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Then I saw three more of ‘em coming up the road. I threw my ’60 into the back of the truck, got in the cab, and ran those things over quick.

The wife had put my M16 in the cab of the truck, along with the .357 and her hunting rifle. I took the pistol, and she took the ’16. We made a beeline for my parents’ house.

We got there, and we had to shoot a couple of those things to get to the door. My parents were busy carefully loading their rifles. They were taking a goddam long time about it too. Well, when you’re eighty-five you just can’t move all that fast.

I tried to get them to come with us, but they were stubborn like a couple of granite bulls. They had too much medicine to carry, and besides, they said, it’ll blow over.

I tried to argue with ‘em, but you can’t argue with people that old. Ma kicked me out of her house. Me and the wife left. We saw some of the creatures making their way up the street. I hoped the parents had plenty of ammo..

There weren’t too many creatures yet, so we didn’t use up much ammo on the way. We got to the dock where my boat was. There weren’t any creatures there yet, so we got the guns on my boat quick.

I started the engine, and the wife ran back to the truck to get…some damn thing. We don’t have a lot of bums in York. Fuckin’ great luck the only one in town had been napping under the dock, when the cirrhosis got him. He crawled out, and started for my wife.

I grabbed my .30-06 and tried to take aim. The goddam boat was pitchin’ just enough to throw my aim. I fired off a couple a rounds, but best I hit was the bum’s shoulder. He just kept right on after my wife. I yelled to her, but she couldn’t hear so well at the best of times. I got onta the dock, but by this time a good shot to the bum would hit the wife.

It was then she turned to come back, with an armload a stuff, and she ran smack into ‘im. I was runnin’ to her at this point, but not fast enough. He took a big ol’ chunk of her face, got that whole too big nose I always had to forgive, and part of a cheek.

All the noise of her shriekin’, me yellin and me shootin’ had attracted a few more things. I recognized some of my competition from lobsterin’ wanderin’ hungry towards my wife.

I told ya, I’m a practical man. I couldn’t save my wife, so I did her a favor and blew her head off. Then I got in my boat and headed to open water.

It’s April now, and I been to dry land three times, for fuel, and some nets. Had to be able to catch fish. There ain’t a lobsterman I ever met who’d eat those fuckin’ things. Lobsters I mean. The shit they eat (and I mean that literal-like) you realize they’re just a walking sewer treatment plant.

I heard a couple a transmissions on the radio, somethin’ about a bunch a people holed up in Wal-mart. Fuck that. I don’t want to be where I can be snuck up on.

There’s a small group of islands, not too far off shore called the Isles of Shoals. I put ashore there on occasion. It took me a while to clear the Isles of dead people, but I did it. Mostly, I keep on the water.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, I ran into a Navy patrol. This fuckin’ destroyer hauls ass over the horizon one day, starts trying to get me on the radio. I ain’t fuckin’ answerin’ them.

Well, they pull up alongside, and the skipper get’s on his bullhorn, and starts yellin’ at me. This sonofabitch tells me that since I didn’t answer their hails, they consider me hostile.

Fuckin’ right I’m hostile, I says. I don’t like being told how to behave.

He tells me that martial law has been declared, and I’m obligated to obey his commands. He says they gonna draft me! At my age!

Simon says go fuck yourself, I says to him.

He is empowered to use deadly force to gain my compliance, he says.

Better shoot me then, I says.

I am the stubbornest sonofabitch he’s ever met, he says.

Thank you. Now fuck off, if you would, I says.

Blow him, he tells me.

We trade one-finger salutes, and they fuck off. And that’s the last contact with the living I had for a long time. I’ll go back to dry land eventually. At least there won’t be any goddam tourists and Yuppies.