Wanderer (Book 1): Wanderer

some divorcee who was looking to get rid of everything her husband had acquired over the years. We could have bought a new Porsche too, but mom didn’t think it was necessary. I respectfully disagreed.
For a few months I left the lid open trying to collect as much water as I could, clearing the leaves and other large pieces of debris that had fallen in there.
Once the rain came it filled up in just a few days. The virus didn’t appear to affect water supplies and lucky for me it moved fast enough that we didn’t have time to poison our own water supplies. I still didn’t take any chances. I dropped water purification tablets in every few months.
I really didn’t know how much to put in and it may have been too much, but I’m no survivalist.
During the summer time the water gets a little low and we have to ration it a little more carefully. When the rains come in I set up buckets around the backyard to collect whatever water I can, then I dump them in the hot tub.
The rainy season also means that we get to bathe more often. It’s cold and Mandy will smell like wet dog for a few days, but it’s better than the alternative.
I also had a trash can filled with water set up on the side of the house that I use for washing clothes and dishes and whatever else might need to be cleaned. I also use that to fill the toilet tank with water after I flush it. Thank God toilets require no electricity. If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down. Hopefully we don’t have a septic tank.

Entry 6
This morning after breakfast, boiled potatoes from the garden, I cleaned up and took Mandy out back to get her exercise. While I can clean the house or do some push-ups, Mandy has no way of getting her pent up energy out. The fairway to hole number 11 ran directly behind us so every morning I would take her out there to play.
She used to bark at the golfers through the chain link fence back when they would play through. She doesn’t see much on the golf course now.
To help camouflage the house I let the bushes, trees, and grass grow up and around the perimeter fence. I don’t trim them so it blends in to the other houses around it. You would have to see my house from the air to see any resemblance of a lived in home.
She waited patiently while I unlocked the gate, although the speed of her tail wagging back and forth told me she couldn’t wait to get out there.
Once I had the lock off, she pushed her way through and commenced her normal routine. Nothing to it really, run full speed up one way and full speed back the other.  I just watched her from the top of the lip that led down into the half pipe shaped fairway, drinking a hot cup of cocoa. She would probably do it all day if I would let her.
Today I decided to take the trash out while she exercised. I didn’t spot any threats, as usual, so I grabbed the three trash bags I had stored on the side of the house and dragged them down to the trash pit. The pit was a sand trap about a thousand feet north-west of the house. You had to cross the main street under a cart tunnel to get to it. Whenever I let Mandy out, I usually took the trash down there.
It looked like the coyotes had been digging through here again. I tossed the bags in and I headed back. It took me about fifteen minutes and she was still at it when I got back.
I noticed something at the corner of the south edge of the perimeter fence. I could see a pile of leaves and sticks scattered in front of the fence. They had come from the foliage that camouflaged the house, but there was something strange about them. They had been torn from their chain link jungle gym and so had the fence. Strings of flesh and blood hung from the exposed edges of the chain link.
At first I thought it might be one of them, but I hadn’t seen one in about eighteen months. They had pretty much disappeared. It was like they were following some sort of food source.
That only left the coyotes trying to get at the garden. They used to dig their way under, but I buried a two-by-four in the dirt at the base of the fence so now it looks like they’re trying other means. The little vermin are lucky I wasn’t here with my bow.
The fence will need to be fixed before night comes. I decided to leave Mandy to her business while I gathered my tools from the garage.
I’m back out in no time and start in on the fence. It took me longer than I thought and it was late afternoon by the time I finished. I was so involved in what I was I doing I didn’t even notice that the rapid thump-thump of Mandy’s paws on the fairway had stopped. It didn’t occur to me until later that she could go missing.
I finished bagging the last of my tools when I heard it. A sound I had not heard in person in several years. One that caused me to pull out my .45 caliber 1911 pistol I carried on my hip and point it toward the source of the noise.
Hello. A friendly enough greeting, sure, but as of late all words have become a source of danger.
Hello. Again it sounded. My pistol floated around the surrounding trees and bushes that lined the fairway searching for the source of the noise.
Then it came once more as a lightning fast flash of red flooded my vision to my right.
Hello. As I stumbled to recover from the