by Jaime Munt
Nobody wants to go through this.
Well, that's probably not true.
Jan 9 5:39am
The weather's not letting up at all.
I just took Mr. Ages out to go. The wind just ripped my breath away.
The snow and wind have scattered dead branches across the yard.
Trees make sounds like firecrackers when they fall. A big old tree in the next yard fell when we were out there. It made my heart jump and Mr. Ages ran to get back inside.
I have a winter coat now and boots. They're a little tight, but they don't let snow in.
I'll live.
I'll live.
I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live. I'll live.
I'll run and hide.
Jan 10 NOON
It sucks outside.
None of the food here is edible.
Even though I have supplies left, I can’t stay. Not unless I'd gained supplies.
I don't want to be trapped.
Mr. Ages just trusts all my choices. I wonder if he ever doubts me.
Tomorrow we head out, no matter what.
Jan 16 2:49pm
I woke up to voices. They weren’t just in my head.
Someone said, “I think she’s coming around.”
“Just be ready for anything,” they were saying.
My vision was blurry at first, but my sense of smell was working fine. I smelled campfire—no, it was charcoal. I could hear something sizzling.
I tried to sit up and two large hands closed on my shoulders, both helping me and slowing me down. He smiled hugely and hollered over his shoulder—“Yah, she’s awake.”
He asked if I was hurt. I shook my head. I didn’t think so.
“Think you can eat something?”
I asked for something to drink first.
There were three males and four females of different ages.
There was an improvised clothes line.
A lot of camping gear—some of it I thought was mine. I am sure was.
A young man squatted in front of a little Weber grill. He said, “You can have a beer if you don’t mind it warm.”
Beer?
“Yeah,” I agreed.
It was colder than he gave it credit for, but did nothing for my thirst.
“This might seem quick, but we are mostly on the go, so it might be blunt, but if you feel like it you could probably come with us in the morning,” said the cook. He turned over a hunk of red meat, revealing beautiful grill marks.
“With you?”
The cook forgot the cooking for a second and turned mostly toward me—his eyes were deep and penetrating dark blue. Like a night without stars. Eternally deep—easily drowned in.
“You’re gonna be okay—I promise. You’ll be with us.”
Promise?
“Promise?”
“Yeah—as long as you promise not to hurt anyone.”
“Okay,” I said dumbly—90% of my attention was on the beer.
The guy had let go of my shoulders and went to retie the clothes line higher.
The woman there leaned in—I couldn’t hear her, but her lips asked, “Is she okay?”
The man shrugged, but said, “Sure.”
I heard heat bugs, cicadas whirring. It seemed like it would be warm, but wasn’t. It was cold, in fact.
A woman my age cast me an earnest, reassuring smile.
“What is that?” I asked the cook. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth—but I worried that was exactly what it could be.
“Beef,” he said nonchalantly, jabbing his tong at a “somewhere” over his shoulder. “There’s a pasture over there.
“Would you like some coffee?” a lady asked—it was suddenly later.
“Man in the bathroom?” I said absently.
“That’s right,” she laughed. It was contagious. I kinda knew it would be. The group laughed with all the flat emotionlessness of cardboard. I opened my mouth and all the motion and expression of laughing came out without sound.
It was nightfall, I had eaten and felt truly welcome—they talked to me like we were old friends.
It finally registered that it was summer. It was summer again. My watch was dead. I’d lost months! I asked what happened to me, if they knew. They looked confused. The cook answered:
“What happened to all of us.”
That’s when I heard the screams. My heart shot up my throat like vomit and I shook too hard to hold my hammer without dropping it.
They were staring at me.
I was screaming.
I was screaming. I sat up fast and slammed my head into the roof of the truck—I didn’t realize I’d done that until later when my head hurt and I found the bump.
I was drenched in a cold sweat. I felt flu-ish and frightened—and threatened. And I was crying and I clamped both hands over my open mouth.
My left hand fell away and I bit hard on the flesh between my thumb and first finger.
They were all people I know are dead.
Jan 17 11:01am
I am in love with the smell of oil that has nurtured the flavor of divine sticks of potato.
I remember stepping outside and that smell hitting me—the "fair food" smell. It goes beyond nostalgic.
Food for the gods—I definitely associate it with a multifaceted desire of my childhood. Less than once a year I would get to have something from one of those glass-faced food castles. I felt like everyone I knew went there every week.
It lost a lot of the mysticism when I grew up and learned some people went more and some people never knew the inside of any fast food place.
I was a prisoner of the word "normal"—which never means the same thing twice.
The diner's dingy. I'm sitting on the reddish orange tile behind the counter. I'm in my sleeping bag.
It's never zipped up.
We’re not taking stupid chances.
I got a sweater on Mr. Ages from the last place we stayed and I got a long john shirt on him for pants. I'll spare the description of how I mutilated it to make it work in that capacity, but trust me, it does. It doesn't seem to bother him too much.
I found a car with almost a full tank of gas, but I couldn't get it to turn over.
"Fuck you" didn't cover that one.
I feel, now, that I've been cold all my life. I looked forward to the heated car—and making some time.
I feel like my time wasted and miles lost are like the National Debt.
So tonight I'm thinking through movies I wish I could watch for real.
I have some videos on my iPod, but I can't use earbuds in this environment and I don't want to run down my battery.
Yesterday, I was thinking of men—first celebrities, then people I thought were so hot when I was growing up, then people who I regularly saw in the life I had.
One was this guy who was a fireman or EMT or something, by the uniform he sometimes wore. He struck me as polite, at first. The longer I knew him as nice, the more handsome he became.
I saw him at work pretty regularly—but he'd only been there twice and he bothered to remember my name. When you're used to indifference or rudeness that means a lot.
But if what I knew was the norm, about 85% of humanity was selfish, apathetic and rude.
I don't believe that was the norm.
Do I think he was an exception?
Sincerely, yes.
Jan 18 11:54pm
I've left the stray trucker diner, Deb’s Drive-Inn, and am forced to stay in a car tonight. It's a lot more exposed than I'd ever choose, if I had another choice. Mr. Ages will have to learn to fly soon because he can't keep his feet in the snow any longer and I am exhausted.
The cold definitely slows them down.
I saw one that was reaching out, but still as a statue.
I am 95% sure that I could have stood right in front of him and he could have done nothing—or nothing fast enough to matter.
&
nbsp; Have you ever seen Stir of Echoes?
He reminded me of when the ghost touches Kevin Bacon and he gets all stiff and cold, reaching out.
It’s not the first time I've felt bad for them, but I didn't think I could kill him, even though, for the first time, I felt like it was just as good for him as it was for me.
I know it's no surprise, but I couldn't help but cry for him.
We might not be sleeping in a car if I hadn't taken the time appreciating his "life" and then thinking about all of us.
We see eyes and faces and movement that resemble life, but do they think and feel or do they imitate and just do what they do?
When I know the difference, I'll be like them and will be able to tell no one.
They don’t talk. But sometimes I think they think and sometimes I think they hurt.
The ones that don't must be the more perfect of what they are. In shows, when they want to make something a perfect killer, emotion is the first thing that's taken away.
I have horrible dreams.
But on the brightside I guess that means I reach deep sleep.
Maybe that's not so good.
I think too much.
I grew up in a loveless home with two selfish adults who hated each other.
It's funny how when you lose someone your feelings about them usually improve. It’s like you feel so bad for them that they are dead or hurt that you can’t hate them as much as you did or should.
I often think about the "every-so-often" when I sometimes thought they loved me. And I thought about what made them that way. I felt bad that both of them obviously never got what they wanted in life. Now they are likely dead.
I said "I love you" every time I talked to them. They would say it back.
When I was a child I meant LOVE and I hoped that evoking the word would provoke LOVE.
When I tried to reach them and couldn't and everything in the world was going to shit—I loved them and meant it. The idea of anything happening to them hurts my soul so bad I feel it in my bones. The deaths I've seen—when I think of the things that could have happened to them. If they did—how? By what? By who?
Did they love each other in the end, like I assume they did when they married? With a sense of loss and guilt?
They got married because they were pregnant with me.
I doubt if love was required.
Jan 22 1:06am
Came upon a busy body under a small wooden country bridge. It shambled out like a flesh colored grasshopper with a human head—quirky like an image filmed under a strobe light, but with all the black frames edited out.
He was horrifyingly thin and naked as the day he was born. It didn't have a jaw and its neck was broken so its chin was almost parallel with its back bone. Its frozen tongue flopped freely over its upper face like a short red horn.
Its tongue actually seemed really long.
It pushed through the drifting snow almost casually—like some creepy creature that lived under the bridge that was actually perfectly harmless.
I felt like Alice.
Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge?!?
I was crossing the bridge when it reached the road behind me, Mr. Ages kept looking back, but he didn't even growl—only his hackles were raised around the neck of his sweater and the back of his head.
It couldn't catch up—we were so cold I just thought about moving and moving and moving on.
There was an overturned car mangled on the opposite side of the stream. I guess that's why he looked that way—all twisted and mangled himself.
I looked back. He was making pretty good time considering the cold and how broken he looked. Then I saw the others coming out. I imagined some of them as his possible family—a woman and two children who didn't look like they'd been dead that long either, but there were several others too.
I hurried—no matter how my feet were killing me—if I let them slow me down—they would kill me.
About 10 miles later we found a house that didn't look vandalized, busy body occupied or looted.
There was a long deceased person there—had killed herself in bed—shotgun.
I drug the body outside and spent the next long while looking for shotgun shells. I eventually did find the ammo. So I had about 8 shots in the handgun, 4 in the rifle and 13 shotgun shells... and somewhere there are countless dead and countless survivors who might be armed and hostile. I will, of course, assume they are.
Run and hide.
Why take the chance?
Don’t you love your life enough to not take chances?
I got a few more canned and dry goods here. I couldn't get their vehicle to start. There is another house just up the road with an SUV in the driveway. But this one bedroom, no attic, no basement, house was easy to clear.
We had a good supper—our first since the house where we found the Slim Fast. And Mr. Ages and I lay down on the couch and tried to be warm.
It's against my better judgment, but being so tired of being cold, I overburdened us with blankets and Mr. Ages fell asleep on my back after we fought with each other on the small sofa for a comfortable way to sleep.
The first thing I realized when I woke up was that it was still dark. The second thing was that I was warm—snug as a bug—the third thing was that Mr. Ages was growling right into my ear—I could feel his bared teeth against it.
We weren’t alone.
My arms were tucked under my chest like I was praying. My LED lantern was on the table on the other side of the sofa arm.
I was afraid to move.
My bag was on the floor to my left—the handgun was accessible. The lantern wasn't far away. I had to get Mr. Ages off of me without making too much sound, but in what order to do the things I needed to?
And where was it?
I felt like a child hiding under their covers from the boogieman—it was unthinkable to have your arms or feet out of the blankets.
I was afraid to reach for either thing; I was sure I'd feel its teeth sink into me.
But its only other option was my head.
If it even was a busy body.
I slowly straightened my arms underneath me—I went from mummy, to chicken, to transformer, to airplane.
I turned the dial of the lantern as my fingers wrapped around the cold handle of the handgun. It felt too cold out there. And as the gun came out and bluish white light came on, I was about to order Mr. Ages down when I saw it just about pass by the room.
The Grasshopper.
Its inverted legs, with outward facing feet, were stepping—two steps more and it would have been out of sight, but in mid-step it reversed so perfectly it looked like it was being rewound.
He looked right as me—his eyes seemed small and were wide set and they lived far back in the eye socket, like his eyeballs themselves were shy and peeking out.
Mr. Ages snapped and snarled and dug his nails into me. My shoulder screamed. I heard the force of fluid drain from the infected wound. He lunged off of me, struggling out of the blankets.
I felt a bite then, felt teeth clamp on me and fight through the layers of blankets to get at me. I kicked out. My foot, through blanket, connected with something and it fell. Mr. Ages had the busy body that was nearly on top of us, by the back of his shirt and was yanking him away.
Something bit my ham and I rolled onto my back without Mr. Ages' weight and shot it—the little boy.
The girl, who I'd kicked, was getting up.
I shot the one Mr. Ages was struggling with next and then I shot her.
Grasshopper was about two feet from my face then. He tried to reach for me, but had to keep dropping his hand to balance his broken body.
I wailed when I shot him.
I leapt up and called Mr. Ages.
We started in the hall that led to the bathroom and bedroom that made an "L" shape that reached the kitchen and front door—which was standing wide open. The other busy bodies were coming in.
I shot them with the last of my ha
ndgun rounds and came back with the hammer and screwdriver for the last two.
My first thought was, There weren’t that many under the bridge. That I saw, I guess, but what I thought was that there were not that many, like I was cheated.
The second thing I thought and then did was get them out of sight of the road. I took them one by one around the side of the very small house.
I turned the doorknob—it was locked.
And I thought that defiantly too. See, so it wasn't my fault.
I closed the door. I stood back a second and pulled on it.
The door swung open.
I repeated the experiment.
I closed it a third time and shoved on the door. I heard a "click"—I pulled the handle and it held fast.
"Mother fucker," I said.
I balled up the top blanket which had something like blood on it and put it in the hamper.
I went to the bathroom and took off my pants and checked my legs.
I felt pretty numb about it. I was shaking and all the things I think were normal to feel were there, but the emotional traffic jam let nothing out but Polly Practical and she just wanted to check if the skin was broke.
No, but it was already bruising.
It felt like those wind-up gag teeth that chatter had attacked my legs. It seemed like there was only teeth, even as the back of my mind protested that it had felt the hands. The Hands of Death.
Like dentures. The one I kicked, the teeth never left, just relaxed and applied pressure, as if it was teething.
I was bruising—I could live with that.
Then I peed in the toilet—that felt like a reward. And I used the toilet paper and that was like a dream come true. But I’d got my period.
That explained a lot.
We took the rest of the blankets and lay down in front of the kitchen sink—the living room was too spoiled—and tried to sleep again.
The blankets must have muffled his senses enough that Mr. Ages hadn’t noticed everything that happened while we were sleeping—either that or he was sleeping too hard; just like I was.
I folded a couple blankets underneath us and lay the sleeping bag down on top of that for a mattress. Then put all the remaining blankets on top of us again.
I thought the odds were in my favor to have no more visitors.
What did visit were nightmares. That's why I'm awake and writing at this hour.