Tough as Nails

You're tough as nails, Lee.

That's what dad started telling me, once the infection started getting really bad and he realized we needed to start preparing ourselves for a total collapse of society and civilization as we knew it.

I didn't particularly believe it at first, but it gave me the confidence to swing my baseball bat at that blood-thirsty cat that lunged at me from atop our garden fence, or the turkey vulture that dove at me from the sky, or even that fox that popped out from the underbrush and tore a chunk of my calf out with its sharp little teeth. 

It's been two months since it reached out here, in rural Wisconsin. Before then, I just watched stories of feral dogs and insane birds in the morning over a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles.  But now... now, it's here, and every animal out there has turned into a violent, meat-eating monster with brains turned to mush.

It's been two months. And I have to keep telling myself, I'm tough as nails.