Fiction.

The only light came from behind Amelia’s closed eyes. She crouched over her dad, either paying respects, expressing remorse, or plannng the menu for a dinner party. Heck if I knew. Based on recent events, that girl was obviously several candles short of a candelabra. I idly wondered if we could get Lauren to pee holy water to throw on her.

“Go ahead, Captain Jackass Arrow.” I shouted into the gloom, as Kaiser took a step towards the manic bum. “Try to saw our heads off again. I dare you, moron.”

“Asshole. I was a sergeant,” growled Jack, and shot Kaiser in the face.

Now, I’m down for some cathode-ray patricide or the sudden reappearance of our own personal poor-man’s Lex Luthor. I can even handle a ridiculously insane female without breaking much of a sweat, because, honestly, which of them aren’t? But I hadn’t expected Kaiser to get shot in the face. Kid was a good drinking buddy.

Lauren didn’t even blink. The recoil had knocked Jack on his ass, which was odd, considering how he had actually looked as though he knew how to fire the thing. Before he could so much as think about getting up, because I wouldn’t let him, Lauren had already stomped her heel right down on his eye.

Suddenly, Kaiser was standing up again, right next to me. “Awhaa?” I wondered. Kaiser gave me a grin. “Isn’t she amazing?” he asked, nodding to Lauren, who was kicking the twisted, burst remains of what used to be a gun away from the bum’s charred hand.

We all then suddenly felt the characteristic Jack Arrow sleepiness. Lauren’s leg sagged in mid-stomp. Jack started to cackle from his back. Even the uterine pink of the room dimmed, slightly, as Amelia’s shoulders slumped over her father’s body.

“Finish the bastard off. I’ll keep you awake.” I choked at Kaiser and Lauren, and started to think about coffee and half-closed my eyes.

Kaiser sprung into motion and pulled the massive bookcase against the wall down on the bum, trapping him against the floor.

A bookcase? I thought. What the fuck is a bookcase going to do? Jack must have thought the same thing, because he only grunted and started cackling harder.

There was a crunch under the bookcase and the cackling was gone. Lauren looked at us. “I always liked long, iron spikes way better than books, anyway.”

—

“Listen, we all got a little testy in there.”

“Kaiser, you’re wasting your time, bud.” I said. Amelia was apeshit, didn’t he remember?

Outside on the sidewalk, Amelia was sobbing and apparently recovering from her earlier tirade, a lit and sparking cigarette in her hand. Kaiser, for some reason, was trying to comfort her. Lauren was walking in a small counterclockwise circle, trying to call her parents. As for me, well, it’s been fun, but I was looking to split back to Ohio before I met any more insane females with any powers that were not bedroom related.

But something was still bugging me. Amelia’s father. What did he mean? What DOES Amelia do? She’s a woman, so I bet I could just get it out of her if I got her mad enough.

“Kaiser, why don’t you and Lauren take a walk?” I heard myself say. “I’ll talk to her.”

Amelia’s eyes flashed. I concentrated hard at Lauren and Kaiser, trying to implant one thought: stay close. They both looked at me, startled, and started off together.

When Lauren and Kaiser were around the corner, I stepped towards where Amelia was sitting. “So now that we’ve killed Jackass Bumerton, do you want to talk about your fucking dad, No-tits?” I began.

She started laughing angrily, tears glistening on her cheeks. Whoa. I hadn’t even really started making her mad yet. The whole effect both pissed me off and, oddly, turned me on.

That’s when the world fucking fell apart. My ankle twisted and snapped. I collapsed to the sidewalk, looking up at her, thinking hard at the other two to get the fuck back here. Oh: that’s what she does. She makes God hate you.

A car screeched and hopped up onto the sidewalk beside me, slamming into a building. Another car coming the other direction T-boned the first, pinning my arm in between. Pain exploded up my wrist as I ground my teeth. This was no longer hot.

“Fuck you, asshole.” Lauren said, as I watched a streetlight fall directly towards my face. She turned away just as it hit.

But, oddly, it bounced gently. Since when are streetlight poles the approximate consistency of tits?

Lauren! and Kaiser! They’re back!

I grabbed the streetlight and tore it easily from the pole, as though it were perforated. The cars around me turned into cotton candy as I ripped myself away from them.

“Did you think I was that easy?” I said to Amelia, limping towards her. She turned. Kaiser shouted, “She’ll duck and you’ll miss!” as the streetlight turned heavy and leaden in my hand.

Fuck the future. I swung hard at a point between her shoulders, where a ducking head might go.

“Lights out, bitch.” I spat, as I connected.

“Hey, 7-11 guy.” I picked a beer at random. “You’re always going to sell Red Stripe for virtually nothing.”

“There was an inventory problem, and we do sell Red Stripe for virtually nothing.”

My powers just keep growing, I see. Let’s try something harder, but not too hard: Amelia will try to do me. Wait, what? Why the fuck would I want that? She has a smaller cup size than a little league baseball player.

That’s when my phone rang. “Come on Virginia, don’t make me wait. You catholic girls start much too late.”

“Lite Brite,” I answered, being sure to pretend not to give a shit, because honestly, I don’t.

She was tough to hear, breathing heavily. “James. You need to steal a car and get your ass over here.” Steal a car? On it.

“Look, I can hear how hot and bothered you are, and I understand. But I was just screwing around. You don’t actually want to do me.” I need to backpedal fast. James does not need a whole brood of Jamelias running around, setting things on fire and bending each other’s minds.

“Shut! Up! They’re headed east, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep up. Meet me at Grace and Robinson.”

“Sure thing! Don’t get your training bra tangled.”

Amelia was even more of a sweaty mess than before when I caught up to her in my appropriated pink Beetle.

“They’re headed east! I like your daisy.”

I threw the damned thing out the window as I accellerated. “Fuck off. I didn’t have time to wait for a Camaro.”

“No, I’m serious. This is a good color for you, James.”

“I’m serious, too, LB. I’m going to punch you in a boob, if I can find one. Hang on, this’ll be faster on Monument.”

General Lee, RIP, looked alive in the flickering lights of the car fires. So cars DO burst into flame if they crash. I always thought that was just in movies.

“Do you think I should get back on Grace?” I asked.

Amelia, though, was already pointing. “There they are!”

Car fires flared, and the spotlights pointed at the Lee Monument shined brighter. There on the grass, on his knees, was Kaiser. The dozy bastard looked about to fall asleep. Well, let’s see how powerful I’ve gotten. I concentrated on coffee, Coke, tea, chocolate, and Ritalin.

The Bug’s skid was still hanging in the humid air. Kaiser shook his head, then looked at Lauren even harder than he typically does. “Kaiser! Forget Lauren! Grab the bum!” I shouted.

But he had already opened a panel under the General’s horse and disappeared inside, dragging Diana by the hair.

I half-closed my eyes, then looked over at Lauren, sitting on the floor of the room Kaiser was staying in. “It’s so hot outside. You’re sweaty. Why don’t you just take off your shirt?” I winked at Kaiser. Honestly, I had no idea if it was going to work. This was significantly more of a stretch than making cops want donuts, but you didn’t need a special mind-power to want to get that shirt off.

Lauren looked back at me, her eyes almost empty. “It is very hot out. But I don’t know, I think my shirt ought to just stay on.” I thought about bonfires. House fires. Uncontrollable conflagrations that consumed forests. That one sweaty, steamy night in that girl’s dorm room when the AC broke, and the burning sensation when I peed during following weeks. Lauren blinked. “I really don’t see why I’m wearing these sweaty jeans, though.” Down went the zipper, and she started wriggling out of them. Holy shit, I thought. I’m going to conquer the fucking world.

There was a bright flash from a desk lamp next to me, then Lauren’s entire body was plunged into darkness. I turned around to see Amelia watching my little game from the doorway.

“James! Stop it. Lauren.” She snapped her fingers. “Lauren, you need to keep your pants on.” Kaiser shifted uncomfortably from his bed.

“Aw, come on, Amelia,” I said, hardly able to keep my laughter under control. “Kid was hot. What do you want her to do? Suffer? Poor girl.”

Lauren was suddenly visible again, properly clothed and adjusted. “Fuck you, James.”

“Look, I don’t know how we’re going to defeat our ol’ friend Tom Snooze if we’re not supposed to practice our powers.”

“Yeah, but we shouldn’t use them on each other.” Kaiser’s eyes flicked over to Lauren as he said it, and then back to me. “We need to work like a team.”

“Okay, geez, lay off.”

Amelia wasn’t satisfied. “And I think you owe Lauren an apology.”

“Fine. Lauren, I’m sorry I almost made you take your pants off, even though I think we all enjoyed it, except for Amelia who is just jealous that I wasn’t interested in her.”

Lauren appeared uncomfortable, which meant I was doing it right. “‘Sokay.”

My eyelids drooped a bit. “And these aren’t the droids you are looking for.”

“You’re right. These aren’t the . . hey! Dammit James!” Lauren hopped up and stomped off to the kitchen.

“James! Quit it!” It sounded stereophonic, coming from Amelia and Kaiser at once.

Okay, so it doesn’t always work flawlessly, I thought. Do I need to just be concentrating harder? Is it easier to resist my little suggestions if you know it can work on you? Does it have to have some element of reasonableness to it for it to work? If so, is Lauren a huge slut but we don’t know it yet?

I sighed. “Fine. So, kids. What’s your grand scheme for defeating our crazy bum friend, Lindsay Dozehan?”

But I never heard any brilliant ideas. Just then Lauren called out something that turned Kaiser’s face to the approximate pasty white color of my balls:

“Where’s Diana?”

The yawn wasn’t fully yawned when I realized how it didn’t make any god damned sense. I don’t typically yawn when a crazy beggar has a saw to the neck of a nicely-titted brunette, especially one with change machines for eyeballs. But I prefer to consider myself a stone cold pimp, so I figured it was just my cockiness itself getting cocky. I’d get to busting him in the nose and rescuing that fine piece of jailbait ass, just as soon as I took a leisurely look around. Fuck, I just felt so out of it.

But even Kaiser, who had grabbed ahold of the Grandma’s waitress’s elbow even though she was in no danger of floating away, seemed a bit dozy. He looked at me dumbly. I wondered again: how can a guy with such a moronic look in his eyes always seem to know who had sex with who?

“I can sense your powers.”

I couldn’t tell if the voice was inside my head or coming from every direction at once, but the psycho killer bum’s mouth moved, plus he appeared to be the craziest guy in audible range, so let’s just attribute that quote to him. It was creepy, but it perked me up a bit because it was also ridiculously lame. If we were facing any kind of delusional arch-bum with a fetish for super-villain speeches, we might as well kill ourselves if we can’t beat his ass bloody.

Making eye-contact with the sniffly brunette with the saw pressing to her neck, I winked in a reassuring sort of way. “Look, shitcock, take your hands off the jailbait, and I won’t punch you in the balls.” I stifled another yawn. Kaiser whispered something to the waitress.

The Arch-Bum continued. “You are weak and your powers are jokes. I’ve made you too tired to even move. All I need to do now is to saw through this girl’s pretty neck . . . ”

He pushed the saw roughly under Hot Rack’s chin and went to get a better grip on her hair. I just felt so tired, or maybe I would have stopped him. Pennies fell harder now, rolling against the ground.

The bum pushed hard, and the blade bit her skin. Then it flopped down onto a chest which was incidentally not insignificant, in terms of a shelf-like storage space. Flopped right down on there like it had been turned into aluminum foil.

It had been turned into aluminum foil.

A massive crashing noise came from across the park. We looked up to find a car literally inside the Mosque. Literally. Inside.

The Arch-Bum turned to look, distracted. Instantly feeling more alive, I opened my mouth to speak, but Kaiser beat me to it, punching the bum’s nose into his skull with the heel of his hand.

“How’s that for a power, asshole?” shouted Kaiser. Dammit, Kaiser, you already picked which girl you liked. You can’t rescue all of them.

“Yeah!” I spat at the bloody figure on the ground, grabbing Shelf-Tits by the hand and taking off west. “Come on, kids, time to split.”

Some cops drawn by the crash had started to pay attention to us. “That bum has donuts!” I shouted over my shoulder as we fled the scene.

“Come on, Kaiser, haven’t you heard that a girl will say no nine times before she says yes?” The second-floor apartment’s fire-escape kitchen door didn’t look like it would ever close properly again, thanks to some overly assertive police action. We let ourselves in. “Of course girls aren’t going to just tell you what they want. You just have to keep pushing for what you want until she lets up.”

Kaiser swayed a bit, but seemed marginally more sober. “Hey, look, man, I don’t even remember the last time a girl said no. I don’t know if it’s too soon to bring up the newly departed, but all I had to do was make a suggestion and Georgia pulled me right up on the dining room table.” Kaiser had figured it out by then. There was only one apartment building at Navy and Stuart that was crawling with cops, and only one apartment wrapped in crime scene tape: Kaiser’s ex’s. But from what I’d gathered so far, you couldn’t throw a PBR in Richmond or Blacksburg without breaking the oversized sunglasses of a chick Kaiser used to bang.

The kitchen we were standing in was illuminated with what felt like the brightness of the fucking sun, so it took a while to see the awful paint job and lame cliche black and white photos in the dining room beyond. The fact that there was an eerily swaying body hung up by the neck to the dining room’s ceiling fan didn’t improve the overall decor much, I felt.

Kaiser took one look, then dry-heaved into the sink. Maybe he’s not as sober as I thought. “Aw, fuck. That’s definitely Georgia’s roommate. Holy Christ.”

The girl wearing the rope necktie grinned over at me, but I blocked her out of my mind. I’m surprised they hadn’t taken her down yet, but I know about as much about double-murder-suicide investigations as I do about cars. Maybe they need her to dry out first, I dunno. I had more important things to think about. While Kaiser was trying to spit, I scanned the fridge. The photo I was looking for was on the left corner of the freezer. I don’t think Kaiser noticed me pocket it. “Was that the dining room table you nailed Georgia on, pushed up against the wall to make room for the hanging?”

“Definitely too soon. Come on, James. This isn’t all that cool at all. I prefer my honeys to be alive and slightly moist. What say we make like a tree and get the fuck out.”

I was already pushing through the dining room and into the dark living room, where a streetlight outside the window illuminated what looked like a couple awkwardly cuddling in a puddle of Kool-Aid. I wasn’t sure if the blond chick was tan or just bloody, but the beefy Italian laying face-down underneath her clearly had blood all over his pink popped collar. The knife handle was still pointing mostly upwards out of her back. Jackson Pollack appeared to have been in charge of blood application to the overall scene, though what may once have been a pretty illuminating trail of footsteps in the blood all over the wood floor has been obscured by what appear to be police boots. No wonder the pigs were grouped sheepishly outside looking like they’d been chewed out, waiting for a medical examiner to show up. That is, until they decided to make a donut run.

“Don’t you want to figure out what the hell is happening?” I asked. “Do you honestly believe that the RPD is going to get this one right?” I try the light switch, careful not to leave prints. No luck — bulb was dead. “The City of Richmond doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground on Broad Street. I figure, why not take a look around? It’s not like we’re hurting anything.” I crouch down to take a closer look at the knife in the girl’s back. The smell was overwhelming.

Kaiser doesn’t answer, but moves closer to the body hanging from the ceiling. As I turned to ask him if Georgia was, in fact, the slutty looking blond who was just a few steak knives away from a knife block, he reaches out and touches the hanging body’s foot, then freezes. I can’t help thinking that he’s just left a championship quality set of prints on the toe of her Converse All-Stars, and it would be so simple to just leave them there. The RPD isn’t stupid enough to miss that.

“Come on, don’t be such a pussy. It’s just a dead body of some random chick. It’s not like she’s the one you used to screw.”

“Number one, stop calling me a pussy or I’ll put that knife in yours. Number two, enough bullshit, James. How long have you known Lindsay Meyers?”

A glint of light from under the couch catches my eye as I holler over my shoulder, “…the fuck are you talking about?” It’s a cell phone. I flip it open. It says LILY IS FABULOUS on the screen. I shove it in my pocket with the photo, then get up to look at James.

“The honey whose corpse you appear to be raiding used to be Georgia. This, however, is Lindsay. You’ve met her before. Don’t fuck with me, James.”

“Uh, I’m not sure if I follow.” Good old Kaiser. Son of a bitch. How much does he know?

“I’ll spell it out. Your penis has been inside her vagina. Don’t be glib, asshole.”

Oh. That much. I’ve got to figure out how Kaiser keeps figuring these things out.

Fortunately, the cops did something right for once, choosing exactly this moment to charge noisily up the fire escape stairs. “We’ll talk about it later,” I said. “Those might not all be police.” Something else was bugging me. Oh, right. “And wipe your stupid fingerprints off that girl’s shoe.”

It was right outside the front door of the apartment when we heard it: the unmistakable nails-on-chalkboard sound of a girl trying to stifle sniffling.

“You’re hair is pretty. What’s your name?” I said in my best-behavior voice to the tall blonde waitress filling drinks behind the bar at Grandma’s.

She smiled in exactly the shy sweet sort of way that makes me want to puke. “Amelia.”

“Now you just need a tit job and a fucking tan, and you’ll be just about right.” Her face crumpled into darkness as she scurried away with the drinks. The bartender laughed and shook my hand.

“Excellent work, bro,” he exclaimed in delight. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Need another drink?”

The man has a way with words. “A thousand more beers, please,” I ordered with an expansive flick of the wrist. It’s not that I don’t like girls, it’s just that they’re no fun unless they’ve got spine. I began to look around for further entertainment as the first of the thousand beers is set before me. I take that back: they’re plenty of fun, just in a different way.

My eye alighted on some woman nagging what appeared to be a fully adult man next to her in a very un-adult way. This could be good.

“Kaiser, I’m not saying you have to stop having fun, but you do need to stop starring in your own personal porn film and start to take your career a little more seriously.”

It’s not that I necessarily get off on people’s pain and suffering. It’s just that people need to lighten the fuck up most of the time. But also, and let’s be honest here, pain and suffering can be pretty hilarious, so I decided to listen in. It was easy, because this Kaiser guy was sitting right next to me and the women had a voice that apparently went up to eleven.

“I told you,” whined Kaiser. “I do take it seriously.”

Oh, fantastic. What a pussy. I absolutely have to butt in. “Come on, son. Buck up. ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,’ you know”

Kaiser turns. “What! Who’re you?”

“That’s what I was trying to say!” chirps the harpy two barstools down, flashing me a toothy grin full of gaps between teeth. “Eleanor Roosevelt said that!” I could have sworn it was Dylan, but I’m pretending to be on her side.

By this time, Kaiser is swiveling back and forth, looking hunted. “Look, I don’t want to have this conversation, all right? Can we get drinks maybe someday?” he asks of the bartender, who appears to be in some kind of impassioned discussion down at the end of the bar with some superhipster types.

“I just don’t want to see my brother throw his twenties away on beers and babes. You know how Mom is.”

At this, the poor guy just mumbled, staring hard at the bar. I knew he was trying hard to restrain himself, but I personally have no respect for restraint. I followed a hunch and pushed a little harder.

“Come on, Kaiser. Speak up. Don’t be a pussy. It’s not like she’s never done anything wrong.”

Kaiser’s next words filled me with a warm glow. “I said,” he turned to face his sister, “at least I didn’t screw my best friend’s dad in high school.”

“How did you know about that? I didn’t tell anyone.”

Kaiser kept his mouth shut as she worked herself up. I looked at him with newfound respect. Now here is a man who knows how to fuck with someone properly.

“I … I can’t believe this. You can find your own way home,” she said, edging through the crowd towards a tall scruffy guy with ironic glasses on and making wild arm movements towards the door. Kaiser shook his head.

Either my heart is suddenly filled with an upswelling of gratitude and affection, or I’m further into the thousand beers than I think. “Dude, that was incredible.” I nod to the bartender for another beer while shaking my head, chuckling. “I take everything back. You’re a genuine prince. I’m James. Have a beer.”

“Look at this asshole over here, revving his engine when I’m trying to concentrate,” I mutter to myself. “I ought to go punch him right in his cock.”

I glance over to the right, where the other car is making some kind of godawful racket. That’s when he pops into gear and takes off into the night.

“Shit.”

I floor it, squealing tires past the girl whose signal to start racing I had missed. By the first turn I’m a full second behind and losing ground, which I blame loudly on the fourth gear ratio.

Ha, who am I kidding. I don’t know a damn thing about cars. In fact, I’m not too good with a stick shift. But who cares? It’s not my car. I take the second turn a bit too fast and skid past a cop going the other direction. I’ve barely regained control when the siren starts.

“SHIT.”

It would be great to stop and have a chat with Kent’s Finest, but I’ve misplaced my license and, again, this isn’t technically my car. The antilocks engage as I swerve the car into a dusty side-street, then I jump out and start pounding pavement. You can always get away from cops if you act fast and remember one thing: they’re fatter than you.

It’s fully morning and I’m fully sober when I walk into the apartment. I don’t even look at my prick roommate before I start busting his balls. Call it a habit.

“Hey, asshole, I ran into your sister at the race last night. I think her butt’s getting bigger now that she’s 17. I like it.”

“James! Buddy! Why don’t you sit down and explain that to Officer Bruce here.”

Shit.

I turn around. Prick Roommate Peter, looking like he just nailed the prom queen, is sitting on the couch across from the hickest cop I’d ever seen in my life. We’re talking toothpick, drawl, and serious chins.

“Doin’ some racin’ last night, son?” asks the cop, looking me up and down. “We ran across Peter’s car out off 43 up near to Streetsborough. Says he thinks you took it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you?”

Cop #2 saunters in from my bedroom and looks at me. “Mr. Wood!”

“Officers,” I begin. My head starts to pound and I’m suddenly hungry, but fuck it. I hate cops.

“All I was saying was that Peter’s sister has a great ass. And you can go ahead and put that down in your report.”

Peter smiles wider, if possible.

The pigs look at each other. Hick Cop sighs, then says, “Look, you keep your hands off Peter’s car, here. I’m letting you off with a warning, but if you put even a nosehair out of line, I’ll personally nail your balls to the jailhouse wall.”

“Hey, Bruce, you think we’re about done here? I’m starving.”

Peter’s smile slips. It’s beautiful.

Hick-Cop looks at Peter. “Yeah, I reckon we’re about done. You have a good one now.” He turns to me. “Nails. Balls. Think about it.”

The cops safely out the door, Peter looks at me, but doesn’t quite meet my eye, because he is a pussy. “You’re back in Ohio just one day, and you’re already almost arrested? Can’t you stop being a complete asshole for one whole day?”

“Come on, Petey. Your sister missed me.”

“Okay look, I can’t deal with it anymore. You’re out of this apartment, today.”

What? “Aw, fuck, Pete, I was just kidding about your sister. I take it back. She has a tiny butt.”

“I don’t care. You’re out. I’m not dealing with your shit anymore. Out.”

Oh well. It’s back to Richmond, I guess. Ma’ll be surprised to see me back so soon, but she did want me to stick around for that girl’s funeral.

So much for the meetup location. I circled around from the north and found it already occupied by some pretty dirty-looking people who are in no way my friends, so I split before the baby I was carrying could wake up and start making noise. I’m not trying to be misanthropic or antisocial, here, it’s just that I’ve had some bad experiences lately with people, regardless of whether they walk or shamble.

Also, I’m leaving the laptop in this abandoned house. I can’t keep carrying a baby and a laptop and supplies for 1.5 people all the way to the mountains. Thanks for the support, though, Haduken. I hope you all made it out of Richmond okay.

Speaking of a baby, if I’m the only hope he’s got, he’s probably screwed. Let’s just say that they don’t put very good directions on diapers. But I figured it out eventually and I stole a bunch of extras and I think we’re good now. I mean, the species survived ice ages, plague, and literally millennia of not properly washing its hands. This kid ought to be able to handle being brought up by me.

Hang on, there’s some kind of truck coming down the street right now, with someone hanging out the window shouting “Come out, you’re safe.” Which, seriously: like I believe that. No way. I can’t take risks anymore, not with this kid in tow.

As soon as the truck passes, Baby Ross and I are heading out the back window and heading for the mountains. I’m getting the feeling that life has just become a huge pain in my ass, but we’ll make it. You’ll see.

THE END

And just like that, we’ve become separated. Ross and/or Val: if you’re okay, and you manage to get to the internet in the next few days, here’s where I will meet you. If I don’t see you, I’m going to strike out westward.

It wasn’t even a zombie attack that split us up. The whole thing is frankly pretty incredible. But I’m going to have to get on with the story. I did gain one (hungry) new friend in the process, and he’s not going to be able to forage for himself. Ross, if I don’t see you again, at least I have a living reminder of our friendship, buddy.

For most of today, we were camped out near Maidens, VA, just north of where 522 crosses the James River. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Ross decided to head south and snag some water, which, sure. It was a pretty thirsty day, and we hadn’t seen a zombie since, oh, probably Sunday night at some point. I figured Ross would be all right on his own.

No sooner had he left with the water jugs we’d liberated from someone’s trash, than someone stumbled directly into our camp. Val screamed, and I was pretty close to braining the old man with the cricket bat I’d found to be pretty much the epitome of undead extermination technology, when he threw up his hands.

“Don’t! I’m not a zombie! I’m here to warn you!” he cried, with a wheeze. He wasn’t in the best shape, poor guy. The apocalypse must be pretty annoying if you’re old.

“Warn us?” I said.

“Don’t go south! The zombies have massed on the 522 bridge over the river, I don’t know why. Some of the men from town are planning to take it down while they have the chance!” You could almost hear the exclamation points. This guy more excited than his blood pressure ought to allow.

“Take it down?” Val asked.

“Knock it over! Destroy it! They’re supposed to be doing it soon. You don’t want to be anywhere nearby when that thing goes!”

Val and I looked at each other, and at the same time, said, “Ross.”

I didn’t think. I just started running. Which was pretty un-awesome. The undergrowth is full of the kind of greenery that is much prettier to look at than it is to smack your face into at full jog. Even worse was the creeping realization that a zombie-infestation scenario was definitely not the moment to leave one friend alone with a strange man while you run after another friend. But I figured Val would be okay. She’s taught fifth grade, after all. Pretty soon I reached 522 and realized I had gotten off course, and just started running south.

I came up over the last hill, and the whole scene was laid out in front of me: the bridge, the river, and, on the bridge, the biggest roiling mass of zombies I’d ever seen in the past few days. It was incredible. They were crawling over each other to get to the center of the bridge, and the noise hit me like a wall. The less we talk about the smell, the better. But where was Ross?

There he was, standing chest-deep downriver from the bridge. It looked like he was trying to catch some kind of bundle that was floating in the river. I couldn’t see what it was, though. I needed to get him away from that river, and fast. I took off running again.

Suddenly I was lying on my back and my chest had exploded in pain. I looked up to see an old man with poor teeth and a “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” hat on, hefting a nine-iron. Something about the hat seemed familiar. “Whoa, son. You don’t want to do that.” He took away my cricket bat and stood over me with his foot on my head, forcing me into the ground.

“Why not?” I wailed in pain and confusion.

“Well, I reckon that bridge is about to be blown all to hell, just as soon as the fuse burns down. I ain’t lookin’ to see no boy with a strong back go to waste, no sir. You’ll come to work for me at the farm.”

Oh, fantastic, I thought. Now Val and I both have crazy old men to keep us company. I personally did not intend to keep mine for long, though. My chest did not appreciate the beating.

“Why are the zombies on the bridge?” I asked, working my hand down to my pocket. Something about the John Deere hat was bugging me, but I couldn’t think what.

“Well, son, when you want to catch a zombie, it’s just like any other pest. You just need to use the right bait.”

Oh god. “What bait?” My hand was almost there. I just needed to keep him talking and distracted for a second.

“Not everyone in our little town was is fast enough or strong enough to handle a zombie fight. And zombies love almost-dead bodies.”

Once my knife was in my hand, he didn’t stay on top of me long. I don’t think he’ll be fast or strong for much longer.

But I couldn’t spend much time thinking about a diabolical farmer. By this time Ross had rescued one bundle from the river and gone to wade after another. I had gotten about halfway down the hill towards the river when three things happened in rapid succession.

I realized Ross had rescued a baby and was now swimming after a floating bundle of kittens.

I remembered that the original old man who stumbled into our camp had also worn a John Deere hat. It was a clue! They were working together! Val must be in danger!

Just at that moment, the bridge, laced massively and amateurishly with farm-use explosives, blew skyward in an incredible fountain of bridge, river, smoke, and zombie parts.

—

Miraculously, the baby survived, lying between a crawling zombie head and a big chunk of bridge. Ross vanished. He’s probably been swept away down the river. Our camp was abandoned. The thing is, though, there wasn’t any sign of a struggle. I can afford to hold out hope to rejoin Ross and Val for one additional day. After that, baby and I are going west.

I guess I’m awake.

I doubt anyone’s going to be reading this from Richmond, but I feel some responsibility to keep these posts up as long as I can. If I hear anything gurgle-like at all, though, I’m hitting submit and running for the hills, just like yesterday. Sorry I didn’t get to finish the story, but I had to get going with a pretty high degree of urgency.

I’ve made my way south into the suburban areas around Wilde Lake, south of Short Pump. I spent all day sleeping in a broken and abandoned house and keeping out of sight. I guess I’ll keep going south to the river and try to pick up Ross and Val if I can get there without dying.

The problem with being alive and in no way undead at this juncture isn’t just the actual undead who are pretty enthusiastically trying to convert as many followers to their undead ways, but also the other survivors shooting anything that’s moving. Which, sure. I mean, the previously obvious benefits of not shooting or eating your fellow man haven’t seemed to apply for the last few days to most people in the greater Richmond area. People on either side of the un part of dead have been (I suppose justifiably) feast-on-the-living- or trigger-happy, as the case may be.

It makes me sad that there’s so much looting and burning, though. I can’t even tell what damage has been done by ambulatory corpses and what’s the handiwork of regular-type human have-nots trying to take from the haves in optimistic preparation for living at least one more day.

Okay, man is the real monster, you get it. I’ll give it a rest. Sorry. I guess I’m just bitter. I’ve outrun the zombies I haven’t had to kill, but unless the real-life zombie rules are significantly non-Romero, it was a plain old 100% alive person who shot me in the shoulder this morning. If I’m a little misanthropic and generally not as much fun as I was yesterday, that’s going to be your reason why.

It’s not bad. The bullet just grazed the skin, really. The whole thing’s wrapped pretty tight, and only throbs a little. I shouldn’t be slowed down too much tonight when I move again.

Do you know what makes me the saddest, though? Richmond. We spent way too long being the Capital of damned Confederate Racism to much of the country for years, and now unless this thing’s bigger than I know, we’re going to be the source of the undead plague that destroyed Western Civilization. You know what, ungrateful world? The food here used to be really good. We enjoyed hanging out and drinking great beer. We care about families and communities here in Richmond. In the 150 years between being ripped apart by war and being destroyed by an apocalypse from the grave, there were some really great people in this town doing some exceptional things. RVA’s too good a town to have to be brought down by chatty flesh-eating cadavers.

Okay, that’s enough. Maybe it’s being shot, or maybe it’s the unstoppable invasion of unholy throngs of decomposing ghoul-spawn, but I’m grumpy. It’s almost dark enough to move again. At night I know I’ll be too hard to see to get shot, and the living dead aren’t quiet enough to sneak up in the dark. I’m going to go gather up what food I can find and move south.