Take the "late" Out of ChocoLATE

I’m at a camp, which is vaguely familiar to me, though now that my id is suppressed I realize that I’ve never been there in my life. There is a large house in front of the property, and it has many rooms, and doors and such. You then go to a back portion where there is one big green mound in the middle and a rivet where the water runs off, kinda like in your parent’s back yard, but on a much larger scale. Then there are various other buildings, mostly houses sprinkled throughout the back portion, some of which are not part of the camp but are owned privately by families. Then the zombie attacks begin…. We’re trying to figure out where we can hide and where the zombies have not yet gotten to. Much like in the movies where the non-zombies find each other and band together, I’m running with a thin woman in her mid thirties and a younger man in his early 30’s. There is something vaguely sexual about the man, but not a closeness which would imply that we have been intimate, just the attraction.

We’re running, across the mound now, and I’m praying that the zombies have not yet gotten to the village behind us. I scamper off to the right (this part remind me of my Grandpa’s house) and find there are dense woods, huge boulders and a brook w/moving water. I begin to wonder if I can survive out here and if I would be safe. I see a tall indigenous man with longish hair and realize that he is from another era and does not speak English. He’s not a zombie, but that doesn’t mean that he makes me feel safe. He begins to make motions of eating flesh, so I know that he, like me, is looking for respite from the zombies, but there’s just something about this guy that I do not like, so I quickly turn around and begin to go back where I came from. I run over the mound again, and find my “friends” squirreled away in a shower. One of the smaller girls has been bitten and we know it’s just a matter of time, but we can’t bear to leave her to the zombies just yet. A zombie crashes through, all hell breaks loose and we begin running. He swipes for me, and I elude him and run out of the back door, over the mound once again.

I begin to think of the indigenous man in the woods and hope that he’s gone. All of a sudden I see my father, and I suddenly know that my family is safe. He points me in the direction of the house, but to the left, the side of it. I don’t know how I missed it, but the whole neighborhood is built on some kind of ridge. Be stealthily crawling along the ditch, I can peek over to see impending danger but still remain hidden. I also see that this is where the poor, Hispanic families are hiding. I see no zombies. Dad tells me that I have to keep going forward and that he can’t go with me, but every time I look behind, he’s there. The houses become more frequent, and I suddenly realize I’m in a city, a neighboring town. The zombie scare has passed. Time has passed and all of the zombies have starved.

I’m riding in a truck with an elderly white woman, who is driving, her grandchild and Jasmin from camp. Jasmin and the child are in the back seat. All of a sudden, things turn dark and deadly, and the elderly woman is becoming threatening. We’re arguing and I suddenly lash out at her. After striking her a few times, she gets highly agitated and I realize that I am in big trouble. It suddenly crosses my mind that I might need to kill her (!), and at that exact moment, she begins to display zombie-like behavior. Her eyes are large and spooky and she begins to bite and lunge at my hands and arms. My hand is dangerously close to her biting jaws, and I'm trying to hold her head still but keep my fingers out of harms way. Suddenly I hear her neck snap, but she does not die- quite the opposite as she continues to drive, and races to her home, and her teeth graze my skin. They are dentures and so she is unable to puncture the surface.

The moment she gets to her driveway she leaps out of the truck, sticks her key in the door and runs upstairs for her gun. Jasmin easily wrestles the gun from her hands and shoots her. The old woman falls on the floor. I immediately decide we must flee the scene. I pick up the gun and something falls out. They are batteries (?). The old woman had hastily stuck batteries on the bottom, and so two were meant for the gun and two had fallen to the floor. I push the two batteries in, slide the bottom shut (it was like changing batteries in a remote control), and ran upstairs hoping that I could see where she got her gun from so that I could put it back. Luckily, the only thing amiss is a wooden box, and I realize that is where the gun goes. As I run downstairs I grab the batteries that had spilled onto the floor and stick them in my pocket. Her granddaughter had gotten out of the truck and is standing by the door, though she is not at all traumatized. Jasmine scoops her up and I use the keys the old woman had left in the door to lock her corpse in her home. My mind races….did she turn into a zombie after I broke her neck or before? Was it self defense or did I just murder someone? What will we tell the police? Was it right to put the gun back? What will I do with the batteries and now her keys?

We get in the woman’s truck; I am driving. We slowly back out of the driveway. 3 policemen are walking by and stop our truck to inquire whether or not we’re doing OK now that the zombies are gone. We act as though we are dropping of the old woman’s truck and begin walking ourselves. It is a very strange feeling-to know that there is a crime they have yet to discover and we, the culprits, are walking along side them. I realize that we could have claimed self defense if we had immediately told the officers what had happened, but our chance for that has passed. We’re talking easily, and laughing with them, but all the while I’m playing the events over and over again in my head, trying to get the story straight and wondering when I’m going to get a chance to talk to Jasmin so that we can agree on what happened and what we’ll do next. I startle myself awake as I realize “MY FINGERPRINTS ARE ON THE GUN!”.

I’m awake, but it was all so real. All morning long I’m in a daze and even as I drive to work, coffee in hand, I’m wondering why I didn’t wipe it down before I put it away. Note to self “Do not bow down to period-induced chocolate cravings at 10pm if you’re bedtime is within that next hour.”