A Shrouded World - Whistlers (18 page)

“That’s what I’m talking about! Fuck you, wormies!”

I had not yet realized the pale ghostly figures looking in were zombies. I quickly got down onto my knees so I would be closer to the serious cache of weapons I just knew had to be stored in there. I was even more excited by the padlock that was in place and locked. That just meant he hadn’t had the chance to take anything out. I don’t know if an orphan kid just adopted by super rich parents on Christmas morning could have been more excited than I was at that point. I looked around for something to bust the lock, which I found next to the driver’s seat. It was a club, but not the traditional club you might be thinking of. This was an anti-theft deterrent, popular back in the 1980s from where I’d come. It had a U-shape on each end; this was so that you could put one end around your steering wheel, adjust the bar by telescoping it out, and using the other U to go on the brake pedal. In theory, a car thief could still start your car, but could not steer it, rendering it useless for their despicable ends. Thieves had since figured out how ineffectual the thing was, steering wheels bent with surprising ease, letting the club be removed and the car still stolen. I should have realized that his outdated deterrent was a portent of worse to come. He either got this thing at a dollar store or a yard sale. Either way, he’d paid too much.

The second piece of the puzzle came into focus as the padlock took two semisolid hits before the haft literally fell away. I was either really strong or he’d gone the cheap route again. I wasn’t so sure this lock could have stopped a determined toddler. Even as I was opening the top of the locker box, I was reasoning that perhaps he had no money for a lock and anti-theft materials because he’d blown it all on Uzis and hand grenades.

“No, no, no,” I said, staring in disgust at the vast array of cheap weaponry that could be purchased at any mall in the same store you could get a Buddha statue or a soap stone dragon.

I picked up throwing stars, nun-chucks, and knives made from steel hardly thicker than tinfoil. There were swords that I was pretty sure would bust trying to chop a watermelon. It was packed with the crap, like he had somehow intercepted a shipment from this place’s version of China. He would have been better off hammering nails through a bat. The nun-chucks would serve a purpose, just not the ones they were designed for. I grabbed them and walked over to the bus door; the zombies seemed to go into a minor frenzy when they saw me coming their way.

“Do you ass-wipes really think I’m coming out?”

I went down one step and then, at the bottom stair, I wedged the useless batons between the step and the door. The chain that held the two sticks together looked like it was made from low grade plastic. The wooden part, though, seemed solid enough, at least for what I was asking it to do. The zombies had been pushing against the door. Hard enough that, at times, they would crack the seal, and a few unlucky bastards would get their fingers stuck when it snapped back into place. I was convinced that
eventually they would get lucky and pop the handle and flood into the opening. The nun-chucks were just a little piece of insurance against that. I went back to the crap-tastic arsenal and picked up a throwing star. What the hell? I had time to kill. I tossed it with some force, flicking my wrist. The star went straight and true for the toilet wall. I was waiting for the satisfying ‘thunk’ of blade sinking into plastic. What I got was the clatter of a star point shattering and falling to the ground with the rest of the apparatus.

“Toilet…one, throwing star …zero. I really hope this idiot wasn’t trying to defend a family. Do I have a family?”

I felt this pang in my chest alluding to that fact, but I could not conjure them up in my mind. Instead, I was left with a wondering hole. I didn’t have too much time to work on the sorrow as I stared at the as yet unopened box. I was sort of debating if I should just let it be and kind of ‘hope’ that something good was inside of it instead of cracking that lock and discovering the lackluster truth. Who knows? Maybe there were Tasers in there, or maybe a big bottle of bell-pepper spray. Shit, possibly even a crossbow with a draw of hundred and twenty-five pounds. It could happen. It was not a sign of good things to come when the lock fell away while I was merely lining the shot up and bumped against it lightly. It was impossible to not get my hopes up as I flipped the lid on that box. Why I wasted the emotion was beyond me. There were boxes and boxes of Burst-Pielets that, except for their round shape, looked surprisingly like their rectangular cousins Pop-Tarts.

Of all the things I was regaining, the memory of Pop-Tarts was one of them. Not where I was, who I was, if I was with somebody, or why there were monsters straight out of a nightmare chasing me. Nope, this is what I got to remember. I didn’t even know if I liked the flat, frosted, pastry-looking thing.

“Guy really liked cherry,” I said as I pulled box after box of them out. “Now the question is, do I like cherry?”

Again, I got a pang in my gut and I had no idea why. Maybe it was the hunger I was feeling. I didn’t know if I’d eaten an hour, or three days ago. The hollowness in my stomach was an indicator it had been a while. I ripped open the foil packet and instead of nibbling around the edges, I shoved half that thing in my mouth. Yeah, I gagged. It wasn’t because they were bad but rather, I indeed hated cherry.

“Oh, fucking gross!” I was spitting out the chewed up bits onto the floor and wiping my tongue free of the offending food.

“Come on, man, there has got to be something in this bus worth the effort of getting into it.” One hundred and six boxes of the mini-pies and one hundred and five were cherry. “What kind of freak is this guy?”

The last was peanut butter. Again, I had no idea if this was a flavor I enjoyed or not and the words PEANUT ALLERGY flashed across my thoughts in angry red letters.

“Well, I’d more likely be concerned about that warning if I knew what it meant.”

I ripped this packet open. However, this time, learning from my earlier mistake, I took a bite a mouse would have been ashamed of. I didn’t immediately spit it out or go into convulsions, so I figured I was somewhat safe. I took a bigger bite. When the peanut butter coursed across my taste buds, I figured this must be what heaven was like. I ate all eight of the delectable delights in record time; my eyes were closed as I savored every satisfying chew. I wasn’t full, and I might have had a little stomachache from too much sweetness, but it was so worth it.

Now, if only I could find some milk, or better yet, a c
ow so I could wash it all down.

For the first time since I’d gotten onto the bus, the zombies had stopped beating against the truck. I looked up. A fair number were no longer watching me like I was a fish inside a large aquarium stationed in their favorite Chinese food restaurant while they waited patiently for their order to be filled.

“Something else on the menu, boys?”

I checked my weapon. Maybe there were other folks out there and I could give them some covering fire. I was peeking over the head of an incredibly tall monster. I felt like opening the window and tapping him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, Mr. Monster. I realize you probably had a lucrative career playing basketball, but now you’re in my way, and I need to see. So…if you could please move a little.”

Good thing the heavy mesh was in the way. I stepped back from the window when I heard the cries of the night runners, they were hunting. They were close, but not overly so. Who were they hunting? Someone had told me that they had an incredible sense of smell.

“Who?” I yelled. “Who the fuck told me that?!”

I caught glimpses of a face, then I completely stopped when the giant thing in front of me turned. He looked like a clay model man created by Picasso. Half of his face seemed normal enough, but the other side was dragged down. Half of his forehead had sloped down and was covering his right eye. His eyelid on that side, which had completely stopped working, was in the closed position. The skin under his eye had sunk down leaving a veiny red area exposed. His cheek, which was sallow and concave, was pulled down, giving him a Bulldog jowl expression. Another pang, this one almost put me in a seat before I recovered. There was either something about jowls or Bulldogs that threatened to put me in a funk. On the good side of his face, the corner of his mouth was pulled up in an ‘I’m going to eat your spleen’ kind of smile. The left side was pulled down in a
n ‘I’m going to eat your spleen’ kind of sneer. It was not a pleasant sight. I would have shot him just because, but I was afraid the noise would bring the others and I didn’t need that kind of trouble.

I watched the far side of the road, where the night runner cries had originated. Ten to twelve of them came out from the tree line and were jealously looking over at our party. They appeared to want to crash it, yet they were tentative. A few of my guests peeled off from the bus and pursued the night runners as they melted back into the woods.

It was ten or fifteen minutes later, the night runners returned. I’m not sure if it was the same ones, but the likelihood was high. This time, they were silent as they crossed the road and were now standing in the median.

“What is going on?”

I got my answer soon enough as they started screaming amongst themselves. They came no closer, that didn’t seem to be their motive.

“They’re luring the security away.”

I quickly crossed the bus and was now leaning on the bench, peering out into the woods on this side of the roadway. Most, but not all of my entourage had departed, it was definitely a skeleton crew.

“You crack me up.” I was talking to myself.

Whatever mirth I momentarily felt, left quickly as I watched a half dozen of the sneaky bastards come out from behind cover. A quick count showed about ten of the original monsters, who had absolutely no clue what was going on. My instincts were telling me to let this play out. Then I could deal with the remainder and get out of this cherry overload hell I was in. The night runners were swift and merciless as they descended upon the first of their enemy.

One of the night runners grabbed the female thing from the back, wrapping his arms around her waist, tightly pinning her arms to her sides. Her neck bent as she dipped down trying to get a bite on the forearm holding her. A second night runner came up behind her and grabbed a fistful of hair and wrenched her head backwards until her spinal column popped. The first one let her go and she lost her balance and fell over backwards, landing awkwardly on her lolling head. The night runner that had broken her neck brought his foot down on the side of her head until she looked like neglected road kill. A variation of this went on three more times. I couldn’t tell who I wanted to win. This was like watching the New York Yankees play the Philadelphia Eagles, I wanted them both to lose. Two names I was positive I didn’t like, but had no idea who or what they belonged to.

“Which is the lesser of two evils?” I asked myself as I watched the night runners kill another zombie. “Zombie?”

I said the word like my tongue was swollen. It came to my lips long before the meaning came to my mind. I had a funny feeling this happened a lot to me—even before I banged my head. The zombies were much more familiar, and it was clear to me I’d known them longer. The night runners were a relatively new threat. I don’t know how I knew that, I just did. And like any good redneck, I fear change. I grabbed the two latches on the window nearest me and pushed the window down. I placed the barrel of my weapon through a hole specifically designed for a rifle to poke through. I mean, there was even a rubber grommet to protect the bluing of the firearm from scraping against the wire.

“Why didn’t the idiot have a throwing star cut out as well? Jerk.” I said as I lined up my shot.

I put two holes into the base of the night runner’s neck. He went down fast. His assassin partner spun to look up at me and charged my gun emplacement. He grabbed the barrel and yanked me forward. If the dimensions of the gun hadn’t of stopped his pull, I would have slammed my head off the wire. He screamed in unbridled rage, as he wrapped his other hand around the barrel as well and started shaking it like he was churning butter. I could barely get my finger on the trigger. Luckily, he was presenting his chest to me, or I would have never got a decent shot off. I hit him flush in the nipple, completely obliterating this useless appendage on the male anatomy. He staggered back, the fury never leaving his features as he fell to the ground. The zombies finally caught wind that something was wrong, as they came to investigate the loud noises happening on the far side.

There was a brief struggle, but the night runners seemed very uninterested in receiving damage. It was once again me and my old pals. I put the window up more as a defense against the smell; although nothing short of industrial strength fans and a Costco-sized can of Lysol was going to help. They weren’t getting in, and I wasn’t going out—not while it was dark. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I was fairly certain that the name ‘night’ in night runner held some significance. I pulled off the night vision goggles and lay down on the large vinyl bench. I figured the odds that I was going to end up on the floor were pretty high. By the time the sun came up, I found myself still on the bench though I had yet to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

“What the fuck did I drink last night?”

I had partially opened one eye. Sunlight was streaming in and my right arm was hanging down almost touching the floor. My face was smooshed and, what I imagine was drool, was puddled on the floor below me.