If I hadn't seen it...

I wouldn't believe it.

(This posting was a part of My Elves are Different's "Blog as if it's the end of the world" event. It is about a zombie invasion, and entirely fictional.)

I thought this was all a rather tasteless joke. With all the crap going on in the world right now, there are times when I'd be willing to believe anything. But this? This is just wrong. It's unnatural. It's IMPOSSIBLE.

But I saw it nonetheless.

I had said that it had got quiet outside. It had. Then it got loud, and louder, as I heard emergency vehicles crisscrossing the city. I hadn't thought much of it, figured it was just a five-alarm fire across town, and there was nothing on CNN or MSNBC or the other news outlets about it. Most of the big political bloggers hadn't written anything either. So it may have been bad, but not THAT bad.

That's when I got the call. Remember I said I have contacts? A few are in the military, and they began telling me about all the "training exercises" they're dealing with. One of them, an airman who owes me a few favours, let me know that he could swing by in his helicopter to pick me up. I thought this was a little excessive, but it's been a while since I've gotten a chance to ride with him, so what the hell, right? He said to wait outside on the roof of the building, but to be cautious.

So I get up to the roof. It's normally locked, but they're cleaning, and the cleaners have a tendency to leave the door unlocked. I head to the roof, and that's where I heard the sound. It was this low, long moan, and it was everywhere. That's when I got a little worried. I walked over to the railing. I looked down.

The streets weren't empty anymore.

They were clogged with flooding humanity. Some of them scurrying around at breakneck pace, others moving disturbingly slowly. In the distance, along with the moan, I heard screams and pleading. The roof was too high for me to get a close look, but my first thought was "oh, crap, this Azerbaijan nonsense caused the Russians to launch!"

(But then why the pickup? This city would be ashes already by the time we got clear.)

I waited for something like ten minutes before the transport helicopter arrived. The moan got louder, and closer, and started becoming more distinct. I began to hear individual voices, and some of those voices I recognized. My friend (sorry, have to keep names quiet) screamed at me to jump in, and I was barely in before he already started taking off. I stumbled to a seat, and looked down on the roof I had just recently occupied.

That's when I saw them start to emerge from the door I had walked through, just ten minutes ago. People who I had known for years, people I counted as friends.

They were dead.

They were walking.

We've got zombies.

I'm currently in one of those famous "undisclosed locations". I had to cash in practically every favor I had going in order to get here, but I think it's safe enough. Fortunately, they've got more computers than people here, and they can easily mask the IP so nobody knows where I'm actually blogging from. People will think it's the normal location if they checked the IP. Let them. I found out that the mainstream media is deliberately avoiding covering this because they're afraid of panic, but the military is trying to quietly corral and evacuate as many people as possible.

Bizarrely enough, they've been planning for this for YEARS. You know that Zombie Survival Guide? Well, there is no "Max Brooks." It was actually written by DoD. They wanted people to pick it up as a gag, read through it, but then be honestly prepared when and if this happened. Some of it is truly fictional--there is no "Solanum" virus, the mechanics are somewhat weirder than that--but the basics are the same.

Speaking of DoD fronts, there's no such blog as "My Elves Are Different", either. They wanted a clearinghouse where they could collect realtime observations, but be able to keep them covered up under the guise of fiction. This is no fiction. The authors of that "blog" also know damned well why they chose "June 13th" to reveal its real purpose. They knew what was coming today.

And either they say why, or I will.

In the meantime, I'm going to grab an M-16A4 and an M4 carbine and start practicing my long-rusty shooting skills on the range they have down here. They've got tons of ammunition and weapons here, even a few of those new OICW toys, but not enough people to use them. It may prove handy.

Keep safe, folks.