Crazy...

I don't know how much time I have to write, so I will be brief...

Freekin' Zombies! Can you believe this shit?

And leave it to the GOP to turn in to a "Get Out The Vote" drive. Fortunately, I never made it to the LA National Cemetary. From what I hear, everyone who did is either dead or undead.

Right now, there are about a dozen of us, holed up in Gallaghers in Long Beach. Big glass frontage means we can be seen but if we don't move around too much we don't draw attention.

At least I can get a drink...And Ciaran has cricket bats and hurling sticks on the walls...

I was running late to the event because the 405 was unusually crowded, so I got off at Wilshire, thinking I could make my way there on surface streets. However, there was a squad of DHS guys in what looked like Bradley fighting vehicles cordoning off the VA Hospital and Federal Building, so I had to back track further into West LA and try to come at it from the south.

That's when I saw the first one. Looked like some homeless guy walking down the median, and he looked injured. I asked if needed a ride, and with surprising speed, all the more for lacking most of his lower jaw and his left foot, he sprang at the car...

Further down near the office for former Congressman Steve Kuykendahl, there were a bunch of teenagers in Victory '08 t-shirts trying to hand out voter registration cards to a badly organized line up of what looked like freshly exhumed corpses.

Every now and then one of the volunteers would have to stiff arm one of the creatures to retreive a pen or form without getting their arm gnawed off.

I saw those odious fake Christian protesters out there with their giant signs proclaiming the loving wrath of God. They were not being attacked, but it was tough to say whether they were Zeds or not. They kept trying to get the attention of the others and pointing away towards West Hollywood... I shudder to think why...

There was a guy that looked like State Sen. Pete Knight, standing on truck bed with a large caliber hand gun making a speech to the crowd with a giant megaphone, about the need for them to get out there and help get America back to its traditional values.

Then he would shoot one or two of the buggers if they got too close. I didn't hang around that long to see what happened next. All I could think about was trying to get back to Long Beach before day break.

The next several hours were a night mare, trying to make my way back towards Long Beach down the coast. I kept trying L. on the cell phone, but only managed to get through once for about 15 seconds. She muttered something about United Rentals, a place she used to work.

Great, I thought, she's gone crazy... Couldn't reach Biz or s9, although s9 has since made contact through the blog... we're comin' brother...

Anyway, made it as far as San Pedro by dawn. There was a red haze of smoke over LA and Long Beach from numerous fires. It looked like at least one refinery was ablaze. The streets were deserted and I sought refuge in a Starbucks at the top of 25th Street that looked relatively in tact.

I tried to get a text message out to L, letting her know where I was. No reply.

Every once in a while I saw a few shambling figures, go down the street. But as the morning wore on, I noticed more and more of them seemed to be ambling about. A few tried to get into the Starbucks at one point, although I had barred the doors.

Even beyond the freekin' grave, ya gotta have that double cap in the morning...

It was about noon when I inadvertently knocked over a coffee urn, and drew the attention of about a dozen or so Zeds outside, who immediately, and with frightening alacrity, began trying to force their way in...

They had almost beaten my puny barricade, when I heard a great big engine sound followed by a lot of crashing... that's when the front wall of the Starbucks gave way. I thought I was done.

The Zeds (as I'd taken to calling them), had not gone down to the water front for large construction equipment.

L. apparently had. She had pretty much scooped away most of the crowd immediately in front with a large skip loader/bulldozer combination. Now I understood the reference to United Rentals.

She packed the cab with many of our favorite home defense weapons, some Boken, a couple of long blades, an aluminum baseball bat she found.

She said there was a small group of people already in Gallagher's, mostly regulars who wanted a final drink before last call. It was about 12:30 by the time we got there.

After a couple of quick pints and an attempt to find broadcast media saying anything besides "stay in your homes" we are formulating a plan...

We are going to take as much of the canned food from here as we can hold, and go steal a sail boat to sail up the coast, we are planning to leave as soon as we can, although I am still trying to reach Biz.

I figure with decent winds, it should take no more than a week to make it to the Golden Gate. From there, we need to get to Suisin Bay to find S9... Perhaps I'll, have more once we have busted out of here...

mojo sends