Whistlers

Michael Talbot — Journal Entry 1

Well, I guess from the title of my journal entry, you’ve figured out my name. I, at least, know that much, other than that, I’m at a loss. I was on my way back to Maine to stop a sociopath (Or is it psychopath? Probably both. I should have paid more attention in my sociology classes, but Betsy Hoegler, who sat two rows up and one over, was oh-so-pretty—wow, there’s a digression—focus, Talbot! That’s probably why you’re in this fucking predicament). Okay, let me try to make my thoughts cohesive.

My name is Michael Talbot (we’ve established that). I am heading back to my brother Ron’s house in Maine to head off Eliza, an evil bitch of a vampire who, for some unfathomable reason, has decided that my family and I should be wiped from the planet like a plague. (Does that make sense? It does in my head, and since I’m writing it, I guess that makes it okay.) I nearly met my end in a house I lit on fire, taking out some potentially misguided vengeance on some cats (the caretakers of the underworld). PETA would probably have my balls in a sling if they knew what I did, but if any of you were there, you’d know why I did it. I laid the whole thing out in my fifth journal, and I have no desire to revisit it; the wound is still too fresh.

While I was recuperating from my wounds, I came across one of the most unique individuals I have ever had the…what…pleasure? (not sure if that’s the right word)…of coming across. His name is John the Tripper, and NOT because he’s clumsy. He makes Timothy Leary seem like a daycare teacher.

We were evacuating his house when he thought it would be a good idea to dose on acid. Now, I’m a full decade (or close to it) from my last journey into the center of my mind, and he broke the cardinal rule: he slipped it to me without my knowledge or consent. Hey, I’m always up for a good time, but definitely not in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

So there we are, I had just driven his 1970s VW van out of his garage, zombies had come up to the driver’s side window, and I’m laughing—I’m talking gut hurting, tears flowing, mouth stuck in a perpetual smile, laughing. Apparently, zombies are some seriously funny shit when you’re as high as a kite. Fortunately, somewhere inside of me, survival mode kicked in and I punched down on the gas pedal. I clipped a curb, and almost made one hell of a fiery exit from this world when I narrowly missed a propane truck that had the audacity to be parked on the side of the street I was barreling down.

I had swerved hard, maybe I smacked my head against the driver’s window, I don’t remember, but I could have, and then…I’m not sure. In a flash, John and I are on foot, the van is gone. I’m thankfully straight (and not so, thankfully, scared). We’re out of the town and on a desolate highway. Well…I guess if you define a highway jammed with the world’s largest exodus of cars as desolate, then that’s where we were.

Thankfully I had a gun—again, not sure where it came from—it was an old school AR. Nope…hold that. Holy shit! It was an old school M-16 A1, fully-fantastically-automatic. It even came with a mod package that I couldn’t have afforded if I didn’t have three kids. If this was a dream, it was of the wet variety. Too graphic? Sorry, as a gun enthusiast we always adore things that shoot rapidly. I’m talking guns, get your head out of the gutter.

I turned to John the Tripper, his first words to me, “Who are you?”

Wonderful, I thought.

“Mike Talbot,” I told him. “Remember? You helped me in your living room?” I could see random thoughts swinging around on the vines his brain used as synapses.

“That’s a nice poncho,” he told me.

Quick back fill: I had pretty much destroyed all my clothing in the fire, and John had seen fit to give me some of his, which included a poncho that a Mexican with a sense of humor must have made specifically for some gringo tourist. Probably laughed his ass off the day he sold that thing. I also had some size thirteen-ish boat shoes that were presumably from John’s wife that I’m assuming was either from a lost Amazonian tribe or male. Either way was fine with me. Luckily, it didn’t appear that anyone living was here to judge me. A six year old with reasonable fashion sense would have known not to wear the ensemble I had on.

So that really brought us back to reality, or at least this skewed version of it. Something had happened, and I had to assume it was zombies. What else did I have to go on? There were empty cars everywhere, and a city behind us was burning. These folks had left in a hurry, but to what end? Where were they?

“John, stay close.”

I would have liked to split up a little and check some of the cars for supplies. I had my blessed rifle, three full magazines, and nothing else. We needed water, and I’d take a little food, too, as long as it wasn’t a cherry Pop-Tart. But John on his own was a scary thought, although, if I really stopped to ponder, he had fared way better than me since this whole shit-fest began.

“Look what I’ve got!” John exclaimed, pulling a slingshot out of his pocket. “What the hell is it?” He handed it to me.

“It’s a slingshot,” I said, handing it back. There was not a hint of recognition on his features. “Look in your other pocket.” I didn’t know the rules to this new place, but I was willing to bet he had some projectiles there. He pulled out a clear bag of steel ball bearings.

“Marbles!” he exclaimed happily.

“Sort of…can I see them?” He handed them over. I held my hand out for the slingshot. After a moment of realizing what I was asking for, he handed that over as well. I put a ball bearing in the leather pouch, pulled back, aimed valiantly, and missed wildly.

“Whoa! That thing shoots?” he asked, grabbing them back. He put a ball in, stretched the damn thing as far back as it would go, and then looked over at me.

I was like, “John, you need to aim.” My words were immediately followed by the shattering of a driver’s side rearview mirror about twenty yards away.

“Did I get it?” he asked, never taking his eyes from mine.

“Umm…that depends on what you were aiming for.”

“There was a mirror on the red car.”

“You’re kidding right?” I looked back to the shattered mirror on the red sedan.

“It’s only bad luck to break a mirror if you’re looking at it,” he told me as if he had just looked it up on Wikipedia or made it up on the spot. Tough to say with John.

The noise was extremely loud in a world devoid of human sound; and, now that I thought about it, all sound. There wasn’t so much as a bird chirping or a cricket cricketing. Never a good sign, animals always know when the shit is about to hit the fan.

“We’ve gotta go.”

“Funky people?” John asked, looking around. That was his take on zombies. As accurate a description as any, I suppose.

“Not sure, buddy, but it got awfully quiet.”

“Who’s buddy?” he asked as he placed his ammo and slingshot away.

I stepped onto the hood of a car and then the roof. The nearest cover I saw was a burning city a good five miles away. Other than that, there were about a billion trees, and since I wasn’t a botanist, I couldn’t even identify what part of the country, or which country, I was even in, but considering that the vast majority of cars looked familiar, I figured we were still in the good old US of A.

It was a sea of cars, a grassy median, and a darkening woods line that seemed to stretch for miles. It was getting dark and slightly chilly. We were technically lost and under-supplied. To top it off, for one of the first times in my life, I didn’t have a ‘plan.’ Although, if you know anything about me from my previous journals; you might realize I was better off on this aspect anyway.

I did the only thing I could think of; I mean, for the most part, it was unthinkable…but I did it anyway.

“Any ideas, John?”

He started frantically slapping his hands against his body like he had stepped on a fire ant hill and was even now covered in them and getting bitten. He alarmed the hell out of me with his actions.

“What’s the matter, man?” I asked, trying to figure out how I could help.

His hand slapped against his chest and he visibly relaxed. “It’s all good, man.”

“What? What the fuck is all good?” I asked, looking for his unseen assailant.

John had an infectious grin as he pulled out a spun joint from his pocket.

“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously.

Then, in one of his more lucid moments, he said, “Hey, man, you deal in your way, I’ll deal in mine. So stop harshing my high.”

“Sorry,” I told him, holding my hands up. “But we still need to get moving.”

That tree line looked foreboding. There could be zombies, rednecks, clowns or feral cats—the last making me shudder—in the darkness that oozed forth. The thought of spending the night in one of these abandoned cars held merit, but if we were to get surrounded, we would have effectively slept in what would then become our tomb.

John was a cool guy and all, (although I wished I’d met him maybe twenty years previous—scratch that, we’d both probably have long, scruffy beards and have great difficulty remembering our last Dead show) but if I was going to die soon, I wanted it to be in the loving arms of my wife Tracy who, earlier this morning, was roughly a thousand miles away. Now it appeared she was a shrouded world away.

“What did you do with my van, man?” John asked as he finally seemed to be stepping onto the same page.

Two could play his game. “What van?” It was kind of an asshole move. I’m going to blame it on the rising trepidation I was beginning to feel.

“Did you hear that?” John brushed my question aside. “It sounded like Howler Monkeys.”

I most certainly had not, but between working on an airfield and about three decades worth of rock concerts, I had an accumulated hearing loss making mine akin to a mole’s. It’s my understanding they’re deaf…shit…nope. Blind. Okay, I’m as deaf as some heretofore unmentioned almost deaf animal.

“Whoa,” I said as I caught a sound I’d never heard before. And no, Howler Monkey didn’t seem the right description.

John lit up his joint. I was jonesing for a good time, too. Right now would have been perfect. Whatever was screaming in those woods was approaching, and if I had to go, it might as well be with a smile on my face. John tapped me on the shoulder. He was sticking the joint under my nose. His cheeks were puffed out and smoke was leaking from his nostrils; his eyes were already beginning to glow a dull red.

“That some good shit?” I asked, seriously looking at his offering.

He nodded and smiled, more smoke leaking out from the edges of his grin.

“You suck, man,” I told him as I pushed it away.

I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him along. We were parallel to the tree line and the howlers (that was their name for now). I couldn’t risk the woods; for all I knew, the ones on our left could be driving us to others waiting on the right. So, down the endless line of now useless status symbols we weaved.

The noise was beginning to increase as it got darker. I didn’t know if there was a correlation, and didn’t have time to dwell on it as I pushed John along. He was of the mind to stop and look at just about every shiny object we came across.

“John, we really gotta move a little quicker,” I told him.

“I’d be inclined to agree with you if we had a destination to be gotten to.”

Again I had to agree, we were rushing to where? Away from the sounds, but they seemed to be paralleling our movements. What were they waiting for? Reinforcements? Sounded like there was already a shitload of them.

The sun was just cresting below the tree line as my dread surged. Something deep down was telling me that we needed shelter, and fast. I saw a refuge up ahead. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.

“Come on, man,” I said as I was now full-on dragging John behind me.

“You want to get in there?” he asked me as we looked at the back of the tractor trailer.

“Yes and no.”

“You know that makes no sense, right?” he chastised me.

I hated the idea of being in the back of a darkened trailer; not being able to see our enemy and basically trapped. But as I watched, the first ‘howler’ emerged out of the woods, and I knew it was the right thing to do. At least in this instance. It was a human once, but that loping, hunchback way it ran, looked more like a werewolf in the early stages of change. Could that be possible? I’ve dealt with zombies, vampires, aliens, and spirits; why wouldn’t my vengeful god throw in a werewolf or two for good measure?

“Hey!” John shouted, raising his hand up in a waving gesture to the figure that was thankfully a few hundred yards off and hadn’t heard him.

I quickly opened the back of the trailer and helped John in. In my haste to join him, I nearly ended up in a part of his anatomy I’d rather not be. I closed the door behind me and did my best to secure the locking mechanism as we were plunged into darkness.

John clicked on a lighter, the old-school kind with the cover. “I think I’m in Heaven,” he said as he raised the lighter over his head illuminating cartons upon cartons of Phrito’s, rushing for the first box he could get to.

“No, John, we can’t chance it and what kind of cheap knock-off is this? Spelling Phrito’s with a P. H.”

He turned to look at me like I had just lost my damned mind. All I could think about was the opening of that loud cellophane bag, followed by the loud crunching of the corn snack. Then, the contented sighs of John as he ate his munchies. And to top it off, the pungent smell of the snack itself.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked as he opened the carton. “I’m starving, and the patron saint of junk food has led us to his bounty.”

“John, there’s something out there.”

“There’s enough in here to share. I’m not THAT hungry.”

“Buddy, I don’t think they would care about the corn snacks.”

John whipped around looking wildly. “Who’s buddy?” He stopped when we heard more howling and mewls. The sounds were immediately followed by more. It sounded like a hunting party. I could only hope we weren’t the prey.

“You’d better get your slingshot ready,” I told him as I looked to make sure I had a bullet in the chamber and the safety was off.

“My what?”

“The thing that shoots marbles.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say that?” he asked.

“My mistake.”

“How about after one bag of Phrito’s,” he said, exaggerating the word.

I heard glass smash, and it wasn’t too far away. This was followed almost immediately by gunshots. It sounded like a small caliber, probably a .22. My heart was pounding. I got down into a kneeling position as far back as the cartons would allow, my rifle barrel pointed out. I was fully expecting the doors to open at any moment.

“John, put the lighter out,” I said softly as we could hear footfalls approaching.

“Run!” a male voice shouted.

Well, it was safe to guess that not all the cars were empty. We were lucky they hadn’t shot at us as was wont to happen with strangers these days.

“So tired,” a female voice responded.

“Shit.” I stood. We needed to help them.

“Jessica, NO!” the man screamed, and then, so did Jessica. It pierced the burgeoning night like a train whistle at three in the morning; it sounded like she was being eviscerated.

Her screams were cut short and there was a volley of rifle shots. From the sounds of it, it was the same gun. Then there was a heavy grunt as if something impacted the man, followed by shrieks for mercy as whatever attacked him seemed to start with his most tender bits. I cringed inwardly; my throat was dry and I was terrified. Whatever those things were, if they were zombies, we had now moved on to the fourth or fifth generation of them, as they constantly seemed to evolve.

“Phrito?” John asked, shaking a bag under my nose.

“Don’t move, John,” I told him.

We could hear the wet smacks of many mouths chewing through two bodies. Occasionally, I would swear I could hear them raising up and sniffing at the air. It was a good twenty minutes before they had finished their early evening meal. We could hear them start to move on as the food began to diminish. I had to think of it as food and not as what had been two living, thinking, and breathing beings. That was how one held onto their sanity.

“Are we still being quiet?” John asked, not more than an inch from my ear.

I could smell the funk of Phrito breath as he did so. I couldn’t even begin to think how he had opened that obnoxious wrapper without me hearing it. I had to hope that, if I hadn’t heard it, then neither had whatever was out there.

“Want one?” John asked as he shoved a Phrito into my mouth just when I was about to respond.

I would have cussed him out and maybe given him a shove if I knew where those things outside were. You know how they depict ancient kings being hand-fed grapes? Well, personally, I find that fucking disgusting. I am not going to put anything into my body that someone has JUST touched with their germ-encrusted hands. Did they perhaps just pick a wedgie? Maybe they dug out a golden nose nugget. Maybe their crotch was itchy and they shoved that hand down the front of their pants and scratched away at their sweat-soaked genitalia. Or worse yet, they had just touched an elevator button. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a plague had started here in one of those germ breeding facilities, elevators, if I didn’t make myself abundantly clear.

My wife used to get a kick out of how I would pull my sleeve over my hand before I would depress anything in one of those pulley-driven disease boxes. An untended gas station bathroom was less of a breeding ground. If you still had the internet, I’d tell you to look it up; facts are facts. Fuck, what do I know? Maybe waiters and waitresses are the type of people that don’t believe in washing after using the restroom. Now there’s a disgusting thought! Ever wonder what your food server has been up to as she hands you your water glass, her thumb strategically located inside the glass?

Rest assured, any place you think that hand has been, it has. We’re humans and we’re gross. We all know what we do when we think no one is watching. Supermodel to fast food worker, doesn’t matter, we all have the same parts. So remember that the next time your boyfriend/girlfriend sticks a gross-ass strawberry in your mouth. Okay, that’s worded wrong, I love strawberries, it’s the bacteria-laced fingers I have a problem with.

So when John the Tripper shoved that Phrito in my mouth I could barely concentrate on the deliciousness of the snack, rather, I was more fixated on what else was attached to its main ingredients. Corn didn’t quite sound as good if you added e. coli to the mix.

“Don’t fucking do—” He shoved another one in my mouth.

“Good huh?” he said as he spilled the rest of the bag into his mouth, some sticking in his beard and others falling to the floor. He flipped on the lighter and snatched them up, summarily eating those as well.

I was horrified. I began to smash some of them under my foot. John gripped my leg and was trying to prevent me from coming down on any more of them. As I shifted, he would wet his fingers, placing them to the floor and have the Phrito dust stick to them.

I almost gagged at the sight of it. Hands were already disgusting, but they had nothing over where feet had been. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I hissed.

“I’m hungry,” he said, hurt clear in his tone.

“There’s like ten thousand packs! Get another one!” I was on the verge of shouting.

“You should be more quiet,” he told me as he turned. I saw his feet merrily lift up off the ground when he saw the boxes, like he had just discovered them for the first time. And with John, that probably was the case. “Want one?” John dug into a new box.

“I’m good.”

Our earlier scuffle was apparently all but forgotten—at least for him. Now I was left wondering how long it would take his germs to incubate in my stomach and make me ill. I could only hope I lived long enough to find out.