You know, it's gotta be really tough to have your birthday come on October 31 in America.
I mean, my dear friend icicle, she all plays it cool, you know, "Oo Halloween - I mean, c'mon, it rocks, right? Right? Right?" and we all kind of humor her. It is kind of cool - but mostly for us, not for her. To us, it just makes her this really freaky girl who was born on the scariest day of the year. I mean, if this were a playground and we were all 7, you can bet who we'd be making fun of.
So I'm sitting here, racking my brains on what to get her for her birthday, because I know what's like - my sister's birthday is Independence Day, and one time my parents seriously shafted her and told her her birthday present was going to see fireworks downtown. WTF. I bet icey's gotten like, a nice costume for her birthday before. Or maybe a couple of extra bucks for UNICEF. Crap like that.
So you know, a real birthday present seemed in order. But I am what you would call a very thematically oriented person. I figured I would get her a present that represented both Halloween and her birthday. Maybe a nice candy jar, or a nice scary movie, or a nice shrunken head. Ya know, for kids.
But then I had a better idea: I would get all of her e2 friends to write up a zombie daylog. Something scary, but also something real. Nothing melodramatic or fancy, just something to kind of fill in the seasonal spirit. And then I would write up a "the jig is up" daylog and say happy birthday, Icicle, and she would be like "hell yeah" and mad props to me and all of her e2 posse.
Something went wrong.
At first, it was really funny, Sam and Jeremy excitedly sending me their daylog sendups in scratch pad form. And Team JET-POOP delivered hardcore with one of the most surreal daylog experiences in some time. There were so many excellent contributions, it's hard to name them all. bewilderbeast, Servo5678, wordnerd, princess_loulou, StrawberryFrog, gitm - and everyone else who did one - they all did fantastic jobs and really set the tone for my zombie infestation. DejaMorgana blew up half of NYC, the_effervescence, machfive, and smartalix all offered compelling origin stories, and JohnnyGoodyear even learned a bit of German! I mean, icicle was just gonna love this, right?
But then I got some really weird msgs. Joe swore that everything in his daylog was true; so did Pint. And then Hazen started talking in the catbox about gasoline-filled condoms to fight the zombies. And THEN people I didn't even ask to be in on the gag started posting daylogs about serious shit going down. I mean, it was pretty silly, really, but it was one of those confusing moments where I couldn't quite figure out if I was being trolled as much as everyone else was. But I can take a joke, you know? I mean, I'm the joker.
So this morning I'm making a trip to my grandparents' house about 5 miles west of my house, and I saw one. Not like, a drunken college student, or a crackhead, or a Lordstown factory worker, or a guerrilla theater employee, or a Republican.
A real fucking zombie.
This one did not move slow. He was not asking for brains or doing ANYTHING like they do in the movies. About the only thing they got right was this fucker was as ugly as they come. And he was running around the Target parking lot, which was pretty empty at 9 in the morning on a Monday. There were already 2 police cars on the scene. The cops were out behind the cars, kind of talking shit over. I think they knew what it was - how could you fucking not, jesus it was awful - and like maybe they were just trying to deal with it like a normal situation. I guess that's a good thing to do.
He was attacking the cars - I don't know if there were people inside - and he was just a real damn mess. I mean, spitting blood, fuckin' I don't know what was the deal with it.
SHIT IT WAS A ZOMBIE.
There's no origin story. This is no fucking "I don't normally daylog" bullshit. This is like, holy shiteating mother of God there is a zombie out there in the Target parking lot, and he looks pissed. And I can't help but think of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. You know, that Borges story where the guys make up the country and then currency appears from it, even though it doesn't exist.
I'd say happy birthday, icicle, but frankly, I'm holed up now. I don't even want to hear it, don't want to hear the news or see the news or what. Motherfucking zombies DO NOT EXIST. They don't they don't they don't.