Alan woke up with a scream.
His heart hammered, sweat drenched his pajama shirt, and his eyes darted around in panic. Zombies. They were coming. Rotten hands, dead eyes, groaning voices. They were coming for him. He had to fight.
Something moved. A shadow. A figure. Coming closer.
Instinct took over. Alan grabbed the first thing he could reach, a rectangular object on the nightstand, and launched it full force at the approaching figure.
CRACK.
"OOW!"
A yelp. A thud. Then...
"ALAN, YOU SON OF A..."
His eyes adjusted. The horror melted into reality. The zombie was… Judith.
Judith, standing in front of the bed, holding her face. Nose bleeding. Eyes filled with pure, undiluted rage.
Her phone? Shattered on the floor.
Alan blinked. "Oh… oh, crap."
Judith touched her nose, looked at the blood, then looked at Alan. The fire in her eyes could've melted steel.
"You..." She took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "YOU JUST BROKE MY NOSE?!"
Alan scrambled up, hands raised. "I-I was dreaming! I thought you were a... a zombie!"
"You think I look so ugly that I look like a zombie?" Judith grumbled in pain as she wiped her nose and stared at her broken phone. The brand-new phone. The one she squeezed out of Alan's little pocket money after swallowing up his entire paycheck and specifically told him not to touch.
Her voice dropped to a dangerous level. "Alan."
Alan gulped. "Y-yeah?"
"Get. Out. Of. My. House."
Alan's mouth opened and gave his usual awkward giggle. "Haha. Wait, what? No, it was an accident!" He waved his hand in front like it wasn't a big deal.
Judith pointed to the door. "OUT."
Alan stood up. "Judith, let's be reasonable! We can talk about..."
Judith picked up the nearest lamp.
"OKAY, OKAY, I'M GOING!" Alan yelped, stumbling backward.
Judith watched as Alan tripped over his own feet, grabbed his robe, and scrambled out of the bedroom.
The door slammed behind him.
She followed behind him, making sure he got out of the house, and then locked the door.
...
[30 Minutes Later after Alan was exiled]
Alan sat in his car, staring blankly at the steering wheel. How did it come to this?
Sure, things weren't perfect, but did he really deserve to be kicked out of his own house?
Then again…
Last week, he accidentally scratched Judith's car. ("It was a tiny scratch!")
The week before that, Judith found his secret cash stash in the garage. ("Emergency money! It was supposed to be a surprise…")
Two days ago, he tried to kiss her after eating onions as a challenge for 50$. Well, he lost the bet and ended up with a nice pungent breath. ("It wasn't that bad, Judith, come on...")
Fun fact: They hadn't had sex in months.
Yeah. Maybe… just maybe… this was inevitable.
Alan sighed. He reached for his phone to call Charlie, then remembered he left it inside.
Great. Just great.
He looked up at the house. Lights off in the bedroom. Judith was probably stuffing tissues up her nose and googling divorce lawyers.
Alan groaned and leaned back.
Where the hell was he supposed to go now?
"What to do? What to do?"
Well, he got a plan.
Alan sneaked into the backyard, shivering in his robe and slippers.
Judith had locked him out. Of course, she had.
But Alan was prepared for situations like this. He wasn't about to spend the night in his car like some divorced loser. (Even though, let's be honest, that was probably his future.)
His plan? Sneak in through the back door. He got a spare key under the little pot.
Simple. Flawless.
Except.
As he tiptoed through the yard, something moved in the shadows.
Alan froze. "Hello?" He whispered.
Silence.
He shook his head. Probably nothing. He took another step...
Then he saw it.
A black-and-white tail, raised like a warning flag.
Alan's stomach dropped.
"Oh, no..."
PFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT.
A mist of pure, unholy evil shot straight at him.
Alan gagged. "OH, GOD! MY EYES!"
He stumbled backward, slipped on the wet grass, and crashed onto his back. His robe flew open, exposing way too much of Alan to the cold night air.
The skunk, job well done, scurried off into the bushes.
Alan lay there, soaked in skunk juice and regret.
His eyes burned. His soul burned.
From inside the house, Judith peeked out the window. She saw everything.
And she smiled.
"Serves you right, dumbass," she muttered, shutting the blinds.
Alan groaned, rolling onto his side.
This was, without a doubt, the worst night of his life.
He was still lying in the grass, marinating in skunk stench and self-pity, when he heard the window creak open above him.
He barely had time to react before...
THUNK!
His phone came flying at his head.
"OH, SH—" Alan flailed, barely catching it before it smashed into the dirt. His hands fumbled, but somehow, miraculously, he held on.
Small victories.
Then came the voice. Judith's voice.
Cold. Sharp. And done with his existence.
"Don't ever show your face in my house again, Alan! We are done."
Alan, still flat on his back, wheezed, "I-I thought we could talk..."
"TALK?!" Judith leaned out the window, wild-eyed. "Oh, NOW you wanna talk? AFTER YOU BROKE MY NOSE? AFTER YOU BROKE MY PHONE?"
"In my defense, I thought you were a zombie and we haven't had sex in months. Six or eight months. I don't even remember."
Judith's death glare intensified.
Alan shrunk into the grass.
"Last week, you scratched my car."
"That was..."
"The week before, I found your secret garage cash stash!"
Alan winced. "In my defense, I was gonna use that for..."
"Whores and strippers, I know. And let's not forget when you tried to KISS ME after eating ONIONS."
Alan sighed. "Okay, but I brushed after..."
"ALAN, I CAN STILL SMELL IT."
Alan swallowed hard. "Fair point."
Judith pointed a shaking finger at him. "You are a menace and the most annoying part of my life."
Alan opened his mouth...
"No." She cut him off. "I'm done. DONE. You and your pathetic, skunk-covered, bad-breath-having, accident-prone ass—OUT."
And with that, she slammed the window shut.
Alan lay there. Cold. Reeking of skunk. Phone in hand. Homeless.
"…So, is this like a 'cool off for a few days' kind of thing, or…?" he called out weakly.
No response.
A single porch light flicked off.
Alan sighed.
"Well. This sucks."
He slowly got to his feet, rubbing his face. His marriage was officially over. He smelled like roadkill on a hot day. He had nowhere to go.
Alan stared at his phone.
One bar. Twelve percent battery. No Wi-Fi. And zero people on Earth who'd take his skunky, divorced ass in for the night.
He scrolled through his contacts. Every name brought the same sinking realization.
Too awkward.
Too distant.
Too "Alan, you owe me money."
His mom? It's better to sleep on the roadside or even in jail than to ask for her help unless he wishes her to suck out his soul by manipulating him to be her puppet for the rest of his life. She tried before and he barely escaped with his sanity intact.
He paused on Charlie's name. His thumb hovered. Then he sighed and dropped the phone into his lap.
They hadn't spoken in months. Not since the bachelor party disaster. Alan didn't even remember what happened, but apparently, he'd tried to freestyle rap at the strip club and insulted everyone's mother in one breath. Classic blackout Alan.
Besides, he couldn't show up to Charlie's door reeking like Satan's trash bin.
No.
He needed to fix the stench first. Then figure out his life. One thing at a time.
Alan squinted through the fog of his own despair.
The beach.
He remembered reading somewhere that seawater was "nature's cleanser" or some crap like that. Maybe it was shampoo marketing. Maybe it was Reddit. Whatever. It was his only shot.
He turned the ignition, gagging as the heat in the car cycled the skunk smell into every corner. Windows down. AC on blast. Alan hit the road, praying for a miracle.
[15 minutes later]
The parking lot was empty. The beach? Even more so. Midnight waves rolled in slow, quiet, peaceful.
Perfect.
Alan looked around. No cars. No lights. No people. Just sand, surf, and the stink of his own shame.
He stripped.
Robes, gone. Slippers, off. Undies? Well, they were beyond saving. He peeled them off like biohazard tape and flung them into a bush.
Naked and pale, Alan sprinted into the water, yelping as the cold Atlantic slapped him in the nuts.
"Oh... holy mother of..." he howled, then dove in.
Instant relief.
The saltwater stung his eyes and skin, but he scrubbed himself raw. He splashed and dunked like a man possessed, desperate to erase every trace of that cursed skunk.
For a moment, he felt…free.
Then he heard it.
A shout. Distant. Panicked.
"Sir! Step away from the water!"
Alan froze mid-dip. "What?"
Red and blue lights lit up the beach. A spotlight hit him like an alien abduction.
Two cops were running toward him, hands on their belts.
"Sir! Are you trying to harm yourself?!"
Alan flailed. "What? No! I'm bathing! I mean... cleaning! I mean... I GOT SKUNKED!"
He stumbled back toward shore, arms waving, junk flopping in the moonlight.
"DON'T APPROACH!" one of the officers yelled. "Just stay where you are!"
"I'm not trying to die, I just smell like hell!" Alan shouted, slipping on wet sand and falling onto his bare ass.
The officers reached him. One yanked his taser ready... just in case.
They dragged him up by the arms, wrapping him like a burrito in the thin, scratchy towel.
"Sir, what's your name?"
"Alan... Alan Harper... I live over in..."
"Are you under the influence of any substances tonight?"
"Only trauma," Alan muttered. "And saltwater."
"You are completely naked trashing in the ocean, yelling. That sounds like a potential suicide attempt."
Alan's head dropped. He quickly covered his privates with his hands. "No. I swear. I just got sprayed by a skunk and my wife kicked me out and I didn't know where else to go!"
The two cops exchanged a look. The taller one nodded.
"Alright, sir. You're being detained for public indecency and suspicion of mental distress. You can explain the rest downtown."
"Wait... what?! No, no, no, no... It's not what you think. I kinda threw my wife's phone and hit her. Her nose probably broke and she was bleeding and she threw me out... Haha!" He gave his usual giggle. "Funny part, I tried sneaking in and got skunked. I had nowhere to go, so I was just cleaning myself up," Alan tried to explain his situation in a single breath.
The shorter cop, Officer Martinez, squinted at Alan. "Wait… Did you just say you hit your wife?"
Alan, dripping and shivering, gave a sheepish grin. "Uh… I mean, kinda? But it was an accident... I thought she was a zombie!"
The taller cop, Officer Reynolds, sighed. "So, let me get this straight. You threw something at your wife, broke her nose, she bled, then kicked you out, then you tried to sneak into the house probably for revenge, got skunked and now you're naked in the ocean at midnight?"
Alan swallowed. "...When you say it like that, it sounds kinda bad."
Martinez crossed his arms. "So, you're confessing to domestic violence?"
Alan blinked. "Wait. What?"
Reynolds pulled out his cuffs. "Sir, turn around and put your hands behind your back."
"WHAT? No, no, no! It wasn't like that!" Alan yelped, stumbling backward, feet sinking in the wet sand. "It was self-defense! I thought she was a zombie! It was a dream attack!"
Martinez raised an eyebrow. "A dream attack?"
"Yes! Sleep panic! Night terrors! A total accident!" Alan babbled. "She was standing over me in the dark, and I just… reacted!"
Reynolds didn't even blink. "So, you admit you hit her."
Alan groaned. "Technically, yes. But not on purpose!"
Click. The cuffs snapped around his wrists.
"Ah, crap!" Alan whined. "Are you serious? I got skunked! Isn't that punishment enough? Can you retrieve my clothes from that bush? It's kinda cold."
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