With his cutting-edge laptop computer tucked under his arm, Wade had just managed to slip out of the front door of his house without his mother noticing, and the cold air struck him like a slap in the face - even wearing a thick hoodie, it felt like he was treading ice water.

"Yeah, this isn't the work of mother nature" he mused out loud as he stared suspiciously into the dark misty sky. "There's something WEIRD going on, and not even I have an answer."

But first things came first; he had to get over to Kim's place...but obviously, walking there wasn't an option...who knew what kind of dangers were lurking out there tonight? There had been enough trouble from the poltergeist-ghost thingies INSIDE the house. It was kind of a blue moon event when Wade left the house in general, but the fact that he had actually ventured outside during a scenario that resembled a cheesy horror movie was really more of a miracle...

Clearly, he would have to hitch a ride with someone. ANYONE. Provided that people were even brave enough to drive on a night like this.

Squinting into the gloom for about a minute, he suddenly saw a lone pair of headlights far off in the distance that was slowly making its way down his street - strangely enough, it looked like the large vehicle was being assaulted by some rather unusual figures that were letting out wild howls and grunts and screams, prompting the vehicle to simply run them over and then continue driving forward.

"Well, whatever weirdness is going on...that'll just have to serve!" he whispered under his breath as he dashed down to the sidewalk. "Sorry to do this, whoever you are!" he said, as he flipped open his laptop and then quickly typed a command into it, "but I don't have much of a choice!"

THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP*

With a look of crazed glee, Steven Barkin swerved his olive green humvee back and forth across the misty streets, running over stray zombies as Bonnie, curled up in the front passenger's seat, continued to freak out. But then she REALLY freaked out when Barkin struck one zombie so hard, it's head flew off of it's shoulders and hit the windshield. "Ugggghhhh..." it grunted as the head tumbled down the hood and then sailed off into the air.

"I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS!" she screamed. "THIS IS, LIKE, GROSSER THAN GROSS!"

"Quit your hollering, Rockwaller!" laughed Barkin. "It doesn't get any better than this!"

"You CAN'T be serious, Mr. B!" shouted Bonnie. "How can you possibly be enjoying this?"

But he WAS enjoying this. This was the most action he had seen since his days in the military, and after many long (and boring) years as a teacher, he was thrilled to see some form of combat again...as unusual and unprecedented as the evening's events had been.

"Ugggghhhh..." wailed a particularly ripe-looking zombie that shambled towards them.

Grinning with a smoldering cigar stuck in his teeth, Barkin pushed the accelerator to the floor.

"RAMMING SPEEEEEEEEED!" roared Lieutenant Barkin.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD!" screamed Bonnie as she covered her eyes.

Like a crash test dummy, the zombie blew to pieces upon impact.

"YEEEEEEAAAAHHHH, THAT WAS A GOOD ONE!" howled Barkin as Bonnie stared at him in shock. "HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"You've gone totally psycho, Mr. Barkin!" she shouted. "And I am SO going to report this to, like, the teachers' union, or whatever! I think you've become, like, a-a...a-"

"-a menace, Rockwaller?"

"Y-yeah, that's the word! A menace!"

"Is that any way to thank the 'menace' that saved your bacon not ten minutes ago, Rockwaller?" he growled. "And lest we forget, it was YOUR idea to head over to the Possible compound to investigate that little light show they were having."

"Compound?" asked Bonnie, looking very puzzled. "Don't you mean, like, 'house'? I thought that those compound things were for, like, hippies and cults and stuff-"

THUMP*

"...what was that?" she cried out. "What did you hit now, Mr. B?"

"Well, I hit something..." he chuckled, as a halo of cigar smoke circled his head. "Maybe it was Brick Flagg. Probably a zombie by now..."

"WHAT?!" she screamed.

"Lighten up, Rockwaller!" he laughed. "We hit a speedbump! And as for Brick, I'm sure we'll find musclebutt mooseface before the evening's through! So get a grip, soldier!"

"Sol..soldier?"

"That's right. You're in the corps now, missy. MY corps..."

Bonnie slumped down into her seat as Barkin happily ran over another zombie with a deep belly laugh ("how d'ya like them apples, ya' rotten bastard? HAHAHAHAHA!")

"How did this happen?" she thought. "How did I even GET here? I should, like, be at the tanning salon or getting some highlights done...SUMMER stuff! Not this pathetic Halloweenie junk that I'm sure Ron is probably loving right now! And what is up with this freaky cold weather and misty crap? NONE of this is making any friggin' sense! AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!"

She did a quick flashback inside of her mind, trying to see just where everything had gone wrong...

About an hour earlier, she had dropped in on the Flagg household, only to find it deserted and the front door left wide open, suggesting that some kind of foul play had taken place. After she had beaten a hasty retreat in her sister's car, she had been viciously attacked by (she couldn't believe she was saying this...) an actual werewolf that had been hiding in her backseat...

"But those things aren't even real!" she thought feverishly. "At least they SHOULDN'T be real! And...and zombies? What the hell is going on tonight?!"

After losing control of her vehicle while trying to fight it off, she had struck a fire hydrant that just so happened to be in Mr. Steven Barkin's front yard (thus destroying her sister's car.) And after he had driven the monster off with some heavy-duty artillery, they had both noticed a strange flurry of red and blue lights off in the distance, lights that were so bright, not even the thick misty air could obscure them - and oddly enough, they appeared to be coming from Kim's neighborhood.

After filling in Barkin on the Brick situation, Bonnie had then decided that the best course of action was to head over to Kim's place, where obviously there was SOME kind of trouble afoot, and Barkin (for once) had actually agreed with her. After Bonnie washed her hands of the zombie slime - she literally had to beg Barkin for just two minutes to do it ("just wipe it on your pants!" he had said) - they had headed to his garage, where he kept a fully-equipped dark green humvee for "survivalist emergencies" such as these - whatever the hell THAT meant. And ever since they had left his home, it had been a living hell, as the man went well out of his way to mow down every last undead creature that was unfortunate enough to fall within his field of vision.

He really WAS enjoying this...

"Wait a minute...did Mr. B just call Brick 'Musclebutt Mooseface'? That's...that's actually kind of funny-"

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking, Rockwaller" muttered Barkin with a savage grin, as Bonnie snapped back to the present. "And don't bother pinching yourself, because this is no bad dream...it's one hundred percent for real. I don't have a clue what's going on myself, but we're obviously under SOME kind of attack, tonight. And for better or worse, we're just going to have to work together for the time being-"

"What's that?!" shouted Bonnie as she pointed ahead.

Barkin turned back to face the road and felt his heart skip a beat at what he saw.

"SHITFIRE! What IS that?!" he bellowed as he slammed on the brakes.