A Shrouded World - Whistlers (23 page)

I sit on the side rail of the vehicle and pull out one of my knives to cut into my package. Making a slit in the gray plastic, I scan the area. Seeing one plastic wrapper Trip discarded, I rise to take a look; more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Hey, wait a minute. This one has been opened, and not that long ago,” I state, now alert and looking around for more signs of someone around.

I note the second empty wrapper which lodged under one of the wheels. Setting my container down, and making sure Trip doesn’t abscond with it, I circle the area with my M-4 at the ready. Whoever feasted here not long ago may still be around. It could have been Mike, but then again, it might not have. Nothing else in this land has been pleasant to deal with, and from the looks of the blockade, I don’t want to meet any of the residents. I’m dressed in a military fashion, and from the scratches and dents along the sides of the armored vehicles, they may not be well-liked at the moment. And from the looks of the dead bodies and torn up vehicles, the military doesn’t like anyone else. That kind of puts me in a rather difficult position. Assured that no one else is nearby, I make my way back to Trip, who is rifling through the cardboard container.

“Fine, you can have another one. This one doesn’t sound good. Here,” Trip says, thrusting a package into toward me.

“Liver and onions? Yeah, um, thanks. However, that’s not what I meant. One of the packages was opened and eaten a short time ago.”

“You think they’re still around? I mean, I found this box fair and square.”

Exasperated, I run my hand down my face. “Let me see if I can explain this in ‘Trip’ terms. We’ve been here a couple of days and we’ve seen no one else except Mike.”

“Who?”

“Ponch.”

“Oh yeah. Where is he by the way?”

Talking to Trip is like throwing a Super Ball against a wall and watching it bounce around at high speed. You never know where it’s going to land, and it’s hard to keep up with it, but you know it’s going to be interesting whatever it does.

“I’m trying to get to that. I’m thinking that he may have been here and ate those packages,” I say, hoping something I say sinks in.

“Ponch took my food? That’s not cool, man. I’ll have to talk to him. It’s clearly labeled as mine.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I ask, watching as the ball bounces randomly.

“FTE. It stands for Food Trip Enjoys.”

I just shake my head, wondering how he’s managed to live alone this long. I set down the liver and onions Trip handed me and grab the package I originally opened. It’s shepherd’s pie which is only marginally better. Spooning the food into my mouth, I walk around looking for any other clues that Mike may have been here. It’s good to find some sign that he might have lived through the night, but I’m still not positive it was him. It really could have been anyone. I search the tangled wreckage of cars and then look out into the wide open expanse.

“Whoever it was, they had to have gone that way. I just hope there’s a place where we can find shelter before night hits,” I murmur, looking into the sun.

Something catches my eye. It’s one of those things that is out of place, but I can’t put my finger on it. Then, I see what it is. There’s a leg sticking straight out of the pavement with a boot in the air. It’s embedded into the asphalt; as if the helmet and boot at the last blockade weren’t enough. I nudge it with my toe and it stays in place. The pant legs have fallen down slightly and it looks like I can see the healthy pink skin of a shin underneath.

Nope. Just nope. There’s no way I’m checking that out
, I think.
I’m not sure my psyche can handle it
.

The sun winding its way across the sky into early afternoon, and the fact that I don’t see anywhere that we can shelter when night falls, is reason enough to leave this place. The leg seals the deal.

Whatever forces are at work here which could cause that is beyond me. Perhaps they did something here that bent space and time. It could have been the same thing that yanked the three of us, along with our lovely zombies and night runners, into this place.

“
What in the fuck happened here?” I mutter.

The odd thought arises of placing a baseball on the bottom of the boot and playing T-ball. Yes, my mind goes in strange directions at the oddest of times.

“You ray romething?” Trip says, squeezing bags of food into his mouth.

Trip is eating squished bags of spaghetti-like paste. I turn away, not wanting to see anymore. I’ve seen awful things in war but this is somehow a lot worse.

“Are you about ready?” I ask, checking my gear.

“One, maybe two more,” Trip answers.

“How many have you eaten, Trip?”

“Five or eight. Tough to say.”

“You
may
have eaten eight FTEs? Trip, that’s like thirty-two thousand calories. You’re going to be in a fucking food coma soon. We have to get on the move and see if we can catch Mi...Ponch.”

“Ponch is here?”

We leave the carnage and mystery leg behind, striking out on the open road. Although I don’t like being in the open, I like being in the confines of the snarled mass of cars and surrounded by the trees even less. There’s something liberating about no longer feeling constrained.

I would like to put some distance behind us, but all Trip can manage is something similar to a pregnant waddle after his record-breaking eating marathon. After a couple of miles, I take a few steps along the pavement before I realize that Trip has stopped. I’m feeling a little irritated at our pace. After all, night will be upon us at some point and I still don’t see anywhere that we could hole up in for the evening that would provide for a margin of safety.

Turning to see what the hell he is up to now, I ask, “Trip, what are you doing? We need to push on.”

“I need to make a food baby,” Trip answers.

“You need to fucking what?”

“Food baby. It’s gonna happen soon. I can feel the contractions! I’m going to need some hot water.”

“No...no...no! Oh, fuck no!” I say, watching Trip begin undoing his belt.

I do know the feeling, when you gotta go, you gotta go. But he brought this on himself. And, besides, feces are the one thing I could never really handle well. I did, but I didn’t like it one bit. I walk a few more steps and turn my back, giving him some privacy, and myself some as well.

“This is NOT happening. Lynn and my kids are God knows where, and I’m babysitting a stoned out hippie who hasn’t had a real thought since Jimmy Carter was in office,” I mutter.

Behind me, I could hear Trip grunting heavily. “Can you keep me steady, man? I’m going to fall over.”

“Fuck no!”

“Not cool, man,” Trip says, panting heavily. “Ooooh, it’s coming!”

There’s a fifty-fifty chance I end up with Mike or Trip and I get Trip. Fucking Mike must be a saint that he hasn’t left this one behind yet
, I think, trying to ignore the sounds Trip is making.

“It’s twins!” Trip shouts.

“For fuck’s sake, Trip, just hurry up. You’re going to attract every night runner and zombie in the area.”

“You can’t rush the miracle of food-child birth,” Trip puffs.

There are a few moments of silence before Trip speaks again. “Good thing I saved those moist towelettes from the food packages. Hey, Flack, can you come over here. Their color isn’t right.”

“It’s Jack!” I declare, and, in a moment of not thinking, look back while replying.

On the pavement, there is impossibly colored offal lying in a huge pile.

“What’s the matter with you?” I ask, more than a little alarmed. “They’re mustard yellow. Are you sick?”

Trip sat down on his haunches, his face not more than a foot from his release. “Smells like feet and Phrito’s. Feetos!”

“Fuck me. You are one sick bastard and get stranger by the minute,” I say, turning to continue our journey down the road. “And we’re picking up the pace.”

My hope is to try and catch Mike by nightfall, assuming he is the one ahead of us. I open up my mind in an attempt to see if there are night runners about. Where they would hide from the sun in this open expanse is beyond me, but I check to see if there are any lairs in the area. I sense a few some distance behind us in the forest. We’re not out of danger at the moment. Although, having their company is almost preferable to Trip’s road-hazard nightmare.

I begin alternating jogging with quick-paced walking. We start making better time with Trip having lightened up a bit. However, I don’t think it will be enough to catch up. Mike is unencumbered – in more ways than one – and can make better time. But, Mike also has to realize that he needs to find a place for the night and may hole up if he finds one. That may give us a chance.

“It’s true what they say,” Trip states, looking a little morose.

We’d been walking for a little more than an hour, and Trip hadn’t said more than a handful of words, which was more than fine with me.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I’ll bite. What’s true, Trip?” I ask, cringing for what the answer might be.

“Post-partum depression.”

“I don’t even know why I asked.”

“There you are.”

I’d been walking for miles when I came across a bridge that crosses over the top of the highway. Sitting in the shade and eating a meal sounded like a splendid idea. I just had to make sure nothing was hiding behind the huge cement stanchions. After a quick perimeter check, which didn’t even yield graffiti, I got behind one of the columns and opened up a meal. I ate a reasonable facsimile of tuna casserole and some sort of sponge cake that would have been more aptly named ‘brick loaf’ instead. I took a big swig from a canteen I’d pilfered and peered around the edge. Lucy was coming. She was a good five hundred yards away. She would walk a little bit and then stop to look at the bridge. She could sense the inherent danger lurking in the shadows. I just hoped the pull of her stomach would bring her in closer.

She was moving agonizingly slow, her hesitation was causing me precious minutes I didn’t have. I moved slowly, getting into the prone position, resting my rifle on the ground, and clearing some grass right in front of me. She was somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred yards now. I’d feel a whole lot better if she got within a hundred. I couldn’t afford to spend too much time playing this game, and Lucy needed to die. Even though I had goggles, she would still have the advantage over me
at night, and that just wasn’t going to do. Plus, I’d yet to prove it, but I was fairly convinced zombies had some sort of telepathic means of communication, and I did not want her friends Ethel, Fred and maybe Desi Jr. showing up.

“Come on, Lucy. I’ve got a pie with your name on it.”

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.

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.