The Madness

Picture this;

I'm 32. I'm going to work, it's a totally normal day. My car starts on the second try, there's some moron going 30 miles an hour in the left lane, and when I finally get in, I have to park all the way on the left next to the dumpster from hell.

Fine. Whatever. It's Tuesday, and I don't expect anything else.

I put my beanie on to cover the tattoo I have on the side of my head because my Boss is a mix of old-timey Republican that still can't stand it when they cuss in songs, and yet has the nerve to make inappropriate passes at every temp employee under the age of 20.

I keep the piercings in because you know what? Fuck 'em.

SO I get in; I clock in two minutes after 8am and trudge to my little corner of the lab. I assemble eye-glasses. Correction; I used to and hence I still know how to assemble eye glasses. I'm sitting there, drilling holes in lenses to glue on the super trendy floating bridges and legs, applying trendy magnets so that those trendy sun glass-covers can be applied. I do this for four hours.

Then it happens. I hear something big fall, and second hand boss man starts shouting for the big ass-hole boss, and everyone else is peering over to the noise from their collective cubbies. I ignore it, because hey, it's a big lab and shit happens. But when the scream rips out I can't ignore it, you know?

I duck out of my little corner and see this blood spray, like cinematic, like gushing blood spray.

At first I think it MUST be some sort of dye, maybe the stuff they use to coat the really fancy Raybans with that cool metallic sunset color, you know?

But then everyone around me starts to Freak. Out. And then Sandy - the sweet lady with the boufont hair that brings in squash and turnips and shit for everyone from her home garden on Mondays, comes tearing out from behind the lens grinders. She had blood all down the front of her shirt, and she throws herself - literally THROWS herself at Bob.

Jeanine makes a run for the door, Dan and Pete try to help Bob, and there's more blood splatter, and now there's screaming from behind the lens grinders, and no one has even looked in my direction yet.

I think to myself  - NO WAY no one has called the police yet. Therefore, I think it's about time I go home.

So I get my shit, and for whatever survival-instinct reason I pick up a screwdriver. And you're thinking right now that it is a normal screw driver, like it's a Phillips head, one with the red handle, like six inches long, made for a toolbox kind of screwdriver. No. I mean a jeweler's screwdriver, where the whole thing is like the length of your hand, and the tip is small enough to get those itty bitty shitty screws you use on watched and - duh - glasses. It's freakin tiny.

I'm half way to the door when I lose my shit.

See there's this girl I was totally crushing on - 100% straight - but she was always super nice to me at lunch, and would always ask me things like "whatcha readin'?" or "do you shave the sides of your head yourself?" and "Do you think I would look good in a mohawk?" Sweet as hell. Boyfriend is a douchebag.

Anyway, she's pinned under douche-boss when I pass by and she's kicking and screaming, and this creep literally has his teeth in her shoulder and he's CHEWING on it, and then I sort of think I had a mental break.

It wasn't really until later that I really remember what happened. Long story short, I was pretty good at using that damned screwdriver to wreak havoc on some zombies. You would think I'd lose it, or it would get stuck, but no, you see the cool thing was that it was SO thin, that it was rather more effective than anything else I could have picked. Quick in and out to the brain, bam, dead. Again.

Anyway.

So that's how I ended up here in the apocalypse. I fought my way out of my job and got in the car with an infected babe who I had to dump two days later in exchange for some sort of Literature major with self-esteem issues and a cheerleader with separation anxiety.

And of course, the Hobo.

You know, I used to think I was pretty... useless. Well, not practically; I mean I can open my own damn pickle jars, and I can change my tires and do my own bills, but I'll be honest and admit I had no marketable skills in the civilized world. And yeah, things were pretty shitty at first; trying to call friends, seeing people you knew turn into crazy, hungry, flesh eating monsters. Losing family, housemates, neighbors...

But you know what is equal parts amazing and fucked up? It's been like 2 whole years since then. Government collapse, unstable pockets of humanity scrounging off the bones of the recent past, hordes of shambling monsters that are all really grimy and stinky now, stumbling across some really fun people who made it just as well as you did. It paints this whole Romero picture of grief and depression, and hopelessness...

But there's a bright side too. No more student loans, for one thing. No car payments, no rent, no phone bills - hell, no money at all. And I actually GOT to beat the hell out of my shit-eating old boss without repercussion. I can shop wherever I want, drive whatever I want, and YouTube was still up and running long enough to teach me all he essentials. My less marketable skills became my veritable bread and butter.

In other words, I totally got used to it.

And I gatta say - the end of the world suits me just fine.