It used to be a stupid hypothetical question: Where would you retreat to during a Zombie Apocalypse?  Vic and I had agreed we would fall back to Max’s.  With no windows and only a single door, the bar was easily defendable.  It was chock full of makeshift weapons: broken bottles, pool balls and sticks (and probably a gun near the register).  And most importantly, we’d toast, there must be at least a year’s supply of booze there.

But Max’s was now probably just as overrun with Synners as Pepper’s.

So I found myself driving down the highway back to the town of Mason.  I had lived in Mason for most of my life.  I grew up with the same group of friends through elementary, middle, and the beginning of high school.  But after my junior year, we moved from Mason to a smaller home in an older neighborhood.  Dad claimed we no longer needed such a large house with David, and eventually me, moving out.  But I knew the real reason: my parents needed the money for David’s tuition.  I was uprooted before my senior year at Mason High (and thus, denied graduating with my lifelong friends) so that David could go to USC.

During my final years at Mason, my friends and I would regularly go to The Pipe to drink and smoke pot.  (Actually, my friends smoked.  I stuck with drinking; weed made me paranoid.)   The Pipe was an actual cement pipe, as big around as a car tire, partially sunk into the earth, which served conveniently as a bench.  It was located in a clearing deep in the woods next to Mason.  How it got there had been the center of much drunk and stoned debate.

And so I was retreating to The Pipe during the Zombie Apocalypse.

Actually, Synners were not zombies, I had to admit.  Synners weren’t violent.  Quite the opposite, they were excruciatingly docile.  Driving down the traffic-free highway, I had noticed several cars randomly parked on the side of the road, the passengers serenely sitting on the gravel shoulder.  And now driving through the Mason suburb, I saw several families lying haphazard on their front lawns.

I parked at the end of a cul-de-sac, grateful that the woods hugging it were still there, that the area hadn’t been developed into more tract homes.  The Pipe lay roughly a mile beyond.

Opening the trunk of the station wagon, I slipped on the bulky camping backpack.  This is going to be a bitch, I thought as I grabbed hold of the heavy baskets laden with 18 cans of food and two gallons of water and whisky.  The forested trail to The Pipe involved following a winding creek to find a shallow spot to cross, as well as cutting the corner of a bordering tilled field.  (Though I never encountered it myself, I heard tales of the farmer sometimes shooting at trespassers.  But walking along the field’s parameter nearly doubled the distance to The Pipe.)

I put the baskets back down, broke open the jug of Old Timey, and took a long swig.

That’ll fractionally lighten the load, I thought.

To be continued…

(Or read the story in its entirety in Goddess.)