"Well that was awfully morbid." Jeanie muttered, holding up the worn, leather journal to the light shining through the opening she had come through. The pages were a dirty yellow colour, but the little book was solid, not even close to falling apart. She wondered how long it had been here, situated inside the little rusty cabinet that sat in front of her on the wall.

The shuffling sound of a foot moving caught Jeanie's attention as she turned on a heel, only to see Kayden standing in the opening, his coarse brown hair in a mess like always. Jeanie felt herself exhale, relieved it was him and not another member of the search party. "Did you find anything? Any food?" he asked.

She shook her head, her mop of dirty blonde hair falling across her forehead. In the damp air inside the small structure, she felt the wet strains stick to her skin but she didn't bother to move them. It would just happen again, like always. "No, but I found this."

When she held up the leather book, Kayden seemed to roll his eyes. "Terrific, but you're forgetting not a lot of people are very fond of the taste of paper." He stepped across the threshold into the darkness with her.

Jeanie snorted at his sarcasm, opening the small book back up. "I know that, stupid!" she snapped, scrolling down through the opening two pages again. "But look! I think someone used to live here! And they said there should be clean drinking water around here!"

Before he had a chance to protest, Jeanie brushed by Kayden, grabbing him by his worn coat sleeve and pulling him back out from the darkness. The sensation of cool air hit them both as they exited the dark, muggy hole to meet Muir Woods, the towering redwoods and their thick leafy canopies surrounding the two teenagers.

Looking back, Jeanie saw the shelter they had just come out of was quite hidden. According to the journal it had once been a concrete support of some kind, but now was covered in an overgrowth of moss and leaves. The jungle had claimed it as its own now. Like most everything now.

"Alright," Kayden began, looking around them in the late afternoon mist. "I'm not seeing any little stream around here." he sighed deeply, turning to look at the equally tall girl. "C'mon, we should probably get back before your dad sends out a search party."

Jeanie groaned audibly at the mention of her father. He was the de facto leader of their group, about twenty people altogether. Jeanie couldn't remember exactly when they had all started living together in what remained of San Francisco Police Station #4, but it had been as long as she could properly remember. Everything before it was just bits and pieces of a life that didn't seem quite real anymore. More like a dream.

But her father had always been there. Everyone else called him "Matt" or "Mr. Reeves", but to Jeanie, he had been one of the few common things in her life. Everything from their rushed packup to them moving into the police station and having to make their own little community from what people were left after the Simian Flu outbreak. The disease that had taken so many people from her, including her mother, happened so long ago Jeanie still didn't know all the details. It had all happened when she was only six or seven years old, almost a decade ago, making things so much harder to remember.

The one thing she could remember was her father's immense protective, sometimes overbearing nature, toward her. As she had gotten older, Jeanie had come to understand that it was probably out of fear of losing another person in his life, but sometimes the constant need to know where she was or to be with her when scouting groups went out was a little bit much.

Though today, he had been tied up with distributing the weekly rations, leaving her to be escorted by Kayden, the loudmouth who seemed just so perfect to her father. He was tall, handsome, athletic...and completely full of himself. An ideal leader in her father's eyes, and someone who could protect her if need be.

"Just hold on a minute…" Jeanie finally told him, looking down at the pages of the journal again. "It says the stream is in a gully. But I don't se- ah!"

In her searching the area around them and trying to decipher any other clues, Jeanie suddenly found her foot slip on the damp foliage underfoot, losing her boot grip on a hidden slant.

It was as if the ground were slicked with oil, as Jeanie landed on her side and felt the slant increase and become steeper as momentum began to carry her down it. The leaves hiding the slant slapped her across the chest and face, making the green overcoat she wore slick with water droplets.

On her way down, Jeanie scrambled for a handhold, turning and twisting to try and find something. She caught a glimpse of Kayden, his eyes wide with surprise and fear, lunging toward her on the ground with his arms open to grasp her arms.

But it was no good. When she tried to slow herself by digging her fingers into the ground, the soft, wet earth let go, leaving her hands a dirty mess. She watched as the sky filled her view and knew that any chance of stopping herself or Kayden being able to catch hold of her was gone.

And then, he disappeared from view, Jeanie feeling her speed pick as she continued to scramble. But it was no use. She felt the wet vegetation beneath her brush her sides and even manage to slide underneath her coat, wetting her bare stomach underneath. It was an uncomfortable feeling to say the least.

After what seemed like an eternity, though it was probably more like ten seconds, Jeanie found herself slowing and her visible begin to stabilize. Her wild slide was coming to an end and, to her surprise, the little book was still gripping tightly in her hand and undamaged, sans a small bit of wet dirt on the cover.

Finally coming to a stop, Jeanie realized she was breathing hard from the shock at her wild ride. Taking a minute to calm herself, Jeanie could suddenly hear something. It was a sound she wasn't totally familiar with, but had been lucky enough to hear once before in her life.

The sound of running water, and close too. Forgetting her elevated breathing and her slide down the bank, Jeanie looked around and began to search for the source.

She didn't have to look very long or hard. Just past the edge of her boots was a small stream, about four feet wind, flowing steadily to her left. On the other side of the stream was steep back much like the one Jeanie had just slid down, covered in low lying ferns and small trees.

"Jeanie!" A voice suddenly calls out from above. Kayden. "Are you alive?" he asked, sounding at least semi serious.

She groans, turning over to get up on her knees and casting her gaze back up the bank. She couldn't see Kayden for the foliage from several nearby trees, but she guessed she must have slid over forty feet down. "Yeah, I'm fine!" she called back, getting to her feet now. The rich, black soil of the hill covered her back and side, but Jeanie never bothered to wipe it off.

Instead, her eyes were darting back and forth between the stream and the journal she held in her hands still. "You were actually right...but who were you?" she wondered aloud, turning the small book over in her hands.

"Can you see a way up?" Kayden asked, and Jeanie could sense that he wasn't keen to come down the same way she had. In fairness, she was hoping it would be a one time trip as well.

But as she scanned both her left and right, all she could see was the steep slopes on either side, speckled green with patches of vegetation. Probably quite slippery like the one she had come down on. "No, not really. I thi-"

A small hooting sound stopped her mid sentence, making her blood run cold. It was off to her left and very close. Jeanie had a feeling, a terrible feeling, of what it was. Her father had always told her not to go too far into the forest and now that she thought about it, she and Kayden had come quite a bit further than she had ever come with her father.

Turning her head to look upstream, her fears were confirmed. Not fifty feet away, crouching in a small huddle at the base of a redwood try, sat three apes. Jeanie never moved, her eyes transfixed on the creatures, who in turn, stared back at her with looks of confusion and curiosity.

Jeanie had heard stories about the apes. She had heard the stories of when the Simian Flu pandemic first began, apes in captivity and eventually everywhere, they got smarter. They developed communities of their own, away from the cities and towns. As people were dying, the apes were getting stronger.

They looked like chimps to Jeanie, based on what some of the older people in her group described them as over the years. Dark, black hair covering their bodies, faces and hands the same colour as her's, but this was the first time she had ever seen one in her life.

She and the chimps stared at each other, neither side moving or making a sound. Jeanie had no idea what to do. Her father had never told her what to do if she ever came face to face with apes of any kind. Was she supposed to run away? Or was she supposed to make noise and drive them off? Fear began to well up in her chest as she involuntarily took a step back.

The biggest of the three flinched when she moved and bared its teeth, letting a low growl escape its throat as it moved forward three steps, keeping the other two chimps behind it. It was at this point Jeanie realized one of them was quite a bit smaller than the other two, perhaps not even the height of her waist as it stood cradled against the second largest creature.

"A baby…" she thought as she forced herself not to take another step back. She had heard how dangerous animals could be when protecting their young, but now she was seeing it on full display. That didn't really help her situation though.

"The book!" she suddenly thought, remembering she was still holding the worn journal. She flipped it open slowly to the page she had stopped at, eyes flickering up to the trio of chimps every other second.

There seemed to be a new entry, this time with a date. She quickly started to skim through the pages:

September 26th, 2016

I saw one of them today. I've only been here a month, but they've been here a little longer. I guess this is where they all went after they left the city. That's just my luck.

I was checking that stream not far from my shelter. The slope was a little steeper than I thought and I almost lost my footing on the way down. But I got down and the water looked pretty good. Good, clean, stoney bottom and the water was running good. Might even be a good place to wash until things get too cold.

But while I was checking it out, I heard something in the underbrush. I waited, ready to bolt the second I saw it if need be. I had left my gun back at the shelter. Not that it was much good where I only had seven shots left in the old P226.

In a matter of seconds, I watched as a young chimp came strolling out on his hind legs, nose high in the air. I guess he had smelled me a ways away because its eyes immediately went to me.

I froze. I had seen what happens when you try to run from these things and I had seen what happens when you try to fight them... I wasn't a fan of either outcome so that made my options pretty limited.

I could've tried to scare it away. But it wasn't fully grown yet, probably a teenager, and I figured that meant it might call for help if it felt threatened. That was also out the window then, leaving me with really just the one option.

Bringing myself to the water's edge, I sat down slowly. I felt the creature's eyes watching me the whole from the other side of the stream, but I tried not to let it think I was watching it. I really didn't want it to panic.

Then, I brought my head low and drank from the running water. It was cool and crisp, and as I write this now, I feel fine. So I do in fact have clean water at my disposal.

After a minute or so, I heard the chimp give two quick hoots. At first, I tensed because I thought it might be calling for help. But then I realized that the calls were hardly loud enough to travel any distance and when I glanced up, the ape was looking at me and bobbing its head as it made the sounds.

It was trying to talk to me. I almost laughed. It didn't see either of us as above the other. We were just two creatures who lived in the same environment using the same source of water. I looked up slowly at the chimp, who was at the stream himself, drinking about twenty feet upstream. The nervousness was gone now for both of us, I could see that.

I sat there for nearly half an hour, only turning my head to watch the primate tilt its head at me and hoot every now and again. Eventually, it started to move off back the way it came, but not before turning to look at me. When it did, I noticed a long scar running down the center of its neck and onto the chimp's left breast. It was white and mostly faded, but it was definitely there. I couldn't help but wonder if it was given to the creature by another ape or by a human.

Reluctantly, after another minute by myself, I stood up and made my way back up the bank.

Jeanie couldn't believe it. She had become so engrossed in reading the journal, she had totally forgotten to check on her own apes. Trying to calm her own breathing at the sudden thought, she lowered the book from her vision.

The three chimps were no longer where they had been before. Instead, Jeanie saw they had moved further away from her, the largest bringing up the rear. Jeanie watched them move, on all fours, toward the bank and thicker trees. The smallest and lead adult slipped into the treeline, their black backs melting into the growing darkness that was the forest.

But the last chimp stood on its hind legs, turning around to face Jeanie once again. Any hint of aggression or protective instinct was gone now as the creature tilted back its head and hooted lowly at her.

When the chimp had stood, Jeanie could swear she saw a long, thin scar around the chimp's neck and chest before it slowly sauntered off into the brush after the other two. The young woman watched as the brush swayed for a second after that and then grew still.

"Kayden?" she called out, not daring to move another step. She hoped her voice wouldn't attract anything else. When no answer came, Jeanie suddenly felt very cold as she stood there beside the stream, pulling her worn jacket tighter around her midsection.

After another minute, Jeanine managed to make her legs work and wasted little scrambling back up the slope she had come down, dirt flying out behind her and the little leather book gripped tightly in her hand. She had no idea where Kayden had gone or why he hadn't answered, but as the sun began to sink in the sky, Jeanie did know she had no desire to stay in these woods after dark.

In seconds, she had climbed back up the slope and was walking briskly back the way she had come.