Morning
Routine
by Steven J Holetz
I reach behind me and push
the little foot out of my back. Once again my son has climbed into our
bed sometime
during the night. I don’t know how he does it, but he sure is stealthy.
I swing
my legs
to the floor and put on my glasses. Quietly, I stand up and kiss my son
on the forehead as he
snuggles up to his mother. I pull the warm covers up,
tucking them around my loved ones’ shoulders,
and head to the bathroom for a little
relief. I’m into my morning routine.
First, I stick my head into
my daughter’s room. I’m rewarded with soft breathing issuing from
somewhere
within a faintly illuminated explosion of blonde hair and stuffed
animals. Next,
I stop
off in the office to turn on the computer. It should be done booting by
the time the coffee is ready.
As I hit the button, Domino rubs his big, black
and white body against my leg. I scratch the soft fur
behind his ears and he
drools on my bare foot. Goofy ass cat.
I walk to the kitchen and
turn on the light under the microwave, avoiding the overhead light as
it
shines
right into the master bedroom. My wife was working pretty late last
night, so I
want to give
her as much sleep as I can. I fill the coffeemaker with water, and
grab the bag of Major Dickason’s
Blend out of the pantry. The beans are shiny in the dim light, the
aroma heady and rich. I empty the
filter, grind a lid full of fresh beans in the grinder, and add them to
the
machine before closing it up.
I start the coffemaker, checking the red light to make sure all is
well. Next, the newspaper.
I cross the living room and
unlock the three locks on the front door. I open it, grabbing the bat
from
behind the door before heading outside. It is a beautiful spring
morning, and
it smells wonderful.
The world is crisp
and clean, and I am almost overwhelmed with the mingled scents of my
wife’s
flowers on the porch, cut grass, and dew. The world is beautiful,
on the cusp
between night and
day, silent except for the wind and occasional birdsong.
I walk down the sidewalk and
past the car to the street, Just as I bend over to grab the paper, I
hear the
footstep behind me, the dry anticipatory groan. I spin, swinging the
bat as
hard as I can.
The
of dust, leaving its jaw dangling from a tendon on the right hand side.
A
few loose yellow teeth
drop to the sidewalk, clattering like dice. What stands
before me was once a man, someone’s
father, brother, friend. But no longer.
The dead man’s eye sockets
glow faintly with a
phosphorescent blue light as it lunges at me again, hissing
dryly, with claw-like hands extended
toward my throat. This time I’m ready, and
I slam it’s skeletal ribs as hard as I can with the bat.
It
staggers and I come over the top with a smash to the head, sending
pieces of
dried skin
and bone flying. The dead thing teeters on it’s scrawny legs before
dropping
to its knees.
It takes two more shots with the lumber until I hear the big
satisfying crack as the brain pan
collapses and it falls flat, lifeless once
again.
I’m wide awake now, and I can
actually hear the blood rushing in my ears. I look behind the car,
and check
around the end of the house. There are no more of them for the moment.
I’m
pissed,
scared, nauseated and exhilarated all at once as I try to calm down.
What the hell? I thought
the city had this handled? What am I paying them for?
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I have to
admit though, it’s better than it was.Things were pretty crazy right after the storm hit.
The Storm was much like the Hanukkah
Eve storm of ’06. Gusts of wind were topping 70
miles an hour, knocking over
trees and power lines. Two inches of rain fell in less than 3 hours,
accompanied by thunder and lightning. But this time there was also some
sort of
bluish aurora
borealis effect in the sky, which would have been nice to enjoy
if we hadn’t been huddled in the
bedroom fearing for our lives. At one point I
stepped outside to check on things and got the
same vibe I felt when we were
hit with tornado weather back in
in the air that just felt wrong, a
feeling that would make your hair stand on end. I got my ass back
in the
house. Once again, we were lucky that none of our trees fell. The
last
storm left us much
better prepared. With
the space heater, additional lamps, and stockpile of food and water we
were
able to take the 4 days without power in stride. But then the dead came
back.
We live a good 5 miles from
any cemeteries, so it took a while for the walkers to make it to our
neighborhood. A 24 hour curfew was instituted that first week, and
everyone was
told to stay
locked indoors until the military and police could get things under
control. For some reason,
the effect was limited to western Washington, so national
media crews were everywhere for
the first couple weeks. In typical asinine
fashion, the media decided to call them “walkers”,
avoiding the Z-word so as not
to alarm people. Call them what you will, it was
terrifying
when the first wave hit the community. Fifty-two
people were killed by walkers in that first week
alone. An 800 number was set
up so that you could report any attacks, but the authorities were
spread so
thin it could take days for someone to show up. One night we were
startled awake
by frantic scratching on the
back window. One of the walkers, an old woman, had gotten into
the
backyard and was trying to break into the house. That was the first one I dispatched
myself,
and I didn’t know what I was doing so taking care of it
was messy and brutal. I know they aren’t
alive, but still it wasn’t easy to get my
head around beating someone to death with a baseball
bat.
storm
somehow “jump-started” (for lack of a better term) the brains of these
poor bastards,
causing them to rise.
Fortunately though, modern
seen aren’t fast or smart at all. The dry
ones move pretty slowly, as you would assume given
how desiccated they’ve become.
And a lot of them fall apart after being rained on for a couple
of weeks. But
that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. They are smart enough to
sneak
up on
you, they are mean, and the only way to stop them is to destroy the
brain. One of our
neighbors was attacked by a fresh one a few
weeks ago and said it was a whole lot harder
to kill. Or re-kill, I should say.
so we still get them occasionally
when they come out to feed, like today. It helps that local
teenagers have been driving around at night and hunting them down, although they’ve
been warned against
it.
The city has been working hard to get the walkers off the streets
as well. Of
course, we get a bill for cleanup now, $100 a month per household. I
understand
that someone has to pay for the manpower, but that blows. With work
hours still limited by
the curfew, the last thing we need is another bill. You know they won’t
stop charging us
when it’s over.
Things are almost back to
normal now, except that you have to be on constant alert for the
stray walker.
And the missus doesn’t enjoy Zombie movies nearly as much as she used
to.
I check the street again, and
all is clear. Understandably, the kids totally freak out when they
see a walker,
so it’s time to clean up. The day has started out emotionally enough,
we don’t
need a meltdown as well. Due to concerns over air quality, you can
actually be
ticketed for
burning them now, so I take the plastic bag off the newspaper,
loop it around the thing’s ankle,
and drag it to the yard waste bin. I’ve
learned from experience not to drag them by their
clothes, they’ll just fall
apart. The dry ones are pretty light, so it’s not difficult. It does
reek though,
I’m surprised that I didn’t smell it before it attacked. I open the lid
to the
yard bin and tip it over,
spilling some grass clippings in the process. I try not to touch the
walker as I shove it in with my
bat. The experts
say that there is nothing contagious about them, but damned if I’m
going
to
take any chances with the filthy thing. I close the lid to the bin and
roll
it to the curb for pickup.
The protests in downtown Seattle by the
Society for Protection and
Ethical Walker Treatment
(SPEWT) will probably result in a countywide
ban on self-disposal before long, so I’m lucky
I can still do even this
myself. I take
another deep breath, pick up the paper and head inside.
I leave the bat by the
side of the house so I can hose it off later.
I pour myself a cup of
coffee (a little milk, more sugar) and take it into the living room,
moving
the
TV remote before sitting on the couch. The cat is around my ankle again
as I
open the paper.
I glance at the local news: Weather, overcast early but sunny
this afternoon, high of 65.
activity level down to 4%. Guess it’s just my lucky day. Maybe I should
buy a
lotto ticket.
My heart is beating normally, and I finally feel relaxed again as
I flip to the sports section
and take a deep sip of coffee. That’s some good
stuff.