It Only Gets Worse

In the course of remastering Bleeding Kansas, I came across this scene. I rather like this one, setting us up for the horrors to come:

Officer Dalton pushes his way out the glass front doors. He turns back to us as he’s halfway through. “Don’t forget to lock these doors. In fact, I’d feel a lot better if you did that right now.”

I turn to Angie. “I’ll get the keys,” she says.

Officer Dalton watches as Angie retreats into the office behind the front desk. He turns and walks away across the front plaza. He’s out of sight before the door falls shut.

Looking about the lonely plaza, the vast and empty city beyond, I wonder who or what the hell out there might possibly require the attention of a man with a gun. And then it hits me. Finally, after all my encounters among wheezing, sick people at home, in that cab, at both airports, after watching the streets drain of cars, trucks, and pedestrians, seeing even the Queen of All Cable News facing her mortality, it hits me. 

The world has passed away. As in, “coughed, vomited, convulsed, and died.” The rest of us are just hanging around waiting for formal services to be over, so whoever’s in charge of all these armed goons can tell us what to do next.

Good Lord, Claire, maybe it was just as well for you. I’m so sorry you had to suffer like you did on the way out but, for all I know, you’re being spared from worse. I can only imagine what I’ll find when I get home. Assuming they ever let us out of here. I can only pray Sybil and Jack are together and safe.

I’m sure a lot of people have been praying these past few days. As that guy on TV used to say, “How’d that work out for them?”

I surprise myself with how dark I go sometimes. Just wait until those mass burials get going. Hilarity will ensue. A very macabre hilarity, the kind only a demon from Hell itself would appreciate.

Some of the post-mass burial hilarity can be found “In the Night Kitchen” and “Escape from Dead City.” Of course, for the price of a happy hour beer in your favorite sports bar, you could just buy the books. Buy the German language edition for the cover alone!