In the Silence before the Dawn of the Dead

I woke up this morning fairly certain the world had been taken over by zombies. Not the kind of zombie everyone is at 5:30am on a Monday morning – not that type. Nope, I’m talking about the rip you to pieces eat your face off sort of zombie.

As I lay there, emerging from what must have been one heck of a dream because it was hanging on even as my brain sought consciousness to deal with it, I could hear sirens outside; I knew that sound for firefighters on their way to an emergency. “Stop,” I wanted to yell. “Stop firefighters! That’s not a fire! That’s zombies! They’ll eat you!” But I didn’t. They wouldn’t have heard me.

At this point my left brain started to wake up and tell me that no, the world had not been taken over by zombies. It would be safe to get up, go downstairs, have my cereal and leave the house. But my right brain was still in overdrive telling me that the moment I stepped outside a zombie with half its face torn away would jump me and garner for itself the most important meal of the day.

Then my imagination really cycled up. What would happen with the four of us stuck in our townhouse with zombies outside? What would happen to my 3 year old son? My 10 month old daughter? My left brain knew this whole thing was pointless but right brain was just getting started. I don’t feel fear much, mostly because I’m removed from scary things, but I was starting to get afraid.

All those times my wife suggested we should have an earthquake preparedness kit echoed in my brain pan. We’d only done a partial shop for the week food was going to run out a lot quicker than it would have had the zombies comes last week. What would we do then? Someone would have to go to one of the giant stores and cram as much in the car as we could… and that someone would probably have to be me.
I don’t have a gun. I don’t have a bat. I couldn’t even try to choke a zombie with my PS3 Controller because its wireless…

… and then I sort of fell back to sleep and woke up 10 minutes later. It makes me realize my part in a zombie movie would not be as hero – not even as villain. I’d be the guy who got eaten halfway through the movie; just another guy. Just another meal in Zombie Land

I’m glad it was just a dream. I’m safely at work now and no one has tried to eat me… though my co-worker is kind of eyeballin’ me funny.