It's like being a time capsule of a person. You leave and when you come back you don’t feel like you’re changed, but everything is different... that field you used to play paintball in? That’s now a housing development. The mall is closed, McDonald's has wifi and serves iced coffee that’s actually pretty decent. Men are wearing clothes that seem especially effeminate, the economy is in the shitter, and it seems like the tower of babble hit. Not only does it seem like everyone can't understand you, but they can't understand each other or nobody really wants to. After all, everyone is the hero of their own story, and why should the hero try to understand the side characters?

A loud thunk followed by the sound of an ac compressor winding down, darkness, and then the subtle sound of tinnitus interrupts my whisky fueled reflection on the state of society. Did I remember to pay the power bill? Its only happened a few times, I know it sounds irresponsible, and maybe it is, but spending the past 8 years bouncing between the barracks, deployments, and field exercises tend to get you in the habit of not worrying about utility bills, so sometimes I forget. Maybe it was a breaker, it’s a hot night after all. I wait for my night vision to adapt then find my maglight. I keep it turned off to not give away my position and wonder if I'll ever stop doing that as I head outside. It looks like the lights are off for the block but I can see the lights of downtown Houston glowing in the distance. Probably too many people running their AC's on high and a utility guy just needs to hit a breaker somewhere.

I hear glass breaking followed by shouting, its Friday so probably some other drunk idiot breaking a window in the dark. Up and down the street I can see flashlights starting to light up windows and see people coming out on their lawns. My neighbors across the street sweep their flashlights at each other and start chatting about the blackout but I ease myself into seat on my front porch, I want to look up and enjoy the night sky over my home but too many bad things have happened at night for me to fully relax in the dark without the comfort of body armor, a loaded weapon, and a friend nearby.

My passive sense of paranoia starts to climb as I hear a panicked scream in the distance, my neighbors hear it to and cut off their conversation. A few minutes later I hear a strangled cry of resistance bit off, its maybe a block away but without the noise of a powered suburb it's easy to hear. I head inside to grab my 12 gauge over-onder shotgun and my kit. Its more than enough to scare off whatever retard is trying to take advantage of a blackout to do harm to others. I throw on my load bearing belt, it’s a little snug after a few months of the good life, but it has a first aid kit, pocket knife, two canteens, and a few extra pouches for snacks and surprises on it. I cram a few hand fulls of shells into the ammo pouches, throw on my eye protection and head out the door. More yelling and gunshots are coming from the south so I start heading that way. After a few minutes I hear somebody dumping a full mag of 5.56, a sure sign of panic. I wait, but there isn't a second magazine dump so the first one either ended the problem or the shooter calmed down, either way I don’t want to walk up to a mob of panicking civilians, or worse, national guard. I stick to the deeper shadows and concealment; I don’t want to give myself away before I know what’s going on. I make it another half a block before I realize I’m only wearing boxers and ballistic protective glasses. I’m too far to go back, and this sounds like an emergency anyways. Who needs pants?

I continue moving south and the gunfire starts to die off, just bursts punctuated by brief yells, I start thinking I might have missed the party when I peak through a row of hedges at an intersection. There's a group of people standing in the middle of the cross street, the whole area smells like piss and cordite. Through the leaves it looks like 6 people standing in a group over a prone person, they are all holding flashlights in their mouths for some reason. I watch as a bulky man squats down over the prone figure and touches his mouth to theirs like he is about to start CPR. Instead it looks like he just dropped his flashlight from his mouth into the prone figures mouth.

That doesn’t really seem like it would help, but in a few moments the prone figure starts moaning and trying to stand up.

“What the fuck” I whisper to myself as five of the figures jog north past my hiding spot. They smell like piss and shit and their motions are strangely mechanical, not only is the flashlight-mouth crew running in step but every motion of their upper bodies is identical. I listen in silence, completely confused about why my neighbors decided to go insane tonight. I hear fresh rounds of yelling from the south and turn see two more flashlight mouths are dragging a limp body between them back to the bulky guy who then repeats his flashlight mouth to mouth technique with identical results. Headlights flash and tires squeal as somebody in an Escalade goes flying past on the cross street, it doesn't slow down as it hits two of the figures who moved to block the intersection. I close one eye to keep my night vision and see the bulky figure illuminated by the passing hit and run driver. At this point in life, I feel like not a lot stuns or unnerves me, but what was standing in the intersection was something I hadn’t seen before. It looked to be a balding old man wearing something that looks like coveralls made out of two inch wide tan scales. His facial features are completely slack and all the color is drained from his face leaving his skin grey, his eyes are so bloodshot they look completely red. In my shock at his condition I half way stand up and he turns directly towards me.

The two previously unconscious people are both standing by now and start to walk my direction.

I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but decide to follow escalation of force rules in case this is some kind of prank… somehow.

“Stop! Stay back!” I shout, rising from my crouch behind the hedge and using my command voice while leveling my shotgun at the first approaching figure. At that, the pair of people start running toward me with jerky motions. I fire one tube into the nearest figure that turns out to be a tall blond woman wearing pajamas. My slug took her in the neck and she dropped like sack of potatoes.

The other figure coming towards me was a balding middle-aged man, overweight, fully clothed but with no shoes. My other tube was loaded with 00 buckshot and he was close enough that it took the top of his head off above the ridge of his nose. I stepped back so he wouldn’t fall on me, but instead of falling he lunged towards me over the bushes.