Touché

Here’s a question for you: how many people actually read this blog? Check that. How many people actually read any blog? I can guarantee you that I, personally, don’t write a blog for other people to read… but, at the same time, I can recognize how some people would be tentative to publish their ideas online just for individual satisfaction. This is a pressing issue that can only be resolved in time (right?). But, alas, there is hope! Queue tacky superhero theme song. This hope comes in the form of one young man who loves to write: me! I guess what I’m trying to explicate is that I happen to read other people’s blogs, regularly. I enjoy them. So, maybe, there is hope here. Maybe other people are doing exactly what I am. I suppose I could be weird, but, honestly, a lot of people have a lot of fascinating things to say… we just have to give them a chance.

Ah, this reminds me…

As I was, indeed, perusing through my favorite bloggers’ websites I came across a very interesting post by my good friend: ChristopherJ. His blog—a new exploration around the blogging world—seems to have become a place where I find myself daily. It might be because he is my friend, and it also might be because he writes about zombies. Yes, his last post was an attention-grabbing post about the weapon(s) that he would choose if zombies were taking over the world. Check it out: here. So, after I had read this (and you have now also) I must admit that although I applaud his efforts—I have to disagree with young Christopher of Brooks. A pistol and a machete are not the two weapons that I would choose. Not that they aren’t a ‘wise’ choice—I just feel that I have a ‘wiser’ solution for killing some zombies. Allow me to explain…

First off, I must set up some guidelines… just like Christopher did.

Guideline 1: the weapons must be something that could be found in a person’s house. Because, like Chris said, most people will not have an assortment of automatic weapons accessible in his/her basement. If you do happen to have a military stash—well, then, good for you; your zombie battle will be much easier than mine (and you’re lame). Because of this guideline I will stick to only using things that can be found in my apartment.

Guideline 2: we’ll have to be at least mostly realistic; I do realize that we are posing a question about zombies—but, shit, let’s not be party-poopers. When I say realistic, I mean that I can’t go into my chandelier hall and put on a 300 lb suit of armor (how badass would that be!) and then trot, slowly, into the hidden basement of my house to get into the TMNT’s pizza thrower. Pshhh, if this was the case—I would definitely just throw on my bite proof armor and then fling pepperoni, mushroom, and meatball pizza at the living dead while making my escape to a tropical island. It doesn’t work this way folks, not even in the movies.

Guideline 3: the final guideline. Let’s be specific here. Because if this were to really happen, it would be my guess that it would be a quasi surprise. Therefore, I can’t just say I would pick up my pistol and machete, blast the flesh-eaters to hell, and then run away untouched. Not only does that make a weak story—but, come on—you and me, we aren’t superheroes.

Given the interest that subject has had on me—I decided to do this as if it was really happening—that’s right: as a short story. This may work, but it may not. It will at least keep me from straying from things that would really happen.

OK, so here it goes…

It’s about 6:36 on a Sunday; it’s the beginning of winter. I’m sitting in my living room, with my pet hedgehog on my lap (yes I really do have a hedgehog), watching the end of a Sunday Night Football game. The Raiders are beating the Browns. The game shuts off—a black screen is the cause for my swearing. Then, suddenly, the TV turns back on—only, it’s not the football game anymore—no, this isn’t a game at all. A pale lady with dark black hair screams frantically in the background while the beautiful woman on News Channel 9 nervously stutters about a zombie attack. Her profuse sweating is blatantly smearing her make-up, and she doesn’t care. Zombie attack, HA! I reach for the remote while Lily (my hedgehog) falls off of my lap and onto the couch. Click. Click. Click. I change to about fifteen different channels. They all have this zombie nonsense flooding the screen. I laugh, nervously. This must be the biggest, and funniest, hoax in American history. I figure I’ll call my dad to laugh about it with him. Ring. Ring. Ring. Silence. The dial tone is gone. I start to get worried. So, what do I do then, you ask? I eat. I hop into the kitchen, most literally. Pasta, pasta, pasta, shit—I don’t want pasta. There’s nothing to eat. I grab a depleted box of cheese-its and head back to the couch. After only two dark minutes of watching this hoax I started to get annoyed with the television screen. Fuck this. I kill the TV and violently stand up and head into my even darker room.
I can’t find the light switch on the wall. I know where it is… ah, there, got it. The light flickers on and I hear a violent scream. Damn! I thought I turned that stupid thing off! I head back out into the living room and, to my dismay, I find that the TV is indeed off. Weird. Whatever. So, I head back into my room and sit down on my computer. After about two minutes I had already viewed hundreds of pages that were plagued with “the death hoax.”
“Not this thing too…” I mumbled.
Whatever, I guess I’ll just do some more reading. I pick up Faulkner’s great novel As I Lay Dying, and begin to read. I vaguely hear a faint crash and a moan. Could it be? I slide my fingers in between two sections of my blinds and peer slightly into the street. Whew! It looks as if someone just knocked over the garbage can. I lay back down in bed, with my hands crossed over my chest, thinking about what the hell could be going on. My apartment seems to exhale and all of the power goes out; great. The only light in the room is now coming from where I had just stretched the two sections of my blinds. I sat in my dark room for a second, contemplating what is really going on. I make a rash decision. I’m going to get in my car and head over to my friend Christopher’s place. I’ll just tell him that I want to indulge in a couple Corona’s; not that I’m slightly freaked out. I run over to my couch and pick up the ball of quills that is my hedgehog and place her back into her habitat. I grab my black North Face jacket and car keys and head out into the hallway and down the stairs.
All the street lights are out. I jump into my Honda Civic that is normally white, but because of the lack of light—it almost looks black. I put the keys in the ignition and put in into gear. But, when I grabbed the stick my hand brushed up against my pants pocket and I realized I didn’t have my wallet. Shit. Well, it’s deathly cold outside, so it will be good for me to run upstairs and grab my wallet while the car warms up. So, once again, I make my way up the stairs and back into my apartment. I figured that it wouldn’t be more than two minutes before I was back in my car again…
As I get upstairs, the moaning that I heard earlier was back, only much less faint now. As a matter of fact, it sounded like multiple people moaning now. I look out the window and my face dropped. There was a flood of citizens turning onto Water St; only these were not humans, they were zombies. I was sure of it. My skeptical conscience allowed me a scared and muffled laugh. But, I realized that no one would be able to take a joke this far…
I panicked. I rushed into my dank room and scuffled to find my bag. There it is. I put some clothes and my computer into the bag. I ran into the living room and grabbed Lily out from her cage, right after I had put her food into my bag.
“We need to get out of here girl,” I said while sliding her into the roomy pocket on the side of my bag. But, talking to a hedgehog was not easing my tension.
I jumped back into the living room to get one more peak out of the window before I make way for my car; but, it was too late. The mass of bodies had already made it to my front lawn. I left the downstairs door open! I ran as fast as I could and latched it, just in time to see a snarling, half-eaten, bloody, and hungry face smear up against the glass. I almost pissed myself.
“Oh, fuck this…” I think I said as I ran back up the stairs and locked the door.
For about twenty minutes I debated on what I was going to do. For each minute that passed I heard about sixty brash knocks at my door. I have never been this scared in my life. After I had already put the couch and the foosball table against the door, I knew that I needed to find an escape route—or at the very least, a hiding spot. My bag is tightly secured on my back so I could feel Lily moving around in there; she wasn’t comfortable and it was giving me chills. I jumped out onto the porch and looked at the living dead pounding away at the door downstairs. There are few minutes before they are upstairs. CRASH! Check that: they are upstairs. My adrenaline races and I run into the kitchen.
“What am I going to do; what am I going to do!”
I need to protect myself and then I will be able to find a way to climb through the attic and onto the roof. They’ll never be able to get me up there. I would be able to plan phase two from the roof. So, first I grabbed the rest of the cheese-its, a gallon of water, and some other provisions and threw them from the window onto the roof. The moon was out, so it was easy to see on the roof—it was actually bright up there. I then had a realization. I would need to protect myself. But, I have nothing. Shit. I then had an idea. I would make Molotov cocktails.
“How the hell do you make those?” I asked myself.
Damn. Oh, shit, there has to be enough power left on my laptop for me to be able to look it up online really quick. Just as I powered up my laptop I finally heard the horrible sound of pounding right across the room: on the entrance to my apartment.
I had little time. I grabbed all of the ingredients that I had that were needed to make this household explosive. I threw five Corona bottles, a book of matches, a set of five kitchen rags, and some flammable bleach into a plastic shopping bag. I knew that I was still missing something. The wiki said that I needed gasoline or alcohol to complete this fiery inferno of a bomb. So, as I heard the last bang on the door and the shattering of wood, I grabbed a bottle of Devil’s Spring 160 proof vodka and a bottle of rubbing alcohol and headed out of the window and onto the roof. I was safe, for now. As I made the concoction I was skeptical if it was going to work. But, after only ten minutes I had five professional looking Molotov cocktails. Now all I needed was a plan.
I was out of options, I knew that most of the zombies were in the apartment and there was another wave of them coming down the street. I had to act quickly. I strapped my backpack on my back, gave Lily a piece of her food, threw the plastic bag off of the roof, and went towards the other end. I was going to have to throw three of the cocktails right into my apartment, and two down the street. After that I would just have to make a run for it… unless…
As I peaked over the other end of the roof—towards the driveway—I noticed that my car was still running, and was, oddly enough, unharmed. The zombies must not have noticed it. I had my plan, and now was the time. I looked up towards to moon, and exhaled. Without thinking I took the bag of Molotov’s and hurled one into my bedroom. Shit! It didn’t break. I had no time to cry, so I took another and threw it as hard as I could against the entrance of the apartment while dangling from the roof. There was no explosion but instantly everything set ablaze. Wow. I smiled.
I took two more and threw them into the living room and kitchen; I was just trying to set my house on fire. Then, because of the dud, I only had one for the road. So, I took one baseball hop, and hurled the bottle as far as I could into the street. Before I could even see what had happened I ran as fast as I could and leaped into my neighbor’s bushes.
The branches tore many holes in my skin and I lost my breath. I thought of sitting there and just letting the monsters get me. I was seriously hurt. But, after about three whole minutes (which felt like hours) I managed to pick myself up out of the bush and onto the driveway. I could smell those flesh-eating devils. I held my arm, where the most significant wound was, and limped into my car. It was incredibly warm in there, as it had been running for about an hour now. Once the warm air hit me, I realized how cold it must have been outside—my adrenaline caused me to be able to do all of this in the midst of the winter season. I popped the E-brake and put her into gear. I knew I couldn’t go out through the driveway, so I slammed right through the bushes and into my neighbor’s yard.
I’ve been noticed. I spun the car around and into the street. Riding the clutch, I peeled out and saw a devastating sight. I slam on the breaks. The Cocktail that I had thrown from the roof had been successful; it had kept the zombies back. But, now, the only way out was for me to go through the wave of about 30 zombies. I had no more bombs, and no other weapons—or did I? Fuck it. I decided that a car was as good a weapon as anything else. I reversed to the end of the street, and stopped. Everything was silent, but at least, from the bombs, there was light. Without thinking any further I slammed on the gas and tore a hole into the pavement. I was going about 100 MPH by the time I hit the wall; the wall of zombies that is. Like bowling pins, they fell. But, from the impact my car stalled. I frantically started to turn the key with my sweaty hands. My headlights had gone out, and I dropped the key.
I turned on the dome light of the car and I finally saw the sparkle of the gold part of the key. I picked it up, and with some sort of luck from above, the car started. I slammed the stick into first, and floored my way out of there. Bleeding, tired, hungry, and scared, I drove and drove and drove. Who knows what happens next…but for now, I’ll just drive.


So there you have it, folks. Those are my two realistic weapons. I would make some Molotov cocktails, and I would use my car as a most dangerous ramming device. What do you think, Christopher?

So anyway, I would just like to say, that regardless if anyone is going to read this or not, I had fun writing it; which is why I write a blog. It would be nice for people to read, and comment, but it doesn’t matter to me. Hopefully though, someday, even if it’s just one person, someone will read a blog that they enjoy, which will allow them an entrance into the world that I have discovered. Maybe s/he will actually start writing for themselves. So there you have it. Cheers.


p.s. Sorry about the indentation: blogger won't put them in...