What do you know, it's another day in New England. And a raw and nasty one it is, too. Gray threatening sky spitting a bit of rain, kids dashing to the school bus while their parents wait in the SUV, that sort of normal stuff. Nick, Brian, and the rest of the kids at the bottom of the hill are just hanging already; the high school wrapped up finals yesterday and it's just makeup exams and so forth, so they're at loose ends.

We went to the Red Sox game last night. They won 2-1 on some fine pitching from Tim Wakefield. I love watching an aging knuckleballer make the young hotshots look bad. He just killed them. I mean, their pitcher was pretty good too, but not good enough.

It's been kind of a sad week around here, too. Two old nuns who used to work at the parish they closed a couple of years ago to save money died within hours of each other. Apparently they were close as sisters and when the first one died after a long struggle with some kind of infection, the second one just laid down and gave up a few hours later. I'll miss them. They used to come down to the coffee shop and argue theology with Anthony and Patrick and the other coffee-table intellectuals, and they always bought a cup of coffee for the crazy homeless guy who argues with himself.

What, you didn't think a town the size of Marlborough was big enough for homeless people? Well, we're not, really, but some people just can't live inside four walls, I guess.

Richard (underpope) says they had some people dying of infection out in central California too. Kind of a weird coincidence.

Oh no! My neighbor just called me to tell me Patrick has died, too, and of the same spreading infection! She heard the news when she dropped her daughters off at day care. I don't think I could have left my kids after hearing news like that, but Traci pointed out that the day care is right across the street from the hospital, so that's about the safest place they could be. If anybody looks like they're sick, they'll be under a doctor's care in ten minutes.

I keep reading about strange goings-on in other parts of the country (underpope seems to have run into real trouble and elizabethboyce says her mother saw something scary), but except for that cluster of infections, nothing is happening here and there's nothing in the news, either. You'd think if zombies were attacking Marlborough, somebody outside the area would have noticed. Western PA and New Zealand, maybe not.

Anyway, my neighbor the nurse says she really doesn't think there's much to worry about. The people who died are all people who knew each other well, so it's not like there's an epidemic around town. They probably all exposed each other, so the rest of us have nothing to worry about.

So I'm going to go out to lunch with my son as planned. We've only got a few days before vacation and he's not coming with us, and then he'll be moving away for good, so it's kind of a landmark and I don't want to miss it.

I pulled out some of my favorite old piano music to listen to this morning, including Nelson Freire's version of Liszt's Totentanz. An amazing piece of music.

My God, I don't believe the things we just saw.

I mean, we were at the mall. There were kids going into the matinee and moms dragging screaming toddlers through Penney's the same as always. The moms especially were bedraggled and gaunt, with their faces dirty and their hair straggling, but they always look like that. For all I know everybody was a zombie and always has been. But they weren't trying to eat people or anything. So Steven and I had a nice lunch, and I got a new notebook at the art store and some Red Sox hats for my niece and nephew.

We came home past the coffee shop. It's right next to the traffic light. People were running around in the parking lot like somebody had just dropped a hive of bees or something. And then I saw --

Sister Agnes and Sister Dorothy were going in.

No, I'm sure it was them. Only it wasn't them. They looked like they'd been dead for a week, and I'm not joking.

And they -- I don't believe I saw this -- they walked right through the glass door. Glass shattered everywhere.

That's when the light turned green and I gunned the car out of there.

We didn't see anything else the few blocks back to the house. It's a small town. Even if everybody who died in the last month comes back, it's only like a couple dozen people. The cops will take care of them. But I'm pretty scared anyway.

I've got to call Traci and let her know so she can get to her kids.

Did you know you can kill a person with an electric guitar? Neither did I. But it's a big block of solid maple with a long handle, and I didn't have anything else, so I just swung, and THUNK. The side of its head caved in. While it was stunned, I whacked it again and again and again, until the whole skull was smeared on the front step. And then I pushed the body out so I could get the door locked again.

I smashed its head in. I mashed its head to a pulp of bone chunks and gray matter and blood, fuck there's blood all over everything --

Sorry, had to stop to throw up. Hey, I guess that's why real shredders call it an axe, huh?

The neighbor's stupid golden retriever is loose now. She never did pay much attention to that electric fence. She's eating the thing on my steps. Can a dog turn into a zombie by eating zombie brains?

We can't defend this house. It's got windows all over the place and the bulkhead barely even locks. We don't own a gun, just a couple of replica swords and the usual cooking sharpness, plus whatever gas is in the car's tank. Why didn't I fill up when we were at lunch?

Traci just called. She's trying to get home with her daughters, but she can't get through the traffic downtown. I told her to go around, and whatever she does, don't take the shortcut past the cemetery -- but if downtown is blocked, that might be the only path.

I could hear screams and sirens in the background. She says it's all centered at Starbucks. The zombies have broken the walls down and trampled everything. She says it looks like they're eating the coffee beans without waiting to brew coffee or even grind the beans.

The boys and I are holed up upstairs. We plugged the basement stairs with all the spare lawn furniture. The zombies are strong but clumsy. I don't think they'll be able to untangle it before we hit them with our alcohol bombs. Besides, we haven't seen any since that one tried to come in the front door. Maybe we'll be lucky.

Traci got home about an hour ago. She drove up into her driveway like nothing was wrong and the girls hopped out of the van the way they always do. The neighbor's dog came running over to play the way she always does. The oldest girl threw her arms around his neck.

And bit him.

And kept chewing.

The twins joined her. They were all chewing and screaming and laughing, and Traci smiled at them indulgently the way she always does and told them not to get blood on their blouses.

I didn't even have time to scream before the neighbor across the street got home. Traci went after him. She ripped the door off his van while he was reaching out the window to get his mail out of the mailbox. She dragged him into the street. She ripped him open to make it easier for the girls. Then all four of them ripped Steven's car open, like they thought he was inside.

They're out there now, sitting in the middle of the street like they were having a picnic. Steven threw an alcohol bomb at them. He managed to hit his own car, and it's burning now, like a torch, but it's too far away to hurt them.

And now they know we're here.

What little sunlight we had today is gone. A cold wind is rattling the branches and whistling at the windows. The power's out. I'm typing this on the laptop before the battery dies. By the light of the burning car, I can see the neighbors gathering -- half a dozen at least. Dan is up now, too -- what's left of him, anyway, after the girls got done making lunch of him. I can't see if Neil's out there. He never made it home. I hope he stayed at work. The last I heard, they were going to barricade themselves in the lab, so they might be all right.

We're going to put up a fight, but we don't have much to fight with. Steven thinks we can fight our way to the garage and get out that way, and he might be right -- but even if we make it, where would we go? It's the same everywhere. We can see a dozen fires. The streets are probably blocked and we don't have four-wheel drive. The Camry's been a good car but it doesn't have the clearance to cut around lawns.

No, we're pretty much stuck. And this is pretty much it.

Hey, it's been fun, y'know?