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June 13th, 2007

10:42 pm - Day 1, On the Revelle ( http://myelvesaredifferent.blogspot.com/2007/05/blog-like-its-end-of-world-bliteotw.html ) The calls started coming in to the newsroom around 10:00 in the morning. The first one was from a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Sanders, begging us to start running a warning message on our website, everyone should stay in doors, everyone should remain calm. Any reports of "Street Shufflers" were merely the result of panicked mass delusion. A colleague who covers homeless issues approached my desk, she told me she was getting calls from her sources in the homeless support community - the homeless had become violent, attacking tourists in Balboa Park, and stalking the white collar drones downtown. And not just a little violent - really nasty stuff, like limbs torn from shoulders and brains getting eaten. I grabbed my notebook and camera and headed downtown. My colleague had underestimated the carnage. I parked near City Hall. There was little noise aside from an occasional distant scream and the sound of horns blaring on Interstate 5, less than a mile away. I walked past a parking structure onto the pavement and flagstones of Civic Plaza. The sun shone like a normal San Diego day. The fountain threw water into the air as it has every day since we arrived last June. But there were no people. None. Just some strange red streaks on the ground near the buildings. Then I heard it. A low moan to my left. A man in a suit lurched toward me, his left hand held out in front, grasping the air. The other arm was missing, his suit jacket torn at the seem. He moaned again. I knew my zombie movies, and I took off. As I turned around, another zombie emerged from a nearby doorway, and saw me as it game out. I an for the car, unlocked the door and got in. The zombies pounded on my rear windshield as I took off through the empty city side streets. I'm pretty sure I recognized a third one shuffling toward my car. She was the spokesperson for the Council president, a mother with two kids and a betty page haircut. Not any more. I remembered my plan with nacl . I sped north to La Jolla, staying carefully on the side roads. Only once did I run into an obstacle, on Rte 52, where an accident blocked the road. I managed to get around by driving up on the embankment. Finally the last road ended at a parking lot. I was as close to the Scripps Pier as I could drive. If I wanted to get to my assigned meeting place with nacl , I would have to walk. Or, rather, run. Running at top speed, I got to the pier, where I found a pair of zombies rattling at the fence. I picked up a rock and brained the first before the second noticed me. When it turned around, nacl  hooked it by the neck with some kind of pole or instrument she'd found. A hard yank and the head separated from the shoulders, and the body collapsed. She relocked the fence as I yanked a whaler over to the crane. Together we got it lowered and into the ocean. Tonight we sleep on the Revelle. Tomorrow we'll head out to Pacific Beach to pick up LK for redbeard , and some other relations of scientists and crew members who made it here. Then, I hope, we'll meet with redbeard  and other survivors at Farrallons. This was not how I expected to spend my weekend. Current Mood: distressed Tags: zombies

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