[SPEAKER_00]: Night walkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: A short-hand missile tail by Matthew.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, my client.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like walking my dog at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate running into other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everybody else, I try to avoid crowds since the Kansas City flu.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has certain how it passes from person to person, or if it really came from Kansas City.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we all know I didn't come in from a pig in China or a monkey in Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's American born and here to stay and lives in people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my dog is a great comfort and companionship while encounters with other nightwalkers are possibly fatal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The street lamps still come on at night though, or most of them anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So me and the strangers each other from way off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe hoping it will be someone we recognize from the before times me and the approaching stranger don't turn away from each other, but move to opposite sides of the wide street.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one good thing about the slow apocalypse we find ourselves in.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no traffic.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get close to each other in one of the dark hallways between burned-out streetlights The stranger clicks on a flashlight and hits me with it kind enough not to shine the light in my eyes But glancing the beam up and down my body Probably checking for weapons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't blame them people have been killing each other of the stupidest things I read about a shootout and the only Walmart left in town that's inciting incident was an argument about the last tube of toothpaste
[SPEAKER_00]: and everyone seems to have a gun, firearms industry is one of the few that's still thriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not caring, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only a gun would be a bigger danger to myself than anyone else these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I take my hands out of my pockets and let the lights sweep over us, holding Kujo's leash, his high-winding, the only sound to be heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's about three steps behind me when I drop the leash and reach into my back pocket for the collapsible baton.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's light and quick, but still cord, so when I bring it down on the stranger's head, it knocks them cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hit them a couple more times while Kujo murders their tiny chihuahua.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't blame him, he has an evening in days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I move quick going through the strangers' pockets, grabbing their wallet and whatever might be valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find the pistol and throw it in the woods, then roll the body off the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like there's enough cash for some groceries the next time my phone rings and I'm told it's my turn to go to the Ration Station.
[SPEAKER_00]: They really should have gone down another street.