Dear Journal,

Scouting was a bust today - we didn’t find anything we could use for food, but honestly, I think the grocery store that we already raided was the major store around here that sold more than just the occasional snacks, so I guess that shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. There were other grocery stores in town, obviously, but most of the time when we went to those in the past, we drove to them. With having to walk, they’d probably take all day to get to, and then we’d have to probably stay the night there. Not that there’s that much danger in that, but oh my god, everything’s got to be so haunted!

I was telling my mom, what would really help with scouting would be a bicycle! It might be a bit hard to get around the corpses, but if we could find a really good shovel, it could be Jared’s job to get the roads clear, because then he could be out of the shop and not bugging me. Otherwise, we could totally just go on the grass - for some reason, people in their last moments were still listening to the “don’t walk on the grass” rule, which doesn’t make sense to me, but I guess I didn’t really do any law breaking either. But that was mostly because my mom was right there, and it’s not like I could break the law while she was standing there, could I??

Speaking of my mom, she has taken this whole apocalypse thing to the next level. Like I said, she’s been obsessed with making sure we have enough food and water and stuff, which I guess is probably a good think to be obsessed about if you think about it. But besides that, since she was the owner of the coffee shop where we’re all staying, basically everyone is looking to her to lead our group. I say “basically” everyone, because when Ben first got here, he sure didn’t want to listen to anything my mom said. In fact, he didn’t want anything to do with the rest of us. He just kind of sat in the corner and scrolled on his phone, which was pointless because while the electricity is still working fine, none of my apps are working. Trust me, it’s the first thing I tried, and I can’t even get a google search to pull up! So I don’t know if his somehow loaded when mine wasn’t (which I doubt, plus it’s not like someone was actually posting anything anyway, so it’d probably be really boring to look at) or if he was just scrolling through photos or something.

Slowly, though, he’s been starting to come out of his shell a bit more. He still doesn’t listen to my mom when she gives out the list of chores for everyone to do, but to be fair, I also don’t listen to her very much, either. I just don’t get why we are worried about whether the floor is swept anymore - like, are we waiting for customers to come in, and they might judge the state of the shop? And if so, if I was a customer, I’d be more worried about the piles of flour bags and other random stuff that we have compiled to make pillows for our sleeping area more than how the floor looks. My mom said that we need to sweep to keep the contaminants from outside from coming into the coffee shop, but if we’re outside and then come into the coffee shop, aren’t all the contaminants already on us? And it’s not like we’ve got one of those weird shower things that we always had in the science lab in high school, and even if we did, I highly doubt that my mom would be willing to waste our water by letting us shower in it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That is probably the grossest thing about the end of the world so far, by the way. For the first little bit, the showers still were going, even if they were too cold to actually be nice. But since then, since we’re trying to conserve water, we’ve basically all had to resort to sponge bathing, and that’s just not something that can get a girl really clean, you know?? My hair is like the greasiest it’s ever been, and there’s nothing I can do about it! Hopefully, on one of these scouting missions, I can at least find some dry shampoo or something - it’s not a perfect solution, obviously, but it’s better than it is right now, which is fucking gross.

But anyway, like I was saying, Ben has been starting to come out of his shell a little more. Not so much with my mom, who I’m pretty sure he hates, but he’s talked to me and Jared a few times! He’s even chatted with Hattie! Not so much with Mr. Williams, but I can’t blame him too much for that - even before the end of the world, Mr. Williams was never really that chatty, and I don’t think our current situation has really helped him too much. But that’s okay - sometimes it’s nice to be with someone who is happy to listen to me instead of trying to talk over me, like my mom or Jared do.

Speaking of, my mom, like I said, is going super over the top with this whole apocalypse stuff. Like, aside from keeping track of all the food which I kind of get, she’s also been like super weird about the whole probably being the last people on Earth thing. Like, have you ever seen Mad Max? I swear my mom thinks she’s a character in that, which is ridiculous because none of us even know how to make a car run, and we’ve got plenty of water for now. Although once our bottled water runs out, maybe we’ll have to get in a serious road race to get some more. I kid, obviously, but I don’t think my mom knows that.

Like, I always thought of my mom as this super up-tight, serious, mom sort of businesswoman, right? And she’s still like that in a way. At least in the mom way, I guess I should say. She’s definitely still acting like my mom, which is great, because if she wasn’t, I think we’d all be in way bigger trouble than we are right now. But in terms of acting like a business woman, that part has gone straight out the window. Not that she really has anyone who can go to her business anyway, other than the people who are already living in the coffee shop with us, and it’s not like they’re really paying anything, so maybe that’s why she’s not acting that way anymore. But even if that explains it, it still feels super weird to me.

Like a couple days ago, we were out looking for anything that might be worthwhile taking back to the coffee shop, and my mom apparently found a bike helmet. I really hope she didn’t pick up off a dead body because that would be so ridiculously gross, but with the way she’s worried about supplies and stuff, I honestly wouldn’t be all that surprised by that! But anyway, she wandered away from Jared and I for a minute, and when she came back, she had the bike helmet strapped to her head! It was such a stupid look that Jared and I both started laughing at her, but she acted like she didn’t even notice and then just kept searching for stuff with us. But the craziest thing is that she still hasn’t taken it off! I don’t know if she’s worried about some of the building that we go into breaking down or what, but so far, even though they’re all charred and stuff, they’ve been plenty sturdy. I don’t know, but it’s super weird. I miss who my mom used to be.

I know there’s still a little room left, journal, but talking about this is making me all sad, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Love,

Kayla