Peter Hartlaub’s written a column on surviving a zombie invasion, which I discovered via a link from The Apocalyptic Workout, wherein the Slackmistress notes that some may wonder whether she will continue with her end-of-the-world fitness program now that the writer’s strike is over.

There’ve been several lovely zombie stories in Weird Tales recently, including zombie love stories by Joe R. Lansdale (“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks”), Lisa Mantchev (“Six Scents”
), Carrie Vaughn (“Kitty’s Zombie New Year”) and Michael Boatman (“A Father’s Work”).

So I’ve been thinking about zombies.

Which is why, when a helicopter passed over just a few minutes ago, I tensed and wondered whether I could get to the machete in time.

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Maybe I didn’t see the best side of the city, but all I did see was a collection of beige stripmalls filled with chain stores. NovySan (who’s sworn he’ll never set foot there again) called it the “Land of the Corporate Logo.”

We had lunch at Mythos (a great Greek place, if you’re ever in Palmdale, and the owner, Adam, is a doll), which is in a beige strip mall with a Ross, a Best Buy, and a Linens-n-Things. Across the street is another beige strip mall with a TJ Maxx, a Circuit City, and a Bed, Bath and Beyond. And the weirdest thing? With all those chain stores, you’d think there must be multitudes of consumers circling, cruising between discount stores, comparison shopping for new TVs and irregular slacks. Nope. The streets were all but empty. I think there were about 10 people in the restaurant. I saw billboards advertising new housing developments — but who lives in them? The liveliest area we saw was a few blocks from the event center. Empty lots and people with shopping carts and piles of furniture out on the street, but at least there was some sign of life.

Oh, and at the end of the night, there were the drunk teenagers yelling at passing cars. I’m not sure there’s much else to do in Palmdale.

I was about to say that when the zombies come, they’ll come to Palmdale first. But now I wonder if maybe they haven’t already been.

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