7/24 6:30pm

What a rush. Here's how it went down.

It started off directly enough. Dave showed me a few hand signals so we'd be able to communicate without words. Knew some of it from movies, pretty simple stuff. Fist up to stop, point to show where to go, patting your head to show who would be the distraction (like I want that job).

We made a beeline through a fallen part of the chainlink fence. Dave had already coached me on this. We'd run quick and quiet until a moaner saw us, then run to it and pop it fast. Dave had left, I had right. We would make a beeline to the door of the WalGreens, dropping any that saw us, unless a pack came about.

The newly fanged bat worked like a charm. If a goner saw me and raised it's arms toward me, I could brush aside the grasping hands with the smooth end. When I had an open shot at the head or neck, the wicked nails penetrated skull straight through to brain matter. Much less force necessary to kill the brain that way, while still having good reach and pushback.

Quickly enough, we made it to the store. Dave pushed open the unpowered automatic door, and we headed inside. He paused, wheezing for breath, “gotta get my meds.” I made to head in a separate direction from my overweight companion, but he swatted at me. "What the hell d'you think you're doing? You want to skedaddle off to find moisturizer and have the damn stockboy eat your back? Never go anywhere on your lonesome. Do that, we both die... Damn civvies."

I wanted to tell him I'd been doing just fine for weeks without him. However, it's hard to be believed when you were the one who was stuck in a tree, not the other guy. So, I nodded, and we set off down aisle 1, toward the pharmacy in the back.

Dave and I worked down the row without incident until one a moaner turned out to have a friend. Dave sliced straight through the neck of the obvious one-- a tattered and worn businessman. However, Dave didn't see his business partner, a moaner that, for whatever reason, didn't have use of it's legs. Not seeing it, Dave actually stepped into it's reach. Despite being dead, those things have a hellofa grip, and Dave almost went down when the legless one grabbed his ankle. He yelled, and I spun. I saw it and smashed it's arm, forcing it to release it's grip from Dave. He had by then brung up his shotgun, pointed it in the general direction of the pitiful creature, and blasted away, both barrels.

Something I did not realize before the world went hellish is the actual volume of a weapon. When I watched movies, super spies and their arch enemies would carry on witty conversations while blasting at each other. Soldiers would mow down half a forest to kill an alien, but still be able to hear the crack of a twig that meant it was actually behind them.

As Dave would say, all that is "God damned Horse Shit." Dave tells me now, sitting at the campfire, that a single shotgun round sounds off at "a hundred fifty decibels, or whatever they call it." That, he assures me, is louder than a jet taking off.

Both barrels would be even louder.

I can't put words to the volume. Scared the ever loving religion out of me. I jumped back, hit the aisle behind me, and knocked the entire shelf backward. It fell into aisle 2, which in turn hit aisle 3, and so on. This went on for about thirty seconds. As Aisle 15 collapsed into the far wall, clattering heavily, I looked to Dave, then the fallen shelves, then the door. A moaner in the parking lot turned toward the building, then another. Dave stared at me. More to himself than me, he muttered something. My ears were ringing for hours afterwards (still are, in fact), but it looked a lot like his mouth formed the phrase "oh shit." We had just rung the bell for every one of Dead Ed's friends that dinner was served.