There was a time when the place where I hang my hat was called the Big Easy.

Home to everything from Mardi Gras to the Saints to the butchering of both French and English that we call a language, Louisiana was seen by the rest of the country as a sinful little slice o’ heaven.  Most of this perception hovered over New Orleans specifically, of course, but I’m quite convinced that the majority of the United States population didn’t know that there were cities other than New Orleans in the state.

It’s been a while since the term “the Big Easy” has been tossed around, though.  Life isn’t easy anywhere these days, I imagine, but I can only guarantee you that it isn’t here.  For as long as there’s been a Louisiana, its inhabitants have had to deal with questions about voodoo and zombies and all those unsavory subjects.  It’s a part of our culture, sure, but folks, not all Louisiana natives dance around in circles while decapitating chickens and chanting.  If you ask me, voodoo is just a bunch of crap swirled around with a stick of bullshit.

‘Course, now the problem is there actually are zombies wandering around all over the place.  That kind of kills off the credibility when you try to tell someone that voodoo isn’t real.  You try to tell these people that the undead are everywhere, not just in Louisiana.  You calmly point out that the dead are roaming around eating people in parts of the world that have never even heard of this particular religion.  They just look at you and shake their heads before saying, “But there are zombies out there!”

You hate to admit it to yourself, but after a few of these encounters you start hoping that the next victim of the zombies’ gnashing teeth and insatiable bellies just so happens to be the person standing before you.

I apologize if I’m going against some of your beliefs about New Orleans, but I was a resident here before this zombie shit went down and I was not a voodoo priest, a musician, or a bead maker, and I did not live on the bayou.  I was an investment banker.  Sure, the job was usually quite dull, but it paid the bills and it was a stable career in a not-so-stable economy.

Now I find myself employed in the only fields that actually matter these days: scavenging, personal security, and home improvement.  Scavenging provides me with food to eat, clothes to wear, and weapons to defend myself.  Personal security allows me to not get, you know, eaten by zombies.  The third one, home improvement, is a bit of a stretch, but I wasn’t sure what else to call boarding up windows and doors.  Carpentry, maybe?  Woodworking?  Lumberjack?

It’s the scavenger role that has given me the most headaches.  I don’t mind nailing wood across entry points into a house.  If I minded defending myself I’d be dead by now.  But when it comes to finding items that I need to stay alive and have some semblance of comfort, I tend to fail miserably.

I’m running low on food?  The first ten places I check end up being stripped clean.  I need toothpaste?  Not a single tube to be found.  The chain on my bicycle breaks?  Looks like I’m walking from that point on.

On the one hand it gives me hope.  If these things aren’t where they were a few weeks earlier, it means that there are other survivors out there.  It is rare that I actually see these people, but the evidence of their activities is somehow comforting.  On the other hand, though, what the fuck, people?  I called fucking dibs on the stuff in this neck of the woods.  Fucking dibs.

What do I have to do, lick the stuff?  Urinate on it like a dog marking his territory?  I swear to God that I’ll piss all over those cans of baked beans if I have to.

Where my scavenging has really been lacking is in the weapons department.  Do you remember those zombie movies from back in the day where the hero would find everything from letter openers to bazookas laying around?  Yeah, in real life, that doesn’t happen.  I’ve managed to pick up a single handgun (I barely know which direction to point a gun, so don’t ask me for specifics about it) and a variety of household items such as a hammer, a mallet, and a number of screwdrivers.  If you were expecting assault rifles and grenades, I’m sorry to disappoint you.  I’ll let you know just as soon as I discover the secret warehouse of a black market weapons dealer.

Since I don’t have anything in the way of extra ammunition, it’s been a good thing that I haven’t had to fire the gun all that often.  In fact, I’ve only pulled the trigger once.  I learned two things from the experience: these things are a lot louder than I would have guessed from watching Cops, and I’m probably a terrible shot at anything outside of point blank range.  If I had the gun in a zombie’s mouth I’d only give myself a 50/50 chance of hitting my target.  I was an investment banker.  I had no idea how to properly use a firearm.  Shooting people was always reserved for police officers and gangbangers and former Vice Presidents.

See, folks, that’s what we call a segue.  A poorly executed one, perhaps, but a segue nonetheless.

Since I can’t sleep and you obviously can read, I’m going to tell you all about a little scavenging trip that I went on, oh, just over a month ago.  It led to me firing a gun that wasn’t attached to an arcade machine for the first time in my life.  It’s a tale of love, of loss, of redemption, and of finding new underwear.

Okay, so, there isn’t really any of the first three, but underwear was definitely involved.

I’m not sure exactly when I gave up on there ever being a rescue attempt made by the government here in New Orleans.  I know that the revelation didn’t come quickly to me; for a long time, I clung to the hope that a group of badass Marines would show up in a black chopper and lay waste to the undead horde with machine guns that never ran out of ammo just like in the movies.  I was so sure that the same people that had completely fucked up things post-Katrina couldn’t possibly refrain from coming to our aid in a timely manner again.

There’s being wrong, and then there’s being wrong.

I had been one of the fortunate ones that had stayed inside the city.  I’m guessing that’s going to need some explanation to make any sense.  You’d expect that the higher population areas would mean more zombies, right?  If you guessed that, you’re both right and wrong.  In the vast majority of cities that would probably have been the case, but New Orleans worked a little differently.  When the first large groups of zombies began to appear, it seemed like everyone had the same idea: get out of town.  Almost everyone attempted to flee into the swamps and bayous, thinking that they would be safe if they could just get to someplace isolated.

The problem with that theory was that the zombies simply followed the food out of New Orleans.  To compound the problem, they were actually more dangerous in the surrounding areas than in the city proper.  Tall grass and high water allowed them to move undetected at times.  A fellow survivor that I met briefly right after this occurred informed me that people were being bitten without even knowing there was a nearby threat.  There were marshes and lakes full of the undead just waiting for the living to pass by.

The mass exodus from the city had left the city streets relatively safe.  I can’t put enough of an emphasis on that “relatively” part.  There was still quite the population of zombies wandering around New Orleans, and it was still extremely dangerous to leave a secured building or give any outward indication that you were residing in a specific place.  I’m just saying that it could have been a lot worse.

When I had realized that New Orleans was going to remain my home for the foreseeable future, I made a list of everything that I would need to survive.  It was a shorter list than I had initially thought that it would be, and despite my poor skills as a scavenger I managed to locate most of the items in just a few days.  The food was a constant need, obviously, so every morning I would go out into the undead-filled world to look for sources of sustenance.  Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to build up something of a stockpile in the two-story jazz club that I had converted into a living area.

Just over a month ago, though, I realized that I had left something off of the list.  I had quite a few different outfits that were my size that I had procured (that sounds so much better than “blatantly stolen”) from a men’s clothing store, and I had even thought to bring back a bunch of packages of socks.  When you live by the bayou you learn really quick that you need clean and dry socks to stop rot from creeping up between your toes.  There was even a nice neat row of shoes and boots that I had waterproofed sitting at the bottom of one of the closets.

What I had forgotten to write down, though, was underwear.  Now, I understand that a lot of gentlemen tend to lean towards briefs, but I’ve always been a boxers man myself.  I had to keep my sperm count up just in case I ever wanted to have kids, after all.  Besides, every so often I liked to, ahem, “air things out” if you catch my meaning.  My boys didn’t like to be caged in, they liked to be free.

That rot thing I just mentioned with regards to the socks?  It also applies to underwear.  Imagine rot creeping up into your unmentionable places.  In its own way that’s more horrific than any walking cannibalistic corpse.

This never even popped into my mind until I woke up one morning and climbed up to the building’s roof to collect my laundry.  I had strung clotheslines between the chimney and an old satellite dish and pinned my garments across it to allow them to dry overnight.  When I pulled my boxers off, though, I noticed that they had become very worn and frayed.  There were also slight discolorations and stains.

No, you pervert, they didn’t get there from any extracurricular activities that I may or may not have been doing while wearing them.  That’s disgusting and I take offense that you would ever think that.  On the off chance that you weren’t thinking along those lines and you are now since I brought it up, well, um, oops.

The stains were from my body sweat, of course, and the wear and tear was simply from using them for so long.  For my own comfort and to avoid having mold attempt to creep up in my nether regions, I would have to go collect some new underwear.  That’s right, I was going to have to make my way through streets and stores overrun with zombies so that I could retrieve fresh underpants.  This wasn’t exactly how I had envisioned my day going when I had rolled out of bed.

I went back downstairs to make breakfast.  It wasn’t anything mouth-watering, just some dry cereal, but apparently it was supposed to be the most important meal of the day so I went through the ritual of chewing and swallowing.  Once I had finished eating and washed out the bowl in a bucket of water, I got dressed and considered my extremely low stock of weapons and things pretending to be weapons.  I shoved the handgun into my belt, of course, and I also decided to bring along the heavy mallet.  It would sound a lot cooler if I stated the reason I took it over the hammer is because of its stronger stopping power or the brute force that I could bring to bear with it, but the honest reason was I couldn’t afford to lose my hammer.

I dumped the contents of my backpack out onto my bed and zipped it back up.  There were times in the past where it would have been fatal not to have both of my hands free, so I made sure to always bring my backpack to carry my findings.  There might have been an incident before I had found the pack where it had been necessary for me to shove cans of ravioli down my pants so that I could climb a ladder; this story already involves enough of things under my pants, however, so I won’t go into more detail.

Right when I had moved into the jazz club I had boarded up the front door beyond all hope of ever being opened again.  There weren’t any windows on the first floor of the establishment so I hadn’t needed to worry about those.  There were only two ways in and out of the club, one of which was the heavy wooden door in the kitchen that was bolted shut.  I chose to go with option number two: the hatch leading back up to the roof.

This particular neighborhood of New Orleans was quite old, and the buildings had been built so close together that I was able to step off of my cozy little home’s roof and right onto the next door bakery’s.  From there it was a short little hop over to a cafe that just happened to have a fire escape that I used to get down to the street level.  One side of the alley was completely blocked by a dump truck that I had strategically placed, but at the other end was a wooden fence complete with a swinging gate.  I walked over to it and peered out from between two of the boards.

As usual, the few zombies that were wandering aimlessly in the street were nowhere near the fence.  Why is that usual, you ask?  Is it some sort of black magic that I use to keep evil spirits away?  That’s quite the stupid theory you have there, but no, I am not a mystical warlock.  The street itself was slightly sloped towards the far side of the road, so eventually the undead would move down the small hill simply because it was easier to walk downhill than uphill.  There’s a lesson in there, kiddies: even the living dead could be a bunch of hippie slackers.

Oh, and don’t do drugs.

I unlocked the gate and pushed it open.  It moved almost silently on its well-oiled hinges.  I always made it a point to maintain my escape routes; it would have been completely (and fatally) embarrassing to be running from a group of zombies only to find that the gate was rusted shut.

I slipped out through the opening and carefully shut the gate behind me.  A quick glance around showed that I hadn’t been noticed yet, so I quickly headed down the sidewalk towards my destination.  Over my not-so-tasty-but-apparently-vitally-important breakfast I had considered exactly where the elusive boxer shorts could be found.  There were only two places that had come to mind: the same men’s store that I had “purchased” my previous clothes from, or the gigantic SaveMart about a mile further down the road.  I had attempted to obtain supplies from the SaveMart in the past and had found it to be completely overrun with the undead, so realistically there was only one real choice.

Peters Brothers had started out carrying only suits and ties, but over the years it had expanded to carry all aspects of men’s clothing.  Since having taken up residence down the block from it, I had managed to find everything from jeans to winter coats in its racks.  If any of the three brothers and any potential shoppers were still alive I would definitely recommend them.

As I approached the building I noticed a lone zombie shambling around in front of the door.  Its back was turned to me, so I gripped my mallet tightly and tip toed towards it.  When I was less than a foot away I raised the mallet and brought down as hard as I could into the back of its skull.  Either I didn’t know my own strength (unlikely) or the walking corpse had rotted quite a bit (much more likely); the back of its head exploded in a shower of blood, tissue, and bone.  I somehow managed to avoid the majority of the splatter, but like the genius that I am I accidentally stepped in some of it as I continued to the store’s door.  I raised my foot and scraped what I could on the stone step.

I paused.  There was a lot of blood on the step, more than could have come from one bashed in skull with a side of splattered brain matter.  And I was pretty sure that when I had visited the shop just two weeks earlier there hadn’t been any blood at the entrance whatsoever.  A rather unpleasant scene in the bathroom involving a man who had hung himself with an extension cord, yes, but nothing at the front of the store.

Had the zombie I had just killed (rekilled?) wandered over towards the store randomly, or had it been drawn here by something that had happened?

Was there something inside that presented a life-threatening danger to me?

When I washed out my bowl after breakfast, did I remember to clean the spoon as well?

Find out next time, same zombie time, same zombie channel!

Nah, I’m just fucking with you.  I’m clearly going to tell you since I’m the one who actually initiated this story in the first place.  I’d have to be a major jackass to lure you in only to leave you hanging.  Luckily for both you and your curiosity, I’m only a minor jackass.

The part that was slightly confusing was that the blood was only located on the step.  There wasn’t a single drop of the red stuff on the door or glass.  Speaking of the glass, it was still perfectly smooth without so much as a crack.  I couldn’t figure out how the violence could be isolated to such a small section of the storefront.

I never did find out the answer to that particular question.  The zombie apocalypse was like that sometimes, offering up mysteries by the truckload but being stingy as hell with the solutions.  It’s something that you learn to live with.  If you don’t, it’ll drive you crazy.

I pushed the store’s door open and went inside.  The light streaming in through the windows was enough to brighten the front half of the establishment, but as usual the back portion was cast in shadows.  I stood still in the doorway until my eyes adjusted to the gloom, listening intently as my peepers got up to speed.  There didn’t seem to be anything amiss, so I went about my shopping.

If we’re attempting to be completely accurate here, I suppose that “shopping” isn’t really the correct term.  That would imply that there was an exchange of currency for the goods that I was taking.  “Stealing” might be a more accurate term, or perhaps “grand theft underpants”.  Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure that you can steal from someone that’s dead.  If the guy was dead on the toilet, did that make the store his tomb or something?  Had I been reduced to grave robbing?”

I really need to start getting more sleep.

When I reached the rack that was supposed to contain the boxers and other undergarments, I stared stupidly at it for a moment before my brain registered that it was empty.  The only packages remaining were tighty whities adorned with pictures of cartoon characters; they were either designed for young boys or midgets reclaiming their childhoods.  Stupid empty display, did I fucking look like a midget trying to reclaim my childhood?

Not one to panic or take my rage out on a helpless clothing rack, I walked over to the swinging doors leading to the store’s small backroom area.  I pushed them open and carefully maneuvered my way through the dimly lit room to the back door.  Opening it, I took a quick glance outside to make sure that there weren’t any uninvited guests prowling around before propping it open to allow in the sunlight.  I turned back to the stacks of boxes lining the walls and began to read the labels.

After ten minutes or so, my eyes fell on a rectangular box with the word “Boxers” written on it in marker.  According to the faded label the enclosed undergarments were even in my size.  With a complete lack of dexterity, I pulled the box out of the stack it was sitting in and unsuccessfully dodged the packages that came tumbling down.  One of my assailants caught my shoulder awkwardly and I knew that I’d have a bruise in the morning.  The things I did to comfortably clothe my manhood.

I pulled the tape off of my spoils and flipped open the flaps.  Inside was the treasure that I had risked life and limb for: eight packages of boxers, each containing three pairs (one each of red, blue, and gray, if you’re the sort of person that is that detail-oriented).  I greedily opened my backpack and shoved all the plastic bags inside, a strange smile on my lips.  I wondered if this was what cocaine smugglers felt like.

As I was securing my booty (ironically consisting of things to secure my body’s booty) by zipping back up the pack, a cloud passed in front of the sun and blocked out the light illuminating the storage area.  The shadows danced as if possessed by the spirit of Tito Puente.  I sighed heavily.  Judging by the actual shapes of the moving shadows, it was either an incredibly psychotic cloud or it wasn’t a cloud at all.

Goddammit, there was something standing in the doorway, wasn’t there?

I peeked over my shoulder and saw a man-shaped figure staring at me.

“Ah shit,” I muttered to myself as I put on the backpack.

Obviously I wasn’t in any real danger.  A single zombie wasn’t exactly something to crap my pants over, although now that I had a change of underwear I could be a bit more liberal with soiling myself if I so desired.  They moved so slowly that unless I was stupid enough to become trapped by a large number of them I could simply retreat.  I stood up and turned to head back into the showroom and out the front door, knowing that at any moment my friendly neighborhood Peeping Tom would raise his arms and begin that low moan that I had come to know so well.

From behind me came a hiss.

Wait, what?

With my hand pressed against the swinging doors, I half-turned and watched as the zombie stepped into the room.  It moved with a much smoother gait than any member of the undead that I had ever seen.  The hiss came again, and I wondered if something had happened to its throat or vocal cords that made it unable to moan.  I pushed open the door behind me and for a brief moment its face was illuminated enough for me to make out details.  One of its eye sockets was completely crushed, the flesh and bone resembling a gory crater, but it was the remaining eye that had my full attention.

The eye was completely silver.

Something was very, very wrong here.  The zombie stopped and seemed to consider me for a moment, its jaw visibly working as it tilted its head slightly to one side.  It finally opened its mouth and shrieked.

It didn’t moan.  It didn’t even do that hissing thing again.  It shrieked.  I had never had any experience with the word “bloodcurdling” before, but I found that I was now able to put it to good use.  It was a bloodcurdling shriek.  Suddenly I was feeling ice in veins and shivers along my spine.

What was this…this thing?  It was clearly a card-carrying member of the Fraternity of the Undead, but I had never encountered one like this before.  It wasn’t a slow lumbering idiot like all the zombies that had come before it.  It was something else entirely.  It was almost…feral.  It was a true predator.  I have no idea why that description popped into my head, but even weeks later, I know that it was an accurate assessment.

The zombie shrieked again, and suddenly it was moving towards me.

The zombie didn’t shamble towards me.  It didn’t drag itself in my general direction.  It didn’t even stumble forward.

The fucker ran.

I suddenly found myself being charged by this abomination of an undead (more abominable than usual, anyway).  The speed at which it ran would have made it almost impossible to avoid even if I hadn’t been standing there in complete shock.  I was caught completely off-guard, though, and the zombie barreled into me at top speed.  We went crashing through the swinging doors and fell to the floor in a heap.

I barely moved my face out of the way as its jaws came snapping down.  It wasn’t just fast, it was strong as hell, too.  Its arms lashed out and pinned my shoulders to the floor.  Instinctively I kicked upward, and amazingly the desperation move worked.  The zombie lost its grip and rolled off to the side.  Even though adrenaline was pumping through my body so hard that my left eyelid was twitching, it still managed to get to its feet just as quickly as I did.  It was like being face-to-face with a bipedal panther.

I think.  I don’t exactly have a lot of experience fighting wild cats that walk upright.  Or any wild cats, for that matter.

I belatedly realized that I had left my mallet lying on the storage area floor.  Briefly considering the gun still stuck under my belt, I realized that the zombie wasn’t going to give me time to pull it out, figure out where the safety was, aim, and fire.  As it lunged at me again I grabbed the first thing that I saw and swung.  That object turned out to be one of those mannequin busts used to display ties, and it made a dull thunk as it collided with my dance partner.  The blow wasn’t anywhere close to being lethal, but it was enough to make the zombie stagger backwards a few steps.

That was all the encouragement that I needed.  In a move so epically heroic that Batman would have been envious, I spun around and ran just as fast as my legs would carry me.  What, did you expect me to maybe engage my new nemesis in some sort of titanic combat where only one of us would survive?  It would have fucking torn me apart.  I was a banker, for God’s sake, not a gladiator.  A strategic retreat was the only course that offered a chance of survival, and I strategically retreated the hell out of the clothing store.

From behind me came another one of those bloodcurdling (I’m really starting to like that word) shrieks.  A new warning bell was gently chiming in my head, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was trying to warn me of.  I had come to rely on these little subconscious proddings as they had saved my life on numerous occasions.  Even as I took off at a run towards home I scanned the nearby streets in an effort to figure out what my brain was trying to warn the rest of me about.

Within seconds I had it: the other zombies, the undead that weren’t seeming nearly as fearsome now that I had encountered the Extra Strength version, were all making their way towards me.  I stopped counting rotting heads at two dozen; there were apparently a lot more out and about than I had originally thought.  Their arms were outstretched and the standard moan was coming from their mouths.

The shrieking from Super Zombie must have gotten their attention.  I still had a few moments before they reached the sidewalk, though, so I coaxed all the strength I could from my legs and ran onward.  I risked a glance over my shoulder and immediately regretted it; my silver-eyed admirer had emerged from the store and had taken up the pursuit.  Turning my eyes forward, I concentrated on the spot where I knew the gate waited for me.  This was going to be close.

My legs were just starting to raise the white flag when I made it to my destination.  Without looking back, I flung the gate open and practically threw myself inside.  The one-eyed ninja zombie was right behind me, though, and it attempted to dive through the opening as I was slamming the gate shut.  It was a split second too slow, and the edge of the gate smashed into its face.  The impact knocked us both on our asses, and despite the pain I immediately jumped back up and closed and locked the gate door.

The gate was about ten feet high, but I knew that it would only provide me with a very temporary respite.  My entire body began to ache like a sore tooth as I mounted the fire escape.  I tried to climb the metal stairs at an urgent pace, I really did.  The problem was I was completely winded at this point and it felt like my feet were made of lead when I lifted them.  There had been a time when the zombie apocalypse began that it felt like I could live on adrenaline alone, but too many restless nights and fearful days had taken their toll at the worst possible time.

I had gotten maybe halfway up when a loud screech informed me that the zombie was headed my way.  Without stopping I looked down through the metal mesh that made up the fire escape and saw that it was climbing over the fence.  That was another new trick that I hadn’t seen before.  When confronted by a high obstacle most members of the undead were stopped in their tracks.  Not this one, though.  This one pulled itself up and over the wooden planks far more gracefully than I could ever have hoped to.  It bared its teeth at me and headed for the bottom of the stairs.

What the hell was I going to do?  Even assuming that I could keep ahead of this abomination, my current course of action was going to lead it right back to where I lived.  I might be able to get inside and hide from it, but that fucking shriek it liked to make would ensure the undead would surround my home.  Worse, if it saw me go through the roof hatch it might decide to follow me down.  In fact, I would say that scenario was pretty fucking likely.

I reached the top of the fire escape and hauled myself up onto the roof.  Could I toss the thing off the roof and kill it, maybe?  Judging from how fast and strong it was, it was more likely that I would be the one attempting to imitate an umbrellaless Mary Poppins.  I could hear the clang of feet on metal as it climbed after me.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time left before I would be face to mangled face with Speedy Gonzales once again.

I drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  The gun.  My only option left was the gun.  I walked to the far side of the roof and drew it from my belt.  I had no idea what kind it was; I had taken it from a dead police officer that clearly didn’t need it anymore.  I toggled off the safety with my thumb and raised the weapon to point towards the spot where the zombie was going to have to climb onto the rooftop.  It felt heavy and awkward in my hands, and the sweat that was forming on my palms wasn’t exactly helping matters.  I did my best to ignore my discomfort and pulled back the hammer.

Without another one of its shrieks or even a polite knock, the zombie climbed over the lip of the roof.  It looked around for a moment before spotting me and slowly approaching.  Its mouth opened wide, and I got a good look at its damaged teeth.  Whatever had done the damage to its eye socket had struck it with enough force to break every tooth on that side of its mouth.  Assuming that it still felt pain, that must have hurt like hell.

It either sensed that I wasn’t much of a threat with the gun or it was simply overcome with a desire to consume my tasty-looking skin because it broke into a run.  I closed one eye and attempted to hold the gun steady, but my hands were shaking and I couldn’t keep it pointing straight.  I instinctively took a step backward and startled myself when my foot bumped into the risen section of the roof separating me from a very bad fall.

And then I dropped the gun.  I dropped the fucking gun.  The shaking and the sweat tag teamed to cause me to lose my grip on it, and it fell from my hands in what seemed like slow motion.  I saw the sunlight reflecting off of it as it floated towards the ground no faster than a feather.  I watched as the handle struck the concrete first before it did a flip and hit the ground once again at an odd angle.

To complete the surreal scene, the gun fired.

I still have no idea how that happened.  As far as I can tell, there was no logical reason for the weapon to discharge.  The trigger wasn’t pulled, that was for certain.  Like I said before, though, I’m not a gun nut.  I know nothing about how the things work.

The charging zombie suddenly threw itself to the side and landed hard about fifteen feet away from me.  Imagine my shock when a pool of dark blood began to form under its head.  No way.  No fucking way.

I slowly approached the now-motionless body.  Irrationally I wondered if this was some sort of trick, or if it was playing with its food.  As I stood over it, though, I knew that it actually was over.  There was a hole in the back of its head where the bullet had exited.

I want it put on the record that I am not a religious man.  I haven’t stepped inside of a church for anything other than a funeral or wedding since I was ten.  As I stood there on that roof considering the odds that had been defied over the last minute, however, it was hard not to wonder if maybe all that God mumbo jumbo that I had ignored for so long might have something to it after all.

Nah, fuck it, it was sheer dumb luck.

Probably.

Maybe.

In a daze, I stumbled back over to the gun and picked it back up.  After three attempts with suddenly numb fingers I managed to put the safety back on and tucked it back under my belt.  I don’t actually remember going back to my building’s roof or descending the ladder that led inside.

What is crystal clear is the memory of me joyfully sliding a new pair of boxers on.  It’s the little things in life that bring the most joy.

It’s been over a month now and I haven’t seen any more silver-eyed zombies with track and field aspirations.  I don’t know whether it was an aberration or if there are more of its kind wandering around out there, lurking in the shadows until someone foolishly goes looking for new underpants.  All I know is that since my encounter with it I’ve only seen your average run-of-the-mill shambling zombies.

I’m more than okay with that.

What’s disheartening is that there seems to be more of the undead out on the streets every day.  My guess is that they’re starting to make their way back into town from the swamps, which is good news for the people that have managed to survive out there but bad news for city folk like myself.  More teeth plus more grasping arms is a rough equation to be on the wrong end of.

Well, this is where we part for the time being.  I’ve got some errands to run and I just can’t see myself scribbling away on a notepad while I’m dodging walking corpses simply for the joy of your company.  We might talk again if I stumble across some fresh paper and pens.  Until then, stay the hell away from New Orleans, because things are already bad here and if a certain running silver-eyed freak taught me anything, it’s that things are probably going to get a whole lot worse.

Welcome, Truth Seekers, to the very first episode of The Unfiltered Truth.  My name is Alan Foster, and I’ll be your guide through the murky waters of misinformation and cover-ups to the shining light that can only be produced by the truth.  Not the truth that they want you to believe.  I’m talking about the real truth.  The kind of truth that may be hard to swallow but is the pill you must take to have the veils lifted from over your eyes.  The unfiltered truth.

We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s dive right in, shall we?

All that everyone seems to be talking about is the extreme heat passing through the United States right now.  Temperatures are well above average.  Cities are urging residents to stick to water schedules while also warning residents about the many dangers that come with this level of heat.

There are a number of theories being tossed out as to why we’re being roasted by such intense temperatures this year.  We’ve been hearing a wide variety of possible reasons such as global warming or natural weather cycles or planetary alignments.  There we go, right?  Just toss those possibilities into a hat, reach right in, and pluck one out to have your answer.  Don’t like that answer?  Keep picking until you get one that you like.  Everything is all wrapped up with a nice little bow.

But what if I was to tell you that the answer as to why we’re entrenched in this sticky mess of a heatwave isn’t written on one of those slips of paper in the hat?  What if I told you that it’s not only not in that hat, but that there’s a group of people actively working to keep you from even being able to purchase the paper to make the slips in the first place?

Before I tell you the truth, and oh believe me, I’m going to be doing just that, you should know that the governments around the world don’t want you to know it.  I’m not talking about just the United States government, although Joseph Raoul Biden, if that’s his real name, is certainly involved.  So is Donald Portabella Trump, if that’s his real name, so don’t think that this stops at party lines.  Besides, we all know that both major parties in the US of A are just arms of the same cabal of manatee-worshiping rich fat cats under the control of an international conglomerate of early ‘90s punk rock bands.

This goes way past the United States, though.  This is a conspiracy that stretches into every capital in every country in the world.  The White House, the Kremlin, Buckingham Palace, the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Mina Tenjin shopping mall in Fukuoka.  Every seat of power is deeply involved in this piping-hot scheme to pull the wool over your eyes.  Sweat-filled sticky and stifling clumps of wool.

Not even they can keep the truth hidden forever, though.  The truth wants to be free, and it will push against every wall that’s put in front of it until it finds a crack and pushes through it like an old container of Nickelodeon Gak washing down a bathtub drain.

Today, I am that Gak, either the orange or the purple color, and the cracks I’m squishing through are in your mind.

Ladies and gentlemen and everybody else, prepare yourselves, because what I’m about to say will change everything.

The reason that we’re in such a long and sustained heatwave… is because of lava people.

I’m going to let that sink in for a few moments.  The extreme heat is being caused by lava people.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, hey, Alan, lava people seems like the only possible explanation, but how can you be sure?  I completely understand your very minor hesitation.  That’s the indoctrination that’s been forced on you for all these years pushing back against what you know to be true.  For years I’ve raged against the mind programming that’s been going on.  All of the insidious hidden messages in gum commercials and advertisements have eroded away at the public’s collective will to resist.

Do you know what helps you break free of the mind chains that have been locked around your synapses?  A blinding burst of the truth.  Right here, right now, accepting the reality of the lava people will break those bindings and melt those chains.  Boiling chain drippings will run off of your brain and harden and break apart at the base of your skull.

Today’s flash in your brainpan is not only the existence of lava people, but the nefarious schemes that they have concocted for us surface dwellers.  Call me a man in a trenchcoat that isn’t allowed within a thousand yards of a park, because you’re about to get flashed.

So who are these lava people?  They are an ancient race of being made of, you guessed it, living lava.  They’ve lived deep in the Earth’s molten core for millions, if not billions, of years.  When they became aware of humans due to seismic activity from the first nuclear bomb tests, they sent an expedition party up here to see what was going on.  They laid their constantly melting eyeball substitutes on everything great we have on the surface and they were instantly jealous and wanted it for themselves.

Ever since then, they’ve been waging a clandestine war to wipe us out so that they can claim what is ours.  That’s right, Truth Seekers, these lava men are illegally entering our countries to try to steal what we’ve worked so hard for.  Now this may not be the popular thing to say, and it might not be the politically correct thing to say, but I’m going to shoot straight with you folks and say what is on all our minds: illegal plasma-based lifeforms should be thrown in prison before being shipped back to where they came from.  Our cities are already too packed and have too much of a financial burden on them to be forced to cater to a small minority that lights things on fire or turns concrete into liquid with every step.

Our law enforcement officers need to be empowered to put a stop to this wave of lava people.  The lawmakers in Washington want to bang on about funding for health care and their little pet projects that they can wave in front of their mindless sheep of constituents to get reelected, but where’s the money for fireproof capture nets and cages that can withstand over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit?  Where is the money for finally, finally, building a wall between us and the Earth’s core?

I’ll tell you where that money is.  It’s in the pockets of those greedy pigs that have the gall to call themselves our representatives.  No matter what they say as they shout at us from behind a podium before election day, every last one of them would sell you out in a second if it meant their own agendas would get just a nickel more.

There was a time when our leaders would have worked to protect us from this threat.  Sadly, my friends, those days are long gone.  Now they’re all in the pockets of Big Streaming and Big Frappaccino.  Those companies have lined the pockets of every branch of the government to ensure that lava people can come and go from our great country whenever they please.

You don’t have to take my word for it.  Here’s what happened when I questioned former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump about the existence of lava people.

[INSERT DUMB DONALD TRUMP CLIP]

It’s amazing how he contorts himself to avoid answering the question.  We the People want to know the truth about these burning questions about these burning people, and that’s all that he gives us?

This conspiracy doesn’t stop at party lines, however.  When the same question was asked of current president Joe Biden, this was his reply.

[INSERT CLIP OF JOE BIDEN WANDERING AROUND]

Our president just sought out the closest emergency exit rather than answer a question about the mere existence of lava people.

When you’re casting your ballot this election season, remember how both of the major candidates acted here.  Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are going to lift a finger to save you because they’re already bought and paid for in blood, money, and magma.

The conspiracy goes well beyond the borders of the United States.  I was granted a rare interview with the monarch of England.  No, not Charles.  I went right to the source and brought my questions directly to Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

[INSERT PICTURE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S GRAVE]

There you have it, folks.  A great big fat ‘no comment’.  She didn’t even have the decency to tell me that to my face.  She just sat there silently with several feet of dirt between us.

Why would these politicians and their masters go to these lengths to hide the horrible beings?  Because the more lava people on the surface, the hotter the air gets.  What do you do when it gets too hot?  You go inside and sit in the air conditioning, and while you’re there, you watch whatever buckle of slop happens to be trending on your favorite Big Streaming app.  The dry air is certainly going to make you thirsty, and what could be more refreshing than an offering of one of Big Frappaccino’s many beverages?  Open your eyes and connect the dots, people!

That’s what the government and their entertainment and coffee overlords get out of this as they sell all of us down the river.  We all know that those people are corrupt beyond corruption, though.  The question, the Big Question with a capital B and Q, is what is the lava people’s plan for us and our surface world?

This past week, a series of documents were declassified by the Pentagon as part of a routine Freedom of Information Act request.  These documents were from the Korean War era, and they supposedly document a quote unquote “routine” discussion between two doctors in a mobile medical unit.  My team, the most wonderful and professional team that we Truth Seekers could ever ask for, has highlighted this particular statement.

I’ve eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish!  I’ve eaten so much fish, I’m ready to grow gills!  I’ve eaten so much liver, I can only make love if I’m smothered in bacon and onions!

It seems innocent enough on the surface, doesn’t it?  That, my friends, is the whole point.  It’s meant to fly under the radar and not be noticed.  But we here at The Unfiltered Truth don’t stop at the surface.  Oh no, we dig and dig until we break through the surface into the sweet chocolate candy underneath.  We’ve found that if you read between the lines, rearrange some letters, and swap out a number of words for completely different ones, this statement forms a much different picture.  What do you think of this?

We’ll eat the humans’ livers and fry them like fish!  Once we’ve eaten so many humans, we’ll be ready for more kills!  We’ll eat so many of their livers that we’ll smother the world in lava that smells like bacon!

Horrifying, isn’t it?  These lava people are out not only to take over the surface world, but to also consume you, me, our friends, our families, and everyone else.  And remember, the Pentagon has known about this since the Korean War, and they’ve kept it all hidden from us by slapping a Confidential label on it.

I reached out to the Pentagon in an effort to find out how they could possibly justify putting all of our lives in danger like that.  To my surprise, I actually got a response.  I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised.  After all, they’re smart enough to know that ignoring a prestigious podcast such as The Unfiltered Truth would bring ruin down on them.  People would be marching in the streets, riots would form across the world, and governments would be toppled.  That is the power that this show has, and it is my cross to bear.

Here is the response that I received.

Mr. Foster,

Upon reading your request, I feel that I must point out that the Pentagon, nor any other government entity, has any knowledge of these so-called Lava People.  This is because they are a work of fiction, not to mention an absolute impossibility from a scientific standpoint.  Although I preface this next remark by saying that I am not a doctor, I would recommend seeking psychiatric help.  Immediately.

Oh, and the quote that you’re referring to didn’t come from any classified document.  It’s actually from Season Three, Episode Eleven of the popular television series M.A.S.H.  Once again, I strongly suggest speaking with a counselor or psychiatrist.

Please do not write again,

Brian Westhouse

Department of Defense, Office of Public Affairs

Truth Seekers, this is the most blatant attempt at a coverup that I have ever seen.  The Department of Defense accidentally released a document admitting not only the existence of lava people but also their intentions, and now they’re trying to lie their way out of that mistake.  We will not be fooled by such obvious charades.  Their deceits are no match for our truths.  They are but a rusted twisted nail stuck in the board of public trust, and we are the claws of the hammer that will yank them out and toss them into a small plastic bag so that no one accidentally steps on the discarded nail.

The people that we elected to represent our interests are refusing to help protect us from this clear and present danger.  It’s obvious that unless we want everyone and everything that we hold dear to be murdered and consumed by these illegal lava people, we have to take action ourselves.

I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy.  Most things in life worth doing aren’t.  As a Truth Seeker and a citizen of the surface of the planet Earth, it is your duty to rise to the occasion.  Stand strong and stand firm, humans of Earth!

The first step is to completely ignore every law that is in place in nearly every country in the world.  You can’t be expected to worry about walking between the lines of a crosswalk when there are lava people trying to end our way of life.  What’s the point of keeping your dog on a leash if both the dog and the leash could be incinerated by flowing magma at any time?

The most important laws, the ones that you absolutely cannot subscribe to any longer, are those banning the use of heavy artillery and explosives.  A bullet isn’t going to hurt a rampaging lava person.  It’s going to hit that gooey molten shell and melt into a tiny little puddle.  No, what you need to stock up on is much heavier artillery.

With that in mind, I’m excited to introduce you to today’s sponsor.

Whenever an unnatural being stalks the Earth and threatens to rip open and swallow your internal organs, you’re going to need a good weapon to protect yourself.  Most places will try to sell you something stock, something that anyone can get anywhere, but you and I know that you need to tailor the weapon to the situation.  Those fancy silver bullets that work so well on werewolves are going to do jack shit against an East Indian falcon ape.  Good luck taking down a living pyramid with a fairy-killing butterknife.

We True Believers know that you need the right tool for the right job.  That’s why you need to check out Big Bob’s Mobile Shed of Guns and Stuff.

Working out of a shed bolted onto a pickup trailer so that he can avoid the authorities, Big Bob has everything you need for personal security from the worst the world and beyond has to offer.  Guns, knives, explosives, devices with heavily questionable amounts of radioactive material, he’s got it all.  I’m a client myself.  Big Bob has never let me down.

Today’s subject is lava people, and Big Bob has got you covered.  Forget pathetic little guns.  He can hook you up with a good old fashioned rocket launcher.  Let’s see those molten bastards survive a missile attack.  Rocket launcher a bit too large for your tastes?  Try a claymore mine, now available in multiple colors to fit in with every home decor.

If you’re ready to defend your home from lava people and every other unnatural being, or even if you just want to make a human home invader realize he or she just broke into the worst house possible, get in touch with Big Bob’s Mobile Shed of Guns and Stuff.  Big Bob will personally come to your home with his shed and fit you with exactly what you need.  Go online under a pseudonym and using a fake email address, post the words ‘looking for boom booms’ on three different new mother message boards, and you’ll receive a phone call with instructions three days later.

Remember listeners, I’m not just a client, I also own a large stake in the business.  Supporting Big Bob is also supporting the most important podcast in the history of humanity, The Unfiltered Truth.

Big Bob’s Mobile Shed of Guns and Stuff.  Why blow some shit up when you can blow a lot of shit up instead?

We’ll get back to the lava people in just a moment, but first, let’s take a few viewer questions we’ve received through email and social media over the past week.

Our first question comes from Gus from Mobile, Alabama.  Gus writes:

Dear Alan,

Big fan of The Unfiltered Truth.  You recently did an episode on sightings of Bigfoot riding trained elephants to attack small villages in the Australian Outback.  You suggested sinking the country to help stop the spread of these to other parts of the world.

Would you suggest doing the same thing to Japan to contain its Stick-Armed Jabberwocky plague?

Thanks for watching, Gus.  That’s a great question.  As a long time listener, you know that I’m a big proponent of sinking countries to make sure that their issues stay their issues.  I’ve supported the sinking of Australia, Cuba, both North and South Korean and, most recently, Austria.  It’s a simple and elegant solution to problems.

Unfortunately, I can’t add Japan to this particular solution list.  It’s a well-known fact that Stick-Armed Jabberwockies are highly skilled at doggie paddling when immersed in water, and thus they would simply swim to the nearest land mass in the event of a country sinking.  Still, I love that enthusiasm, Gus.

Our next question comes from Pam in Pisa, Italy.  Thanks for taking time out of your busy day of staying out of the falling path of a stupidly constructed tower, Pam.

Pam writes:

Alan,

You stated on your amazing show that the moon had fallen out of orbit around the Earth and had crashed into the sun, and what we see at night is just the moon’s ghost.  If this is the case, shouldn’t we have seen some evidence of this here due to the moon having so much to do with things like the tides?

I’m not doubting you, I would NEVER doubt you.  I’m just trying to understand the truth.

Don’t worry, Pam, I know that you wouldn’t doubt what I say on this show, as then you would be doubting the truth.  Asking questions is exactly what you should be doing.  You should always keep your eyes peeled.  Peeled like a banana so that the sweet fruit of knowledge can be consumed to inject the potassium of freedom into your body.

You’re referring to the common belief that the moon’s gravitational pull influences the Earth’s ocean tides.  So why doesn’t the absence of a living moon and the replacement of it by its spooky ghost cause them to go crazy?

I’m going to cover this more in a future episode, but the reason is because gravity isn’t real.  It’s the concoction of a madman that was struck on the head by an apple and attempted to do math with a severe concussion.  You don’t have to ask the followup question, because I already know what it’s going to be.  If gravity isn’t real, then we don’t we go flying off the planet and into space?

Simple.  All animals, including humans, have evolved to have feet function like suction cups.  Have you ever wondered why you feel a bit lighter when you have memory foam inserts in your shoes?  It’s because your suction cup feet are slightly further away from the surface of the planet.

Great question, Pam.

Our final question comes from Carter from Tulsa.  I normally don’t trust people with first names that can also double as a last name, but I happen to know that Carter has been a loyal listener since before our first episode.  He’s so dedicated that he was listening before he could listen.

Here’s Carter’s question.

Does pineapple belong on pizza?

One of the best questions that I’ve ever received.  There is no answer.  It’s completely dependent on the person.  You do you, pizza lovers.  Sometimes the truth can be tasty for some but disgusting for others.

I personally enjoy pineapple on my pizza.  My producer slash director slash second wife slash career counselor slash marketing director slash fifth wife slash yoga instructor slash manpurse holder does not like pineapple on her pizza.  That’s all good.  She has a God-given right to be wrong.

Thank you to everyone for your questions.  If you’d like to submit a question to The Unfiltered Truth, be sure to leave it in this video’s comments.

I’d like to remind everyone that our next episode is a very special one.  I’m going to be interviewing the widow of a werewolf who says that the Swiss government tracked down her husband and killed him in the streets like a common dog because of his political views.  That’s right, we’re finally exposing Switzerland for its constant and dangerous lies about being neutral.  You’re not going to miss this chilling and historically important expose.

As we wrap up the show today, I want to leave you with a few final thoughts.  Despite every official in every department in every country denying it, there’s no doubt that not only have the lava people arrived in force, but they’re also here to directly threaten our way of life.  We need to spread the word to everyone that will listen, and spread the word louder to those that won’t.  True humans will immediately agree with you.  Anyone that seems skeptical or looks at you like you’re a nutjob must be assumed to be in the pockets of the lava people already.

Find ways to protect yourself.  Form neighborhood watches with like-minded individuals.  Patrol your neighborhoods looking for lava people.  Don’t be afraid to go into other people’s homes unannounced.  Real patriots will appreciate your diligence.  Anyone who questions your breaking and entering into their private property will have exposed themselves as lava people sympathists.

Don’t just patrol your neighborhood.  Secure it.  Hide motion-activated rocket turrets at regular intervals in the bushes.  Bury mines throughout the streets and sidewalks.  If your neighborhood layout allows it, consider setting up an open space to call in an air strike.

Lava people are real.  Let’s show them that our conviction to stop them is just as real.

Until next time, Truth Seekers, stay safe out there, and make sure that the only truth you follow… is The Unfiltered Truth.

Look, officer, I have absolutely no idea why I’m here.  I don’t know why you dragged me out of my home in the middle of the night, I don’t know why you brought me down to the station, and I don’t know why I’m handcuffed to this chair.  I’m not guilty of anything.

The man that you have sitting here before you is a husband.  He’s a father.  He’s a local businessman.  I’m certainly too modest to call myself one, but I would suggest that other people would see me as a pillar of the community.

If I’m guilty of anything, it’s being guilty of caring too much about my community.  That’s why I provide high quality lawn care and landscaping at an affordable price.  I love my neighbors and I love this town.

I have done nothing wrong.  So go on, officer, tell me what horrible thing you think that I did, because I can guaran-damn-tee you that I am innocent of whatever idiotic charge you’re even thinking of bringing my way.

…

Oh.  You… have pictures.  And security camera feeds.  What, um, what’s that one there?  A personal cellphone video that has been posted to YouTube.  I see.

Well, whatever.  None of this proves anything.  How do I know these haven’t been faked?  It wouldn’t be the first time that the police attempted to frame an innocent man.  Yeah, that has got to be it.  There’s someone here in the building that knows all about things like Photoshop, and you’ve got that guy frantically making up all of these bullshit images.  I’m going to get this to a lawyer, and not only am I going to have your badge, I’m going to own this whole damn station.

…I see.  You have witnesses.  Many of them.  And that is a lot of physical evidence on that list.  Well no.  Um, please give me a moment to gather my thoughts.

Okay, so, I think that what’s happening here is just a little misunderstanding.  I can completely understand how these events would look bad in a certain light, but you have to view them in the proper context.  Context is everything when it comes to something like that.

You got me.  I admit that I killed those people.  Wow, it actually feels good to say that out loud.  Whew.  You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to talk to someone about this.  It’s lonely having to keep this kind of secret.  Can you imagine how hard this whole thing has been on me?  It’s been brutal, let me tell you.

Huh?  Yeah, of course, I feel bad for the dead people, too.  I’m not saying that them dying isn’t sad, or whatever.  Sure it is.  I’m just saying that I’m kind of a victim in all of this, too.  Like, there can be more than one victim, right?  In this case there’s, I don’t know, multiple levels, I guess.  Up here there’s the highest victim level, and down here is the lowest.  Who’s to say who’s at what level?  Not me, that’s for sure.  I’m just saying I’ve had a really rough time.  The dead people stopped having problems when I killed them, but my problems are ongoing.

I think you’ll get what I mean, and dare I say even agree with me, when you hear what the context is.  Everything has to be put in the proper context to really understand it, yeah?  Yeah.  Yeah.  What we need here is context.

Let me set the stage for you.  I’m a local businessman running his own lawn mowing and landscaping company.  I used to make money hand-over-fist back in the day.  It wasn’t even hard.  Pass out some flyers in the early spring, get services set up with anyone that called me, and do the job and get paid.  Simple as that.

Then all these other guys started opening up their own companies and competing with me.  Some of them were even people that had worked with me.  They took my money, they learned what I had to teach them, and then they stabbed me in the back and went up against me.  None of them could touch my great prices and even better service, of course, but each of them was able to take a little piece of business away from me until I was just existing on scraps.

Even worse, the pandemic hit.  Nobody had any free money anymore, and they couldn’t afford a luxury like mowing or landscaping.  Not that those things are really luxuries.  No sir.  The first step to living a healthy life is to have a healthy-looking home, and your lawn is your outdoor home.  Some people just don’t get that no matter how much you try to drive it home, though.  Bunch of simple-minded nitwits.

During the pandemic, I had to make some major cutbacks.  I went from five crews down to myself and my assistant manager.  I know what you’re going to say.  What about those government payouts you could get to help your business keep going?  Well, I got those, and I spent them on the business.  There were just a lot of expenses that needed taken care of.  Equipment needed updated and maintained.  The trucks had repairs that couldn’t wait.  That sort of thing.

Now, you’re probably wondering about the new pool that I got with some of that money.  It’s a legitimate business expense.  I’ve got this back pain that comes and goes, and being in the pool helps to loosen it up and keep me going.  It’s a therapy pool.

Anyway, back to what I was saying.  My business was hurting.  If I can be honest with you, and I feel like I can, I was afraid that I was going to go completely under.

When the pandemic finally ended, I got a lucky break.  A local realtor asked me to do a big landscaping job for an expensive house in an expensive neighborhood.  It was just the break that I was looking for.  The house was in extremely rough shape, and if I could make the outside look pristine, I’d have a line of very impressed and very wealthy customers banging on my door to keep theirs looking great, too.

When I say that the grass was in bad shape, I really mean that it was a shitshow, pardon my French.  Most of it was torn up and dead, and the grass that was somehow miraculously managing to grow was ragged and yellow.  The previous owners hadn’t given a crap about what their property looked like.  It was such a shame, because you could tell that at some point long ago it had been someone’s pride and joy.

I decided that I was going to do something special for this job.  It was too important to trust to those crap chemicals you can get at any big box hardware store.  No, I was going to mix my own fertilizer so that I could make that lawn look its absolute best.  Completely organic and guaranteed to do the trick.

That’s how me and Martin, that assistant manager that I mentioned, found ourselves mixing together manure and compost the night before we were scheduled to start the job.  Because of the smell, we always this small piece of land I had bought years earlier in the woods.  I had always wanted to build a little cabin on that land, a nice home away from home, but I had never had the chance.

We’d been working for three or four hours, and the fertilizer was starting to come along, but it just didn’t have the kind of consistency that I was looking for.  When you’re putting down fresh fertilizer, you need it to be soft enough to spread around, but also firm enough that it doesn’t just slop all over the place.  It’s a delicate balance that takes a real professional to achieve.

I decided to use some mulch to thicken the mixture.  While I took a break to get a beer, Martin started to scoop the mulch into the fertilizer.  I can’t tell you exactly what happened to him while I was at the truck getting my drink from the cooler, what I can tell you is that when I got back, he was dead on the ground with a pool of blood under his head.

Here’s what I think happened.  I think that Martin accidentally stepped into the fertilizer.  It was slippery as hell, and he must have lost his footing.  He went stumbling backwards, hit his head on the wood chipper we were using to make the mulch, and out went the lights forever.

It’s just like I said.  I had nothing to do with his death.  Unless a goddamn bear ran out of the woods and took him out while I was at the truck, it was his own damn fault that he died.

In fact, Martin put me in a really difficult position by dying like that.  Now, I’m going to admit to something here, but I really need you not to blow it out of proportion.  Can you promise me that?  Martin wasn’t what you would call a legal resident of the United States.  I didn’t ask any questions since it really wasn’t my business, but I do know that he came up here from one of those countries down south.  Couldn’t tell you which one.  All I knew was that he came to this great country of ours to work hard and be a contributing member of society, and I was happy to assist him with that admirable goal.  The fact that I was able to pay him less than half of what I paid my other workers was just an added bonus.

There were going to be some really awkward questions when Martin’s body was collected.  Not awkward for him.  He was dead.  Awkward for me.  The police were going to find out that he wasn’t a legal citizen, and when they did, they’d be all over me even though all I did was help a guy out.

He didn’t have any family.  He never mentioned one, anyway, so he must not have had one.  That’s not the kind of thing that someone doesn’t mention.  I’m sure that he would have told me if he had one even though I never asked about it.

I remember standing there for a long time, just staring at Martin’s corpse while trying to decide what to do.  Getting the authorities involved would only hurt me while not helping anyone.  That wasn’t fair.  I hadn’t done anything.

Then, as if they were operating on their own, my eyes turned towards the wood chipper.

There wasn’t much of a choice at all.  Martin was dead, and that was a tragedy and all that, but that couldn’t be helped.  All that mattered now was getting rid of the problem so that life could move on.  For me, I mean.  It wasn’t going to be moving on for Martin.

I’m sorry, I apologize, that last part came out wrong.  It’s the middle of the night, and I’m tired.  Hold on, I’m going to get a quick drink of water.  Thanks for having a glass for me.  Could definitely be colder.  Just something to keep in mind for next time.  The more hospitable you are, the more people are going to want to cooperate.

Where was I?  Oh, right, I was just about to shove Martin into the wood chipper.  So I did that.  Got him undressed and shoved him into the wood chipper.  It seemed like the best solution at the time.

Just between you and me, you wouldn’t believe how easy it was.  Lifting him wasn’t.  Martin was all dead weight.  Hey, I just realized where that saying came from.  Dead weight.  You learn something every day.

Anyway, the part that was easy was when I finally got him up and into the chipper.  The machine caught his body and sort of sucked it in.  I keep all of my equipment in tip top shape, and that includes making sure that all blades are sharpened.

As the blades sliced and diced Martin, the chute sprayed the slush the machine was making into the fertilizer mixture.  I’ll be honest, I hadn’t even thought of doing that.  I was in mourning for Martin, remember, God rest his soul.

It was one of those, what do you call it, happy little accidents.  The remains started mixing with the fertilizer, and as it did it became less watery.  More out of curiosity than anything else, I used a rake to stir the concoction.  I was shocked.  The final product was the exact consistency that I was looking for.

I think Martin would have liked that.  He was always a really detail-oriented guy.  Kind of a perfectionist without that way of looking down the nose at people like most of those folks have.  He would have been proud that the last thing he did was make the project he had been working on successful.

By that point it was really late, and I had the most important job of my career the next day.  I pulled my truck up closer so that I could pack the fertilizer into the plastic barrels that were in the bed.  It wasn’t easy work, especially now that I didn’t have someone to assist me.  Eventually I finished, gathered up Martin’s clothes, and headed out.

On the way back home, I stopped at one of those donation containers in the parking lot of that strip mall off of Dalton Road.  I tossed Martin’s clothes in there.  They were dirty, but there wasn’t any blood on them.  Not exactly sure how that happened given how much of the stuff was leaking out of his noggin, but somehow it did.  It seemed a shame to waste them, and they weren’t my size, so I decided to give them to the less fortunate.

I’m constantly doing that kind of thing.  You might want to make a note of that in your notebook.  I’m a generous guy that gives a lot to his community.  That’s part of that context I was talking about earlier.  It will help you see the whole story for what it is, and when you do, you’re definitely going to see that you’ve made a mistake here.

You also might want to make a big note about how cooperative I’m being.  I haven’t exactly been treated well here.  I mean, this water is room temperature at best, and my wrist is itching from the handcuff, but I’m still helping you by proving I didn’t do anything wrong.  Most people wouldn’t be that accommodating.

The next day I went to the job and started the lawn repair.  The yard was so bumpy that I had to rent a roller to flatten it out before I could seed.  A lot of guys in my industry would have put down sod insteading of seeding, but here’s the thing: seed just works better over the long run.  I could have used sod.  It would have looked better instantly.  That would have just been a bandaid, though, and if I do a job, I’m going to do it right.

I got the yard completely prepped, and once that was done, I spread the fertilizer.  It was a little lighter shade of brown than it normally was.  Not by much, but I’ve worked with fertilizer long enough to notice a small difference like that.  It spread really smooth and had the perfect consistency.

I was maybe halfway done when I found a piece of a toe in the fertilizer.  It wasn’t much, maybe an eighth of an inch long at most, but it was definitely a toe.  Luckily it just took a few pokes with the rake for it to break apart and mix into the ground.  I guess that makes sense.  It had been sitting in a hot barrel filled manure, mulch, and Martin.

When I was finished, I went back home and took a cold shower.  It had been a long day, and I was beat.  After that, I got a beer out of the fridge and started to make dinner.

Oh, right, you probably don’t need to know that part.  I can respect that.  Time is money.

Over the next couple of weeks, I monitored the lawn as I worked on the rest of the property’s landscaping and some other handyman jobs that the realtor asked me to do.  I wasn’t sure how well the grass was going to come in.  It wasn’t like I had ever used a blend with a human in it before.

I shouldn’t have worried.  That lawn grew in faster and greener and healthier than any other one that I had ever installed.  It wasn’t even close.  All the lawns I’ve ever put in have come out great, but this one was on a whole other level.  It was beautiful.

I wasn’t the only one that noticed, either.  The neighbors started coming over to the house while I was there, asking me what my secret to such a green lawn was and wondering if they could hire me to work on theirs.  I picked up half a dozen new clients within the first month, and every single one of them was loaded.  For the first time in years my business was starting to grow instead of going down the toilet.

And it was all thanks to my wonderful new miracle fertilizer.

Now, I’m sure that you’re seeing the obvious problem here.  I had used my special Martin blend on the first house, and I didn’t have any left to use on these new client properties.  Using the regular stuff wasn’t going to work.  They had already seen the results of the Martin mixture.  If I didn’t produce those same results with their yards, they wouldn’t be happy and I wouldn’t get any future work from them.

That clearly wasn’t acceptable.  I needed that money.  The only thing to do was make more of my special fertilizer.

So that’s what I did.  Each night I’d go find a person, kill them, and take them back to my spot in the woods to make more fertilizer.

Hold on, hold on, I know how that sounds.  It’s okay, though.  I didn’t kill good people.  I just killed the people that it was okay to kill.

Here, let me give you an example.  Do you remember that guy that used to stand around in the grocery store parking lot over on Vanderbilt?  The one that would come up to you with a flier about that country that he wanted ours to stop supporting?  Or maybe support?  I can’t remember which it was.  One of the two.

The reason you don’t see him anymore is because I turned him into fertilizer.  Even though I could have chosen anyone to do that, I decided to do my community a favor and get rid of a public nuisance instead.  I wasn’t just going to line my own pockets.  I was also going to help my town.

Everyone I tossed in my woodchipper was someone that getting rid of made things better.  That guy near the highway that was always begging for money even though we all know he wasn’t actually homeless.  A couple of those women down at the bar that sit in the corner and mocks anyone that gets near them that isn’t built like a linebacker.  Let’s see, who else…  There were so many that they all kind of blur together.

I’d have to think about it for a while.  I’m sure that I can come up with a list.  The important thing to remember is that all of them were a drain on society.  No one that you can reasonably say didn’t have it coming.

Ah, right, I also chipped up my ex-wife.  I guess that she doesn’t technically fall into the same category, but trust me when I say that she was a major bitch that needed taken care of.  Even if you want to say that I shouldn’t have done that one, you have to admit that one maybe unearned kill is more than balanced out by all the good that I did.

And those lawns?  Every single one of them looks better than they ever have thanks to my proprietary enhancement.

There you have it, officer.  I’m sitting here an innocent man.  All that I’ve done is make our town better.  If I took care of my bills by doing so, well, isn’t that only fair?  Everyone should be paid for their services, right?  That’s how capitalism is supposed to work.

What do you say?  Are you going to uncuff me so that I can go home now?  I’ve got a job to get to early in the morning, and I’ve had a long night of mixing fertilizer.

Okay, yes, I admit it.  At this exact moment in time, I’m just the slightest bit drunk.

I haven’t had all that much to drink.  Just a couple of bottles of wine.  No, wait, sorry, I said that wrong.  I meant a couple of cases of wine.  They were small cases, though.  The ones that only have four bottles instead of six.

I think there might have been a few shots in there as well.  It’s hard to tell.  Things are a bit of a blur after the tequila.  I’m pretty sure that’s all that it was, though.  The wine, the shots, and the tequila.  After the fourth round of beers.

Like I said, just a little drunk.

It doesn’t matter, though.  I’m almost home.  I went ahead and did the responmable… the responstibible…  the smart thing and walked instead of driving.  Besides, the night breeze feels good tonight.  The sensation of it blowing across my skin is…

Oh.  The full moon broke through the clouds.  Great, I’m a fucking werewolf now.

Usually the process hurts like a bitch.  I barely feel anything this time.  I trip over the edge of the sidewalk and fall snout-first into the concrete.  Still no pain.

Okay, okay, maybe I should have stopped drinking after that fifth Jello shot.  Eh, maybe.  If I had stopped, I wouldn’t have gotten that stripper’s phone number, and…

Shit.  I left her phone number back at the bar.  And I can’t remember the name of the bar.  The bar that my car is parked at.

I push myself back up off the sidewalk and continue on my way.  Those sound like tomorrow problems to me.  Tonight, I’m all about getting home, microwaving some burritos, and laying on the couch watching Ron Propeil set it and forget it.

A lot of you probably aren’t going to get that last part.  See, there’s this guy named Ron Propeil, and he has these late night infomercials where he’s selling these chicken ovens, and…

Ah, never mind.  It’s like watching YouTube videos, except that all the videos are designed to separate you from your money.

…So, basically, it’s exactly like YouTube videos.

I reach my house and open the short gate door so that I can walk up the front path.  I stop for a moment and frown.  I don’t remember having a gate.  Or a fence, for that matter.  I shrug.  It’s probably just one of those magically appearing fences that you hear about from time to time.

I stumble up the short path to the porch steps.  I stop a few feet away and peer at them closely with my wolf eyes.  This is going to be tricky.  My sight is a little blurry, but I’m pretty sure that each step is about eleventy bajillion inches tall.  Oh well, fortune favors the bald, or something like that.  I take a deep breath and raise up one leg.  To my surprise, my still-shoed paw makes contact with the top of the step.  I must have forgotten that my legs are eleventy bajillion inches long or something.  I carefully navigate the other two giant steps and make it onto the porch itself.

The air is a lot thinner way up here.  My stomach starts to churn, and I stumble towards the front door.  Not a problem.  I’ll just go inside, get into the bathroom, and-

Well fuck that plan, because now I’m throwing up all over the front door.  Not a little bit, either.  This just kind of keeps going.  Hold on, there, I think…  Nope, more vomit.  Give me a minute here.

Okay, finally, I’m done.

Wait… wait…

Um, I think that’s all of it.

Dammit!  Where is all of this coming from?  It’s like I went drinking and then decided to ingest the entire contents of the Mississippi River.  And let me tell you, you do not want to be throwing up as a werewolf.  All of your senses are heightened, including taste and smell.  This porch has the same stench as a bouncy castle after a dozen preschool students went inside of it immediately after gorging themselves on cake and ice cream.

Oh, thank Jeebus, that’s the end of it.

Aaaaand I am not touching that door or its handle.

It’s okay, though.  I’ve got a backup.  I always leave one of the back windows unlocked just for this occasion.  I leave the porch, being careful not to plummet to my death down the massive stairs and going slowly enough that the change in air pressure won’t give me the bends.  I’m suddenly very glad that I paid attention during diving school.  Or that might have been from Shark Week.  Fuck, I dunno, I’m a drunk werewolf trying to get inside to make burritos, what do you want from me?

Too much, that’s what you want from me.  I stumble around the side of the house.  You’re always wanting too much from me.  I give and I give and I give, and still you want more.  Well, you know what?  That’s it.  I can’t take this one-sided relationship anymore.  I’m gonna go inside and pack my bags, and I’m gonna go stay with my mother.  Don’t try calling, because I won’t answer.

Wait, no, I’m so sorry, baby.  You know how I get when I’ve had a few to drink.  Can we just sit down and talk about this?

Are you even real?  Who the hell am I talking to?  What was I doing again?

Oh, right, the window.  So I can make burritos.  I go around to the back of the house and make my way to the second window from the left.  It takes me a minute to figure out which of the ten windows I’m seeing is the real one and not the clones that are spinning all around it.

The window is locked.  I would swear that I left it unlocked when I left for the bar…  I want to say earlier in the day, but it might have been late last week.  That happens sometimes.  I’ll step out for a quick nip and find myself arriving back home days later, wearing someone else’s clothing and finding multiple citations for public indecency shoved into my pocket.

Analyzing my missing time isn’t going to get me inside of my house, though.  I try to lift the window again, but the lack of moving confirms that it is indeed locked.  Maybe I left the porch door unlocked.  I look over at it and sigh.  It’s about fifteen feet away from where I’m staying.  That’s, like, so far away.

Ah, fuck it.  Now is the time for action, not for thinking.  I leap through the window, shattering the glass and sending thousands of wood splinters flying in every direction.  On the other side is the sink and kitchen counter, and I crash into both.  No problem, I’m a werewolf.  A wolf is a kind of dog, and everyone knows that dogs always land on their feet.

My foot catches in the sink, and I fall face-first into the tile flooring.  As I do so, my shoe rips apart, and my paw pops out just in time to become stuck in the drain.  I manage to get it unwedged and stand up.

As I brush myself off, I begin to wonder why the kitchen is now here.  I’m no expert on architecture, but I’m pretty sure that when a kitchen starts on the north end of a house it tends to stay on that end instead of migrating to the south side.  Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing.  Once again, not an expert on architecture or its migratory habits.

Something else isn’t quite right.  I look around the room for a few moments, trying to figure out what exactly is out of place.  It’s probably something small, something nearly imperceptible.  Werewolves are far more in tune with their environments than normal folks, so we’re able to detect even the most miniscule of oddities.

It takes a bit, but finally I work out what’s off about my surroundings.  I was right.  It’s small, nearly unrecognizable.

There’s a woman standing next to the open refrigerator, staring at me with her mouth open wide as she holds a pitcher of milk in one hand.

My eyes go wide.  It’s a home invader.  This woman has broken into my house, my sanctuary, and is now attempting to drink my milk.  My milk that I don’t remember buying but I clearly must have.

She’s also wearing my pink form-fitting bathrobe.  Wait, no, that doesn’t make sense.  I don’t own a pink form-fitting bathrobe.  Or those slippers that she’s wearing, either.  I take a quick look around the kitchen as my head swims pleasantly from the alcohol.  A gate that I didn’t remember, a locked window when I was sure that I unlocked it, a kitchen on the wrong side of the house…

There was only one rational explanation here.  This woman had broken into my house, put up a fence to block the view of my neighbors, and proceeded to rearrange the inside of the building to her preferences.  She wasn’t a home invader.  She was a squatter.

Well I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone claim squatters’ rights in my house!  I stand straight up and gnash my teeth as I let out a low growl from deep in my throat.  If there’s one thing that I know about being a werewolf, it’s how to look intimidating.

“Holy shit!” she gasps, dropping the pitcher containing the milk.

The pitcher strikes the tile floor, and I brace myself for it to shatter and send glass flying in every direction.  Instead, it bounces once and slides into the side of the counter.  Plastic pitcher.  Nice.

“Nice doggie,” the woman says nervously, her hands stretched out towards me as she backs away.  “Good doggie.”

I squint.  Doggie?  I know that I’m not exactly a hundred percent, but come on, I can’t possibly look more like a dog than a werewolf currently.  After all, I’m a werewolf.  How can I look more like something else when I’m already this specific something?  Did that make sense?  I feel like that didn’t make sense.

“Who’s a good boy?” the woman asks shakily.

Okay, now this is just getting offensive.  How dare she come into my home and treat me like a lowly pet?

On the other hand, though, I’m the good boy.  Me.  Me.  I’m a good boy.

“Are you a good boy?” she asks as she nears the doorway leading out of the kitchen.  “Who’s the good boy?  Is it you?”

My tail begins to wag.  Me!  Look at me!  Look at me being a good boy!

With one last long look at me, the woman flees out the doorway and disappears around the corner.  My tail wags slower and slower until it comes to a stop.  Did she leave before she truly understood that I’m a good boy?

Wait, what in the fuck am I thinking?  That woman is a goddamn squatter!  Who cares if she thinks that I’m a good boy?

…Okay, full disclosure, I do kind of care if she thinks I’m a good boy.  That’s not going to stop me from tearing her apart, though.  I’m a good boy with fucking principles.

First things first, though.  I take a moment to tear off the remainder of my clothing.  Let’s see someone mistake me for a dog now that I’m completely nude.

Before I pursue the squatter, I go to the still-open refrigerator and look inside.  I’m suddenly very thirsty.  There’s a six pack of bear sitting on the lower shelf.  I take a few minutes to drain each of the six bottles, using one claw to pop off the caps.

Still just a bit parched.  There’s a few cans of wine spritzer left in the refrigerator.  Not usually my thing, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I know for a fact that I didn’t buy any of this bubbly carbonated shit.  I can’t believe that a squatter would bring this awful stuff into my home.

I gently pop the tab on the first can and take a sip.  Huh.  That’s not bad.  Has kind of a hint of raspberry, and I’m not normally a raspberry guy, but that’s not bad.  I finish the can and pick up the next one.  Instead of opening it normally, however, I pierce the bottom of it and shotgun the contents.  I do the same to all the others and let out a massive belch.

There we go.  The ol’ buzz was starting to fade for a few minutes there, but that got things back on track.  Everything is nice and fuzzy and all smooshy again.  Just like the Lord intended.

I stumble back and forth a bit as I walk over to the doorway.  Either the alcohol is doing its thing, or the entire floor is rocking like the deck of a sailing ship.  Smart money is probably on the alcohol.

The doorway leads into the dining room.  I take a couple of steps into it before I notice an odd sensation.  There’s an intense itching coming from my lower backside.  I reach back to scratch it, but it’s at an odd angle and I have to be careful not to puncture my own body with my claws.

Dammit, I thought that I got rid of the worms.  That’s the part of being a werewolf that nobody really thinks about.  You’re basically a big wolf that can stand on two feet, which comes with all the positives and negatives.  One of those negatives is the possibility of getting worms.  They go away when I turn back into a person, but inevitably they pop back up when I wolf out again.

There’s no dignified way to do that.  I creep over to the far side of the dining room and peer out through the archway leading into the entryway.  There’s no one there, and when I look up the nearby staircase I don’t see anyone there, either.  Satisfied that I’m alone, I sit down on the carpeted floor and carefully pull myself forward with my hands.  The process scoots my ass across the floor, and the carpet manages to scratch the itch that I am otherwise unable to reach.

As I stand up, I realize that I’m probably going to need to burn this carpet once I’ve gotten this squatter out.  Werewolf ass rubbing streaks aren’t the kind of thing that comes out with a little soap and water.

With the itching now alleviated, I go out into the entryway and listen.  There’s no sound coming from the first floor, but I’m definitely hearing something happening up on the second.  I look at the stairs.  I’m really not feeling operating stairs.  Not much choice, though.  Time to both man up and wolf up.

I have to stop at the halfway point to catch my breath.  The combination of the alcohol and the countless pounds of pork rinds makes it difficult to go in anything resembling a vertical direction.  I really need to get myself into better shape.

Oh, joy, another vomit geyser.  That’s it, the good clean living starts tomorrow.  After breakfast, obviously.  The only thing good for the hangover I’m going to have is a giant juicy burger with a fried egg and bacon on it.  That’s going to make me thirsty, and the best thing to wash it down with will be a cold frosty beer.  Oh, and football will be on Saturday and Sunday, so there’s no point in starting one of those days.

Well, whatever, I’ll get around to that clean living thing at some point.  You know, once it fits into my schedule better.

I barely have time to put one foot down on the second floor when the door at the far end of the hallway bursts open.  I blink a few times to make sure that I’m actually seeing what I’m looking at instead of having the latest in a long line of alcohol-induced hallucinations.

Standing in the doorway are two figures.  Based on the robe, one of them is the woman I encountered downstairs, but now covering her face is a bloody pig’s head.  Her companion, a larger male figure, is wearing a clown’s face.  It’s not a mask made to look like a clown, and it’s not simply face paint.  He’s wearing an actual clown’s face that has apparently been removed from a jester’s skull.  I can smell the rotting flesh odor coming off of both of them from here.

Just behind them is a bedroom glowing with candlelight.  Even with my limited view I can make out at least three bodies hanging from the ceiling, parts torn off of them and their blood covering every surface I can see.

Okay, so, two things are quickly becoming clear: this isn’t my house, and I’ve stepped into something way more twisted than a home invasion.

Both of the figures are holding knives longer than their arms.  I put up my hands slash paws in what I hope appears as a non-threatening manner and slowly back down the stairs.  I’m not one to judge anyone else’s murder kinks.  I’m a werewolf, after all, and I’ve used many people as chew toys over the years.  That doesn’t mean that I want to become a part of whatever… this is.

Pighead and Jester advance towards the stairs at the same pace that I’m moving down them.  I’m not sure when I named them.  Must have been right now.  My grandmother always told me that I had the soul of a poet.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and extend one arm out behind me.  After fumbling around for a few seconds, my clawed hand finds the doorknob and tries to turn it.  The door is locked.  Of course it is.  I manage to locate the bolt and slide it open.  The entire time the two killers continue down towards me, the knives held out in front of them.

I try the doorknob again and this time it turns.  I practically fling the door open before turning and running as quickly as I can out into the front yard.  As I reach the gate, I leap over it and land a dozen feet on the other side.  I look over my shoulder as I dash down the street.  The killers don’t seem to be following me.  I put a few blocks between me and the house just to be sure.

When I finally stop, there’s yet another fit of vomiting.  I typically don’t throw up this much after drinking.  To be fair, I also don’t typically mistake my house for a different one that has a murder party going on inside.  So there’s that.

Just as I manage to catch my breath, the full moon disappears behind a group of thick clouds.  My transformation is reversed, and I quickly return to my human form.

I’m tired, I’m feeling sick, and I’m completely naked in the middle of a suburban neighborhood.

I can also really use a drink.

Everyone has something that they missed the most since this whole ‘zombie apocalypse’ hullabaloo started.

I suppose that your typical person would say that they miss such things as getting a full night’s sleep or air conditioning or their various family members that met their demise at the hands of the living dead.  Sure, those things were nice.  I can’t say that there haven’t been times that I would have killed for a little froyo.  Like, straight up murdered a bitch, torn someone limb from limb to get a taste of that sweet cold treat.  And you have no idea what I would do for a Klondike bar.

Here’s a hint: it’s pretty murder-y.

Still, as much as frozen dairy products are somewhere on my list of things that I miss, it’s not at the top.  Nah.  What I miss most is a good conversation.

Have you ever tried to converse with a zombie?  There’s not much positive to say about it.  They mostly just grunt and groan, with the occasional whistling of escaping gas as their bodies decay.  In essence, it’s pretty much the same experience as talking to your typical horny teenager.

What I’m getting at is that there isn’t much satisfaction in verbally sparring with the undead.  Well, most of the undead.  I happen to be a card-carrying member of that special fraternity, and I’m quite able to keep up my end of a conversation, thank you very much.  I’m discerning enough to realize that I’m the exception rather than the rule, however.

Oh, how silly of me.  I forgot to introduce myself.  You really should have said something instead of letting me go on like this.

My name is Mitch, and I’ll be your body’s devourer this evening.

Sorry, that might have been a bit of a spoiler.  While I’m certainly more evolved than your standard zombie, I still have that whole eating humans for fun and profit thing going on.  That’s not the best news for you, but if I’m being honest, I’m not really taking your feelings into consideration here.  I’m selfish like that.  Someday I’ll take some time to really work on myself.  Today is not that day.

That’s the bad news.  Here’s the good news.  I’ve been so starved for a good conversation that I’m going to keep you alive for a while.  We’ll spend some time together and get to know one another.  Maybe we’ll make some smores.  Oh!  I know!  We’ll have a sleepover!  We can talk about clothes and which boys we think are dreamy.

I’m sure it’s going to be hard for you to talk since I’ve eaten your tongue.  That’s okay.  I can talk enough for the both of us.  Do you see what I’m doing here?  I’m acknowledging your difficulties and offering a possible solution.  I can feel myself growing as a person.

Let’s see, where to start, where to start…

I suppose there’s no place to start like the beginning.

I’m not going to bore you with much of my human life.  Frankly, it wasn’t very remarkable.  I worked at a boring deadend job to pay the rent on a pathetically small apartment.  You look the type to know exactly what I’m talking about.  Not a whole lot of progress up the ladder of life, huh?

You can probably relate to the next part as well.  The cost of living went up, and yet magically my paycheck didn’t grow to keep up with it.  When I heard that a new drug trial at the local university was paying $500 to have a single syringe jabbed into your arm, well, I knew that I had to jump at the chance.  People who are well-off, the people that don’t really know what a struggle everyday life can be for the average joe, probably think that isn’t enough to be shot up with a mystery drug.  Those people don’t know how life works, not really.

How it used to work, anyway.  I’m still finding myself misusing those pesky past and present tenses.  It’s not like rising inflation means anything here in Ye Ol’ Zombie Apocalypse.

So I got the shot.  I was told that it was a new type of flu vaccine.  It likely was.  Hell, it might have been a really good one.  I haven’t had the flu once since that trial.

You’d think that the strange mysterious medication would be the catalyst for making me the way that I am.  It’s likely part of it, but not the zombie part.  No, that came the way that most do: from a bite.

I was walking out to my car after getting my shot when a guy jumped out at me from around a corner.  Before I could react, he sank his teeth deep into my forearm.  I’d like to say that I fought him off with my overwhelming manliness, but truthfully I think it was my frightened screaming like a small child that made him release and take a step back.  I’m sure that he was suitably impressed with my truly Herculean running away, however.

I went back to my apartment, fully intending to let my shiny new wound heal on its own.  I woke up in the middle of the night sweating, though, and to my untrained eye the bite mark looked infected.  Without much in the way of options, I got my ass out of bed and went to the emergency room.

Not immediately, obviously.  I got dressed before leaving the apartment.  I sleep completely in the nude, or at least I did before I no longer needed sleep.  You’re welcome for that mental image, you randy little pervert, you.

By the time I arrived at the hospital I was soaked in sweat and feeling all kinds of awful.  There was no one else in the waiting room, so I was pretty confident that I could get my injury looked at and treated fast enough to get back home for a few hours of sleep before work.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

The woman at the front desk barely looked up as I approached.  I explained my situation to her, and she lazily typed at some keys on her computer as I did so.  It’s possible that she was creating and filling in a patient file for me.  There didn’t seem to be enough typing for that, though.  If I had to take a guess, I’d say that she was updating her Facebook status.

When I finished my explanation of the events that had brought me to that exact moment, the woman instructed me to take a seat and a nurse would be out to get me as soon as possible.  I politely asked how long she thought that would be.  She informed me that things were busy that evening and that it would likely be a while as I had a non-critical injury.

I looked back at the empty waiting room.  I then looked over her shoulder at the group of ten or so nurses and doctors gathered around a desk watching YouTube videos.  Finally, I looked down at the mangled mess of greenish gray flesh and oozing puss on my arm.  I opened my mouth to say something, but the look she flashed me made it clear that she would likely kick my ass if I said something further.  I went over to one of the uncomfortable plastic seats and sat down to wait my turn.

A little over three hours later, I died in that very chair without anyone coming to check on me or a single other person coming into the emergency room.

Under normal conditions, my death might have been the catalyst for something.  Maybe it would have led to some change, not just at that particular hospital but in the medical industry as a whole.  My pale lifeless face could have been the poster child for better patient care around the world.

Or nobody would have given a shit, and after a twenty minute investigation it would have been ruled that nothing could have been done.  You be the judge.

We’ll never know for sure, because that was the night that the zombie apocalypse began, so everyone had something else on their minds.  Those selfish assholes.

Would you like to know what it’s like to die?  No, scratch that, who gives a fuck about that, right?  I bet that you’d like to know the answer to the other big question, don’t you?  You know the one that I’m talking about.  You want to know if there’s life after death.

I’m here to tell you, no matter what you think the answer to that question is, it will surprise you.  Here goes.  Is there life after death?  Well…

Sorry, my friend, no spoilers here.  You’ll know soon enough anyway.  As much as I like the sound of my own voice, I can’t keep talking forever.  When these lips stop flapping, the teeth start chewing, catch my meaning?

So there I was, dead in a chair that had made my ass go numb way before that death occurred.  Then, all of a sudden, I was alive again.  One minute I was gone, and the next I was back.  Just like that.

I opened my eyes and looked around the waiting room.  Things look different when you’re looking through zombie eyes.  It’s tough to explain.  Everything is a bit dimmer, just a smidge, but it’s also sharper and more vibrant.  It’s like when a light that was too bright has been turned down and you’re able to see better because of it.

I knew immediately that I had died.  Trust me, that’s not the kind of thing that you mistake for something else.  I wasn’t going to believe that I simply nodded off.  When you die, you know you died.

I’m sitting there all confused, and it takes me a few minutes to process that I died and came back.  You’d think that would be confusing as hell, or maybe even frightening.  Not to me.  No, all that I was concerned with was classifying what I was now.

I ran through the options in my head, leaning hard on too many nights of watching horror movie reruns.  Clearly I was a card-carrying member of the undead, but what kind of undead?  I could easily discount options such as Frankenstein’s monster as I wasn’t a stitched together pile of corpses.  My owning of a physical body dismissed the possibility of being a ghost or specter or banshee.  Too bad about the banshee part.  I know for a fact that screaming at people until they die would never get old.

A vampire, maybe?  That could have been a fit.  A quick check of my dental condition revealed that I was lacking the fangs typically associated with vampires, however, and I didn’t have any urge to say things like, “I vant to suck your blood.”  Another possibility ruled out.

That just left zombie.  I have to admit that I felt a bit disappointed that was the last option left on the table.  It wasn’t exactly a glorious new life that I was looking at.  Just a bunch of shambling around while moaning and wanting to eat brains.  That’s not what I wanted for my afterlife.  Pre-afterlife.  Post-afterlife.  Whatever the right term for it is.

As I sat there feeling bad for myself, the doors to the emergency room opened.  Half a dozen men and women walked into the hospital.  Walking isn’t really the right term.  They shambled in.  All of them were in pretty rough shape, with skin torn away from their bodies and bones exposed in various places.  They moaned at random intervals like a poorly trained choir.

There was no intelligence in their eyes.  They seemed to be operating on autopilot, walking in a certain direction simply because they had randomly started moving that way.  Watching them carefully, I reflected on how what I was seeing was the unfulfilling future in store for me.

But was that correct?  These were brainless husks.  I was clearly still in control of my faculties.  If anything, I felt more clear mentally than I ever had when I was alive.

It took a minute or so of thought before I came to the conclusion that the medical test I had been a part of had changed things for me somehow.  The injection had taken place before I had been bitten.  While it hadn’t stopped me from dying and become undead, it had allowed me to retain my mind.

That was my working theory then, and it’s my working theory now.  A better explanation hasn’t come along, at least not yet, so it’s what I’m going with.

I watched as the zombies looked at me for a brief moment before turning away and continuing on to the door that connected the waiting area to the examination rooms.  They reached it and started to bang on it with their hands while pressing their bodies up against it.  There was no way that they would be able to break through it, but bless their hearts, they just kept trying.

The woman who had so kindly greeted me when I had arrived wasn’t scared.  If anything, she looked completely pissed off.  She screamed at the assembled undead to get away from the door and form an orderly line at the desk.  A couple of them obliged with the getting away from the door part and started banging on the thick glass separating the receptionist from them.  Not the desired result.

I felt a twang of pity for those zombies.  Even if we were worlds apart in the mental arena, these were still my brothers and sisters.  We were united in our undeadness.  I couldn’t just sit there and let them suffer when all they wanted was a nice hot meal.

I stood up and went over to join them.  That’s when I got yet another surprise in a night full of surprises.  The group of zombies stopped their futile assault on the door and moved out of the way so that I could pass.

I don’t control other zombies or anything like that.  I have found that other members of the undead have a certain… respect for me.  It’s like they can instinctively sense that I’m a bit different than they are.  I don’t think it’s too much of an ego stroke to throw around the word ‘superior’ in this case.

Reaching out, I tried the door knob on the off chance that it was simply unlocked.  It wasn’t, but it didn’t really matter as the pressure I put on it was enough to break it completely free from the door itself.  I stared at the broken knob for a couple of seconds before dropping it to the ground.  Apparently my zombiehood came with an extra scoop of super strength.

You experienced that firsthand, didn’t you?  I tossed you around without breaking a sweat when you happened upon me.  Hopefully this doesn’t hurt your ego, but I did it with only three fingers.  I could have used just two, but hey, why do a job if you’re not going to do it right?

One of the doctors chose that moment to attempt to come into the waiting room.  He pushed the door open, both his expression and his voice filled with anger.  After taking one look at the people that were interrupting his precious YouTube time, though, he thought better of it and attempted to go back the way that he came.

I lunged forward and grabbed him by his shirt collar.  My movement was faster than it had been as well.  I was Captain Fuckin’ America without all the pesky moral grandstanding.

Throwing him to the ground, I reached up and easily tore the door off of its hinges.  I brought the corner of it down as hard as I could at the point where his arm connected to his shoulder.  There was a rather wonderful squishing sound, and suddenly the man and the arm were no longer part of the same body.

My new zombie compatriots swarmed over the doctor and turned him into nothing more than a smear before going through the doorway and into the hospital proper.  Soon they were gone, and I was all alone.

Not entirely alone.  There was still the arm.

I picked it up and stared at it.  Human arms are heavier than you realize.  We don’t really think of ourselves in terms of individual limb pounds, so there’s your fun fact for the day.  Arms are heavy.  That’s knowledge that’s sure to come up often in everyday life.

I’m sure you can guess what my internal debate was about.  I was a zombie.  This was a human body part.  Zombies eat human body parts.  Was I, a zombie, going to eat this body part?

Yeah, you know what?  I was going to eat that leg.

Why not, right?  It was only natural.  No one bats an eye when a lion eats a gazelle.  It was the exact same thing.  I was a majestic white tiger descending from its hiding place to feast upon… whatever a white tiger eats.  Pandas?  Are white tigers in China with pandas?  It doesn’t matter.  Whether they live in the same place or we just play pretend, the metaphor still works.

I slowly raised the leg up towards my mouth.  If I’m being honest, and I’m only honest with you my faithful companion, I was extremely curious.  Come on, admit it, if you were in the same situation you would have been, too.  Human was the forbidden meat.  It could have tasted like anything, even something completely different from anything else.

My lips were less than an inch from my mysterious treat when I felt a hand on my arm.  I turned my head to find a zombie staring at me.  He was missing the skin on both sides of his mouth, creating an open path straight through the lower part of his head.  One eye was slightly out of its socket.  He was wearing a tuxedo suit that was covered in blood and other assorted types of gore.

“Goddamn, are you really going to eat that fucking arm?” he demanded, proving immediately that he was no normal zombie.

And that, my friend, is how I met Ulysses S. Grant.

You’re wondering if I’m talking about the former president of the United States, or someone else that by some strange coincidence had the same name.  Unfortunately, you’re going to have to just keep wondering that, because here is where I call an end to Storytime with Mitch.

Oh, how rude of me.  That’s my name.  Mitch.  I’d ask for yours, but I cannot express in words how little I care about what your parents named you when you came sliding out from between your mother’s legs.

With regards to my story, I’ll have to pick it up at a later time with another meat puppet.  All you humans look the same to me anyway, so I doubt I’ll even know the difference.

So, here’s the good news.  You’re not going to have to go to the trouble of remembering my name, and you’re not going to have to wonder about the 18th president for very long.

The bad news is the reason you don’t have to retain said information is because, as I stated oh so long ago, it’s time for you to meet your untimely end.  I will consume you, keeping you alive for as long as possible while I do so to keep that fresh meat taste intact, and your final resting place will be within me.  It almost sounds religious when I put it like that, doesn’t it?

This brave new zombified world is my church, the screams of the remaining humans as they’re devoured are my hymns, and you, my friend… you are my communion.

Shall we get started?