I woke up stiff but well-rested. The night had been chilly, possibly dipping down to 10 degrees Celsius, which was the bare minimum my light sleeping bag could protect against. Thankfully, the sleeping pills had knocked me out completely, and I hadn’t woken up once during the night. Going to bed when it started to get dark and waking up around six in the morning meant I had gotten a good amount of sleep. With the coolness of the morning still in the air, I began my systematic attack on the screws, determined to make more progress today.

  I tried several techniques to loosen the self-tapping screws. First, I attempted to use the heat expansion method. I heated the screws directly with the flame from my camping stove, hoping the expansion and contraction would help. Unfortunately, the screws remained stubbornly in place, and I nearly burned myself in the process. The vibration technique with the Leatherman’s hammer end produced similar results: a lot of noise but no loose screws.

  The lever and fulcrum method showed a bit more promise. Using the Leatherman saw blade as a lever and a small rock as a fulcrum, I applied pressure to the screws. While I didn't have immediate success, I noticed the screws were beginning to budge slightly. Encouraged, I continued prying, and after what felt like hours, I managed to get two of the screws fully out of the steel sheet. There were still about 10 to 15 more screws to go before I could wedge the sheet up enough to maybe slide in, but this small victory gave me a boost of much-needed hope.

  Focused on making progress to the entrance to the building, I didn't notice how many zombies my racket was collecting. There were maybe triple the amount of yesterdays. The only good news was that there was a zombie wearing a baseball cap, pink in color. She still had it on and was within reach of the trident fishhook weight. I put down my tools, ensuring that the small rock wouldn't roll away—it was darn hard to find anything up on the top of the roof to help—and started to think about my new form of fishing.

  My first throw went quite short. As I was not used to throwing with the added resistance of the line, it barely made it halfway. The second throw, I overcompensated, flying past her and getting snagged on another zombie's pants. As hard as I managed to wiggle the line back and forth, I could not get it unstuck and eventually had to pull hard enough that I broke the single fish hook that was stuck in the pants free and reeled it in. Now with a bi-hook, the lead weight bounced perfectly off the brim of the cap, causing one of the hooks to whip around and connect with the cap and the other to lodge in the collar of the zombie's shirt.

  Unfortunately, the lines connecting the collar of the shirt seemed to be the only thing getting tight when I pulled, and I didn't want the line to break, losing a very limited supply of hooks that I had. I started to make more noise and distraction to entice her to come to the building. I banged on the metal sheets with the Leatherman, hoping the racket would draw her closer. Slowly, she began to shuffle in my direction, the hooks pulling her closer.

  When the zombie was directly under me, I tried to pull up. With the zombie's arms extended up, trying to reach me, I thought maybe it would be possible to get the shirt and hat together—two fishes on the same line, so to speak. It was finicky, as the woman had quite a large chest and the shirt was tight in these areas. The key to getting it to work was wrapping the line around the walking pole, lying on my stomach on the edge of the roof, and manipulating the direction at which I could yank up. Once the shirt hole popped around her chin, it was smooth sailing, and I reeled in my prize. But I don't think if it wasn't for the amount of cleavage the shirt displayed, it would have ever come off. This made me think that this would not be a very successful way to try to collect clothes.

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  When I managed to get my prizes within grabbing distance, I found another huge flaw in that plan of collecting clothes from zombies: they stink. The shirt was covered in blood and smelled musty and musky, like sex, a mix of sweat and bodily fluids. The contrast was jarring. The smell was less overwhelming than I expected, but the bloodstains were disturbing. The shirt had to be immediately taken to the far corner of the roof. I was thinking about throwing it back over to the zombies, but I had a second thought in case I needed toilet paper or something—it might be handy. The hat was in a better state, as it was mostly only in contact with her hair.

  I put my prize on my head after adjusting the band to the notch hole I preferred—four tabs, if you were curious. I put my hands up and gave a little bit of a whoop whoop, and looked out, and wow, the number of zombies was crazy. Three, four hundred, maybe? Hard to count them, really. You could really notice that the majority of the zombies were women. I'd say maybe 5% male. I bet this is what one of those boy bands would see at a concert. It made me nervous. Just as I considered how many glassy-eyed stares were in my direction, I noticed that in my triumph, I had looked up and noticed that the sky was quite overcast. Possibilities of maybe afternoon showers. I decided I would not be frugal with the remaining water and drink a few sips so that I would have an empty container for when it rained. I used half the water to make a dehydrated meal. I left maybe a little in the bladder just in case it didn't rain, but the clouds were pretty angry, and I hoped.

  After my meal and cup of water, the worst thing in the world happened. I had to go poop bad. I really had no good options only two. Poop on the roof and try flicking it off, or crouch over the edge. If I did that, where should it land? In the fence area, or where the zombies were? I knew my water collection would most likely be from runoff on the roof, so I couldn't risk contaminating that area. If I tried to do it in one of the empty food packaging, I thought it would be better used for water storage. Over the edge seemed to be the only solution. I thought if I fell while doing it on the side with the fence, I might not be zombie meat, but then again, falling from that distance would probably kill me. I decided to keep all the stink on the zombie side. I took my pants off completely, got my feet in a position that they were safely positioned on the edge of the roof, and ensured that my butthole was going to clear the gutter. With my back to the horde, bombs away. It was one of the firm ones that hurt coming out but are almost toilet paper unnecessary. I wiped once with a wet wipe and was clean. Used a little bit of hand sanitizer, and looked down to see what happened and let out a hearty laugh. The laugh didn't stop until I was on my knees almost weeping.

  When I had my back to the zombies, they must have all swarmed in and put their arms up, trying to get some fresh meat. The turd dropped and landed smack on the forehead of the Karen I had mentioned before, making her have a large shit-brow. Maybe I should call her "shit head." As my laughter started to settle down, I realized that that could have been Patricia and felt bad for a second, but the hilarity of Karen pushing her way up to the front of the line to get a log to the face was too priceless. "Can I speak to your manager? Well surely you can. Here's Mr. Hankey."

  While I was not surfing the web while I pooped for a change, I noticed that the gutters of the roof had quite a bit of debris, dust mostly, and some rotten leaf material, but not much. But if I was going to be able to collect the water that ran off the roof and down into the gutters, it might be smart if I swept them out so that I wouldn't have to taste dirt. I grabbed my spare T-shirt, decided to switch it out for the one I had been wearing for the longest, and used it to push the dirt out of the gutters. I did this for one side, and then the other side. I realized that if I wanted to collect as much water as I needed, it would be smart to block the gutter drain pipe hole. So, I could collect all the water that would fill it up, in addition to everything else I had.

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