Our Annual Trip (12/7/11)

My best friend, Candi and I were doing our Christmas shopping together.  It happened this way every year.  In the wee hours of the morning, I picked her up in my 10 year old white Nissan Sentra.  Not yet awake, we made our way to Bob Evans.  We gorged ourselves with every kind of breakfast material possible.  We even took our annual bathroom break together and washed our hands to the tune of "Old McDonald."

Suddenly we were walking down the King of Prussia Mall where our normal heinousness takes place for many hours as we wonder in and out of shops.  Each of us had several bags in our hand.  Suddenly, the both of us spotted a man.  Both of us leaped into action and ran this man down.  He saw us coming for him and made us chase him for several seconds.  Once we had caught up, we started beating him with our bags.

Fin.

The Reaper (12/1/11)

Night had fallen.  The world, in chaos, always a dark overcast.  I sat at my computer typing.  After feeling an itch in my throat, I went downstairs to get myself a drink.  Being as thirsty as I was, I chugged it in the kitchen and promptly put my glass in the sink.  I walked into the living room, wondering what I could do to pass the time until Joe got home, when I heard the back door in the kitchen open.  At first, I thought it was Joe, but heard no footsteps.  I froze for a brief moment, and grabbed my long sword.  It turned the corner.  Exiting the kitchen and into my living room glided the Reaper.  The Reaper was a dull white.  It had the face of a human that had been carved in stone.  All the details in place, yet emotionless, detached.  Its feet hovered an inch or so above the ground.  The Reaper wandered around, sniffing out the most vulnerable uninfected and apparently it thought that I fit the description.  Though I was uninfected by the virus, I was far from vulnerable.  No one had ever defeated the Reaper, I was determined to be the first.  The Reaper sped toward me which its right arm outstretched.  I immediately took my first swing aiming to cut the outstretched arm.  The sword cut halfway through.  I swung a second time taking a side step out of the Reaper's way and his arm feel to the ground.  Instantaneously, the Reaper feel to the ground, starting to shake vigorously and I saw a nub starting to show in the flesh wound.  I swung for his head, again only going half way through.  It brought back memories of cutting down a very stubborn tree.  I gave the neck shot another go and blood spilled all over the floor and had flung on the walls.  The Reaper was still.


I ran upstairs.  It had all seemed too easy.  I washed myself off in my bathtub, rinsing off the silver dollar sized blood splatter on my forearm.  The shock of it all was starting to wear off and everything hit me, The Reaper's blood had touched me, did I now have the virus?  Time would tell.  While drying myself off, I heard the kitchen door once again open and close.  This time, it was followed by footsteps.  Joe!  I ran downstairs.  I passed the place where The Reaper had laid and it had not registered that the body was gone, and all the blood was still puddled in the floor.  I hugged Joe, suddenly feeling a strange jolt.  Hugging Joe, the back door opened and Joe walked in.  I flew back.  There were two.  I grabbed the frying pan in the sink, and looked at the two Joe's feeling very skeptical.  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  I looked over and it was a third Joe hanging his shirt on the back of the kitchen chair.  I started swinging the pan in a large semicircle so that none of them could get near me.
"Which one of you is real," I said very distressed.
"Krystal, what are you talking about?" said the Joe I had hugged.
"There are three of you!  Don't you see them," I inquired.
"There is no one here but me and you," Joe stated calmly, "Put the frying pan down."
"I don't know what to believe.  Which one of you is the real you," I said frantically swinging the pan.
"I promise you that I am the true Joe."
Before I had put the pan down the two impostors disappeared and indeed the truth teller was the only one left standing.
"What happened just then, Krystal?"
"I don't know."
I put the pan back into the sink and Joe went to hang up his coat in the living room.  He made a strange yell and ran back into me and grabbed my shoulders.  Looking into my eyes he asked me if I was all right.  After I assured him that I was, he inquired about the blood on the floor and whether it was mine.
"What do mean is the blood mine?"
I peeked into the living room.  No body, and a now smeared puddle of blood.  I was exasperated.  I quickly explained to Joe my encounter with The Reaper.
"Krystal, no one defeats The Reaper, maybe you are just confused."
"I am not confused Joe, I was there.  No, I am not daffy since that is what you are implying."
"Well in that case, let's go upstairs and figure this out."  Joe caught a glimpse of my forearm after he had grabbed my hand to lead me upstairs to our computer room.  He asked me about it and I said that The Reaper's blood had splattered on me there and that I was unsure as to whether or not I had been infected by it or not.  Joe was just as unsure, so we hastened our efforts to Google it and see if anyone else had gotten blood splattered.
"Joe." I said after several minutes.
"Yes?"
"No one else got splattered by The Reaper, because no one else was in a state of mind long enough to accomplish what I had."
"This is very true.  Since we don't know what will happen now, we should pack up and hit the road."
"Agreed.  I will pack up some clothes and get the cats."  As I said this, my cat Moo rubbed up against me and I automatically picked him up.  Instantly, he bit me where the blood splatter had been.  I realized simultaneously that his entire coat was drenched in blood.  I noticed that his eyes were oozing and very distant.  I ran with him and crawled into the bathtub with him.  Once the water was warm, I washed the blood out of his once soft fur, and off my now bleeding arm.  I cried.  The infection takes animals straight away, there is no drawn out weeks of suffering that humans endure before the virus takes hold completely.
"There is no doubt about it now," I whimpered, "I am infected.  I thought I was before when I had the delusion."
"I will go start the car.  Grab whatever clothes you can and meet me in the car.  It will all be okay, we can fix this."
"How?"
"My insurance does not cover the vaccine, but yours does.  We are going to get it for you.  Unless, we can find a rat first.  It is said that eating half of a live rat is a cure as well." 
"Start the car Joe.  I will follow."
Joe hastily went outside to his car parked on the street.  For several minutes, I sat wet and still.  I kissed Moo, laid him in a warm blanket.  I started walking toward our bedroom when I heard Joe yell to me.
"Get to the car.  The Reaper, I see it 2 blocks away heading straight this way.  Krystal, movie it."
I abandoned the hope for clean clothes and ran for the door.  I rounded the outside of the house and made for Joe.
"Behind the Shamrock bushes," Joe commanded.
I ducked behind the shamrock bushes planted at the end of the driveway.  Between the branches I saw The Reaper make for our front door.  I ran to the car parked on the side of the road and jumped in.  Joe began to drive.
"I suppose The Reaper just does some weird re-spawn.  My guess is that it ignored you to get to me.  Who knew that revenge was at the top of its list," I suggested.
Joe drove.  It seemed as though we drove for days.  I grasped my bitten arm.  It looked like a lightly gray mark not much bigger than a cat's mouth.  Tears started falling again.  At least my cat did not go through this agony.  Searing, hot pain intensified at the bite and surged through the rest of my body.  I screamed out in pain.  The pain was only going to get worse.  We finally saw a pet store, we pulled in to see if they had any rats in stock.  As we approached the window, all we saw was a big empty room with the lights still blazing.  There were people walking around hurting in a serious way.  All of them looked further along than I was with the whole ordeal.  It made sense for a pet store to make themselves scarce and leave zero trace of any animal.  I can't imagine how many people decided to do exactly what I walked up to this pet store to do.  No rats, so we moved on.  I suggested  that perhaps we stop by a Wal-Mart.  Not only were most 24 hours, but who knows what they were selling now that the world was in utter disarray.


We pulled up to the superstore.  Joe stayed by the car so that no crazy would steal it while I checked out what the situation was inside.  The shelving was still up.  Most of the items from the store were looted, especially the clothes and the food sections.  I walked up and down the aisles with leisure.  Searing pain jolted through my body again causing me to collapse momentarily.  A rat.  I saw it scatter across the floor.  It was likely that they indeed did not sell this here.  I followed it.  I felt a jolt of pain surge again.  My vision got blurry.  Not quite sure how it happened, but I had the rat by the scruff of the neck.  I stared into its beady little eyes.  Most people would roll their eyes at me and wonder why I did that, because it would deter me away from eating it.  All I knew was that whether I looked into its face or not, I didn't have the courage.  I put down the rat and let it go.


I walked back to the car, my feet felt heavy.  My body was tired and I was afraid.
"Joe, we need to get to Florida.  Let's hit it."
Joe pulled out and we rode south.  We stopped very little on the way down The virus had taken over my entire left had and wrist.   I wasn't afraid of the pain.  I wasn't afraid that the vaccine would be a myth.  I wasn't afraid of who else had this virus.  I was afraid of giving this virus to the man who had stood by me and protected me no matter what.


Pressing onward, there was only The Reaper and its blood to blame.  It passed on the virus that would eventually contaminate my soul, making me a fully integrated zombie.