Anonymous asked: Aren't you supposed to ask my permission before you use my name for a zombie?

I suppose that I would…of course I don’t recall bestowing “Anonymous” as the layman’s nomenclature for my version of the zombie.

It’s with the seventh attempt that I manage, with the help of Danny’s lanky and sweat-ridden hands, to procure a flame just long enough to ignite the end of my cigarette; inhaling with an acute depth and brevity that first hazy drag. That’s the problem with a habit like this. The first one or two doses are ultimately the only ones that ever seem to make a difference, that significant shift in one’s physiological baseline that many refer to as a buzz. What remains is really just consumed out of a mix of an obligation to finish what you’ve paid good money for and a general attitude of “Why the hell not?” 

Nicotine is a rather frustrating friend to keep. Though Danny here is giving her a damn good run for her money.

I try to close my eyes as I allow one thousand and one chemicals poison my body into an artificial and fleeting state of Zen…while my new friend, though we’re hardly even Facebook official, chatters away uselessly. One minute he’s bitching about his supposed girlfriend and the imminent danger which threatens her. The next minute he’s getting on to me about ripping his tattered Iron Maiden t-shirt that was handed down to him by his dear half-brother before he was incarcerated for the attempted robbery of a Piggly-Wiggly for which he was framed for, by the way. More than half-way through my smoke and he’s put me to the point where I rescind my previous assessment of him as a nerd; this guy is a class A dumbass.

“What do we do, man? I mean…oh God those things are for real, aren’t they?” he spits out at me with wide, hopeless eyes.

“First off, if you couldn’t already tell, I’m enjoying a cigarette. This is something that I highly suggest you do as well. It’s a more than ample way to burn time. Get it?” I reply wryly, gently whistling a thick, ashen stream of smoke in his direction.

“Enjoying a cigarette? I can’t believe you man! Right now the love of my life is trapped up there with those…”

“Zombies?”

Danny’s jaw slightly hangs open, “You know what you are?”

“A sick, yet relatively intelligent bastard?”

“No, man. You’re just sick. Come on, zombies? That’s the kind of stuff that only happens in movies. What we are dealing with is, like, some hardcore Resident Evil crap, you know?”

“And that’s what? Not a zombie movie?”

“No, that’s a…”

“A zombie movie, thank you,” I cut him off curtly, satisfied with having shut him up on what would have been a most inane argument over undead semantics, and proceed to mash the still ember-laden butt of my cigarette against the gray grout lining the crimson bricks in the wall upon which we both rest.

I glance over at Danny and notice that his mouth is still quite agape. Now I might be good, but I certainly am not so good as to have used sheer rhetoric to put him in such a state of shock. The sound of his throat drying up, spasms attempting to force saliva down his seemingly constricted larynx, really begin to alarm me. My first thought is that somehow he’s coming down with some severe anaphylaxis in response to the tobacco. And then, as the temporary desensitization of my olfactory faculties dulls down, it hits me…that same pitching of my insides as if my organs themselves were being flung about in the tumultuous ocean, suffering from a sort of seasickness that not even Captain Ahab would have been familiar with.

Call me Ishmael, why don’t you.

Immediately I lace all of my fingers as if fashioning an air tight seal over my nose and mouth, and I violently jerk my head straight ahead of me to see what at this point should be of little surprise; I guess the horror witnessing a nearly literal corpse exercising surreal yet irrefutable animation is just one of those things that never get old.

I have to say this one is by far the worst I have ever seen; to locate its gender is, to put it lightly, well beyond the realm of possibility given the nearly limitless degree of decomposition with which it is so severely afflicted. His (or her) torso is completely exposed, revealing an incredulous degree of anterior tissue degradation; so much so that I would say that at least three fourths of the dermis is completely absent. What skin remains is completely ridden with severe cellulitis, blisters and pus filled cysts comprising the majority of the surface area.

The lower abdominal musculature is deteriorated to the point that the gastrointestinal organs, most especially the large bowel whose color has blackened due to the formation of a pseudomembrane, is in clear view as well. A disgustingly sharp and sour odor cuts at the tongue with such a force that my lips reflexively clamp down the on one another; it must be what remains of the gastric juices. Perforation of the stomach lining due to infection would explain the leaking of hydrochloric acid unto the other tissues, causing the dramatic acidification and subsequent break down of the muscles that would otherwise sheath that abominable mess.

Each and every single one of my hairs across my body stands virtually perpendicular to the surface of my skin, prickling with wave upon wave of goose bumps. It’s funny really, just the other day in human physiology I learned about the evolutionary origin of what most people call the “goose bump.” For starters the official, medical term is cutis anserina. It is defined as the direct result of what is a fairly common mammalian reflex called horripilation. Governed by the sympathetic nervous system, tiny muscles behind each individual hair follicle are signaled to contract simultaneously, often in response to a sharp environmental change (like the cold) or, in our case, the flight-or-flight response. How could this possibly be useful, you might ask?

Well, to be brief, a long time ago when mankind was great deal less civil and shitload more hairy, this biological reflex would confer the rather significant benefit of making one seem much larger, and thus more intimidating to a given threat. However, seeing as body hair over the course of time has become more of an organic vestige than anything, it offers us little practical advantage besides making it a bit more embarrassing to shed one’s top garments at the local pool party. 

By that minute fact flashing instantaneously into my mind more sharply and portentously than even the most profound Deja vu, I’m able to shake off my own futile sense of stupefaction and realize the sort of deep shit he and I are in if we don’t move. Grabbing Danny by his pale, freckled, wiry forearm, I violently yank him off of the dew-soaked grass and in the direction of the Physical Sciences building.

As we whisk past the cement staircase and towards the gardened, bench speckled plain of the South Oval, the multitude of rotten human shells seem to take notice of us in a sort of hive-minded unison; each pivots ever so slightly so as to be oriented towards us, trudging at a speed, though not immediately threatening is ghastly nonetheless. About three minutes into our poorly coordinated sprint, seeing as Danny’s efforts against his body’s strong desire to disgorge keep doubling him over, I too am quickly losing my own stamina, my lungs searing as if doused with a half-gallon of gasoline and then set ablaze. Each and every breath I take saturates my shriveling alveoli with an endless barrage of pins and needles. I imagine it would be a far easier time trying to pneumatically inflate two hot water bottles at the same time.

“See,” Danny blurts as few teaspoons of chowder-like bile leak from the hands that frantically cup over his mouth , “I bet you’re enjoying that cigarette a whole lot now, aren’t you?”

In between my arid wheezing I retort bitterly, “Sure am. Though I suggest you shut the fuck up for the time being, lest you drown in your own vomit.”

“I’m just saying if we didn’t waste all that time we could already be there.”

“Jesus, we’re on the way now! What the hell else do you want?”

“I swear, man, if I find that she was hurt by one of those things…” Just then Danny trips over a sodden, indistinguishable heap laying across the pavement in front of the library. I’m so caught up at this point that I don’t take notice until I’ve overtaken him by about fifteen yards, slowing down to a halt with my hands clasping tightly over my knees. Judging by the vibrant streak of scarlet flowing liberally unto the sidewalk, he’s must of fell head first and put a bit of a slice into his forehead. It’s one of those things that looks worse than it really is.

Having caught a bit of my breath, still very much aware of the ever enclosing circle of necrotic fiends surrounding us, I run over to his side and see that Danny’s quite conscious, though a little less than pleased to witness the sight of his own blood.

“Aw man…I’m bleeding real bad man, please help!”

“You’re okay, Danny,” I reassure him as I sling his arm over my shoulder, hoisting him up. “You just cut your forehead a little that’s all.”

“Oh my God. It looks really, really bad, man. I might need a transfusion or something man, I can’t die! Not now, oh God, not now!” His already sickly pale complexion is rapidly fading to a ghostly white. It’s not so much the bleeding, but what it’s doing to feedback into his hysteria.

“You don’t need a transfusion, you dumbass. A brain transplant? Yes, that you could definitely use.”

He snatches his arm away from me, staggering back unto the ground, “God, you are such a bastard! Here I am, gravely injured, and the only thing you do is insult me!” His eyes stare back at me inflamed, watery, and bloodshot. I lower myself upon my haunches, rubbing the tips of my index finger and thumb somewhat sheepishly into the bags hanging under my eyes when suddenly my ears are pierced with a high pitched shriek. Looking forward towards Danny I see his own eyelids pried wide open, as if by mechanical means. I turn to what he slowly, yet desperately crawls away from as the blood from his face forms a slight, yet definite smear on the ground beneath him.

The indiscriminate heap which had caused him to fall just moments earlier is twisted over now, writhing grotesquely like a leech towards him, a lone skeletal hand protruding from the otherwise limbless torso. Danny’s breathing becomes increasingly labored as he clamors up on all fours, a singular vein extruding from the paper white surface of his left temple. I quickly scoop him up as if by dead lift as his legs flop about, seemingly averse to the idea of being in any way useful to him or me.

“Come on, Danny! I’m sorry, I really am, but right now I need you to calm down. You’re beginning to hyperventilate which will cause your blood vessels to constrict, increasing your blood pressure significantly; given that you have an open wound, it would seriously be in our best interest that you pull yourself together, alright? If not for us then for Kiley’s sake.”

At the mention of her name, his feet plant somewhat firmly onto the ground, and within a few minutes I manage to walk him away from the South Oval and around the corner of Nielsen hall to where the Physical Sciences building towers ahead in full view. Its expansive grid of unlit windows offers little to which we can bolster our optimism. In a fit of my own exhaustion, I crumple down against an array corroded aluminum bars, my right hand clutching unto the cracked leather seat of a bicycle that stands tethered to its s-shaped grooves.

Danny looks over to me, a bit of ruddiness flowing into the center of his acne-scarred cheeks, and mumbles, “Thanks, man.”

I ambiguously flutter my free hand about, as if motioning a “Don’t mention it.” I could care less about his moment of weakness and more so about mine. My diaphragm persists in forcefully squeezing the life out of my lungs in order to catch a single, decent breath. Every heave stretches each of my ribs to what feels like their absolute breaking point. For another few minutes, Danny stands silently over me as I struggle to manually slow my respiration to a more practical, less painful rate.

“Not to beat a dead horse or nothing, but you really ought to think of quitting.” 

Under ordinary circumstances I would have gotten up to kick his pale ass in a second. However, seeing as I have barely the oxygen to utter his name, I simply flop down on the cool and damp pavement in a supine position. The bleak and fluorescent glare of sunlight-otherwise concealed by the blanket of altostratus clouds that lurk in the sky above-forces my gaze to collapse in a hard squint; the dull ache of pupillary constriction slowly crawls towards the back of my skull.

For a brief moment, a bit of silence seems to fall upon the area around us, interrupted only by the hushed sound of inhuman limbs languidly shuffling along pavement in the distance and Danny’s slight, rhythmic panting. Just then the cement beneath my begins to vibrate subtly, and the gently whir of an engine in the distance perks my ears up.

“You hear that?”

“Yeah. Sounds like we might be in for a sight for sore eyes.” I reply as I sit up and clamor back onto my feet, still leaning on the bike rack for support.

As Danny and I expectantly look on towards the upward curving horizon running across the left side of the library, an off-white, slim, rectangular canopy emerges, its base propped up by four slender, black metal rods. Two large, crimson-colored collegiate typeface letters, superimposed in a staggered fashion upon one another, come into resolution as the vehicle nears.

OU. Never in the entirety of my undergraduate career have I been so relieved to see that overly used insignia.

With renewed zeal we frantically wave our hands as far as our shoulder sockets will allow them, despite the obvious fact that can probably see us just as well as we do to them. At first the golf cart slows once coming into a fifty foot radius of us. They’re probably trying to ascertain whether we’re on their side or not; to be fair even those monsters could be doing what we were…given the proper amount of intact appendages, of course.

Taking the sharper end of my left elbow, I jab Danny in the side with gusto, partly to demonstrate to this newly arrived party a loud, coherent, and linguistically sounding response from him. I would be lying, of course, if I said that I didn’t do it, in part, to exercise a bit of vengeance for his nearly incessant bitching.

“The hell, man!?” He yelps with precisely the effect I was anticipating; the golf cart’s tires squeal as it swiftly resumes its approach.

“Just testing out my weenis is all.”

“That’s not even a word”

“It isn’t?” I exclaim with mock surprise. “I think the ‘Urban Dictionary’ would beg to differ, my friend.”

The chagrin on Danny’s face fades as the cart brakes right next to us. In the driver’s seat is a rather portly man, two hundred and fifty pounds or so, with a size too small cream polo with the breast pocket embroidered with the University of Oklahoma Campus Security badge. At least he isn’t part of the fuzz. His several chins are somewhat disguised with a springy muff off an auburn colored beard ; unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the shiny bald spot that makes up his entire scalp. The pungent odor of chewing tobacco forms a distinct aromatic aura around him, not that I’m in a place to be complaining about that sort of thing.

The man to the security officer’s left is strikes quite the physical contrast. Even in a sitting position, the top of his head overtakes the driver’s by a half foot, the upper ridge of his salt and pepper hair barely grazing the cart’s ceiling. His eyes are such a dark brown that his pupils are virtually inseparable from his iris. His face is clean shaven, though the half circles hanging above his jutting cheekbones contradict his otherwise neat look with a sort of chronic haggardness. A thick, horn-rimmed pair of glasses just barely hangs on to his slender nose, remaining there only because of a prominent deformation of the nasal bridge; due to a past fracture no doubt. Judging by the conservative mustard colored button up and pleated khaki slacks, I would venture to guess that this guy is a professor of some sort.

After a moment of each of sizing up the other, the larger fellow breaks the ice by bleating, “Now what in the world are you boys doing out here? Ain’t you hear of the evacuation notice.” Though he’s clearly relieved to see that we aren’t potential roadkill, he’s certainly not terribly pleased either.

“I wasn’t aware there was one.” I answer in half truth. Explicitly speaking, I was never formally notified of such a thing.

“You’re shitting me, right?” The officer cocks a reddish eyebrow in jaded disbelief.

“Now, now Mr. Randy, I’m quite sure that these boys fully acknowledge the gravity of the current situation. I find it highly dubitable that they would be roaming about this blasted place if not for good reason.” The could-be professor’s voice is  nervous and soft, though totally intelligible. His accent rings peculiarly familiar to me from the days of my early youth which were spent upon the green, wet isles of the UK.

“I don’t know, Doc. Can’t be too sure that they ain’t trying to make off with something valuable. Take advantage and what not of this godforsaken hullabaloo.” While it’s evident that Mr. Randy has a fairly significant degree of respect for the anonymous doctor, his beady eyes nevertheless continue to dart back and forth between Danny and I with the utmost suspicion.

“Oh now don’t be asinine. And what exactly is it that you estimate that these young men could possibly ‘make off with’ that could feasibly prove to be any substantial vector of personal profit, hum? A shelf of textbooks perhaps? Not likely seeing as, last I understood it, the library was quite the massacre whence it was shut down about an hour prior. We ourselves just locked up the Physical Sciences…”

“It’s locked?!” Danny and I exclaim in near perfect unison.

“Indeed. About five minutes ago, I would approximate. Why? Did you happen to leave something in there? Ah, see now Mr. Randy, I was positive that there was to be justification proper for their unusual presence.” Upon observing the stricken looks of anxiety on our faces, let alone the persistent assertions of his comparably rational passenger, the officer eases his guard and gives us a subtle nod of apology.

“If that’s so,” Mr. Randy mutters as he turns his engorged neck reluctantly to the Physical Sciences building behind him, “what is it exactly that you guys are needing?”

Danny and I look at each other for a brief moment, exchanging glances of uncertainty. He, reasonably a bit further in the pitch of desperation than I, speaks up with a tremble.

“It’s not exactly what…but who.”

At this the two riders make a synonymous exchange of glances, theirs more so out of skepticism.

“I see. Well boys, the quandary with that is we just finished evacuating the building at which point we put the structure under lock and key.” It’s becoming clear that even the doctor’s support is ironically becoming mired in the skepticism with which he was able to reassure his companion of our decent intentions.

I however have no intentions of having come so far to reach a dead end.

“Are you absolutely sure that you checked each and every floor?”

“No, certainly not. But then again that’s because levels one through five are generally the only ones that happen to be open during holiday.” With our bespectacled acquaintance’s enlightening reply, we clutch onto a faint spark of hope.

“Only one through five, right? See my friend’s girlfriend is, as far as we know, trapped up on the seventh floor along with my roommate and the rest of their lab partners.”

Even Mr. Randy starts up, “Shoot, Doc. We didn’t think damn twice about even going through any of the upper floors. Elevator was out, though.”

“Are you absolutely sure of this? Is there, perhaps, anyway you can telephone your colleague and confirm his or her whereabouts?” 

I instinctively smack my rear pockets and then those in the front; however, to my complete dismay I find that I’m only able to make out the malleable frame of my cigarette pack. I must have tossed my cell into the passenger’s seat shortly after Linfan and I parted ways for the second time.

Looking over to Danny I see that he too is pulling on the shorter end of the straw. 

“That is rather unfortunate, lads. To be honest and fair, I do not see the utility in allowing you two back into that hellish place. Please do not take any offense when I say this, however, I really do believe that there is little to no chance of anybody’s survival within that building at this point in time. And even if your comrades were very well alive, getting up to them would be a task so inconceivably formidable, it would bridge upon the impossible. I’m quite assured that Mr. Randy is in agreement with me that the incumbent risk is simply too great when juxtaposed to the potential payoff.” Even though there is a superficial air of sympathy in his voice, there is also an irrefutable sting of cold logic that sounds out to the both of us. Where as I begin to feel the weight of resignation, Danny is not having any of it.

“What do you mean you can’t let us in, huh? If you guys were in charge of getting everybody out of that building safely then you are in every way, shape, and fucking form responsible for the life of my Kiley!” The usually harmless and blank complexion of his face immediately flushes with a fierce ruddiness that startles even the burly security officer.

“Now, son. Calm yourself and just listen to what the Doc has to say…”

“No. You listen to me. There is absolutely no way in hell I’m leaving here without her, whether she’s alive or not! Do you both understand me? I mean…goddammit! We aren’t asking you to help us, we just need to get in and save the people we love!” 

Well…I wouldn’t quite lump the way I feel about Sealey with the way Danny feels about this girl of his. Then again I was the one who didn’t bother to clarify.

Even I am at a loss for words, gaping at his seething rage. His tears flow down his blood caked jaw, rinsing him clean in a few thin and parallel streams. In reaction to Danny’s unexpected, yet fairly moving outburst, the officer turns to his passenger for an answer to what appears to be a very inflexible impasse. The doctor runs his knotty and venous hands into the raccoon-like circles under his baggy eyes, lifting his glasses up for a brief second and returning them with a long winded sigh.

“Okay. I can empathize with you, really I can. But you have to come to terms with the fact that this ‘risk’ goes beyond the one that threatens your lives as well as theirs. Your asking to breach a designated quarantine zone, do you understand this? Once we reopen the doors then only the Lord knows what may emerge out its depths. It would be gravely unethical to further endanger the lives of the people of this city for the sake of saving a mere half dozen.”

“So then give us the keys.” I interject boldly, not completely cognizant of consequence of what it is that I’m saying.

The doctor raises his thin eyebrows in absolute incredulity to my proposition. “I do beg your pardon.”

“Give us the keys.” I repeat once more.

“I cannot do that.”

“Why not? You give us the keys. Then once we’re inside we’ll lock the doors so that nothing gets out in the time that it takes to find our company. Once we find them, we’ll unlock them so as to exit the building, and lock them for one last time.”

“Quite a foolhardy plan you have there. Only hitch, of course, is that the doors are hardly engineered to be locked from the inside. Am I correct, Mr. Randy?”

“I reckon so, Doc.”

A minute passes in silence. I for one feel as if I’m at the end of my wits. Reaching in for another lovely and carcinogenic smoke, I fit it snugly in the corner of my lip. Just as my lighter flame kisses the end, Danny breaks through for us.

“Then I guess we have no choice but to have you guys lock us in.”

The cigarette drops out of my mouth in astonishment. Not so much because what he’s proposing is a practical deathtrap, but because it’s a flawless counterpoint to which the Doctor will surely have to concede. His broad brow, wrinkling deeply with frustration, swiftly confirms my tentative hypothesis.

The erudite man bores us each long, hard, and discerning look.

“How will you managed to escape, given your venture comes to fruition?”

“We’ll manage.” Danny answers quietly.

“Yes, but how?”

“I said we’ll fucking manage.”

“Well, Mr. Randy, it would appear as though our ‘king’ has fallen into the rather poetic misfortune of being cornered into the inarguable stance of checkmate.” 

This rather eloquent expression of concession is a bit lost on his husky sidekick, but only momentarily.

“Checkmate…wait a damn minute, Doc! You ain’t serious now?”

“Quite so. These gentlemen seem to be offering no other recourse nor compromise to us whatsoever. Besides if we were to leave these rather cunning fellows to their own devices, who is to say that they wouldn’t smash in the doors themselves if that is what it took? Come along now. There should be ample room in the rear.”

Having fully processed what seems to be our unlikely triumph, I slap Danny on the shoulder energetically. I cannot lie and say I wasn’t impressed with his conviction. No matter what this girl of Danny’s is, she is, without a doubt, one lucky broad. We both round about the cart, I forgetting totally about the smoldering nearly full cigarette on the ground, and practically body slam ourselves onto the aged plastic seats, grasping on to the cold, black bars that hold up the dulled canopy above.

Though the walk to the building would have only been a matter of ten or fifteen minutes, the ride is beyond appreciated by the both us, and it gives our legs a chance to break down all of the lactic acid it built up from our rather unexpected bout of strenuous activity. In about four minutes time, we arrive at that ever foreboding fortress of science and mathematics; now overruled by things that, as far as I’m concerned, are in direct paradox to each of those philosophies. Mr. Randy screeches the cart to a halt at about several meters from the door at the foot of the disability ramp that slopes gently upward towards the main threshold.

“Alright, folks. This looks like your stop, now don’t it?” The gingery officer turns towards us with an expression of genuine amiability, his eyes gleaming with the hope that we’ll make it alive.

“Much obliged, Mr. Randy. If you will be so kind as to wait on my return as I escort these boys to the entrance. Let us not tarry any longer, shall we?

As we make our way up to the subtle incline towards the threshold of the tower, I can’t help but begin to realize the sheer difficulty of this little rescue mission of ours. We have no deterrent nor any weapon to our disposal. Not to mention that I have little idea as to what room on the seventh floor Sealey and his lab have holed themselves into. Danny, however, strides with no sign of fear or apprehension whatsoever. A slight twinge of remorse tugs at me for what I had said to him about the inability for people to feel anything special for one another. Perhaps this guy will prove me wrong.

Finally we arrive at the face of the building, doors with shiny metal frames lined side by side in three pairs. Peering through their windows, I notice that the interior is a great deal darker than usual. This does nothing to reassure me of the obstacles that lie ahead of us.

“Here we are now. As I am sure you both have observed, it is rather dark inside of the building. This is because the primary electrical feed was cut off from this area of the campus grid about a half hour ago. What this implicates is that your only source of illumination, save if you have a flashlight, will have to come from any windows that lie adjacent to the outside. I’m sure you boys can imagine what an enormous hazard this will pose to you, seeing as you will necessarily have to travel up the fire exit staircase which is totally isolated from any external light. However, all hope is not lost. I shall provide you a key-not the one that may grant you admission to the outside through these gates, mind you-but one that, if you should choose to do so, will be able to activate an emergency auxiliary power source. This secondary system should provide at least a baseline level of visibility for you both.”

“And just where can we accomplish this?” I ask intently, relieved to know that there is some semblance of a solution.

“See now there comes the rub. You must travel to the basement floor, which is only a single level below the one I am providing you access to. It will be dark as a black hole’s singularity going down there as well, but it will be well worth it to travel one flight of stairs in darkness in order to travel seven more in light.”

I take the strange looking key in the palm of my hand, it’s base encapsulated with a reddish cylinder with a small yellow and black hazard icon wrapping the circumference.

“Ah one last thing, before I forget, if by chance you happen to find yourself stuck between a rock and hard place, take this.” The doctor reaches into his rear pocket and pulls out what appears to be an upscale, over-sized snuff box. He unclasps it,  revealing a row of neatly arranged hypodermic needles, each containing about two to three cc’s of a piss yellow compound. He hands it over to Danny, who then accepts it without question despite the obvious confusion on his face.

“Alright, then. I suppose I should go about unlocking the door, yeah?”

“Wait,” I nearly shout as if frightened of being left by a parent, “I just want to say thank you. We both do. May I ask your name so that I don’t have to address you as just Doctor this last time?”

“I would, my boy, had it any relevance to you or to me at this present state of time.” He replies dryly with wide smile, revealing an array of fairly white yet substantially crooked teeth. I suppose stereotypes aren’t always so fallacious after all. He takes a well populated key chain from out of his front pocket, automatically fetching for the correct one. Slipping it in with an effortless twist, the door swings open.

“Of you go then, lads. Be swift, be careful, and above all beware of Zed.”

“Who’s Zed?” Danny asks innocently enough.

“Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”

With a wink the mysterious doctor ushers us into the dank, dimly lit entrance hall of the Physical Sciences building. He locks the door behind us with a definite click, leaving Danny and I to our own devices.

At 10:30 AM a tinny, synthesized rooster’s crow rings it’s pathetic wail from my upstairs bedroom, down the carpeted stairs, and into the living room where Linfan and I finish up gathering what we conceive to be the barest and most convenient of necessities. I slump over our dumpster couch, sinking through it’s utter lack of lumbar anything whilst Linfan thoughtfully traces the rim of his empty coffee mug.

For a second, as the mechanized fowl-in-a-box ventures for round two of its squaking, I consider just letting it blow on for another minute or two before it shuts off due to the lack of anyone giving a damn. Unfortunately, today is one of those days that not even by my own jaded paradigms could I justify not giving one; that and the realization dawned on me that the periodicals Derek requested of me remained upstairs as well.

“Hey, I’m gonna run upstairs and grab those magazines real quick.”

“Tell your rooster to shut the fuck up while you’re at it.”

“Of course. While I’m at that, you mind making a quick tally of what we’ve got stocked up? In case we missed something, you know.”

Linfan nods at me and begins to sift through the two cardboard moving boxes that  are almost overflowing with a variety of consumables and supplies. I raise myself off of my tattered seat and jog up towards the source of that persistent, infernal clucking.

I wonder why I thought getting an alarm clock programmed with the voice of a mechanical cock to be a good idea. I’m not even that heavy of a sleeper.

Once up in my room, I climb over a mountain of MCAT preparatory text books that have never once seen the light of day and clothes that never again would see the light of day. Fumbling through the cluster of wrappers and bottles, I catch hold of the beast, determinately shoving my finger down on the on the “ALARM OFF” button. I take a look at it, evaluating it’s immediate utility. Given that I already have a watch, perhaps a spare within one of the boxes, I decide to toss it, but not before I unsnap the back panel to reveal two relatively fresh looking double A’s which I swiftly pocket along with my cigarettes.

I exit my room and stride right into Sealey’s; it’s somewhat neater than mine, but only because it has a different sort of clutter to it: modems, USB cords, optical cables, circuit boards, empty graphics card boxes, a very 90’s looking keyboard, various DVD anthologies of aged British comedies, collector’s edition CD sets of Journey and Rush, a collection of printed “how to” internet articles that lay across the entirety of his bed spread, and, last but not least, a stack of twenty something magazines that, surely enough, sat adjacent to his black computer tower. Truly this was an engineer’s room if I ever were to have seen one.

Initially when Sealey mentioned the issues in post-haste, I thought little of them besides being an expendable source of textual and pictorial entertainment. This would prove to be something of an underestimation. Save for a few blithe copies of Esquire-their covers adorned with either highly chic actor demigods or international supermodels striking a variety of delightfully suggestive yet tasteful poses-the magazines seem remarkably topical if not potentially valuable for whatever mess I’m finding myself in.

Survival. That’s the word that is plastered in dramatic and bold lettering across almost each and every cover. Some are more directed towards a post-WWIII dystopia. Other appear more fitted for a natural, environmental disaster. However, upon flipping through the entire collection, there isn’t one issue that deals with…well, for lack of a better word, a necrobiological catastrophe. Not even in a facetious sense. Still this is far better than nothing, and so I scoop the stack up, tuck it into the notch of my right armpit, and turn towards the door.

On my way out, the vast array of articles smothering Derek’s bed catches my eye; curious, I place the magazines on the night desk and pick up one of the stapled packets of paper.

“How to make your own soap.”

Soap? I wasn’t aware of my roommate’s fascination with homemade hygiene. I pick up another article.

“How to construct a simple water purification system based off of a Tesla coil ionization module.”

Wait, what? That can actually be done? And it’s simple?

I continue to flip through the dozens of DIY articles he’s printed off. They range from methods of fashioning electromotive generators to molding wax candles to canning one’s very own vegetable and fruit preserves. Whether relatively trivial or almost definitely crucial, I take each of the packets and straighten them on top of each other to form a second stack. Surely he had meant for me to grab these as well.

With Sealey’s makeshift survival guide in hand, I walk out into the corridor and swiftly scale down the stairs. There I find Linfan scratching a pen across the open face of his yearly planner. He looks up from his writing as soon as I return to the couch, the guide resting in my lap.

“What’s that,” I inquire, motioning towards the planner.

“Inventory,” he replies as he hands it to me. “What’s all that? You looking to do some leisure reading?”

“If you’d like to call it that,” I answer as I shift the guide off my lap and onto his.

Somewhat perplexed, he looks at me and then at the pile, sifting through each magazine with his generally thorough demeanor. I, in the meanwhile, take a look at the neatly bulleted list Linfan came up with, taking mental stock.

Food:

• 1.5 crates bottled water (approx. 36 bottles)
• 3 boxes protein bars (15 total) 
• .75 family sized box oatmeal 
• 9 cans soup
• 1 unopened bulk package ramen noodles (48 packets total)
• .5 bag almonds
• 1 loaf wheat bread
• 1 five pound sack basmati rice
• .5 2 pound bag short grain rice
• 1 bag ground coffee
• 2 jars peanut butter (crunchy and smooth)
• .75 jar grape jelly
• 1 bulk box Pop-Tarts (60 total)
• 1 one pound bag turkey jerky
• 2 boxes whole grain pasta (spaghetti and angel hair)
• 14 packets albacore tuna
• 3 cans turkey breast meat
• 1 bag potato chips
• 2.5 boxes assorted cereal

Supplies:

• 1 pack AA batteries (24)
• 1 pack AAA batteries (15)
• 1 standard water filter (w/ one spare filter)
• 2 flashlights
• 1 box cutter
• .75 bottle mouthwash
• 3 toothbrushes
• 1 tube toothpaste
• 1 pocket sized alcohol based hand antiseptic
• 5 one subject college ruled notebooks
• 1 package ball point pens (10)
• 1 miniature screwdriver set
• 1 battery powered drill (rechargeable) 
• .25 roll of duct tape

Having finished reading the list, I quietly close the planner and turn towards Linfan who intently scans through one of the printed survival packets.

“Dude, did you know you can purify water by using only a battery and a length of copper wire? 

“Yeah, the tesla coil shit. Pretty crazy, huh?”

“Where’d you get these? Did Sealey print them?”

“What do you think?”

Linfan cracks a slight smile and moves on to packet beneath that one.

“Too bad we’re fresh out of copper wiring.”

“No shit. At least we have the Brita filter.”

“Which will last us what.. one month? Two?”

“We have a spare filter, man.”

“Hence, two months instead of one.”

“Okay, well the last time I checked it’s the people around us that are messed up. Not the water.”

“Yeah, that is until it gets to be rather balmy outside and the zombies decide to take a little dip in the local water supply.” I quipped, cynically.

“Come on man. Don’t say that,” Linfan’s voice lowering to his typical this-shit-is-serious tone

“What? Oh relax man, I’m pretty sure we get our water from a reservoir…”

“No. Not that.”

“So then…don’t say what? Wait, you mean the zombie thing?”

“Dude, what the fuck.” Linfan’s gaze was turning to a glare.

“Would you chill, L-fan? I was just joking.”

“Yeah, well it’s not funny. Zombies…” His voice trails off whence the word rolls off his tongue. 

In fact, both of us fall to silence upon processing the word for the third time. To be honest I hadn’t even really given the concept any genuine thought. Not even when faced with the horrid travesty that was Lauren, the lovely, half-rotten cashier.

It was as if my brain-in having to deal with that awful, terrible, fucked up shit in the convenience store-had ceased to connect the dots, to establish otherwise logically derived conclusions. I had simply been coping with things in a purely phenomenological perspective; understanding my experience only within the context of the present (which really means no context at all). It’s sort of like if someone beside you is talking on the phone; though your ears are physically receiving the audio being transmitted, your attention is totally bereft and, as such, at the end of your conversation you remember little of what was said and understand none.

But now lucidity was beginning to stage a coup against rationalization inside of my head. Inside both our heads. And neither of us was having any of it. 

“Goddammit. We’re really boned,” I grumble as I frustratedly run my hands through my coarse, unkempt hair. 

“Boned? Seriously, I am telling you this isn’t some kind of return of the dead shit.”

“No, I mean logistically. Logistically speaking, you and I are boned. Add Sealey to the picture and were triple boned. Our non-perishable food realistically will last us about a month. Maybe two.”

“Well, considering if we ration it out efficiently…”

“Like I said. Maybe two.”

“You’re being pessimistic.”

“And what exactly about our situation beckons for optimism?”

Linfan looks at me, his shoulders heaving with a silent sigh as he picks up a copy of last December’s Popular Mechanics issue. He deliberately flips through the laminated pages until he comes across a vibrantly illustrated article titled, “Ten Crucial Guidelines for Surviving Anything and Everything.”

As if reading from a children’s storybook, he props it up on his leg and faces it towards me, his index finger indicating the very last guideline on the list. It reads:

“Guideline #10: In the face of even the most formidable adversity, never lose hope. Nearly all survivors of either natural disaster or man-made catastrophe cite optimism as being the single most important motivational force behind their mental and physical endurance under otherwise debilitating duress.”

Perhaps I’m the one that’s boned after all.

“I still think we’re boned.”

“Maybe. But not as much as Sealey.”

Damn. Sealey.

In an instant we both realize that our absent roommate left the phone on a a rather urgent note, a fact Linfan and I had neglected to remember while putting together whatever resource was to be had throughout the townhouse, which regrettably turned out to be somewhat lacking.

Immediately Linfan shoves the guide into the supply box, simultaneously fishing for the roll of duct tape with which to seal the boxes.

Whilst taping shut our emergency reserves he asks me, “He said for us to take separate cars, right?”

“Yeah,” I answer as I grip the box of food along the bottom edges and heave it up.

“Why? I mean doesn’t it make more sense of us to be carpooling? Conserving gas and all?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know. Nor do I think we have the time to spare for those kinds of questions. Damn it…we should have been out of here at least a half an hour ago.”

“Stay cool. This is Seals we’re talking about. Not a guy to be taken down easily. Certainly not within a half hour.”

Linfan’s reassurance stole away the growing knot of dread and guilt that had similarly afflicted me whence I had abandoned him for the milk. Maybe Popular Mechanics has a valid point after all. We haul the two boxes by the kitchen, grimacing as that dead, sterile stench wafts from our late and rather unfortunate acquaintance.

“What do we do about the body,” I ask with my nose digging into the relatively odorless safety of my sleeve. At this Linfan pauses as his foot props open the door. Gazing at the corpse with an air of near indifference, he shrugs.

“What’s there to do?”

The air outside still hangs with that sickly, clammy curtain of humidity as we throw our things into our trunks, the food in my car and supplies in Linfan’s. The sun still remains cloaked in monotonous blanket of clouds lazily rolling into one another. It’s getting colder.

I back out of the deserted parking lot with Linfan following suit. It’s strange driving down Alameda and seeing what seems to be a somewhat normal scene. I half expected there the road to be littered with cars with their doors dramatically flung open, the signs of desperate, split-second egress. Instead the street is pretty empty, as well as plethora of the restaurants, gas stations, and churches that dot the roadside; that is, of course, excepting the occasional looter or two, their legs dangling out the broken end of a storefront window. Men after my own heart, I suppose.

We drive past several stop signs and traffic lights, seemingly unhindered by anyone or anything. On the third light, I whiz by just as the light flickers from yellow to red, cutting Linfan off. I see his headlights shrinking in the water-spotted reflection of my rear view mirror, so I pull off into the gravely driveway of a First Church of Something. Suddenly, Sealey’s message concerning the radio station comes to mind. What was it? EAS? I set the radio to auto-scan through stations on the FM frequency, then the AM. 

Nothing but static.

“The hell,” I mutter, mashing the console to the sound of worthless white noise. It’s only until I sling myself back against the headrest that I take notice of the half-ripped antenna dangling haphazardly along the side of my car.

As if things couldn’t deteriorate any further, my phone rattles around in the ash littered cup holder adjacent to the emergency brake. I slide it open to see one simple word.

GO.

Within not even a fraction of a second after reading the text, the silver blur of Linfan’s sedan rushes a good fifty to sixty miles per hour past the church, followed by an equivocally swift amalgam of black, white, blue, and red.

Up until this point I have never really considered the validity of the adage, “Fuck the police.” 

Now, I can see why someone came up with that.

As the two cars swerve onto Porter, I yank the shift stick into reverse and peel out of the driveway, the tires screeching miserably as they struggle to maintain traction through that unpaved mess. Every muscle in my body clenches in the hope of making sense of whatever the fuck it is that I ought to be doing. Questions upon questions batter my brain ceaselessly. 

Why did Linfan get pulled over? Moreover, why the hell did he take off like that? Do I go after him? But then that still leaves Sealey up shit creek without a shotgun…

God, I hope he’s thought of something.

I speed towards the intersection, riddling the dilemma back and forth in the seconds it takes to reach the red stop light. I jam on the brakes and look over to the right where I last saw Linfan careen away from his uniformed pursuer.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” I repeatedly stutter under my breath whilst I grip the life out of the steering wheel, my knuckles whitening with blood loss.

To the left is the University where Sealey could simply be seconds away from being over taken by those…things. My eyes intently glare at the light, then and now darting to the left and right. Without Linfan, we have no supply. Without Sealey, we have no insight, presuming he’s somehow been preparing for this kind of thing. At last the light flickers to green, yet I remain frozen in my seat. Glancing down at my phone, it becomes painfully obvious as to what needs to be done.

“Ditch you once, shame on me. Ditch you twice…” I trail off with a mix of resignation and resolve as I slam on the gas pedal and jerk the sedan in the direction of Boyd street, leaving Linfan, once again, to fend for himself. 

In a matter of minutes, I find myself nearly crashing against wave upon wave of coupes, vans, SUVs, and trucks ebbing forcefully from the each and every corner of campus. A true, blue clusterfuck if I ever saw one. The closer I inch towards the football stadium, the more viscous the traffic becomes; the surprisingly slow, and controlled nature of this impromptu exodus feels somewhat contrived. If the familiar flash of red and blue in the distance is any indication, chances are that I’ll be inconveniently redirected in the opposite way.

 Right now, I simply can’t have that happen. 

Just before the twenty-five yard mark between myself and the checkpoint, I catch glimpse of a rare and incredibly slight window of space between the bumper of a tattered station wagon and that of a pick-up lumbering down the oncoming lane. Though it might not be large enough to slip through unscathed, I appear to have little to no recourse otherwise; in an almost automatic fashion, my car reels violently to the left, my teeth gnashing together to fend off the awful screech of the pick-up’s hitch anchoring itself into the grill. And just like that, my car grinds to a halt, and the tires uselessly spin into the asphalt.

Damn me. Had the pick-up been behind the wagon, this actually might not have turned out to be one of what’s beginning to seem like a cornucopia of fuck-ups. To top that the portly woman behind the wheel of the Ford T-250 doesn’t seem altogether to pleased at my failed Mission Impossible maneuver. 

“What in the…aw hell nah! Bobby! Bobby git your ass out here!” She bellows as she attempts to rock herself out of the tight squeeze of the driver’s side.

Fuck me, I do not have the time to deal with this.

“Bobby! Bobby Ray, I swear to God almighty if you don’t…”

“Alright, alright! If you’d gimme just a damn second…”

“Does it look like you gotta second? If you weren’t so freakin’ lazy…”

“If you’re so worried why don’t you go take care o’ that shit yourself?”

“You’re gonna make your pregnant fiancee get outta the car? Are you really?!”

Pregnant? I would have never guessed.

In as quickly as I find myself between a rock and a fat place, I at least seem to be getting a few more precious seconds out of their bickering, and so I begin jarring the gears back and forth to try and wiggle my way out. Nothing. Not even an inch to gain. I search around frantically for any inkling of a solution, and it seems as if Ms. Piggy is at last successful at persuading Mr. Ray to deal with my transgression. 

Well, shit. I slam my forehead against the steering column, slick with the cold sweat of my palms. Turning my head to the right, I can see the outline of the guy driving the wagon. His mouth hangs slightly agape, not knowing what to do seeing as I’ve effectively screwed him over along with myself. For a brief few moments our eyes meet through the tinted layers of glass, each second marked with the lethargic footsteps of the disenfranchised husband-to-be. Despite the fact that I can almost smell the cheap malt liquor of off Bobby Ray’s breath, I stare straight ahead, feigning obliviousness to what could be a disappointingly anti-climactic denouement; that is until I hear the station wagon rev up and back up swiftly into the series of cars behind him, triggering a domino effect of blaring horns and car alarms for at least a quarter mile long.

With a bit of a jolt, my sedan is released from the wedge and I’m, as they say, free at last. Or at least for now.

I instinctively slam down on the gas, ripping off the bumper in which the hitch was lodged.

“Get back here you sumbitch!” The words quickly fade away as Bobby’s flailing arms shrink in the rear view mirror. 

Craning my neck through the window, I yell something to the extent of me owing Station Wagon Guy a beer, and I continue on the less congested residential side roads. Though the road remains relatively empty, the lawns of house after house are cluttered with families scattering about, trying crate upon crate to the tops of their rickety four-doors. The sound of children-anxious, bored, and confused-is superseded only by the piercing screams of their mothers and fathers, as if attempting to herd a flurry of sheep in the midst of a thunderstorm; the occasional parent covering the ears of said children in lieu of instructing me to “Quit driving like a fucking maniac, you fucking maniac!”

Why don’t you quit being so fucking redundant, you…redundant person.

Within about five minutes of zooming through the ever formulaic sprawl of Midwestern suburbia, the crimson colored silhouette of the football stadium emerges in view, almost scratching the bleary surface of the sky. Lucky for me it seems as if the expansive lot, normally packed beyond the point of realism, is fairly empty for once. To think that it’d take an apocalyptic circumstance to vanquish this town’s hard-on for football.

Whatever works, I guess.

I go from about sixty to zero in three seconds or so, giving myself a bit of whiplash as I pull sharply into the spot otherwise reserved for VIP’s or whatever. The wind, now having picked up a good deal of speed, freeze dries the perspiration spotting my brow with dew-like drops; and no, it does not feel all that comfortable. I make a swift double check of the food in the trunk, and, save for a few cans that got flung into the remainder of our bread.

I knew I ought to have put that shit in the front seat. But no. I didn’t want to risk looking like some poor, inane bastard rolling in a bumper-less Accord with a half eaten loaf of bread strapped into the passenger seat. It’s funny how self-consciousness persists even in times of relatively extreme duress.

I shut the trunk lid, heave a slow breath, and head towards Sealey’s lab at a brisk pace.

That is until the air is pierced with the sound of depression era tires whining as they burn into the pavement behind me. Though to my surprise, it isn’t a seemingly endless column of florid, acne flecked double chins that cranes out of the window, seeking to unleash it’s super-sized wrath upon me.

“Hey! Hey you, stop!”

What do you know? The Station Wagon Guy.

Technically speaking I’m fairly indebted to him. I at least owe him a beer, assuming that he heard me in the midst of my very swift, and last-minute egress; and here in front of me is the very agent of serendipity by which I managed to twist open that bitch of a pickle jar. And let me tell you, he is…how shall I put it?

Underwhelming.

He manages pull right beside my car with perhaps only an inch or two to spare between the side mirrors; yet he somehow overshoots the curb by nearly half a car length. The wretched jalopy groans as the underside crumples helplessly against the cement.

I stand for a second, bewildered by this randomness. Strangely enough, I simply swivel on my heel back towards campus. The sounds of Station Wagon Guy attempting to clamor out of his death trap of a vehicle rattle on as he once again tries to flag me down. 

“Wait up, please! I need your help with something.”

Don’t we all.

I continue to ignore him as I round the abandoned ticket booths near the stadium gates. The guy seems nice enough, but to be quite frank, I really don’t have time to spare for anyone else’s crap right now.

He finally catches up with me, trying to implore me in between sharp, dagger-like breaths that appear to almost cut through his lungs.

“Dude, you’ve gotta help…me…come on man you said that…you owe me.”

I shoot him a jaded glance over my shoulder.

“You’re right. I certainly do owe you. A beer.”

“Okay, well I don’t drink so…”

“It would seem that you’re, how one might say, S.O.L.”

Hunched over with his bony fingers grasping his knees, he looks up and blinks at me with a haggard gaze.

“It means Shit Outta Luck. Are you not familiar with the…”

“The expression? Yeah, I am. God, are you really going to be like this? Right after what you tried to pull. I could have just let those guys ahead of you go Deliverance on your ass.”

“Alright, listen. As much as I’d like to help you out for emancipating me from the clutches of Jabba the White Trash Slut, my roommate’s holding up in a lab and I can’t waste my time…”

“Wait, you mean in the Physical Sciences building?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“If he’s in the same physics practicum as she, then yeah. I pretty sure it’s the only lab that’s scheduled for Sunday.”

“Who’s she?”

“Her name is Kiley. She’s, um, kind of my girlfriend.” His gray eyes brighten up as the last few words pass his thin, cracked lips.

“Kind of? You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

“No, I mean yes. It’s hard to explain.”

“That’s quite alright. Even if it wasn’t I rather you keep that to yourself.”

Seeing as my new friend’s asthma attack is over-for the most part-we begin to make our way across the fountains and flagpoles that adorn the lawn circumscribing the stadium. While perhaps a bit on the socially awkward side, this guy doesn’t seem too terrible. He stands at a height a few inches greater than mine, though even at that one can spot his half-foot slouch from a mile way. He’s almost incomprehensibly under-dressed for how chilly it is outside: khaki shorts, an holey Iron Maiden t-shirt, and a pair of sandal shoes with the sock scrunched halfway between the ankle and shin. His gaunt cheeks are pale, colored only by the scraggly patches of brown facial hair that spot his jawline discontinuously. A classical superficial profile of a geek; if nothing else I’m at least in the presence of somewhat familiar company.”

“Danny.”

“What?”

“My name,” he replies with a pale and lanky arm outstretched towards mine, “what about yours?”

I take his hand, though it turns out to be more of a slip than a shake considering how incredibly clammy his hands are. This guy practically outdoes Urkel when it comes to that kind of thing.

“My name is…irrelevant.”

“Your parents named you Irrelevant?”

I glare at him, unappreciative of his impotent sarcasm.

“Whoa buddy. It was just a joke, relax. But in all seriousness, why the confidentiality? You big into metaphysical philosophy or something?”

At least he isn’t stupid.

“Not so much. I’m more into psychology.”

“Very cool. So, like, what do you think Freud would say about this whole thing?”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem too brilliant either.

“What, about how I consider the exchange of nominal pleasantries to be incredibly inane in light of the present circumstance? Or the fact that the present circumstance is starting to appear very much like George Romero’s ultimate wet dream?”

“Well…”

“I’ll tell you what ol’ Siggy would say. First off, he would have nothing to say about the former. As for the latter, he would probably attribute all of this to some sort of hallucinogenic mass hysteria that’s rooted in man’s subconscious desire to destroy that which he cannot mentally come to terms with.”

Danny scratches at his hasn’t-been-showered-for-days hair, dandruff sprinkling his narrow shoulders.

“So, like, those rumors about I’ve been hearing about is just a load of crap? It’s just a bunch of people getting super paranoid about death?”

It suddenly becomes clear to me that he has yet to suffer the misfortune of having to witness just how wrong he is. The poor bastard is in for a less than pleasant surprise. Just as I begin open my mouth to enlighten him of the situation, my heart takes a free fall drop the pit of my stomach; it’s that smell again. I yank Danny sharply to the right, flinging him downwards behind the cover of the cement railings which line the staircase leading up to the Business College.

“Dude, what the hell? And you ripped by Iron…oh God what’s that smell?” he yelps as he pulls his half torn shirt over his nose to fend off that despicable odor.

As I peer over the edge of the railing to where the library stands, I glimpse dozens of slow, staggering silhouettes scraping across the South Oval. I slump back down to where Danny is on the ground, chuckling with the same sort of blase attitude Linfan boasted in the few minutes prior to our separation.

“That, Danny, is the smell of what stands between you and your better half, and for your sake I hope she’s worth the damn trouble.”

His eyes are now pried open with the disbelief of someone that has been told for the first time that Santa doesn’t exist or that love is a commercial farce invented by Hallmark.

Which it very well is, by the way.

“Yeah, definitely. What’s the deal with your roommate? You got something special going on with her?”

I shove my hand into the my right jeans pocket, extricating the still bountiful cigarette pack from it’s depths and slipping the filtered end into the slight part between my chapped lips. I motion the pack towards him, though I can already tell he doesn’t partake-the man wouldn’t even take up a free beer-and I fetch my lighter, cupping my right hand about it so as to shield from the miserable gust. Just as I flick the flint wheel I take notice, for the first time, its sick fluorescent pallor. 

A white lighter. Go figure.

“First off I highly doubt that this ‘something special’ you’re talking about ever really occurs between anyone. And secondly the she is actually a he.”

We sit for a few seconds in uncomfortable silence, partly because of my implication that love doesn’t exist and partly because, in all likelihood, he probably thinks I’m gay. Though this isn’t the case at all, I find his newfound, standoffish behavior to be convenient. Hence, I don’t bother to clarify. I even encourage the notion somewhat, just to keep him quiet.

“You know sometimes it takes a man in order to take care of a man in the way that man really deserves, you know?” I whisper as if expressing something in confidence, patting his back gently for awkward effect.

Little does he realize that I’m referring to the act of one playing with oneself; something I don’t imagine either of us will be doing for a long, long time.

ihatejoemoore:

Kenny Madison Editing Reel

They always say you should never walk away from someone in anger. Not for any particular reason other than the possibility of that being the last time you ever see them. Because somehow, according to the peculiar rhythms of the cosmos, the likelihood of one out of two people dying exponentially shoots up when they’re pissed off at each other. Or so Edward Murphy will tell you. And from what I hear, he was a pretty smart guy.

For today’s sake, the next five minutes’ sake, I hope he’s wrong.

It’s pretty hard to think clearly in a situation like this. I mean what with the all deserted vehicles and clammy, arctic fog. Oh and not to mention the five foot four inch brunette, a bombshell of sorts, staggering only inches away from my face; her breath floods my nostrils with the thick, vomit inducing stench of necrosis. This is when reality really gives me a good jab in the balls.

The caustic burn of hydrochloric acid splashing up my esophagus pulls my head back together somewhat, though now I have to double over in an effort to combat the dry heaving. It’s soon to be wet if I have to be within necking distance of this chick for a split second longer. Looking down at the floor right in front of my feet are those lavender ballet flats, almost toe to toe with my sneakers; painstakingly, I release the tension of the fist containing her slick and icy flesh until it falls unto the floor with a slight, yet sickening plop.  

I have to do something. It’s now or never. 

I look at her legs and notice that the left one seems to look different than the other; it’s slightly more emaciated, less symmetrical. Granted, I can’t really tell what’s going on there, considering the non-transparent quality of her navy skinny jeans.

Now you have to understand that before this particular point in my life, I have never once even considered the thought of physically harming a woman. I’m a natural born chump. A downright sucker for all womankind, despite all of my cynical overtures. So I think I deserve something of a freebie when I say that, standing in back of that fluorescent hell with refrigerated air creeping down on my neck, I found my only logical recourse to be to try and smash my foot into the crest of her left knee.

Besides at this point, with those gnarled veins beginning to hemorrhage an inky, ferrous slugde into the once clear whites of her eyes, I can hardly consider her…this to be anything in reasonable semblance to a woman.

And as if on reflex, just as my stomach begins to retch something awful, I inhale sharply and squeeze my eyes shut as I lift my right foot up and send it crashing down into her patella. As I make contact, I brace for a sort of recoil, the impact of opposite and equal reaction. I don’t know where the hell Netwon’s second went this time.

In the instant that my heel begins to apply pressure, I hear the sickeningly dull crack of her patella’s rupture echoing in the darkness behind my eyelids. To my further horror, it doesn’t just stop there; my foot continues to crush its way entirely through the anterior cruciate ligament and out the other side of the leg, like a pinata stuffed with soft, wet play-doh.

My sneaker finally hits the ground, but not with the kind of smack one would expect with tile flooring. Every part of my body feels chilled and every nerve feels like it’s been victim to biochemical arson. My heart is throbbing so severely it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if blood was seeping through the crevices of its myocardial walls.

God forbid that I look at what I’ve done. I know that eventually I will have to pry my eyes open and navigate myself out of this place, around this thing that, God forbid, is somehow stuck to the dirty underside of my shoe.

As I begin the process of again facing and reassesing the situation I’m in, I try and rationalize the shit out of what I’ve done.

“It’s okay, it’s alright,” I tell myself in a shuddering whisper.

“You did what you had to do.”

“Now you’re going to open your eyes, and get the hell out of here.”

“Open them, damn it.”

“I am.”

My eyes immediately shoot open at the gaunt and wasted sound of those two words.

It’s still alive.

Laying there-sprawled across the floor-with her knee pancaking under the my weight, she looks almost helpless. As she said, her eyes, more like two huge, drippy pupils, are open and staring right at mine. Her jeans begin to darken around the flattened joint, presumably from the ooze of pus and annihilated cartilaginous tissue emerging from what could only be a compound fracture.

I honestly don’t know what I’m doing trying to diagnose this thing. Something is fundamentally and physiologically awry here. Knees don’t just cave in like that. Spontaneous sub-optic hematomas are not something of a natural occurrence. Women, as far as I have been able to ascertain, typically do not exude the graveolent malodor of a morgue that is now one hundred percent formaldehyde-free.

It’s amazing really. How terribly fucked up my life is becoming within the course of four short minutes. Here I am. Towering over the first girl I have ever hurt in my entire life, and I’m not even sure she’s a girl. That and my foot is jammed so far into her leg, I swear it feels like it’ll be stuck like that forever.

That is until I exhale after having held my breath for God knows how long, letting the smell kick my ass so hard I have to physically smash my nostrils shut to keep from chucking bile again. I gnash my teeth together while I pry my right foot out from inside of her with my left.

The damp crunch of bone saturates the inside of my head with the kind of disgust that comes with witnessing something really and truly messed up. It’s a lot like those grotesque black and white holocaust films that teachers show you in high school, when they feel you’re ready for that kind of stuff; except this is real, it’s happening right now, and you are a part of it.

You can’t be jaded. You can’t maintain distance. Therefore, you cease to be able to handle it. Or at least I can’t.

My right foot finally free, I stumble back upon the row of transparent fridge doors housing overpriced protein shakes and a virtual rainbow of something-ade sport drinks. The glass feels cool against the feverish burn of my skin as I slowly close my eyes once more. The room is almost perfectly silent, save for the moist wheezing of what was the cashier as it lays in a collapsed heap on the floor in front of me.

Now what?

Though immobile, it’s still there and still…breathing?

I, never really having been too experienced with things that look like they’re dying and/or dead, haven’t really passed a judgement as to the ethics of putting someone, or rather something, out of it’s misery. Judging by the blankness on its face, I might even venture to say that I’m the miserable one here.

“Enough.” I mutter under my short and labored breath.

Shakily, I grab onto a door handle and get up on my feet. I reopen my eyes, shifting them away from the mess I made. I gaze straight ahead towards the counter and take a few steps into the aisle on my right. I know it’s still looking at me, trying to arrest me with it ghastly stare. Swallowing hard, I clench my fists together to ease the trembling of my muscles.

“Almost,” I gasp. “You’re almost there.”

A few more paces and I find myself at the front counter, at the precipice of fifty perhaps even a hundred different brands of cigarettes all neatly packed together into the wall as well as in the overhead facing the register. I eye each individual pack as my heartbeat finally checks its speed down to a decent one hundred and twenty beats per minute.

And I thought today might be the day that I start quitting. Ha.

Upon glancing at a pack of Camel brand cigarettes, I place one hand on the counter and vault over it, landing on the cashier’s side. This is where Lauren used to work. I grab the pack and as I’m about to hop over again, my eyes are drawn to the overhead. In it are not packs, but cartons of cigarettes. Ten packs to a carton is a difficult fact to ignore, and so I pocket the pack whilst I reach up to snatch a carton of Marlboro Red’s. Not really my first choice, but they are the most readily accessible. Once back over the counter, I wipe my brow of the many beads of saline sweat that effectively drench my hair to a near soppy mess. I then take my first sigh of relative relief and head towards the door, only to be halted once more.

“Pay.”

My entire body freezes up upon hearing that hollow croaking. In all honesty, I had just forgotten about paying for the cigarettes. But upon reconsideration of the situation, how I more or less destroyed what was left of the only person who could even ring me up, I began to realize the futility of even trying to do so.

I force a hard breath and start again to move out of the store.

“Pay. Please.”

Seriously? How is this even possible? I mean, if it really is what I am inclined to think it is, how is it talking? And not even talking, but formulating cognizant responses to my actions. How the hell does it even see with all of that liquid charcoal blanking out the entirety of its eyes? Just thinking about it makes my head heat up as if warmed by the sheer friction of my spinning thoughts.

I remain still for a little longer this time, refusing to move my head, yet intently listening to its arrhythmic wheezing turn into a horrible kind of gurgling, as if it was beginning to suffocate on syrup.

Gurgle. Wheeze. Gurgle. Wheeze. Gurgle…

“Please.”

No more. I immediately burst through the door, pack in pocket and carton in hand. The outside air is still dank and wet, though at least now the enigmatic and sticky fog has lost some of its density; you can actually see farther than fifteen feet in front of you. How very fucking nice that is, at this point.

I trod to my car and unlock the front door, tossing the carton haphazardly unto the passenger seat. I try to plug the keys into the ignition, but my hands won’t stop quaking for a second; each quiver corresponding to the still rapid palpitation of my heart. Shoving my hand into my right pocket, I slide out the pack of Camel’s, flip it upside down, and gently smack it down on the flat side of my palm. 

Smack. Smack. Smack.

At least this is familiar. Comfortable.

I tear off the cellophane, pull one out, and stick it in between my quivering lips. As soon as it’s lit and I take my first drag, the nicotine sets about slowing down my heart rate, assuaging the tension of my muscles. After a few minutes, I look down at my hands to see if I’m good to start my own damn car. They seem okay, I mean as good as can be for a guy who just blew out a half-rotten chick’s knee and then proceeded to shoplift for the first time in his life.

But what am I even thinking? Shoplifting? Considering the circumstances I think most people would concur that what I was engaged in was looting. Yes, of course. Because looting and shoplifting are two entirely different concepts, right?

Whatever.

I crack open a window and start the car, flicking out a bit of ash as I look at the convenience store one last time before abruptly pulling out of the parking lot and speeding back home.

Drag after drag, all of the cars skewed across the road, their doors ajar, don’t seem that out of place. Wherever there’s smoke, there’s a sense of normalization; an artificial clarity. That’s the attraction, I suppose.

After a few swift minutes, I swerve curtly into one of the two parking spots at the front side of our porch. Fortunately enough for me, I pull in beside a silver accord about a year or two older than mine.

He’s still here. And hopefully more alive than dead.

That same, stupid, obtrusive lump begins to form in my throat as the last of my cigarette burns right down to the filter. I click open the door, lob the butt somewhere behind me, and make towards the main gate…which I find to be flung open. I never really like seeing that on a normal day, so you can imagine my added paranoia upon seeing it on a day like this.

Quietly I step over the curb and make my way towards the front door, which to my slight amazement, is also cracked open. Lowering my head to my chest, I heave a long winded sigh. What if I really screwed up this time? What if when I push through the door I have to face a scene even more macabre than that little episode in the convenience store?

I’ve dealt with enough Lauren’s for one twenty four hour period, thank you.

Make that seventy two.

Regardless, I fashion up some resolve, zip up the collar of my grey jacket over my mouth and nose, and slip into unit two hundred and eighteen. Despite my improvised muffler, the smell pervading the apartment air is very much like the one I encountered at Popeye’s and so it smacks me in the face so hard that I can’t help but cough uncontrollably. The coughing, however, isn’t due to the aroma of decomposing organic tissue; rather, it’s this alkaline bite that’s persistently burning away at my nasal passages.

Bleach. And I mean a hell of lot of it.

With my eyes blurring with tears because of the fumes, I blink non-stop so as to discern exactly where the hell I’m going. I think I just passed the washer and dryer. Now the fridge. All of a sudden I run into what I can only assume to be our free-of-charge dumpster couch. The smell is somewhat subdued in the living room, allowing me to rub my eyes dry and open them up.

Sitting ever so calmly, as if it’s just any other morning, is Linfan. He’s turned forty five degrees away from me so I can’t really see his face; just a frazzled head of jet black hair and a Conoco mug with water vapor subtly wisping out of it. His shoulders slowly rise and fall and he takes an almost inaudible sip.

“Got milk?”

Shit. After all that trouble, leaving him to deal with our not so friendly neighborhood homeless man, I came back with nothing but eleven packs of cigarettes. And he doesn’t even smoke.

“Uh…nah, man. I guess I, um, forgot. Ha.”

“What did you bring, then?”

“Ah…I know you probably won’t approve. But…”

“Cigarettes, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Linfan slowly nods his head and finally turns to me.

“Cool. Shall we?”

As he looks at me, it really only seems like the guy just pulled off one of his “all nighters”. But there’s something different. Something that completely escapes me, yet is so implicitly prevalent in his gaze that it makes me worry.

“Um…yeah, of course.”

“Okay.” He replies as he rises out of the beige fold-out.

As he gets up, though, I notice something tucked into his left elbow; what he’s using to prop himself up. It’s the M14 replica air-soft rifle that Derek had ordered almost a year prior. However, about six months ago, the thing started to jam every few rounds fired and the battery began to suck miserably at retaining its electromotive force. It isn’t readily apparent to me as to why Linfan would be handling that useless piece of die-cast crap.

That is until I see the nearly foot long butcher knife that’s been attached to the rifle’s orange capped muzzle with what looks like half a roll of silver duct tape. The blade itself is heavily caked around the edge with that same ebony colored gunk that, only six minutes earlier, was pouring out of the cashier’s sunken eye sockets. There are several trickle streaks that travel from the handle of the knife, over the aimlessly wrapped adhesive, and down the body of the rifle; like melted ice cream dripping across the crisscrossing ridges of a waffle cone.

I can’t help but stare at his little improvisation and back at him, only he looks only a mere fraction as interested as I do, I’m sure. He then proceeds to sling the weapon over his shoulder, fitting the strap determinately over his chest, and extends his hand towards me.

“Oh right,” I say as I fumble through the tight slit they call a jeans’ pocket to fish out my pack.

I slip out two cigarettes and hand one to him, which he promptly and effortlessly take and snaps in half between his thumb and index finger.

“You know I don’t smoke, bitch.”

A grin briefly wipes itself across both our worn faces.

“Ha. Just as well. I just finished one right before I got here,” I reply as I tuck my cigarette in the space above my ear intended for storing pencils, pens, and other slim, cylindrical objects.

“I know. I could smell it on you.”

“What? With all this crap that’s saturating the air? I mean what did you do, dump two gallons of bleach on the kitchen floor “Home Alone” style?”

His expression turns rather grim as he glances at the kitchen with eyes half closed.

“Wait, did you?”

He silently takes another short sip of his black coffee.

“Linfan?”

“After you left,” he begins in a trembling whisper. “I went to go get my phone from upstairs so I could call the police or something. So I climbed up the stairs and got the cell from my room. I…I dialed 911, right? And the phone’s ringing, so I returned downstairs to show that prick that I’m being serious, you know? I swear, man, as soon as I reached the living room, I turned around and…there he fucking was. In our house, standing right by the fridge. I was like, ‘Hey! I’m calling the police right now, man. I’m not playing around.’ But the phone just kept ringing. And he just kept standing there. I don’t know how he got in, I mean I was completely sure I locked the door, both the knob and the bolt. Anyway, like I said, the phone just kept ringing. Like it never…connected. Regardless I put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the couch. He was beginning to move. At first it was slow but then, I don’t know, it seemed like he picked up on something. Smell, maybe. Oh yeah, that smell? The bleach? I’ll explain it later but trust me when I tell you its nothing compared to the shit that was coming off from him. I wanted to throw up as soon as he took just one step towards me. I mean, seriously? This shit was fucked up, man. When he got closer, I could see how half his skin was just decaying right on the spot, especially this chunk that was completely missing from his forearm… I’m sorry, I’m totally rambling here.” Linfan starts to put on a nervous smile as he trails off.

“No, no. You’re fine, man. I promise. You don’t know how thoroughly I’m getting you, right now.

He really has no idea.

“Yeah, thanks. But like I was saying, at one point he kind of stopped and cocked his head to the side. Then he did what pretty much freaked me out to hell, which was talk.”

Lauren. She spoke to me as well.

“Eat. Eat, he kept saying. After a while he turned to our fridge and…started groping around there, smashing food on his face with the packaging still on. It was really messed up to watch.”

“I can only imagine.”

“So after a while of me just standing there the phone, like I said, started blaring the ‘We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable.’ message. I knew I had to do something myself, so I looked around the living room and saw Sealey’s gun. I knew it wasn’t really going to do a whole lot of damage, but I at least figured that it would work as a decent deterrent, you know.”

“Right.”

“I then found a half full clip on the floor and jammed it into the underside of the rifle and I pulled back on the bolt.”

“You realize, that pulling back on that thing does absolutely nothing, right? There are no working, mechanical parts to it at all.”

“Yeah, well, I thought maybe it’d scare him off. Got his attention, at least.”

“Fair enough.”

“Having the rifle loaded, I pointed it straight at him and told him that if he didn’t leave, I’d shoot.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t leave.”

Linfan slowly shakes his head and frowns.

“Bastard.”

“I finally squeezed the trigger, firing, at best, maybe seven or eight pellets at him. This pretty much pissed him the fuck off. I mean he lost it and suddenly charged me. I didn’t have a whole lot of space to avail so I more or less had to dive over the couch and crash into the kitchen. I think he must of fallen over or something, because it took a while before I heard him get back up. While in the kitchen, I felt like I had a damn heart attack, you know; rummaging through all the drawers, cabinets, everything for something, anything I could defend myself with. Luckily enoughI found the butcher knife hiding in the bottom rack of our dishwasher. By the time I snatched it, that fat-ass was heading straight towards me again. So I pretty much sprinted around him and up the stairs to Sealey’s room. Mainly because his is the only door that locks.”

“Makes sense.”

“Anyways, I was just sitting there…not knowing what the hell this person or thing or whatever was doing in our house. Not to mention why the I wasn’t able to connect to the police department. I mean, doesn’t that kind of thing happen when things are getting really messed up? You know…like we woke up this morning to some post-apocalyptic shit.” Linfan laughs nervously, trying to diffuse the tension of reality that’s gradually settling around our throats with slipknots.

I’m not entirely sure that post-apocalyptic is the appropriate term here.

“I wait in there for, I don’t know…two, three minutes before I hear him start to clamor up the stairs. Most of that time, I spent waiting for you to get back. I’ll be honest man, I was really hoping you’d show back up so we could maybe have a better combined chance of getting rid of him. But after a while I just kind of assumed the worst and I figured that I was going to have to do this myself. I knew that neither that crap rifle nor the knife would prove effective, independently at least. And then seemingly out of nowhere, I spot this roll of virtually unused duct tape and…it’s like I automatically knew what I needed to do.” 

“Butcher knife bayonet?”

“Yeah. Butcher knife bayonet.”

“At first I thought it was going to fail miserably; but by the time I had gotten halfway through the roll, the blade began to stabilize fairly well. Once finished, I kept inside the room for a minute longer, listening through the door for any sign as to how close he might have been at that point. I couldn’t really hear much and, considering how the more time I gave him meant the closer he was able to get to me, I thought to myself ‘It’s now or never’ you know?”

Oh, I know alright.

“It actually gets sort of anti-climactic here. I half expected the guy to be right at the door when I flung it open, but he was no where in or around the bedroom corridor. Tiptoeing toward the stairs, I peeked down to see where he might have gone; and that’s where I saw him. At the foot of the stairs, lay Trey-Trey. I honestly don’t know if that guy had coordination problems or was just a being a dumbfuck. I’m thinking the latter.”

I let out a quiet chuckle. “So then what?”

Linfan’s gaze shifts away from mine and gravitates towards the kitchen again.

“So then…I stepped down to about three steps above him, looked at him for a few seconds, and I thrust the end of that rifle right straight into the bastard’s skull.”

His voice really begins to tremble now, almost uncontrollably so.

“It’s…it’s not like I thought about it, man. I just…did it.”

“Buddy. Listen to me, just calm down. You did what you had…”

“And you know what’s really messed up? The bayonet or whatever, whenever it made contact, just pierced through him…as if he didn’t even have a skull. Just wet and mushy.”

“Linfan…”

“Fucked his ass up.” he whispers as his color and composure slowly flush back into his face.

After that it gets really quiet, more so than I’m ever comfortable with. I mean, hell, this is largely my own fault. Had I not left him to fend for himself, maybe he wouldn’t have been forced to take such extreme measures. I mean, I might have obliterated whatever was left of girl’s leg, but I did not walk away from that situation thinking I had actually killed someone. Maybe I’m just a great deal more morally bankrupt than he is.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

“Listen. Whatever you did Linfan, you didn’t do to a person, okay? Last time I checked, normal people do not smell nor look like they’re literally made of shit. Alright?”

His head slightly bobs up and down, as if in absent agreement.

“I also…I’m really, and I mean, really sorry for just bailing out on you like that. And all for a carton of milk…”

“That you forgot like a dumbass,” he interjects in that usually wry manner of his.

I never before have taken such solace in his sardonicism. Linfan’s mind is still somewhat here. About as much as mine is, anyway.

“Though, I guess you ran into some inconvenient company yourself,” he says as he gestures towards my right leg. My formerly white sneaker is now smothered with coagulated streaks of ebony and crimson, bits of spongy slivers of degraded bone tissue dotting the soaked cuff of my jeans.

“Yeah. You could say that.” 

The sting of bleach is still lingers thickly in the air, though now I think I understand why its there.

“So I guess the body is…”

“In the kitchen. I had to drag it from the stairs so all the gunk seeping out of his head wouldn’t permanently stain the carpet. I’m pretty sure the deposit we threw down doesn’t cover that sort of thing.”

“Dude. I honestly think having to pay above and beyond our townhouse deposit is the least of our worries as the present moment.”

“You never know.”

I shake my head at him in feigned disbelief. Just then my ears catch the subtle whirring of my phone vibrating against the computer desk at the opposite side of the living room. I stoll over and pick it up to see who it is.

Incoming call: Derek Sealey.

Finally, someone who can tell us what in God’s name is going on here. The phone almost fumbles out of my hand as I frantically slam my thumb down on the green telephone icon.

“Hey!”

“Bilal.”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me. What’s the hell is going on, man!?”

“Okay. I have no clue as to what in God’s name is going on here.”

Well that’s terrific.

“No shit. Where are you, you still at work?”

“Work? No. Remember I have lab at seven in the morning on Sundays…whatever that’s not important. You and Linfan-I don’t know if he’s with you-need to get your asses over to campus right now.”

“What? Why? Sealey, tell me what’s wrong?” Not that I already don’t have a decent idea.

“I’m up on the seventh floor in the Physical Sciences building…they can’t seem to climb all that well…but they’re getting closer.”

“Who’s they? Derek!”

“No time. Get out of the townhouse. Drive in separate cars. Grab all the conceivable essentials. Non-perishable food, water, batteries…”

“Okay yeah…yeah I got it.”

“Also, those magazines.”

“What?”

Sealey’s breathing begins to sharpen over the phone. He’s hanging up soon, I can feel it.

“The magazines…I keep them in a pile to the right of my tower console in my room: Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, even Esquire. Leave nothing.”

“Right. Whatever you say.”

“Oh. And last but not least, when you get in the car, scan through the AM radio stations. You should hit the EAS at some point.”

“The what?”

“The EAS…it stands for…shit…I’ve got to go. Bring cigarettes if you can. We’re going to need them. Bad.”

And with that the call clicks off.

As I slide the cell shut and slip it into my pocket, Linfan looks at me with a calm readiness that’s more startling than it is reassuring.

“So. When do we leave?”

So recently, I’ve gotten back into listening a good deal of Modest Mouse. I’ve specifically been semi-obsessing over the album The Moon and Antarctica. Good if your feeling a bit on the lonely side these days. And I mean really good.

God, I hate Sunday. The one day of the week where something, anything has to go wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that instead of getting to sleep away the early and often mundane hours of the morning, you awake four hours and twenty-seven minutes prior to your 10:30 AM alarm; not even the Sun is up yet. Yeah, that’s me. And no, I am not easy like goddamn Sunday morning. Especially not this one.

I toss lazily to the other side of my bed and reach my free arm over to the windowsill littered with half finished water bottles and crumb ridden snack wrappers. When did my room get to be such a mess? And where the hell is my alarm clock?

As my hand clumsily slides across the musty off-white paneling, knocking all those bits of trash and granola onto my bed sheets, I squeeze my eyes shut; I know this would all be so much easier if I just sat up and watched what I’m doing. It’s not worth it to me though. Because I also know that the second I decide to pry my crusty lids apart, it’s game over. All hope of catching some derivative of a nap shall be forever lost to me and I’ll have nothing to do but lay there. Eyes wide open. The absence of radiance filtering through the blinds, mocking my awakeness.

Ha ha ha. You’re up at 6:03 on a Sunday morning, you poor bastard; I’m not even up yet.

Screw you, Sun. And screw your poor bastard, Sunday.

Finally, my hand clasps around that cage of plastic I call a clock, my fingertips scanning all sides for the tells-you-the-time button like a guy with twenty-twenty vision trying to decipher braille. Just so you know, I wear glasses. Or I did before I broke mine a few Sundays back.

Damn it.

Having reached the appropriate button, I smash my index finger down on it as far as physically possible. “Ding! The time is currently six o’ three AM.” As my luck would have it, the sickly green back-light that comes with pressing the tells-you-the-time button pierces its way through my epidermis, then my dermis, and apparently straight to where my optic nerve hides out in my skull just to make sure my ass is awake. And sure enough one eyelid lifts, the other joining in resignation.

Sleep is overrated.

So is rationalizing.

After lying there for a few minutes, I drag my feet from under the warmth of my sheets and onto the carpet, rough and cool. Has this thing ever been vaccuumed? Maybe I just need to stop taking granola bars up to my room to stuff in my face right before pass out. They can’t be that healthy for you. Or for the state of your room’s crumbiness.

I get up, shut off my tower fan, and mosey on to the bathroom. After an unusually lengthy piss, probably the only satisfying and productive thing I do today, I perform my usually half-assed thirty second job of scrubbing my teeth off with a toothpaste that nine out of ten dentists recommend above the leading brand.

Wait…I thought this was the leading brand. Everyone wants to be the underdog, I guess.

My breath now being at least somewhat tolerable to me, I walk downstairs into the dim quiet of the living room. You can start to see the rosy pink haze of the dawn through the slits of collapsed window shades as it slowly diffuses across the navy blue of what was dusk. It’s kind of nice. And so in my drowsy admiration of one of nature’s small wonders, I venture to step outside and enjoy the view without the artificial barrier of tempered glass only to realize that it is freezing, and damp, and foggy, and awful.

Screw, Nature’s small wonders.

I turn back into the house almost as fast as the brisk morning air whisks its way inappropriately between my legs. Almost. I jam the thermostat up a good seven degrees and upon the familiar click and consequent whoosh of lukewarm air pouring through the ventilation, I head towards the kitchen to make myself some coffee. I don’t particularly like it, but legend has it that it can make your life seem somewhat less crappy in the morning. I have yet to be impressed, though.

Now, this day, this Sunday, has already had its fair share of moderately unpleasant surprises. So you can probably imagine my added disdain when, upon switching on the light to the kitchen, I proceed to crap the entirety of my gastrointestinal tract into my pants. Metaphorically speaking, anyhow.

“Oh shit! Wait it’s just you…sorry, Linfan.”

“Oh. Hey, man.”

Standing in the midst of the kitchen floor is a dark silhouette who, within the instant light flooded the room as well as my brain, initially seems like some crazy who has broken into our house to find food or hostages or something with which to quench his thirst. But really it’s just my roommate looking as exhausted as ever, eyes half closed and bloodshot. The guy works his ass off at school, which typically means late nights for him; however, today he seems different. Like he is really, really out of it.

“Damn, man. You look dead. Like a zombie.”

“Thanks. And don’t you mean undead?” he replies with a wry and tired smile.

“Touche.”

“Here,” he said as he fetches two mugs from the upper cabinet. “I know your not a big fan of it, but I made a bit more than I can swallow.”

“That’s what she said.”

We both laugh. Maybe today won’t be so bad after all.

“You like your’s black?

“Nah, man. I’m a milk and sugar kind of guy.”

“Right. You know you could just be a man and drink it straight like me,” Linfan boasting in between sips of that bitter elixer.

“Shut up, dude.”

I pick my mug up from off of the counter and head towards the fridge to get said milk, only to find that my half gallon of skim is, in fact, rotten. Have I mentioned how much I like Sundays yet?

“Damn it, man. I swear to God I just bought this stuff less than a week ago.”

“You know that skim milk as well as any form of dairy that has undergone fat reduction is typically twice to three times as perishable as normal, tasty, fatty dairy. I don’t know why you insist on drinking the stuff.”

I shrug. “Maybe it’s the self-loathing.”

“Probably.”

I passively-aggressively chuck the odorous milk into the trash bin and take to scanning the pantry for any sort of dehydrated creamer. I’m picky like that.

“Why don’t you just drink the coffee straight? Be a man.”

“No thanks. I can’t down the stuff without something to lighten things up.”

After five good minutes of searching, I come up with nothing but three Splenda packets and some really generic dollar store brand hot cocoa.

“Well that’s just awesome,” I mutter under my breath as my eyes shift to my car keys dangling off the edge of the kitchen counter.

It’s cold outside. I don’t really think it’s all that worth it go trek out into the chilly, mid-February wet. But I also don’t think it’s worth it to jam what could possibly be my only concrete solution to combating the perpetual grogginess of getting ripped off a REM cycle down my throat without the thick, soothing, and somewhat nutritional matter that’s been pasteurized from a cow’s tit. Teat. Whatever.

I lackadaisically scoop up my keys with my left hand and pull on a light, grey cotton jacket from the maple colored banister with my right.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna run to the convenience store and grab some skim. You need any two percent? Or did you go back to whole, hah.”

I hear no answer.

“L-fan?” I call out as I make my way to the front corridor from the staircase.

As soon as I round the corner I see him, scarlet hood pulled over his head, steaming mug in hand. Standing motionless. My eyes then reflexively dart to something twitch from beyond the glass paneling of the front door.

“Dude. Why the hell is he back?” 

I squint to really get a good look at who or what exactly he’s talking about, and in about two seconds it hits me as to who it is. Remember how I said this day’s been full of moderately unpleasant surprises? This is where the surprises start to get moderately to acutely unpleasant.

“Okay. Seriously…I’m calling the police, okay? I mean…look man he’s just standing there.”

Sure enough, the guy just stands there. Though we really can’t make out any details because of the  floral designs  warping and permeating the glass, we both get a pretty clear sense of how blank the expression of our man’s face is. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s standing so damn still. Stiller than Linfan, it seems. Then again, my roommate is beginning to get restless.

Unfortunately, so am I.

Having had enough of the seemingly anti-serendipitous nature of today’s course of events, I take one last glance at that bastard out on our front porch and swivel around to exit through the double glass doors at the opposite side of the house.

“Hey, where the hell are you going?”

“Milk.”

“What?! What about Trey-Trey?”

“God, forget about Trey-Trey! Just tell him to wank off, go scavenge elsewhere. Didn’t you say you were going to call the police or something?” I snap back, my eyebrows furrowing sarcastically.

Linfan’s mouth falls ajar-on the verge of delivering some sort of retort, I’m sure-yet he remains silent. He never really is one to say anything back to you when things get tense. I envy that. 

Starting to sense that creeping feeling of guilt tighten around my throat, I swallow hard and swiftly turn around, slipping a dingy bronze key to an even dingier keyhole.

Turn. Click. Cold.

And it’s humid as hell. What’s up with that? I mean, where we are, bizarre weather is far from being a stranger. But this is borderline, maybe-this-global-warming-crap-is-for-real type weather. To give you an idea of what it’s like, I want you to imagine the supersaturated, overly hydrated feel of the air in a gym sauna. It’s oppressive. It’s everywhere: in your eyes, ears, nose, lungs, stomach, and every single pore imaginable on your body, ass and all. That, except it’s cold; and when I say cold I really mean it’s damn frigid. A great, big, outdoor meat locker.

As I walk through this misty mess, the way the chilliness clings to me like three hour old sweat that has yet to dry generates a sort of added lethargy to my already sleep deprived state. Each step I take labors with increasing sloth until I’m just shuffling my tied and untied sneaker across the gravelly pavement. Maybe I should have just drank the coffee as is.

Who needs calcium, anyway?

Just when the triviality of my self-confirmed mission starts to reveal itself in my dulled out brain, my hip stumbles upon the left side-view mirror of my white, insect splattered sedan. Man it is foggy today.

Jolted awake by the slight sting emanating from my pelvic bone, I snap the button on my car key to unlock the car and climb, yanking the door shut. Once the dome-light dims down, I relax my shoulders and slump as far into the front seat as I can go without falling over. My head reclines back on the not-too-comfortable headrest and I look up at the beige fabric interior of the Accord, blinking repeatedly as if I have something annoying in my eye, some microscopic hair sent from one of Satan’s mediocre helpers to torment you for a good fifteen seconds until it presumably floats (or so I’ve been told) around to the back of the eye, never to see the light of day again.

I wonder if that’s really true. I wonder how big the piles must be getting behind mine.

My gaze turns back to the house. I really shouldn’t have just ditched him there. With that guy, of all people. But it wasn’t like he had gotten into the house. He was just standing right outside out front door. Motionless. Blank.

I turn back to the console and jam the key in the ignition and twist hard. This thing doesn’t sound half bad for a V-four.  Gripping the cool, leather shift lever, I pull it into drive and start heading on the way to the convenience store which, in all actuality, is an approximate seven minute walk from our place.

You have to understand how miserable it is to be outside right now for even a duration of two minutes. No, thanks.

So, I guess now would be a good enough time as any to explain this whole Trey-Trey situation. Let’s rewind say, oh, two and a half weeks. Myself and another roommate of mine- currently at work, I think-were standing out on the backside of our townhouse, bearing the crisp fifty-five degree air for the the simple, yet carcinogenic pleasure of a cigarette. After about half an hour of lighting, dragging, talking, relighting, laughing, and dragging some more, a husky, unkempt, ashen looking fellow in a partially ripped sweatshirt with equally ripped matching sweatpants strode our way from yonder liquor store.

Okay. We really were just approached by a fat, black, homeless dude. Did I really go too far, there? And besides he was really more homeless than anything, or at least that’s all I was concerned with anyway. Though he was kind of obese.

Regardless, the guy slowly waddles back from his adventure at the liquor store (also about a four minute walk from our residence) and , as he approaches our cloud of smoke delicately hovering in the midst of the wintry mid-morning air, Trey-Trey, as we were about to know him by, slows down and introduces himself.

Sort of.

“Hey man, my man what…what’s chillin’ out here?”

“Um, not much…man.”

“Oh my bad, my bad, brother. You can call me Trey-Trey. Get it?”

“Uh…yes I do. Get that your name is Trey-Trey, right?”

“Yeah! You, you got it, brother! My man! You cool man, you…you alright.” as he gives me this incredibly fake male bonding punch on the shoulder which makes me feel so very unfortunate to be alive at the moment.

I don’t know whether this guy’s drunk or hopped up on ecstasy. Some really good ecstasy.

The remainder of the conversation remains with him becoming less and less intelligible and I getting more and more perplexed as to what the hell this guy is talking about. Eventually he stops shooting his poorly delivered bull and gets straight to the point; our cigarettes. He asks if he can bum one of them, to which my roommate immediately obliges. He’s also a pretty nice guy. Much nicer than me, anyhow.

But as all mooches go, especially with Murphy’s Law in full effect, Trey-Trey would find his way back to our doorstep a remarkable number of times; sometimes in search for another spare cigarette, but later on he would come by asking change and cash. It was getting to be a little too much for all of us, most especially Linfan.

He’s definitely a bit more paranoid than the rest of us; not without good reason, though. He made a pretty good call this time around.

Prior to this blustery Sunday morning, it had been about four days since we had last seen and heard from Trey-Trey, at which point we had resolved to call the police if we were to catch wind of him again. Linfan’s idea.

So you can imagine how it felt to just see him standing there. Not calling out to us and signaling for us to open the door with his phony, over-friendly gestures. Just standing there silently and placidly.

Creepy shit, I tell you.

The car groans to a halt as I smash the front half of my untied sneaker firmly on the brake pedal. I always suck at perceiving depth when slowing down to park. This time I saved the underside of my bumper from yet again getting mauled by a slab of concrete slashed with yellow warning paint.

I jerk the key counterclockwise to turn off the engine and glance down at the central console: 6:57. Still too early to be up. But at least the Sun’s almost up. Like that’s any consolation given the thick and bleak clouds completely blanketing the sky all the way to the surrounding horizon. Maybe that’s why it’s so cold.

Though I’m somewhat beginning to doubt that now.

I step again into horrible mugginess of the outside and start my way towards the convenience store until I notice something that causes me to slow down and stop. It’s so quiet. Turning my head one hundred and eighty degrees I see no one, no animal. Nothing. Don’t people have early bird services to attend? Midwestern stereotypes to fulfill?

And not only is there no one around. There are cars. Not with people in them. Just cars: a few empty coupes, SUVs, and a van. The doors on most of them flung open, with the cars themselves being skewed in various directions in the main road, and lots surrounding the convenience store.

It looks strange, like something is wrong. Something’s going on. I’m not really in the mood for any of it though, so I just brush off the peculiarity of the scenario by commenting to myself as to how amusingly reminiscent of that one scene in Vanilla Sky all of this crap is. 

With a half grin on my face, I lean into the front door, already a tad open, and walk into the temperate, air-conditioned aridness of “Popeye’s Liquor, Beer, Cigarettes, and Food.”

To my dismay, no body is to be found in the store. Not even a cashier or even a general manager, as far as I can tell. Now I start to let the worry flourish like and itch that just gets itchier when you scratch at it. What could have possibly happened? Perhaps some natural disaster my Chinese friend and I  managed to sleep through during the night. Some grand evacuation we missed out on.

Now this is all starting to sound like the beginning of Ice Age. Not sure which is better at this point.

I stand in the space before a counter littered with various energy supplements, generic herbal sexual enhancement pills, and cheap scratch-off lottery tickets. I feel dumb, tired, confused.

Should I just take what I need and get out of here? I mean if a brown guy steals a gallon of fat free milk from a convenience store and no one is present to observe him steal it, did the brown guy really steal anything? Nothing better than an epistemological hypothetical to help justify petty theft.

After double checking over my shoulders if there is anyone I might have missed, I briskly trot over to the back of the store to where the wall sized fridge is. I stop in front of the dairy section, slide the glass door open, and kneel down to pick up my half gallon.

Whilst I do all this, there’s something else that gets to bothering me. A smell. At first I just think it’s because there might be a rotting case of milk somewhere within the refrigeration. But then as I reach down to get the stuff, the odor seems to grow stronger, almost deliberately more intense. It’s the kind of smell that reminds me of the hours of my life that went to waste within the windowless, fluorescent confines of a microbiology lab; the air ridden with what is, more or less, the essence of snot and various gastrointestinal flora.

I get up rather quickly in response to my increasing anxiety and just as I am about to swivel around on my heels and get as far away from this place as possible…I see her. Or it.

I don’t know.

My whole skeletal frame completely locks up at the still-as-silence silhouette whose reflection is distinct in the glass fridge door. This one’s not so heavy set, petite in fact. That’s why I automatically assume it’s a girl. I can’t really tell how far away from me she is, but she can’t be farther than ten feet. I tell my mind to relax. My mind responds by processing a million and a half worst case scenarios a second. I tell my body to relax. My body responds by tightening every single muscle fiber ever to have been metabolized within my lifetime.

I coerce myself into inhaling deep breaths to saturate my blood with oxygen, preparing for the eventual turnabout I’ll have to do if I ever want to get out of this blasted place. Squeezing my eyes shut, I hold one last deep breath and hurriedly turn to face mystery girl. Slowly I exhale and open my eyes.

At first, I feel an immediate sense of stupidity upon seeing her. She’s pretty. Much prettier than most girls I ever get to be around. Her brunette hair curls in thick, silky locks that fall to her shoulders and halfway conceal her face. Her eyes have a nice hazel tone to them, though that tends to get overshadowed by how unbelievably bloodshot they are. I mean, this girl looked like she had been crying for at least a good twelve hours and then some. Reflexively my hand twitches towards her direction, some slight gesture of a willingness to assist. She answers with nothing but her lovely, empty gaze.

“Hey,” I quietly call.

No reply.

“Are…are you okay? Is there anything I can help you with?”

No reply.

“It’s just that…you look hurt. You’re hurt aren’t you?”

Now, normally I wouldn’t get so empathetic, but, in light of recent events, I guess I’m getting to be more vulnerable than usual.

The girl still stares back at me. Unmoving. Pinned to the upper right corner of the breast of her mauve colored cardigan is what I make out to be a small, bronze rectangle with black, engraved lettering.

Is this the cashier? Did somebody up and try rob this place?

Oh wait. That’s me.

“Hey listen, I know what this looks like and I, uh, promise that I wasn’t going to take it without paying,” I semi-frantically explain to her, laughing that forced nervous laugh intermittently between groups of words.

Pretty, pale girl remains reticent, eyes on me or at least something pretty close to me. I honestly can’t tell if she’s really seeing me or I just happen to be in the line of sight she just so happens to be spacing out in.

“Ah. Okay. Um,” I take a quarter step forward in order to ascertain whatever is scratched on to her name tag. “Lau…Lauren, is it?”

The instant I utter her name, something flashes over her face, a split second expression. Kind of like a wince. I jerk back once her gaze flickers from being hollow and distracted to being piercing and focused. Her sunken, hazel eyes widen and narrow alternatively as she breaks her stillness and slides one of her feet towards me. Then the other.

At this point I don’t have even the slightest clue as to what on earth do to. It’s all so much more messed up than I can properly express, I mean, the chick, I swear to God, is beginning to smile at me. It’s faint, weak, almost non-existent. But it’s there. I was once taught that the expression of smiling, though explicitly performed by the lips, was truly manifested in the eyes of an individual. And here’s this sallow, young woman dragging her lavender ballet flats one by one across the linoleum tile. Smiling at me with her sallow, hazelnut eyes.

The fact that she’s pretty is making this all so much more worse than it has to be.

At this point I’ve more or less given up on escaping the beauteous ghoul that approaches me now; hypnotized almost by a combination of fear, intrigue, and some morbid attraction. I really should leave. Now.

Lauren the cashier is about five feet away from me now and makes no hesitation whatsoever as she continues to nearly float towards me. Maybe she just has a really weak voice today and needs to get up real close to tell me what she needs to tell me. Maybe she just feels alone and wants to be close to someone right now in this unknown crisis we both find ourselves in. Maybe I need to stop rationalizing and get the hell out of this place while I still can. 

Three feet.

Just go.

Two feet. 

Run, damn you.

One foot.

Too late. Another half-slide over and Lauren’s a little more than seven inches away from my face, looking up to me with what, for a second, to be a sincere despondence. It’s really the ashy bags hanging above her trim cheekbones that make it seem that way.

From this distance all of the features of her face come into some numbed sense of clarity. Ten feet ago she looked pretty. Now she looks drop dead gorgeous. Unable to break my eyes from hers, I watch helplessly as she very smoothly raises her right hand up from her side, brushing my bristly cheek almost without touching it at all. She slowly gets up on each set of toes so as to bring her mouth somewhat closer to my ear; her chapped, cracked lips part ever so slightly and , in a voice barely more audible than a small child’s feverish whisper she said:

“So sweet…no one…no one ever did call…by my…Lauren…that’s me, alright.”

Her free hand drifts into mine at my side, intertwining with my fingers. I’ve shoved my hands into snow drifts that were warmer than hers. But being stupid, I don’t care-well, until my hand slips out of hers, that is. 

When I glance down to look at our now separate hands, my gut wrenches into what feels like a dozen and one knots, double-tied. What I see is my hand, clenching what I could only assume to be the fistful of icy flesh that almost instantaneously sloughed off of her hand as soon as I took hold of it. And now it was all folded up, bunched together under the force of my fingers; each little change of pressure causing more unknown wetness to ooze from what was the skin of her first three fingers and three quarters of her backhand, as evidenced by the raw, stringy, and bare muscular appearance of her left hand.

It takes me a while to realize just what’s happened. To grasp the gravity of the situation at hand. In my hand…

I now know where the smell was coming from. That horrible, putrid, stench of rotting tissue that I had become so familiar with in my experiences with agar, and microbial streaking, and other smelly and banal tasks. And here she is. It is. Not even half a foot away from me.

By now the whites of her eyes turn from bloodshot to simply being opalescent pools of red from, what I could only discern as, the mass hemorrhaging of her optical capillaries. Like crimson tears, they begin to trickle down her ivory cheeks in a painfully slow, thick, and deliberate way. The pungency of iron begins to impart into the air a bitter and metallic tang. No emotion. Just raw hemoglobin.

All things considered, I appear to be fucked. Royally so. I have not a single clue as to what this shit is or what the hell is going on here. All I know is that I’m standing here all alone with this beautiful woman who’s bloody, and rotting, and whose skin is seeping through the slits of my loose, and quivering fist. I can’t help but think about Linfan; about how I left the poor guy to fend against what I can only reasonably assume to be the same kind of messed up as Lauren here. Except Trey-Trey is bigger, stronger…

I’ve got to get back to him. I have to get as far away from this chick or thing as fast as is humanly possible, make my way back to my beloved Accord, and race back to the townhouse and hope that I don’t come home to find that I left one of my best friends for dead by some homeless mooch. Should be relatively simple, no?

God, I really hate Sunday. 

This is a pretty chill song I came across when I was home last weekend. Just in case you’re unaware, I’m a pretty big fan of this guy’s work. His name is Pogo and he is an electronic musician/DJ who specializes in what many in the sub-genre refer to as “Plunderphonics.” Basically, it involves taking samples from various sources of sound, whether it be an older song, a movie scene, or otherwise. Then the artist very cleverly juxtaposes them to construct an extremely unique harmonic flow, not quite like the songs you’re used to hearing. I’ll be honest. I love this stuff. So much so that I sometimes sincerely believe that if everyone else loved it as much as I, world peace would become just a cinch easier. And that’s a lot, considering the magnitude of change there. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this little track and please, oh, please do check out Pogo’s website for more info, songs, and other neat stuff at www.pogomix.net

Cheers, guys!

New beginnings. Everybody likes them, even a person as jaded as myself. There just seems to be something about sound of air escaping from the twist of a hermetic seal; the tear of packaging paper, crisp and irreversible. New-car smell. I think it’s the notion of having a slate as clean and smooth as a baby’s ass that really get us off; flings us back into some contrived sense of virgin excitement, like we haven’t seen any of it before. We know better, though. Or at least I do.

Still here I am, engaging in the process of starting something new, relishing in all of the ephemeral comforts it brings. I never really thought of myself as one of those people who would take up blogging as an internet recreation (for years I felt I got an adequate fix from Myspace and, more so, Facebook). But maybe that’s my problem. Perhaps I’ve slipped into complacency, mistaking “Likes” on my various posts and statuses as genuine of socially intellectual validation. Granted Facebook does have its “Notes”, but everyone knows that’s just a sideshow; wall posts are where it’s really at.

Even so, how good is that sorority comment war really going to get? How long can one remain in denial about the plethora of friend requests from very hot but also very non-existent women (as evidenced by the fact that they usually have two first names, hardly any relevant personal information, and some generic profile picture of her in some bikini that you swear to God you’ve seen somewhere else on the internet.) Maybe you caught glimpse of  it on 4chan or from some lonely night you spent typing random girls names into Google Image Search, with the SafeSearch off. Don’t worry, I’ve been there too. Doesn’t make it not sad, however.

In any case, I will be making my last and final au revoir to the website by the end of the weekend, marking-what I would hope to be-the end of a period in my life that was previously filled with the consistent and empty dwellings upon past exes, former best friends…no, it’s really just the “Facebook Stalking” of the exes and failed crushes that I’m really missing out on here. Who am I kidding?

Certainly not you.

But seriously.

Am I on to something here?

I’m sure different people exercise the utility of Facebook differently and to varying degrees of prolificacy-yes, that’s a word you damned, red, squiggly line. You don’t know shit.

Sorry. Something about overzealous and uninformed spell checking that flashes of Billy Graham to me. Just a little.

Now I know that there are likely very few people who will end up reading whatever crap I so decide to sling onto a greyscale HTML and probably even fewer possessing the tolerance for my generally misanthropic tone. But that’s not really the point here. This is the first time in a long time that I have resolved to write for the sake of writing. Sure it’d be nice to get a few readers here and there, fellow skeptics and pessimists also trying to make sense of the trappings of a world that’s trying way, WAY, too hard to don an optimistic facade that’s three sizes too small.

Come on. Who are you kidding?

Certainly not me.