Ask the Little Bald Bastard

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  How did you die?
- Posterity

Dear Posterity,
  Unless I think of some easy way to kill myself in the next few minutes, you can bet that I was torn to pieces and eaten by a bunch of mindless, shuffling freaks bent on consuming my brain. And I'm not talking about Creationists, har har.

  The rain I expected never came. After about an hour, I got impatient. People in the office were getting increasingly agitated, and any second now, somebody was going to start a fight. I couldn't bear the inevitably cliché "we have to stick together" resolution, so I slipped out a back window and onto the adjacent roof. Moving slowly and carefully, (looking, no doubt, like Batman's clinically retarded little brother) I worked my way west to the other end of the block.

  The westernmost building on the block sits rights across the street from the tunnel that leads north to the subway station. As I was hoisting myself onto its roof, I fell over a short wall and into a flock of pigeons. They exploded into the air, and the noise they made in the relative quiet felt like somebody vomiting in church; I figured it would get everybody's attention. I assumed that any zombies on the street who bothered to look up at the noise would follow the birds' flight, and I was mostly right. Mostly.

  After a few heart-pounding moments, I peeked over the edge, and I saw something that curdled my blood. There were about a dozen of the shuffling fuckers in the street below me, and they watched the birds sweep down and then back up, settling on the roof of a building across the street. Once the motion stopped, most of them went back to shuffling mindlessly down the block. Two of them, though, stayed where they were. Then, slowly but deliberately, they turned their heads and looked up at the place where the birds had come from. Right at me.

  I'm running out of time. I guess I'll have to encapsulate. I got down off the roof. Me and my makeshift mace (I named her "Clubarella." Did I tell you that?) bashed in the heads of the brain-munchers who figured out I was up there, plus the heads of the three I stumbled on squabbling over the remains of a tourist family stuck in the turnstiles of the subway station. (Nobody should ever have to die in a "Virginia Is For Lovers" t-shirt.) I'll spare you the slog through the tunnel out of Center City. Just imagine a lot of panting, darkness made more threatening by the dancing circle of the flashlight beam, and barely managing not to pee myself when that rat landed on my shoulder.

  After emerging from underground, the subway twists north and turns into an elevated track. I walked on the track all the way to my usual station, and then made my way through backyards and alleys to our house. Amy had done a great job of barricading the front of the house. Since all the row homes on our block are contiguous, the back patio is completely out of sight of the street. I scaled the fence, and went in the back door. And barely managed to duck before Amy took my head off with the golf club she'd dug out of the basement. (She's so awesome.)

  They're scrabbling at the door now. It won't be long, so I guess I can drop some spoilers. Amy lives. She and the pets are on their way to rural New York state with all the food we looted from the corner grocery store. Her family has a secluded cabin up there, and she knows plenty of back roads to get her there. Why am I not going with her? Well, I was supposed to, but it didn't work out. I'd tell you why, but the door just collapsed. It was heroic, I can tell you that much. I should just have time to hit the "publish"



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