Stronghold

Z-Day +12. Life is hard. The two of us here have to adhere to a very strict routine. One slip-up and we’re zombie fodder. It’s a cold, dark, barren, lonely, hopeless life, and it could last for months.

We’re so busy maintaining our heavily fortified ex-coffee shop that we barely have any time to take the edge off and keep our sanity. For a few minutes at a time throughout the day, we turn on the wifi router to keep our sanity by watching stupid videos of cats playing the theremin on YouTube.

We have heavy plates of metal welded together where once was a wall of windows for the customers. The back parking lot is loaded with motion sensors and two back-up generators. The kitchen has an industrial-sized fridge for plenty of food for two people. He’s even jury-rigging a mounted flame-thrower for the back door. And this guy is so hardcore-action-hero that you’d think he was the Captain himself… almost. I mean, he won’t be fighting any zombies atop a crashing zeppelin or anything. This is real life.

But I wish the Captain were here instead, because this guy seems a little twitchy. He acts as though he’s been doing this for years, but it’s been less than two weeks! I guess some people degenerate into savages more quickly than others. At least we have armored walls and lots and lots of guns. Where does a barista get a crate of grenades, anyway? Seems awfully convenient. I guess he scavenged a National Guard truck that fell to a zombie swarm. That’s the way to go.

Also, if you’re going to be blowing up zombies like this guy, be sure you have a raincoat (or hazmat suit if you can find one). That way their infected fluids don’t touch your skin or get in an open scrape or something. Vinegar won’t save you from zombification.

The Captain, who reportedly had been bitten by a zombie days ago, seems to be doing just fine. He claims it was the Bactine, but I know there must be something else going on. Also, since he is my survival mentor, I am a little perturbed by his apparent lack of expertise. Either he overlooked a key element in zombie deterrence that no one has ever even considered or he was never actually bitten by a zombie. Maybe it was just an angry, crazy homeless person. That happened to me a few times in Kansas City.