03/14/11 Back-to-school shopping with five delinquents and my grenade...


There aren't many comforts in the apocalypse, other than drinking away your feelings. As if karma and dehydration hadn't punished me enough already, Doc was on my ass about alcohol abuse. Well, excuse me-- surely the end of the world can wait an hour while I mope around in self pity. To recap: woke up with a hangover. Sniped a whole group of walkers (without falling off the roof, mind you) saving Vallerie's sorry ass again. Then some horse-riding cowboy showed up to tell us there's a new sheriff in town: the Pierce County Local Militia. Fuck that! Even walkers make better company than fascists.

I figured that was the last we'd see of him. We took a quick trip down to the ports, where Tracy almost immolated us all on accident. I'll admit the explosion rivaled my biggest hits. While looting some storage containers, we heard all hell break loose in the distance; guess that was the hospital which the Militia occupied (key word: was). I had almost forgotten about cowboy by now, but he came back from the hospital scared shitless. Claimed to be the only one who survived the massacre at the PCLM. I was skeptical, but figured we could at least put him to work. Cruising down the streets of Tacoma towards Pacific Lutheran University with my Priscilla and his horse, Tatsu, we were a strange sight. Little did I know, everything would go downhill from there.

I never had the opportunity to go to college. My parents raised me to be a housewife, obedient to her husband, with all the skills of a homemaker. And when I ran away, living off a seamstress' salary, I sometimes fantasized about going. Realistically, the apocalypse was my only chance to. We expected to find plenty of food in the cafeteria, and maybe some tech-y equipment for Doc. Instead we ran into a sickly girl, clearly gaunt and unstable. Her "family" had turned, and she was... feeding them live animals as she slowly starved. We dispatched the cannibal family, while Vallerie rushed in to save a baby pig. Things didn't end well for the girl, I'm not proud of it. Vallerie took it especially hard.

...And that's how I ended up on pig duty. As you might guess, the day didn't end well for him either. All the noise attracted walkers, and we were swarmed. Cowboy really is unlucky; he was crushed by a door and then bitten. Vallerie amputated the infected limb on the battlefield-- hardcore stuff. I covered our asses with a grenade, and we took off like bats out of hell. We swerved into the forest, and Tatsu broke her back in the fall. I was the only one willing to put her out of her misery. Don't I know, there are worse things than death. The rest of the group made it back, rattled and injured, but mostly whole.


Sorry doc, but I deserve another beer after all that. You thought you found them all? Better luck next time.
S. Smoke