WTF?

The problem with the Emergency Broadcast System is that you have to be watching TV or listening to the radio. Where are the air attack sirens that used to litter small towns like mine? I'm sitting on the floor behind the checkout counter at the library, there are a few people huddled in the employee lounge, none of them librarians--the librarians are all shambling in the stacks. Dead.

When I woke up this morning, the neighbors were in my house. The neighbors? We never even talk to them. We are NOT good neighbors. So you can imagine my surprise when the guy next door bumped into me as I came out of the bedroom. Or maybe you can, since this is spreading everywhere. Steve is his name. Was, actually. He tried to bite me. BITE me. WTF? Luckily, we rarely put anything away, so the cane I used as part of a Halloween costume two years ago was nearby.

Let me tell you, it's rarely pleasant to bash in someone's head before one's first mug of coffee.

There were two more downstairs, one of them didn't have her legs; she bumped into fallen dining room chairs like one of those disabled kids in a helmet. I noticed her first by a nasty trail of sludge draining from those ragged amputations. As I stepped into the stairhall, her head twitched in my direction. One of her eyes dangled from a gash across her face, bouncing against her cheek from the nerve like a tether ball. The other groaned from back near the kitchen, a deep echoing sound that had me scurrying for the front door before I could even think.

Outside was a complete mess. On the front walk, instead of the newspaper, an arm flayed out in a crooked "v", a bit of shoulder attached, probably the paperboy's. The other neighbors seemed to have been dealing with the situation a bit longer, as the streets were nearly void of life--not movement, mind you--but the living. Garage doors left open, empty.

Ours was too. Caroline must have left before it started.

From off to the right, the cul-de-sac, a pack of neighbors scrambled to their feet from around a mound of gore and bones way too big to be just one body, more like five. One of them pointed toward me stretching his dripping arm in my direction. Was he moaning to alert the others? It seemed so. They rushed me at various paces, some quick, others shambling like the zombies of film.

So I ran.

I know what you're thinking. I should have been prepared for this. Me, particularly. We even put together a manual. The League, I mean. A Zombie Preparedness Guide. Where is it? In my office.

And I'm at the library. I can hardly believe I made it here. I swiped this laptop from a local coffee shop. I don't think the owner needed it, unless he could type with his toes.

I'll try to connect with the League. They'll know what to do.

I'm moving on.

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