I didn't want to leave him there, but it's hard to think clearly when actual zombies are rolling up the hill and clearly psyched with bloodlust. So after a short, quiet protest, I ended up taking off alongside my sister into the woods. There was no other way to go but into the woods.

Somehow, my dad made it away, too. Later on he found us with a group of other people who had made it away from that first zombie attack. It was obvious all of us were a hair's breadth from total mental breakdowns, but standing around a bunch of strangers had the helpful effect of forcing everybody to keep at least a modicum of sanity and coherence. We walked together until and the braver ones among us talked, they tried to figure out where we should go without mentioning the fact that we were fleeing from the undead.

Eventually, we came upon a bunch of abandoned structures in a clearing. They were all different sizes, all some kind of cross between a water tower and a cabin. Everybody seemed a lot calmer, and so we separated a bit to explore. Some people went swimming in a pool that was there, and then people actually started laughing. There was one woman who had a blue button-down shirt on, and she unbuttoned it all the way so her tits were free. And she just ran like that, ran in a straight line through all the buildings, with a smile on her face. Maybe she had been waiting to do something like that all her life. There was another woman who was in the pool and it was obvious that her skin was slowly turning bright blue. Otherwise, she seemed fine, though, so nobody said anything.

The next time I saw the tits-out woman, I didn't realize that she had changed. She looked almost exactly the same, and her blue shirt was still hanging off her arms. But as she got closer, I saw that her face was different.

I'm in a school, a college, and there's a gameshow being taped live. The room where the gameshow is being taped is a large, dark room with some vaguely futuristic decorating-- lots of slim, shiny steel bars, black leather, neon lights. The place is full of enthusiastic kids, two of which are selected to compete against a computer. They sit in a reclining chair, like a dentist's chair, with some weird gloves on, and a monitor in front of their face. The competition involves them singing very upbeat, very Christian songs while the computer berates and mocks them. The crowd is really, really into it. The gameshow host, a young & predicatble gameshow host archetype, tells them their scores, which isn't in "points," but in McDonald's chicken nuggets. I'm baffled and try to leave.

But I can't find my way out of the school. Tons of businessmen and women in suits carrying digital cameras and cell phones are rushing around like it was an airport. I find another young guy who is trying to get out of there and we accidentally go into a kitchen where a dude who looks just like a tougher, meaner Michael Chiklis is about to deliver a baby from a girl who works in the kitchen. Some guy holding a weird laser gun is knocked out on the floor and there's a bunch of thin, young girls standing around. I pick up the gun and try to shoot the bald dude but it doesn't work. I read the little LCD screen on the gun and deduce that it needs to be charged up to "200," but the bald guy is closing in on me and is very angry, so I throw the gun to my companion and grab the bald guy's forearms. He's shocked that I am able to keep him from grabbing me, and so am I. As I struggle with his arms I realize that I am, to my surprise, totally stronger than this big dude, and I use his own fists to punch him in the face until he's unconcious. The girls all run away, and I grab the laser gun back and shoot it at the wall. A single, skinny lightning bolt comes out of it, hits the wall, then a bunch more laser/lightning bolts descend from the sky and electrify the wall. It doesn't do any damage to the wall, but I figure I should keep it because it can probably fuck up the next dude that tries to grab me.

I make my way to my homeroom, which is full of kids. I'm naked but nobody seems to notice. I go to the 5-drawer file cabinet that is my "locker" and look for some shorts, but the first drawer I open is full of drug paraphenalia, and the second one is full of women's panties, bras, and garter belts that are all made out of the same scratchy fabric that straps on backpacks are made out of. Some bras are on the floor, too, which makes me think someone has been going through my "locker." I try to find the shorts and put away the stray bras worried that someone will think I'm trying to dress up in girl's underwear back here. An old lady, the teacher, comes to me and tells me I need to use a real locker and not this file cabinet. I tell her I never got a real locker. She tells me to go get a real locker. I'm still naked.

There's a show I'm supposed to play and I don't want to play it.

I'm at my parents' house, which is gutted because they're selling it, and I find that there are many large rooms that I've never been in, rooms that are hidden behind other rooms-- for instance, a shower that could fit 5-6 people comfortably and has a small one-way window looking out into the bathroom I remember as a child. One of the hidden rooms still has a rug and a television in it even though the rest of the house has been cleared of all furniture.

I'm at a hip record store with a list of LPs to buy. They don't have any Kate Bush records, which bums me out. They have a Bowie record called ENTER SANDMAN but it's just a 5-part goblin play that I already have a record of under a different name.

The new Kid606 record is there but the tax on it is really high. I know I should save my money and just ask Miguel to send me a copy in the mail. They also do have the new The Blow remix of Mogwai, which I am curious to hear. The art on that one looks a lot like the ATTITUDE 12".

Later I'm going to Sunday school. I have to walk there, it's in a schoolroom tucked away in the wings of a huge, ornate cathedral. I'm walking with a younger boy and trying to explain to him that he needs to learn about existentialism so he can catch up and appreciate Sunday school from the other side, post-rebellion against church. I can't believe he's never heard of existentialism, and I feel like a tool using that word out loud to him over and over again.

I keep trying to go into this house, but a guy with greasy dark hair and a crappy trenchcoat keeps moving me out of it with his mind. A friend of mine calls the house over and over on the phone. One time they accidentally answer it, "411 Miniatures?" We open the phone book and find out there's a comic book store called 411 Miniatures run by two guys, one of whom was in that house and the other one, we assume, is the guy moving me with his mind.

But it turns out that the guy who was moving me is the BROTHER of the guy listed in the ad as the other owner. "Where is he?!" we yell after walking into his house. With this knowledge, he can't keep me out. He tells us to find his mother. "Oh, so your brother is with your mom, huh!"

We go find the mom. Sometimes the other brother, who we cannot see, he controls the mother's voice and body. She doesn't seem to be able to stop him from doing it. We tear off her shirt and there is an ear on either side of mom's ribcage. There's two eyes under her breasts and a nose. There's a shallow mouth where her bellybutton should be. It was the other brother.

In the end we didn't know if the brother was controlling the mother or if she was faking and maybe controlling him. Maybe it was all some kind of weird trick.

Roby and I are at some beach, and I am a little confused and annoyed because we are paying for this 50-some year-old black man in a suit to come to the beach and join us. Roby thinks she wants to marry him.

I think about it a lot before making my argument. I think I have a good one.

"But our wedding was so insane and spectacular! Now you're just gonna marry this old dude on a beach? That's lame. You can't follow up our wedding with this, it's disappointing."

Roby is too excited about her idea of marrying this old guy to really consider my argument. She's all smiles.

I go in to some bathroom and start yelling at some guy that's in there.

"Who are you!? Tell me who you are!" I yell. The guy has glasses and long, dirty black hair and a stupid beard.

When I yell at him, he seems amused. He's smiling, I think he thinks it's a game. "I dunno, who am I?" he says, grinning.

"Who are you?" I yell. "I know why you're here!"

I’m in some unfamiliar town—maybe it’s in Florida, or Virginia, and I’m staying at my friend’s parents’ house in the suburbs. It’s a great house and his parents cook great food. It’s summer outside, too, and I’m on tour, although it would appear that I have a day off to visit my friend (who is on tour with me)’s parents. It’s almost 5 PM, though, and I tell my friend that in order to get to Atlanta before too long, we’re going to have to leave soon. My friend, however, and his parents, insists that I take their family car and go to Atlanta myself. “It is only a five hour drive,” they say. “That’s not so bad to do by yourself.” I am a bit overwhelmed by their generosity. “We will meet you there tomorrow.” I cannot believe they would let me take their car without their son along with me. It keeps getting later and later and I worry that I might not make it to Atlanta before midnight.

When I finally get away from the house and on the road, Roby is with me. She wants to stop for food before we go. I am a little lost in a maze of rural side-streets but I locate an Asian restaurant called Buddha-something that looks like it might have some cute snacks. We park at a parking meter and walk towards the restaurant. We see a tall Asian guy in a yellow sweatsuit taking out the garbage. For some reason, he kicks this white business guy in the head two times, then in the ribs. The kick to the ribs seems to really devastate the business guy and he doubles over howling terribly. The dude in the yellow sweatsuit resumes taking out the trash. The kicking man and his kicking seem to arouse a feeling of déjà vu in me.

We go into the restaurant and a young Asian girl behind the counter politely informs us that they don’t seat people or server food for another fifteen minutes. I am in a hurry to get on the highway and I tell Roby that I am not comfortable with waiting fifteen minutes, and then spending more time here sitting down to eat—I think we should get on the road and stop for food later. She is disappointed. I offer that we could get some drinks to go and take them with us. By now, however, a bunch of other people have come in and are standing in line. We get in line, too. A man two or three places ahead of us in line receives the same kicks from the yellow sweatsuit-guy—we think he might have been rude to the girl.

When it comes our time to order, Roby goes to the bathroom and I lean over the counter to tell the girl I want two bubble teas. “We don’t have bubble tea,” she says. I point to the chalkboard behind her, which lists “Bubblesa” as one of the kinds of tea they have. She tries to explain to me that means “iced tea” and not the kind of “bubble tea” that I want. I make a very clever remark that I can no longer remember, and she becomes incensed and tells me that all I am good at is criticizing her and her brother. I can see that she is livid and I walk from the counter and grab Roby, who is just emerging from the bathroom. I take her outside and we go towards the car, which is initially a little hard to locate. We start running toward the car, thinking of the kicks.

When I’m almost to Atlanta, it’s a bright summer day outside and I’m inside a new rental car with Roby and my male friend and maybe one other person. We’re zipping down the highway and my friend is at the wheel. We turn off to use a left-side exit and find ourselves driving around a long, curving exit-ramp. I turn to Roby and say, “Did you see a car just coming the wrong direction towards us?” My male friend nonchalantly requests that I take the wheel from the back seat while he retrieves a CD from the console between the front two seats. He shifts his body around while he digs around in the console and it makes it quite hard for me to see the cars on the road from my awkward position. “I think all the cars are going the wrong direction!” Roby says, although she is not panicked. Cars start honking at me. I am confused because there are no wrong-way signs and I did not see or do anything which would make me think that I am the one going the wrong way. I try to pull some fancy maneuvers to get around the oncoming cars and nearly succeed, but just before I am able to reach the right-hand shoulder, a white sedan pops out from behind the cars in front of me and hits our car head-on. It doesn’t even dent our fender, but we watch this white car and it’s sole occupant bounce backwards into the grassy hill beyond the shoulder and come crashing down, which shatters the windshield. Everyone in my car falls silent. I am worried that maybe I killed somebody and will have to go to jail, but I am also wondering if I will escape all culpability because we’re paying an extra eleven dollars a day to the rental car company for the optional Loss-Damage Waiver.

So we’re in Atlanta, at some kind of weird coffee shop show space, sitting on a bed with a canopy that is against a wall and has a nearly see-through piece of fabric that hangs down from the canopy, like a privacy drape. I’m there with Roby, she is sad about the car accident. I tell her that it’s OK, she and the others should keep going with the tour, I would stay in Atlanta until things were sorted out. There is a movie being projected on a screen just outside the little drape, and I am trying to talk to Roby and also pull the drape back in order to see the movie. It’s a weird animation about a guy who tries to do a puppet show for some people but they keep stopping him from doing it and making him leave. I say to Roby, “Hey, watch this movie, it’s got puppets in it!” but she doesn’t seem to care much. I terminate the conversation and devote all my attention to trying to figure out the movie but I’ve missed too much and am frequently interrupted by people at this coffee shop.

I ask my uncle Mike if I can have another one of the pages of the paper, because the movie has become a comic and I am on a couch in my parents’ living room with my uncle Mike. Between us are a bunch of newspaper pages with the various parts of this story in it. It is a weird and sad story. My uncle starts telling me that it has many allusions to other movies, and I tell him I figured as much but am not very familiar with the films being alluded to. He begins to list them. The one which is of most interest to me is a movie from the 80s about a depressed artist who believes that he is supposed to do something great and important but who cannot find any support or interest in his artistic endeavors, and sinks deeper and deeper into depression with each successive failure. At the end of the movie, the artist is masturbating and his ejaculation becomes the San Francisco Bay. Most likely there is some sci-fi element involved--- my uncle does not explain how his ejaculation becomes the San Francisco Bay -- but the movie sounds really good and I make a mental note to rent it.

I grab the most recent newspaper in a final effort to understand this animated story but it has no pictures at all, just writing by the story’s eccentric author. I don’t feel like reading the writing. I look up at the TV and a tiny little ghoulish green face, covered with slime, is being cradled by a man’s hands. The little ghoul is whining, and soon his whines become coherent: “Blood! Blood” The little ghoul crawls along the man’s palm to the base of his thumb, where there is a pink tattoo of some weird geometric design. The ghoul-baby bites his skin and gets blood all over its face, then turns on its back and rubs the blood all over its face and body with tiny gross hands, crying happily, “Blood! Blood!” I turn to my dad, who is sitting on the fireplace hearth, and ask him if this is the movie called “Ghoulies.” My dad replies that it probably is. Then I look back into my own hands where I am holding a scaly, black purse with a couple of these ghoul-babies in it. I close it up and throw it on the floor. “We should probably burn this in a fire, right?” I say, rather calmly. Realizing that the babies might crawl out, I grab a poker from the fireplace and push down on the opening of the evil, scaly purse, to keep anything from pushing its way out.