Better off Undead

Chapter 2: The Beginning

Eli was beginning to fear that something had gone terribly wrong.

It wasn't just that the internet was out. It wasn't even the fact that the internet had been out for almost two weeks now, and no matter how much he tried to call the cable company about it he never got anything more than a busy signal. That was worrying enough, but now the power had gone out, too, and he couldn't call the power company, either. He knew with absolute certainty, or at least he believed with absolute certainty, that they could not have cut his power or internet due to lack of payment. He had just paid when all of these shenanigans had begun, so he shouldn't be in trouble for at least another couple of weeks, and then it probably should have been another week or two after that before they cut off the power. Of course, he couldn't pay either bill with the internet shut off like this. Not that they deserved payment if this was how they were going to treat a loyal customer. Well, mostly loyal. Well, sort of loyal.

His stomach rumbled, interrupting his thoughts, and reminded him that he was almost completely out of food. There were still a couple frozen dinners in the freezer, and maybe a little bit of sandwich meat, cheese, and the remains of a condiment bottle or two, but he didn't want to risk opening the fridge or the freezer with the power off. There were some boxes of Ramen noodles left over from his ex-roommate, but he had never grown nearly desperate enough to eat them. Now that he couldn't microwave them that was even more not an option. In the cupboard there was a box of frighteningly old crackers, and a cereal box he didn't even remember getting, next to a bag of tortillas he'd bought at the beginning of the summer and somehow never gotten around to eating. For a brief moment he considered the possibility that he might stop being such a slob and actually throw some of this stuff away, but it was only a very, very brief moment.

What this meant, all and all, was that if the power didn't come back on in the next few minutes, he was probably going to have to - he squeezed his eyes shut tightly, not even wanting to think it – go... to the... store.

Maybe he could just grab some fast food. The problem with the electricity would probably right itself at some point that night, meaning he only needed to be able to get through one meal, maybe two at the most, before he could go back to eating his frozen dinners, the old sandwich meat, and – if worse came to worse – the Ramen. That could stretch out the need to go to the store for at least a couple more days, maybe more, depending on how well he could stomach the Ramen.

The plan made, he began to pace about the room, feeling the excitement quickly building inside of him. He could probably go to Nacho's Tacos and get that big box of breakfast tacos. They came wrapped up in aluminum foil already, and maybe he wouldn't even have to store them in the fridge overnight to have half for dinner and the other half for breakfast. They probably wouldn't keep that well, but they'd probably remain at least edible. Yes, this could all work out, he told himself, and began eagerly dressing in appropriate clothing for going outside. This meant pants that didn't have anthropomorphic, karate fighting cartoon turtles on them and a t-shirt that wasn't a goodwill find from the 90's and thus didn't have some embarrassing slogan on it like "If I slept penguins would peck my eyes out."

Unfortunately, most of his clothes were dirty, as it had been over two weeks since he'd done laundry, so the task wasn't exactly easy. Still, he managed to find a decent pair of slightly faded dark brown pants with only one, minute hole in the backside, and an only slightly over-worn shirt for the band Urinal Projections. If anyone had problems with what his shirt said, then tough. It was a just a band name. It didn't really mean anything.

He stalled suddenly, his excitement taking a sharp dive as he glanced toward the window. He wondered what the weather was like outside. It was still late August, just before school started, and Texas, so undoubtedly it was hot as all hell out there. But was it raining? Cloudy? Windy? He would look it up on the internet, if, you know, he still had the internet. In the back of his mind, he was acutely aware that he could simply part the blinds and look outside for a few seconds in order to get the basic idea, but that would mean letting all that terrible natural sunlight into the apartment. He shuddered at the thought. There was enough sunlight seeping through already, enough to tell him that it was day time, enough to tell him that it probably wasn't more than a little cloudy. That, he decided, would just have to be enough until he got outside. If conditions were bad it was only a short walk down to his car and then he would be out of it again. If that wasn't enough, he could always just come back inside and wait for a while longer.