by Javan Bonds
In another time I would have found this childish insult amusing, but Smokes, generally easy going, would suddenly become serious with certain strangely misused or mixed profanities, almost like he had to really push it to become intimidating. And he was. Since this Jekyll and Hyde feature was fairly frequent and unpredictable, I came to the conclusion that moving forward and kicking it back at him was the best way to handle it.
The insult did not phase me in the slightest and I replied with a snort, "Nothing, cock waffle."
I felt stupid because that was the best response I could generate quickly. I had actually turned around because I expected him to complain about not going inside since I had basically said "No" and practically beat him with a newspaper when he argued with me about going into the church. I guess he was too wounded for round two, or maybe too distracted by his packaging dilemma.
We continued uneventfully through downtown, until Gunter merged with Blount to again become Highway 431. I don’t know if I realized it before I agreed to go on this stroll through zombieland or even as we stood in front of the police station earlier, but almost directly across from The Magnolia is the Bottom Dollar Pawn. I’m guessing a native like Smokes imagined the pawnshop was my reason for suggesting a trip all the way to the southern end of the island. Whether I had foreseen this as part of my master plan was no longer in question, the fact was that we could now run through the restaurant and pick up our condiments, then browse through the shelves of the advertised "Biggest Selection of Firearms in the County!" and hopefully jog back to the boat before sundown. Okay never mind, my extremely unhealthy companion would probably collapse if he were forced to move faster than a trot, but at least we’d have guns! And I, I thought, could grab an awesome wristwatch.
The last couple of blocks of Gunter Avenue passed uneventfully. We saw no movement nor heard any sound whatsoever, except when Smokes swore to Black Jesus that he heard a kitten crying. This little diversion took half an hour and turned up neither kitten nor useful resources whatsoever. Maybe it was fatigue, but I was starting to see Smokes’s point: our lives were looking more and more like a B-movie. Where was the rampant chaos? The panic? The marauding hordes? The majority of the automobiles we passed were totally undamaged, probably had full tanks of gas; I never thought to check a one of them for keys. A day-long hike like this could have been turned into a minutes-long car ride if I had the foresight to look in the fucking ignition of the few cars. Of course that would have been too safe and easy. But maybe the lack of imminent peril had made us complacent...like if we just hung out long enough the world, even Guntersville, would just go back to normal and we could eat at the Burger King. Maybe that was what Crow was waiting for...just sit and fish and wait the whole thing out. But in reality, I had naïvely agreed to take a walk across no man’s land with a bow and arrow, a guy I just met, and without even a poorly thought out plan! Somehow, this had to be Smokes’s fault. He had obviously used hypnosis or Jedi-mind-tricks on me because there is no way I’m this thoughtless—really! I’m not normally stupid enough to walk unarmed across an island full of rabid animals, especially bipeds. If I had been, I don’t think I would have survived my teenage years.
I thought about the excitement my favorite characters had experienced, the life and death chases, the near escapes, the devastating losses. Obviously, Smokes would say it was right up the road for us, but I wasn’t so sure. I was disappointed when we discovered almost no vehicles, no real signs of struggle, even very few and very minor accidents. I wanted to get caught up in my Hollywood and Smokes’s scriptural predictions, but I’m sure it’s better to be more of a realist and understand that life does not follow a script. But maybe reality was somewhere in between as some things were obviously occurring as if they had been set up by a film crew, others were noticeably absent. Since no one knows whether life imitates art or the other way around, perhaps what was happening here was just a mixture of imagination and reality. Then I also realized that almost all zombie movies follow characters in large metropolitan areas...perhaps things were more dramatic in San Francisco or Tokyo than they were out here in Podunk, Alabama.
By the time we got to The Magnolia, we were both extremely bored. Not that either of us was in a hurry to face near-death experiences, it just felt like nothing at all was happening; we were just two guys walking around Main Street on a Sunday at dinner time. We stopped in the restaurant parking lot; it was half full. It seemed that most people had not taken the spread of the infection seriously and had gone out for a burger. The city government had begun to prepare, although not in time to save the city. The civilian population had apparently taken no action to defend themselves from impending doom besides trying to split. Law enforcement had opened all four lanes of the highway across the island to northbound traffic only, and as I took in my surroundings I noticed the hastily erected barricades blocking vehicle traffic from all roads leading to the city from the south. Apparently you could get the hell out, but you couldn’t get back in.
These barricades had been nothing more than cop cars lined up bumper to bumper across both roads with hazard cones randomly thrown about. It was obvious that two of the squad cars at the mouth of the causeway had been positioned so that they could make a hole in the barricade to allow certain permitted vehicles to pass. The barricade seemed fairly tight, so I’ll never know how the infection actually broke through; I suppose it happened before anyone even knew it was here. And the police officers stationed at these checkpoints must have been caught completely off guard when the zombies attacked because the cars had not been moved to retreat or evade. I assumed once the cops were bitten they just moved on with the horde. After we finished our search of the restaurant, I would need to make sure to give the police cars a once over to search for weapons and try out the radios.
Just before we entered the front doors of The Magnolia to perform our cautious, threatening-looking (but completely harmless) sweep of the large entrance room, the two of us heard a distant, echoing shout from the vast expanse of silence—definitely human, only one voice, and sounding more like an excited roller coaster enthusiast in a theme park than a lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse. The whooping cry sounded like it was coming from the south, "Fucking awesome!”
We made a mad dash through the decidedly empty restaurant, filling our backpacks with salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, tartar sauce, coffee creamer (fuck if I know), and any other package that appeared to be a condiment we could grab until we literally hit the swinging kitchen doors at the same time and got stuck shoulder-to-shoulder.
We both stepped back and then I gestured for Smokes to go through the doors ahead of me.,"Fuck naw dawg. I knew you was just waiting to see the black guy get eat first!"
"Dude, there’s nothing in there. Plus there’s no difference in being up front or watching the rear. Go on.”
I repeated the gesture and he shook his head in the negative, mimicking my hand movements, "Nawsa, I let de massa go firs!"
"Fuck you, jackass." I wasn’t going to argue this point anymore, nor dignify that with a comeback, I just wanted to hurry the hell up and get back to the boat. Then I heard him mumble "slave" and "racist mufucka" as I passed through the door ahead of him, but by then I knew he was just trying to bait me.
Mo Journal Entry 6
We agreed that the majority of the kitchen was too bathed in shadow to be thoroughly searched, plus we could not think of anything else we urgently needed on the ship. There was no way in hell either one of us movie-fans were willing to search the walk in freezers for raw meat despite my constant diet of unseasoned fish. Yeah, ketchup would have to do. More terrifying scenes are in meat lockers than in boiler rooms. I led Smokes down the hallway to the side exit and was about to push my way through the door as I heard my companion make an interested noise behind me; I stopped and turned around just as he peered off to his right into what I realized was an industrial refrigerator illuminated by the waning sunlight through a window on the opposite side
of the hall. This guy was not only a dope dealing, gang banging, Guinness Book of World Records-obese zombie prophet, but also had the nose of a bloodhound for sweets. He was able to find eight buckets of un-melted, but softened, chocolate chip cookie dough. Hopefully there were no real eggs in it. But if the look on his face was any indication, it was still edible. The power had only been off for six days, a lot of the stuff in the ‘fridge was probably still good since it had remained closed.
I stood in the door, dumbfounded as he desperately shoved aside more mundane, more nutritious items to reach the shining yellow and white buckets of treasure, watched him reach into a drawer for a spoon, and dive into his gooey treat like Scarface on a mountain of cocaine.
Well, I was game. I started opening cabinets like it was Christmas. I grabbed boxes of pancake mix, instant mac and cheese, canned beans and veggies, powdered milk, Cheerios and Fruit Loops, and my own treasure: a huge bag of tortilla chips and a king-size jar of salsa. I even found something special for Crow—a bag of mini-marshmallows. I don’t know, I thought they might make her smile...or at least she could use them for bait. Once my pack was stuffed, I turned to Smokes, who had cookie dough all over his mouth like a toddler caught in the act.
"Dude, we kinda need to make our way back to the boat.”
Nothing. He was too busy driving himself to early onset diabetes to even acknowledge me.
I stepped closer and tried again, "Hey, you fat piece of shit!"
Thankfully, he turned at that because my next attempt at getting his attention would have been to throw something at him. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to throw things at a guy with a gun, and looking back I guess it’s not smart to insult a guy with a gun, either. He probably wouldn’t have known how to take the safety off even if he had decided to raise it so I think I would have been okay; of course he probably didn’t know what a safety was. Either way, that’s how people get shot by accident.
"Good lord, oh Mama, oh Jesus!” he stated, licking his lips and the spoon as if I had not even spoken. Once he was clean he dove straight for another bucket of the stuff. He looked at me like I’d interrupted him mid-coitus. "I lick yo’ sistah like dis if you don’ get the fuck outta my face, cracka hillbilly." I knew he was just trying to scare me, and he might have—if I had a sister.
I was about to say something else as he irritatedly asked, "Da hell you want, jizz gargler?"
I raised a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the fading light through the window, "We ain’t got time for a fucking snack break.”
I knew before I said it that there was absolutely no way I was going to get his fat ass to budge and we would be spending the night in a dark kitchen. I argued with him for a few more minutes while moving shelving units and chests to barricade the door. I heard the sounds of Smokes continuing to shovel cookie dough into his maw in total darkness as I fumbled for the small flashlight I kept on my key ring—yeah, I know I don’t have a car or a house door to justify having a key ring. But I do keep the keys to my parents’ house and the key to my footlocker. And, where else would I keep my tiny flashlight? I have worn a key ring since I got my driver’s license; it always comes in handy at some point.
I was mad as hell and was pretty much throwing my barricade around. I had what I thought was a pretty good haul, and we hadn’t even been to the pawnshop yet; now I would be forced to sleep on a concrete floor. I was planning to sit in silent outrage until he was finished, but of course I was stuck with a guy that found it impossible to stop speaking even when he was dumping food into his trap.
"Who you think we gonna run into first?" he suddenly asked as if we were deep in conversation.
I had to respond sarcastically and as if I knew exactly what he was talking about. "Well, for his sake, I hope it’s not the Pillsbury Doughboy. But for our sake I hope we meet an armed Navy SEAL team."
He looked at me with a raised eyebrow as if to ask if I was serious and then relaxed. In a voice that was almost not his he said, "Ha ha...you funny, man. I suppose that’s possible, but it won’t happen...yet. Most likely we are going to meet at least one of our main characters on our journey back to the boat."
After I was certain the door was secured and while we were speaking, I started looking through the deep pockets of my backpack and discovered that it had apparently been a "Back to School" item. It held a package of pencils with erasers and a small notebook: the erasers were exactly what I was looking for as I didn’t have any and the spare paper might come in handy. I made a mental note to pick up a couple more on the way back to the boat; the find softened my mood a bit.
Smokes continued as if this were a teachable moment, "Can you list the common group of main characters?"
I was surprised that he had not yet decided on a title for our living movie and refused to look at him or say anything because I knew he would correct me, regardless of my answer. Yep, I was pouting. Predictably, he continued on as if my silence indicated rapt attention.
"There are three types of characters: major (or main), minor ones, then insignificant bastards that might die but nobody cares. There are no more than a total of ten main characters at one time. They fill the majority of this, well, any story, with action, some personal history shit, and any humor or unforgettable drama you get will come from them. Now, the minor characters may come and go but they will rarely play a crucial role in the story or attempt any real quest of significance, and they never get the woman. The final class, the extras, is the least important; they have no back story, and very few lines, maybe an opening for a joke, but the punchline will come from a main. The audience may not even know their names." He paused here and I realized that this was going to be a very detailed lecture; his posture became even more respectable, his accent changed to something a lot more educated sounding, and he suddenly took on the aura of a scientist or Ph.D, as if he had pulled a "Nutty Professor," except he became a genius and remained ridiculously fat. He cleared his throat.
"Any major character can naturally have one or more minor traits and will possibly take on an additional major trait." He again stopped as if to let this information sink in. This was going to be something that needed to be archived, so I opened my new notebook and prepared to transcribe everything Smokes said. I would call it The Prophecies of Smokes, and I knew I could read it back to him if I ever needed to call him out on his "gangsta" crap.
It was beyond luck that I just so happened to pick up the backpack with writing material tucked inside and I was starting to envision predestined events. Before I began transcribing I prompted, "So who are the main characters in...in this one?" Smokes laid everything out and it made perfect sense. When we make it back to the ship, I will tuck The Prophesy transcription into my foot locker with my journal.
☠☠☠
We had both been sleeping for several hours when the alarm of one of Smokes’s many wristwatches (none of which he would share with me) went jangling like mad, alerting us that it had been eight hours since I had instructed him to "set an alarm." I took a quick look through the door and could see that it was now light outside, so we collected our gear and our new bounty and headed out.
Mo Journal Entry 7
One of Smokes's most intriguing character theories was of "The Expert." The Expert is one of the lead characters in the epic and should be met by the main protagonist soon after the beginning of the saga. This person is usually either retired military or law enforcement, at least middle-aged, and always has firsthand experience in firearms and survivalism; the character has always lived by the laws of both. The Expert has been predicting and hoping for some type of catastrophic national, or preferably worldwide, disaster so he can kick ass in anarchy-mode. The event horizon could be economic or social, manmade or natural. But whatever the cause, it will disrupt civilization and bring things back to a simpler time—wipe out technological advancement, big business, bloated, corrupt government. Finally society is culled, with The Expert’s help, leaving only the "worthy" to rebuild some New World Ord
er. Often a "gun nut," The Expert is a true believer who sees Doomsday as Independence Day. Naïvely, most of the other survivors assume that everyone who’s left will form a collective of peaceful, cooperative humanitarians who just want to get along and grow nice veggies. They never take into account the villain element, but The Expert does. The character will step in—an encyclopedia of common sense, loyal heart, and confident leadership. The Expert is capable of great self-sacrifice for the safety of the team, in fact, it’s the way this person hopes to go out—guns blazing while his or her buddies take the hill.
The sun was just peeking over the mountains in the distance as our shadows crossed the parking lot. We cautiously directed ourselves towards the highway and our goal on the other side. It was quiet—some might say "too quiet”—so quiet that it once more made me briefly wonder if there had actually been a widespread Armageddon event that affected far more than my home state. I rearranged Smokes's wisdom; what if we were just two psychotic mental patients that had been kidnapped and placed in the middle of a film set? A fucked-up hybrid of Candid Camera and Survivor; maybe a twisted America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Only the fact that there was stinking zombie shit in piles or splattered on the ground at random intervals as far as the eye could see affirmed that this was reality...or at least a very good imitation created by very sick individuals. I crossed the four-lane with Smokes following closely; the abuse of his stomach last night was keeping him fairly quiet. I adamantly instructed him to stay that way while outside. I saw, for the first time on our quest, corpses—well over a dozen. The closer we drew, the more evident it became that most, if not all, of the bodies had been wounded by at least one high-powered projectile. Besides the nearly naked or the few with shit-overflowing their pants, it was difficult to tell how many of the bodies strewn before the entrance to Bottom Dollar were peevies and how many had been uninfected humans.