One Second
[Albuquerque, New Mexico. I walked up to the apartment building. I could still see some of the bullets holes that were to deep to cover up. There, outside, David is waiting.]
Well I guess I should start off with a saying my science teacher always used to tell me. It goes like, uh, "Everything can change in one second." He would always bombard us with this saying. I never thought anything of it, but now, you have to give him some credit, cuz' you know he was right.
[He laughs]
He was one of the coolest teachers I ever had. He always used to tell jokes, pick on us, and was open for anything.
[His laughter dies out, instead a seriousness takes over him]
He didn't make it. Its sad really, he always used to give advice on how to live your life, now he is nothing more than a memory, as a lot of people are.
[He pauses for a moment]
But I am guessing your not here to learn about my science teacher.
[He sits down, motioning his hand for me to follow, I sit]
So being the zombie fanatic that I was back in those days, I didn't believe what people were telling me. I would get a call from friends and they would say something like..
[He puts up his hands. He then moves both his index finger and middle finger on both hands up and down]
…"There are fucking zombies man!", "Dude DEAD are walking the earth!", and "David you got to help me there are zombies outside my front door!"
At first I thought it was some kind of stupid joke until, the Zeds showed up on my block. In one second, my life went from being some junior in high school, without a care in the world, to "Oh My God! What am I going to do?!"
[He looks at the sky]
By the time I was dressed up, all the zombos were already knocking at my door. All the zombie movies, and survival guides in the world could never prepare you for something like that. I was so scared that I nearly shit myself, nearly doesn't mean I did so don't start thinking that.
[He laughs, pointing a finger at me]
I called my friends, maybe we could meet up somewhere and hide.
What happened when you called?
The line was dead for all of them. Then I thought of my family, they had went to the park without me, we had gotten into a fight the night before so I stayed home alone. They answered but the-they were…
[He pauses, fighting his tears off]
I am sorry I just cant talk about that.
That's OK, so what did you do?
Well I stayed home. I mean what else could I do? I had enough supplies to last me, and the power didn't go out so I had the stove to cook on.
Which leads me to why you are here. One day, I decided to make something with the last of the potatoes, and well. Let me put it this way, when you don't know how to cook on a stove, that's one thing, but when you throw oil into the mix, you have yourself a recipe for disaster.
The house went up in like, I don't know, a second it seems. I ran outside, grabbing what I could on the way out. Well I was watching the last thing of my normal life go up into flames, that's when I heard the moan. Every Zombo in 10 miles was going to be on me. That was just one of my problems, you see the fire was spreading, and it was truly getting out of control.
So what did you do?
Well, I jumped the fence, when I hit the ground I just ran, I ran and I never looked back.
It seemed like I ran for days, when I ran into a group of survivors that were heading somewhere up north, into the mountains. I decided to go along with them, I mean I didn't really have a choice. The rest is what they call history. Funny how things can change in one second.
[David was responsible for "The Great New Mexico Fire". He later became the leader of the survivors he grouped up with. He city pardoned him for his crimes because well he set the greatest fire in the state, and in the United States during the time, he managed to kill well over 100,000 of the dead in Albuquerque, making "The Clean-Up easier for the government.]