Read The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies for Free Online

could forget our problems and start enjoying life again in a place like this.  I caught myself before Bonnie took my full attention away from the task at hand.
         I walked over and stood next to the mailbox in front of 4127. The mailbox was one of those customized wooden things which are a miniature version of the house.  I couldn ’t help but smile. A well-groomed yard surrounded the ornate white-with-dark-green-trim house.  I walked up the few steps to the porch and rang the bell.  The ornate front door had squares of thick glass in columns down each side.  While I could not see through the glass, there seemed to be a shadow of someone passing on the other side.  I rang the doorbell a few more times, but no one answered.  I walked slowly back to the car and considered what to try next.
         As I walked back to the car, I noticed a mail truck double-parked at the end of the block about a hundred yards away.  I stood on the sidewalk watching.  Something about seeing mail being delivered gave me some comfort. Apparently, neither wind, nor rain, nor dark of night, nor weird,  cannibalistic attacks will deter the mailman from his appointed rounds.
         My sexist preconceptions were clearly showing as I was surprised to see an attractive, muscular young woman with short black hair emerge from the truck. She had a large mail sack hooked over her shoulder as she marched up to the first house.  I am not sure what it was about the mailwoman that interested me, but I continued to watch from the side of my car.  As she delivered to the first few houses and got closer to where I stood, the sound of her coughing and sniffling reached me.
         As the mailwoman came closer, I said, “Well, it sure sounds like you got a nasty cold like everyone else.”
         “You got that right,” she smiled at me and then wiped her nose with the back of her hand before reaching in her bag to get another bundle of mail.
         “Take care of yourself,” I said even as she was already passed me and approaching the next house.
         Thinking of the cold that seemed to be afflicting just about everyone in the country lately, it occurred to me that one reason for the widespread epidemic might well be traced to the dedicated postal workers.  As I had just witnessed, transferring germs from one person to a vast population could be as simple as touching a piece of mail with a germy hand and then delivering it.  I wonder if Benjamin Franklin ever imagined that his post office could become the largest spreader of disease in the world.  Of course, I had no reason to believe this was how things happened.  It was simply a theory.
         As I was running the idea over in my mind, a woman without makeup in white sweatpants and a t-shirt emerged from one of the houses to retrieve the letters delivered to the wooden mail box in her front yard. As if choreographed, she returned to her house and immediately the door to the next house opened to reveal an unshaven older man in gray sweatpants who went to his mailbox.  Watching this scene made me realize that sweatpants had clearly replaced the bathrobe as the uniform of the infirmed.  But something a little more practical also presented itself. 
         The best to approach would be to catch Mister Clark as he was coming out to get his mail. The alternate method of knocking on the door and hoping he would answer gave him more control over the situation as he could pretend not to be at home.  Of course, none of my musings mattered in the least if Clark did not come out to gather his mail. 
         Fortunately, I did not have to wait l ong for him to emerge. A man that I assumed was Jerry Clark stuck his head out of the partially opened the door and quickly swiveled his head around to take a look in every direction.  Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, the man swung the door open.  What I saw completed the image of a prairie dog popping out of his hole.