January 7th

Jimmy here and I am still alive.

I have been here at Home Base for nearly a week and I haven’t done shit. I want to say it is because I was fucking traumatized at my old job and I needed some time to relax, but I don’t think that is it. I think the truth is I was afraid to really know how fucked I am.

Raymond and Brett, the guys I think that used to own this place, they have a great home. The windows are bared and the locks on the doors are solid. I wonder if being a gay couple they feared being attacked. Whatever the reason, the house itself is like a little fort. The basement isn’t that big but it has room for the generator, which looks like it was dragged in recently. That must be Chuck’s work.

Chuck left me with ten kinds of rifles, over twenty pistols and more boxes of ammunition than a Red Dawn reenactment group. The weapons are in the bedroom and I moved them to the living room.

I am not ashamed to admit they scare the shit out of me. I have played a lot of videogame shooters and I have a vague idea of the merits of the rifles, but I am scared of blowing off my foot. I put them in the living room so I can just get used to seeing them. I am going to have to learn how to use them.

Next is water. I have a 16-pack of bottled water left. I also have a big ass barrel, a big bag of sand and a bag of charcoal. Chuck said he was going to make a water filter out of it. Fuck if I know how to do it. It just doesn’t look right to me.

Although I have to say, the water coming out of the taps looks fine. I have been through a couple of hurricanes and I know that water can go bad long before you see it go bad. I am damn tempted to drink it but then again, if I am wrong I can’t exactly reboot my game from a previous save. Fuck, I am so paranoid about the tap water, I am not using it to wash my clothes.

Food is the worse. I have eaten all of the canned food. I get the feeling that Raymond and Brett ate out a lot. Their fridge is covered in menus for places I would kill to eat again. Man, pizza, Chinese food and ribs. Really? Deliverable ribs? God I love Atlanta.

I am down to some stale bread, some fancy crackers and a half empty jar of peanut butter. There is a small battle of capers I am seriously debating eating. There is a big bag of bagel chips that I am slowly eating all day and it is the best damn thing I have ever eaten. My ass is starving.

Last on my supplies is entertainment. Crazy huh? I am in a weird state of laziness and boredom. There are almost no books here at all. I found a few books on world religion but I am not that bored yet. Religion seems like a sick joke to read about just now.

There are quite a few old board games. I play them from sunrise to sunset. I play Monopoly in the morning to get my math skills working. After lunch I play Trivia Pursuit with all the colors on the board. After that, if there is any daylight left, I play Yahtzee.

Man, I need a book to read. I tried the television and radio again. TV stations were still down and the radio wasn’t much better. I got excited when I found a radio station playing songs, but they were the same six songs over and over again. I waited two hours for a live person to come on but no one ever did.

For your information the six songs they were playing were

“It is the end of the world and I feel fine” by REM.
“Riding the Storm Out” by REO Speedwagon
“Don’t fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult.
“Bones” by the Killers
“Other Side” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Single Ladies” by Beyonce.

I’m not sure if that last song is meant to be ironic or was just a favorite of whoever programmed it. Again, pretty damn depressing. You would think if you had enough power to run a radio station, you would use it to inform people. Then again I am assuming anyone at the radio station is still alive.

So here is my plan. I am writing this in the morning. After I eat a healthy breakfast of peanut butter and crackers, I am taking my lead pipe and going to check out my neighbors. All of these houses look expensive, and they all look pretty damn empty. They have to have some sort of food, or water or please sweet baby Jesus, a science fiction book. Or erotica, that would be really nice.

Wish me luck.