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.

When the world was alive, I would sometimes pretend that I was the only person in the world. I’ve never been really good with other people. Zoic and I get along because she wasn’t either. Pretending that no one else was around lifted a pressure I could never really explain.

Zoic’s been working on this Music of the Apocalypse list and it’s got me thinking. I used to take walks and listen to music and pretend like I was the only one listening to that song, like it made me feel special or something. I would get a bit upset when I found that other people liked what I did as much as I did, like it was some violation of the world I had created where I was the sole appreciator. I’ve listened to some of the songs that Zoic picked out, and looked through a few of my own (we’ve got quite an iPod collection these days). I realized the other day, as I listened to some Peter Gabriel that I might, for once, be the only person listening to it at that moment. I didn’t like that either.

Zoic and I got a bit restless and decided to go for a ride. We went North East to some of the ritzier car dealerships, and that’s when I saw it. I’ve never really been a huge car person. I know a fair deal, I’ve watched some top gear, played racing games, but I’m not always up to speed. But this, this is my favorite car. The one I always wanted to own. The blue one, with the curves just right. I don’t believe a more beautiful car has ever been made. Of course, I’m talking about the AC Cobra. Also manufactured under the Shelby name. To be honest, I don’t know if it was a kit or an original, and I wouldn’t know what to look for, and I really don’t care one way or the other.

It was behind a large glass window with several other older cars that I completely ignored. Zoic looks around a bit more. She’s a much bigger fan of cars. Almost everyone in the building had died suddenly and without a fight. And they were still there, just as they were before. One of them was behind the wheel of the cobra. Not a bad place to die, if you ask me. I politely escorted him from the seat to the floor and sat in his seat. It was somehow completely different from what I had imagined, but perfect in every way. The panelling was beautiful, the wheel was perfect in my hands. The seat was mostly comfortable, but comfort is not my concern. The pedals were the perfect weight under my feet. Manual transmission. I always told myself I would learn. I didn’t imagine it would have to be right now. To think of destroying such a car’s transmission.

Across the way, I heard Zoic fire up an engine. It was in some old red convertible. I couldn’t be bothered to look at it closely, but I was inspired to revive the beast beneath me. I looked to the ignition, but there was no key. I opened the door and checked the body on the floor, but he had no key.

I found a door leading to a back office. I probably should have asked Zoic to accompany me, but I was determined, and when I get determined, I get short sighted. It worked out well anyway. Everyone in the building had frozen in their tracks long ago. It’s odd how the whole building was hit that way, but it seems to be the case when this happens. Either they all react the same way, or the other just wander off. They’ll feed on each other before touching these guys. Probably something in that.

I found a key rack. There’s always one, right? I looked through all of the keys. No cobra. I really didn’t want to hot wire this car. It deserved better. On my way out, I kicked something metal. I looked down. They were nondescript keys. I picked them up and went back to the car, hoping. I sat down. I put the key in. It fit. I turned the key. It turned. But the engine didn’t. It tried really hard, but it was no good. Zoic had moved to another car already, but she noticed my disappointment and came over.

“We’ll find another one,” she said.

“Yeah,”

“You wanna go?”

“Yeah.”