As we are now in Day 17 of our life inside our little grocery store, I have to admit I have seen a change in some individuals and I think I know the reason. We had a major flaw in our plan with the aluminum foil over the windows. We originally blacked out the windows using aluminum foil for two reasons:
# 1) We believe zombies hunt by sight so we wanted to remove external stimuli. We did not want them to be able to see the food walking around inside here and come smashing through the windows. (Granted, we have them reinforced and when things thin out a bit, we are going to do an even better job. Still, why tempt fate?)
# 2) We did not want to broadcast our presence during the night time hours. Unfortunately, like most businesses that are open 24 hours, Reason’s set up is a freaking beacon of light on a hill. The gas station next door is the exact same way. You can see it from miles away so that it is inviting at night to people who need a fill up with gas. Unfortunately, that is also like ringing a dinner bell for these walking dead. Combine that light with sounds like gunshots and the zombies come a runnin’.
So, almost from night one, we tripped the breakers that control the parking lot lights and the exterior lights for the store. (The store front sign and the illuminated signs on the side of the building that say things like “bakery” and “video.”) I can only imagine but at night, this place has to look just like a hole in the world to the zombies.
There was not much we could do about the convenience store next door or the Sonic restaurant across the street. But we have a theory that if those businesses are lit up and the zombies stay over there the better off we are.
To those that still have use of their cerebral cortexes, they will see zombie bodies littering the parking lot (from the ones we have taken out), the windows all boarded up, and we are locked down… Yeah, we probably do seem like a pretty strong fortress of solitude. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anyone with a functioning medulla oblongata for days. [I don’t even know what those sections of the brain actually control but there were the only sections I could remember from my 9th grade science class. It was a long time ago.]
But, our big problem is that if you take aluminum foil and cover your windows, zero light gets through. Zero.
And believe me, it gets pretty freaking dark. I have worked the night shift before and said that as long as you didn’t look outside, you didn’t really notice what time it actually was. But I want us to have some semblance of normalcy. We need to see at least some small section of the outside world from time to time. We can’t just live in Jodie Foster’s panic room. What kind of life is that?
So with that in mind, we are amending the aluminum foil plan. We are still going to keep it up but we are developing a system where the bottom two-thirds of the windows will remain covered at all times. But we are making sections in the top third of the windows (above the pallet reinforcements) that we can open up to allow light inside. Then we are going to assign people to start closing the “shades” at sundown.
And I was pretty proud of this idea. One thing a grocery store has plenty of is cardboard. With all the boxes that cereal and mayonnaise and canned vegetables that used to come in, we usually bailed up one pallet load of cardboard per day, sometimes even twice a day if we were really busy. We worked together and rigged up these cardboard booths that you can sit in and look through peek holes at night without light shining out through the aluminum foil. It’s pretty effective.
But we do need more outdoor activity. I could have sworn I read something one time about lack of sunlight causing a vitamin deficiency. There was an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocked out the sun and Homer joined a posse to tear the machine down. “I’ve had it up to here with these rickets.” I don’t know what rickets are but I am fairly certain I don’t want them.
So we are going to work on projects that will get us up on the roof. Lance loves to go up there and shoot zombies. There is a ton of free space up there that we know is zombie free. We have seeds in packets in the Produce Department and there are pallets of potting soil outside. We need to start our own garden. Everyone could be involved. Fresh vegetables. It’ll be like Little House on the Prairie up in this mug.
I guess I list this to show you that we are not always perfect in our plans. We have to make modifications. And you will too. The only difference is that if we make too big a mistake, people can die. And that is a pretty scary thought.
