It's been one of those writer's blocks

*50,000 words deep* *Staring at blank page.* *cracks knuckles* Me: Well everything sucks. Maybe if I just started over...

The Desperate Writer's Prayer

Holy Fathers, Thompson and Hemingway be thy name, you wills be done, writer block be gone, in King, Childs, and Cussler's name we pray.

Shotguns & Shambling Corpses: "Shit like this doesn't happen overnight"

Shawn and I stepped outside into the cold night air. For it being the apocalypse and all, it was incredibly quiet. We were in the middle of nowhere after all, but still you'd think there'd be some noise indicating he world had ended spectacularly in the last few days. It was actually pretty creepy. Not wanting to spend anymore time out here in the dark than I had to, I jumped in my truck and had Shawn guide me as I backed my bed up to the restroom door. It was a rather tight fit and I'm fairly certain I was going to lose some paint pulling out later. Shawn had begun pulling out “supplies” from the bed of my truck to “make camp” for the night. Which meant sleeping in a piss, and now bleach, reeking men's bathroom. I had to wiggle around my truck to help him. It was the first time I had gotten a good look at what constituted supplies for the apocalypse. As always Shawn had come prepared. As far as survival supplies went we were most OK. Shawn, with his weird form of paranoia, had stocked up on canned foods, gallon jugs of water, camping supplies including: two tents, a portable stove with a case of butane bottles, a chemical shower, sleeping bags for all of us, 3 axes, a couple hunting knives, about a mile of paracord, a trenching tool, and what looked like a toolbox full of tools. He had raided his medicine cabinet and came away with some antibiotics, bandages, gauze, sleeping pills, tooth brushes and toothpaste, mouthwash, and toilet paper. I had been Shawn's roommate since college and I didn't even know he had most of this stuff. Why had we needed a chemicals shower? Not sure but glad we had it now. People like Shawn are how Sam’s Club and Costco stay in business Banks had wrapped Cara, who had fallen asleep while Shawn and I grabbed our supplies, up in a sleeping bag and came over to sit with the two of us. “Alright.” He started in whisper. “What the fuck is going on?” “We are spending the night in a men's restroom.” “No. I know that you ass. I mean what is going on? Like where the hell did all of this come from? What is it? What's causing this?” Both me and Shawn shrugged. It wasn't like either of us were the world's leading study when it came to zombie plagues. Half my knowledge about the situation came from conflicting news reports read on my phone in my cubicle and Call Of Duty. A fact I pointed out to Banks. “There has to be a reason bro.” The big guy clearly wanted to know that all of this, whatever the hell this was, had a clear cause. I understood how he felt. If something has a clear cause it can have a clear solution. There had to be a reason we were currently huddled in a men's room, in Wherever The Fuckville Virginia, counting our supply of ammunition and readying weapons. “Things happen.” Shawn is truly a man of many words. Truly he is a word smith. “Yea but why?” I sighed. Banks didn't seem to be letting this conversation go, and it's not like I could dismiss him either. Banks is the type of guy that when he gets on to something he doesn't let it go. He had once followed me into the bathroom at coach's to continue an argument about who is the rightful king of Westeros. I had to defend Jon Smith with my dick in my hand while I sprayed four hours worth of beer in the urinal. “Fast spreading neurovirus?” “Shit like this,” he swung his huge arm around to encompass our situation, “doesn't happen overnight. It builds up. Scientists know about it.” “Says a high school Lacross coach.” It was Banks's turn to sigh. But he forged on undeterred. “Shawn what do you think? You read posts about this sort of thing.” Shawn shrugged, completely content on staying out of it, until finally relenting to our big friends hard stare. “Could be anything. Virus. Bacteria. Interdimensional rifts. Whatever. Doesn't matter. What matters is that we just stay ahead of it.” Both me and Banks stared at Shawn. Interdimensional rift was a big word for a guy who worked on a dock, and was known for saying something that required six words to say in four. “Where did you learn a word like interdimensional?” I asked. I'm not saying Shawn is stupid, far from it. Drop a guy like Shawn in the woods with nothing but a tooth pick, some duct tape, and a knife and you would have a shopping mall in the jungle within a week. Shawn ignored my question, Our friendship is 80% him ignoring me, and went back to loading rounds into magazines for his rifles. The three of us sat in silence for a bit, the only noise was a slow drip from a faucet and Cara’s soft snoring. “So what's next?” Banks asked finally breaking the silence. He looked at me for a minute than transferred his gaze to Shawn. Shawn shrugged. He had apparently used up his alotted words for the day. “Ryder?” “Don't ask me man. I'm not the leader.” “You got us out of Pittsburgh.” True. But that was mostly luck. Luck and a badass truck that I stilled owed payments on. Now both Banks and Shawn were looking at me. Apparently luck was all it took to get elected leader in the zombie apocalypse. Note to self: make friends with high ranking leaders in the military before the Z.A. so you can defer to their leadership.

Shotguns &Shambling Corpses: A Men's Restroom in Whereverville Virgina

All notions of modesty had went out the window when the dead rose up to devour the living. Any other time, besides maybe spring break in Daytona beach, three heavily armed dudes walking into a rest stop’s men's room with a small blonde female in tow may have came across as suspicious. Now though there was safety in numbers. I had locked my truck over my shoulder as we all hustled in the bathroom. Shawn had given me a quizzical look at that as if to say “what's the point?” I shrugged and told him I didn't want my truck to get stolen. “By who?” Shawn asked incredulously. “I dunno. Raiders? Packs of nomadic, leather clad, survivors with a taste for blood and a knack for kleptomania?” I was still getting used to this whole “end-of-the-world” thing, so for all I knew there was mad max esque nut jobs roaming the streets stealing other survivors pick up trucks. Shawn for his part just shook his head. “Whatever. Doesn't matter. I need to get out of these clothes. Not sure how long the virus lasts outside of a carrier but considering I am fucking covered in potentially infected blood I don't want to take any chances.” I pulled off my shirt to emphasize the point and stuffed it into the trash. Next came my undershirt and pants as I stripped down to my boxers. The group just stared at me as I popped the top of a bottle of bleach I had grabbed from my laundry room and poured it over my head. Skin tingling, eyes stinging, I blinked away the chlorine smelling liquid and looked at my friends. I passed the jug of bleach to Shawn on my way to the sink to scrub off the blood and visceral gore that had accumulated under my finger nails. Soon the whole space smelled like the YMCA’s pool after a kid had pooped in the kiddie end forcing the janitors to empty a years worth of chlorine tablets into the shit stained waters. After rinsing off the best I could I sat down on the cold tile floor and pulled my hastily packed bug-out back toward me so I could rummage through it. Sitting on a floor soaked in trucker piss probably wasn't the most sanitary thing to do, but fuck it I was covered in bleach so whatever. Shawn took the opportunity to show Cara how to use the .38 he had loaned her. Cara listened intently as Shawn broke the process of loading and unloading the six cylinders, and went through the motions a few times with Shawn critiquing. I pulled aside the slapdash bandage I had applied to my shoulder back in my bathroom, and looked at the gash. The wound was still open and still bleeding freely. That needed to be addressed. Imagine surviving the zombie apocalypse only to die from an infection later on. I'd feel ridiculous. Rummaging through my bag I came out with a half empty bottle of rubbing alcohol and a box of bandages. Luckily before all of this I had a passion for skateboarding because without the need to cover up scraped knees and elbows I doubted I would have had this many gauze pads and bandaids. Gritting my teeth I poured the rubbing alcohol into the wound, once the burning started I went to slap a large bandage on it and be done with the whole thing, when Cara stopped me. “That needs stitches.” She knelt down and began searching through my bag. I had grabbed whatever I had thought would be useful, which turned out to be a jumbled pile of whatever I could find at the moment. Cara pulled out a pair of yellow dish gloves and set them aside. Now with her head pretty much submerged in the large duffle bag she called up at me, “Do you have a needle and thread?” “Uh…” “Never mind I found something that will work.” Cara sat down next to me and pulled on the yellow gloves. When I asked why she needed those she replied, “Ryder I've seen the girls you've dated. Your filthy.” She began pulling apart the draw string from a pair of my board shorts into thin sections. Expertly threading the string through the eye of a needle, she put a gloved hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “Hold still. This is probably going to hurt.” I nodded. She nodded. Then she grabbed my shoulder and pinched the cut closed and jab the needle Into it. Which I have to say hurt about as much as getting the damn cut in the first place. Screw this if this is the future and we are doing surgery without anesthesia I didn't want to live anymore! I wouldn't stand for this! We had made medical achievements damnit! We were above this! Damnit this hurt! If this is how things were going to go, all Civil War like and gangreney and painful and disgusting, and… “Done.” I looked down at the neatly stitched wound on my shoulder. Cara poured some more rubbing alcohol on one of my tshirts and gently rubbed away the dried blood. She then reapplied a bandage. Satisfied with herself she got up and peeled off the gloves. She went to throw them away, thought better of it, who knows when we would be able to pick up gloves again, and put them in the sink. She dumped a heavy splashing of bleach on the gloves and went to sit back with Banks. “Where'd you learn to do that?” I asked in a bit of amazement. Cara sold high class handmade lingerie online, so not exactly a trauma nurse. Cara rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Ryder 90% of my job is sewing. Also I wanted to be a trauma nurse before I realized I could make a lot, like a lot, more money sitting at home in my pajamas.” She let out a laugh and continued. “Plus I had six older brothers so growing up had been rough…” Her expression darkened as she realized she had used the past tense in referring to her family. Banks put his huge arm around her shoulder and hugged her close. Shawn moved away from the couple to give them space. I'm not good with a lot of things in life but at the top of the list is consoling distraught, and crying, women. It also didn't help that I didn't have that problem. It was just me, and had been for a majority of my adult life. Well besides my friends of course. Not knowing how to deal with the direction the conversation had taken I decided to make myself busy by getting some clothes on. I pulled a black wetsuit out of my bag and squeezed my way into it, the thick neoprene material sticking to my wet skin. Everyone, including Cara, looked at me questionably. “Dude what are you wearing?” “Remember that surf trip we had planned, but you two jackasses backed out last minute because 2 or 3 kids got eaten by jaws?” Without waiting for an answer I continued, “yea well I thought we would actually go instead of getting drunk at coach’s and stumbling home to play Nazi Zombies for four days, so I bought this off of amazon. Why am I wearing it now? Glad you asked. Because, according to the company's website anyways, this bad boy,” I pointed at my chest, “is shark proof.” Banks laughed and even Cara gave a chuckle. “So what are you worried about zombie sharks now?” Banks asked while laughing. No imagination these guys. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow still pointing at my wet suit. Clearly a demonstration was in order to silence all the haters in the crowd. I put my sleeved arm up to my mouth and bit down on it till my teeth hurt. Banks had stopped laughing mid laugh and stared at me. He nodded in understanding. Thank you thank you I'll be here all week. Feeling satisfied in my cleverness I began pulling on the rest of my outfit. I pulled on a pair of camo cargo pants and then a faded black t-shirt baring the logo to some forgotten skate company. Next came rollerblading pads which i pulled on over my knees and elbows. To add to my very apocalypse chic get-up I tugged on a pair of calf high motocross boots, and began fastening them secure with the wrap around straps. I topped the whole ensemble off with a black combat vest with about a million pockets that I purchased for my brief paintball phase. Except instead of balls made of paint I fully intended to stuff as many clips, mags, shells, and rounds that I could in the endless pockets. Looking at myself in the mirror I nodded thinking I looked pretty cool. “You look ridiculous.” Oh well fuck it, I thought so anyways. Now armored up I sat cross legged on the floor again and set out my assortment of weapons in front of me. “We should make camp here tonight.” Shawn said in his quiet voice. “We can pull the truck up to the door to block the entrance, that way we can at least get some sleep.” He held out his hand for my keys and I tossed him to him. “I'll grab some gear, it won't be comfortable but it can be secure.” I looked at Banks who was talking quietly with Cara, who despite her earlier chuckles had her face buried in his shoulder. Getting up I followed Shawn. “I'll go with you.” I made sure I had at least one of my guns on me before I walked outside.

Random Thoughts In The Check Out Line

While getting Memorial Day picnic supplies I came up with this country song while in line. 🎶 Came in for a magazine Guns & Ammo and Field and Stream You were looking for a bra and skinny jeans Maybe paper towels and some lysterine You stole my heart the way you pushed that blue shopping cart Finding love in a Walmart Blue light special to my heart Love so much I bought in bulk Finding love in a Walmart Coulda went to target if I wanted class But couldn't resist the way you were shaking that ass. Needed some fishing line and a camo hat Your three kids screaming "I want that!" -Chorus-🎶

Shotguns & Shambling Corpses: Easter Eggs To Look Forward To

"Your name is George Romero?" I stared at the Latino Marine private in disbelief. "It's Jorge. "HOR-Hay" but yes." The marine answered. "And you don't find that a bit weird? You're one of like...12 people to survive the zombie apocalypse and your name is George Romero?" The marine private eyed me like I had grown a third testicle on my forehead. "No. And again it's Jorge." "Look dude pronounce it how ever you want but I know an Easter egg when I see one." Banks looked at me a bit funny, Jorge looked like he was contemplating if I was worth the bullet. I shrugged. "Whatever. You guys coming or what? We have to still find a way to survive this night...of the living dead."

AR Bennett Writer of Shotguns & Shambling Corpses