cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

I'm brain dead today, so I made myself a work mocha: one packet of hot chocolate, fill mug with coffee, and stir.

There are bubbles on the top of the liquid in my cup. The bubbles have a metallic rainbow sheen to them that looks more like soap than food. This disturbs me.

This does not, however, prevent me from drinking it. Need caffeine. Need sugar.

(re-posting from the madisonwi LJ comm)

Time to lurch!

Tired of your rights as a member of the living dead being violated? Sick of people putting you down or worse, screaming and trying to smash your head with a cricket bat? We don't deserve to be treated like this! We will no longer stand for being viewed as lesser citizens. We need to fight for our rights and demand equal treatment.

The Coalition Of the Living Dead (COLD) will gather on Saturday October 25th at 2:00 pm at the state capitol in Madison Wisconsin and lurch for our rights as zombies. COLD encourages zombies and zombie supporters to come equipped with signs and slogans to make our point. We will raise our voices and we will not be ignored. We will lurch from the capitol down State Street to the Memorial Union.

Help our support numbers grow, please post this message on your blog, email it to your friends and bring as many people to the lurch as you can. Feel free to bring your family, children and friendly dogs to march with us for our rights.

I'm still barricaded in my office. I got the screen out of my window, but once I was out on the ledge I realized that my initial plan was going to end up with me breaking at least a couple bones in my legs and only a couple feet above the zeds.

It's mostly quiet in the hallway now. There are still sounds of shuffling, but the screaming has stopped. Occasionally I'll hear a phone ring, so either reception is still there (unlikely) or there are more people than just me and John left.

John was the only responder to my all-building "Is there anyone left?" email. He's in his office, which is on the other side of the big gap from mine. He's been looking out his window and he thinks it's an easy drop to a ledge that wouldn't be too dangerous to jump from onto the Jeep. In five minutes I'm going to make a break for his office. He'll let me in and we'll re-barricade the door. Then we head for the ledge. So long as there aren't any of the track star zombies - most importantly, the high jump zombies - we should be fine until Downwood shows up.

My cell phone is charged so I can give him directions when he gets close to the complex. Thanks be to all the good gods for four-wheel drive. I hope that he's able to pick up the greyhound and one or both of our laptops, but I'll settle for just seeing him again.

I don't know where we're going after this. I haven't heard from anyone, but I've left messages all over the place. This is worse than last year. It should have been better. We should have been more ready.

Crap. The power's flickering. And it's time for me to make my move.


BLITEOTW08

In an attempt to distract my brain from being pissed off at coworkers who think I'm both their personal answer girl and am so devoted to only answering their questions that I sit around and sob when they haven't given me something to do in the last 20 minutes, I decided to go grab lunch.

The cafeteria was much less crowded than usual - unsurprising when there's still almost no one around - so I grabbed my salad and headed to the cash register. As I was paying, I heard someone shriek in the dining room. It was...odd.

And by "odd" I mean "terrifying in a Horror Movie Come True sort of way".

A large group of people were shuffling toward the big windows outside of the dining room. My best guess is that they came over from the training building, but I don't really know. They were moaning and starting banging on the glass. They were trying to get in but didn't realize how to work the doors.

Caution being the better part of survival, I headed back to my office through the interior routes. All the exterior doors open outward, so that's at least one good thing.

I'm not entirely sure what to do. Where I am is decently defensible, but also pretty easy to get trapped. I don't see anyone between me and the parking lot, so I could probably get to my car, but I can't see if there's anything moving around in the parking garage. I'm leaning toward heading home for the dog and the .22 and then going down to Downwood's work since it's incredibly defensible. I'm just not sure I can get to my car to get there.

BLITEOTW08

So as to not freak anyone out, this is a warning that tomorrow the world is going to end.

Yes, it's once again time for Blog Like It's the End of the World.

I'm in. Are you?

I'd heard some of the reports when I was at work today. I dismissed them as the over-active imagination of some of the crazier portions of the internet and carried on with my work. Hell, we even joked about it in our small group work-meeting-thing. When I finally headed out tonight, most of the parking structure was empty, and though I saw a couple other people leaving, none of us seemed to be in any particular hurry.

My first clue that something had gone really wrong was when I got near my chiropractor's office. The main intersection in the town was a block or so ahead of me and I could see the massive pile-up in the middle. I turned down the side-street to avoid the mess, but too many other people had had that same idea. I couldn't really see what was going on, so I sat in my car and waited impatiently, wishing I hadn't forgotten my cell phone at home today.

I heard shouting in front of me, so I looked for the cause. The people in the SUV in front of me were bailing out and pointing at a house across the street. I craned around to look and saw a person trying to crawl away from another person gnawing through his stomach.

I cursed myself for seven kinds of a fool and rolled up the Buick's windows. Thanking the gods that the Evil Empire has a casual dress code, I secured my hair under my ball cap, settled my shades, made sure my tennis shoes were tied securely, and wrapped up my purse into a small bundle. I put the car in park, checked to make sure no one was coming at me, and slipped out the passenger side door. As I jogged away, I clicked the remote lock at about the furthest edge of its range.

I had to go a couple blocks out of my way to avoid the bigger crowds on Main St. Remembering Brooks's advice, I kept my pace slow enough that I could still sprint if I needed to. I'm so very glad I started running again.

I made it home and found out that Downwood heard the news when he was still at work. The guys sent him home with a small armory and apologized that they didn't have more blades on hand. I now have a very pretty war-knife strapped to my back and the slightly smaller version on my hip.

By the time I got home, Downwood had put the things we really need upstairs and had gotten some bundles of necessities strapped to the top of the Jeep with Bex's help. Since they didn't know where I was, they were going to give me until dark to show up before heading somewhere not quite so urban (i.e, way easier to defend), and had already demolished the staircase to the second floor in case the Zs showed up before I did.

We're upstairs now, waiting to see if Asmoduce makes it out here. We're giving him until dark, then we're heading out. Downwood's got the 22 and we're looking out both sides of the house. The greyhound is passed out in the corner, thanks to the dose of Benadryl we slipped into her peanut butter. I admit she's a liability right now, but I can't just leave her for the zombies.

Downwood's talked to his folks and they're trying to get out to a relative's farm. I haven't been able to get ahold of mine, but Bob's got more firearms than we do and a very good sense of self-preservation. I also went straight to my sister's voicemail, so I'm worrying about her, too. Bex is on the phone with Dan, making plans to meet up somewhere in Kentucky, I think. We heard from Asmoduce about 10 minutes ago, but that doesn't really mean much anymore.

Austin, I'll miss you a lot. Good luck, my friend.

The rest of you, get out the leather coats and long pants. There is not enough peroxide in the world to clean out one of those bites.

Anne, call me if you see this. Let me know where you are.

EDIT: Val, answer your cell! I don't know how long we can wait and I don't know how good cell reception we'll be getting when we head out of town. If nothing else, listen to the message and try to meet us there.