Patty is Barbara’s sister.  Yes, that Barbara.  The one who opened the door to Paley Library when we were running from a huge group of zombies and saved us.  I understand that I’m writing this as though it was all one unbroken string instead of some of it being on my laptop in my dorm room, some of it being on my iPad back at the car where I died in the crash, and the rest of it on a legal pad that’s pretty beat up and almost out of paper.  Things are coming back a lot more now.  I remember what I wrote then.  I remember what I did before I died.  I remember that Ashleigh didn’t make it because she fell against Tom, and I remember that Tom didn’t make it because he couldn’t run as fast as Caitlin and I.  The panic, the terror: I remember all of it.

The other stuff is still fuzzy.  It comes and goes in waves for some reason.  One minute, I can remember the exact circumstances of me losing the tips of my fingers (it was in the Battle of the Faithless Soul’s Regret when a thrown axe nipped them off), and the next, I forget what Sang’s face looked like.  Why that should be is a mystery.  The only real proof that it happened at all are the chirurgeon’s marks on me, with the scars and metal plates and prostheses that make me look like a freak who’s way too much into body modification.

Patty is amazed that I wound up here, but she thinks I’m just a retarded kid who got hit in the head on vacation.  She doesn’t believe me about what I did and where I went.  She’s kind of taken me under her wing, though.  After all, if I know her sister Barbara, we’re practically family in her eyes.  She doesn’t have any kids of her own.  She sells real estate and looks it.  She’s scared like everyone.

Her assumption is that I took a class with Barbara and that’s how I know her, and that I’m making the rest up because of my head injury.  That’s fine.  It works out.  She does the talking for me when I want something like a pair of shoes or a meal, and if I had steak she’d probably cut it for me, too.  Of course, there won’t be steak for us for quite some time again.  At least, not the kind we’re used to: plastic-wrapped on a foam tray in the meat department of an air-conditioned Acme supermarket.

Five guys dressed in army uniforms came in not long ago.  They’re talking with Roger, the dude who’s kind of in charge around here.  From the expressions on their faces, none of it seemed like good news.  Patty wanted to go over there and asked just what was going on and when did they expect to have things back to normal, but I distracted her by asking if she knew where the first aid kits were, because my head was killing me.  Ironically, she almost missed the news looking for aspirin when Roger asked everyone to gather ‘round.

The Army guys (Florida National Guard) have been ordered to go to places like power plants and other state-owned assets and guard them for the time being.  This came from the Commander-in-Chief.  The president.  POTUS is now micromanaging the safety of the country.  However, a few of the National Guard guys here have family in this town, and some aren’t leaving.  So they’re gonna stay and patrol around and gather as many people as they can to bring them here where we can all be protected.

That’s a mistake.