I am stuck in a closet with the voices in my head.  What a way to find out the world has ended right?  Hey there reader of my favorite little journal, my name is Tom King,  but everyone calls me TK.  I have been writing in this journal for a few years now, but not because I am a super author or anything.  I do this because my shrink thinks that having a method to express myself allows me to better manage the voices in my head.  Yeah I know what you are thinking and you are more than likely right on target. 

I came back from Iraq, after getting blown the fuck up, and woke up to a room full of faceless people talking to me.  Sometime the people are familiar, but they don’t have names, just voices and personalities, so I often name them based on that.  For example, I sit here trapped in the closet while some infected zombie freako bastard is pounding on the door and I am currently surrounded by Fat Loudmouth, Quiet Onlooker, Yes Man, and Angry Old Man.  I am sure you understand what I mean now right?  Here, let me share a bit of the conversation while I wait here to die. 

Fat Loudmouth yells in my face “Hey dick head, you know we’re gonna fucking die in here right?  How about you reach down, grab your man parts, and go kill that fucking thing out there so we can go home.” Finishing with a loud belch and a scratch of his, I assume hairy, ass. Quiet Onlooker nodded in passive agreement while I ignored them both.  I hated them both, even if I agreed with his idea.

 Yes Man loudly proclaimed “I am with you big guy!  Let’s go give em the ol’ one two smack a roo eh? Yessiree bob lets go smack em in the mouth!” 

I try to ignore him too.  He generally only agrees with the last thing anyone said and even then only the conversations I tune into.  I liked Angry Old Man though he cracked me the hell up. 

“Fuck these cheddar heads TK, let’s wait a spell and see what happens.  Worst that could happen is we die right?”  Angry Old Man cackled, slapping his knee in amusement.  I silently agreed with him and he beamed at the other three yelling “Get off my lawn you dumb bastards.  I am still the favorite with this smart young whipper snapper.” 

The other three figments of my imagination responded  to this abuse by my favorite by slowly disappearing.  I am going to tune them out again, for now, but I think you get the picture right?  My grasp on reality is tentative at best most of the time sorry to say. 

As I sit here trying to turn over what the hell is going on I am starting to realize that the things that make me nuttier than a shit house rat are directly related to how I ended up in this closet without a clue as to what in the hell is really going on outside.  Let me back up a bit and explain a bit about how I got stuck here with cannibal human thingamabobs outside the door knocking to get in oh so politely… BOOM BOOM BOOM.  Heh, that’s them politely knocking to get in!  Get it?  Well, Angry Old Guy grinned at least you spoil sport. 

So, to start, I am completely bonkers, that’s the scientific term and you can look it up if you don’t believe me.  I came back from Iraq, even though I don’t remember being a soldier or much of my life before waking up in a hospital bed surrounded by faceless people yelling things at me.  I woke up in a cold white hospital bed, a little groggy, and not really sure where I was much less who I was with a gaggle, again that’s a real term you can check, ofpeople in my room shouting things all at the same time.  I remember not noticing there was something wrong with them until I realized all their yelling was starting to hurt my head so I looked over at one of them to tell him to shut the hell up and froze. 

He had no face.  I don’t mean that he was a burn victim, or that it was just smooth flesh like in a horror movie, his face was just GONE!  There was a big, round, black hole looking space where the face SHOULD have been.  The rest of the body was there and he looked familiar at the time.  I came to know him as Fat Loudmouth.  Looking around the room I saw that everyone yelling was faceless.  I remember yelling at them all to shut up and let me think and Fat Loudmouth snorted with a

“That will be a first I guess.” Clearly in response to my request. 

I remember getting pissed and arguing arguing with him and who I came to know as Dick McDickness.  This continued for a few minutes, rapidly getting more heated as we continued out back and forth.  I probably would have hurt myself trying to get out of the bed to kick their asses from all the disrespectful shit they were slinging at me if it had kept up much long.  I mean, I couldn’t even remember having a mother so how dare they make up stories about things she probably does with farm animals!  At least, looking back on it, I HOPE they were just making stuff up.  I can’t tell sometimes but I am going to lean towards them making it up because to believe otherwise of one’s own mother was just disrespectful.

 Anyways, as I was trying to get out of bed and go punch Dick in the face for being, well a dick really, a nurse walked by my room looking around to see what all the noise was.  She stepped inside the small white room, me doing a double take because this nurse had a face like she was supposed to, and started trying to calm me down while calling for a doctor.  I remember telling her I would calm down but I wanted all these people out of my room NOW!  She looked at me with a weird look, then took a quick glance around the room, and asked.

“Sir, you have been in a coma!  Are you alright?  Are you in pain?” 

“I am doing great lady!  I woke up in a hospital, have no idea where I am, how I got here, and I don’t know who I am but other than those assholes all over the room screaming and yelling at me I am just peachy.” I answered her sarcastically. 

“Sir, there isn’t anyone else in the room but you and me, are you sure you didn’t have a bad dream?”  she asked giving me a matronly does of the old stink eye, like I had cooties. 

I must have had a quizzical look on my face because she just patted me on the arm and pushed me back onto the bed before asking

“Please just lie back down sir and please calm down.  I have the doctor on the way to check you over and explain everything that has happened.  Can you do that for me?”

I remember slowly sinking back down onto the bed and nodding in agreement but I don’t remember a lot of other details from the hospital stay.  My old man told me a few weeks later, after I was released, that I had been in a convoy with my unit in Baghdad.   We got hit by an array of EFPs while out doing some kind of vehicle based patrol.  The details on what exactly we had been doing and why were never really given to him, or to me.  Looking back on it I am betting that it was some real crazy government need to know kind of shit. 

Now for those who don’t speak Army hoodoo lingo, EFP stands for explosively formed projectile, which is fancy speak for something that goes BOOM behind a piece of copper shaped like a concave bowl.  The boom super heats the copper into a big shot gun slug of a projectile that just has the raw power to punch through damn near anything, including all armor the military currently has on their vehicles.  My convoy, four up armored Humvees, got hit by between 12 and 14 of these slugs.  My truck, I was driving the lead vehicle, got flipped into a canal where I SHOULD have drowned.  Instead some local kid, we were buddies Dad told me, pulled me out and kept an eye on me until the rest of our unit could respond and help us. 

According to the reports the Army had shared with my old man, no one expected me to live.  I had broken bones as well as shrapnel embedded inside my brain and muscle tissue all over my body.  I had severe third degree burns across my head, neck, back and right arm so severe that I overheard a woman explain to her child that God had made all people out of clay and that I must have been dropped and the clay smeared before I was born as flesh.  I remember thinking that was a really good story and wondering if the kid believed her.  I would rather that kid thing that I am a special creation of some being beyond our imagination than have him know the truth and think me a monster.

This whole situation left me a mess and I am sure you, dear reader, can completely understand.  I spent two years in different hospitals, medical ones at first and then mental ones, before they eventually determined that while crazy as hell I wasn’t a danger to anyone including myself.   I regained full control of my arm, through some very severe and painful rehabilitation at the medical hospitals and while the burns healed they had been severe enough that hair no longer grew anywhere on my face, not even a beard.  Combined with all the scars along the top and running down the back and sides of my head from the, rather invasive, surgeries needed to remove the worst of the shrapnel and I felt like a monster right out of a comic book.  I scared the shit out of a shrink once when she tried to tell me I was still beautiful, on the inside.

“Lady, I am a living fucking patchwork quilt.  You call me fucking beautiful one more God damned time and maybe I come find you with a can of gas and some matches and see how fucking cute you feel when we get done.”  I clearly remember saying to her, slowly at first, but quickly rising in volume and anger until I was standing over her, my large frame dwarfing her as she cowered, the fear in her eyes evident. 

That was the first and last time I lost my temper over my looks.  I ended up spending another 6 months in a psych ward after this because I had threatened that poor woman, but eventually I was released.  I think the fact that I genuinely feel bad about it and wrote her a sincere letter that apologized for losing my temper about something that I knew she was only trying to help me with was the clincher.  It hadn’t been hard to write, I really did feel bad about it.  I had allowed my own feelings of pity, fear, and anger over the unfairness of it all change me from the kind of person people told me I used to be and that I wanted to be again one day, into the monster that many assumed when they saw my battered features and large size for the first time.  I vowed never again to let myself respond like that.

 Now I don’t remember much about my past before the first time I awoke in the hospital but let me tell you the government has taken pretty good care of me since I did wake up.  You know, except for the 6 months of electro shock therapy.  Oh and the multiple attempts to cancel my medical retirement pay because I was obviously physically well, never mind that I couldn’t hold a job and people didn’t want to hire someone talking to voices in his head.  Then, let’s not forget, the 12 months after I was medically retired I couldn’t get treatments because the VA system in this country is just a mess.  Other than all that it’s just been a fantastic home coming and I couldn’t be happier! 

All of those treatments and medical procedures boiled down into a few things in my life. 

1. I don’t generally like or trust humans. Given the chance they will fuck me over every time.  The few human beings that earn my trust and respect make their way from the “human” classification in my head over to the “people” side of the balance sheet.

2. I can’t watch movies or listen to music. I don’t know why but it brings out ALL the voices in my head.  Most popular entertainment just ends up devolving into a shouting match between all the faceless until I give up and go do something else. 

3. My only escapes from life are drinking (which I am not supposed to do on my meds, death and all that being a pretty bad side effect, hard physical labor (the voices HATE actually DOING anything so when I am working they make themselves scarce or I would put their freeloading asses to work), and books.

My old man told me I loved to read before the “accident”, as he calls it.  I usually scoff and point to the many scars on my head and face with my right arm looking like a mozzarella cheese stick left in the sun too long as my response to his use of “accident”.  I believe him, but even if he is lying to me I LOVE to read now.  It’s been my only escape from my own head that doesn’t involve faceless people for as long as I can remember. 

I love the stories and worlds that other people create for two reasons.  The first reason is because all the amazing stories humans create help me forget how much I hate and revile most human beings.  I mean anyone who can make such beautiful new realities, worlds, and characters can’t be all bad right?  The second, and to me most important, reason is because when I am reading the faceless all go away.  They just disappear.  No murmuring, no shouting, no arguments, no faceless people lounging around, just me, my own thoughts, and the love that is a different world to explore.  I almost feel normal again while I am reading and this peace usually extends for about 30-60 minutes after I finish reading which is just a great bonus.  But no matter how long I read, the voices eventually wise up that I am back from mental adventures and pick right up again with all their antics.

  Now my mental state, how I feel about humans, and the limitations on things I can use to provide myself with any kind of peace are what led my old man help me get a piece of land up in the Adirondack mountains in upstate NY.  Most of my family is close by, the rural stretch of land keeps me away from most other humans, and it gives me all the hard labor I can stand.  I built a small, one room, cabin on my land, starting the very day that the final documents were signed and it was officially mine.  I spent the first spring and summer, living in a tent while I build the cabin and began planting crops.

 My cabin is beautiful by the way, well if you find rough living, wood heat, sleeping in a loft, cold floors, 8 foot snow banks, and 5 months of bitter cold each year to be beautiful anyways.   I love my cabin and the 23.7 acres that go with it, as they are all mine.  I like the idea of turning that rough piece of land into everything and anything I can imagine needing to be happy, healthy, and as sane as I possibly can be.  I have done most of the work in building up my little farm homestead myself, with occasional help from my old man for jobs that are just too much for a single person.  I had power lines run in so I could have some basic appliances, backup heat, lights, electric fences, and a few other odds and ends but the buildings, gardens, chickens, and beef cows I raised were all me.  I didn’t have internet or a phone, part of the whole not trusting humans and the faceless going crazy around popular entertainment sources, you understand I am sure. 

Now, I was typically busy from sunup to sundown, performing the numerous chores and manual labors that are common on any farm homestead and reading most evenings until I fell asleep.  I don’t go into town much unless I absolutely have to.  I planned on a single trip every few months with my old man to hit up a large warehouse store a couple hours away.   We did this to stock up on stuff we couldn’t make, grow, or breed ourselves.  I also went into town every month or so to stock up on new books. 

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Let me take a step back from my past to clarify a bit.  I dislike, distrust, and don’t want interactions with most humans.  Nasty, dirty, and sometimes just plain evil these humans tend to be, but some humans have earned their way onto the people list in my mind.  I like people.  People treat others with respect, keep their word, and don’t treat me like a dangerous animal when I have to threaten to bust Dick McDickness in the face now and then to shut him up, and then go back to talking to them.  Of course my family members are on the people list, even though they sometimes bother me.   I know they mean well as they try to mother hen me quite a bit, they worry and want the best for me.  There are a few other people on this list, I am not sure where they are now, but the only other local person was Ginny. 

Ginny is smoking hot, feisty, intelligent, and a red head of about five feet four inches.  She had a slight slim build and a “fuck with me and I will break your knee caps faster than you can blink” attitude that was a part time librarian at the little community library in town.  She was all of those things and more, but it was her eyes that stood out the most.  She had these green eyes that just sparkled with mischief, humor, and the kind of intelligence that has driven mankind forward in past centuries. Now Ginny is ten years younger than me and has always shown me a great deal of kindness and respect so while I can tell you (me) that I find her to be just an all-around grade A person, I would never inflict my thoughts on her now. If I had known her before I lost my memory like I do now… well I would probably have already tried to capture her heart, but I knew what I looked like now and how most humans perceived me.  She cared for me, showing kindness and understanding, while treating me as a person, which was more than I expected or could ask for since my “accident” so I did the same for her and left it at that. 

Ginny knew about some of my issues and my old man had explained to her the importance of books to maintaining good mental health so Ginny not only accepted this but she also helped me figure out how to break the rules of the head library cun… I mean head library manager.  See head library manager was a nosy old biddy who hated me.  She hated everyone, I think, but me in particular because I was different and had “special needs”.  She was also a real ball breaker.   Whenever she could be openly and maliciously compliant with the libraries rules she was.  Normally the library only allowed someone to checkout 10 paperback and 5 hardback books at a time.  You could keep them for 2 weeks before they had to be returned which didn’t work very well for me.  I would lose track of days and would often finish the few books I was allowed to get so quickly that I would run out of things to keep me sane after working all day.  I hated dealing with people so I would put off coming back into town to swap them and it was just a huge mess. 

Ginny helped me through those first few rough months by setting up a couple of extra fake library accounts, with cards even, and she would go through and pull out 60-70 books for me every month so I could make one trip in, hang out with her for a little bit, and then go home.  She also re-checked them out for me as many times as she needed to until I made it back into town to get the next batch.  Ginny is the freaking best.  I really hope she is still alive.  Alright, find Ginny is now on my list of things to do. 

Fat Loudmouth piped up “Yeah, Ginny is on my list of things to do too!”  He sneered like a pervert after saying it. 

I ignored him.  Now why are all of these things important to the reason that I am stuck in a closet you ask?  Good question dear friend, and by dear friend I of course mean myself because if anyone else is reading this it means I am dead since I will never show my journal to anyone.  The answer is because I ran out of books to read last night and came into town this afternoon, after the work was done at home, to get more.  Now I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary most of the way driving in, not that I was paying close attention.  Ginny had told me the last time I was in town that a series I had been reading had put out two more books and she would have them waiting for me this time, so I was thinking of those. 

So I was cruising along, it generally took about 45 minutes to get into town, and had just started passing the gas station on this end of town when I had to slam on the breaks.  I froze, the sudden images I was seeing registering in my mind gave me chills.  The God damn street looked like a warzone straight out of pictures you might see in a movie or news magazine.  I had seen pictures from before I lost my memory of my time in Iraq and this had the same feeling of active destruction.  There were wrecked cars everywhere, some smashed into each other, others wrapped around poles and run into buildings.  There was smoke rising in a couple of places, which isn’t unusual in the fall as the nights get colder, but instead of it being calm plumes of gray and white it was thick black roiling smoke.  This was the kind of smoke you get when you are burning things that generally shouldn’t like plastic, tires, or bodies.  Huh, I don’t know why I know what kind of smoke bodies being burned looks and smells like but I knew I was right somehow. 

Now I was concerned, you see I don’t watch TV, listen to the radio, or cruise the interwebz as the kids say.  I have no idea what’s going on.  Had the US been invaded?  Did my small home town suddenly have a problem with marauding gangs or riots?  Maybe aliens had finally decided they were done watching us fuck up the world?  I had no idea and every imaginable scenario was running through my head while I was sitting there, transfixed by the scene I was looking at on Main street.  I was pulled roughly from my day dreams by a scream, the sounds of breaking glass, and then after a moment more a loud gurgling noise.  The sudden noises were coming from my right, towards the gas station I had stopped in front of.

 The gas station wasn’t anything special, just one of two stations on either end of town.  Two fuel pumps out front, a diesel and kerosene pump on either side of the station itself with a small glass main room where the station attendant ran the register, also filled with snacks and drinks.   The rest of the building was made up of two small garage bays running the length of the building. 

I quickly scrutinized the station trying to see what was going on through the glass front of the store.  There was a dark substance smeared all over the front window, oil I hoped.  I put the truck into reverse and pulled slowly into the station as I tried to find where the scream came from and why it stopped just as suddenly.  I slowly pulled my truck into the gas station, peering through the glass window into the darkened room and without thinking I let my truck roll over one of those stupid compressed air bells that ding inside letting the workers know

“Hey guys, here I am, come and service me big boys.” 

Before the second ding sound had faded away a couple of shapes in the garage bay, bordering the front cashier room, slowly stood and began shambling into the bright sunlight streaming through the window as the sun slowly set.  I froze for the second time in less than five minutes as they walked forward giving me a clear look at them.  I am not ashamed to say I MAY have shat myself a bit.  I will neither confirm nor deny WHY I had to remove my underwear after entering this closet…

“Shut up!  Dick McDickness, if you say one more word I will pop you in your fucking mouth again.”

Sorry about the interruption dear reader but what I saw were humans, they had faces so definitely weren’t part of the faceless crew currently plaguing my life, but they looked like they had been in the same explosion I had been in.  They were fucked up hardcore!  The first thing I noticed was the blood.  They had blood all OVER themselves and I realized the smears on the window weren’t oil after all.  They were also naked, for some odd reason, and I was too shocked to be worried. 

They had shuffled into the room stopping as the fading sunlight covered them all the while staring at me.  They had dead, flat eyes that were the same milky white a day old corpse gets and was a little concerned at how I knew what day old corpse eyes look like.  I quickly looked around my vehicle to see if there were others and when I looked back I jumped a little… and maybe made more of an underpants mess as I realized there were even more shuffling into the light and stopping.  I counted at least five of these folks, a mix of nude men and women.  Most of them were covered in bites, chunks of flesh missing, they had lacerations, scratches, and one guy looked like he had 5-6 bullet holes in his chest right where his heart and lungs were.  Don’t ask me how I know what bullet holes look like, I don’t own a gun because, you know, crazy as hell but I think I need to find one when I get out of this closet. 

I sat there checking them over while they stood there watching me.  I had my foot on the accelerator ready to take off, like a cat with his tail on fire, but a quiet voice suddenly said in my right ear

“Why are they just staring at us?”

I didn’t recognize this voice.  I wondered was it a voice in my head that I had never met or was there someone in the bed of my truck?  I quickly twisted around, hampered by my seat belt, but didn’t see anyone.  I concluded it was a new voice and named it Scared Kid, because that’s just what it sounded like as I nodded my head and made a mental shrugging motion to the new voice.  It was a good question though, were they hurt and in shock, just not processing what was going on like a bombing victim or maybe they were in shock from some kind of sickness or blood loss? 

I reached over and rolled the window down a little, noticing their eyes never left me as I moved around the interior of my truck.  When the window was down just a crack I called out loudly

“Hey, are you folks ok?”  

No answer and they just kept staring as the sun dropped a little more. The setting sun was lengthening the shadows in the front room and they deepened further as the sun continued moving away from where they were standing.  As soon as they were in shadow they moved forward again, shuffling, until they hit the patch of sunlight again before stopping as before, while their eyes never left me.  Ok, now I was officially freaked out but still wanted to make sure I gave these people the benefit of the doubt.  I never got the benefit of the doubt from humans but I wanted to be a good person so I called out one more time

“It’s kind of a cold autumn this year to be running around naked, are you sure you folks don’t need some help?” 

Again no answer and just the damn staring at me was my only response.  

“Fuck this shit.” I muttered quietly to myself as I slowly pulled away. 

I was creeping forward, darting glances between the road into town and the weird people in the gas station.   The sun finally dropped behind a hill, dropping the entire gas station and the road in front of it into deep shadows.  I noticed this drop in direct sunlight at the same time I heard the glass shatter  behind me.  Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw the small group of five people shuffling out of the gas station and moving at a slow walk towards my truck.  Nope.  I was done being Mr. Helpful at this point and so, having zero fucks left to give, I jumped on the gas to get the hell out of there.   I decided to drive through town and take the back way home, which goes by my parent’s house, I needed to check on them and find out what was going on ASAP. 

I was weaving quickly through the traffic jams and I noticed more and more things out of place.  A body hanging out of a window from the granary we bought animal feed from, a smoldering pile of bodies by a car wrapped around a light pole, someone belted into the back of a crashed, naked, covered in blood, and thrashing around trying to get free as they stared at me with white milky eyes.  I was in a full blown panic by now and no shit, a tree suddenly jumped out in front of me. 

Well, that’s what I told the Old Cranky Lady anyways when she started complaining about how I had damaged “our” truck to shut her up.  She didn’t need to know that tree came out of nowhere at least 50 years ago am I right?  Of course I am!  Now I was telling her to shut up mentally as I was dazed and bleeding from what was probably only a small gash somewhere on my head.  I had apparently decided to test the hardness of my steering wheel, with my forehead, when we hit that tree.  Do I need to explain that the steering wheel won?  Yeah, well it did and I knew if it could speak it would be taunting me.   

I threw open the door, stumbling out, bleeding and a little dazed.   I was probably in shock from what I was seeing and the voices doing running commentary on it ranging from

“This is so cool!” to “Does he not realize he shat himself or does he like the smell that much?” to “Kill everything you see with fire.  Fire.  FIRE.  FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE!” 

While I was looking around, shaking my head to clear both the fog from my brain and the blood running down my face from my eyes, I heard a bone chilling moan behind me.  I almost got killed but luckily Angry Old Man had my back, literally, as he warned loudly

“Run you dumb bastard or he is going to get you!” 

Without thinking I stumbled away from my truck a few hurried steps towards the middle of the street and half turned to see a naked form, covered in blood of course, falling down from a failed lunge at the spot I had just been standing.  I must have been a bad ass in a past life because I reacted without thinking by taking a single stride forward and stomping on its head twice.  The first stomp I could feel some give, and with the second stomp the skull cracked and shattered like a frozen watermelon.  I froze, my foot still lodged in the remains of a man’s, I think it was a man anyways, head as I processed that I had just killed someone. 

Another new voice chimed in with a calm, methodical cadence, “You curb stomped him.  Don’t stress over it brother, he was trying to do something wrong to you and you defended yourself.  Get your shit together and move the fuck out soldier.” 

I looked up and saw someone in a set of ACUs, the name tag looked familiar but was blurry.  I thought about what he had said and nodded to Soldier in thanks.   I decided he was right and now wasn’t the time to reflect and that I needed to get the fuck out of dodge!  I didn’t see any more monsters wandering around nearby but saw movement in pools of shadow up and down the road as it got darker outside.  Most of the buildings, that I could see from where I was standing, were small single family houses so I moved to the one closest to me and tried the front door. 

Finding it unlocked, I swung the door open calling loudly

“Hello!  Is anyone here?  I was in an accident out front and need to use your phone if I can.” 

I waited for a moment, hearing no response, no sounds of movement, and with the voices blessedly silent for once I quickly stepped across the threshold, closing and locking the door behind me.  Sighing in relief I turned to look around and was face to face with a naked, bloody, huge behemoth of a man flying through the air to tackle me.  I went down like 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag let me tell you.  Luckily, some muscle memory kicked in again and as I went down I had the presence of mind to grab his out stretched arm, spinning into him as I fell so that he landed mostly underneath me.

 I quickly spun back towards him, flipping a leg over his torso as I did so, and before I could fully grasp what I was doing I was smashing this old fat guy in the face with heavy forward drops of my elbows, using the full weight of my upper body and propelling myself forward just a little with my legs straddling his naked blood covered torso to drive them in.  The first couple didn’t seem to do much but obscure his vision as he kept waving his arms trying to grab and pull me towards his teeth.   The next 4-5 elbow drops in I felt his nose cartilage shatter and he slowed, 4-5 more and I felt the bone between his eyes cave into his skull cavity, 2-3 more after that and I could smell the coppery blood from his fresh wounds and something sickly sweet from his open head cavity as I looked at what was left of his brain.  I sat there stunned, staring at the brain surgery I had just performed.

“See, I told your Mom you were smart enough to be a neurologist.”  Snooty Guy said as I was heaving in deep breaths, struggling to regain my breath as the adrenaline in my system ran wild. 

I heard a window crash from somewhere deeper inside the house and without thinking I stood, saw a door to my right, by the locked front door, roughly pulled the door open, and stepped inside pulling it closed behind me.  It took me about ten minutes to realize I was in a closet and another fifteen minutes more before I thought to check for a light.  I was still standing in the close, the adrenaline rush fading, while I listened to another monster start banging on the door.  Now that you are caught up to our current predicament and I have my thoughts straight we need to figure out what to do.

 I sighed and spoke in my head “Guys, I need your help to get out of this mess.” And after a moment added, “Please.” as an afterthought.