Mark Tufo - Whistlers

I popped my head out of a truck I, odds were good that John was just playing with the horn. The beauty of his condition (primarily stoned) was that his short-term memory was really only good for about three breaths or one deep inhalation; that should be clear enough, knowing John the way I do. The bleat came again, this one not much more than a goose hiccup. I walked back over to where I had left him. He was downing bags of Phrito’s and pointing out the front windshield. I couldn’t see from my location, at least not until I stepped on the running board of the truck he was in. It was a zombie hoard, and they were coming at a decent clip. Runners seemed to be intermingled with the shufflers, I could tell because they usually looked less dead if that makes sense, fresher corpses may be a better explanation. But they weren’t running…so far.

I had yet to figure out the relationship with the runners and the shufflers…why they hung out together. I can’t imagine it was any sort of symbiotic relationship. I very much doubt that the runners tracked and trapped the food, and then patiently waited for the shufflers to catch up so they could eat. I could see some benefit for the runners to stay with the slow ones, safety in numbers, less likely to get shot if you’re in a group of a couple of hundred. That implied thinking, and I for one was not yet at the point where I wanted to believe that was an option. My zombies were going to stay stupid eating-machines right up until they caught and ate me. I began to scan the area, nothing worth a damn stood out as a viable defense.

“I’m thinking maybe you should have yelled,” I told him. I rested the barrel of my rifle on the hood of the truck. “My old boss always told me to be proactive in the face of a crisis.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” John said before I pulled the trigger.

I looked up at him. “Mind about what, John?” I asked.

“I didn’t tell you?”

“No, man, you didn’t tell me. What should I be minding about?”

“When I get nervous, my fingers tend to work on their own.”

“John, what the hell are you talking about? We’ve got some funkies coming, and I’d really like to drop some of the faster ones.”

“The bullets, man, the bullets.”

My heart was sinking. “Oh, John, what about the bullets?” I asked, figuring he had somehow pulled all the lead tips off. I was about to get John out of the truck and make a run for it. It didn’t look like we’d have enough for a firefight.

He tossed all the metal clips out the window. I started laughing. He had removed the connectors that had held the individual bullets together so that they could be fired through a light machinegun.

“I’d kiss you right now if I thought my man-card could take that kind of serious hit.”

“Man-card?”

“Do you know how to load a magazine?” I asked hopefully, handing him up six of the ones I had pilfered.

“Like Sports Illustrated ?” he asked back. I put the magazines back in my pockets.

“Worth a shot I suppose. Just make sure all the bullets are back in the box and the lid is latched, okay? We’re going to have to leave here soon.”

“Can I keep the truck?”

“I wish.”

The dying horn bleat was an indicator of the good odds that this behemoth would not start. Although, in retrospect, why I didn’t try some of the other trucks eludes me; time had expired on that option, no sense on dwelling on it. Just as I lined up my shot again, I heard the clatter of brass into steel. I would have shaken my head if it wouldn’t have messed up my targeting.

“Boom,” I whispered as I sent a high-speed projectile down range.

The speeder’s head exploded in a splintered shower of bone and blood. He dropped and was immediately trampled underfoot. That was a hard thing to watch, the loss of any sign of humanity. That, more than anything, attested to their savagery and how far they would go to attain their goals.

I’d been to combat in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. I’ve fought Iraqis, Afghanis, insurgents, and a half dozen other enemies I can’t remember the names of. They all hated us as much as, if not more than, we hated them. We were fighting to keep our friends alive and to get back home to Mom and apple pie. (Not my mom’s apple pie mind you, but someone’s mom’s apple pie.) The people we were fighting were generally fighting for their country or the way in which they chose to live their lives. They had every right to fight like demons, and often times, they did…performing atrocity after atrocity. But as I write here today, I will tell you—be it Taliban, Rebel, or Usurper—that fighting force would stop and pause with whatever the fuck they were doing when one of their own took a head shot.

There is something so primal when you watch the man next to you have his hopes, dreams, thoughts, and beliefs literally destroyed in an instant; his brains torn from the rest of his body. Advances would halt, retreats would move back quicker, planning shifted to survival. Whatever it was, the enemy would stop and alter course.

Nothing is more demoralizing to an enemy than a sniper wiping out a comrade with a head shot. It took the fight out of them and that’s why we aimed for that particularly part of the anatomy. The point? The point is that zombies didn’t give a fuck; didn’t concern them in the least. Maybe on some level they were happy because it meant one less mouth to feed; less competition when they did get a hold of their prey. Those were my thoughts as I sent a magazine of bullets scorching towards their targets.

Most hit, because with this many of them, it would have been harder to miss. Chests caved in as impacts shattered rib cages and sternums; legs were sheared off from the ferocity of the bullets. Arms became little better than T-Rex appendages as I pulverized them. And then, on occasion, I was rewarded with the assassination shot. Heads snapped back, necks recoiled from the shock of taking in something with so much force. I popped in a second magazine. When I was fairly confident I had done a good number on the speeders, I told John it was time to go. I was thankful he had grabbed the ammo case, I could only hope and pray it was full of bullets and not of Phrito’s. Speaking of which, where were they?

He hopped down from the truck, I followed suit. “Where are your snacks?” I asked.

“Almost done.”

“Are you kidding me? How long have I been gone?” Seemed like an hour, two at the most.

Was the world in which we now found ourselves different? Were the rules altered? Were days twelve hours instead of the standard twenty-four, or had I been looking for supplies longer than I’d originally thought?

He showed me his yellow tongue, his teeth coated with damn near a half inch of corn paste. That was fucking grosser than watching the zombie’s head explode.

“We going to the water tower?” John asked.

“Where?” I asked, coming up next to him. I reached out and pulled on the arm that was carrying the ammo. It was heavy, I breathed a sigh of relief.

John was pointing to a green structure maybe a mile off from our present location.

“How in the hell did I miss that?” I asked.

“Saw it since we rested by the trucks.”

“You didn’t think to say anything?”

“Why?”

Fair enough answer, I suppose. I just couldn’t figure out how I spent the entire day missing the giant monolith. Ahead, I saw more zombies. We were going to have to take another way and cut through the trees. It was going to be a mile through woods, fences and a neighborhood. With zombies in tow, and others ahead, this was not going to be an easy endeavor.

“You ready?”

“I was born ready,” he answered proudly. Then, as an aside, he asked. “Ready for what?”