Snack Pack - 01

Posted on Tue May 16th, 2023 @ 12:01am by Alonzo Blazevic

712 words; about a 4 minute read

Snack Pack Blog
August, 26th, 2010

It was just a joke, you know? At first at least. Movie theaters were showing classic horror flicks, especially those like Night of The Living Dead or Evil Dead. Last Year’s Zombieland was a blast to watch on the big screen, but now? Now, I feel like I shouldn’t have wasted the five bucks on popcorn and soda, and paid even more attention to the screen. I feel like I’m in some sort of Wes Craven film and shit has just gotten all meta. All that trolling from movie theaters and cynical capitalists doing things for attention and to turn a quick buck? Yeah, I’m not laughing anymore.

At first, it was just strange and coincidental. Some sort of viral infection somewhere overseas and then cases started popping up in different countries on different continents. An illness swept through communities, became an epidemic, and we all shrugged it off. Then things got worse… much worse. People started acting strange. There was more anger, aggression, confusion, and suspicion going around. Accusations were thrown across ethnic lines and political affiliations, even social-economic lines. We were all too busy blaming one another and joking about the living dead to even realize sensationalized fiction was reanimating into a cold undead touch of reality.

Cases of violence started popping up in places where they shouldn’t be, not nearly as frequently as they were at least. Suburbia murders? Double and triple homicides? Cannibalism? All of it hit the headlines of small local newspapers, and it wasn’t even something national. It was right there in the heartland. The CDC tried to warn us. They were not exactly forthcoming about everything, but when towns and cities implemented curfews and when they said to shelter in place… people did not listen. We should have listened.

I got swept up in all the crazy that was making newspapers. When it hit my backyard with a couple that was mauled to death and their teenage son was a person of interest and had gone missing, I dove right in. I ate it up and wanted more because I had my own infliction that I was struggling with, infected by the journalist bug. All I could see was a story that needed to be told, something that I could chase, and so of course, I did. I chased it and tracked down the kid. Only he did maul his parents to death. He was just an innocent teenage boy that witnessed something horrific, and that childhood was stolen from him.

I’m twenty-two years old. I should not have that many responsibilities right now. I should just be learning how to become an adult, but that isn’t how things are now. I have a fifteen-year-old boy to watch over because his parents were killed and apparently his uncle was the one that did it. The dead are not staying dead. A girl just died from this virus, came back to life, and practically ate someone before being shot. The movies weren’t lying. You need to do something… burn the bodies, take their head clean off… I don’t know, but I’m not some Ash Williams. I’m Alonzo Blazevic, a freelance journalist and aspiring reporter. We’re held up at a church right now, a place that is supposed to be a sanctuary, but I do not feel safe, none of us seem to.

So, I guess this is all just my way of keeping anyone who reads this updated on our survival story. We are starting to add to our numbers. I’m thinking if Ethan and I continue to be grouped with these people that we’re going to need a name… something like the Breakfast Club. I’m kind of feeling The Snack Pack given the number of pudding cups I’ve had. This is going to change us. Whoever we were before all this shit happened, that’s not who we are going to be anymore. Some are thinking this might just end one morning and we can go back to our families. I don’t. I think the harsh reality is that there’s no way home.

 

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