text: [Themes: modern, humor, horror, romance]
  
  You wake up and find that Julie is still fast asleep with her head nestled against your body and one arm draped over you. The funny thing is this sort of thing doesn't even bother you anymore.
  
  But your increasingly odd relationship with Julie isn't excessively important at this time. Right now you're dwelling more on the grim situation you're still in and the event less pleasant task you still have ahead of you. Not quite disturbing Julie yet, you reach over and grab your cell phone to check the time. Slept most of the day as usual. Just as well, since you won't have long to wait for nightfall again when you have to dig another hole out back.
  
  "Julie, get up I have to go." You say tapping Julie on the head.
  "Hgm,.. no..." she utters.
  "Have to, I've got to take care of something and I think you know what it is."
  
  Julie slowly and reluctantly moves off of you and repositions herself on a pillow.
  
  "I wish you could just stay in bed with me all day." She says.
  "At this point, I wish that too." You say and get up to leave to go get your sister out of the washer and dryer.
  
  You grab your seemingly never-ending supply of garbage bags, cleaning products, some towels, a bucket of water, some rubber gloves and go down into the basement.
  
  Once again approaching the washer and dryer you open up them up and are bombarded by a horrible smell. You end up coughing and hacking up again.
  
  "Ugh...(pant) ugh...goddamn it, I can get through this..." you say.
  
  You empty the washing machine first, putting Donna's dismembered legs and arms in trash bags. You then dump some cleaning products into the washing machine and turn it on figuring that it will least wash most of the blood out.
  
  The dryer on the other hand is not going to be as easy to clean. Johnny threw Donna's torso and head in there. While he didn't exactly eviscerate her, there are definitely some or her insides coming out. It's a horrible task (You try not to stare at her head for too long), but between the gagging you manage to get through it. Her body, her left over innards and her head all up into bags and tied up.
  
  You then spend time trying to clean the dryer. Even with using bleach, you can't get rid of that horrible smell. You wonder if it'll ever go away.
  
  "Ugh, that's a really horrible smell." Julie says causing you to turn your head and see that she's come down to check on you.
  "What are you doing down here? I told you I'd take care of this." You say.
  "You were down here awhile and I decided to check on you. Besides, your brother Peter called."
  "Is that right?"
  "Yep, he was returning your call from yesterday. Didn't realize you called him."
  "I was in the middle of calling him when that psycho attacked. Anyway, you talked to him?"
  "Yeah, but I didn't tell him about what happened here, save for the National Guard coming in and telling us to stay indoors. I didn't want to tell him about Donna, I figured you'd want to do that."
  "Thanks. Peter and Donna weren't exactly the closest either, but I think he'd be pretty upset to hear about her death. So he didn't want to talk to me?"
  "Well I told him you were really busy cleaning up an awful mess elsewhere in the house. He actually said he didn't want to talk long though because he was worried that the government was monitoring the phone call what with the marshal law and all."
  "Huh, sounds almost like something my brother Ben would've said."
  "Yeah, that's the other thing. He mentioned he was busily trying to locate Ben's old hidden bunker in your backyard. He said he wants to wait this out in there because he's scared shitless and feels vulnerable just being stuck in your house by himself."
  "Well I can see him being scared since this isn't the most relaxed of situations."
  "Yeah, but he said its more than just the National Guard. He said he saw a few of your neighbors acting nuttier than a shithouse rat in the streets for no apparent reason. Like they were rabid animals. He mentioned some of them was trying to bite someone."
  
  You stop cleaning for a moment.
  
  "What? Crazy people trying to bite others? That almost sounds like something out of a horror movie. You sure he wasn't exaggerating?"
  "He sure didn't sound like it, I mean it sort of makes sense. People have become more aggressive and hostile. The crime rate in this town has gone up so bad that the National Guard had to come in. I mean maybe everyone in town is going crazy from some sort of secret military experiment!"
  "If that's true, then how come we aren't running around biting people?" you ask.
  "Well maybe it hasn't affected us yet, maybe we're immune, I don't know! Maybe it spreads by bite like in a zombie movie! I'm just saying maybe we should start blocking the windows and doors."
  "Julie its entirely possible Peter saw some people just high on bath salts! I mean the people who live in my neighborhood aren't exactly the most morally upstanding. Let's wait and see for a moment. I mean I'm still cleaning up here, so it'll be awhile and..."
  
  Suddenly several machine gun shots are heard.
  
  "Oh my God!" Julie says and instinctively ducks. You on the other hand get up off your knees from cleaning and start to head upstairs.
  
  "Are you insane, where are you going?!" Julie asks.
  "Julie, while at one time it would've been unthinkable for me to head TOWARDS the sound of gunfire, I've left a pistol and an axe upstairs. If nothing else I'd like to retrieve to viable weapons if an impending zombie apocalypse is indeed coming."
  "Well hold on I'm coming with you, I don't want to be by myself!" Julie says.
  
  And like that you're cautiously going upstairs towards potential danger with Julie touching one of your arms and hiding behind you. Now you really do feel like you're in a horror movie.
  
  When you get upstairs, you and Julie keep your heads down. The gunfire doesn't sound like it's immediately out in front of the house, but it's definitely nearby. You go and get the pistol first.
  
  "Why is the gun in the cereal box?" Julie asks.
  "Because I was desperately trying to find a place to hide it yesterday. Julie, I think you better go put something a little more protective on. If we need to suddenly leave in a hurry you're not going to want to be running around in your underwear."
  "I suppose you're right. Where are you going to be?"
  "I'm going back to my room to retrieve the axe from the bathroom, wash this blood off and change my clothes as well since I obviously ruined these by cutting and ripping them yesterday in the first place."
  
  You and Julie part ways briefly to go take care of your short-term goals. After washing up and changing your clothes again you start to ponder what your next move might be. You don't quite get to do that since once again you're interrupted by the breaking of glass coming from the kitchen followed by snarling and grunting.
  
  "Shit!" you exclaim and run to the kitchen to see a bloody arm through the window of the backdoor attempting to unlock it. The thing on the other side gets more excited when it sees you and starts pounding the glass with its other hand cracking more of it. It seems completely oblivious to the fact that it's severely cutting itself in the process.
  
  It looks like a regular (if a bit wild) human. It doesn't look rotten (Could be fresh though) and maybe it isn't a zombie, but you know damn well you can't let it get in! You shoot at it through the glass completely shattering the rest of the window. The bullet hits it in the face and the thing falls backwards making one last death growl.
  
  You cautiously move to look through the broken window and see that you've killed it. Meanwhile Julie has come running to see if you're okay.
  
  "Suzy! Oh thank god! Are you okay?!" Julie asks.
  "Yeah, but I apologize for doubting you and Peter. One of those... things, guess I'll call them the rabid just attacked. Look what one did to this door, I'd hate to think what more of them might do in a group." You say.
  "Oh shit! We need to start blocking the doors and windows!"
  "I'm wondering if we shouldn't just get the hell out of here while we can."
  "I really think we we'd be safer if we stayed put! I mean we have more than enough furniture and items to barricade ourselves in here. If we leave, we run the risk of bumping into hordes of them and that's not counting the military who are still shooting people on sight, maybe even more so now. Where would we go anyway?"
  "I admit, I haven't figured that part out yet, but I think you're hoping to ride this thing out until shit gets back to normal and I'm wondering if that's even going to happen. We aren't exactly well supplied here for a long-term stay even if we do barricade this place. Now I'll give you that it's probably going to be dangerous out there, but at least we'll have more freedom to move around."
  
  Julie of course will follow you no matter what you decide, but she really wants to stay in. As much as you think it might be better to leave now, you probably would be safe if you barricaded yourselves in the house properly. Things do sound hectic out there right now with all the gunfire, it might even be best if you waited until things died down a bit and sneak out later.
  
  > barricade the house
  Things are too hot out there right now. The National Guard is parked firmly in the neighborhood; you wouldn't have a chance to get past them.
  
  No, the best thing to do is barricade yourself in. You have enough supplies to last the remainder of the week you think.
  
  "Okay, let's block the doors and windows the best we can. Those shots might have the National Guard over here again, but at least we can point to a viable target this time." You say.
  "What about your... um sister?" Julie asks.
  "(Sigh) Shit. I dunno. She's all wrapped up in bags right now, I guess I'll just throw her in the garbage can out in your backyard. It's near the door, so I won't have to linger too long."
  "You really want to throw her away like that?"
  "No, I don't fucking want to throw away my sister like she was just day old meatloaf, but I don't have many other options right now and if we are going to be stuck in this house for who knows how many days on end, I don't want my sister's chopped up corpse sharing it with us! Now start pushing shit against the front door and block the windows!"
  
  While Julie goes to follow your orders, you head back down in the basement to grab your sister's remains. It takes two trips and a lot of paranoia, but you manage to get her all in the trash can without anything else attacking you or the military coming to check up on you again. You do hear a lot more shooting though, so you're guessing that maybe they're too occupied with something else. You finish up by shoving the refrigerator in front of the back door.
  
  Julie meanwhile is trying her best. She's got the front door barricaded well enough, but the windows leave something to be desired.
  
  "Julie, anyone could crash through those windows right now. Don't you have like hammer and nails or something laying around?" you ask.
  "No, and I don't have a bunch of wooden planks either. Why the hell would I have that shit? I don't sit around thinking about how to best protect my home against a possible zombie attack!" Julie answers. Her state of agitation is vastly increasing under the pressure.
  "I don't think they're dead...nevermind doesn't matter. (Sigh) Okay, you're obviously stressed. Why don't you take a break and I'll handle this. I'll try to figure out a way to better barricade this place."
  
  Julie doesn't need you to say anymore and she immediately runs upstairs. You imagine she's probably going to pop some pills or something to mellow her out. At this point as long as she stays out of your way, you'll be able to get what you need to do accomplished.
  
  You spend a good amount of time shoving as much furniture as you can in front of most of the ground floor windows. Something could definitely still break them and with enough force they'd probably eventually knock through the furniture, but you're confident that you'd at least have enough time to do something about it before they got in completely.
  
  Still, the gunfire and yelling from outside hasn't stopped the whole time you're doing this, there are a couple points where you hear some explosions too, so you're not exactly feeling completely relaxed about this situation.
  
  You then start packing "get a away" bags with as many useful items as you can, just in case you need to leave in a hurry. One of your bags that you brought hasn't even been opened and is still full of clothing. You fill your other bags with more useful items like some of the non-perishable snack food Julie has, the duct tape you were using, a few of the bigger kitchen knives, loose batteries, some of the medicine in the bathroom, etc.
  
  You then finish up with packing a few more of your personal items and then think if you do need to leave in a hurry, it probably would be best if you could drive out of here.
  
  You head upstairs and start calling for Julie, but when you find her, she's laying on her bed in a semi-conscious state. She took something to calm herself just as you figured.
  
  "Julie! Julie! Does Donna have a spare set of car keys?" you ask.
  "Mgh...huh...come to bed..." she says.
  "Julie! I need to know if Donna had spare keys to her car!" you shout.
  "I dunno...yeah...prob...dresser..." Julie utters and starts to become even less coherent.
  
  Seeing that she's going to be of no more use for the rest of the day, you search Donna's room for her car keys and fortunately Julie was correct in that they were on the dresser.
  
  By this point, night has fallen and while the gunfire has lessened, you still hear the occasional shot. You're a little tired from all the running around and other activity you've been doing to today, not to mention you're still wearing the clothing that you cleaned your sister up in. As much as you're hesitant to let your guard down, you absolutely feel the need to clean up.
  
  After a quick shower, you return to being on guard for something to happen. Anything. Julie of course is peacefully asleep and oblivious to anything that's going on at this time.
  
  You peek out one of the second floor windows and see Guardsmen still patrolling, but it doesn't look like there's as many any more and you see a pile of what are probably bodies a little up the block. It does look like things have quieted down a bit, around here anyway. Who knows about the rest of the town.
  
  You wonder if you shouldn't sneak out and leave while things are quieter, but Julie's not in any condition to leave now. And as inept as she's been today, you can't just abandon her. You've just lost your sister, you're not going to lose your best friend as well.
  
  You stay up late past midnight staying alert, but nothing happens. You wander back and forth through the house until eventually even you can't fight off the sleep and you return to your room and close your eyes for just a moment...
  
  > Next day...
  You are awakened by a loud explosion, a close one. One so close in fact that the force of it causes you to roll off your bed.
  
  "Shit!" you exclaim as you hit the floor, still tired, but very much awake. You don't know what time it is, but you know you haven't been asleep very long.
  
  You grab your pistol, which is nearby, and the smell of gunpowder, smoke and fire are immediately starting to become very strong.
  
  You exit your room and see that your barricade of the front facing windows has been destroyed along with that portion of the house. Furniture is in pieces and some of it is burning. That isn't all that is in pieces however. You see the remains of several bodies. One bloody legs looks like it was wearing a military outfit, a couple of the other parts are of the more civilian persuasion.
  
  You can only guess this might've been a soldier desperately trying to escape and blew himself up either on purpose or accidently in an attempt to kill the rabid things after him.
  
  You can't make out everything from where you're standing, but the streets are swarming with hordes of those things. It would appear a "second wave" has popped up and is strong enough to overwhelm the military here.
  
  Even Julie has woken up.
  
  "Holy shit Suzy! What the fuck..." Julie says from above.
  "Julie get whatever..."
  "SUZY LOOK OUT!" Julie screams.
  
  You react just in time to shoot one of those rabid fuckers twice in the chest. He goes down and doesn't get back up, but that's of little help since you've now just attracted even more of them and they're running in your direction.
  
  "Julie climb out one the upstairs windows!" you shout, firing at two more rabid before running away yourself. Julie immediately runs back into her bedroom.
  
  You'd follow her, but the burning debris makes it difficult and your own distance to the stairs isn't close enough for you to get there before more rabid come gibbering in.
  
  You instead head for the backdoor and fire off the remainder of your bullets as you run. You might've actually managed to make out had the back door not been barricaded with the refrigerator.
  
  You don't even get to open the back door before you're roughly pulled backwards and you feel a set of teeth sinking shoulder. This is soon followed by more teeth and your screams.