Today was all kinds of awful, but at least I got a shower. Typing kind of hurts right now cause I gashed my hands open on some fence we were putting up around the kickball field/Zoic and Rok’s produce field. It’s too hot to farm right now. I hate being outside this time of year when there’s no immediate, life-threatening need to leave the house. We can’t even plant anything yet, we’re just getting things ready, doing farming type things. In the fall we’re going to plant as many things as possible and see what comes out. I can’t decide if it upsets me or not that I’m making an apocalypse garden. I’m pretty sure most everyone who kept their supply of emergency non-hybrid seeds wasn’t worried about zombies crawling through their victory gardens.
Rok and I stole a big roll of chainlink fence, which can hardly be called stolen considering all the work it took to move it, and have been trying to set it up around the field. I think an electric fence would be cool, but it causes too many problems, though I’m not sure if the problems outweigh the possible joy of luring zombies into the fence with raw meat. I miss tv.
I worked on putting the fence into the ground and Rok worked on doing something or other to the ground and looking through storage sheds for valuables or infected. We had been doing controlled burns of some of the smaller school buildings and storage sheds near the field that could be a hassle to keep cleaning out. I had my flamethrower on my back most of the day. The fence wasn’t too difficult to put into the ground, but it was burning hot and had a lot of sharp edges and my hands slipped. It was a really nasty gash down the palm of my right hand. I tried wiping the blood on my pants, which was gross, at least until I heard the zombie sniffing a few feet away from me. Dammit. I reached for my gun but found an empty holster. Shit. I left my guns with Rok, why the hell did I leave my guns? I got up and ran, hoping to God it wasn’t a runner. Fuck. Maybe he was excited by the blood from my hand, or there really was a rage zombie prowling around near a school; I can only guess it was eating slower children zombies. None of this was my concern though as I ran back towards the green house. I turned briefly to set him on fire, a lapse of judgment on my part because he was flaming like something from a christian exploitation film. Also, it didn’t slow him down.
“Rok, I don’t have my guns!” I yelled to him.
“Why not” He smiled, carrying something out of the green house.
“I don’t know! Can you get a headshot? This sucks!” It really did.
“You’ll never learn your lesson if I help you.” This was a terrible time to tease me.
“I’m going to shoot you in the face.” I admit now that that was not exactly mature on my part.
The zombie was burning to death behind me, and I was running, and it was miserable. Then, like a true professional, I slipped on a combination of blood and slippery gravel and fell. I heard two shots and rolled out of the way to let the burning zombie carcass fall where I was lying. I pulled my gun out of Rok’s hand,
“I really am going to shoot you.” I wasn’t….but it felt good to say, anyways.
“It’s alright. I was just teasing.” He said.
“That’s awful timing.” I said.
“Relax, I wasn’t going to let you get caught.” And this is where I said something that didn’t make much sense.
“We’re going to get caught. This is stupid. We’re going to get ambushed and end up having to abandon the place, or we’re going to get lulled into a sense of security, and this is what happens, you get melting zombie face on your shoes.” He looked confused, and maybe hurt, I don’t know what. I went into the school building marked “Sciences” and went into the first lab I could find, locked the door and pulled the emergency shower. I took a sixty minute shower, the amount of time recommended if you’re doused with penetrating corrosives. Every time I heard a moan or scratch, I shot through the door. I think I’m a better shot when I’m naked.

Rok and I have decided to write about our own ideal societies after the apocalypse. We talk about it sometimes at night when we’re bored. You can only tell so many campfire stories. For one thing, Zoicopolis would be at constant war with Roktopia. We would conquer them and introduce clothes into their society. Also we would set up a democracy, and we’d stimulate the economy by bringing in zombies as free labor. If you put meat in front of a zombie, it can carry a really heavy load. I’d like the city to be up in the trees like the Ewok city from star wars. We’d be protected from other cities trying to invade us. We could have zombie stables on the ground, and they could graze around.

As one of the few surviving human beings, I feel somewhat responsible for the way the world turns out once this mess is over. Let me begin my campaign for elected supreme dictator here. I think it it important for our society to resemble that which is most acceptable to the Aliens when they undoubtedly visit.
In Roktopia, there will be no clothes. At least, not always. Everyone will be free and equal under the sun. Sex won’t be dirty anymore. I don’t care if I’m puritan descended, the future generations won’t have to be. Meditation and yoga will be the only cultural requirements. All of that macho shit is gone, too. Men who compete excessively with one another will be deemed legally assholes, and reproduction will be withheld from them. I’m planning the future of evolution here.
There will be so many holidays in Roktopia, you will never have to work. I mean, work will be done, but there will be plenty of celebrations. One thing I always hated about Phoenix was the lack of any real cultural events that everyone took part in. We had celebrations, but usually the only people in attendance were the unwashed residents of the artist housing. And hipsters.
We will prepare for war, but never seek it. It is unreasonable to think that there won’t be other groups that are more aggressive, and they will want to attack us. We have to be prepared to defend ourselves. We practice peace, not weakness.
We will believe in science. It’s time to start living in the future. We will also have good food to eat, none of that processed bullshit.
Roktopia, obviously, will only work with a small number of people, but I believe if that small number of people has the right mindset, then the future generations will make a better set of rules with that same mindset.
There will be tons of sex. Like, gobs of sex. Just, a lot of sex. Like, a lot.

I feel like I should take the time to update this even when there’s nothing to update. I guess, at the very least, it’s another sign of life. I could die tomorrow, and at least this would be here. And if I had died this morning, this would not be here. It’s important. Potentially.
Anyway, if you’re out there, know that I do this for you. And my ego. Probably more my ego. I mean, it is a blog, isn’t it?

-Bagel Bites (24 packages)
-Frozen vegetables
-Mochi

I think that about covers our eating needs.

We had a bit of a narrow escape this morning. When we woke up, there was a rather large mob outside of our home. We were stuck inside a layer of reanimated flesh no less than six feet thick. This came as a surprise because we haven’t seen these kinds of numbers in weeks. Yet here they were. We were able to catch the back layer on fire, but it used most of our remaining gasoline. The rest of them took some hands-on effort and what bullets we had. They were all dead again. Permanently, this time. But it was close, and a lot closer than it had been in a while. We’d grown careless.

I don’t want to give you the impression that we were not taking the proper precautions. We barricaded the windows and doors. That’s common practice. We also cut a way out through the roof, which we used for dispersing the fire. We had supplies ready in case of an event like this. But we used them all up.

“You know we have to go,” Zoic said.

“I don’t want to.”

“We have to.”

I let out a sigh. “It’s really going to suck.”

There is one gun store near us. We’ve driven by it a number of times. There is the largest pile of redead undead we’ve seen yet that we didn’t cause ourselves. The doors and windows are boarded up. Any number of horrors could be inside waiting for us.

“What if there’s still people in there. They might shoot us,” I complained.

“Do you think they wouldn’t have come out yet?”

“I guess you’ve got a point. What if it’s really gross inside?”

“We’ll live.”

We got in the car and drove. The smell of rotting flesh in front of that building is the worst I’ve ever smelled. We put on the long rubber gloves and did some dragging. Then we did some burning. It doesn’t take long, once you get into it. Then there was the matter of the door. I found an axe in a house recently, so I took it to the door. It was completely stuck, and no amount of kicking got it open. I hacked away most of the door and Zoic finished it off. I was never one for upper body strength.

The inside was dark. All of the lights were broken. I used my flashlight to look around. It looks like a gun store should. There were numerous guns around the edge of the room. Not as many as I was expecting, but a lot. There was no one inside, alive or dead. In the corner of the room, a door led to the bathrooms and the office. The office was empty, but the bathroom was not. I opened the stall door of the men’s restroom. Dried blood guided me. The owner of the store was inside. Mostly. He did what you might think that he did. He killed himself with a gun. I stared for a good long while. Zoic grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out. She closed the door to the bathrooms.

“Like it never happened. Now help me pick out something cool,” she said.

We filled a bag with as many goodies as we could find. It took us a while to match the guns to the bullets, but we did. Outside, it was getting dark, so we decided to postpone the tests until the next day. I’d like to tell you what we took, but I really don’t know. I’ll probably just call them things like “the big one” in the future.

I like the way things are right now. The future scares me a little. I know that at some point, all of this will come to an end. The last one will fall, and any people that might be left will have to work together to make things the way they were. Or a new way. But really, things could go any direction. Zoic and I are relatively safe where we are. We’re insulated by miles and miles of walking corpses. Some day we might not be so lucky. And if the powers that be are evil, we’re fucked. It would probably be worse than being eaten alive. I’d rather die thinking the world could be a nice place. I suppose that we are responsible for seeking out others and trying to rebuild society the way we see fit, but that also puts us in a tough place. It’s strange to think that what we’re living in could be better than what we’re looking forward to. Difficult to say, though. I guess we just hope for the best and try not to think about it.

I got Rok a present, but he guessed what is was before I gave it to him. How did he guess sawed off shotgun? D: He must have cheated.

I had my first anxiety attack in a long time. It was surprising. It’s possible that I used up all of my anxiety in the early days and I just now built up enough to feel it again. They weren’t uncommon before, but it’s difficult to really put my finger on what I have to be stressed about. Given the circumstances, I should be applauded just for being alive. What more do I need to do? I suppose I should clarify that all of my panic attacks are about my direction in life. It’s difficult to say what that is, being that I have no society to judge my actions against. I can quite literally do anything I want, provided I don’t need 6 billion other people to approve. And yet I find that strangely limiting. And to be honest, I don’t know that there aren’t other people out there, but it’s been a little too long for me to believe that this hasn’t happened everywhere. I don’t know that for sure. Maybe there’s picture of me sitting on my roof awaiting help on the cover of magazines, and video of Zoic and I “salvaging” things from homes all over the news, just outside of our reach. It would be terrible if this was all somehow a sick joke, but, as the philosophers say, fuck the skeptics, I’ll just have to believe what my senses tell me.

I still take birth control in the apocalypse. Rok gives me a hard time for this, but I had been taking it for a while for other reasons than preventing pregnancy. It’s a really miserable trip to the pharmacy when I ran out. The first time, they only had one package, so I’ve had to go to a few pharmacies. You haven’t seen the apocalypse if you haven’t been in a post-zombie apocalypse planned parenthood. It’s pretty nasty. Rok says it’s silly to take it because we are inevitably going to have to remake the human race. He’s joking, but I hurt him anyway.