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Base: New Orleans, LA

Date/Time: February 25, 2006/2100 hours

Incident: I am a college student, living with my husband in a small house in a mediocre neighborhood in New Orleans. We moved in in January of this year, and for the most part our neighbors are delightful folks. However, they kept warning us against going out at night. Being as my husband works the night shift from 7 p.m. onwards five days a week, this seemed like sane advice, but we both wondered at how vehement they seemed.

This neighborhood is only about two blocks from the docks. Ever since the flood, most of the warehouses and old factories have been abandoned (they were ready to fall down anyway). There has also been an upswing in the number of disappearances, which the police dismiss as unimportant, or to be expected in a city being rebuilt, etc.

Back in December of 2005, a man named Paul who I knew slightly from a course I was taking stopped showing up in class. Since this happens fairly regularly at college, I didn't give it much thought.

At the time of the incident, I had come home from class and decided to work at my hobby, which is making soaps to sell. I had my ingredients set up on the table, including a large amount of lye in a margarine tub to use in my soap. My only company in the house was Tom, my huge, rather nasty cat. He was asleep on the bookshelf by our window. I worked about 45 minutes in relative peace, until I saw a strange movement outside the windows that face the street.

What happened next happened very quickly. I smelled a foul stench that could be described as a mix of garbage and rot and meat going bad. At the same time, Tom growled deep in his throat and stood, the hair on his back going up. I spun around to find a man staring at me from the kitchen. He was very pale and emaciated, and he had that awful smell.

It was the classmate.

He moved towards me, and I called out "Paul?" He seemed shocked by my use of his name, and it stopped him short. He opened his mouth, and I could see that his teeth looked funny: too long, and stained. He came at me, and in a panic, I picked up the tub of lye and threw it.

Lye is extremely caustic–I wear a rubber apron and gloves to handle it–and it struck his face. He shrieked with pain, and I saw that the lye was blistering his skin. At the same time, Tom leapt at him and began clawing and hissing. He turned and ran.

I later discovered that the screen on the door had been cut.

We still live in that house, but now we own a Rottweiler. He or it has not come back, to date, although I'm much more careful these days. Tom died in his sleep a few days later, I'm sorry to say. And the soap, which used to be called "Kate's special soap," now is known as "Miracle Soap."

Comments From Dr. Pecos: Quick thinking on your part. I've never thought of throwing lye at the undead, but in this case it worked like a charm.

Obviously, there has been great concern over a zombie or vampire outbreak in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of the missing persons from Katrina ended up like your classmate. I'm wondering, though: did you call the police after your encounter, and if so, were they able to find the unfortunate young man?