Home alone.

Nothing beats being home alone. There's nobody there to tell you what you can or cannot do on a Friday night. For me, these nights are spent in the basement with all the lights on while I surf the web or watch a movie. I turn on all the lights because I have a fear somebody will attack me from behind, but you know, that's another story. Sure, nothing beats having the pleasure of doing whatever I want.

Until the lightning strikes.

And the power goes out.

And I am submerged in a place of not a single light while a storm rages outside the window.

While I am frozen in shock and fear, I hear it. A grumbling in the distance. A knocking on the window. It unnerves me.

It's pitch black and I dare not move from my position. Fear begins to crawl up my back as the knocking continued. I am frozen. A flashing from the lightning. In that moment I see a shadow moving through the slit of window in the basement. The shadow of a man.

Despite the darkness, I leap up and quickly run for refuge in my own bedroom. I ram into a few walls, but the fear in my chest was enough to dissipate the pain.

In my mind I am not thinking. Fear clouds my thoughts but one thing remained clear -- there was a man outside.

Thoughts of psychopaths run through my mind and I shake. I hug a pillow. Trembling, I peek through the blinds of my window, and make eye contact with the strange man standing in my neighbor's lawn. He smiles. I jump back and run into my covers. I squeeze my eyes shut and will for the nightmare to end.

The doorbell rings.

My joints ache from my tenseness. I quietly list the possibilities of weapons I could use to protect myself. I reluctantly get up from my refuge and go to the door with a flashlight in hand. Curse my curiosity.

Slowly I peek through the peephole and surprise, surprise, there stood my killer.

But wait! He suddenly turns and faces my direction and I realize that my killer is actually my neighbor. He had been locked outside of his house and was seeking shelter.

How silly of me.

The best prompt ever conceived.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, you will find no finer plan than the one created by the zombie survival squad of which I am a member. However, before a plan is devised, one must realize the potential futility of these efforts. If the disease is airborne, God help you. Abandon all hopes of permanent survival and live your final moments to their fullest. However, if the infection spreads via parasite (the most likely option when considering zombie apocalypses), then this plan serves as a viable process to continue your life, and maybe even humanity as we know it.

We all know that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. As soon as a massive, non-quarantineable outbreaks is noticed, form a group of people you are compatible with and gather every supply possible. Backpacks, food, drink, sleeping bag, pencil, paper, and anything else that you can see yourself using in the apocalyptic hardships to come. And be sure to bring a sustainable amount of them; no supplies means no survival. And remember this: the key to survival is conservation.

You will definitely need to fight through the horde now and again, so be sure to get the appropriate weaponry as well. Do not fall into the common Hollywood trap of bringing chainsaws. They are cumbersome (mobility is a virtue), they are a gasoline glutton, and they make too much noise, attracting the zombies to your location. Bring a knife; it has many obvious practical uses, and has the ability to cut through flesh. For guns, an SMG is preferable. It is light and compact, and when coupled with a silencer, it is fairly quiet. A sniper is also good for  designated snipers to protect the stronghold in which you decide to take refuge. But be aware; only headshots count.

In deciding where to go with your survival squad, choose an ultimate destination that is secluded from other humans/once-humans. These areas will contain fewer undead and more space to run, or build upon, if you so choose. Take forts along the way to the destination; move from fort to fort. Large buildings with few doors and windows are best. For example, Sam's Club is large, somewhat open, and allows few entries for the zombies. It also has tons of supplies, and is easily defendable.

So there is your barebones guide to zombie survival. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or any other members of my squad, whose names I am unfortunately not at liberty to mention.

A true story

Running at night is never a bright idea. It is also not a bright idea to run near an area where a student was recently stabbed. That being said, I ran hills next to Tates Creek High School tonight. I've always told myself that I could outrun anyone that threatens me, but having run approximately 2 miles at a fast pace, I doubted that I could outrun most people. Tonight I had the good fortune to be spooked by a man and his big dog. As I sprinted up the hill in front of Tates Creek High School, I was greeted by the sounds of a snarling and growling monster. I ran up that hill faster than I have ran in my entire life. And so I was nearly eaten alive. Moral of the story: do not run in sketchy neighborhoods and do not run alone in the dark where big monster dogs can eat you. If only I could run like I did when the dog scared me, at all times...

My Venture

12:00 "Hey, you all go to sleep and don't go outside tonight"

"Okay mom, we will stay here, trust us!" "Goodnight"

3:15 "Hey lets go to waffle house," says James Toohey

"Good Idea"

The Venture would be 3.5 country miles and the venturers are few but strong, But the first leg of the journey is sneaking up the stairs and past my two very viscious boxer dogs. With that done it was a straight shot to the fine eating establishment, the midnight craving paradise; incorrect! 2 Miles of winding, pitch black, haunted country road and about a mile and a half of highway stand as knights between us and our castle. Every step had to be prompted with a thorough scan for pot holes, flaming hobos, and man eating wolves, because i do live in the country; this is a feat not easily accomplished when not entirely with ones wits. After 20 minutes of trudging along through the darkness we stopped our spongebob squarepants theme song carol to yield for a much more intimidating noise. was it our immediate death? no just the next closest thing, a drunken college student returning from his big night out at Spearmint Rhino; we only avoided death by all diving off the side of the road into a very uncomfortable ditch; oh yeah, and I fractured my arm like 5 hours before this but I dont believe in going to the Hospital so it was just kinda still in semi-immense pain. This went on for a while. We reached our second checkpoint at the intersection of Athens Boonesborro road and Athens walnut hill pike. We take a left and avoid cops, cars, and more drunken horny college students for 30 minutes, all of it worth it when thoes gold and black letters rise over the horizon. Check point Three, The aroma of syrup, oil, and pride wash over us as we push through the portal to waffle house. After recieving our free prizes because of less then emaculate service, we prepare to start our tretcherous journey, again. About a mile out, what do you know, I left my jacket in the restaurant; something easily retrieved with about 2 miles of sprinting, oh and true friends dont wait for you to get back before heading on. Luckily I can run a mile in under 5:30 when full of fear based adrinaline and the fine elixer called hashbrowns. Long story short-the walk back was longer and about as scary as the walk there and i get grounded the next morning cuz one of my loser siblings tattled on us. I blamed it on James Toohey, who finally payed me the $2 he owed my like 6 months later.

THE END

P.S this is like the worst story ive ever written, but believe me it was scarier then it sounds.

P.S.S I regret nothing

The primal emotion

Fear is in a way every emotion mixed into one, but can also cause every emotion known to man. Fear is what drives people to do the everyday things they do, and influences every decision made. It is even why you do your homework, and obey your parents. You fear what they can do to you, what they can take from you, so you do so without question. Where does fear come from you may ask? Fear comes from the instinct to survive. Fear has an odd way of working, you may have two fears, or two things you are afraid of. Lets say you have a fear of heights, and a fear of spiders. Would you jump off a bridge into water to escape the spider, or would you kill it? Of course you would. Fear prioritizes your chances of survival, blocking out one fear, to overcome another. Now imagine that the spider from before had a gun, instead of trying to kill it, you would probably jump off the bridge into the water. That is what makes everyday decisions for us, the over coming of one fear, and acting to do something else. It can even break down to what homework, or job you do first. I may fear one teacher more than another, so if i only had time for one classes homework, Id do the homework from the teacher i feared more. Fear got us to where we are today, and will take us where we are going tomorrow.

Home

I once faced fear.
I looked it dead in its eyes, and it wet itself.

Not really. I, just like any other human-being, often harbor fear. For example, I shudder every time I hear the words "Obama" and "re-election" in the same sentence.

But considering the fact I successfully infuriated half the class with my blog last week, I won't make the focus of this piece something as divisive as politics.

_______________________________________________________________________________

If you have ever driven the Western Kentucky Parkway late at night, you have probably wondered how any reasonable person can fret about looming over-population. For hours and hours you drive, and see nothing except what the dim starlight and shine of your headlights illuminate. No sound but the hum of an engine. No human-contact save for an occasional passing of a tractor-trailer or the liturgy of a Radio-Evangelist.

For in that span of the loneliest 130 miles, the Land Between the Lakes, the radio-stations, just as the highway exits, are less numerous than the fingers on either of your hands.

My father and I had driven that route too many times to account. Like a familiar dream did the landscape pass by. It must have been the ominous dark of that night or the weighty fatigue of our minds, that made every tree, swamp and creek obfuscated in the most terrific shroud of obscurity. We knew not where we were. But solely where we wanted to be.

Home.

I adopted the pass-time of every car passenger, entertaining the listless whimsies of a twelve year-old boy. I saw a green sign reading "Muhlenberg County". I hummed Cash's Paradise. It was a song about Elysian comforts lost. Fitting, given the apathy towards time that both my father and I in that moment possessed.

High-beams reflected of the mirrors of my dad's Cadillac. We were both blinded. We returned to being aware, shocked, human and real. Deflated weather balloons. My dad, as he does so often, cursed, "God d-----! That ------- guy needs to turn his high-beams off."

Yet he did not. We were in the fast-lane. Doing seventy-five or so. I turned to see who in their right mind could possibly be behind us. Who could be dumb enough to blind the car in-front of them with their high-beams. I craned my neck to see a man with a bull-neck and barrel-chest behind the wheel of a massive F-350. He was right on our tail.

My father accelerated. The needle crept up to eighty.

The truck was still on us.

The needle lept to eighty-five. And if it was possible that huge man still hanging right there.

We kept on driving at this pace. We discussed what could lead a guy to drive like this. At first we thought he was just an idiot. Had not a clue how to drive. Or maybe he raced cars in his spare time. My dad was incensed. Five-foot eight-inches, stocky, and thick. Old. Gray hair. A short fused bomb always ready to explode. His jaw gritting. Veins swelling. For thirty minutes we kept this up. My father cussing, me answering. Wondering.

And what was at first curious frustration soon fermented into fear.

What the hell did this man in the truck want.

My father's apprehension soon outweighed his unmatched haste. He switched into the right hand lane. And slowed down to fifty miles an hour. Surely the speed demon would go on by.

But our friend in the truck followed us too. Stayed on our bumper like stink on excrement.
My father slowed to forty, thirty, twenty.

The driver was there, there, there.

As a bear taught to dance most surely protests in a fit of rage so to did my father cease his crawl of a pace by the flooring of the accelerator. The eight cylinders burnt gas in an American symphony. In the drop of a hat, eighty, ninety, ninety-five.

But the driver read the same score- he too in an act of perversion, in unrelenting force of will, stayed on our ass. For forty minutes we did not drive, we flew.

"Dad, does he want to-"

"I don't know, Bear. Don't worry."

My hurt felt pressure. Squeezed by a vice. My breaths became shallow. It was fall, my dad's car as always cold, but my brow broke with sweat. My clothes uncomfortable, itchy. The seatbelt- a straight jacket. Trapped. Trapped by the dark of that night. Trapped by the highbeams of that driver. Trapped like an animal too tired to continue fleeing a predator's pursuit. Trapped. By fate. By metal, by speed, by physics.

By a bull necked man with a bellowing truck.

Yet my father's face was a rock of calm. Struck not a single time with the chisel of cowardice, his steel gaze did not waiver from the road, or his rear-view mirror. How he managed, I do not know.

The intuitive glint of my fathers iron look told me he had a plan. A last ditch effort, a magnum opus, a tour de fource, of legerdemain, and brazen daring. Surely he would not fail.

Fitting as they say A Calm Before the Storm, my fathers speedometer crept back down to a reasonable sixty. We kept and kept it. And so did our pursuer. For fifteen minutes. Yet I swear to God they seemed like hours.

A sign passed. Beaver Dam Rest Area- 3 Miles Ahead, on Left. We knew it well.

A crescendo. Sixty-five, eighty-five.

The accelerator on the floor, ninety.

Beaver Dam rest area, next left, half mile,

One ten.

Father, feinted right, as if he were to pass the exit, only to swerve through the white lines at one hundred and fifteen miles an hour.

In the moment we passed the threshold from highway to Beaver Dam, my relief tore through me. Our pursuer, a cancerous growth on our back bumper for the better part of two hours, gone. Thank God. Refuge. Safe-haven, I could not have welcomed the truck-stop with any more alacrity.

But those damn high beams! They poured into our car like hideous fire, He was THERE! THERE! Still there.  Right on us. I should've known better! My father wore disbelief. We slowed, down. Entered the parking lot near the pumps. And so did our pursuer.

My father parked. Took out the keys. And said, "Barrett, no matter what happens, don't leave this car. You understand?" I nodded. Fear in my throat strangled me. Yet Dad was stoic. He has this fire. This glow in his eyes. Pernicious. And unwavering. Dad would fight to his death.  He undid his seat belt. Opened his door. Got out. Closed it. Locked the car. And approached our pursuer in the truck in the pumps behind us. I tried watching the scene through the side mirror. I couldn't. I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could to wish it all away. The gas station, the car, the truck, the dark, the stars, the trees, asphalt, concrete, the distance between me and home. I closed my eyes and with the quavering soul of a twelve year old boy I shouted a prayer to God.

God, get me home. Get me home God. Keep me safe. Keep my Dad safe. Let this be over as quickly as possible. I want to be home. Home. Home. Home this very instant. As quickly as possible, let this night be over. God, take me home, as quickly as-

Knock-knock

A fist jolted against the passenger window.

My heart exploded, my wound up spring of apprehension shattered, my eyes flung open to be met by those of my pursuer.

Oakley. Our friend Oakley, from back home. Smiled at me, beside my dad, with that stupid southern brilliance. He had followed us all down that wretched parkway, on his way back from school at Murray, because he had recognized my dad's car. He had shown his high-beams the whole time because he couldn't quite tell if it was us.

What a dumb-ass.

I suppose home had gotten tired of waiting, and met us, in part, 150 miles early.

I thanked God.

Why the Zombie Apocalypse Would Completely Fail

Before I begin my survival strategy for the zombie "apocalypse", I must first consider the realistic conditions of this event and then create a strategy around these conditions.

One of the greatest fears of the zombie apocalypse is becoming infected. But this is a irrational fear produced by popular culture surrounding zombies. Zombies are said to infect other people through biting or scratching. Want to know what other disease is spread like this? Rabies. Want to know how many people get infected from rabies each year? At most, 3. As it turns out, in the contagion world, biting and scratching are the worst ways to spread a disease because the organism must make physical contact with another organism. Evolution has designed diseases to be spread through other means as well like contaminated food, water, or air in order to ensure the survival of the disease. Biting and scratching are very limited forms of infection that will not spread effectively. But even rabies would spread faster than zombie-disease because rabies leaves most of the intelligence of the infected organism intact. A common feature of the zombie-disease is that the only thought process of the zombie goes something like, "BRAAAAIIIINNNSSSS!" But this thought process will get the disease nowhere since the disease is not taking advantage of our intelligence and not using it to ensure survival. By destroying the organisms basic intelligence, it destroys the organism's ability to make a calculated decision that may avoid certain death or to ensure survival. So when the organism is incapable of figuring out that the speeding car heading towards them is going to kill them, the organism will die, the disease will not be able to harvest from its host, and the disease will die. This destruction of the intelligence system would make the zombie-disease extremely inefficient and lacking in its evolutionary ability to survive.

So if a barely surviving disease like rabies infects only 3 people a year and has a much better infection efficiency than zombie-disease, how does the zombie-disease expect to infect just 2 people, nerve mind causing the end of the world?

But even if a zombie-disease does manage to break out or is able to infect more than 2 people, the disease would still face huge set backs. One of which would be our government. Back in the late 1800s, Mary Mallon was the first person to be an asymptomatic carrier of the typhoid fever meaning that she could spread the disease without it actually effecting her. After infecting nearly 53 people, the U.S government caught on to her affliction and forcibly exiled her to an island by herself for 30 years. And this was all for a disease that makes you sweat and poop a lot. Of the 53 people she infected only 3 died. So if a disease like the zombie-disease comes along and starts infecting people I have full faith that our government would quarantine or terminate these infected people without thinking twice, especially if its a fatal disease with no vaccine or cure. What do you think the Center for Disease Control is? The CDC has a whole slew of plans to prevent a disease like the zombie-disease from reproducing uncontrollably. They even have a plan for the zombie apocalypse . Seriously, look.

But even if the zombie-disease could defy all the laws of evolution and then outwit and out arm the U.S government, the disease would STILL face obstacles. Like I said before, the only thought process of zombies consists of "BRAAAAIIINNNSSS!" and "BBRRRRAAAIIINNSS!" so they have almost no capability to recognize and handle situations. This includes exposure. On the zombies quest for brains and more brains, it will not take into consideration the weather or its basic health, and why should it? It's a zombie why should it care? Well, unfortunately for Mr. Zombie it will be a matter of life or death. When we put on our clothes in the morning, we think about what the weather will be like later. If it will be hot then you'll wear shorts, but if it will be cold then you'll wear a jacket. But the zombie does not think of this so when winter or summer rolls around the zombies will be left completely exposed. They will either freeze to death, or there bodies will dehydrate and shrivel up into lumps of bones. Natural disasters would decimate them. While we hide in the bunkers and basements, the zombies will stumble into the fierce tornado or fall into an earthquake. One such disaster would destroy these brainless idiotic zombies and put an end to their "rampage". And even if they somehow survived a natural disaster, they would surely break a few bones which would make them unable to maneuver properly to catch brains and would mean their death. And even if they miraculously survived with only a few scratches, you must consider the other incidents that would mean their untimely death. When we fall and scrap ourselves, we wash the wound and put a bandaid on it. But a zombie would not recognize the wound and would ignore it which would most likely lead to another infection that could kill the zombie. A few more stumbles and falls would mean even more scratches and scraps for the zombie and would create a breeding ground for bacteria. This means that even simple exposure would make the zombie-disease a complete failure.

So after considering how the zombie-disease would be a complete failure and would be unable to have an effective infection rate, use its host's intelligence effectively, outsmart the U.S government, survive simple weather, or take care of its basic safety, I have come up with a survival strategy. My strategy would probably include taking a 3 hour nap or maybe watching a movie. This "zombie apocalypse" isn't going to last long at all. At most, I'd give the zombie infection 4 hours when considering all that it must go up against just to barely accomplish its evolutionary goals. So don't fret about this zombie thing, just sit back and laugh at the stupid zombie outside your window trying to climb a tree with four broken limbs just to catch a squirrel.