Living Dead Date
I met M at a party, and we had an instant attraction. We talked all night and promised to meet up again the following week. I primped, put on a skirt and a cute tank, and when he picked me up I was surprised to find him nearly all dressed in battle gear: black boots, pants, sweater with padded arms and shoulders… etc. Anyway, I shrugged it off and he insisted that we start off by getting coffee, because we were going to need it. It was, at this point, around 7pm.
We then got back into his car while he drove and explained his “cause for concern.” Apparently, no matter how many troops the USA sent overseas (this was circa 2002), they were going to be totally unprepared…. for the zombie armies from all the previous wars in the Middle East. No joke. He thought that our army had two choices: either learn the skills necessary to defeat these zombies, or somehow get them on our side.
As we were driving and he was talking about his fascination with zombies, I noticed that we were getting farther and farther away from the city. This was before I had a cell phone, and something in me told me not to piss this guy off. He just had that look in his eye. I continued to feign interest in his zombie tirade and agree that Something Must Be Done. We stopped at a diner for more coffee, then took off again until finally we were at the entrance to some dark wooded area.
We got out of the car and he opened his trunk. Lucky me, he had prepared battle gear for me as well! The pants and sweater were a little long, and I resisted smudging my face with black paint, so he graciously lent me his balaclava. My shoes were a problem, however. I was wearing flip-flops and he had no boots to loan me. He seemed frustrated at how unprepared I was, and I silently adjusted my facemask while I let him think of a plan B. Plan B, it turned out, was for me to climb a tree to do surveillance with… you got it… his night-vision goggles. Given the options and the situation I found myself in, I think I got off pretty easy.
So we spent a good 30-40 minutes like that–me up in a tree scouring the ground for zombies, and he stalking around with a katana and some bear mace. I don’t know which option he’d chosen with the zombies… subdue or subvert. It didn’t matter anyway, since the zombies weren’t biting that day. Back in the car (and wearing my normal clothes), he asked if I wanted to go get more coffee. I feigned a yawn (though I was totally wired) and asked that he take me home. After ignoring his phone calls and tortured poems by email for a while, he finally got the hint and stopped calling.
