White Out: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (14 page)

“Hop in,” he says. This isn’t a typical hitchhiking palaver, not by any stretch. Normally, he’d hem and haw for a few minutes
, debatin’ whether he should do it or not, wondering what his friends would say, what his wife would say, bugging out over myths about hitchhikers murdering their drivers. But not this fella. “You hungry?” he asks, as I open the door and slide into the passenger street.

“I’d be m
uch obliged to join you for some supper,” I say. Two
obliges
already. I might seem uhhhhhhh…
over-zell-us
. I gotta pull back a bit. Yep, yep.

He nods, smirking.
This guy’s one of those rare hitchhiking jackpots. He shifts his car into gear, smiling from ear to ear as he introduces himself as Teddy. I introduce myself as Edgar. My name isn’t Edgar, but I tell everybody that. “My mother named me Edgar, after the writer.”

“Poe?” asks Teddy.

I always throw them off with my response. “Nope. Burroughs.” This always gets a nod, even if they’re not sure who I’m talking about. I saw the name in a bookstore once. I don’t know what the fellow wrote, but I like his name: Edgar Rice Burroughs. A real nice name, wouldn’t ya say? If I could have picked my own name, I would have picked that one. So I guess I sort of ended up doing that, didn’t I?

“You like chicken stew? I’ve had it going in the crock pot all day,” says Teddy. Look at Martha Stewart over here. This is the first time I detect a bit of the
whispy poofy-poo
in this guy’s lurking smile, as if he’s sizing me up for a roll in the sack, and suddenly it all comes together.

He thinks I’m a prostitute.

It must be the boots. Maybe that’s one of those sneaky little calling cards, like tapping your foot on the floor in a bathroom stall or sticking your rod through a greased up glory hole.

Poor Teddy.
He doesn’t smell it coming. I can’t wait to cut Teddy’s throat open with the first sharp thing I find in his kitchen. I can picture myself sitting at his kitchen table, drinking a light beer out of a can, watching him bleed out on to the linoleum while I eat his chicken stew with a big old spoon. I envision myself pouring salt and pepper all over the stew, because I love me some seasonings, and I don’t believe much in moderation. And I can hear a sound clicking inside my imagination; the sound of me tapping my boot heels on the floor, finding that rhythm that I’ve got screamin’ and howlin’ deep inside of me.

Chapter One

This is how it went down:

“So you’re from out of town?”

They always ask that question. There’s something romantic--not just that hop-bang-boom in the back of a Camaro kind of thing--about a shit-stain like me. Fun to look at, but they don’t like to keep it ‘round too long, scared it might make them get to thumbin’ just like this here fellow. They always ask that, and I always reply the same way.

“Yes, sir.
Thing of it is… I’m a wandering man. I’ve been wandering ever since I was old enough to do so in the legal sense. Nothing like the open road. Know what I mean?” I said to Teddy. He smiled at me. I didn’t like the way he smiled. Like he was hiding something. Shit, ain’t we all hiding something?

“I went backpacking in Brazil once. It was so hot, I could have died right there on the road,” Teddy said, looking
as if he wanted to make some additional statement on the matter, but instead, he changed the subject on me cause he seemed like a snaky cunt. “Where are you heading next?”

“Wherever the road takes me.
I don’t walk the road. The road walks
me
.” They always love it when I say that. I’ve used that one at least a hundred times. Folksy sayings work ‘em over real nice. It’s what them smarter fellas might call the icing on the cake.

“That’s refreshing, Edgar.
Really refreshing. I envy you so much; you have no idea.”

“No need to envy.
Doesn’t serve y’ any. Just get out there on the road like me. Don’t make excuses like most folks. Just say you’re gonna do it, and then ya’ do it,” I said to Teddy.

That was when Teddy really got inspired by me, his face lighting up like a fuckin’ slot machine that’s spilling coins on the floor, and I suddenly regretted the fuck out of my whole wise-and-humble act that I put on for folks.
Sometimes, just once in a while, they get like this.

“I always say I’m going to do things like that, and I never do. I used to be so daring… when I was a little kid I mean. But then all this
unexpected fear kept welling up inside of me. Every day it grew and grew, and I couldn’t keep a hold on it. It’s like… like I had something important to do. Something important to say. But the words never formed properly in my mouth. The thoughts in my head were just sort of swimming around and around and around, never going anywhere, and…”

Never going
anywhere? Yep… I hear
that
shit, hombre. Yadda yadda
zing
.

Needless to say,
Teddy didn’t last too long. Fella ran his mouth a lot, as ya’ can tell. We started out with some garlic bread, which he said was for dipping in the chicken stew. Whatever. I dip my shit where I like, no recommendations needin’. He said it in a way that I didn’t much like, something I can’t even put my finger on.

Since I couldn’t put my finger on it, I put my knife on it instead.

He bled out pretty fast--sort of pretty, like fireworks blastin’ off on New Year’s Eve. I like when they go out quick like that, so I can move on to other things. Nothin’ like somebody looking like they’re dead and then they start crawling for the door, or for the phone. They reach for it, like they’re actually gonna put my ass in them handcuffs, and that’s when I stomp it out of them. That’s when I take what’s mine.

I got that freewill comin’ out my ass.

So here I am, getting’ my grub on; Hungry Hungry Hippo that I am.

As I slurp on my chicken stew,
steppin’ over his body, clutching a ceramic bowl to my chest for warmth. I wander around Teddy’s house, takin’ in the sights. The dude loves paintings (or should I say, he
loved
paintings, I reminded myself to put that fucker in the past tense already), so much so that every last wall in his house is covered in them. They’re all different styles, different colors, and different levels of silly bullshit. Bright greens, yellows, and pinks. Every last painting sort of reminds me of a fuckin’ Trapper Keeper on the outside. Remember them things? I used to keep lil’ bags of pot in my Trapper Keeper. I’d sell it to all the other kids in the seventh grade, ‘fore I dropped out. I knew how to make a buck.

I t
ake my knife to a couple of the ugliest paintings. Rather than give some fancy-mouthed review on them paintings, I do things the old-fashioned way. One crappy painting really gets me fired up and pissy. It’s a picture of two angels, hugging each other in these neon green clouds. They’re smiling, patting each other on the ass it appears. Can you believe that shit? Jesus would be super angry if he knew two boy-angels was pattin’ each other near the brownie holes. I know they’re boys because they have these eensie-weensie dicks, lookin’ a whole lot like little baby dicks. Not only do I slash that paintin’ down the middle, but I put it on Teddy’s fluffy blue carpets and I piss all over it.

A man of
boundless free will gotta make a point sometimes.

I refill my stew
(
damn tasty, almost as slick as m’boots
), grabbing some more of the garlic bread. Gonna make my breath stink, but I ain’t going out anywhere, not anytime soon. Once I take care of all the paintings, the joint might be livable.

I start rummaging through the cabinets looking for something manly to drink. I f
ind some red and white wine, which I’ll drink but only on rare occasions, like if it’s the end of the night and I’m not completely shit-canned yet.

There
is one beer in the fridge, but it looks like one of those beers that fancy college boys drink. No thanks, I like my beer to look a little bit of red, white, and blue.

I check
the basement, where I find more of those God-awful paintings. One of them looks like that guy from The Doors, all blues and whites and oranges and hippy-ness. Another one is more of that baby angel noise, except this one is smoking a cigarette and watching television. It actually isn’t so bad. I can get behind that kind of angel, as long as he’s not touching other angel’s asses.

I f
ind a liquor cabinet and a pool table. The pool table is pretty fuckin’ B-O-S-S. Looks like it’s brand new, or at least like it was never used much. I turn on the overhead lights so I can jimmy open the liquor cabinet with my knife. It takes a few minutes, but finally, I get into that bitch.

Schnapps.
Bloody fuckin’ hell.

Fifteen different kinds of schnapps.
Not a drop of whiskey. Not a drop of vodka. Not a drop of gin. Fucking schnapps— peach, peppermint, and root beer. A sugary waste of alcohol. With that, I know I can’t possibly stay here, not with this kind of selection. Sure, Teddy kept good grub in the pantry (lots of Pop Tarts—
boy oh boy
do I love me some Pop Tarts) and had a pretty swanky looking bed, but I can’t support this bitchy cabinet of schnapps.

I
go back upstairs, picking the watermelon schnapps as I walk away, just about to cry like a baby, though part of me wants to smash the bottle on the ground.
Come on, Teddy!
He seemed better than this nasty swill, but I guess not. I hope Teddy is in hell.

I turn on the television and they
are talking about a big old storm that they are seein’, but ain’t exactly believin’, and it’s coming all over, as in every inch of the dang country. Fuckin’ hell, I think. I guess I might have to hunker down after all. I slug on the schnapps and I bite back the urge to vomit. If I drink enough of it, I’ll feel all right. Even though Teddy had terrible taste in his drinkies, the fucker knew how to keep an ample supply. I decide I’ll drink it until I puke, need be.

I look
out the window. I can see one of the neighbors shoveling. She looks like she’s about to keel over from workin’ so damn hard. Stupid suburban assholes--always trimming their lawns and shoveling their driveways, and for what? So they can do it all again the next time? Just let it be, I say. Toss your kick-ass boots off (
have I mentioned my boots yet?
), watch some television ‘bout some ridiculous bullshit that makes you feel like you live on Mars, and drink some… well, don’t drink watermelon schnapps. Drink something better than that, ‘cause you only got so long before you go to meet Jesus, standin’ on his pedestal, tossing all them sinners off the clouds, throwing them back down to Earth to drown in the snow.

The snow
is comin’ down hard.

“Hey
, Teddy,” I call out. He doesn’t respond. “Hey, Teddy, where you keep the stogies and matches? I could use a smoke. If I go rootin’ around and find one of those goddamned electronic cigarettes or a big fuckin’ dildo, I’m gonna stomp it out in your eye, right after I shove this watermelon schnapps bottle up your ass,” I shout. I snicker to myself, addin’, “But I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Teddy just got
zinged
.

Chapter Two

Dear
fuckin’ diary:
I’m bored as all hell.

This is what happens to wanderin' men. This is why we
take to wanderin’. What did you think would happen, huh? You think I'd just get all-cozy and shit-- make a home here? You think I'm gonna start goin' to the gym, trying to make myself look like some fuckin' model? Think I’m gonna start buying some ass-grabbing angel paintings and drinking schnapps? You think I'm gonna start shopping for minivans with low interest rates? Open a bank account? Get a cell phone? Play in a softball league with my best buds? 

Fuck that noise.

This is what I do. I take what's rightly mine and then I enjoy it for a spell. You know what I mean… I get my eat on. I get my drink on. I enjoy the fruits of my labor and then I hit the gravel. I never know just where I’m goin’ next, cause I hafta wait for it to show itself to me. Jesus puts a little bug in my brain, ya’ see here, and then I know where I'm supposed to head next. Real simple.

I just don't
know where that place is yet, cause Jesus been quiet lately.
Much obliged
, and
I reckon
, and all that fancy talk aside, Jesus gonna be here real soon. He already knows m’plan, he just ain't shared it with me yet. He’s got a plan for all of us I think, and it’s all got to do with this damn snow pilin’ up all around me. It’s a shitty plan, not his best work. My way’ll show itself when the time is right. This snow ain’t no accident. When Jesus is at the wheel, ain’t nothin’ an accident.

The television is out now
, which is a real pain in the dick. I think it's on account of the wind outside… and the snow. Everything is icin’ over real nasty. The power lines out in the street look like they about to snap in half! Wish I was back in Florida or something. It's only been a few days, but I'm pretty sure that this storm is just getting started with kickin’ our asses. Somebody on that weather television station was talking about how this sucker is setting records left and right, and they was talkin' about somethin’ real strange-like, somethin’ that they still can't explain.

A
ccording to all them Doppler radars and shit, there's no signs of a storm. All their instruments aren't detecting shit, like they're all on the fritz or somethin’, like they all got broken at the same time. One weather fella was spoutin’ on some theory that the weather patterns don't even exist, that we've all just gone crazy and that our eyes are trickin’ us. They took him off the air when he started saying that--they cut away to one of them car commercials, the one with the candy-ass action star from Europe standing on top of a couple of trucks like some sort of cunty show-off. 

They sayin’
they can't say for sure when the snow is gonna stop. Mostly because they can't even see it, ‘cept when they look out the window. I guess seein’ is believin’.

Ain’t that a bitch and a half?

They can't predict nothing. I think Jesus is pullin’ the wool over our eyes, so I’m mighty glad that I’m on the right side with him, ya’ know? I heard somebody on one of them morning talk shows (before the fuckin’ television went out) say some things about God and how this is his reckonin’. They didn't cut away from that like they did with the kooky weatherman, but she got into a real toss-up with the guy that sits next to her. They was really rippin' into each other's asses. She was saying that this is for all the sin that we done created; all the hate and abortions and all the pollution and all the evil people doing evil things to each other. I can't speak much on that noise, but I think this is something a whole lot nastier than just a storm.

It's makin
’ people crazy. 

L
ike there’s a drug in the snow and we all breathin’ it in, gettin’ batty as all shit.

I can feel it
inside me, I swears it. I feel different, like something mean is comin’ alive inside my belly. I ain’t felt like this since I was real little, before I started wanderin’ and all that. Always been a mean son of a bitch but never all that crazy.

Hell,
who am I fooling?
I’ve
always been
crazy
, so maybe the world is just bending in my direction now. Halle-freakin’-lujah. My uncle once told me that a man with one eye is a king in a world of blind assholes. Maybe I can be a king. The King of the Snowmen, right? Can't you see me like that? Old Edgar, the king with the bad-boy cowboy boots and the ten-inch dick, standing on a mountain of snow, waiting for all the dumb cunts to come worship me.

I drank all the schnapps and I ate all the food. What's His Name kept mostly frozen meals in the freezer, which was all a-okay by me, but when the electric started
getting funky--flickerin’ on and off like it couldn’t make up its fuckin’ mind-- I couldn't figure for sure when I could use the microwave next. So I cooked them all at once and left them all over the countertops. Whenever I got hungry, I'd go pickin' at one. Now, those are all gone, so I'm eating fruit snacks and potato chips. I found a nice stash in the basement, in the boiler room of all places. They were those hippie kind of potato chips, the ones that are actually good for you, but they tasted alright. A hungry man can't go off complaining too much or Jesus’ll start tossin’ lightning bolts at his ass. Don’t want none of that. 

The snow is halfway up the first floor windows now. I kinda feel like I'm gonna get buried alive
in this shitty house, with all these ass-grabbin’ angels staring at me while I freeze to death, so that's why I'm thinking about wandering again. If I wander, then I won't get stuck nowhere. I need to find another place to keep warm for a spell, to wait this crazy thing out. Need me some place with
real
food and entertainment so I don't get bored and thinking about wandering again. 

Settle up. Settle in.
             

That's what they always told me, but I wasn't too good at listening. I always blamed it on my ears being so full of wax. I was always picking the wax out and flicking it at kids when I was in elementary school. I think that's why I
wouldn't never clean it out. My secret weapon, not listenin’ none.

Something happened this morning though.
Something special. A sign, maybe.

There I was, you see, taking a shit on the toilet. Those frozen meals smell even worse on the way out the back end, so I flush every couple squirts or so.
Case of the wet and sticky chocolate thunder. I hope I'm not offending you, and by that, I means to say suck it up and stop being a whiny bitch.

You want to hear the goddamned story or not?
 

OK.
 

I'm on the shitter, doin’ what folks do on the shitter, fiddling around with the toilet paper on the spinner cause there ain't shit else to do in there. Sometimes I look at pictures in magazines when I'm in the bathroom, but all the magazines that
What’s His Nuts kept are all political ones and art magazines. Bullshit.

There I am, in my glory, taking care of business, hollerin' every time I pushed because of the hot lava that is coming out
, and suddenly I hear something tap at the window. A few seconds go by, and there's another tap. This ain't no coincidence, but I know that nothing is. Another tap, and then another. Fuckin’ aye, can’t a man take a shit in peace?

I pull back the shade, looking out the icy-ass window, and I see the neighbor leaning out her window, waving her hands at me. I’m not sure what she was throwing at the window. Maybe jelly beans or some shit like that.
Pebbles? Icicles? Anyway, she got my attention. If only she knew that sometimes, I’m not the kinda guy that you want to get the attention of.  

The window's a little bit stuck in place,
I’m reckonin’ from the weather, but I manage to budge open the window just enough to stick my head and neck out, so I crane my neck and look across the way. The upstairs windows are directly across from each other. It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure she is standing in a bathroom just like me. They probably built all the houses in the neighborhood just the same. How fucking fucked is that shit? That, my friend, is why I wander. In case you needed another reason.

"Howdy!" she calls out. She's got a lot of energy
, just blasting off her like sunshine beams. I hate that. Right off the bat, I’m annoyed. I’ve always kept away from people like this, but I also don’t turn my back on signs when they show themselves to me. I’m not stupid, even if you think maybe I am cause of the way I talk, and cause I ain’t ever been to college. Go fuck yourself if you think it.

“Howdy,” I say back to her, leaving all that sicken
in’ pep out of my voice. No time for that. I can’t pretend to be somethin’ I ain’t.   

I can see that there’re two cats perched up in the window next to her. They sit on either side of her like prison guards
walking a ravin’ lunatic to a padded room. Kitties even look like twins. "Nice to meet you. I'm Marianne! Are you staying with Teddy?"

Ah, yep. That was his name. Forget it for a spell.
Teddy.
I gotta remember it this time or it might bungle things up. People start to doubt you’re meant to be someplace if you don’t know the names of the people that are actually meant to be there. If that makes any fuckin’ sense at all.

"Yes, ma'am.
I'm just staying for a few days, though. Crazy weather we're having, isn't it?" I reply. People love to talk about the weather, that’s one of the first things you learn when you go wanderin’. Actually, you can learn that just sittin’ still, too. Just turn on the Weather Channel. Those chumps make a living out of it.

A
bitchy gust o’ wind blows past Marianne's face and she pulls into her house for a few seconds, then pokes her head back out, still smiling. Nothin' breaks this bitch's stride. She's cheery as all get-out. She says to me then, "Storm of the century I’d say. I've been cooped up in this house for a week now. I swear to God I'd go crazy if I didn't have all my cats." She speaks as though she had hundreds of cats, which I reckon might be the case.

She doesn't look too bad.
Not top notch, but nothing to sneeze at either. A little older than I like, a little scabby looking, but she might do, especially if she has a lot of grub stashed in her house. I'm not so sure about the cats. I
hate
cats. Like
hate
as in--I would send all the cats in the world to them ovens they had in that Holocaust if I could. If I settle in and settle up with this broad, we'll have to do something about them cats. Maybe I'll just bury them all in this goddamned snow.

Meow, motherfuckers!
Meow! 

Then
Marianne says, "How are you gentlemen for supplies? Food? Heat?"

"We're okay for the time bein’, ma'am. I reckon we have enough to last a few more days
at least. And how are you faring, if you don't mind my asking? Anything I can assist with?" People like the word “assist” better than the word “help.” If you say, “help”, then people feel like they’re not involved. If you “assist”, then it’s a team effort. They’re a shitload more likely to respond. Tips from the road.
Zing, zing, zing.

She doesn't mind
me asking apparently, cause she replies, "I just went food shopping right before the storm got too nasty. Lucky I guess, since they didn’t even predict this thing. I could last a couple more weeks. If you fine fellows get hungry, just come on over, you hear me?"

Yeah, I hear her.

You bet your ass I hear her. I won't go over there right away, ‘cause that will look a little fishy and sorta desperate. Might get her askin’ questions she best not be askin’. I'll wait until tomorrow, work up some kind of sob story about What’s His Nuts, and then I'll move on in, kick my feet back and enjoy the storm from a new perspective. I don't know how long I'll keep her heart thumpin’ after I become the king of that place over yonder, but if she's a nasty kind of lover that lets me do what I want (and
when
I want; that’s important too), then I'll keep her as long as she keeps me smirkin’. 

"
How long have you two been together?" she asks now, getting real fuckin' nosy if you ask me. I assume she's talking about the dude that lived in the house, that one that picked me up on the side of the road. Polly Prissy Pants With The Shitty Paintings is what I think his boyfriends called him.
Zing.

Nah,
it’s Teddy. Like the graham crackers. I knew that. I put that in m’memory bank now. His name was Teddy and he made some killer stew. He’s dead now, and I’m glad for it.

"We just met
, not too long ago," I say, working together a story that I will have to stick to when I eventually go over there and take what’s mine from the crazy cat lady. "He's a great guy," I say. Sometimes bein’ so sweet makes my stomach slick with goo, like the time I ate a whole dozen glazed doughnuts on a dare. And for the record, Teddy wasn’t a great guy--in fact, he seemed like a real dickwad if you ask me. Anybody with such shitty paintings on the wall can’t be worth much to the world. I did the planet a favor. “I think I’m in love,” I say now, kind of acting like I’m embarrassed, which I sort of am. Oh man, am I selling the shit out of this one or what?