by Colley, Ryan
“We’ve marked a lot of roads which are impassable for one reason or another,” the father said with a smile. He then shared an uneasy look with the second man. “We’ve also marked one of the communities we said about on there.”
“One?” I repeated.
The second man answered this, “Look, we don’t want to cause offence, but we don’t know if we can trust you. The community we told you about can more than look after itself – they’re a religious group. The Church of the Midnight Sun. They’re armed and they’re taking people in. Helping those who need it. They’re friendly, if a little odd. You two can’t cause them any real trouble. The other communities aren’t as well prepared, so we don’t feel comfortable telling you about them.”
“Say no more,” I replied with a smile. I liked their cautiousness. It was normal. However, the name of the church echoed through my mind with familiarity. I swore I’d heard that name before, but couldn’t place it. Nonetheless, I was wary of any church in the apocalypse. That’s how bloodthirsty cults always started!
“There’s something else,” the father said again, with still more uneasiness. I arched my eyebrow at him. He laughed nervously and said, “There’s been some … disappearances in the area.”
“Disappearances?” I said, prompting them to elaborate. I felt like that was a pretty major thing and needed elaboration. And how could they define the difference between a disappearance and being eaten by the undead?
“Well,” the second man said, as if beginning to recite a story, “there’s quite a few of us who drive around these roads. We drop supplies off to each community and help out where we can – trying to form a coalition until a real government comes back.”
“We all agreed this is our best chance of survival … a tight community, no matter the distance between them,” the father interjected as an explanation.
“Anyway, we all keep radios to communicate any major and immediate changes which can’t wait until we get back. Or when we’re about to approach another group, in case something goes wrong and others need to know information,” the second man continued. “They’re military-grade, so not prone to malfunction.”
“Some of the other scouts,” the father said, air quoting the final word, “have radioed in to tell them their vehicle has broken down and they’re getting out to take a look. Normal procedure is to then radio back in with anything they need, and their location. Soon enough, another vehicle will come and meet them. A few times now, the rescue team arrives and they find the car with no driver around. Supplies aren’t missing. No sign of a struggle. No blood. So it can’t be ghouls. It’s as if they were abducted.”
“Abducted?” I asked sceptically.
“Not abducted, as in aliens,” the second man replied seeing my look of scepticism. “I’m thinking more so just people.”
“How many has it been?” Kirsty asked breathlessly. She seemed enthralled by the story, letting let her icy persona drop.
“Four so far,” the second man replied. “One or two times are explainable. Three is too much for coincidence. Four … well, you get the picture. This isn’t happening by accident. Each circumstance is too similar.”
“What do you think is happening?” I asked the men, hoping for an objective answer.
“It’s The Whistler!” the daughter called.
“No, it’s not!” the father shouted back at her angrily.
“The Whistler?” I replied, shaking my head with a smile. It just gets better and better.
“We’re not trying to scare you,” the father said quickly as if trying to calm a panicking crowd. We weren’t panicking.
“Some people think there’s a creature going around and taking people,” the second man said, then added when he saw our expressions – mine may have been one of trying to stifle a laugh. “It’s just a ghost story. Some end of the world folklore.”
“I feel like you should probably tell us a little more,” I said dryly, rubbing my eyes in frustration. It got less believable by the second. The daughter finally approached us with a smile.
“Can I tell the story?” she said to her father excitedly.
“Yes, tell them your nonsense,” he said, waving her forward. He turned to me, “Just humour her.”
“Basically, as dad already told you, we never heard back from a single one of the drivers. However, on the last two occasions, someone else radioed out. They didn’t say anything – they just whistled. It was like a four-tone whistle,” the daughter said imitating the noise – a low short whistle, followed by a higher-pitched one, another lower one, and then ending with an even lower one. Her eyes beaming with excitement. “So, story spread of The Whistler. Was he a man? Was it a creature? Some escaped lunatic? Maybe a new type of zombie! Now, everyone was afraid of hearing that four-tone whistle! No one survives an encounter with The Whistler.”
“As you can see, a ghost story,” the father finished with exasperation.
“We all heard that whistle,” the daughter insisted. “We all saw the abandoned vehicles.”
“Ghost story aside, people are going missing. It’s dangerous out there,” the second man interrupted. “Don’t let the cover of a ghost story fool you.”
“We will keep the … Whistler in mind, when travelling,” Kirsty said carefully. I was incredibly amused by it all. People made up crazy stories to explain away odd happenings. Maybe there was some kind of being out there taking people. However, the reality meant it was probably a human doing what bad people always did. There was no real mystery to it.
“Thanks for the info, stay safe out there you guys,” I said thankfully. I shook all of their hands. Kirsty nodded at them, before turning around as well. We went our separate ways, and it was nice. Making another connection without anything bigger at work. It felt like a true conversation – we had no ulterior motives. We watched them climb into their vehicle and speed away in the same direction we would be heading.
I climbed in the van and handed Keith the map.
“What is it?” he asked me. I waved to the other group as they sped away.
“An upgrade,” I replied simply. “It has alternate routes marked for us.”
“That’s good,” he said and studied the map. Absentmindedly, he said, “You were talking an awfully long time if it was just a route discussion.”
“Oh, it was much more than that Keith,” I said with a laugh.
“Do tell,” he replied, not quite catching my playful tone.
“Have you heard of The Whistler?” Kirsty asked, lowering her tone conspiratorially. He squinted at us, curiosity piqued.
“Well, we have,” I said, with a smile, and proceeded to tell him the story we’d been told. He smiled at the ghost story, content in that’s all it was.
“It’s an interesting way of looking at things,” Keith said, nodding when I’d finished the tale of The Whistler.
“They’re crazy for thinking that, right?” I asked him, hoping he could offer some insight into their story.
“I’ve known people who've believed crazier, myself included,” he said simply, and that was all he had to say on the subject. We carried on our journey.
Interlude Eight – Kirsty
Kirsty had never enjoyed horror films. They scared her, keeping her up at night to the point that every little noise would terrify her. As a result, she’d never seen a zombie film, but she knew the concept of the dead coming back to life. She just wasn’t clear on the nuances though – headshots meant nothing to her. However, when she first saw one of them in real life, she knew they weren’t human anymore. Besides, she’d seen the stirring of something unusual on the news already. It wasn’t a surprise.
When the creature first advanced on her, she asked it to back down. But the undead man didn’t respond. He just continued hammering on her front door, with more force than anyone should ever be capable of in a civilised world. She’d angrily slammed her fist against someone’s door before, but the assault her door was experiencing was something diffe
rent. The survival instinct that she’d spent honing over the previous few years kicked in. She took a kitchen knife and waited behind her front door.
The man wasn’t letting up and he would get in eventually. She knew she’d rather confront him on her terms than his. So, once she’d mentally prepared herself, she unlatched the door and flicked the lock open. The door opened slightly and then swung inwards from the force of the man. He fell through and stumbled into the room. His arms hung slack, too heavy for him to hold up. He appeared delusional and unaware of what he was doing. The stink was enough to signal he wasn’t alive anymore. No one alive could smell like that. He wasn’t sick or infected – he was dead. It was the smell of rot.
Kirsty moved in silently, creeping up on the dead man. She grabbed his cold shoulder, pulled him back and stabbed him repeatedly midway up the spine. He collapsed to the floor, paralysed below the point the knife entered. No blood pumped out, just blackened tar-like gore coated the blade. Regardless, he crawled after her. She stared at him in disgust, sliding the knife in at the base of the neck. The undead man’s arms stopped working, but it kept gnashing its teeth at her. It was then she realised that it was the brain which had to be destroyed. She shook her head, disbelief about what she was doing as she plunged the knife through the eye socket and ended the undead man.
She stood still as she tried to compose her thoughts. Kirsty knew she had to move. If one of the dead had found her, others would as well. If no one else had an encounter with it, then that meant there was probably no one else about! She frantically thought of where she could go. Anywhere was better than her current location. Maybe she should head south?
Not long after leaving her home, she acquired a gun. It wasn’t hard to do. The military was moving to combat whatever madness was happening. With so many guns out and about, and executions happening in an attempt to stem the rise of the undead, guns were misplaced. It sounded ridiculous. How could a gun be misplaced? But the military left them unguarded – they had to when everyone would be better off fighting the undead than guarding outposts. It didn’t take a lot to find someone willing to trade one for her bag of nurse’s supplies and medication. Things gained different value when they were in short supply. With major shops closed, finding any form of medication was hard. Kirsty was sad to see it go, but medicine would be useless if she couldn’t defend herself. She continued onwards, driving as far as she could. She eventually met a young woman who seemed lost and in need of help. They became close friends, and the rest was history. Except, it wasn’t.
They travel mostly unheeded. There weren’t all that many people out on the roads when they began their travels. They learned how to deal with the undead without issue, working in pairs. One distracted the undead and the other would take care of them. They also knew they should be wary of strangers. People did crazy things when they were desperate. The sanest person could be made deranged should they be pushed to the edge. However, that suspicion didn’t cross their mind when they met the charismatic man who offered to take them a little farther. He seemed so nice and sincere. He seemed to know what he was doing!
Kirsty saw a true monster that day. It wore the face of a man, but there was absolutely no doubt that he was evil. It destroyed her faith in humanity. It destroyed her trust in mankind. However, things moved forward. It would take a lot to trust others again, but Sam had made a good start.
CHAPTER 34
My head swam with the idea of The Whistler. I don’t know why. There was something about a mystery that pulled at me. I needed an answer. When I was younger, I would torture myself by watching videos about unsolved mysteries online. Jack the Ripper. The Lead Masks Case. The Rendlesham Forest Incident. It didn’t matter what, as long as there was a mystery to it. There was never an answer at the end, hence what made it so interesting, yet I wanted one. To me, The Whistler was the ultimate mystery. One I could solve, if I wanted too anyway. Maybe one day …
We pulled over for our rest stop and all climbed out. I, not intentionally, held the door open for Stephanie. My heart sunk a little when I remembered she would never be climbing out of the van again. I sighed and carried on walking, SA80 in hand. Everyone disappeared to do their business. I, not needing to excrete waste, started to wander. I just walked. No destination in mind, but just alone with my thoughts.
It was a fairly empty road. Some old cottages in the distance. It looked like the only thing holding them up was the sheer weight of itself. It was picturesque. Except for the damn zombies I saw shambling about. I sighed … again. I could have left them, but knew I should just deal with them – it would be a couple less in the world.
I jogged ahead, ensuring I stayed out of sight as much as possible. The grass was overgrown – up to about mid-calf height. I jogged through it, wary that any undead could be laying amongst it. I stared through the scope but didn’t have a clear sight of the zombies. I looked around. I needed a better angle. I spied an extremely low and ancient wall. It had started to fall apart but looked beautiful. Mossy cobblestone … or something like that anyway. I covered the short distance in a few steps out in the open, my footfalls somehow didn’t attract attention, and dived behind the low wall. I, taking a deep breath, looked around the corner. None of the undead had noticed me. Good. I rolled onto my front and placed the barrel of the gun on the fallen stonework, and looked through the scope.
I could see four zombies. My silencer was attached – although it would do little to actually silence the shot in the quiet air. Luckily, I had surprise and cover on my side. I was certain I could take the undead from my position, long before they’d even got close to me. I lined up my first shot. A tall man with a long, grey and bloody beard. He didn’t have any shoes on. I fired my shot. It soared through the air, taking less than a second to ensure the back of its head exploded outwards. Without hesitation, I readjusted my sight onto the second zombie. A wispy grey-haired, petite woman. I fired my second shot – it went through the side of her head and exited through the top of her skull. The last two zombies had finally taken notice that something was amiss. They spun and looked in my general direction, snarling. They had no idea what they were looking for and started sprinting. I had to quickly readjust my line of fire. A young girl with dirty blonde hair – dirty with blood and mud. I hesitated on her. Thoughts of the girl in the shop came flooding into my mind, followed by an image of Stephanie. Quick as they came, the images faded. I fired at her, the first shot hit her chest. There was no rapidly growing patch of blood. The inhuman reaction helped to refocus my intent. I fired at her head. It entered through her eye and destroyed her face entirely.
The final zombie was homing in on me. It knew where I was. Its lips curled back exposing its bloody and broken teeth. It was another elderly man, bald and overweight. He moved faster than he probably had done in the previous decade. It got too close too fast and I couldn’t aim properly. I pushed myself up, firing as I did so. Three shots pounded into the zombie. All chest shots. All centre mass. I tried to aim for its head, but it was way too close. I switched from single-shot to burst. I aimed at its legs and fired. The burst shredded his legs, tearing the flesh and bone. The momentum kept it moving forward on shattered femurs, but its weight made it collapse into a heap on the floor. It didn’t notice. It tried to crawl towards me with as much ferocity as it had been on its legs. I breathed, taking the slowed approach as an opportunity to climb to my feet. I stood over the zombie, confidently switching back to single-shot fire. I pumped one round into its head and it stopped moving forever.
I stood there, breathing heavily. There was something strange about it. Something refreshing. It’s an odd thing to say. The sadness for Stephanie, Gary, Tracey, and James was forgotten. Temporarily. One thing that would never change was fighting the undead. It brought me peace, knowing I would always have that. It was normal. How messed up was that?
I began my slow walk back to the van, taking it slowly as I appreciated the summer air. The world beyond my walk was out of mind, if only for
a moment. It reminded me of the walks I used to have with my grandfather. Long country walks, just me and him. Even before the world ended, and I had my obsession with the apocalypse, I used to imagine we were lone wanderers in a forgotten land. We would find occasional scraps of metal, and other random bits and pieces. I would imagine it was important to scavenge these odd relics. What could we fashion them into? What use did they have? In reality, they were bits of broken farm equipment, but the flight of fantasy was still there. I kicked an old tin can, and that brought me back to reality. I stared at it. What could I fashion it into? I bent down and picked it up. I shook it and it rattled – there were a few rocks inside. I reeled back my arm and threw the tin can against a wall. It bounced off, making a loud hollow bang and rattled as it hit the floor. I grinned. It made a hell of a noise. Good.
“What are you doing?” Keith asked. I spun around, momentarily surprised that he’d managed to sneak up on me. His military training probably had something to do with that.
“Just thinking of ways we can make distractions to, you know, distract the undead,” I said, turning back to the wall.
“We could use stuff like that in the future,” Keith said approvingly.
“You think?” I said, pursing my lips thoughtfully.
“Yeah, without a doubt,” he said. “We could put them into practice at some point to test their efficiency.”
“Awesome,” I said with a nod and we walked back to the van, the can forgotten.
CHAPTER 35
“You guys took your time,” Kirsty said, looking at us as we approached. She sat on the driver’s side, her feet hanging out the van.
“Just discussing tactics,” I said simply, being intentionally vague.