How We Escaped From The Monkeys

I've put off talking about this for a long time. This is going to be kind of long - please bear with me.

Robert asked a while ago what the evil robot monkeys do to you when they catch you. A lot of the time, they just kill you. They're armed. They have some kind of laser gun. They just point it at you and then there's a hole in you and you're bleeding and dying and screaming.

They don't take anything. They just hunt us down and kill us and then they leave. The survivors come out and drag the bodies into the houses and weep and keen and bury them.

After a while, it isn't safe to go outside and bury the bodies, so they - oh, God. They do the best they can.

And eventually, there's no one left to drag the bodies inside, so they just lie, rotting in the gutter.

I've seen it.

But that's not the worst of it. They kill most people, yeah - but sometimes, they just take people. Five or six of them will gang up and grab a person and haul them off. They're strong little bastards, too, I think; I've seen people struggling and struggling to get away but they never have a chance.

I don't know what happens to those people. No one does. But I think maybe I'd rather lie rotting in the gutter than find out. It's all random - where do they strike? Who do they kill? Who do they take? No one knows. There has to be some kind of pattern, but I don't know what it is.

The monkey attacks started last summer, like I said. It seemed like they'd just pick a town and settle in and start slaughtering. The first reports just sounded crazy, like the kind of thing somebody would make up for fun on the internet. But then it kept happening, and then there were videos and too many reliable witnesses to deny it any more.

But still I didn't worry. The attacks were always far away. Boise, Chattanooga, Ithaca, Pittsburgh, Metarie, Austin - they were awful, but they happened to other people. I feel horrible typing that - so shallow. So god damn shallow.

Derek took it seriously, though. He followed all the reports, and like I said, he got this basement all fixed up and stockpiled. He knew they would come for us eventually.

He was right.

So last Wednesday, we were watching Lost. Man, I love that show. I wish Sayid or Mr. Eko were trapped in this basement with us - I bet they know a thing or two about how to make surviving in a dark basement enjoyable, if you know what I mean. Anyway. So we're watching Lost and the all of a sudden it was interrupted for an Emergency Broadcast System message.

Holy crap. Have you ever heard one of those? Everyone's used to the tests of the system so you pretty much ignore them, right? But not this one - they interrupt a sensitive scene where Jack's making out with this girl after he killed her father - and this recorded robotic voice is telling us that attacks have started on the east side of town. It scared the shit out of me - just having the Emergency Broadcast System be used for an actual emergency broadcast - and then to hear that it was monkeys?

Derek turned the TV off. I wanted to know how the episode would end but I figured I'd catch it in reruns over the summer, or maybe download it from Google.

"Clarissa," he said, and he looked at me with these big serious eyes. "I don't want you to be afraid. You can't panic. Trust me, and we'll get out of this alive."

That scared me even more than the Emergency Broadcast System message, so I just nodded.

He told me to go through the house and pack two suitcases full of things I couldn't live without. "We're leaving here," he said, "and you won't be able to come back. If it's important to you, take it. Two suitcases full."

I just stared at him for a minute. "Go!" he said, and I went.

What do you take with you? Look around your house - it's got a lifetime's worth of things, and maybe a lot of it is just stuff, but some of it's important, irreplaceable. What do you fill your two suitcases with?

I took our wedding album and Gretchen's baby pictures. I took my lucky T-shirt, the one I was wearing the first time I made out with Derek. I took Gretchen's bunny and her blanket. I took my copy of Jimmy Carter's autobiography. I took Derek's crappy old shirt that I keep wanting to throw away but he loves it. I took my grandmother's wedding picture and four crystal wine glasses that my mother got as a wedding present (wrapped securely in Gretchen's blanket and our shirts.) I took some jewelry and I took some photos and some letters and then the suitcases were full. God damn it.

I was crying pretty hard by then but I didn't want Derek to see me like that. He was busy nailing plywood up over the windows and barricading the doors. So I went over to my laptop and started this blog. I don't know what I was thinking - probably I should have gone and helped Derek. And it's not like I had anything to say that first day. i was too scared.

We could hear them coming. You could hear glass breaking and people screaming and one thing that sounded like an explosion - I don't know what that was.

"Ready?" Derek asked me, after a while. I nodded. He handed me the baby - luckily, she was sound asleep. Then he got a gas can out and started splashing gasoline all over the place.

"What are you doing?" I asked. I was horrified. "You're not - but - "

He just kept splashing gasoline everywhere. "Go unlock the front door," he said.

"But - "

"Do it."

I started to cry again, but I did what he said. He threw the gas can down in the kitchen.

"Go out the back door. Be very quiet and hide in the shed and they won't notice you. Don't let Gretchen cry. I'll be there in a minute. Go!" This time I didn't wait - I just went. I ran out the back door and stumbled on the steps and ran across the grass all the way to the shed. I didn't see any monkeys - they were still a few houses away. It sounded like a big pack of them. Oh, God. Oh, God. I was trying not to cry because I didn't want to wake up Gretchen. It was so dark in the shed - and so alone. I cracked the door open a little so I could watch the house.

Nothing happened for long minutes.

Then Derek came running out. He closed the door behind him and locked it, and dashed out to the shed. A moment or two later, I saw the house start to glow - and realized he'd lit it on fire. The flames grew and soon the house was consumed. I could hear the monkeys screaming and I was glad.

"I lured them in," Derek said, "and then I lit a match." He was breathing hard. God, he was the sexiest man alive right then. "Come on. Let's go." He grabbed the suitcases and lead us out to the car. We were still being careful but they were dead, the little fuckers were DEAD, burned to death, and I was glad.

Derek opened the trunk and put the suitcases in. I was getting into the front seat so I didn't see what happened next, exactly - but I heard Derek screaming suddenly. I jumped out of the car - and there was a monkey. It had jumped on Derek. It smelled awful, all charred and rotten - I don't know how it got out of the house.

Derek was screaming, this awful high-pitched scream. The monkey was strangling him or biting him - I couldn't tell in the dark - the only real light was the light cast by our burning house. I ran up and tried to pull the monkey off Derek but it just wouldn't budge. I looked around and saw a baseball bat leaning up against the garage - so I grabbed it and I beat the crap out of that monkey. I hit Derek a few times too, by accident. But eventually the monkey was dead, or disabled, or whatever - and we got in the car and came here.

So that's what happened.

And now I am going to go get one of the bottles of booze that Derek stockpiled (he says it'll be better than cash soon) and drink it.

Good night.