Bum Scoop

As promised.

Last things first: My good buddy Matt joined in on the Blog Like It’s The End Of The World thingy a little late, posting a couple entries about the defense of his own small town down in Indiana. He said the fun part was incorporating some of things that did actually happen, and working them into a more dramatic telling of his day.

Which is sort of how it worked for me, but a little less so since my life is nowhere near as exciting as his. For instance, I did go down to Main Street, but only to go talk to the town’s building inspector (who is, conveniently, there from 3:30 to 5:00 on Wednesdays), not sit in a sniper perch on one of the rooftops.

Going in, I was a bit hesitant about doing it, and got more anxious leading up to it because, well, I’d be lying. I suppose it would be one thing if everyone who read here and at the LJ also read My Elves Are Different and knew exactly what all was up. But yeah, it’s an uneasy thing lying on a blog, even if it is just to take part in a collective narrative. There is that atmosphere of trust and openness in these things, and while I was just helping tell a story, it seemed odd and disconcerting, at least until there was a wide and cozy collection of folks taking part. Then it was cool, I guess.

But it was nifty reading everyone else’s entries on the topic, and MEAD has collected some very nice examples.

My final, thought, though is: how many of the recent dead would just be slamming around inside their graves because their families invested in the $10,000, hermetically-sealed, bronze-lid coffin or sealed them into a giant concrete crypt? I’m guessing a the biggest danger of a real zombie uprising would be the distraction of all that frustrated, subterranean moaning.

Man I wish we had Dr. McNinja around here. Armored spacesuits would rock.

So, I tried to drive down to Jackson today to deliver some PCs, but I got exactly as far as White Creek Road, just before the freeway, when I got stopped by a roadblock. I had figured the Zombie stuff from earlier was just, I dunno, funnin’ around or something, but it turns out the cops here took it seriously. They weren’t letting anyone or anything in or out of town, so I was stuck.

Guess it was a good thing.

Since they asked, I told them I had been in the military and knew how to shoot (the two don’t quite always go together), so they sent me down to the cordon on the cemetary. I got a shotgun and a sidearm from someone’s private armory, and then it was sort of like the shooting gallery at the fair, only not as rigged on the side of the targets.

Somebody commented this morning that it was only the recent dead that were ambulatory… but man, they were barely even that. Maybe it’s just the nearly-dead bad mojo that Michigan has going on these days, but the zombies seemed downright listless and uninterested.

Once we swept the cemetary, I got sent up to the roof of the WMIS building on Main Street with a hunting rifle and a scope. Me and another crusty old Marine kept watch on the approach from Sand Lake up north, playing Guardian Angel to the roadblock that was set up just north of the Ford dealership. I just got relieved half an hour ago, and got to come back home for a few to get some lunch and check on the family. They’re cool, but scared.

Soon as I’m done posting this, I’m going out to provide security for a crew that’s razing a perimeter around the town. The police chief wants to build a bunker/trench system around the town just in case the ghouls decide to get a little more frisky.

Good luck to everyone else out there. I hope I don’t have to re-kill you later.

Originally published at Midnight Highways. You can comment here or there.

So, after Tobias Buckell mentioned adding crossposting to his blog, I thought that maybe I would give it a try and consolidate my web presence just a tad. I suppose I could have gone the other way and integrated my LiveJournal into my (rather anemic) website, but this required the copying of one file and clicking a couple of check-boxes.

Way easier.

Anyway, if it gets too bothersome or lame I’ll cut it out and think of something else to do, but for now I’m going to try it and see what it’s like. In the best case scenario, I have to deal with two simultaneous and divergent comment threads, but given my thin (and much beloved) readership, I think I’ll be able to manage.

In other news, next Wednesday (June 13) I’m going to be participating in the Blog Like It’s The End Of The World event, assuming I remember to do it and don’t get bogged down with work.

And in other other news, I’m going to start blogging elsewhere with my actual name attached to it, so be on the lookout for when I link it.

Originally published at Midnight Highways. You can comment here or there.