Kellie's Diary: Decay of Innocence by Thomas Jenner, Angeline Perkins

Dan is here too.  He was trying to talk to me, but I said I couldn’t hear him.  They put their flashlight on me, they pointed at my head, then Sarah came up next to me and looked at my ears.  She pointed at them and gave me a really strange look.  I told her about me shooting the zombie and it hurting my ears, and that I can’t hear her.
                  I hope you don't mind Barbie, but I let Sarah borrow a couple of your papers.  It was kind of important.  Since I can't hear still, I thought that Sarah could write me notes if she needed to talk to me.  Now that she was there, I didn't feel like I was in so much danger anymore and I started to calm down.  I'm feeling a little better, but I'm really tired.
                  I asked Sarah if they found Lydia, and they did!  Guess where she was.  HIDING UNDER OUR BUS.  She never left the town!  We were all calling for her and looking everywhere, and she didn’t even go anywhere!  Sarah found her after she left the second time, so that wasn't very long after I sneaked out.  I’m really mad at Lydia for that right now, but I’m still glad she’s okay.
                  I went to sleep for a little while, but I didn't get much rest, maybe a couple of hours, I think.  It's hard to tell how much time passes.  All I know is that the sun's coming up now, so it's really early in the morning.
                  I still don’t get it, it's really bothering me.  Why did I see Bag-Man?  He’s only in my dreams, and then I saw him in real life.  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  Sarah doesn’t know who Bag-Man is, so she didn’t understand what I meant.  She just looked really confused when I talked about it.
                  Maybe I’m going crazy.
                  Sarah just passed me another note to look outside.  Be back in a minute.

Chapter 35
     
                  We’re in trouble out here, we’re surrounded by zombies.  We looked out all of the windows, and the zombies are being held back by the metal fence.  There are way too many of them to try and escape.  Now Sarah and Dan are talking more, probably about how to get out of here.  I don’t know, I still can’t hear.
                  Actually, it’s not as bad, I hear really low mumbling in my left ear now, but I can’t understand it very well.  I hope I get better soon.  I asked Sarah how my right ear looked, and she wrote that it isn’t bleeding anymore, but she can’t see much else.  She wants to get me back to Rita so I can get a good checkup, then we’ll know how bad it is.  Sarah wants me to stay close to her at all times so she can protect me.
                  This isn’t good.  It’s not good for me, and not for Sarah or Dan either.  I don’t want to cause them a problem because they have to watch out even more for me.  Part of me wants to stay here in the house until I can hear, but I know that’s a bad idea.  Those zombies aren’t going anywhere, who knows how long that fence is going to stay up… and what if my hearing doesn’t get better?  What if I stay deaf?
                  We have to get ready to go.  Sarah explained what we’re doing, and I'm nervous.  But I don’t think we have another choice.  They’re going to run around the yard and start leading the zombies into one spot so we can open the front gate.  From there we have to run for a long time to get back to the town.  I asked Sarah how far away from the town we were, and she thinks it’s a few miles at least.
                  It feels like a lot farther than that.  Maybe if there weren’t zombies around, this might be easier, but we have no idea how many more are out there.  There’s no way to find out either, we just have to take the chance.  I don’t think either of them want to do it, the way their faces looked when they talked, they weren’t happy.  I asked