A Shrouded World - Whistlers

by Mark Tufo

  The closer she got, the slower she went.

  Does she hear me? Smell me maybe?

  Lucy started looking around for a place to hide, I think.

  “Screw this.”

  I pulled the trigger just as she collapsed to the ground. I saw a puff of her hair blow away from the top of her head.

  “Did I get you?” I asked, looking over my sights. She seemed to have been falling before I’d even got the shot off. She was still moving and staying low to the ground as she started crawling towards the grass.

  “Are you kidding me with this shit?”

  I got up quickly and started running with my rifle.

  Jack Walker – I Spy

  The plain is mostly flat but breaks into a series of small, rolling hills at times. The highway traverses in a nearly straight line but follows the undulations of the land, rising to crests and descending into small valleys. Trip and I are currently walking through one of those series of hills, which limits our visibility until we come to one of the hilltops.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask, halting near the bottom of a dip in the road. “That sounded like a gunshot.”

  “How could I? You were talking,” Trip responds.

  “It was close. Maybe if you weren’t lip-smacking your food down, you would have heard it.”

  “That could be Ponch.” Trip takes off at a run.

  I reach out and grab him by the shoulder as he passes by, my fingers closing around a section of his clothing. He is brought up short, causing his packet of food to upend. He frowns as he looks from the spilled food to my hand still gripping him.

  “Look, all we know is that it’s someone that’s armed. It may or may not be Mi…Ponch. I agree we should move quickly, but we also need to be cautious. Remember those military vehicles we left? I don’t think we want to run pell-mell into them.”

  Trip continues to stare at the food and my hand holding him.

  “If I let you go, you aren’t going to just start racing up the hill, right?” I ask.

  He says nothing in reply, which I decide to take as a yes. Releasing him, I half, well more than half, expect him to completely ignore what I said and start running again. I just never know with this guy. He doesn’t and smoothes out his jacket where I grabbed him.

  Like that’s going to help, I think, starting up the hill.

  I move off the edge of the road and closer to the fields should we suddenly find the need to hide. Starting cautiously up the hill, with my carbine readied, I glance quickly behind to see Trip following. Near the crest, I hear a second gunshot which seems to come from just over the rise. I crouch lower, crawling the last few feet so that I don’t silhouette myself against the skyline. The landscape slowly unfolds before me until I reach a point just before the top.

  Ahead, the road dips slightly and almost immediately runs under a bridge; the crossing highway seems to be the road Trip and I were on before trekking to the other roadblock. Bringing my M-4 up, I peer through my optics down to the structure. Below, not very far away, an armed man is standing over a body. I can see him clearly, but it’s the pink shoes and poncho that first gives him away.

  Michael Talbot – Journal Entry 9

  Lucy had stopped crawling as I came near her. She looked up and snarled. I felt a momentary wrench of pain for the humanity she’d lost, but she was the enemy, plain and simple. If I let her live, she would never stop her pursuit. I don’t know if zombies feel pain, so I made it as quick and pain-free as possible. The bullet struck in her temple and blood jetted out in a driving stream. Her head dropped to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

  And I meant it. A flash of light caught my peripheral vision. I turned and realized I was caught in someone’s scope. I was about to raise my hands in the universal symbol of ‘I surrender’, or the alternative of ‘I need to buy some more time to figure out how I’m going to get out of this mess before you shoot me.’

  “Hey, Ponch!” Trip shouted.

  “Trip? Jack? Is that you guys?” I called out.

  I don’t even have the words to describe the relief that flooded into me when I saw two figures rise from the hill nearby and begin walking toward me. I’d been operating on pure survival mode, desperately trying not to let just how fucked I was creep into my psyche. I may have cried if it had just been Trip, but since Jack was there, I had to appear as manly as possible.

  As they arrived, I noticed Jack look over at Trip. “It’s good to see you made it through the night. Was she giving you trouble?” he asked, looking down at my fresh kill.

  “More like keeping me company. It’s good to see you guys.”

  “Likewise,” Jack said. “I wasn’t sure you’d made it until we came across the military blockade, and even then, I wasn’t entirely sure it was you.”

  “Did you see...?”

  “The anomalies? Yeah,” Jack said tersely. “I’ve been thinking on that. That is, when Trip gives me more than a minute to reflect.”

  “I guess anomaly is one word. Jack, there was a fucking leg sticking out of the ground, and I don’t mean like it was planted there, but like it was part of the roadway.”

  “There’s another roadblock on a nearby highway where there was a boot sticking out of a tire,” he said.

  I spent the next couple of minutes telling him my thoughts on the zombies and the night runners, and he in turn let me know what he thought about the burning city and the anomalies. I was having a difficult time at best calling that errant leg an irregularity.

  “Do you want to hug me?” Trip asked.

  It’s sort of funny, because I did…so I did. I maybe would have stayed that way a little longer, but Trip started discussing his latest bowel movement. Jack walked away. Now, normally, I would have found a way to get out of this discussion, but I was still basking in the glow of having them back and I’d soak it up a little longer even if it meant I had to listen to his very colorful description. The hug, however, was over.

  Jack was about a few paces away, shaking his head. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, Mike. There’s not enough bleach that can wipe that image from my mind. I think I might be having Post-Traumatic Shit Disorder. I can’t fathom why you even listen to him.”

  “That’s actually pretty funny, man.”

  When Trip was done recounting his story, I called over to Jack. “Hey, man, come over here. I’ve got to show you something.” We walked back to the bridge.

  “I’ve heard that before, and didn’t much like the results,” Jack replied.

  I saw the look of concern on Jack’s face, so I clarified. “I promise, it’s nothing like that.”

  Jack bent over and picked up the RPG that I had taken off so I could get in a better position to take out Lucy.

  “This looks a lot like an RPG-7,” he said, turning it over.

  I nodded at all the appropriate times.

  “It’s not quite the same, though. There are some differences, though. Still, it’s a one and done piece of equipment. Did you get this from one of the military trucks?”

  “School bus,” I told him.

  “It must have been a rough neighborhood,” he responded. “Do you know much about these?”

  “I’ve seen them in action, but never shot one. I don’t think my commanding officer would trust me with one. I know they’re useless past three hundred yards or so. Maybe you don’t want to see the whites of their eyes but the closer, the better with this thing.”

  “Could someone please make sure the door to the grow room is shut?” Trip said.

  I looked over. He was about twenty feet away, out from under the shadow of the bridge and lying in the center of the roadway in the spread eagle position. Luckily, he was fully clothed. It was not too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe he would undress in this situation.

  “Does he always talk like this?” Jack asked.

  “He does, and sometimes you have to find the underlying message he’s trying to get out.”

&nb
sp; “It’s called getting high too many times,” Jack stated.

  “On most occasions I’d agree with you, Jack. Trip, why would I want to make sure the grow room door is shut?”

  “Don’t indulge him or he’ll start talking about his pet pterodactyl.”

  “Wait, he told you he had a pet pterodactyl?”

  “Not you too, Mike. Please, man, I can only take one …and I’m not sure even take.”

  “Company,” Trip said so casually that I wasn’t even sure as to what he was referring.

  I think the light clicked on in mine and Jack’s head at the exact same moment. We both ran to Trip and grabbed an arm, pulling him up and heading back towards the bridge.

  “WOW! I was thinking about levitating, and now I am!” Trip was praising Jesus like he was in a revival tent.

  “Trip, you’re not flying. Jack and I carried you here.”

  “I know that,” he said softly out of the corner of his mouth. “But they don’t.”

  I didn’t want to know who ‘they’ were, or what realm ‘they’ were from as the approach of engines could now be heard. We needed to get hidden.

  “What do you think?” I asked Jack as he was readying his weapon.

  I knew he didn’t have an answer. I guess I just needed to know I could ask that question of somebody.

  “I don’t know, but prior experience has been mixed at best,” he replied.

  Apocalyptic times brought out the worst in people; even the good ones were usually stressed to the breaking point and couldn’t be completely trusted. Desperate people do desperate things.

  “Motorcycles.” My head sagged down as I saw a couple of them crest a small hill behind us.

  “Is that necessarily a bad thing?” Jack asked.

  “Ever watch Mad Max?”

  “Yeah, so?” Jack said.

  “Only arrogant assholes who feel like they have nothing to fear ride in something that open during a crisis.”

  “They’re wearing something over their faces,” Jack said, peering through his scope.

  “Like clown masks?” Trip asked as he began to sit up and attempt to get a better look. “Once saw a clown named Timothy, came to my nephew’s birthday party, meanest jester I ever saw. I was afraid he was going to eat the kids.”

  “Sit down, Trip.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.

  “Hey, Ponch, when did you get here? Want a hit?”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you. How does he do that?”

  Jack had not pulled his gaze away from the gang of bikes, whose numbers were beginning to swell as more and more of them appeared.

  “Hollow leg is all I can figure. Any idea what’s on their faces?”

  “If I were a betting man, I would say gas masks,” Jack commented.

  “I’ve got seven gas masks,” Trip blurted out.

  “What?” Jack asked, incredulous and finally looking away from his lens.

  “Really, Jack? You don’t know better yet? I’m sure they’re hooked up to a bong or something.” Trip was nodding as I spoke. “Gas masks, though? Why? Is there something in the air we shouldn’t be breathing?” I was now getting pretty self-conscious about every breath I took. “Is it something biological going on here?”

  “That doesn’t explain legs growing out of the asphalt. Some of them are dragging...” Jack hesitated. “Things.”

  “Things? What kind of things?” I asked, squinting in an attempt to get a better look.

  He turned away from his scope. “It looks like torsos…human torsos.”

  I was going to ask him if I could look through his scope but decided against it. I took a moment to think on it. “Any chance it’s zombies or night runners?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. They’re too mangled to really tell, though.”

  “No help on that front.”

  We hadn’t proved that the men coming were necessarily evil, but anyone who dragged their enemies behind them were not high up on the trust chart. I hated zombies, and now, night runners. A case could be made against cherry Pop-Tarts and ham, but I wouldn’t spend an extra second tying any of them up and pulling them behind me, letting them slowly disintegrate on the rough surface.

  The group had stopped about midway from the top of the hill to our location under the bridge. They were gathered around Lucy. Her being a zombie would make figuring out just how long she’d been there difficult, even the blood that did leak out was a thick congealed mass that was more semi-solid than liquid. Unless they traveled these roadways every day, my guess is they wouldn’t be able to tell if she’d been there an hour or a week.

  “They sure do look anemic.”

  Trip had got with the program. He’d done his best to scrunch between Jack and me and was looking at the bikers, who numbered close to forty or fifty. I’d been so focused on the damned gas masks that I had not really looked at their black leather-swaddled bodies. To a person, they were all incredibly thin. Even with the bulky clothing, they looked little more than scarecrow skeletons.

  “Jack, they don’t look right, and it’s not just the gas masks.”

  The starkness was plainly laid out for all of us to see as the one in front got off his bike. It looked like a moth landing on his shoulders would have driven him into the ground.

  “They could be malnourished,” Jack suggested.

  “That could be. Look at the leader, he has to be way over six feet. Could it be some sort of wasting disease maybe?”

  “That’s possible and might account for the gas masks.”

  Trip was about two inches away from me; we could have just about been kissing when he spoke. “What? No funny comment?”

  I was taken aback. The things in front of us had completely taken up my focus, I’d missed an opportunity to compare a ‘wasting’ to Trip. Although, under the current circumstances, I’m pretty sure it would have fallen flat, given the likelihood that we were all being exposed to whatever had put those poor individuals in their current state. I guess what was funny was that he’d caught it. I’d figure him out at some point.

  “Not this time,” I told him honestly.

  “I’ll wait.”

  The one that had gotten off the bike first was now standing and surveying the area. His gaze lingered the longest on the only place that afforded some cover for miles. It just so happened to be our location.

  “This isn’t looking too promising,” Jack said. “I don’t see any weapons, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding some.”

  “Jack, I can’t tell if it’s the heat mirage coming off the pavement, but is that leader guy walking funny? I mean, it looks like his leg is bending too far back when he steps, like he doesn’t have a patella or he’s got some crazy stretched out ligaments. His gait just looks bizarre.”

  “Yeah. His arms are doing the same thing, like he can swing his elbow both ways. I thought I was just seeing things. I really hate this fucking place,” Jack whispered.

  “That’s creeping me out,” Trip said, even though he wasn’t looking. He had rolled over and was looking at the bottom of the bridge eating what looked like a Twinkie.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked him.

  “Don’t,” Jack pleaded. I let it drop.

  Lucy had been a zombie. Once, she’d been human, a sister, perhaps mother, daughter of someone. She did not deserve what happened to her next. She was to become a dragging victim as one of the things hoisted her up and another tied a rope around her chest underneath her arms. Lucy wasn’t a big woman. At five foot something-ish, the things towered over her, but even her diminutive body was nearly twice the width of the thing holding her up.

  “We need to move,” Jack said.

  I was watching them as they let Lucy fall hard to the ground.

  “Mike, Gumby is pointing this way. We need to move.” Jack had tapped my shoulder as he crawled back and behind one of the large pillars.

  “You should listen to him, he knows what he’s talking about,” Trip said as he pulled
back as well.

  “Bullshit, how would you know what anyone is talking about, Trip?” I grumbled. “Where to now?”

  “Up.” Jack pointed.

  It would be an easy enough climb, provided we could do it undetected. We were already off the roadway and over the guardrail. Now, we just needed to traverse a sloped cement pad which led all the way up to underneath the bridge. From there, we could get onto the bridge beams. They were massive ‘I’ beams and would afford us nearly two feet of metal to lie down on. We’d be extremely vulnerable if we were seen, so the key would be stealth. Jack, I had complete faith in, Trip not so much. I could see him dropping a lit joint down right into the midst of the gang.

  I was looking from the slope to the bikers. Trip didn’t bother with the precaution and just headed up. Blind luck, cloak of invisibility, and/or blinding light from guardian angels, I don’t know which, but he made it up without attracting any attention. Jack was rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger, shaking his head. There really wasn’t a more apt way to show what we were both feeling.

  “You’re next,” Jack said.

  I grabbed the RPG and decided to pull a ‘Trip’ and just go for it. No sense to stopping and seeing if they were watching. If they caught my movements, I would hear the cries of alarm and then the revving of engines soon enough. I looked back after I got to the crux. Jack was doing the same pained expression. I shrugged my shoulders.

  I had to stop Trip from crawling onto the side of the I-beam that was directly exposed to the oncoming bikers.

  “Yeah, that makes more sense,” he said as he got onto the side of the beam I directed him to.

  I looked back to Jack, who was watching the bikers. They were all back on their rides and getting ready to come our way. There was no way he could make it without being spotted. He waved to me with his hand to move. I quickly got behind Trip who had wriggled a good ten feet out onto the beam.

  “That’s far enough,” I told Trip.

  If I didn’t tell him, there would be a good chance he’d cross the entire structure and come down the other side.

  “Where’s Mack?”