A Meerkat's Bolthole

Dawn brought fewer sirens and empty streets, but if you turn your head, there's a flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. They're out there. As soon as their eyes adjust to daylight, they'll be back.

We spent all night fortifying the building -- the first floor's been abandoned, the basement and lobby booby-trapped with windrose's hotfoot powerder she sent me after last year, and a healthy dose of meat tenderizer. Anything that tries to get through will be walking on stumps by the time they hit the stairs, and we have another surprise for them there. Supplies have been shared out, and extra water laid in, just in case. And the kittens are roaming the hallway with the other cats in the building, making for an amusing thicket of tails you have to pass through, like furry sentries. Rumor has it they don't like cats. The feeling seems to be mutual.

I've gotten e-mail updates from Florida and New Mexico -- the warmer-weather states seem to have a more pragmatic view of the outbreaks, and had emergency plans ready. Maybe they have a point -- last year, the far-northern states seemed relatively outbreak-free. I shouold have moved further north, not come south....

If it's like last year, we just have to make it to Saturday. We can do that. If we hold strong, and nobody opens a window for an old friend. Speaking of which, my time to guard the fire escape.

I never heard back from Keith or Terri. I hope they're all right.

When I first heard about this, I laughed. I wasn't sure how far it would spread, or how many people would get caught in the hoax (a lot, surprisingly), and if people would be pissed off (a few, reportedly).

What I hadn't thought about, until I made my first post, was how it would hit me as a participant.

Almost six years ago, I was sitting in my office in NYC, blogging to the outside world as my own world was forever changed through violence even more horrific -- and less understandable -- than zombies.

This wasn't the same experience, obviously. But even as I was laughing, and collaborating with others in the growing hoaxweb... there was a frission of discomfort in my spine. Because it was just enough the same - to 9/11, to things happening today all over the world - to make it real.

And maybe that's why it worked so well, and why people got so caught up in it for a day.

And we all had a bit of fun.

Which is the ultimate act of ownership of pain/fear, innit? To itch the scab, and laugh, however ruefully?


But back to the real world today. I''d rather zombies were on the front page, myself.