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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack |
| This appeared in my inbox some several months ago. It was right about after the Nobility thing and I was trying to wrap my head around all the shenanigans and goings on with that whole mess to get it down. Must have read through this ten times going back and forth on posting this. I finally decided to post it because it does give you a glimpse into the mind of Kheid and his world, the exact way it works. It also tells us something that I’ve kind of wondered about since I’ve known him. Just about every other lawn gnome has a beard but this one. Why? What causes him to be so…him? The letter will be posted in its entirety, though it will take a few updates to get the it all down for you. I do hope you enjoy it, and enjoy Thanksgiving next week. - Jason Forte *** Dear humans, I feel the need to write to you about this subject. You’ve had interactions with us in the past, so you know a small bit about our world and our wars. What you don’t know is why the one who calls himself Kheid is attacking you. Nor do you understand why he’s beardless and must remain so for the rest of his existence. I hope this will explain it. To start with, you must understand a gnome’s beard is more than his pride. It’s his honor, his family. Its much like your last names are for you. If you can read a gnome’s beard, you know where he comes from, what he’s done in life, how he’s done it. Whether that gnome is a warrior, a nobleman, a farmer. What clan his kin come from. To whom he’s married. A beard can tell you all of this and more; and requires many years to learn how to read them. The one you know as Kheid was once young gnome called Falkurk. He had a glorious beard. Many will say his beard was the most glorious of any gnome who ever existed, but they are wrong about that. It still was glorious however, with two rings at the bottom indicating his status as a warrior, a braded mustache indicating his family’s noble lineage with three braids on each side to indicate his exact family. He still had dark streaks of black through it showing his youth, and though he was young, he already had leadership skills. When our village came under attack from a dragon, it was Falkurk who helped organize the resistance and ensure no one was lost to a dragon’s lunch. When the rain came in too heavy from the gutters, it was Falkurk who organized where the vegetables should be moved to, so they could be harvested without the humans knowing we’re moving. Falkurk was a good gnome. He wasn’t the greatest, grandest gnome you’d have ever had the pleasure of seeing in ceramic. But he was a good one. One the elders in our small neighborhood villages said he had the potential to become an elder himself on day. To be one of the few younger gnomes to reach the rank of elder. That’s what made his fall such a tragedy. The assumption is the best of all are the ones who fall the farthest. But no, I tell you meaty ones, it isn’t so. It’s the good ones, not the greatest who fall the farthest. Cause falling is easy and everyone does once in a while. But the good ones find it the hardest to stop. Like the greatest of tragedies, it all started with a girl. I’ve seen human love in it’s wonderful, strange, and sometimes angry and violent manners. I’ve known promiscuous humans who leave each other at a second glance, and nice humans who just wanted to stay together forever. With gnomes, it’s a bit different. Gnome love is nurtured and cultivated over decades. And when two of us lawn gnomes decide to get married, we don’t just sign a paper from the court house. A gnome marriage requires a single strand of beard from yours and a strand from her hair. They are woven in intricate ways into each, in a long ceremony that is witnessed and celebrated by the whole village. They can be gussied up with rings or ribbons, or sometimes even being dipped in golden ceramic. It is a long but beautiful ceremony filled with loving promises, and more than one joke thrown out from the crowd gathered to witness. They last from sunrise to sunset symbolizing their love and desire to stay together for all time. It was at one of these ceremonies that Falkurk’s life began to take a turn. Faenie was pretty. Everyone could see that. The lass that melted his heart had a wink that could make even you humans stop and take a look. But when she was formed there was a hole in her spirit. A place where the ceramic didn’t form just right. A crack that she desired to have filled. A hunger that was deeper than greed, and twice as vicious. The ceremony of Dunkin and Llydsa was carefully planned. You humans would walk by and see nothing but a few lawn gnomes sitting out in your front garden planting crops. But when you weren’t looking, as the daylight burned to twilight, Dunkin and Llydsa would be seated on two great pumpkins entwining and promising their everlasting love to one another. She stood behind Llydsa, in view of Falkurk. He saw her sly grin and the twinkle in her eye. But what drew her to him was the wink. That beloved wink that would make the whole world stop. When Falkurk saw it, he didn’t care about careful planning and placement. He didn’t care about being seen. He walked right over to Faenie and stood beside her. “Hello,” he whispered, as Dunkin and Llydsa continued their twinings. Llydsa’s red hair was over her shoulder, Dunkin’s beard was in her hands and Llydsa’s hair was in his. Their promises and musings drifted into gentle whispers that the crowd began to cheer on in our own gnomish way. “Hello back,” She whispered. “I’m Falkurk.” Faenie gave him another wink and said, “I know.” They stood and watched a while, together. Slowly, she reached over, and began to twiddle his beard with her fingers, running them along the dark streaks. Falkurk blushed, but continued to stare on, his heart racing faster than his mind. “W-who are you?” “I’m Faenie. Daughter of Elder Junith.” “Go on, kiss her you fool!” One gnome shouted from the back. Dunkin looked up from his lovely beauty and smiled upon them. “Go ahead,” he said, “I don’t mind.” Ms. Smythe was the elderly human that lived in the house of Dunkin and Llydsa’s lawn. It was upon that lawn that the ceremony was held. Ms. Smythe came home, pulling up to the house, just as Falkurk bent over to give Faenie a kiss. The gnomes all froze of course, waiting in a single spot for her to pass. Dunkin and Llydsa was bent, tending crops. The crowd around them, was paused in various poses. At least that’s what it appeared to Ms. Smythe, who shook her head in bewilderment as she walked past with a bag of groceries under one arm. “I don’t remember setting them that way,” she muttered. When she was gone, Dunkin and Llydsa went back to whispering gentle love promises to each other as they continued weaving. The whispers, kisses and promises went on as the sun set, until finally, beneath the full moon light, they both stood; him holding her hair, she holding his beard. When they stood up and held each other’s hair, facing the crowd Elder Junith stepped forward. “An old love has been woven together. And so, it has been blessed, perhaps,” she looked back at her daughter with a wink, “with new love to sprout. Let each and every gnome have no doubt about the long life they shall have together.” As the gnomes cheered, Faenie grabbed Falkurk’s arm and whispered in his ear, “let’s get out of here.” And they slipped out between the bushes, around the white house to the fence in the back. Faenie and Falkurk watched the home as the windows winked out one by one, as if the house itself was going to sleep. “I wonder what it’s like in there,” Faenie whispered. Falkurk shrugged. “Not a lot of ceramic. Think it’s all flesh inside?” Faenie chuckled. “What like them?” Falkurk blushed and looked down. “Maybe not exactly like them.” “I want one,” she said in a hushed tone. “A home for my very own.” “Well,” Falkurk said with a thoughtful tone. “I know how to reach Ms. Smythe. We can ask and get her to get something, will take some time to convince her.” Gnomes have their own way of communicating with you meaty ones. It’s a special method handed down from generation to generation. After all, we cannot just talk to you like we talk to each other and writing letters usually does us no good. Falkurk was good at communicating to you in his own way, though for any gnome it took effort. “No,” Faenie said. “I want that,” she waved her arms at the large two-story home in front of her. “I want the whole thing. We should live in there. We do more for them than they for us. We just sit here and wait and stare while they move about in their weird vehicles and carry about in their strange manners, growing feeble and dying off. We deserve to have more.” Falkurk listened to her, his eyes trained on Faenie more than the house. They sat up most of the night, talking and scheming. When he went back to his spot in the front lawn, his heart was large with thoughts of Faenie with no idea of the drama and danger that awaited him when he got to his lawn. |
| AMA number 2: Things had slowed down a bit here finally and I thought I might ask if anyone had any questions out there for us. I did get a few and I’d like to say thank you those individuals for asking and giving us an opportunity to answer. This was a lot of fun to put together, almost as much fun as it was to capture Kheid so he could answer his questions. We didn’t capture him on our own. We attempted at first, and was almost reduced to attempting to interview every lawn gnome in the county. That was why Crash got Larry to scrounge him up for us. Larry is a ceramic dragon, and works with the county part-time. He says it wasn’t easy, and now we owe Larry a basketball. A ceramic basketball. With a ceramic hoop preferably. So, if anyone has a lead on that, please let us know. Anyway, here’s a few questions posed by some of you. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. I’ll be certain to collect the answers and put them in another update sometime in the future. Crash: - Q: You find out there is a human who writes a blog about your life? How do you react? A: I laughed. Then I reminded him if he reveals too much, I’d have to eat him. Jason: I still have silver bullets, you know. Crash: You’ll go to sleep sometime. Jason: I swear, if you do that thing again where all I see is your eyes and teeth in the darkness, I will shoot you. I about wet myself last time you did that. - Q: Was the job of County Werewolf forced on you or something you chose? If you had the option to pick another career, what might it be? A: Just kinda happened into the job. I was not forced into it, more stumbled into it and took it on. If it was really anything career wise, I'd pick something with space travel. Maybe howl at the full Earth. Jason: - Q: Assuming Crash knows about the wider fantastical/mythical community, has he ever had any such guests over to the house before or said why not? Also, what species would you consider to be the most mundane and most extraordinary member of the mythical that Crash has told you about? A: Crash has had a few members of the fantastical/mythical community before. His parents has visited once, which I promised to keep out of the blog. But yeah, that was fun, and kind of weird. The new minotaur neighbors has been over a couple times. They were the most mundane. Nice couple. Does a lot of yard stuff, and in general, just happy go-lucky people. Keeps their head down and doesn’t really get involved in anything. Why I haven’t written about them, yet. The most extraordinary are that way because they're so mundane. They're someone I’ll call Freddy. He’s a real-life unicorn, a bronie, and in general a fun loving, albeit slightly chatty geek. With no actual unicorn powers. His whole entire thing is complicated, and I might write about him one day, if I get the go ahead. Though, he’s still shy about the blog. Khied: - Q: Klyde the gnome king has been turned into a cactus. The throne is now open? However, per usual every gnome king does not seem to last very long. THERE IS NO GNOME KING BUT ME AND I WILL NEVER BE OVERTHROWN! YOU WILL ALL BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP… Jason: Khied, you promised to be nice or I will be forced to introduce you to Mr. Hammer. Khied: Dirty, human, you will pay when I finally have you in ceramic. No, there is no overthrowing Khied. It is not just my name, but my title. - Q: The end goal is world domination, right? What would lawn gnomes do with the world if they had it? You will learn when I have you in my grasp, filthy human. When you are all bathed in beautiful ceramic and finally rid yourself of your awful flesh and are part of the family! You will understand….ow! Jason: Kheid, either you be nice, or next time I break something. Khied: Filthy human scum doesn’t know his place. Once we conquer the world, we must fix the world. After the world is beautiful and ceramic, we will work on finding other worlds to fix. We will bathe the entire galaxy in ceramic. Fix every other world until there’s nothing but us. |
| Life has a habit of changing and twisting. You plan things to go in one direction, and they take a sudden violent left or right turn when you’re just trying to keep things straight. That’s actually how it happened that I ended up in the military. Couldn’t get a job immediately out of high school, went into college, got part way through and figured before they kicked me out, I should have a fallback plan. My life took a violent turn. That’s honestly, how I ended up here in Crash’s place, as you well know. I planned on just drinking myself to death. Life took a violent turn and changed those plans. Coincidentally, that’s also how the whole “not going to party with the zombies” thing ended. Life took a sudden turn. Halloween came. Ghosts and goblins in all manners of costumes showed up and received candy. It’s cute to see what sort of outfits that the kids end up in. Honestly, I expected more super heroes, but we really got more generic things and video game characters this year than super heroes. Princesses and pirates, a few Barbies of course, and the traditional Dracula or werewolf. More than a couple Marios and Bowsers. Crash always gives out the full-sized candy bars to werewolves. Not that he’s biased or anything. It was strange to see him at the house for Halloween. But he assured me that this year, he’s working “the late shift”, whatever that meant. It was shaping up to be an average, normal and entertaining Halloween. No rotting ones. No “deadites” as Zack called them. The evening ended at a respectable time, with only a few stragglers after nine. There was less kids out and about this year than there was in decades past. I wasn’t surprised that there was less trick or treaters this year. After all, more than a few churches and businesses these days subscribe to the whole “trunk or treat” idea. Which is nice for the kids. They get a ton more candy in one place. But it kind of takes the fun out of it for everyone else; we get far less ghouls and goblins roaming around. After we finally turned our porchlight off, the doorbell rang. When I opened it, there was two zombies whose flesh had rotted to the point of not being able to tell who they were. I walked away and locked the door. Then the doorbell rang again and two more zombies stood there. A few minutes later, we got two more. And finally, there was a veritable zombie squad on the porch with a growing zombie platoon on our front lawn. I sighed, and opened the door. “You guys aren’t leaving until I come with you, are you?” I got a group moan and nods. “Fine,” I grumbled. “I’m only taking two in my car.” Which of course was a lie. Crash patted me on the back when I turned back inside to grab my keys. “I’m heading out soon too,” he said. “Remember, you don’t have to drink.” I nodded, growling and grumbling the whole way, while he laughed and waved at me from the door. “You kids have fun!” It’s kind of suicidal to punch a werewolf. But I did want to hit him then. Instead, I went to my car and picked up the first two zombies. Then two more. And, well, let me put it to you this way, I’m still airing out my car. The trip out to the cemetery was a nice one. In truth, I hardly recognized the place. They had found jack-o-lanterns and lined the highway with them for almost a mile or so in front of the old cemetery. The cemetery itself was much nicer than it had been before, being swept almost clean of leaves and debris. Vines and intruding plants had been cut down. And the zombies, in their own way, was trying to party. It started out with awkward talking. Me telling each of them that I’m sure their souls were in paradise, that they all looked like they had been nice people. I told stories of my own family who had passed on before, and assured them that they were remembered and missed. The Topaz provided some Halloween music from a local radio station. One of the zombies got me a soda, and well, the corpses basically swayed to the traditional Halloween tunes, but you get enough alcohol and drugs into people at a club or a concert and that’s all they do anyway is sway, so it seemed natural. Of course, I could tell which zombie was the party animal in life. He was the younger one, who managed to slip me something a bit stronger than soda. I don’t blame him, or the rest of them. After all, I recognized the flavor of alcohol. You can’t really hide it in anything. It has a heated bite in its poison that any alcoholic knows by heart. But once I had the first one, well, I guess the night had just begun. One became two. Two became four. And before you knew it, I was drunk counseling again on another Halloween with the horde of Zombies listening in rapt attention. I didn’t drive. I just kept drinking, and talking and listening to music while the sun slowly began to break on the horizon. As daylight began to grow, the zombies started wandering away, little by little. I imagine they were going back to their graves and places of rest. There is still shame in what happened, though it wasn’t my fault that I started. You see, it was still my fault that I continued. I accept that. Once you get the first taste slipped to you, it’s like being shoved down a ski slope on a snow board. Doesn’t matter if you fall over or keep your balance, you’re still going down. But still, I did continue drinking. No one asked me to finish the first one. No one asked me to finish the rest. No one asked me to drink the second bottle that was brought to me, whatever it was a bottle of. When Crash found me, I was sitting against a tombstone singing “Someday Never Comes” by Creedence Clearwater Revival as the first rays of the new sunrise hit. Crash walked up in a soft chuckle of his through the woods as the sunlight began to peak over the horizon. “Well, isn’t that ironic.” “What is,” I asked, then looked at the bottle of Jack I was holding. There was one swallow left. I tilted it to my mouth and finished it, then tossed it aside. “That person you’re sitting on died of alcohol poisoning.” “Oh,” I said. I sighed, then looked up at the sky. It spun just slightly in my buzzed state. I didn’t expect tears, but they came anyway. “I guess, I’m a failure. I didn’t intend to drink. I didn’t have to, like you said. But, look at me now. Just look at me.” Crash shook his head, and picked me up. “You’re taking the express way home,” he said, then threw me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for all…this.” He spun me back to the woods. “I’ll have Zack and Kris come get your car,” he said, as we started walking into the darkness. “You’re not upset,” I asked. “I will be if you puke on my back.” “Why?” “Cause, it will take me four or five showers to get the smell out. You know how sensitive my nose is.” I scratched his ear like he was a dog. He shook his head around a moment and looked at me. “Stop that.” I laughed. “Sorry, I just always wanted to do that.” He chuckled. “Get yourself a werewolf girlfriend then.” “Why aren’t you mad?” The trees began moving past us at a pace that would have been dangerous for me to try. Of course, for Crash it was normal. After a couple minutes, he slowed down a moment then set me against a tree. “Because,” he said, looking me in the face. “Everyone falls down sometime. It’s our job to pick each other up when we do.” Again, I don’t remember tearing up, but somehow, I was wiping tears from my eyes. “You’re always there for me,” I said. He smiled. “You’re always there for me.” We did hug. Then he picked me back up, and got me home faster than I could have driven it. Well, could have driven it if I was sober. When I came through the door over Crash’s shoulder drunk, I expected to have to apologize to everyone. But no one asked for one. Zack and Kris left in Zack’s car to pick up mine, and that was that. Not a word was said about it. It stuck with me afterwards. I think it was because I hadn’t intended to drink. I had made every effort not to drink and it still occurred. I hadn’t been in the alcohol since then, either. My streak is two days now, and counting. Each victory, though minor, is celebrated. Life is about falling down. It’s also about getting up, and who we help up along the way. A group of zombies taught me that. So, I will be at their little celebration next year, doing my duty as Undead Uber and Counselor. But next time, I’m bringing my own drinks. |
| It’s been a couple days, but I finally got my roommates to talk to me again. They say it’s my fault and it was mean. In a way, I can see how. As I’m sure you know by now, I’m the type of guy who will pick up a lost kitten on the street and take it home. I can’t just pat it on the head or step over it and ignore it. That’s the way I see a lot of these zombies. They’re lost undead kittens. No homes to speak of, no living friends they know or family they even remember. They’re just lost, wandering towards a central location in a grand celebration / gathering to remember who they were. I can’t just ignore them. Zack wanted McDonalds. I don’t mind McDonalds, and he didn’t want to drive, so he agreed to buy if I agreed to fly. Sean decided he was bored and asked to come which didn’t bother either one of us any. The trip over to the restaurant was filled with the usual jokes and chatter that’s shared amongst roommates. Sean teased me about my grannie car, I teased him back about his hair. Zack tried to join in, things like that. I have a thing about eating inside a restaurant. I don’t mind a drive thru but damn it, if I’m buying the food from a place I’d rather just eat it there than try to eat it and drive at the same time. I know, I’m in the minority, but to me It’s a more pleasurable experience to eat inside a place. Yes, even with greasy, salt covered tables, screaming kids, and a line about a mile long in front of the register. Besides, there’s no eating inside the Topaz. Everyone knows that. After a fine meal of cheeseburgers and half cold fries, we went back to my car. Or as Sean calls her “grandma.” Standing outside of my car was two zombies. The Mercury Topaz is not a large automobile by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Crash has compared it repeatedly to a compact car he could fit inside his glovebox. Which meant that either I was going to abandon two zombies here, or my roommates were about to get up close and personal with the undead. “Shit,” I grumbled. “Dude, you’re not seriously thinking of giving a ride to those things,” he asked. “Look at them! They’re like lost puppies or something,” I waved an arm in their direction. I swear the zombies looked at Sean and Zack then with as much sorrow as they could muster. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had started sprinkling fake snow over themselves. “If you let them in your car, I will seriously lose my lunch,” Zack said. “Well, it’s only to the cemetery, I know where they’re going. It won’t take long, I promise!” Sean and Zack looked at each other, a message was communicated in a single glance. Then, they cried “Shotgun!” in unison. It was too close for me to call, so they played paper, rock, scissors. Sean won. “Oh, great,” Zack groaned as we all started climbing in the car. “Oh no, deadites ride together,” Zack shouted, pointing at one who tried to get in on his side. The two zombies in question looked like a younger couple, who appeared to have the wounds of a traffic accident of some kind. I’m guessing it was a closed casket funeral. Their faces took the brunt of the damage. Green mottled skin, and maggots completed the look. They road next to each other, like a young couple unsure if what they were doing were the right thing, even though they must have been in their forties when they died. Sean rode with his head almost out the window. Zack was crammed against the door. “You’ve got to stop giving them rides,” he shouted. “This is gross!” It wasn’t a long ride back to the house, and I didn’t have to take the back roads and hit every bump on the way, or drop the zombies off first. In fact, it would have been a nice gesture to take the smooth, shorter path and drop off Zack and Sean first. It also would have been a very mean thing to stop in front of the cemetery, open the car door for the zombies, and accidentally shove them against Zack so they touch him and have to lean on him for balance. I’m not saying that’s exactly what happened. I’m just saying that sometimes I’m not a nice guy. “oh God, I can feel their skin sliding around on their flesh,” Zack cried as he threw open the door and bailed out of the car. He leaned against the side of the road, dry heaving as another zombie walked up and tried to help him up. With a banshee cry that sounded part Xena: Warrior Princess, part scared school girl who saw a rat, he jumped and rolled over the trunk of my Topaz, then began pointing and shouting gibberish. Finally, he settled on “No! No! Bad zombie!” All of this of course had the soundtrack of my laughter. As I slowly petered out Zack glared at me. “You’re an asshole,” he growled, then sat in the car and slammed the door. “Yeah, dude. Not Cool,” Sean cried then sat back down in the car. I dunno. I thought it was pretty funny. Of course, I didn’t tell them that. Instead, I looked over at the zombie who tried to help Zack up, who looked genuinely hurt. “It’s okay,” I said. “I appreciate the effort. Zack has a phobia.” I told him. The zombie nodded as if he understood, then peered through the window and waved. Zack crossed his arms in front of him, and glared at the back of my seat. He looked like a giant kid who was just told he couldn’t have ice cream for dinner. By now the dead couple had sauntered around the car and over to the cemetery. I don’t pretend to understand what they’re doing or what purpose they serve. But the cemetery did look as if it was more…I don’t know if alive is the right word, but cared for. As if they were starting to work on the upkeep for it or something. There was less vines and leaves over some of the old tombstones. The tombstones themselves appeared to be cleaned and almost legible even. I’m not certain what the zombies are doing, but I’m sure someone out there knows. I’d be glad if they’d tell me. So, yeah. I had silence from the roommates for a couple days. Then Zack gave me a new nickname: Undead Uber. “Very funny,” I said, “but I think there’s already an audio book series out there with that name.” So far, at least where Zack and Sean are concerned, the name is sticking. Crash isn’t picking it up, though. He says, and I quote “I’m staying out of this.” I’m glad he is. Halloween is literally right around the corner, and I’ll be glad when it gets here, and this whole undead thing is done for another year. |
| Last time I had it open only to Crash, but this time you can ask any of my blog characters anything. If interested, please just shoot your questions down below. Thanks! |
| As much as I wanted to help, my physical health must come first. I made that decision staring at that zombie pulling his leg along slowly as he attempted to make his way towards whatever cemetery they were using for their latest gathering. I simply could not risk diving head long into alcohol addiction again. I know what Crash said about not having to drink. But if it’s there, and I’m looking at all those corpses, I’m going to be drinking. There will be no way I’ll possibly be able to say no. So, in essence all I had to do was put my foot down. Just simply say no. No. N. O. Sorry, but I can’t make it. My invitation was lost in the mail. I’m gone on vacation. There’s no way that I will be there. Absolutely not. No. Can’t. Nuh-huh. No way, no how, no. The plan was to just tell the first zombie I saw “no thanks,” hand them back the bottle of liquor, and keep walking. Don’t stop and chat. Don’t say anything else. Just keep going and pretend they don’t exist like everyone else. It works for Zack, Kris and Shawn. Why couldn’t it work for me? Someone much smarter than I am once said ‘no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.’ Boy, this one certainly didn’t. This plan worked for all of twenty-five minutes. Well, I was stuck at a red light so, twenty-eight minutes. I didn’t cave though. However sad and depressing things may have gotten, I simply did not cave. My point may have gotten muddied, but I still stood my ground, as shaky as it grew to be. I had some bills to pay and things to do, so I prepared myself to leave the house. As for grabbing that expensive bottle of liquor, I did plan on doing it. Crash hid the darn thing from me before I could. Guess he claimed it, though he’ll swear up and down it was to prevent me from drinking it. Sure Crash. Sure. When I left the house, there wasn’t a single zombie on the street. But that wasn’t a strange occurrence. They seem to come in waves, with little to no timing or spacing for the waves themselves. All I can figure is a few free themselves from a cemetery, then they start moving as a group. Sort of the natural way us humans will do it when we’re in a city or something. I could be wrong; it could be some sort of self-preservation thing? Like the reason ducks fly in groups and such. But I wasn’t so sure. After all, who would want to attack literal walking rotten flesh? Who would try to eat or harm corpses that were past the point even buzzards would care about them? It was a short drive to the next town over. The larger community where we did most of the running around and things. Most small towns in America exist near a larger town. A place where you can bank, have access to the fast-food places you probably don’t have in your own town. Where your local Wal-Mart probably is. A bigger brother type of community, that doesn’t enjoy you being there but tolerates you mainly because mom and dad would ground him if he picked on you too much. I had gotten a new pair of shoes, did a few personal errands and was just leaving the bank when I saw them. Two corpses, both in suits. One was male and one was female, I think. Though the dirt covered condition of their clothing, the bloated and well, I won’t go into how they looked but suffice to say it was difficult to tell at this stage what their race even was let alone if they were male or female. “Look,” I said staring at the two of them. “I can’t do it. I just can’t get into drinking and all of that mess. I’m sober. I can’t slide back into that.” They looked at each other, then looked down, a sad, pathetic look on their faces. “God, you both stink, you know that,” I grumbled. They looked at each other, and each one of them, to my surprise held up a trash bag. “You want a ride.” They groaned in unison. “Fine,” I grumbled. “Keep the windows rolled down please. I don’t want the smell to linger.” They did the best they could with what they had, but eventually I rolled out the trash bags for them. Lord only knows what the traffic driving by on the highway saw or thought was going on, but at least it was quick. Thank God for small favors. They directed and I drove. Through twisting back roads and highways that only locals know. Getting stuck behind the occasional tractor going from one field to another to do….something. I’m not all that certain. I didn’t grow up in a large city, but it wasn’t exactly a farming community where I was from, so we tended to not see huge John Deere’s rumbling along the roadways. It takes some getting used to. I think I’m only five years away from getting used to it, myself. The zombies weren’t all that happy with the denial. They would occasionally groan as if asking ‘why’, and I’d have to tell them: “I’m sober. I can’t drink. And being around all of you, well, I’m living. I’m going to want to drink. As soon as I see it, I’ll drink again.” Then the ‘why’ came again. “Because, I’m addicted to it. I have a thing broken in my brain. And drinking, it does something to me. It changes me, makes me someone I don’t like being. Someone my friends don’t like seeing. It, well, it hurts so many.” Another groan that was a ‘why’. “It’s not as if I don’t want to help you! I do! I just, I don’t know what help I can be. Besides, playing taxi driver for you two I’m not certain you need my help. You have your loved ones here who cared for you a great deal. That means your souls on the other side, where ever they are, can’t be in that bad of place, can it?” The cemetery was on the side of the road. A forgotten spot that looked as if it was a family spot of some kind at one point. The shady trees gave it a nice welcoming corner of the Earth to spend a little slice of eternity in, despite being a bit overgrown. I stopped and watched as they climbed out of the road. “I would love to,” I told the zombie, “But I just can’t drink. I can’t drink.” I think finally my words sunk in, because they looked at each other, shared a glance that I didn’t know about then shuffled onward, towards the others. It was my one good deed. I at least gave them a ride, so I did help. Hopefully that will settle all of it. I won’t have to deal with these zombies anymore, and they will move on with their…well death I guess and find a new way to enjoy being unalive. Or something. There is a lost art of saying no. These days, everyone wants to shove the word down your throat, or have no ability to say it themselves. I admit, saying yes is easier than no and dealing with the repercussions later. It is after all part of how I live my life. Yes now, duck later. But, at times it’s just better to say no. Especially when it means you’ll end up doing something you’ll regret. Or something that can ruin your life. I have no regrets. I stood my ground. And now, after all this time, it’s over. Isn’t it? |
| That bottle of booze presented a problem for me. Up until that point I had been sober. I’m not, and never have been a “twelve weeks, five days, thirteen hours, thirty-six minutes, four seconds and counting” sort of recovering addict. I’m more of a “another day survived” type. True, rescuing Sarah, and going through that madness that we went through in Arkansas did help me in one respect: it allowed me to bury a lot of the heartache and self-loathing that I had about that relationship. It was eye opening how cathartic doing a simple act of kindness for her was. The poison got squeezed out of my soul, leaving me feeling fresh, empty, clean. But that doesn’t mean every day was perfect; not by a long shot. There was plenty of times when Crash came stumbling through the door complaining of needing a drink and I was very tempted to accommodate him by joining him. Not to mention that drinking is still my natural stress response. That’s what the non-addicted doesn’t understand about the addicted. No matter what you’re addicted to, whether its alcohol, drugs, eating, exercise, work, sex, collecting bottle caps, whatever it is: your addiction is your stress response. When life gets hard, it’s that addiction that’s wired into your brain that flashes first. Have an entire neighborhood of crazies chase after you to try and drink your blood? When that fun episode of spontaneous marathon running is over, you’re going to want a drink. Kheid and his stupid lawn gnome brigade decided to shove a ceramic carrot into your tire? You’re going to want a drink. Your housemate werewolf coming home coated in more blood than mud and asks you to help him hose off before he gets in the house (and before the neighbors catch him)? You want a drink. That’s part of what addiction is, to be honest. It’s your own brain telling you “This is how we handle this situation. This is how to feel better.” For the past several months now, almost going on a year in fact, I’ve been telling my brain “No, it’s not how we handle this anymore.” Most days it works. Some days, I crave, but never I caved. But that expensive bottle of booze sitting out on the front porch with the note on it, written in such desperation, well it hurt. I honestly, earnestly, wanted to tell them yes. But I honestly, earnestly, wanted to keep my lunch down, too. When you see things that are gory or horrific, part of how you deal with it is that you don’t. You don’t talk about it, you don’t think about it, and you certainly don’t put yourself into more gory and horrific situations to add to the fun flashes of memory that your brain will enjoy throwing at you when you least expect it. Most of the gang had the same advice: stay out of it. “Don’t forget,” Kris said, as he sipped a cup of coffee in the kitchen, “they’re dead. They’re literally walking sacks of meat with Alzheimer’s. All they know is they miss something. They don’t even know what it is they miss. And come a week or so after Halloween, they’ll be gone for good.” That was the general consensus. It was essentially like having a may fly as a pet. The friendship will only last so long. But the earnestness and pain in their plea, the way they were all out literally looking for me, it was beginning to get to me. Yes, I have a heart. A cold lifeless thing that pumps ice water, but it still technically counts as a heart. Watching the zombies had become something of a past time for me. In the mornings, I’d grab a cup of coffee, walk onto the porch, and watch them as they fumble and move around among the population, heading in a general direction towards one end of the county. No one ever saw them, or wanted to see them, I guess. Just a general stench of decay, dirt and death, then they moved on. Forgotten just about as quick as they smelled it. The stench written off as a dead animal, or someone passing gas. Crash watched with me one morning. It was a couple days after I’d gotten the bottle of booze and the note. We stood out on the front porch, sipped our coffee, and watched as the zombies stumbled, occasionally moaned, and moved outward in an eastern direction. “Seems their shindigs on the other side of the county,” I said. Crash sighed, and sipped out of his ‘This is my human costume, I’m really a werewolf’ mug. “Yeah, another cemetery down there. A larger one I think.” “You suppose they have a vote or something? This worm for this cemetery, that worm for that one sort of thing?” He shrugged, “Maybe. The ones who know for sure certainly aren’t going to talk.” “Not without a Ouija board or something,” I grumbled, then took a sip of my coffee. We watched a zombie shuffle. A younger man who must have gotten on the wrong end of a car accident. His leg was dragging in an awkward manner behind himself. He shuffled forward, leaned back onto it, dragged his other leg forward then shuffled again. “Is doing a nice thing worth going back to someplace awful,” I asked. “Dunno. This a place you’re thinking of staying?” “When you go to a place like that,” I sighed down into my coffee. Crash waited for me to continue. “It gets very difficult to leave. Despite how much you may want to do it.” “No one says you have to go back,” Crash said. “In the service, I figured out the appropriate time to drink.” “When was that,” Crash asked. “When I was awake.” Crash gave me a look. “Jason, you were bad, but never that bad.” “It doesn’t ever seem like it is, you know? But I did drink every night. Two beers with dinner. And every weekend. I had a method of drinking Gatorade with the alcohol, so I could wake up without the hangover.” He just shook his head. “That is a hell of a thing to go back to.” “Yeah,” I sighed. “I know they’re not alive. I’ll make them feel good for a night. They’ll make me go back to doing something stupid.” “That’s what’s bothering you,” Crash asked. I sighed, then nodded. “My kindness will be for nothing, and I’ll just have a fresh new start on an old addiction.” We watched a bit more as leg dragger finally made his way across the road. The man behind the wheel of the truck at the intersection instinctively waited as if he saw him while he crossed. Either that, or the man was busily typing away on his phone for a moment first. “Two things,” Crash said. “First, no act of kindness is for nothing. Second, no one says you have to drink.” “Crash, I’d be spending an entire night with a group of corpses that used to be people talking to them about the people they used to be. To survive a night like that, I’m going to need a drink.” “You know when you describe it like that, you make it sound a bit like a high school reunion.” “Yeah,” I said, “and to survive my last one, I had to drink.” Crash laid a hand on my shoulder. “No, Jason,” he said. “You don’t.” His words stuck with me. The phrase that almost made my mind up was my own, having a fresh start on an old addiction. But his stuck with me as well. No act of kindness is for nothing. Perhaps, somewhere, the souls of who these corpses used to be hear, know, and understand the kindness I’m trying to show them. Perhaps that will make it all worth it. But can I do something like that without drinking? That will be one stressful night. You can’t rewrite years of hardwired stress response in a span of a few days or months. It just doesn’t work like that, as much as I’d love it to. Addiction, no matter if it’s alcohol or something else, just doesn’t go away with a little will power and a can-do attitude. It takes daily work to keep in check. Helping them may mean drinking, and that will mean all sorts of trouble for me. I want to help, I sincerely do, but will my sobriety even survive this? |
| Why does trouble always find me? Why does trouble follow me around like a lost puppy searching a home? Why does trouble seem to always want me involved to solve it’s issues? And why am I such a damn sucker for all of it? Give me some sad, puppy dog eyes and I’ll always cave. Just ask Crash, who has used it to my detriment on more than one occasion. In wolf form or human, he’ll stick that lip out just so, curl those eyebrows over his eyes, and you can almost hear “hearts and flowers” playing in the background on the world’s tiniest violin. The invitation I had received in the mail I politely wrote I “No thank you” on it and dropped it back in the mail box. Part of me hoped that would end everything, but of course that’s not how life works. Especially in my little corner of the world. Can’t simply just say “no” and go about living life. No sir. Instead, they come up to you, give you those sad, dead, puppy dog eyes, and away we go, wrapped up in another crazy adventure. In the effort to avoid such an outcome, I found myself, well, it’s embarrassing. But I pledged to not hide this kind of information from you or anyone I’ll go ahead and tell you what happened. Our local town has a thrift store. It’s not attached to Goodwill or Salvation Army. It’s just a local run shop that a lady does out of the kindness of her heart. It’s a kind hearted supported place ran out of an old two-story building that looks like it was built almost a century ago. I’ve been frequenting it a couple times a week now. I want to go as John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever for Halloween. That means finding that white polyester leisure suit. And if I’m going to find one, I know this is the place to start my search. Nothing so far had proved to be fruitful, but I was hopeful. After all, people in small towns tend to hold on to trends longer than people in the city, relying a bit more on “what I like” versus “what other people think and wear.” You can find unique things being tossed out of closets in small towns. So far, I had found parachute pants, a shirt with puff-out paint on it, slap bracelets, a ruffled shirt that I swear is either from the sixties or the set of “Austin Powers”, and a pair of Doc Martins. But so far, no leisure suit. As I was searching through the pile of dead fashion choices and bad decisions, a stench of death wafted up at me that wasn’t caused by the MC Hammer pants or the bedazzled belt buckle. I looked around. One other lady was inside shopping. Though she swayed unsteady on her feet I was quite certain she was alive. Mainly cause instead of groans she asked me “do you smell a dead cat somewhere?” She moved on, mumbling something about talking to the owner of the place about it. I turned, and looked outside, and of course, there stood right at the window of the thrift store, a zombie. His pasty white flesh stood in stark contrast to the colorful makeup that was on his face. I could tell he was groaning, but couldn’t hear it, swaying back and forth in front of the window. I froze, holding the shirt in my hands for a moment. There was a sad, lost look on his face. One that tugged at my heart strings for a moment, until I remembered the smell. Oh God, the smell. Three-day old roadkill magnified by a billion. Quickly, I walked towards the back of the store. The owner was back there in her office talking to the old lady about the smell when I walked by. “Uh, you mind,” I asked, “If I go out the back?” “I don’t hun, but why you need to do that?” The owner was a bigger lady, with a large heart and a kind smile. Her cheeks almost dimpled when she smiled, almost like an overgrown cabbage patch kid, complete with adoption papers. I smiled back at her, and shrugged. “Saw my ex, don’t want to talk to her,” I lied. “Go ahead, darlin,” she said, then continued her conversation. I knew once I was out the door, they’d be searching for this mystery woman that could vex my heart so. Such is life in a small midwestern town. Everyone is friendly. Everyone wants to help. And tell everyone else about it after they’ve done so. You combine that with meth and questionable teenage pranks and you have midwestern life in America. Technically the line about seeing a woman I didn’t want to talk to wasn’t a lie. There was a woman. Sure, we hadn’t dated before. Tell you the truth, I’m not certain we ever met when she was alive. But alive she was, no longer. She was now a corpse, standing near the street, wearing an old dirty dress, mussed up hair, and maggots. I saw this blushing former beauty as I rounded the old building and started making my way towards the path back to home. She was standing near a curb, in a fairly nice dress with some dark brown smudge stains on it that could only be dirt, and two clouded over eyes, and pale white, dead skin. Thankfully, she didn’t see me as I raced by. Midwesterners are curious by nature. They love to know a little bit of gossip about their neighbors especially when that neighbor is alternating between running between buildings, slowing down in the street, and literally doing a high crawl in front of his house to get around seemingly nothing. If you don’t know what a high crawl is, think Rambo. The scene where he’s under the huts in the village trying to get back soldiers? That’s it. That’s the high crawl. What my neighbors saw was typical craziness from the crazy house on the street. Lord knows what they even think about us at this point. What I saw was a zombie standing between buildings. A zombie on a street corner, moaning and swaying, staring at me. And a zombie in front of the house, watching the front door, like it was waiting for me to come out. That’s why I crawled from the street corner, down the road, across the drive way, to get to the side door. At times scraping my face against the ground, trying my hardest to be low. To be unnoticed. To be ignored. Into the driveway. Passed my car. Up the hill towards the side door. Then I hear the shuffling gate behind me. The low moan of someone trying to say something, but not knowing what to say or even how to speak. The stench of death. I stood and ran, yelling the entire way, and slammed the door shut. “What’s wrong with you,” Zack asked, yawning. It was his day off at least. “Zombies,” I said. “They’re going to get you again,” He laughed. “No they won’t,” I grumbled, then walked towards the front door to look out. The zombie was gone. As was the rest of them. In their place sat a single bottle of one of the most expensive liquors I’ve seen. Jack Daniels has some very expensive bottles and if you get the right year and make, you can easily spend over one thousand dollars on a single bottle. What was left on our front porch next to our mailbox was one of those bottles, with a note attached. The bottle, the note it all was dirty of course and had a feint smell of death. Inside the note was a single word: “Please.” |
| Never has a strange, dirty invitation ever filled me with so much dread before in my entire life. It arrived in or mailbox at an odd time, had a scent of death upon it, and dirt smeared at the edges. Like the individual who had written it had crawled out of the ground before they had written it. It was beautiful, and reminded me of an invitation to a wedding. Though, there was no names on it other than my own, and didn’t have a location written upon it. The only thing this invitation had was a notification that I had been cordially invited too….well something. It didn’t really go further into information than that. I was invited to this grand event that they felt the need to put it on special paper, to smudge the edges with dirt, and to run it across a dead animal’s carcass before dropping it in the mailbox. The first word that came to mind filled my heart with dread a little bit: zombies. Now, zombies aren’t the armies of the walking, perpetually starving dead that want to eat your face off like they always portray in those old films. In fact, I kind of wish they were. That would be easy to deal with, by a bunch of the old school scissor type hedge clippers, sharpen the blades, mount them all around head height around the house. Wait for zombies to decapitate themselves while I drink a cup of coffee and watch. Maybe make popcorn. These zombies are more like what Crash called them: soul wrappers. After they die and the soul leaves the body, the flesh can sometimes mourn its separation I suppose. They miss the individual that used to reside in them. They wonder about who they used to be. And they hold a get together on Halloween, where they have a semi-party, semi-group therapy session. Think of it like a high school reunion of dead, rotting corpses. Last year, I ended up roped into things. Normally I’m all for getting involved in such matters, after all I’m kind of known by now for sticking my head into places where it doesn’t belong, but that is an experience that I do not want to relive. No sir. No ma’am. No way. No thank you! I almost vomited in my car when that zombie decided to hitch a ride. Not to mention all the trouble I went through with getting the smell out afterwards. Then there was the get together itself. The largest drunk therapy session I’ve ever had. And the only successful one I might add. Thing is, alcohol needs to be involved for another event like that one. There’s no way you can expect that I will do something similar again without being drunk. But I’m sober! I’ve been sober for almost a year now, and I don’t want to fall off the wagon thanks to a bunch of rotting corpses that can’t accept the fact that they’re dead. It really would be easier if they’d just desire to eat my face off. If they’d just crave human flesh. Cause then all I could do is decapitate them and call it a night. But in reality, doing such a thing may free me of my obligation, but I was never one to throw puppies into a sack and toss them in a river. Decapitating these walking dead would feel just like that. Like I was just killing the innocent simply because I could. Crash has liked my newly minted sobriety. Talks of me getting a steady job has started up again. I’ve even typed out a few applications, though I haven’t gotten any callbacks yet. Maybe it’s my resume? Perhaps I shouldn’t have “recovering drunk” down as my current occupation. Hmm… Zack, Kris and Shawn has even commented on me being a nicer person now that I’ve stopped partying with Jack, the Lord, and their Captain. Drinking on that night to deal with what I must do would possibly toss all of that away. The chance at an actual job. At a kinder relationship with my roommates. At a different kind of future. But maybe I’m just overthinking things. No one says I have to drink to do that. No one says I have to do it at all. What was it that Kris said? Lock the door and don’t ask questions? I could do that. But I’m not that kind of person. It’s part of the reason I joined the military in the first place, after all. I was never one to just duck my head in the sand and pretend that things would magically get better. Either you accept the world is crashing down around you or you jump head first into the mess and try and fix it. But this year, my therapy couch is closed. Maybe that’s what I should write on this stinky invitation. No thank you, I’m done. Once was enough. I don’t need a repeat performance. No way! You’re not getting me. You hear me zombies? Not this year. No! Not This Year! |
| I'll give a state of the blog. First, the reason. This week was going to be a brief posting on AI and a small rant from Jason that was mainly about how bad the images where, (cause I had bing do a few images and they're bad), but instead I'm having a fight with back pain this morning which is shattering most of my concentration. Guess that's what I get for waiting until last minute to write it. Usually I start the post on Tuesday or Wednesday, then make corrections until friday and post. The blog itself: Well, I've had a total of about 50 posts, 8656 all time views as of this posting, including 4257 this month alone. From all of those views, I've made a grand total of: $.46. Lol, I definitely don't do this for the money. Advertising: Well, I do advertise it in one area and have been spending around $20-30 a month on it. Good thing I'm not in this for the cash. Characters, well I've introduced several which I'm not certain who the favorite is so far as far as characters go. Anyone got any ideas? Who's yours? I've had a total of 15 comments so far. And 2 subscribers. Can't help but feel I'd have had a lot more if I'd have just gone with blogger to start with. Ah well, you live, you learn. I do have questions for you guys though if you're willing to answer them. Who is your favorite hero? Who is your favorite villain? Who is your favorite side character? Is there any quests you'd really like to see? Any other mythical creatures you'd really like me to tap into? Just curious. I'd be grateful if you answered, but of course answering is not mandatory. Thank you all so much for reading. |
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