Ok, Who Got Bitten?

I always have had a strange fascination for zombies, more so than any of the other monsters. Just the thought of some dead, decomposing corpse lusting for living flesh gave me goose bumps. A zombie apocalypse combined two of my fears— the fantastical fear of the dead walking the earth along with the collapse of society and, in effect, the dangers of the true nature of the human being presenting itself, unchecked.

I just have this sick morbid curiosity involving the zombie apocalypse. I had all the zombie flicks, every Romero movie. Even the shitty ones— especially the shitty ones. I had comics and books and video games. I could tell you the history and evolution of the modern zombie if you had a couple hours to spare, starting with voodoo and ending with a rant about how the 28 Days Later zombies weren't technically zombies but still secretly loving that movie anyway— I mean, that was a pretty great movie.

I had a contingency plan in the event of a zombie infestation and would have built up a nice collection of knives by now but my father had disapproved of the whole thing and prevented me from doing so on the grounds that they probably would have ended up in my sister at some time.

The point of all this is to show you just how unprepared I actually was. Even with all of this quasi-knowledge and stores of useless trivia, I was one hopeless individual when the time came to step up to the plate. And if you haven't guessed by now, the time in question arrived unexpected and quicker than a knife fight in a phone booth.

It so happened that it was my shitty luck that I was lazing around on the couch working on strengthening my love handles when the biggest worldwide catastrophe ever experienced by mankind began-- besides the invention of the mullet. I'll chalk that one up to the 80's.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The beginning of the end of the world was a bright, beautiful day, actually. It began on a Saturday, my favorite day. The day after Friday and before Sunday, a day sandwiched in between those two other days which allowed you to stay up late and sleep in, a day I always looked forward to because sleeping is my favorite pastime.

I wanted to spend the day hanging out at the house and watching movies with my sister, but she ended up going upstairs to take a nap. She was in that teen stage where she was all angst and mood, with an attitude and a sour outlook on life. She spent most of her time shut in her dungeon on the second floor.

 I was by myself watching that damned Marley and Me movie, the one about the dog that dies, and crying all the while. I seriously hate that movie, and words cannot express my disdain for Owen Wilson's acting career at this point, but this argument is moot. 

I sat splayed upon the couch ravenously eating Doritos while flipping through channels, trying to find some sort of entertainment that didn't involve dead dogs, cartoons, or reality television. For some reason, perhaps guided by the very hand of God himself (or more likely that I'd accidentally hit the 7 button instead of the intended 4), I flicked to a news report which actually caught my interest and wasn't a superfluous filler story about a local science fair and the kid who'd made a solar-powered hotdog cooker that was also a solution to global warming, judging from the story. We all know that kid, let's not pretend that we didn't hate him when we were in school with our lousy "Which toilet paper can hold the most water" project that was half-assed and not even a valid scientific experiment. Fuck that guy and his blue ribbon.

The news reporter that had been summoned by my slippery cheese-encrusted fingers was some blonde haired woman who had perky breasts piled into a grey blazer, some kind of a brash soprano voice, and bleach blonde, artificially dyed hair who was trying her best to look solemn. Or constipated-- it's really hard to tell watching in standard definition. First world problems.