I’m not sure how many days we’d been walking. Could be as little as ten, could be a month. The days and nights all seem to blend together now. Chance seems to have a system, he says it’s late September – having nothing else to go on, I believe him.

When we stumbled onto the outskirts of Roseward, it looked like every other town we’d come across so far. Desolate. Destroyed. Dead. Rebecca thought it was a good sign that we hadn’t run across any walkers in the last few days. I just saw it as luck of the draw – they were out there, we all knew it. I don’t believe in good signs any more.

We found our way warily to what must have been downtown. I tried as hard as I could to imagine it filled with people and cars, like life used to be. Diners full of happy people eating cherry pie and sipping on an icy cold Coke – God what I wouldn’t do for a Diet Coke right about now.

The buildings were all in ruins. Walls torn down, fire damage – you name it, and like every other town we’d found, everything was overgrown with weeds and grass. It was hard to imagine what it must have looked like a few years ago.

At first we thought Roseward was a bust – all the stores were ransacked, and none of the houses looked safe or inhabitable. Chance told us to keep walking, so we did. We did everything he said – he’d kept us alive this long, right?

Once we got past the city and made our way into the more rural areas, that’s when we saw the houses. Deserted, but still standing. Sure they were overgrown with weeds and grass as tall as I am – but that was nothing compared to the idea of four walls and a roof.

Chance was cautious, but hopeful. He counted to three before opening the front door, making a safety sweep of the living room before ushering us all in. Rebecca was afraid, but then again, she was always afraid. But Chance and Davis checked every room thoroughly and declared it free of humans or otherwise.

It’s still weird going into people’s houses. Sad actually. You look at their furniture, the pictures on their walls and you know they’re gone. Dead. Possibly undead. Either way, it’s strange and I always have to flip the pictures over before I feel comfortable.

Chance and Davis found fishing rods in the shed – I prayed there was something edible in that little pond out front. Between the four of us we had two apples and a granola bar from our last run. Rebecca and I discovered a garden space in the back. Most of the plants were lifeless, the smell of rotten potatoes was overwhelming – but there was some life back there. Me with my green thumb, I knew I could make it something. I’d been collecting seeds from the food we’d find – I just hoped that this late into fall I could get a few crops going.

Turns out that little pond was stocked with fish. We feasted that night, all of us around the fire, licking our fingers when the fish was gone. I hadn’t been so full in longer than I could remember. Maybe Roseward would be good to us after all……..