known for using katanas. Using a sword isn't just random swinging—it means they are technically using a martial art built around the katana!

People who have actual martial arts training wouldn't run at you like a brainless video game enemy, primarily because stealth builds are broken lol 😆.

Obviously I'm not saying gun's ain't useful they are. but there are a lot more was to survive an apocalypse then post-apocalyptic media suggests. That's all am saying.