ᶜᴼᴺᵀᴱᴺᵀ ᵂᴬᴿᴺᴵᴺᴳ — ᴿᴱᶜᴼᴹᴹᴱᴺᴰᴱᴰ ¹⁶⁺ ᵀʰⁱˢ ᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿᵃˡ ᵈⁱᵃʳʸ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵃⁱⁿˢ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ʰᵘᵐᵒʳ, ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ, ᵇᵒᵈʸ ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵈⁱˢᵗᵘʳᵇⁱⁿᵍ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉʳʸ.

09/20/1980

Dear Diary,

I'm so happy. Have you ever wondered what it's like to have access to every kind of store and be able to take whatever you want? I have. And it's amazing.
Jenny and I have been traveling aimlessly around California for a week now. We ended up in a little town called Corona, and it's completely abandoned. So everything is free.
I got this beautiful souvenir T-shirt that says California on it with these stylized pink palm trees. I love it. But Jenny and I also had an argument inside the souvenir shop...
I was looking for my size, the lights were flickering, so it wasn't exactly easy to see, and it was ridiculously quiet...
Jenny appeared beside me with a smile, her hands behind her back.
"Right or left?" She asked.
I looked at her, confused. "Right."
When she opened her hand, I saw a T-shaped keychain.
I frowned. "I don't want it."
"What do you mean you don't want it? It's a souvenir."
I shook my head. "Why would I want a keychain with a T on it?!" I grumbled, going back to looking through the shirts. "I don't need that initial."
She hesitated for a few seconds. "T for Taf—"
I cut her off. "I don't need it."
"Taffy, are you stupid?"
Obviously I'd understood that she meant T for Taffy... but I don't need a T hanging from my bag. She was upset, though, I noticed immediately. So while she was staring at the magnets, I went and grabbed two keychains.
I dangled them in front of her eyes. Same letter.
"F for Fuck you, maybe?" She crossed her arms.
I nodded. "And for Friends..."
"Fuck you is funnier." She giggled. I couldn't hold it in either.
Anyway, weirdly enough, when something is free, you're less likely to take it. When I go shopping and can't afford to buy whatever I want, I want everything. But this week I've left a ridiculous amount of clothes and shoes on the shelves.
We do have three bags full of stuff in the trunk now, though. Obviously we needed new clothes for fall, but it's still not much compared to everything we could've taken.
I found a pair of caramel-colored suede cowboy boots that I absolutely love. The windows were already smashed and the mannequins had been thrown all over the place, but luckily whoever looted the store before us left my exact size behind in that style. Okay, actually, they were on a dead girl's feet. But what was she going to do with them anyway?
Supermarkets are pretty useless to us, we mostly steal water and sodas. We've been eating nothing but normal food for a week and we're getting hungry again. And anyway, I'd like to make one thing clear because Jenny insists otherwise.
What we're doing isn't cannibalism. Technically, we're not human anymore. Jenny can melt her limbs on command and spits out blue slime. There's nothing human about us. We've simply changed our diet, that's all.
One of the many supermarkets we visited still had a radio plugged in and playing. I was alone in the cereal aisle, there was a man's severed head on the shelf next to me, and Sailing came on... I can't stand that song anymore, I must've listened to it way too many times this summer. I wasted the last three bullets I had left in my gun.
One hit a wall, another hit the checkout counter, but the third one got the radio. That fucking piece-of-shit radio deserved it. I'm pretty sure the severed head was judging my aim, though...
And anyway, shooting the radio didn't help, because the deafening sound of the gunshots took me back there for more than a second, leaving this endless ringing in my ears. And if the gun would just stay still between shots, I definitely wouldn't have wasted two bullets trying to kill a radio. Then Jenny got pissed at me because she started screaming, thinking someone outside the supermarket was shooting at us, and started firing outside... so she ran out of bullets too.
Not my fault, anyway.
You know what I'd really love to eat right now? Some eyes... We finished them almost immediately... I think they only lasted a few hours after we escaped. Such a shame...
The radio, meanwhile, keeps reminding everyone between songs that people have to remain in isolation, that all the airports are closed and no one is allowed to try to cross California's borders. Also, apparently all the radio stations went down except for one that seems to be new, it's called Radio Apocalypse, which is stupid because this isn't an apocalypse. Apocalypses are obviously much bigger and more dangerous than this.
Plus, sometimes there are helicopters flying around randomly above our heads, but I think they're just minding their own fucking business up there, because I gave one of them the middle finger from the car and they didn't even shoot me.
The only thing I can really complain about is all the dead bodies lying around the streets and inside the stores.
When we finally found a motel, we picked one of the nicest rooms... And there was a girl completely splattered all over the clean sheets. Seriously, just like my boss, do these people never think about the ones who are still alive and have to deal with the mess they leave behind?!
And the smell... Perfume is another thing we've been stealing a lot of. Although one time I sprayed some and, mixed with the smell of everything rotting, it made me throw up in the street.
It was kind of liberating, though.
Anyway, while I was looking for something in the car and Jenny was driving, I found that fucking box with the radioactive slime in it. So I threw it out.
"What are you doing?!" Jenny slammed on the brakes so hard I almost smashed my head into something.
"And what the hell do you need it for?!"
"It's a flashlight!"
"We can steal a flashlight."
Jenny raised her eyebrows. "I'm not a thief."
"We stole a car, clothes, dead people's eyes..." I started listing them, counting them on my fingers.
"We borrowed them." She corrected me as she got out of the car.
"Even the eyes?"
Jenny struggled to hold back a laugh. "Yes."
We burst out laughing. Maybe it was obvious. Anyway, she didn't go back for that disgusting slime in the end.
I'll tell you, this summer got off to a pretty rough start, but we're having so much fun now. That's what I told my mom too, as soon as I managed to call her from a service phone. She seems relieved knowing I'm happy despite everything. That's what matters.

XOXOXO

Taffy.