Screaming, But Not Zombies

Ick.

No sooner does the park bridge ramp go back in over the Clallam River, than we get screaming.

I thought somebody got cornered on the sand spit. Most people up here know enough to look out for what's on the beach, and not let the confused and sandy Dead surround them in the surf. Choice of being sucked out by the undertow in cold water or getting crunched as an afternoon snack.

Just for the record: 16 sooty shearwaters, 
3 common murres, 1 loon. :(

Not even kids get caught that way up here, growing up as they do on full alert, even when they're throwing each other's bicycles in the river (local prank; they just haul them out and return the favor).

Only tourists too intent on finding beach glass or agates get bitten and then have to be hauled away by the Fire Department to - well, wherever they take the bitten. Putting out fires, teaching EMT classes, supervising fireworks for the dragon dance and saving kittens isn't enough, I guess. Probably re-opened the old sanitarium in Sedro Wooley. Dolphin helicopters - not just for guys who get their livers cut in half by a sheet of plywood.

It was a tourist screaming this time, but it wasn't an attack of the undead, only a bunch of birds caught in a net and washed up really quite completely dead on the beach. But still, it's pretty sad, and the shops and art gallery are all unhappy about it. Not only does everybody hate seeing a bunch of nice birds getting killed for carelessness, but the smell is going to draw the wrong element. And right there at the end of the bridge ramp, too, right where people who haven't a clue are going to be taking their picnic lunch, and never thinking they'll be one. 

Try to get the Chamber of Commerce to put up a zombie warning sign. Tsunami escape routes, yes; zombies, not so much. 

Back in the book, back on the road

OK, thank Goddess I found it. Guess it was in the stack all along, and I just didn't see it? Strange, I thought I went through this whole pile earlier and now it was on top of Are You My Mother even though I got it from the library Thursday before last and haven't read it since that first look through. But my book went missing before that, didn't it? Here's that last bit about the park. At least I didn't lose it out there. Those other two pages are gone, don't need that in here now. This is all about going ahead, the future, life, new skills I don't know I possessed, my craft, not looking back and being stupid. So easy to do, but I keep my word. It's on me now but I can take it and I will never let her down. Was that pink smudge on the back before? And was this page corner bent down like that?? OK, no smoke for awhile, at least I didn't actually lose it. Didn't have to ask about it and get Mom started again and thinking she has to send me back to the shrink. Again. 

At least now she knows that I know, and I'm ready to tell, so we're not bringing it up anymore and that's good. A bit sad it has to be this way, but it works. She knows I can take care of myself. Thanks for not being there, Mom. No, I do mean Thanks. Our families keep pushing our buttons because they installed them. She installed some good ones on Trashley. Me, I escaped. Knowing when to escape is another of my powers. She keeps saying I seem so old for my years. If she only knew.

Anyhow, The Face is so looking forward to graduation and will miss all those friends, yeah sure I do, and The Face says it is time to move on into the world and blah blah blah and I'm going to look for a job and I'm looking into SCCC.  As if I'd waste the money on that. As if I need a job now. They can believe whatever they want. I know what I'm here to hear, here to do, here to become. Just get away from the noisenoisenoise, the full of empty, the walking dead. Now that she's gone, there's nothing left here. Tomorrow I'm getting the mini and soon the money will be mine and then the wings unfold, and I'm off to land's end. And beyond.

Zombie Snacks

Pick up your mess, zombie dude!

Dude. I know you're a Zombie, but if you're GOING to eat somebody and throw away the bits you're too lazy to pick the meat out of, pick up the litter, will you?

You will make KIRO News crazy if you leave rotting feet all over the beach for everybody to trip over.

BLAGH. Living with these dead people is like living with a really bad little brother.

Driving With Zombies

Elk herd, not looking at zombies.
But then again, you never know.

Damn damn damn damn damn. 

Add a speeding logging truck and some old guy on - or off - his meds, and I'm lucky they put all those guardrails on Highway 112 a few years back. Otherwise, it would have been me in that gully by what's left of Pillar Point. Yay Triple A and towing insurance. Up here, you get 200 miles on the policy, or you don't bother buying it.

Now I'm going to have to save up to fix the car - and take the bus until Gary can get the parts. I mean, Fernandez Enterprises is the best place to take the car, now the zombie shop has had to run because of all the liens, filed-off VIN numbers and funny noises upstairs in the old warehouse where they kept their shop. 

But Gary knows I'm not really glad to see him except at the mirror-ball dances in the Sekiu Community Center. He shows up in his black mechanics overalls and dances with all the girls. The only other person who plays Pan to the dancing community is Scott the UPS guy. That's only when the Magic Negro music company - the former DJ - show up to scratch his tapes (Hey, I don't make up these company names; don't look at me). If it's Loose Gravel, we get Zombie guys who think it's cool to wear their rubber boots to a dance. Dudes. It's not 1895 any more. Or even 1950. 

At least when we hear that fast bluegrass - and the band has definitely improved since it got a new member - we know to keep our backs to the wall at a dance, and keep the cops on tap in case some guy thinks a face is part of the potluck. When The Soul Ducks are playing - the real down-and-dirty hard mud blues - all bets are off. You want to be really careful about allowing anybody to swing you for the Sugar Push. It's why the girls prefer to dance crazy in a bunch by themselves; safety in numbers.

Wouldn't you know I wouldn't have a car when I have to go to Port Angeles to do some real honest-go-godlets research at the Library? Our local library branch is pretty good, but it's all murder mysteries and books on how to rebuild your deck, skin game, and that back-corner graphic novel collection for the kids. "Back corner" is why they took out the bean-bag chairs, but I'd think that knowing the teens were back there snogging would at least put some parental minds at rest. I mean, in the library they can't really smuggle in beer before driving. Or getting the back of their heads bitten off when they're not paying attention.

Anyway, we're really in good shape with the Clallam County Transit. $3.00 all day, any bus, and pretty decent schedules, in and out of town. Will have to remember to take a flashlight, in case I need to flag a bus down on one of the out-of-town roads. And a hatchet.

Paper is good. It burns.

IF ONLY 
IFONLYIFONLYIFONLYIFONLY
if only i'd told you 
lots of things
we could have gone if you could only have waited
never have to hear them or see them
leave them and this TOXI-city far behind
they were nothing NOTHING 
they were always nothing but cruel dead people
vicious children from vicious homes
what they said always meant NOTHING
I would have had money and you had a car
it would have been perfect if you had only waited
If only i'd told you 
you could go to life, not death
we both could have gone to life
your car could have brought us to life not you to death

just a little longer
time is another enemy now
I was going to tell you but I said I wouldn't
and I still believed she knew something I don't
she knows nothing
Mother smother

and your mom smiled when she said that wet cold night before it happened you were burning lots of papers in the fireplace and one was a green notebook she smiled and said some fangirl crap that is what she said and she smiled OHGODIFSHEONLYKNEW 
She is another dead one
Mother smother
WHYWHYWHYWHY 
why did you not let me see more
it was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen
and it was from you it was so you it was all you
IFONLYIFONLYIFONLYIFONLY
am I the only one who knows it wasn't an accident?
Am I the only one left now?

And all you left was
Don't let anyone know about us don't tell anyone
They could only rape me, they would kill you
I still don't understand
no matter how much my hand writes this down I don't understand 
but I trust you even now that you are gone
I will never tell

even though I know somehow you are still here
I heard you in the woods walking behind me but I look and you aren't there and I heard you in the wind when all the noise was gone but maybe this is just something not true that I want to believe or maybe I hope you will see this somehow, I want this to be you with your hand on my shoulder now but maybe it is just me again

but this I do know
I will never tell anyone
never tell a soul

is this helping? I don't know anymore.

I think nobody knows