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Reviews: Please and Thank you. As many have said, it means a lot, not only to my ego, but it truly helps me improve my writing skills. And at the moment, I am entering a different spectrum in the story, and therefore it has changed my writing style a bit, and am eager to hear your opinions and advice.

A/N: Hello readers, I hope everyone had a great christmas and HAPPY New Year. I came home from university for the break, and worked the majority. In my spare time I did write this chapter, sorry it took this long for an update, but this have been busy with exams, then family stuff, then the Internet decided not to grace me with a steady connection for like...a week. Enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Chapter 48

Later in the morning, Thor, Dave, Rachel and I all piled outside into the chilly mountain air to better inspect our new home. Joe stayed inside, his injury preventing him from any unneeded movement. And this opportunity gives me the ideal opening to tell you about the layout of our home, or at least give you a before and after tour as it were,

The back of the compound spans a good twenty meters or so before tapering down a rocky incline, basically like a gently sloping cliff. Back then it was only churned up earth and a scrap heap. Now we have turned it into a thriving vegetable garden, with compost bins bordering the house, which we use for fertilizer. Unfortunately the backside of the buildings are encrusted with ground level windows. We realized the negative implications of this just four days into our stay. After this we would be enforcing them with wooden boards, as on that day one caught us by surprise. It was a single zombie that made it up to our haven, severely shaking our fleeting feeling of safety. It had come up on Rachel as she was dumping a bag of garbage out the kitchen door. She managed to huck the bag at it and slam the door shut. It was cracking the glass of the doors window with it's bare hands before Joe had been able to put it down. I have no idea what would have happened if Joe hadn't been there with his hunting knife, their guns were in the rec room. And the rest of us were away, a half a day down the trail, jump starting the abandoned forestry service truck we came across on the first day up the trail. Believe me when I say that nowadays, every man, woman, and child carrys some sort of protection with them at all times.

It wasn't until we started reporting our location on the CB and later, the Internet that Bill, along with his sister and her husband made it up to us around two weeks later that he solved the problem. Ben, as I have mentioned previously was retired army, we always joked that he was here to keep Kirren in line, Kirren would only grumble, it must be a Canadian army versus American army thing. But anyways, I am getting off track. In his retirement Bill had finally acted on a lifelong hobby of is, metal work. And soon after his arrival he fitted every window with sheet mail enforced covers that only have to be swung and locked into place. Ingenious and made with only a power drill and a few scraps of metal from the construction.

Moving on...The two construction portables that sat at the entrance section of the property were moved about a half a year ago. They were moved so they were closer to the main building, for protection of course. Thanks to Todd's semi-trailer, they now serve as improvised dormitories. We managed to squeeze about ten beds in each. Most of the single people live there for the moment, letting the families and couples share the rooms in the main complex, and in the garages that we separated into small rooms. Our ultimate goal is to get everyone into a building with real rooms, but at the moment we are filled to capacity and more then a little bit uncomfortable.

We have close to forty people living in the Sanctuary, and we are always looking for places to expand into. In fact, for the last year Thor, Dave, and a work team for have been in the midst of constructing another building, originally we hoped to include another kitchen inside, but that was a pipe dream. Now, we can only hope it will be completed at all as we now depend on whatever building materials we can scavenge, and it is hard to find unrusted supplies lately, such as metal beams. We simply added on to the existing foundations that the construction crew had just begun to build just before this all started. Depending on the availability of supplies, Thor an Dave estimate we might be done construction before winter, about six or seven months away. Then after that it is simply the case of drywalling and painting to complete the project. Dave who was apprenticing to be a plumber is even putting in a bathroom on the ground level. We are all quite excited. It is going to have three levels and ten rooms on each floor. You will have to forgive my enthusiasm, but the prospect of thirty new rooms is like Christmas has come early! We can finally get those people in the draft garages, and crampt portables, even the ones in the some of the campers. I know that at least five of the seven campers and motor home families have expressed a desire to live in a building once again.

Now, how do we feed this crowd you ask? Well I will tell you. As you have read, we have a pretty decent sized kitchen in the weather station already. Today, it is still our main kitchen, but when our numbers started pushing twenty or so we began experiencing space problems. Let me tell you, we do not eat lightly here, all of us put in long days to keep this place and the surrounding area secure and maintained. So when meal time rolls around we eat hearty and heavy. This is why soon after our kitchen reached it's limit, we began supplementing it with making fires outside to boil water and cook vegetables outside on a camping grate to take some of the strain off the crowded kitchen. Then, sometime later, on a supply run, "Gamma team" came across a camper and RV convoy getting attacked north of Siccamous, this was actually the same team that saved Beth and . With our help they managed to fight them off enough to escape, and five out of their eleven remaining vehicles decided to join us.

They were weary and suspicious, but bone-tired of always being on the run, always struggling to find enough gas and food to survive. It wasn't till they finally saw the Sanctuary and it's people that they truly let themselves believe in the possibility of safety, after months on the road, they could finally settle down. And I must say their vehicles have been priceless, not only giving themselves loving space, but in their kitchen space. So, we have put it all to good use and usually ferry pots and pans back and forth between them and the main kitchen at meal times. And in case you are wondering, we do indeed still use a wood fire outside to cook with, or boil water for washing. It may be crude, but never fails to work.

Now, let me tell you a bit about our population. Since our latest tally we have forty people, three dogs, and two cats, all pets of the survivors. Actually to be more specific, Butch (as his collar named him) hitched a ride in Joe's truck the second time we left the compound. We both went on a short trip to strip the nearest houses of anything useful, and when we returned Butch, an Alaskan husky was sitting up in the back, acting like he owned the joint. So technically, he found us.

The majority of us are under forty, with a slight ratio of more men then women. Helen, Cassandra, Bill, and John are our only senior citizens, but we lost Bill almost a year ago now. We also have seven children, including Abby. Three of them came with their families, but the other five were not as lucky. There was how Abby came with us of course, then Jayden, a tough young thirteen year old was a half starved wild thing when we found him. He had survived on his own for many months when we came upon him stealing food out of a house near the sanctuary that we kept stocked for emergency's. He was hard to win over, giving Joe a black eye, and flipping Marty on his back before he finally paused when he saw Julie. Something about the little brit moved him, and now they are inseparable. The Osmonds picked up Sara in the office of a grocery store as they came to us after hearing our CB broadcasts. While Talen and his sister Dawn arrived with Kirren, after picking them up out from a rooftop in some neighborhood in Kamloops. There are no orphans in the sanctuary, each child is integrated into a family or claimed by a parent of their own choice, just like Abby. They are all as loved and cherished just as much as if they were our own. It is refreshing to hear so many children's voices again.

Rachel, Dave, Joe, Thor, and I are amazingly all still alive today, us five original founders of our haven. But it certainly has not been easy, for example, Dave had a close call in the first year, during the raid where Kirren and his group. He suffered extensive injuries after jumping out of a window in a Salmon Arm suburb. It was a last ditch effort to escape a group of undead inside a residential home. Ultimately, it did work. But for a long time we did not think he would pull through, but he did. As far as we could tell without x-rays or a real doctor, he suffered at least three broken ribs, and a broken leg.. The ribs healed, but because of a lack of a doctor his leg healed crooked. Dave walks with a limp now, but still carrys himself with pride. His only regret is that he cannot participate in raids any longer, but that is besides the fact, as he was always needed more at home anyway. His construction expertise is priceless to this entire place.

The community is powered by both a water and solar powered generator. We originally had a gas one, but the amount of gas it ate severely limited our gas reserves. Other then that, we operate off of kerosene lamps, battery operated lamps and flashlights, and sometimes over candles. In fact, I have written a good deal of this story under the flickering light of many a candle. What? They are easy to find and disposable compared to battery operated stuff.

The solar-powered generator was easy enough to locate, with the world switching to "Green Energy" before the fall. We simply picked up few generators and striped off a bunch of solar panels from a fancy cabin in Vermont. It never ceases to amaze me how the rich intend to enjoy the beauty of the lake and nature with satellites TV and hot tubs. But I am probably just jealous.

But the water-turbine generator, on the other hand, was much more difficult to locate, and the tale that goes with it is telling of what the world has deteriorated to. About a year back we finally managed to get one, but it cost us dearly in both our trade goods and peace of mind. Some USA company had a warehouse in the mountain area of Winfield, almost two hours away. Now apparently, some employees and the security guards with them had managed to enforce and change the warehouse into a defensibly home. We manged to locate them on the Internet, they had created a post-z-day web page advertising their trade capabilities.

As you know, if you have any computer access, that in most places the Internet is still operational. Though no one is quite sure for how long. As if too many of the right facilities around the world shut down, and the satellites in orbit decay enough to short out, even that might shut down on us too. As far as cyber-space is aware, South America as a whole continent seems to have no access what so ever. As there has reportedly been no Internet traffic what so ever. Personally, I find it doubtful that an entire continent can be cut off, but then again, what the heck do I know?

The Internet has been the worlds best savior next to CB radios since the fall. There have been hundreds of sites created after the apocalypse, showing us survivors, all around the world that we are not alone. Divided maybe, separated by land, sea, or hordes, yes. But oh, yes, we do survive! In spite of it all humanity still spits in the face of the walking dead, and live on. We survive all over the world, and these websites link us together. We check in, trade, report horde movements, safe houses, plans, new developments, and of course, just talking. It is incredible! It wasn't until a booted up my laptop on a whim that I discovered that the Internet was still alive and kicking. The company that built the research station certainly did there homework, and we usually have a pretty good wireless connection.

This seems as good as any place to pause, and wrap up this entry, it will be back to business, as well as my errant train of thought next time. But for now, I have to hit the sack, I have a 4am shift change with one of the rookies, actually, it is Jayden's first night at post alone on the main roof. We always start the rookies out light. Then once they prove themselves in the Sanctuary, they are awarded with the responsibility of taking an all day and night shift with three others in a house, the nearest to us, whose roof we use as an advances look-out station. So, fellow survivors, good night...