A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis

by Tufo, Mark

  “Well, maybe sleep is out of the question,” I said to myself, then opened up the small pack Jack had brought up with him, which contained my whistler weapon.

  “Might as well give it a shot.” I swear I wasn’t going for a pun there—it just lent itself so easily. The weapon was clearly designed to be attached to a much smaller forearm. I don’t think I could have made it work, given the size of the straps attached to it—even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to wear it. The mechanics of its firing showed a high probability that I would put one in my own hand or a body part of some other unintended target near me. I saw no discernible safety, but the triggering mechanism was easy enough; it was just a pressure switch placed in the middle of the small projectile launcher. Had a hard time calling it a gun, since there were no bullets or explosive powders involved.

  I couldn’t imagine any spring inside such a small box that would have enough power to launch a staple more than twenty or so feet. I knew that wasn’t the case, though—it easily shot at least thirty yards, because that’s how far away I’d been when I’d launched the RPG and suffered my present wound.

  I sat up as best I could. My back was sizzling and I had to swallow back an urge to shout. A few zombies saw me as I poked up.

  “You’re as good a candidate as any,” I told a thin woman that looked as if she had been interrupted during a salon visit. Green curlers hung from the left side of her head and twists of tin foil lined her right. I knew enough to realize that she’d left those things in far too long.

  “Probably burning the shit out of your scalp, aren’t they?” I asked. She growled—I took that as a “yes.” I held up the box, trying to figure out the best way to aim something that did not have sights. I finally turned it sideways. I cupped my right hand with my left, and with my index finger, I touched the button. I took note that it actually took more force than pulling a trigger, maybe somewhere in the ten to twelve pound range. I had first thought that maybe the thing had been damaged or was out of rounds, even though I was looking at the two-foot rod we figured the staples had been made from. Although we weren’t sure, since the metal outside was not shaped like the thing that had struck me. That process must happen inside; at least, that was our working theory.

  I pressed harder and was rewarded with a slight metallic click and a psfft that sounded like a match dipped in water. Of course by this time, I almost had the thing pointing straight up. If the rod moved at all, I did not notice.

  “Well, it works.” Horrendous Hair Holly had been swallowed up by the crowd, so I picked out another. This one was an older guy, and naked—if anything, I was about to put him out of his shame and embarrassment. When he was alive, I could imagine he’d removed all the mirrors from his house so he wouldn’t have to be exposed to what I was seeing. The sallow, yellowing color of his skin now wasn’t doing him any favors. He was about twenty-five feet away, I figured it should be easy enough to hit him. I held steady, aiming for his head. I don’t know if my aim point was off or there was significant drop to the staple, but I hit him dead center in the chest, directly between his areolas, one of which I just happened to notice was nearly three times the size of the other. Are they even called areolas on a guy? I don’t know, but one looked normal, the other like a brown saucer had been placed there. Yeah, he definitely needed to be removed from my field of vision.

  I heard the impact and the shattering of his breastplate; he staggered but did not go down, nor look to where he’d been shot. He didn’t much care. I was getting ready again, trying to correct my aim, when like a train wreck (bad analogy considering where I was) my eyes were drawn back to that disfigurement on his chest. Black, dry blood leaked from where the staple had embedded, but that wasn’t the cause for concern—it was the small black lines that began radiating outwards, moving quickly even as I watched. They were thickest, and thickening, closest to the wound, and they were gaining momentum as they spread first across his expansive chest and belly, then down toward his legs. I had the displeasure of watching his manhood turn black right before the heavy channels worked their way down his legs.

  “Oh, fug.” I nearly threw up in my mouth. “Shit.” I placed the weapon down and began to fumble with the button on my pants; after undoing it and pulling the zipper down, I took a big breath before I dared to look.

  “Oh... oh thank God,” I said as I looked at my own particular package. It might not be the biggest and shiniest, but it’s mine, and I was very fond of it just the way it was.

  “Well, that’s not what I expected to return to. I mean, I know you miss Tracy, but shit, man. I leave you alone for a while and this is how you choose to amuse yourself?” Jack asked.

  “Fuck, man!” I scrabbled to pull up my zipper, happy I didn’t make a skin sandwich in the process—if you catch my meaning.

  “Trip been training you to be a ninja, too?”

  “We’ve been yelling at you for at least the last two car lengths.”

  “Are we all taking our pants off?” Trip asked. He didn’t wait for a response before he dropped his. “This is so much better!” he exclaimed, his pants pooled around his ankles.

  “Now I’m convinced this is a nightmare, because this shit can’t possibly be real. Pull up your damn pants, Trip. I’m going over here to heave. I’ll be back shortly,” Jack said, moving away.

  “He gets to, but I don’t?”

  “Hey, Jack,” I said.

  “I’m not listening unless everyone has their pants up and everything tucked away.”

  “Trip just pulled his up. Just be glad you didn’t get the view I did.”

  Jack turned and I pointed over to the zombie that was now entirely crisscrossed in pencil-thick lines.

  “Well, that certainly is interesting,” Jack said, taking in the whole monstrosity. “Oh, now I get why you were, uh, checking things out. I’m not looking, but is everything okay?”

  I gave him a thumbs-up.

  “What happened to him?”

  “I shot him with the whistler weapon.”

  “Neurotoxin?” Jack asked, not turning away from the zombie.

  “I guess—maybe not deadly, just incapacitating.”

  As if in response, the zombie fell to his knees, and then would have fallen onto his face if he hadn’t collided with the legs of the zombie in front of him. He fell over sideways and then came to a rest facing the sky.

  “It’s not that I’m wishing it on you, but that... that didn’t happen to you. I wonder?”

  I could have told him that I had my own set of enhancements that were keeping the poison at bay. Now it was his turn to look suspiciously at me. Oh yeah, there were secrets out there, and neither of us were about to let them become public knowledge.

  “Let me see your back.” I pulled my shirt up so he could see. “I should have marked the extent of the lines somehow. I won’t swear to it, but I think they’re receding. So, maybe there is some sort of incapacitating toxin in the projectile. That kind of makes sense, given their proclivity to eat their victims.”

  “Like a spider or something.” That gave me the willies, thinking about it, and it made me reluctant to pick the gun back up now that I realized that somewhere in that device poison was produced.

  Jack had no such compunction. “I wonder if the toxin is infused in the metal, or if there is some kind of delivery system. Maybe there’s something that coats the tip when it’s fired, kind of like a blowgun dart.”

  “They just get creepier. The whistlers, I mean. What did you find out on your jaunt? Can you get this thing going?”

  “I think so. There are more instruments in there than in a brass band, but I think I can get it going. We came back because we found some, well—I hate to call it food, but here,” Jack said, and pulled out a small nylon bag he must have found.

  “Dammit,” I said as I opened up the bag. “Cherry juice and ham jerky?”

  “That’s all they had. Not a fan?”

  The look I gave him must have been answer enough. �
�I don’t know if I should choke down the jerky first and try to wash the taste away with the juice, or the other way around.”

  In the end I just shoved a handful of the pink meat into my mouth and took a swig of juice at the same time. I gagged repeatedly, forcing the contents into a system that demanded nourishment and hydration.

  “I’d rather get a fucking prostate exam from Edward Scissorhands,” I said before my third food/liquid combination.

  “And there’s a visual I get to take with me into the afterlife.”

  Trip had sat down next to me and was eating loudly. He was taking the ham strips and dipping them into a juice bottle. He’d slurp off the liquid and then smack his lips as he ate.

  “Did you know I’m a vegetarian?” he asked me.

  “You don’t say?” I was grimacing through some more intake of my own.

  “Yeah, but as long as I disguise the meat in a non-animal substance my body can’t tell.”

  I forced down a whole bag of jerky and killed the bottle of juice. My belly gurgled in consternation. My head wanted me to puke, though my body was thrilled to finally have some fuel in it. And honestly, I was better for it. I felt another series of cramps run up my legs and through my back, these not nearly as bad as the first. After it passed, there remained a slight tingle in my thighs—the first such feeling I’d had in over eighteen hours. It was promising, even if I still couldn’t move my legs.

  “I’m going to go back, but I want to get you to safer ground. I don’t feel too great about leaving a paraplegic on top of a moving train.”

  “Come on, man. I’m from the generation that used to roll about wildly in the back of my folks’ station wagon, and during the summer they’d even put the back window down.”

  “Even so.”

  “Jack, I’m fine. Even after the, um, ‘food.’”

  “I’m not happy about it, but you’re a big boy. Do you want Trip with you?”

  “Are you asking if you can leave him? Because you can—but could he help you?”

  Jack looked at me. “That’s a question that I’m not sure there’s an answer for. He started pointing at different controls and naming them, like he’d been an engineer or a very knowledgeable conductor at some time.”

  “Probably was,” I joked.

  “Oh, I was,” Trip said after a particularly big slurp. We turned to look at him; he’d somehow gotten his pants down again. “The Sri Lanka Philharmonic.”

  I put my hand up to my face. “Maybe not that kind of conductor, Trip. Are you going to go with Jack and help him get this thing moving?”

  “Kerouac is here?” Trip looked around.

  “Yeah, and he’s got Timothy Leary with him. Let’s go.”

  Jack looked fairly exasperated. I could tell he was a take-charge kind of guy, and to rely even a little on someone as clueless as Trip did not sit particularly well with him. I watched as the duo moved away. Once they were almost out of sight, Jack took one last long look back and waved. I waved back. I made sure they couldn’t see me, and then checked my junk again. Any women reading this might not understand why I did but any guy certainly will.

  Jack Walker - Chapter 1

  Seeing Mike sitting atop the boxcar, I’m not sure what to expect. Perhaps it is the last time I’ll see him, perhaps not. Given his proclivity for surviving odd situations, I don’t get the sense that is the case. Surely, after all he’s been through, he won’t meet his end by sliding off a moving train. But, stranger things have happened. And, in this world, odd things happening seem to be the norm. However, I’m not much for thinking about last times, will I ever see you again, or any of that crap. It’s too much like manufacturing drama.

  I turn back toward the front with my faithful companion walking across the top of a boxcar beside me. I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen him without one of his smoldering joints, either in hand or pressed between his lips. Where he keeps coming up with them is a mystery that will probably never be solved. At this point, I’m pretty sure it involves quantum physics and the creation of matter from willpower alone. Maybe he doesn’t realize there can’t always be one rolled in his pocket, firmly believing it so much that the possibility of one not being there is removed from the equation.

  I feel the heat rising from the metal roof beneath my feet. Surrounding us are scrublands that stretch from horizon to horizon, and to the very edge of the city. I had hoped that Atlantis would be, well, different from every other city I’ve seen. I mean, the very name implies something mysterious. But no—tall buildings reach high toward the cloudless sky, the sun reflecting off windowpanes in a constant, winking glare. With a slight breeze brushing past my cheeks carrying the faint odor of Trip’s medicine, it would seem like a pleasant summer day back in the old world. Well, except for the ever-present smell of marijuana. That wasn’t usually part of my summer days.

  I double-check that my M-4 mags are securely held in their pouches before descending yet another ladder, only to leap across the space between the rail cars and climb to the top of the next one. We have a few zombies trailing us, separated from the larger horde, but they seem content to merely follow us…perhaps waiting for our inevitable stumble and fall. I had expected Trip to have problems crossing between cars, but he seems to do it with ease…as if he doesn’t know that it should be difficult for him. While frustrating at times—most of the time—he is also kind of a marvel. I can honestly say that I have never met anyone like him.

  Reaching the next roof, I still can’t see the front end of the train. It looks like our journey may take us most of the day. In this place, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the train never ended… just one boxcar after another… for eternity. Wouldn’t that be something? Soon enough, marching along the tops becomes almost monotonous. Every once in a while, I catch a whiff of the zombies tailing behind and am thankful the wind is blowing in the right direction. My mind begins to wander, a myriad of thoughts cycle through. Knowing that complacency kills, I make an effort to keep at least some of my attention on the present.

  * * *

  Looking back over the day, I have to admit that it was nice to ride a motorcycle again, even under the circumstances. I hadn’t ridden one in years, and it was great to feel the rush of wind, the openness, and feeling a closer bond with the world as opposed to being trapped inside a car. I always felt free motoring along country roads.

  Riding behind me this time had been perhaps the oddest man I’ve ever met. He seemed to be at ease there, which was the exact opposite of how I felt. I was in no way comfortable with the way he held onto me, and I swear I heard him murmuring sweet nothings in my ear. If he had been any cuddlier, I think one of us would have come away pregnant.

  Trip is perhaps the one reason I think this may all be just some wild-assed dream sequence. I mean, truly, how many joints can one person carry? The ones he keeps producing on a regular basis seem endless. That aside, he seems both in touch and out of touch at the same time—more like some kind of savant than anything else. However wrong it may appear at the time, things just seem to go right for him. And, actually, the more wrong it looks, the better it seems to work out.

  I get the feeling that his dissociation from the world around him is an illusion of sorts. He senses and notices things that he shouldn’t be able to. But do you think he would mention them directly rather than through cryptic phrases or statements? No. One has to listen and somehow read between the lines. When asked, he seems surprised that we didn’t notice the same things. Perhaps the most bewildering aspect is the nonchalant way he mentions something and Mike or I having to ask what he means. He’ll move to or hunker down in some place that I think puts him in greater peril. I’ll mention it and tell him to move because danger will be coming from that direction. Blowing out a small cloud of smoke, he’ll just shake his head.

  “No. They already passed by and are coming from over there,” he’ll say, using his joint to point in a totally different direction.

  Yeah, he’s a trip all ri
ght. It’s difficult for me to take him seriously, but I’ll have to overcome that reaction. I need to start paying more attention to him and his actions: kind of like watching a squirrel in a forest. Even though they don’t appear to notice their environment as they scamper about, they’re a telltale sign of occurrences that humans may not recognize. Trip doesn’t appear to care or notice what he is doing; he just does it, seemingly without thinking. I think back to him nonchalantly walking up to the bridge superstructure in broad daylight, in full view of the approaching whistlers… and somehow remaining undetected. Damn, I wish I had that kind of invisibility super power. Yeah, I’m still not convinced that this isn’t a dream.

  I noted Mike’s quizzical look earlier. The one he gave me when I climbed back down through the hatch of the train car. I realized that I had made a mistake, leaping so agilely through the opening, and tried to cover it up coming back down. I think, in retrospect, that the award-winning performance I gave only made it worse. I don’t feel ready to share those details just yet, so I had better watch it in the future. I’d like to tell him, and it’s not that I don’t trust him, but that trust isn’t absolute. I know he is keeping a few secrets of his own—aren’t we all? For instance, how was his body able to stem the tide of the whistler toxin? I don’t believe for a minute that the difference between human and zombie genetics is enough to allow for such disparate reactions. If anything, I would have expected the exact opposite. But, very well, Mike, you keep your secrets and I’ll keep mine.

  I will say that Mike’s notion of our circumstance intrigues me. If we had been brought purposefully into this place, then doesn’t it stand to reason that there would be others as well? Both those native to this place, and others that may have been brought in? If that’s the case, what could our hosts want from us? No matter how talented we may or may not be, what could they possibly expect us to do? And, why us? Honestly, they could have chosen better. I mean, Mike has a talent for getting out of trouble and is a very capable man. Trip? Okay, he actually makes perfect sense. Me? I’m just old and certainly not the man I used to be. No, that explanation doesn’t really line up. There has to be something I’m missing.