Analog Time, Part One free porn video

Analog Time Part One "Beach" I swam through a cold and infinite void. Lost, alone, without sensation or the passage of time. My clock had run down. I was waiting for the entropy at the end of the world. A great murky indecision held me in place, as though I had just arrived at some great truth but had become distracted and forgotten it, and was trying desperately to grasp it's misty importance. Tendrils of smoke through my fingers. And, then, after an eternity of sadness, the world started up again. I felt the ocean moving above me, and as it did my lungs and my heart moved with the rhythm of the world. I left behind the weight of my sins and felt myself rise from the bottom of the black sea, and up into the sun. As I rose to the surface there was a sound. A sound like cat's claws gently scratching at a pond of still water and finding a xylophone underneath. A sound like the ocean, and the gentle collision of distant stars. I knew that the word for the sound was guitar. And a voice said, I live cement. I hate this street. Give dirt to me. I bite lament. This human form, where I was born, I now repent. Caribou. Confusion and disorientation. Nothing made sense about those words. I knew that Caribou was a horned mammal that lived in the arctic and subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere. Outside of North America Caribou was usually called Reindeer. I also knew that there was a word for putting together guitar and nonsense. The word was song. Repent, said the voice. Repent! I could not tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman. Did it matter? I rose to the surface and pushed my face through to the other side. Oddly enough, where the sea had been dry, the surface was now moisture. I opened my eyes. A small dog was licking me on the face. Pain shot through my skull as yellow light poured into my brain. I shut my eyes again, but now that the pain had entered, it lingered like a persistant guest wearing out his welcome long after the party has ended. I squinted one eye and took another peek. Now the dog was sitting. It opened its mouth to ask me something, but whatever it was got muffled by the overwhelming song in my ears. I sent scouts out along my central nervous system. They reported the existence of fingers on the end of hands on the end of arms. I ordered that these be brought to my head at once to investigate the status of my ears. They found large speakers strapped to my head by means of a plastic bar. One of the fingers successfully hooked into this bar and pulled the speakers loose, letting in a dimension of sounds heretofore undreamed of by Man. "How we doin', Batgirl," said the dog. "Do you need me to call a cop or something?" With some effort, I opened both eyes and looked at the dog again. Its coat was a dark brown coated by a yellow filter. The sand I was laying on was white with a similar yellow haze on it. I sent the fingers to investigate and they found yellow lenses strapped onto my head with an elastic band. I pulled them up and instantly regretted it as the whispering taunt of light became a chorus of disaster. "Hello. Earth to Batgirl. I'm going to call nine-one-one if you don't give me some response." I became aware that a shadow had fallen over the dog, and myself. I slowly propped myself up on an elbow and turned my head around to the real source of the questions. This was a shaggy mop of hair attached to a hooked nose, sharp jaw, and round John Lennon shades. It was bent over, hands on thighs, and looked concerned, but it was the type of problem-solving concern a man wears while regarding a broken radiator hose or difficult Scrabble layout. A look more of fascination than sympathy. "Hello," I croaked at him. My voice was raspy and dry, and unnaturally high as if there was a frog in my throat. He smiled. "Good morning. Water?" He offered me a small plastic bottle half filled with clear liquid. "You always carry that around with you?" He looked confused, but answered with sarcasm. "Uh, yeah. It's a family heirloom." With great effort, I got into a sitting position and took a better look at myself. My hands were covered in bright yellow gloves with scalloped fins. On my face I could feel a mask attached to a cowl. The rest of me was clad in black vinyl, with yellow go-go boots and a yellow utility belt. On my chest was a golden emblem in the shape of a bat. Underneath this were tits. "The fuck..?" I was indeed Batgirl. Okay... I removed one of the gloves with my teeth and drank from the bottle. My body was so happy to have fresh hydration that it sent waves of endorphins to my head to take the edge off the pain as a sign of gratitude. I tucked the glove into the belt. I would have removed the other as well, but I was starting to realize that despite being a beach near the ocean, the world was very cold. "Thank you," I croaked as I returned the bottle. I looked around. Behind me were dunes, and beyond that a few rooftops. To the east was the blue-green sea, and the sound of the crashing surf. "What's your name?" asked the stranger. It took a moment. "Joe." "As in Joanne?" I made a face. "As in Joseph." "Did - did you say Josie?" Obviously this guy was engaging in some sarcastic fucking frat boy humor at my expense. Yes, I woke up in a Batgirl costume. No, I don't know how this happened. I don't need some douchebag jock type making snarky inferences about my manhood. "Can you tell me what time it is?" I croaked through clenched teeth. He looked at a watch as I took a crack at standing up. "It is seven forty one. Whoa!" His exclamation was due to the gallon of liquid that came hurtling out of my face as I dropped back to my knees. I tasted sugary sweet rum, cola, bile. An awful combination. Strands of red hair flew into my face for a moment, and then were gone. I felt the stranger looming over me. He was holding the hair. I do not consider myself a homophobe, but my first instinct was to back away. "I'm fine," I said as I stumbled to my feet again, this time without upchucking. I had to crane my head to look up at him. "Jesus, how tall are you?" "Five nine. Listen, if you need me to call somebody-" "What?" I was dubious. After all, I was five ten and a half, and this guy had at least five inches on me. Probably a good fifty pounds, too. Meanwhile the painkilling endorphins were canceled as punishment for losing the recent acquisition of fresh water, and the monkey in charge of the great grey spike in my skull gave it another turn. "Listen, honey, it's not a problem." He genuinely did look concerned now. "I can let you use my phone-" "Yeah, right! I'm not coming back to your place to use the phone, man." I was trying to sound assertive, but the frog in my throat made my voice so squeaky that it was like a ten year old trying to sound tough. "But, I have a phone -" He reached into the pouch of his hooded Rutgers sweatshirt, and pulled out a plastic toy, smaller than a pack of cigarettes. "Jesus! What are you, the most sarcastic prick in the world?" "I think you should-" "I think you should leave me the fuck alone, dude!" Now I was shrieking at him. My voice had reverted to at least the fourth grade. "I don't need your help, okay?" With that I bent over and unleashed a fresh puddle of vomit. "Fuck!" He came closer, hesitant but still acting concerned. I wondered if violence was next, or if he would continue his fag-bashing verbally. Instead the dog starts licking up the vomit. "Barney, get out of there." When the dizziness receded a bit, I started walking toward the waves. Rutgers called out after me. "You sure you're okay?" Without looking, I held up the middle finger of my gloved hand. I took off the boots and cape and peeled off the hood. The red hair came off with it. The headphones around my neck were still howling away, and the cord led to a pocket on the utility belt. Inside was a tiny telephone. It kind of looked like a toy, except not. Also, it was playing music. I put it aside, then searched the rest of the pockets. I found skee ball tickets. I found $4.25 in quarters. I found a small key, probably to a locker, or maybe a safe deposit box. I found Arcade tokens. I found a small plastic flashlight that shone a little Bat symbol into the darkness under my cape. I found a matchook from some place called Ichabod's in Asbury Park, New Jersey. I found dark red lipstick. I found eyeshadow. I found a small round compact, which was black, with a golden bat symbol. I opened the compact. The girl in the mirror had sandy blonde hair, which was a matted mess and not very long and not very short. She was wearing lipstick and eyeshadow, and it seemed to have been applied correctly. Time, mileage, and strong drink had taken its toll, however. Her eyes were baggy and bloodshot, and bright blue. She looked like a mess. But underneath that... she was pretty. I was pretty. I also looked absolutely nothing like me. "Huh." There was something funny about the blue in the eyes. I carefully poked one with my finger. The blue slid aside and revealed dark brown underneath. Colored lenses. The vision of that eye didn't seem at all impaired; not having anything to store them in, I gave the lenses to a tiny sand crab at my feet. I took off the belt, waded down into the sea and did my best to wash the paint off my face. The water was icy cold, but bearable. The only souls I could see were way off down the southern end of the beach, and they didn't appear to be coming my way. That being the case, I managed, with some difficulty, to unzip the back of the batgirl suit, wriggle my arms out of it, and pulled it and the panties I was wearing down to my knees. There was, of course, no penis. Which was strange, since there always had been one before. "Huh." I then relieved myself into the ocean. I was about neck deep into the water. A large wave threatened to toss me back onto the beach. That would be terrific. Maybe I'd get lucky and it could knock me unconscious, too. For all I knew, FREE RAPE VICTIM was tattooed on my back. Back on dry land, I put myself back together and had a good sit, trying to recall my most recent memory. I came up with a rock festival in New York where the Bongo Beaters had thrilled to a crowd of about seventeen. Five of which were there to see us. I was the bass player. Cassie was the girlfriend of the bass player. She and I decided to leave early because Eddie wanted to stay and drop acid. He called me a faggot for wanting to leave a rock festival early, even though we'd played like shit and it was raining and freezing cold. Who has a rock festival in New York in October, for Christ sake? Eddie was the epitome of lead-singer-control-freak, and when you poured acid on that ego it swelled up like the Hulk in a DMV. You ended up having to play these stupid games that he came up with on a whim, like having to sing a perfect four part harmony of Good Vibrations for forty minutes until you got right. Or we'd have to pretend to be our favorite comic book character, and he'd have copious notes for anyone who didn't fully commit to it. And you had to play along with his inane bullshit or he'd bitch-pout until you did. Fuck that. This particular faggot wanted to sleep in a nice warm bed with his girlfriend, thank you very much. I closed my eyes, inhaled the salty, fish smell of the ocean, and tried to picture the drive home. "Are you sure you're okay to drive?" I take my eyes off the road long enough to find her face and caress her cheek with my hand. "I'm fine, baby. Why don't you hand me a soda. The buzz from the caffeine will get us all the way home." I hold the wheel of the tan Cougar with my left hand and push in the cigarette lighter with my right, then use that hand to sort through the box of tapes just behind the passenger's seat. "Eyes on the road, mister!" "My eyes are on the road." "Both of your hands on the wheel. Ten and two. What do you need? I'll get it for you." "It just says Pixies. Ratchet turned me on to it; it came out last month." "Who's Ratchet?" "Rachel's her real name. She has the show on Saturday afternoon." Rachel and I are both disc jockeys for Muhlenberg College. I hold the prestigious 8-11 slot on Friday nights. Cass pulls the entire box into her lap. "What's it called?" "Pixies. It might say Come On Pilgrim." "Here it is." She puts it in the tape deck. The singer's in the middle of screaming "REPENT!" Cass makes a face. "Just give it a chance, please, babe?" "I think we should find a Motel. I don't like all this rain." She has a point. Ford Cougars are terrible in any kind of bad weather. They have rear wheel drive and all the weight is on the front end. If the street is slightly moist, the tires will spin at every stop sign. "It'll be fine," I say to her, hiding my own concern. I hit the fast forward on the tape deck. "I want you to hear this one song called Ed is Dead." She's not fooled by my false confidence, nor by my attempt to change the subject. "It's not fine. We're gonna fly off a cliff and into a river." "Oh my God. Not into a river." "Yeah." "Sounds cool. What you don't know is that the cabin of this vehicle is watertight. We could sit at the bottom of the Delaware for seven hours and then just drive out in the morning. Slicker'n snot." "Come on, can we please find a Motel?" "What for? You have me all fired up to live in a river. We could both stand to live on trout for a while, I figure." The lighter pops out and I light another Camel. "Oh, fuck you. Are you calling me fat now?" "No, baby. I love you just the way you are." "If you loved me you'd find us a Motel." I sighed. "Okay, find us a motel." After my little swim I found a quiet spot in the dunes and inspected my tits. Hey, I'm only human. The bra I was wearing was a black and white striped number, and tucked inside of it I found a little plastic sleeve that contained ID, a Visa card, and a five dollar bill. The picture on the ID looked kind of like the girl in the mirror, but instead of looking like shit she looked clean and had a pretty serious look on her face. Her name was Josephine Allison Sparks. Pretty close to my name, which is Joseph Allen Skocik. Her birth date was listed as June 13, 1988. That meant that if it was 2009 or 2010, as indicated by the April 2010 expiration date on the credit card, Josie would be about 21. This was a lot to take in. By now my stomach was growling. It seemed like my diet the night before had consisted mostly of liquids, and I had puked that up first thing in the morning. I abandoned the beach for the streets of what appeared to be Asbury Park. Most everything was closed; in two blocks I found a diner that wasn't. Not knowing how much money was available to me via the credit card (and not being sure how much things cost), I limited myself to a bagel and a cup of coffee. Somebody left a newspaper on the counter; I claimed it and became absorbed while the toaster did its work. October 31, 2009. Saturday. Two ongoing wars. Legal gay marriage in six states. Walter Cronkite dead at 92. Economic collapse. A popular show about a chemistry teacher that cooks meth. A black President. By the time the bagel showed up, I had read the paper top to bottom. I also mentally filled in about half of the crossword puzzles and completed the word find. Which was strange, because I'd always been more of a phone-it-in C average student. As I ate I studied the inhabitants of the diner. Everyone under the age of thirty looked at their phone at least once in every two minute span. Except for the hung over drunk dead asleep and leaving a puddle of spit on his table.* Piercings in the ears, eyebrow, lip, nostril, and septum on one young lady didn't garner so much as a dirty look, nor did the full sleeve of tattoos on the arm of my waitress. Halfway through my bagel I realized that I was pretty full. My stomach obviously shrank along with the rest of me. "You off to a party today, honey?" "I'm sorry?" "For Halloween." I looked down at the shiny yellow Bat logo on my chest. "Oh, um, yeah." She refilled my cup. "Actually, the party was last night. And now this is all I have to wear. Is there a clothing store around here?" She made an apologetic face. "I think most of that stuff is closed, since it's October. But the Galleria will be open." "The Galleria?" "It's about a twenty minute walk down the beach." "Thanks. Uh, can I use your bathroom?" "In the corner to the left." "Thank you." Out of habit I entered the Men's room, but realized my mistake when I was assaulted by the awful stench that apparently lurked within every Men's room, but that hadn't bothered me until now. The Ladies', on the other hand, was kept fresh and clean and relatively fragrant, at least compared to the Men's. Working out the logistics of the enterprise took time, but not as much as you might think. You figure shit out when you have to go. There was, however, a rather strange feeling when I started to release, like something moving inside of me. I was instinctively pushing it out, using muscles that I had no idea existed. "God, this is so weird." After a minute I saw that I was giving birth to a small piece of plastic, which inched itself out of the vulva - my vulva - at a glacial pace. I used my fingers to coax it along. Before long I was holding the plastic applicator tube of a tampon. I held it up to the light and saw a piece of paper inside. "Huh." This was the definitely the strangest message in a bottle I'd ever found. I fished the paper out and unrolled it. It was a small flyer for the First Federal Trust, advertising low interest rates for mortgages. I turned it over. On the white backside of the flyer, written in black magic marker, was the following: 157 Main. Southern End. H-15 ACC # 7700-581457797 In case of panic, refer to left arm. -Josie (You) My left arm had a bandage on it, below the wrist, that I'd been hesitant to pick at. It was a little sore, but certainly didn't seem painful enough to indicate a suicide attempt. I pried at the corners and peeled it back. Underneath was a fresh tattoo. The tattoo said Don't Panic in large, friendly green letters. "Um. Okay." I exited the bathroom and immediately ran into a middle-aged hippie type, who looked me up and down and started singing, "Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batgirl!" "Um, yeah. Hi." I tried to move past him. "Come see me at my table, sweetie. I got some comic books you can sign." Doing my best to ignore him, I returned to my table and got out the five dollar bill. Something flitted out of it and fluttered under the table like a leaf. I picked it up. It was a ticket to see Electric Monsters From Beyond (cut off) at the Stone Pony, October 30, 2009. I left the five on the table and wandered outside in a daze. The Electric Monsters from Beyond the Stars was a garage band that had only existed in my head. But I had always planned to make it a real thing. Maybe I had played there last night and then wandered off and done some designer drug that induces memory loss. Or possibly head trauma? I examined my head in the sideview mirror of a car parked on the street. No bandages or scars. No other other obvious signs of head trauma. I felt the back of my head. No bruises or eggs. This didn't explain why I had gotten a sex change some time in the last twenty years. Or why I was shorter. And no amount of plastic surgery could do this to my face without making it look like a Frankenstein guppy. But then again, maybe medical science had advanced somewhat in the last two decades. Maybe even full brain transplants were possible now. I stopped a younger guy wearing a hoodie and a full beard. "Excuse me, where is the Stone Pony from here?" He smiled as he looked the Batgirl suit up and down. "You go down to Ocean Avenue till it sort of turns into Lake, then Kingsley to 7th and then down Ocean again. I'm actually headed that way, you want a ride?" "Uh..." I hesitated. "How far is it?" "Probly take about half an hour from here to walk it." "Yeah, okay." We got in his piece of shit Honda; I didn't recognize the model. The passenger side was full of pizza boxes and McDonald's wrappers, which he started vigorously tossing into the back seat. "Sorry about the mess." "Dude, I don't care. Like, at all." "Cool, cool. Mind if I smoke?" "It's your car." "Right, right. Do you want one?" I thought about it for a moment. "No, I don't." Which was strange; I couldn't remember the last time I woke up and made it past breakfast without needing a smoke. He clicked on the radio as he pulled into traffic. Furious speed metal, drums like a seizure. It did wonders for my hangover. Seeing my face, he turned to a pop station. Walking on Sunshine. Better, but... ugh. "So, you going to a party or something?" "No." "Oh. Do you want to?" "Do I want to what?" "Go to a party. My friend's having one tonight in Red Bank. I could give you a ride." "Dude, I don't even know your name." "Oh, sorry. It's David." He holds out his hand. I take his hand and give it a half-hearted pump, barely able to contain my enthusiasm. "Joe. Josie." "So are you like a big fan of Dark Knight?" "I guess. Frank Miller's stuff is best. Especially Year One." "Huh?" "The comic book. Batman: Year One." "Oh. No, I meant the movie." "Oh." The only Batman movie I knew about starred Adam West and came out in 1966. He must have been referring to some newer movie. "Haven't seen it." He looks confused. "You're wearing a Batman costume and you haven't seen Dark Knight?" "Yeah, so?" "Oh, well you should totally check it out. Actually, my buddy has the DVD, and I'm headed to his house right now, if you're interested." Interested? I didn't answer, but rather tried to keep my eyes out the window. "He's got some weed, too, if you're into that." "Are you trying to pick me up?" He laughed nervously and took a drag on his cigarrette. "Naw, girl, just a friendly gesture." Yeah. Sure. We quietly listened to the radio for the next four minutes; I found out that it was the one-year anniversary of a ticker tape parade celebrating the Phillies' winning the 2008 World Series. In a few minutes we arrived at the Stone Pony, which was, for all intents and purposes, back on the beach. I quietly thanked him for the ride and got out. As he sped away it occurred to me that accepting that ride probably wasn't thinking like a girl. At least, not a safe one. I wasn't surprised that he was offering more than simple human kindness. Were I walking through Asbury Park before nine on a Saturday morning, only to find a cute, somewhat lost girl wandering the streets in a Batsuit, asking for directions... I also realized that there was no way that a rock venue would be open at eight thirty in the morning. I knocked anyway. No answer. Door locked. There was, however, a poster for the show, which was like a drawing of Godzilla biting a UFO. No pictures of the band anywhere. Now what? My most promising lead was whatever was at 157 Main. I hoped that was in town. I had no idea if I would be able to afford a search of every major city in America for all the 157 Main Streets in America. Speaking of which, what was the limit on the credit card? I needed to find a MAC machine. Or maybe a bank. But the banks wouldn't be open. I stood there pondering while a chill wind swept through and cut me to the bone. I put the Batgirl mask back on, clutched the cape tightly around me, and put the headphones back on my ears. Since I had them on, I plugged it back into the phone and figured out how to resume the album I'd been listening to. The phone. Maybe this could give me a clue. Surely a self-contained device of this type must rely on an onboard computer, and would have a hard drive with memory. Memory meant potential clues. I walked onto the great expanse that was Ocean Avenue, the boardwalk my destination. Black Francis tore into Track 4 while I tried to wring from the device some meaning to my existence beyond "live and be happy". "Her head is in a bitter way, her brain's on fire. She's just looking for the perfect wave, it's her brain's desire-" I heard the beast before I saw it - a grey whale of an Audi that could easily render me into my component parts if it had the motivation. Fortunately it was lacking in motivation this particular morning, and I got off with a honked warning, the harpy squeal of brakes, and a bruised hip. I ended up flopped on the hood of the great beastly automobile, watching as the phone flew out of my hands and onto the windshield, where it divided into at least three hundred pieces. I slid off the hood and onto the cool macadam below. The wind was completely knocked out of me, and I could only watch and gasp for air as the door of the great grey monster opened and spit out a pair of human feet in expensive leather shoes. These walked quickly around the corner of the front wheel and I rolled onto my back to see a tall, thin man staring down at me. He almost defied description, he was so plain. Thin face, I guess, with a thin mouth, narrow nose, and complete lack of expression. He wore a grey suit with a black tie, and round black lenses covered his eyes completely. He walked up to me and looked down at me. And looked down. And looked down some more. He appeared to be studying me, making quite certain that I was who he thought I was. Despite his lack of expression and hidden eyes, I could see the light of recognition in his face. Finally he pulled a small phone from his pocket and pressed a button as he lowered himself in a smooth gesture and peeled the mask back from my face. "This is Seven," he told the other end of the line. "I've got him. He's-" The man never got to finish this sentence because his torso burned away quite suddenly in a flicker of silent white flame. There was, for just a moment, a sizzling sound, and I caught the acrid stench of burnt flesh as most of his chest just sort of... evaporated. Disintegrated, like a blowtorch through marshmallow. Lacking a neck to support it, the man's head leaned back and tumbled onto the pavement, rolling for a few feet before getting lost under the car. It did this without once showing any expression whatsoever. As it rolled, the arms and legs collapsed in a twisted pile. I looked around as my lungs worked overtime to try and get me on my feet. On the sidewalk I saw someone holding something metallic, but whatever object this was vanished into his pocket almost as soon as I laid eyes upon it. The wielder of the device, a middle-aged man in a red and blue Hawaiian shirt, ran over and helped me to my feet. "Are you nuts? You're entirely too close. This was an epically terrible idea." In between gasps I tried to croak out, "Huh, huh, whoo, huh, was, huh, that?" We got to the sidewalk and he examined my face. His eyes are like a steel trap. "What do you remember?" "Uh, I don't, huh, know." "Can you make new memories? Do you remember waking up today?" "Yuh-yes." "What about before that? Anything?" "Yuh, yeah. Uh, Bongo Beaters. New York. Cass-" "Okay, stop. Listen to me. Are you listening?" "Yes." "You have to get far away from here, and you can't go back to your old life. You have money, you have credit, you have a brilliant mind. Go somewhere new, someplace that you've never been and would never visit in a million years, and just hide. Don't make waves, don't call attention to yourself, don't ever get your picture in the paper or on the news. Don't be a celebrity. Don't contact anyone from your old life. Cassie is fine. She is alive and she is happy and she's had a good life and she isn't in any danger from them. "Hide. If you don't, they will hunt you, they will find you, they will torture you for information that you don't have, and when they realize that you don't have it, they will destroy you. They will destroy any record that you ever existed and it will be dangerous to anyone close to you. Do you understand?" I didn't. "Who are you?" "Tell me that you understand." "Who are you? What is this about? How can it be two thousand and nine? And how did you disintegrate someone? Are you one of them?" He hesitated. "I'm not one of them. I'm a friend. I owed you a favor. Now we're square. I can't help you anymore, and I can't be around you. I've been at risk staying here this long. I'm sorry, I have to go." With regret on his face, he turned and walked toward the beach. I turned back to the street. The grey beast and what was left of his driver still sat in the middle of the Avenue. "Hey wait a minute!" I called after him. "What the hell is going on?" I started running after him. He stopped, looking nervous, as I caught up to him. "Just remember what I said. And don't be alone until you're thousands of miles from here and there's no hope that one of them followed you. That one nailed you because you were alone. They're sending his replacement right now, and it won't take him long to get here. You don't want to be alone if he catches up with you." "But you're here." "I don't count. Alright, I'll tell you something, but close your eyes first." "What?" "Just close your eyes." I closed my eyes. "You're here because of an accident," he said. There was a soft sucking sound and a momentary rush of wind. I opened my eyes. He was gone. I started gasping for air again. My hands were trembling. The world spun around me. I grew lightheaded and spots of black appeared at the edge of my vision. "Don't pass out don't pass out don't pass out." I didn't pass out. Instead I bent over and gave my half a bagel back to the sand. "Fuck!" What now? The stranger had told me not to be caught alone, so I needed to find some people, and fast. I started limping off the beach towards the boardwalk, holding my hip in agony. Nothing on the boardwalk itself was open, so I kept limping down the sidewalk. It didn't feel like anything was broken, but there would be a terrific bruise on my hip and my thigh before long. No belly shirts for this girl today. Before half a block was out I came to a hotel, the Empress. The lobby was thankfully warmer than the outside, and I stripped off the nonessential gloves and hood of my getup. I looked around, wondering what to do next. There was a gift shop, but it wouldn't be open until nine. Maybe it would have some clothes. I briefly considered using the credit card to get a room, but that would leave me alone, and then They would be able to pounce. Not having a better idea at the moment, I found a couch in the lobby and tried to inconspicuous. My eyes stayed fixed on the door. There certainly were a lot of men in this hotel. Three obviously gay couples went through those doors to face the world before I realized that this was probably a gay hotel. I didn't even know such things existed. Well, I supposed I would fit in. I was, after all, a girl in a campy Batman costume who preferred women. I was also less likely to be hit on in a place like this. I should have been planning my next move, thinking about who was after me and how I would possibly escape them. I should have been replaying the incident over and over in my mind, the sizzling flesh, the burnt hair and barbecue stench, the way the legs and lower torso collapsed slowly, like a jenga tower that's doomed but doesn't know it right away. Instead I started imagining what it would be like to have sex with a guy. The slobbery, mean faces, the grunting, the sweaty members jabbing clumsily at my groin - "Can I help you out, honey?" It was a slightly lispy bellboy, with a look of concern on his face. I looked at him, startled. "Huh? No. No, I'm... waiting for someone." "Okay. Can I get you something? Like a glass of water?" I closed my eyes, exhaled, and then smiled up at him. "Yes, please." "Alright honey. My name's Stephen." He gestured at his name badge. "You let me know if you need anything." "Josie. Will do." As he left, a tall, thin woman in a white trenchcoat entered the lobby. She walked with a determined gait, straight for the front desk, and as she did so looked down at her right side and retrieved a little phone from her pocket. As she pulled it up toward her face, she peeked over the top of her large sunglasses and made direct eye contact with me, only for a moment. She then smiled as she flipped the phone open and had a conversation with whoever was on the other end. The connection had been made for less than a second, but somehow I knew exactly what that look meant. It meant target acquired. She was one of Them. I was one hundred percent sure of it. "Josie, right?" This was spoken by one of two boys that had just entered. The one with the Iron Maiden shirt was speaking to me. The other fiddled with his bowtie and kept his other hand stuffed nervously in the pocket of his blazer. Iron Maiden had asked the question hesitantly, as if he could be wrong. That was good; that left me an opening. "Yes. Um..." I looked as if I was struggling to remember his name. "Max." "Right. Max. What's going on?" "Not much. Mind if I sit?" "Uh, no." I patted the couch beside me. Oh no. Was I a fag hag? Max's companion pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose, reached into his messenger bag, and pulled out one of those little phones. He nodded at Max, and departed for the elevator. "Okay, man." Max turned his attention back to me. "So, how'd you make out?" "Make out?" I glanced back to the woman in white, who was alternating between a conversation with the desk and with the phone. She was not looking my way. Probably coordinating a tight net around the building. How long until I would be snatched up? "With Galaxian," said Max. "Oh." Okay, Galaxian I knew. Arcade cabinet game, developed by NAMCO in 1979. Kind of like Space Invaders, except that the bad guys didn't creep down at you, they stayed up in formation and only occasionally swooped down to pounce on you. "I uh, didn't do so hot." "Well, you were pretty hammered when I left. What did you have, about fifteen rum and cokes?" "Heh." I gave an embarrassed smile. The woman was now leaning and sipping a mimosa as she watched me. Very casual. "So how are you feeling today?" "Well, I've seen better days." Max looked behind him, toward the woman. "Is that your mom?" he whispered to me. "Huh? No." "Are you alright? You looked freaked out or something." I shrugged defensively. "No, no, I'm just wiped out, you know. Kind of spacing." "I hear you. Well, Keith and I are about to go out to breakfast, if you want to come." "Oh." I thought about it for a moment as I looked at the door. There was no one there, but an marked white panel van was parked on the opposite side of the street. "Hey, you do remember me, right? I mean, you weren't that bad when we first met you." I hissed softly through gritted teeth and waved my hand in a so-so gesture. He laughed. "Okay, well, if you have plans, that's cool." "No." "No?" "I want to come out to breakfast with you." He smiled. "Great." Just then Keith reappeared, and Stephen showed up with my water, which I downed all of immediately. "Thirsty girl," said Max. "She's coming with us. Now we'll be safe from the forces of evil." I gestured to the Batsymbol on my chest. "Yup." "Let's go," said Max. And with that, the awkward scene moved out of the lobby, into Keith's car, and away from the hotel. The white van didn't appear to follow. "So Josie," said Max. "What brings you to Asbury Park for Halloween?" I was sitting in the back while the boys rode up front. There was a colorful flyer in the back of Keith's car, tucked into a pocket behind the shotgun seat. The flyer was for the NJ ZOMBIE WALK, which took place on October 31 in Asbury Park. "Zombies," I said to myself. "Zombies? Did you say Zombies?" I cleared my throat. "Yes. Yes I did. Zombies." "You're here for the Zombie Walk?" I nodded. "Uh-huh." "Wow," said Max. "A zombie Batgirl. Awesome." I elaborated. "Sure. The apocalypse can't just be normal folks, right? It's got to affect Batman and Robin and Batgirl too, right?" "I guess," answered Max. Keith put on music. The song was jarring at first, a kind of marching beat set to jangly guitars that hung on to a single guitar. And then the guitars quieted as a voice appeared, like Elvis Costello dipped in honey and given a slightly foreign accent. "I remember when, when I first moved here, a long time ago. 'Cause I heard some song I used to hear back then, a long time ago." "What is this?" I asked. "Peter Bjorn and John," answered Max. "You like it?" "It's amazing," I whispered. I closed my eyes as the second verse came upon me. "I remember when, even further back, in another town, 'cause I saw something written I used to say back then, hard to comprehend." The music swept over me in waves, and I closed my eyes and let my body absorb it like a sponge. It was fresh and new, like being born, and at the same time incredibly familiar, as if the tune had always existed, and the bad had only snatched it out of the ether. My heart pounded, my breathing was quicker, and I felt warm all over. The chords shifted as the song hit the chorus. "And the question is: Was I more alive then than I am now? I happily have to disagree. I laugh more often now. I cry more often now. I am more me." Something warm and wet was happening between my legs, a kind of pumping. My breasts tingled. I felt like I wanted desperately to be touched. "Josie, you okay?" asked Max. The volume dropped sharply, and the spell was more or less broken. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me through the rearview mirror. "Yeah, yeah," I answered, embarrassed. "I just really like this song." I tried to suppress my arousal, or at least to hide it. This was actually pretty easy with no erection to cover up. "Can you turn it back up?" Tears were streaming down my face as the song ended, and we had arrived at our destination. I kept the boys from noticing and chalked it up to the shock of seeing someone - or something - killed in front of me less than an hour earlier. Obviously there were some emotional repurcussions to bottling the panic up, and I worried about how to proceed if horrible things were going to keep happening. Keith held the door open for me and I entered my second diner of the twenty-first century. Thankfully, this one had a jukebox, with wallboxes at every booth. After we sat, I fished some quarters out of my utility belt and divided them up into little piles while the boys watched in fascination and laughed at me. All the while I was watching out the window for some sign of the white van or more of Them. Thankfully, there were neither. It occurred to me that if I didn't start acting normally, these two were going to show me the road immediately after dinner. I had to relax. I had to participate in a normal, easygoing conversation like twenty-somethings on a vacation. My life might very well depend on it. "Do you go to school?" asked Max. "Uh, no." "Live with your parents?" "No." I almost said I live with my girlfriend, but caught myself, as that would require a lot more fibbing than I was ready for. "I live alone." "What do you do?" "I... am a musician." "What do you play?" "Bass guitar." "Girl bass player." He smiled at Keith. "Where are the Pussycats?" "Excuse me?" "You know, Josie and -" "Oh, I get it." There was a moment of silence. I stopped fiddling with the jukebox and put my hands on the table. "Alright, boys, let's quit fuckin' around. What's in the bag?" They gave each other a startled look. I rolled my eyes. "Okay, you two obviously aren't gay. Max here is just about humping me with his eyes and Keith is making a big deal of not staring." No response. Keith looked mortified, Max was grinning nervously. "So. What would two Zombie Walking men-of-the-world like yourselves be doing in a gay hotel at 8:45 in the morning? I'm guessing it's not to pick up bootleg Madonna tapes. Care to share?" They both looked around, not making eye contact. Eventually Keith reached forward and tapped once, in the center of the table. "What is that? What does that mean?" Keith looked around and then tapped again. Max slapped at his hand. "She doesn't know Morse Code, man." So that's what it was. "Yes, I do. I learned it in the Bo- in the Girl Scouts." I pointed at Keith. "Does he talk?" Keith licked his lips and made a face as if making an effort to speak. The words were almost out of his mouth when Max cut him off. "He talks. He's just nervous because he likes you." "Really?" I made snap decision not to shoot them down right away. I needed to stay with people right now, and so it seemed advantageous for them to at least entertain the idea of... having a chance with me, I guess. At least for the moment. I looked over at Keith and gave a little half smile. He was looking down and turning red. "It's okay, dude." I thought about the single tap. E. Which meant- "So..." I tapped out the letters M-D-M-A on the table. Keith nodded. "I see." "So I assume you'll want some," said Max. "Why is that?" He looked confused. "Because you were asking us for some last night?" Interesting. "Maybe later," I said. The food arrived. Keith had orange juice and a grapfruit. Max had some kind of special that included eggs, waffles, grits, and bacon. "Not hungry?" I asked Keith. "He's a vegan. That's about all they have for him to eat here." I shot Max a look. "Will you let him speak?" There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. I needed to dial it back; if I pissed Max off too much, then after breakfast he might just decide to leave me behind. "I'm sorry. So, what was I doing when we... uh, met last night?" Max smiled. "You don't remember? You really blacked out? Man, I didn't think you were that wasted." "You were playing Discs of Tron," said Keith. "You were standing at a booth playing Discs of Tron in Starcade Galaxy Ballroom, and you were standing with a light behind you that lit your hair up like a white flame." Oh boy. "Yeah? Was I, uh, doing good?" "You had completed the cycle stages after the seventh level," he continued, never taking his eyes off mine. "I've been playing it for two years and I've never gotten that far. You only stopped because I showed up and was waiting patiently behind you. You got yourself killed on purpose so that I could play, but you tried real hard to make it look like an accident. Then you turned around and smiled at me." I put down my spoon. "Wow, Keith. That's... a lot of detail. Um, how did I look, though? Was I worried or scared, or just drunk?" He thought for a moment. "You looked tired." "Did I say where I was going? Or where I'd been?" Keith shook his head no. "When Max showed up, you asked him for..." he looked around, then tapped on the table again. "When he didn't have it, you... left." Max made a face, as if Keith was leaving something out. "I... left? What are you not telling me?" Max smiled. "Nothing," said Keith. I let it drop. For the moment. When we'd finished, I got out the credit card and put it on the table. Keith objected. "Max invited you. We're paying for your breakfast." "Hey, if she wants to pay-" said Max. "We're paying for her breakfast." Max let the matter drop. "Um, thanks. Guys." There were no strange agents of conspiracy waiting for me outside, but a white van rolled down Ocean Avenue. I couldn't be sure if it was the same white van, but... "So, do you guys want to hang out until the zombie thing?" Keith was wide-eyed again. Max shrugged. "Yeah, okay. We were gonna go to a movie, maybe. Got a better idea?" "Yeah. Let's do something with a lot of people." "Okay, like what?" I thought about clothes shopping, but I didn't want to be caught alone in a changing room with people who could possibly enter and then disappear, taking me with Them. I also wasn't about to invite either of these goofs into a dressing room. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting tag team blowjobs. "How about the Starcade?" "Again?" asked Max. "Yes, that sounds good," said Keith. So we cruised by the Starcade, which didn't open til eleven, and then went to the beach and tossed a frisbee to kill time. I didn't see any white vans or suspicious persons while we were on the beach. On the other hand, I did see people, and I imagine that anyone could be Them if They were inclined to hide their identity. Before long, it was eleven fifteen. We made our way to our destination. You enter the Starcade on Level One - that's what the first floor is called. Level One is like a boinky, loud, kind of nightmarish Chuck E. Cheese. This is where all the "new" videogame cabinets are; unfortunately for old arcade rats like myself, the bottom fell out of the arcade industry thanks to home consoles and they pretty much stopped designing new cabinet games sometime in the mid-nineties. Or at least, that's how Keith put it. I suspected that a native Japanese kid might give me an entirely different take on the matter. Anyway, all of the new machines on Level One seem to be rhythm-oriented. Lots of dancing and pounding buttons to a specific beat. Very little effort put into escapism, if you ask me. Gone are the hordes of Galactic Invaders to be conquered, the roads to be crossed, the buildings climbed. Instead you have pubescent teens pushing and mashing and stomping on command like a horde of overgrown lab rats trying to get at the cheese. Level One is also where all the novelty games like basketball, skee ball, and cranes are located. The music in Level One is current top forty pop and dance, which doesn't seem to have changed too much, except that there's more of a hip-hop feel to a lot of it now. Last I remembered, Whitney Houston just wanted to dance with somebody. Now some new group has a feeling. That tonight's gonna be a good night. No, seriously. A good, good night. Got it yet? Level Two is an entirely different planet. Leaving Max to bash at moles with a rubber mallet, we climbed the stairs to Level Two and entered to the opening riff of Sweet Child O Mine. I could tell from Keith's expression that this was a nostalgic moment, but it was hard for me to nostalgic about a hair band tune that had been an overplayed hit for me a day earlier. Still, it was a cut above most annoying top ten hits, and it was light years better than the crap on Level One. The first impression you get from Level Two is darkness. Level Two has no windows and keeps the lights fairly dim, but to counter this there is an elaborate starfield on the dome-shaped ceiling kept eternally lit by blacklight. Meanwhile, the great, circular wall of Level Two is a mural that outlines a mountain range faintly outlined by a white glow on the horizon. Combine this with all the dancing lights and sounds from the vintage cabinets, and the effect is that no matter what time you step onto Level Two, you feel like you're walking onto the secret air base of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. *** I didn't want to split up in this dark room, so we tried some two-player games. First up, Joust. No problem. Breezed through it like a champ. Much better, in fact, than I had ever done at any video game ever before. It was as if games had always moved in fast forward, and now they were slowed almost to frame-by-frame. Keith and I easily swept through the first few waves, but if we're being honest, I was completely carrying him. When he got wiped out after the sixth waves, and I was still on my first mount, I let it go. "Bored," I said. "Let's try something new." We found a fighting game I'd never heard of called Samurai Showdown 2. Keith picked some a kung fu guy with a katana; I went with a blonde fencer named Charlotte. What business she had in a Samurai game I have no idea. It took me about thirty seconds to master all of her moves, and by then Keith was toast. I cut him up with a giant z, bombarded him with jabs, threw a giant triangle blade when he tried to stay away. After three quarters he gave up. "Sorry, kid." Other players stepped up to challenge me. Most of these were heavy middle- aged men with terrible haircuts, which was about half of the clientele on Level Two at noon on a Saturday. I took all comers, and sent them all away crying. I got so into the zone of dueling that after four matches I noticed that Keith had disappeared. This was bad. I abandoned the game, to the disappointment of my latest challenger, who called me a coward as I set out to search for Keith. I found him on an old Tempest machine, the one with the top-down Vector graphics that plays like something out of Ender's Game. "What's up?" He looked at me briefly. "Nothing. We're cool. I just got bored." "Sorry." "What are you sorry for? You're like The Wizard. You should try and go for one of those." He gestured at a leaderboard on one wall, where club high scores would be chalked up for all to see. I glanced at it. "Josie" currently held the high score for Galaxian at 2,305,640. I decided not to mention this. Underneath the leaderboard stood a man with cold eyes, dressed in a white coat. He was staring at me. "Shit." The man in white glanced briefly at the other exit, where a younger man was clad in a white t-shirt. At least they weren't wearing sunglasses now, probably too conspicuous in this darkened room. "Keith, we have to go." "I'm doing pretty good. Didn't even die yet." I had to think fast. If what my mystery defender had told me was true, then They didn't want any attention whatsoever. Didn't want to show up in the paper or on the news, didn't even want to be remembered. Their next move would probably be to cut the lights, drug me, and snatch me away. That way, whoever I was with would think that I just wandered off. I would become a missing person, but not an abducted young woman, which would mean attention. Entering this dark room with no windows had been a huge mistake. I could try faking a seizure, but then they might become off-duty paramedics and just carry me away. I could smash a few of these machines, act crazy, but then they might become police and put me in handcuffs. In either scenario, it would be me making the scene, calling attention to myself, and They would be on damage control. I could try just running past them, but then I'd be on my own again, and the net would close in pretty quick. Even though he was skinny, Keith had a good five inches on me and at least thirty pounds; there was no way that I would physically drag him out of this room with me if he didn't want to go. If I pulled the plug on him or tried to make him leave, I'd probably come off as crazy or clingy, and Keith and Max might just decide they'd had about enough of me and go home. And if I tried telling them the truth - well, at best they would believe me, and the attraction that kept them around would turn into awkward revulsion when they discovered that I was really a man. And with what I assumed to be a felony amount of pharmaceutical narcotics on them, they wouldn't want the attention of authorities. At worst they would decide that I was mentally deranged and keep their distance anyway. I needed some normal reason to get Keith off of his Tempest Machine, and I needed it quick. Despite my track record for the day, I didn't think I could puke fast enough. Besides, that would be the perfect opportunity for Them to cut the lights and cart me off; Keith would think that I was so embarrassed by the puke that I ran away and hid, never to be found again. "Keith -" The lights went out. I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled as kids and middle- aged men groaned and swore. By the dim light of the machines I backed into a space between cabinets, with his body in front of me, until my back was to the wall. He tripped as he was pulled and slammed his head into the wall just above me as I crouched down. "Ow! What the hell?" He didn't get another word out, because I held tight his collar, pulled his monkey face into mine, and kissed him. This was no peck on the cheek, mind you. A full on, open mouth, slobbery swirly-tonguer. For a split second I thought puke might come up again, which would be bad, but this passed and it began to almost feel natural. Almost. After a moment, I kissed him on the neck to risk a peek behind him into the Starcade behind him. The man in white was standing in the aisle staring at us. He shone a flashlight at the two of us and tapped Keith on the shoulder. "Alright, loverboy. Take it outside." The man in white was a bouncer for the Starcade. Release washed over me, and Keith and I looked at each other and started laughing. Behind him, the lights came back on and there was an awful fuss as security, including our guy, hassled the group of young troublemakers that had shit the lights off at the breakers. He took me by the hand and led me outside. We ducked behind a dumpster and he pulled me close to his body. I kissed him on the mouth again, briefly, and tried to pull away. By now, however, he'd gotten pretty excited. His hands were roaming around behind me, squeezing my ass and shoving my crotch up against his erect dick. It wasn't going to be easy to put this one back in the bottle. "Whoa, WHOA! Easy, easy, down boy!" I gently tried to push him off of me. He got control of himself and backed away. "Sorry. You okay?" He obviously thought that he'd hurt me somehow. "Yeah, I'm good." I straightened up and tried to calm down my own parts, which were confused by the exchange and becoming excited. Meanwhile, he must have mistaken "I'm good" for "kiss me again, please", because he leaned in for another smooch. I held up my hand to stop him. "A little too fast. Later." It took great effort to grind out the next two words, but I did it. "I promise." "Quit squirming," said Keith as he dabbed my nose with latex. This was taking entirely too long. "I hate people fucking with my eyes and face." I belched a decidedly unladylike cloud of taco fumes at him. "Sorry." "No, that's... that's great," said Keith, wincing. We had stopped for tacos on our way to the staging area for the zombie walk. I had felt confident after the encounter in the Starcade. Maybe it was the hormones talking, but I was starting to think that I could handle anything that They threw at me. If my mystery defender was to be believed, then They wouldn't want anyone photographing them, ever, and didn't want anyone to remember Their faces. I was pretty sure I could use this to my advantage if I just kept my wits about me. Speaking of wits, my brain was working much better in the afternoon than it had been in the morning, or indeed at any time that I could remember. But first I have to put this in context. Before, when I was a guy and it was the nineteen eighties, I was a guy who had to remind himself thirty times not to forget his glasses or keys when leaving the house; if I was lucky, I wouldn't. Some days I travelled through life as if I was in a fog. While my mind was off working on the lyrics for a song or exploring the ramifications of a real life Doctor Doom on the politics of Eastern Europe, the world would happen around me, and I would barely register the important things. Things like jobs, school, family, chores, money. I had even gotten myself into a car accident this way. The only time I really focused was in the arcade or holding a musical instrument. But now... Now I could remember with crystal clarity the faces of every person who had walked into the lobby of the Empress Hotel. I could recall the scores on every leaderboard on every video screen that I had glanced at in the Starcade, and I could put matching initials to each one. I knew that the zombie population of the ballroom that I was sitting in to get fake blood applied to my face numbered between two hundred and about two hundred twenty-five; people were milling about, and there were some blind spots from my vantage point, but I was pretty confident in that two/ two twenty range. On the way over I had thought to commit the vaginal message to memory, and then to burn it lest it fall into wrong hands. I then gave Keith the locker key - I was now quite certain it belonged to a locker, and not to a safe deposit box - for safe keeping. I was counting on Them not going after anything that disturbed the natural flow of events, which included not snatching regular people off the streets. I, on the other hand, was a fluke, a freak Outsider that they had a perfect legal right to abduct, and quite likely destroy. In the back of my mind I was already starting to come up with alternate plans for trapping one or more of Them or evading Them entirely. When the day was over, they would need to be dealt or I'd have to have a reliable escape route. Either way, I felt pretty confident about my chances. I also have to admit that I was kind of jazzed up after my first kiss as a girl. The prospect of kissing a man had seemed like a pretty disgusting prospect just a few hours earlier, but now it seemed like no big deal. It had energized me somehow, opened up something inside. And while I no longer considered myself to be either male or heterosexual, I had no crisis at the loss. I felt certain that I could get equally turned on by a kiss from a female. The idea of a sense of self based on gender held little meaning for me now, and it seemed like this was, perhaps, one of the more important thing that I'd forgotten before waking up on the beach. I also found myself wondering by what strange alchemy I had come by the body I now inhabited, and if it really was twenty-one years old, as the plastic card said. Perhaps it was, in fact, in the throes of puberty; certainly the face I saw in the mirror could quite easily pass for eighteen or younger. Once I escaped from the watchful eyes of Them, tracking down the origin of the identity on my driver's license was high on my list of priorities. Right after going back home and seeing what had transpired without me in the years since I disappeared. To hell with the stranger's warnings. "I really can't do this if you keep squirming," said Keith. "You're tickling me." He had put a nice big bullet hole on my forehead and was now applying tricklets of blood and gore down my nose and through my eyebrows. "Anyway, shouldn't I not be moving if I'm shot in the head?" "You're not a Romero zombie," said Max. "You're one of the guys from the Living Dead series." "What?" "The Dan O'Bannon series. Return of the Living Dead is an alternate sequel to Night of the Living Dead. The zombies in the Living Dead movies don't need their heads connected or their brains intact." "So how do you kill them?" "You pretty much don't," said Keith. "Also, those are the zombies that want to eat brains." "I see." I actually knew all about Return of the Living Dead, but greatly preferred the Romero series. Max was on a roll, though, and clearly liked educating me about all things zombie related, so I didn't interrupt. In a few minutes he was finished, and then Max started applying Keith's prosthetics. By the time the three of us were all made up, Max had the elaborate getup out of the three of us. An entire mailbox appeared to be shoved through his torso. The actual box was propped on its side on Max's belly; around back you could see the bottom post emerging. It looked like he'd been impaled by a Bruce Campbell type halfway through a survival horror adventure, and was back because the heros hadn't finished the job. He could even open the mailbox and had junk mail stuffed inside, with plans to open it up and let the junk mail drift around in the street during the walk to add to the post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Keith's own makeup was almost as elaborate. The button down white shirt he was wearing quickly got a healthy dose of dark red gore, with bits of grey brain matter mixed in. Higher up he had a crossbow bolt fired through his throat the pointy tip of the shaft (not too pointy; after all, we'd be shuffling as one lethargic group before long) emerging from the back of his neck. The bar that went around his neck to hold both pieces of the bolt in place was made up to look like a bloody side effect of being shot. We finally left the gate about half an hour later. All around me people were practicing their shuffles and groans as we got into place. I could practically hear the Goblin score in my head. This was weird, especially combined with the Starcade experience earlier. It's a pretty surreal experience to witness an entire generation that is not your own catering to your childhood and teenage interests, even stranger to participate in it undercover. I began to wonder if this was, in fact, the afterlife. **** So you're a young mother of two. Your kids are between three and five years old. It's Halloween, and you take them to the Halloween costume shop in the Asbury Park Galleria. A young, pretty, blonde, pregnant woman smiles at you and remarks what nice costumes your children have - Skyler is a pirate and Madison a fairy princess - and then complements you on your shoes. You ask how far along she is. Eight months, she replies, and ready to pop. There's a commotion at the gates of the mall, and you look up and to your horror see a crowd of at least one hundred bloody and gory zombies slowly shamble through the large doors to your left. They're moaning, some of them growling, and one of them, wide-eyed, points his nub of an arm at you and your offspring.You take your children by the hand to turn them away from the horde of the undead, but it's too late - they're coming in that entrance too. There doesn't seem to be an easy escape. Madison starts crying. It's alright, sweetie, says the nice young woman. These aren't monsters, they're just pretending. Here, I'll show you. And then she walks toward the horde of fiends, her arms outstretched in a gesture of peace and submission. When she reaches the crowd, however, her expression changes and she starts shouting, No, I was wrong. It's not safe! And what happens next is a nightmare of bad taste. She falls to the ground screaming as the legion of the dead descends upon her. The pregnant stomach is pulled open and intestines come pouring out like sausage. Zombie mailmen and fast food workers and men in suits and surf bums and even a zombie Batgirl all tear at it ravenously as your children start screaming. And then the pregnant woman in white stands up and points at you, her eyes wild, her head leaning to one side, a vacant look in her eyes... So yeah, we got in some trouble for that one. To be fair to the organizers, scaring bystanders, especially children, is strictly against the rules. And even though Max and Keith and I didn't plan the little stunt, we totally went along with it. Luckily we managed to shamble our asses out of there before the police showed up, or we'd have some tough questions to answer. **** We ducked into a bar to hide out and began laughing uncontrollably. The bartender hardly registered the Batgirl outfit or the gory makeup; this was, after all, Halloween at the Jersey shore. Meanwhile, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Them since the white van at breakfast. Nevertheless, alcohol wouldn't do wonders for my perceptive abilities. I ordered a virgin Coca-Cola. "Yech!" "What's wrong with you?" asked Max. "This Coke tastes like shit." Keith tried a sip. "Seems okay to me." "Are you serious? It's fucking New Coke. Might as well be Pepsi with extra sugar." "Well, it's mostly high fructose corn syrup." I pushed the glass of black honey aside. "What are you two drinking?" "Troeg. The Mad Elf." "What is that?" Max looked hesitant. "It, uh, might be a little too much for you to handle." "Let me try it." I tasted Keith's beer. My tongue obviously wasn't used to