Another Day

It's been insane around here.

The street is nearly empty right now, the gigantic herd of zombies has moved on. Not far, I'm sure, because  there are still a lot of people in town. If you listen from the back yard, you can hear the screams.

If you are hoping for some heroic tale of how we were scared, but found some amazing inner strength after our quaking fear, and went on a zombie killing rampage set to frenetic death metal, and possibly in montage form, you are going to be disappointed.

Jess and I spent the last...what, day or so?...alternating which one of us would go out every fifteen minutes and make sure they weren't getting past our defenses, and who would sit in the house and shake. I can tell you exactly how many we took out in that time, between us: ten.

That was the unavoidable result of going outside, even onto our enclosed deck and hidden from view. Most of them were due to a broken gate on the front deck, because of a stupid design error on my part. The crowbar gets heavy after a few swings.

The movies and comics never give you the real experience. They never convey the bone-weary exhaustion that comes with living in constant fear, interspersed with periods of sharp terror and nausea as you have to bash in the skull of something just to stay alive. I think I took out our mailman. To be fair, he was trying to bite my face off.

I shouldn't say this, but a small part of me enjoyed that. He skipped our house a lot.

Right now, we are just doing what we can to relax, and shed some of this tension. I think I will go see mom today, see how she is holding up. She's made of incredibly tough stuff. Patrick has my eternal thanks--he stayed with her through it all.

Jess is drawing, maybe painting. Pat is eating. Mom has taken up smoking again. Can't say I blame her. After all, cancer is not likely to be what kills her at this point.

And I am writing. I wish my talent were enough to make a picture for you of what our world, this little slice of America, has transformed into in less than a week. But hunger and lack of sleep has dulled my words enough that all I really want to do now is sleep.

More later, maybe, after I talk to mom.