Is this what the future will be like? The long-faded memory of Past Horrors, erased by sunshine, whiskey and Bicycle-Powered Cinema ? Will there truly be a time when we don’t have to fear, not watch our backs? Even the Zombie Sympathizers seem quiet, lost in their own world up the hill to develop whatever diabolical plans they might have. We, too, have been busy.

Yesterday was a fog, and began gray as the day before, but we barely noticed. Everyone, including me, was busy building, re-building and perfecting their homemade cameras. The highs of the day before were surpassed, new ideas gave birth to new ideas, and by the afternoon it was as if we had willed the sun to appear. And it did. I took the opportunity to delve into some of our leftover chemistry and, drawing from the items in our First Aid kit, was able to show them simple Salt Printing. Soon they’d be able to take their homemade negatives and print them as many times as they liked. The whole world would once again see beautiful images from the Mountain.

All is not exactly back to the Old Peace, however, and there is enough strangeness afoot to keep me wary. We have received some Mysterious Messages, from one Javier Mojundo of “Schlafwandler Industries”, that match several sheets we had found the night we reclaimed the studio, yet had ignored. Most of them seem to be tracking the rise and fall of the Infection’s spread, but others contained strange codes. It seems that Señor Mojundo was the one last here before us, and whether trapped and Changed or now Free, he has left help to guide us. By the end of the day, just as we were running out of the last film and paper for our cameras, the latest missive was deciphered. 039039039039… It was a code for the combination to locker 12. (0+3+9=12) Inside were two boxes of late-21st-Century Lith film. The work shall continue.

The evening was full of entertainment, reminiscent of days older than I, even. The Rural Academy’s stage was drawn up by two horses onto the lawn outside the Pines, and after dinner we all sat wrapped in blankets and warmed by tea, whiskey and each other while our visitors told stories from our distant History. They said nothing of Zombies or Danger or Death, and everything seemed right again.