Blood came cascading down, like The Shining, except this time it took the escalator. Mall elevators are always hidden around the lunatic fringes, while the escalators are central arteries, carrying the lazy masses. Though in this case it was delivering a red river down some terrifying class five rapids. Gravity flowed the viscous fluid against the climbing stair. The effect was almost soothing, rippling over the ribbed treads like a man-made crimson waterfall in the middle of the converted department store. Today’s latest mass shooting, you’re probably guessing. Haven’t we heard this one before? But no, shockingly no AR-15s were needed at the vaccination facility. Just some government-issued, mind-altering, out of control substances.
I was a bit perturbed at this grisly scene. It is not often that I actually put on clean (really any) pants, and now they were going to get messy. Serves me right for leaving the house. But I wasn’t scared. Why would I be? I was feeling invincible, after my own first covid vaccination shot! The dreaded beast was slain; at least half-slain, though don’t the estimates put it closer to 70% after first dosage? I suspected the tomato soupy mix (yes, there were other parts that I didn’t stoop to examine in the blooming pond) was the coughed out disease discharged by the people in the post-treatment “recovery” area upstairs.
But I was wrong. It was so much worse than a bunch of free and healthy people hocking up leprous lungs amidst shouts of joy. It wasn’t even the one or two unlucky people in the large crowd losing the Shirley Jackson lottery and catching blood clots. That’s a Johnson & Johnson issue, and we were seeing the Pfizer epfect. Pfizer-BioNTech is generally said to have milder side effects than Moderna, and both are considered far safer than J&J or AstraZeneca. AZ is too crazy even for Arizona, where pretty much anything goes.
Ahead of a quick prick in the arm of your choice, you have the opportunity to read through a six-page package explaining the “facts” of what they are about to inject you with. After an hour plus long wait in line to reach this point, most people just want the needle to do its thing so we can get on with our lives. Reading is for sissies. But there is a card with your personal information that needs to be uploaded to the government computers before they discharge you to the final station of observation, thereafter you’re unleashed upon the world at large. There was some connectivity issue with the computer used by the technician at my “treatment table”, forcing me to sit there inordinately longer than most people who were in and out of this part of the experiment. First the unexplained “technical difficulties” that were relayed to us as an excuse for the “unusually long lines” and now her computer was slow. I’ve been swabbed four times already (eight times if you count each nostril), and none of those trips had any lines. I don’t mean to complain, except that’s what I do.
Because I had already played too much Sudoku while waiting in queue and I really wasn’t in the mood for reading any more lame BuzzFeed lists on my phone, I skimmed through the brochure to see what other unintended side effects they’d list like late-night TV medical infomercials. You know like how Viagra sometimes causes your dick to fall off? (Detachable Penis was a fun song). Anyway, there it was, in very fine print on the bottom of the last page, hidden like a footnote (maybe an endnote, not sure where its reference was in the preceding five pages). In very rare cases, you may experience a sudden urge to eat human brains. This usually goes away on its own, but we recommend seeking professional treatment if this symptom persists beyond 24 hours.
Goddamn Zombies!!
I for one am entirely tired out of the whole zombie trope. Walking Dead? Fear the Walking Dead? Cape Fear the Walking Dead Man’s Party of Five? Enough already. It’s almost as trite as mass shootings, except no one ever offers thoughts and prayers when your loved ones are attacked by the undead.
Finally she finished logging my likes and dislikes, high school and college transcripts (that was embarrassing), and a credit report before handing me back my index card and directing me to follow the trail of blood up the escalator. I rolled up the cuffs of my jeans and let the other lemmings lead the way because I’m a rebel like that.
Atop the bloody electric stairway to two, it was pandemonium, or Pan’s Labyrinth, or a Peter Pan bus terminal. Whatever you want to call it, it was a freaky, bloody mess. Most people were calmly sitting in the folding chairs, filling out the surveys, rating their experience, while waiting for fifteen minutes to expire to make sure that they would not suffer any serious side effects. Some people refused to heed this recommendation, and they hightailed it the hell out of there without waiting for the staff to clear them. I can only assume that those people are all dead now. A small minority of the group (not to pick on any minorities; they appeared to be mostly white, twenty-something, frat-type males) was running rampant, ripping each other apart in search of brains or guts or lungs or something. They were not following easily identified patterns of behavior, and definitely not sitting down to do their surveys.
The bloodbath waterfall feature previously mentioned seemed to be their doing to each other. Perhaps I made it sound worse than it was, because I think some of the blood was being recirculated in the escalator. I would have guessed that it would drip off at the bottom, but apparently it was also sticky enough to return inside the treads to repeat the laps again and again. It was still a good bit of gore, believe me. I would have taken a picture except there were signs all over telling us that photography was forbidden. I didn’t want to get into trouble.
There were some nerdy scientist type guys in lab coats running around and punching buttons on these fancy tablets, yelling at each other that the subjects were not responding to orders. These guys were followed by mall cops who were bludgeoning the demonic frat dudes with batons, while bitching that they should have been allowed to carry real weapons (the Tysons Mall is not normally this sketchy). The nightsticks seemed to do the trick though, and the unconscious or dead zombies were being rounded up and loaded into refrigerated trucks. I lost track of them at that point because I was already over the fifteen minute caution period and told that I could leave.
I’m not a scientist (who can trust those guys?), nor do I claim to be any kind of expert witness. However, I do watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes movies (with Ironman) and shows (with Doctor Strange) and even spin-offs like Enola Holmes (with Eleven), and I’ve been spending a lot of free time on the Frank platform, so I have a theory. I’m prepared to Sherlock Holmes It! (SHIt for short). I noticed a number of the zombuds were carrying Cinnabon bags and were alternately leaving bloody and sugary handprints all over the place.
Deduction #1 – The long line winding through the mall led us all past the sweet, irresistible smell of Cinnabon. Many of us fought the temptation, but these spoiled Gen Z kids have no impulse control. Cinnabons + Pfizer = Pfucked up Zombies.
Deduction #2 – The lab coat nerds clearly expected the button pushing to stop the rampaging punks. Nearly everyone else was following government orders and proceeding in an orderly fashion (aside from those chickenshit runners I mentioned before). The date of my vaccine appointment was April 20th. On 4/20, who craves cinnabons more than anyone? Fat people? That’s right, people with the munchies. Marijuana dulls the responsiveness to stimuli (such as the government probes that were placed in our arms), while heightening hunger for sugary sweetness (or Scooby snacks). Note that this is just speculation on my part, not spoken from any kind of experience. Marijuana is still technically illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia until July 1st, not that I’m keeping track or anything. Pfucked up Zombies + Ganja = Out of Mind Control Pfizer Zombies.
Deduction #3 – Hitting people or zombies in the head with heavy sticks is an effective way to stop them in their bloody tracks. More guns Big Sticks = The Solution.
Only time will tell if the vaccine is effective against Covid. I hope that the synergistic effects of reefer / Cinnabon / Pfizer will wear off in time and allow the surviving fratheads to return to their normal douchebaggery. The ones who weren’t so lucky will likely be added to the statistics of Covid-related fatalities, since no one will notice a few hundred more in that crazy count.
The wife has her first vaccine appointment tomorrow. I’ve begged her to avoid Cinnabon, but she has a mind of her own (for now). I would offer her a big stick to carry, but she also refuses to speak softly so I don’t think it would work. I need to schedule my second round 21 days later.
Stay safe out there!
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 