Blackout

Things I have done today that were

awesome

, whether or not I am currently a practicing Irwin: I shot a zombie bear in the head. Six times. Becks shot it four times, which I would gloat about, except she’s the one who managed to shoot the damn thing straight through the eye, taking it down before it could, you know, maul and devour us. The denizens of the gas station came out when they heard the shooting, loaded, as the old colloquialism goes, for bear; I don’t think they expected to actually find one.

Indy—the lady who runs the supply depot where we encountered the bear—said it was a grizzly. So hell, maybe we just killed the last grizzly in the world. I’d feel bad about that if it hadn’t been an infected zombie bear that wanted to eat my delicious flesh.

Damn, that was fun.

—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, July 26, 2041. Unpublished.

Please tell me you know where they’re going, and you didn’t just lose track of our only known living human with a full immunity to Kellis-Amberlee amplification.

Please. I don’t want to be the one who has to come out there and kick your ass.

Seriously, Shannon, be careful. You’re starting to get a little hard to follow, and that scares me. We both know who

didn’t

build those bugs, but if you make yourself too big of a target, when the time comes, you’re the one they’re going to come for.

—Taken from an e-mail sent by Dr. Joseph Shoji to Dr. Shannon Abbey, July 26, 2041.