I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 (14 page)

Man: (cont’d) (laughter)

The video footage goes black after an explosion of glass—screaming ensues.

The deadly uprising of angry mobs grew larger in high traffic arenas like those in downtown Flushing, leaving thousands injured or dead in the subways and on the streets.

Water taxis, ferries, and the National Guard assembled along the marinas from here to Long Island hurried people away from the threat of contamination.

The decline of civilization and widespread panic
—There was chaos, confusion, and minimal cooperation from the civilians frantically trampling and flooding others off the piers and into the bay as they fought to get onto the boats.

Then there were the unfortunate ones stuck in transit, who did not have enough time to regroup with their families, get their children out of school, and get to the evacuation zones before the authorities blockaded the ports and entry to the city.

All incoming flights were rerouted; outgoing flights were canceled at the airports after a 747 took a nosedive into the bay shortly after takeoff.

The end of our existence, televised on five local news stations. Jerry and I bounced between each one of them as we stuffed our faces with frozen pizza and beer.

“We’re going to fucking die, man. I know it,” Jerry said, slowly grinding away at the pizza crust with his jowls. I squirmed back into my couch waiting for the aspirin to kick in.

“Dude, don’t freak out on me, seriously. We’re not going to die. Tomorrow everything will be back to normal,” I said.

At 6 p.m., the electronics started going dark
—
the phones and cable were the first to go. Channels 2, 4, and 5 news went dark before channels 9 and 11 did. Moments later, the
talking head appeared in the box
, yours truly—Mr. President. Bad news travels fast.

President’s Address concerning the “First Circle” Queens, NY

THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

“Fellow Americans, this indeed is a time of great struggle and tragedy. We assure you that we are acting diligently and aggressively to overcome the challenges of what we are calling the “First Circle” epidemic.

Many of you are aware that earlier today the greater portion of Queens, New York, suffered a significant amount of damage from multiple tornadoes, followed by an outbreak of a deadly virus. The Borough of Queens and Long Island are under immediate quarantine to prevent the virus from advancing and reaching neighboring Boroughs.

We are acting on an initiative to rescue survivors and restore the lives of our loved ones.

As Americans, WE as PEOPLE—when unified—are resilient and insurmountable when facing great adversity. We must not allow ourselves to lose hope under the weight of fear and isolation. We must have hope, we must have faith, we must persevere—God be with you all. God bless.”

By 7:30 p.m., all the networks went down and the President had told us to sit tight. “Help was on the way,” he said, but we went outside anyway.

I didn’t want to feed into Jerry’s paranoia of us dying, but why would they cut off the television feed? That has never happened before.

8:00 p.m.

It was freakishly quiet around here, but the sounds of mayhem rung from the far distance. Jerry and I took to the streets with our flashlights, where broken trees, branches, and phone cables crisscrossed and overlapped each other along the flooded sidewalks. “I slept through this?” I said.

“Have you ever seen it this dark before?” Jerry asked, attempting to conceal his nervous twitch. I had not, not since the blackout a few years ago, but at least there were people around back then, not like this. Where did everyone go?

“Hello? Hello?” we called out, stepping farther into the dark maze of 158
^th
street.

Our street still had a little power, but others didn’t. It was like gazing out into dark matter as the beams from our flashlights guided us through the night.

“Hey, don’t Reggie and Joanne live on this block?” Jerry asked. “You think they’re okay? Wow, that tree speared the front of that house.”

I wasn’t sure about anything anymore at that point. It looked like people hauled ass because no one was here.

“Ah, come on! There’s still no service on my phone? Can you believe this shit? Goddamn AT&T!” Jerry bitched as he toiled with the four hundred dollar smart phone he had bought for himself when the Ingrid left.

“Who cares? Let’s go further down,” I said advancing into the darkness. Terrified as I was, there was something exciting about venturing out into the darkness with our flashlights like the Hardy Boys.

“We’re the Hardy Boys, Jerry. Let’s go on an adventure!”

“No way, we ain’t no Hardy Boys,” Jerry shook his head, slowly retreating. “This is freaking me out, man. Let’s just go back to the house, Chico. I don’t like your adventures.”

Jerry called me
Chico
. It was a white man’s poor attempt at speaking Spanish, and it always came out sounding like
Cheeek-hhoo
.

“How old are you and you’re still afraid of the dark, you big baby. Come on, we might find some dead bodies over there,” I teased.

“That’s not funny, you dick, what if there
are
dead bodies down there? You don’t know!” Jerry whimpered, obviously not sharing my enthusiasm for exploring.

The air was brisk with a touch of burning wood and musky dew. I inhaled with one long pull into my lungs and exhaled—refreshing. I know people were dying, but it was relaxing, like camping.

“Ah, just like camping, remember that, Jerry? We would sneak out of our tents in the middle of the night to go out into the woods to find raccoons, otters, or some shit. Even then, you were a little crying bitch. ‘
Come on, Charlie, it’s not funny, we have to go back, we’re going to get into trouble. I’m not scared, I’m just tiiirrred.’
Then I would turn my flashlight off and hide behind a tree so you couldn’t see me while you took a shit in a bush, and you’d start crying—that was great, remember that?”

“Yeah, yeah, har-har—eat shit. I wasn’t crying. I was tired from you dragging my ass all over God’s green earth in the middle of the night, like you’re doing now,” Jerry answered. He was too easy when he spooked, and when he was nervous his voice cracked like it did during puberty.

Jerry slept with all the lights on in the house when he was alone, which is all the time now, since the Ingrid left. He claimed he left the lights on for the dog and would never admit otherwise.

“Wait—shush! What’s that?” I asked blinding Jerry with my light. “Wait…listen...be quiet.”

It was a medley of angry tires, screeching in the distance like a band of howling banshees. It wasn’t close enough yet to know which direction it was coming from, but it was approaching quickly. The vehicle sounded like it was tearing up the street occasionally sideswiping and bouncing off a parked vehicle—gunning it. It reminded me of my Dad’s driving. Here it comes, any second now right behind us, rounding the corner.

“Holy shit, Charlie, what the…”

The car finally came hurtling down the street like a bat out of hell, tail spinning right past us, crashing into a brick house on the corner.

“Fuck, should we go see if they’re okay?” Jerry asked, but I knew he would be okay if we turned back and went home instead. “We
should
go see if they’re okay, right, Charlie?”

“Yeah, alright, come on,” I answered, but we took our time getting there. I hoped the driver was wearing a seat belt, because if they looked anything like the car then they were in big trouble.

We saw small flames and smoke rising from the hood of the car and fluids spilling out from underneath. The front of the Subaru Outback was crushed in like some funny looking accordion, with a single working headlight and the driver was missing.

“What the hell?”

“Uhm.”

“Hmm.”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“Uhm, yeah.”

Jerry looked under the car with his flashlight, down the street, against the house, in front of the vehicle—no one was there.

“You wanna’ just go home? This is bullshit, seriously,” Jerry asked as a startling ruckus coming from inside the house interrupted him. We heard dishes and glass breaking; a lot more glass breaking, and someone in horrible anguish screaming at the top of their lungs.

Jerry pointed out that the screen door to the side of the house was wide open and slightly broken off from its hinges. “You see that? I AM NOT going in there,” he said backing up away from the house.

“I didn’t say anything.”

We were both trying to make out the commotion coming from inside, and all I could make out was—“Fuck! Christ! Please! Oh, God! Fuck,
it hurts, please
!” and grunting. Then there was silence. Jerry and I watched each other to see who would make the first move to go back home.

“They sound like they need help,” I said.

“Oh, goddamn it, I knew it! Why is it every time we leave the goddamn house you always get me into shit?” Jerry cried.

“What? Okay, listen, we’ll see if they’re okay and then we’re gone—we go back home, I promise.”

“Do they sound like they’re okay, Charlie, really?”

I knew Jerry was kicking himself for allowing me to convince him to leave the house that night or any other night.

It’s not my fault every time we leave the house, whether it’s to go to Clinkers or detour from going home, something
always
happens.

“You go first,” Jerry said cowardly filing behind me.

“Fine, keep your flashlight up, please.”

We approached the side entrance to the house cautiously. “Hello, sir? Hello, are you in there? We’re here to help you, buddy? Ma’am?”

“Maybe they’re taking a shit,” Jerry said.

“Shaddap. Whose house is this anyways, do you know?” I asked.

“Nah, no clue, come on, let’s hurry up, I wanna’ get out of here. Speaking of which, I’ve got a baby turtle I need to drop off at the pond.”

“Unbelievable. Why do you always need to take a shit whenever we leave the house?”

“What? I have a high metabolism.”

“No, it’s because you’re always stuffing your face, you animal.”

The side entrance lead directly into the kitchen where we found various utensils and drawers thrown onto the floor on a bed of broken glass, thumbtacks, and rubbish. To the right was a hallway that led to the dining room, and to the left, I assumed were the bedrooms and bathroom at the end of a longer corridor that I volunteered to inspect.

“You check the living room, and I’ll check the bedrooms,” I told Jerry, tipping my head towards the front of the house. Jerry spun and looked at me as if I had ordered him into a death trap.

“Can you come with me to the living room?” he pleaded, like a child too afraid to go to the bathroom by himself in the dark.

“No, just go, we’ll meet back here in the kitchen.”

“What if something happens to me?”

“Nothing’s gonna’ happen to you. I’m going to be twenty feet away. Go.”

I continued examining the hallway as Jerry cursed me under his breath, keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any sudden movements.

The lopsided frames hanging along the wall contained generic photographs of the New York City skyline, and another of three kittens playing with a ball of yarn. It was the décor an unimaginative homeowner would pick out at a local pharmacy and proudly called it art.

I came across and stepped in something indistinct, dark, and wet spotting the carpet, but it was hard to tell if it was blood or shit and ended halfway into the corridor.

The house smelled like mothballs and aged cheese. I reached the first bedroom on the left, which looked unlived in, possibly a guestroom or the bedroom of an anal-retentive bore (or someone who had died).

The opposite bedroom—the master bedroom—was a cluttered pigsty, stinky, very untidy with dirty laundry sprawled all over the mattress and paper jumbled across the floor along with ketchup packets and fast food wrappers crumbled up into wrinkled balls.

I picked up and glanced over the hi-gloss cover of the latest issue of the Black Porn magazine “Choc’lit Hunniez” I found left conveniently next to some
Jergens
on the night table beside the bed.
I pondered taking a look-see, but anyone that filthy strikes me as someone who lets his juices fly on the pages and doesn’t clean up after himself.

I plopped the magazine back down onto the pile of other smut like “Big Momma’s Hole” and an interracially gay magazine called “Bear Traps”, stacked with some mail and coupon fliers. The Con Edison bill with the bold red letters stamped
FINAL NOTICE
on the front of it was for a
Mr. Ted Wibert
.

I doubled back to the bathroom where there was nothing but the bare minimum, the toiletries of a single man: towel, shaving cream, Gilette disposable razor, toothbrush and more of that generic art on the wall. This time with some inspirational Zen framed above the towel rack, where you can sit and ponder your life from the best place to do those kinds of things—the toilet.

So, this was a single man with no taste in art who lived like a slob and fancied black and gay porn. So where was he? What was all the hollerin’ and pissin’ about?

“Hey, Charlie, c’mere, I think this person has a dog!” Jerry yelled out from the living room.

When I returned from down the hall, I found Jerry crouched down on one knee facing the dining area where something hid from him between the dining room and the wall. It was definitely
some-thing
. Not a friendly one either.

“C’mere here buddy, we’re not going to hurt you. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jerry said crawling closer to the table with his friendly hand extending and searching forward. The growl from beneath the table grew more threatening, not frightened.

Dogs don’t have knees or hands, do they?
I knew what I was seeing was not a dog, neither was it a man, and if it was—Mr. Ted Wibert was one freaky looking son of a bitch. “I don’t think it wants to be friends, Jerry, stop blowing kisses at it. I think you’re pissing it off,” I said.