Lyssa and I packed up our stuff and set out around 1100 EST5EDT on Saturday morning in the general direction of Rockville to Laurelinde’s place, where we picked up Cate and Tori (after a cup of coffee, of course, following a rather rude surprise early that day) for an afternoon in Maryland. We set off toward College Park for lunch at Plato’s Diner because it happened to be within spitting distance of our eventual destination. Tori was turning sixteen and as her gift we’d all chipped in to get her ears re-pierced at Curious Tattoo on the …

About four hours ago the few of us in NOVA who weren't utterly under seige by the zombies managed to make a break for the minivan in the parking lot. I ignited one of the thermite charges we'd constructed with a blowtorch and used it to blow the gas tank of an abandoned Volkswagon Beetle down the block by hurling it with an improvised atlatl. After the blast took out most of the pack that had piled up outside of the building one of the others in the apartment unlocked the doors and started the engine via her remote control …

It's getting worse out there - the building that Lyssa works in has been sealed by the US military to keep the invading forces out. They've got a small stockpile of supplies, but the facility is running on backup power. Environment control will probably be turned off soon, if it hasn't been already.

I'm going to try to fight my way over to that abandoned minivan in the parking lot, fortify it however I can, and do two things: I'm going to make for Hasufin's place to get those texts he mentioned, along with his research, and I'm going to try …

I don't know how much time I have to write this.. I can hear them outside, pounding against the brick and steel. The staircase of my apartment building rings with shambing footsteps and the sound of.. things.. hitting the floor and bouncing downward. The sick little child inside me wonders if they're rotting body parts coming loose. The wards I've spun around the doors and windows will hold, at least for now. A hastily constructed reactor supplies sufficient power to keep them out, but it's fragile. My neighbors, mostly religious folks, are wondering what all of the glyphs and Hebrew …