Jason Jones: Trailer Park Zombies

We stopped in the parking space in front of my trailer and Barrett turned off the car. The tick of the engine cooling was the only sound to be heard for a minute or two until the twang of some country music warbled through the air at us from a couple trailers away. That seemed to break the hold that the silence had on us.

“Barrett,” I said.

He broke in, “We’re not talking about it, buddy. Not tonight, maybe not ever again.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering to myself if that were true. Would the events of tonight never again pass our lips? Would I be able to push it all aside and never again think of the crack of Mason’s neck against the stone as we piled to the ground?

Barrett pulled the bottle of whiskey from under the seat and took a long swig. He shuddered and closed his eyes, putting his forehead on the steering wheel. His shoulders shook and I thought I detected a sob but I pretended not to hear it. I was still in shock and staring out across the Acres. It was midnight and the place wasn’t booming like you’d expect a trailer park to be. Half the residents were probably in town getting drunk and the other half were apparently hunkered down, probably doing the same thing.

Barrett proffered the bottle in my direction without looking at me. “Want some?”

“No, I’m good,” I said. “Think I’ve had enough to last a lifetime.”

“Yeah,” he said, “tell me about it.” He pulled the bottle back in and took another deep swig.

“You know, maybe you should stay here tonight. Doesn’t look like dad’s home yet, so he probably won’t be back til late and mom’s oblivious to the world. She won’t notice.”

“Duke,” he said slowly, “I’d rather be home.” I could see the thought passing through his mind that he’d like to turn away and never come back again, but we were friends and that meant something to him. “But I think you’re right. I probably shouldn’t drive.”

He turned the key to the car and hit the button to close the top. It latched firmly and we still just sat there. In the dark. I could hear him putting the cap back on the bottle and sliding it into his jacket.

“Tonight was completely f’ed up, cahuna.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel a couple times and then took the keys out of the ignition and put them in his pocket. The silence was getting heavy. “Let’s go,” I said. “I need some sleep.”

We got out of the car. I was moving a bit slowly. My leg was feeling a little better, although there was a deep throbbing in the thigh that was trying to scream for attention. It would hurt in the morning, that’s for sure. I was able to walk at least, that was a good thing. That would have been hard to explain to my parents, if they’d notice.

Mom was passed out on the couch when we went outside. A cigarette had burned out between her fingers and a bottle was pressed firmly between her thighs. Eerily, it was the same whiskey that we’d been drinking from earlier and that Barrett had mostly finished off in the car. The TV was on but the sound was turned low enough to be nothing more than unintelligible noise.

We stumbled by her, not even trying to keep quiet. Mom would be out until at least noon on Saturday judging by the empty bottle. At some point she’d probably get up and go to bed but even that couldn’t be guaranteed. I’d spent quite enough Saturdays cleaning up a piss-soaked couch to know that she didn’t always get up to use the bathroom.

My bedroom was down the hallway, off to the side, right next to my parent’s room. It was a fairly good sized bedroom for being in a trailer. Usually when people hear “trailer” they think of tiny things that you can haul around behind your truck but the truth is that most trailers are just houses on wheels. A little cramped, but still a good enough size to trick you into thinking you’re living in a small home.

I had a twin bed and a futon in there. Barrett had spent enough nights there over the years, so he knew right where to go. I don’t think he even took his shoes off before pitching himself face down onto the futon. He was snoring less than 30 seconds later. I was glad I hadn’t let him drive home.

I was exhausted. Felt like I could use about 20 hours of rest and that someone had beat the crap out of me with a tree trunk. I guess they kind of had. Part of me wanted to go take a shower and another big part of me wanted to just lie down and put my head under the covers and collapse. But I had to clean the cuts on my face if nothing else. See how bad they were.

I went into the bathroom and locked the door, staring into the mirror. The fluorescents put my face in stark relief. I looked awful. My eyes were sunken back into my head and my skin was waxy and pale, covered in a cold sheen of sweat. The scratches on my face from where Tamara had reacted and pushed me away actually weren’t too bad, though. Very shallow, superficial cuts. I wet a wash cloth and picked at them, trying to scrub some of the night away. I’m not sure that it worked but by the time I was done my face had at least regained some of its color. The night was still there in my eyes, though. I wasn’t sure if I could ever get that haunted look out of them.

The cuts didn’t look like they’d bled that much and washing them hadn’t opened them back up thankfully. They were faint trails going down my cheek. Unless sleeping on them made them come back out I thought I was okay on that front at least. I looked down at my pants and brushed my hand over my thigh. The pain wasn’t as sharp or as deep as it had been, but my thigh was definitely swollen. I briefly considered taking my pants off and having a look at it but after a quick internal debate I said screw it and decided to leave it for the morning.

I looked out the bathroom window as I stood over the toilet and did my business. Something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Not in an “I just killed a guy who raped the girl I was in love with” kind of way – that certainly didn’t feel right, either, but it was something I could work with – things just felt wrong somehow.

Whatever it was, it could last until morning. I was beat. I kicked my shoes to the side and took my shirt off as I limped my way back to my bed and threw the shirt in the general direction of the hamper. It missed, but then there were more clothes on the floor in front of the hamper than there was inside it anyway. I lay on my back on the bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. After a few seconds of that I rolled over onto my side, facing the window. Next thing I knew, I was asleep.

A gripping fear woke me sometime later. My heart was beating wildly and I could feel my pulse throbbing everywhere in my body. It felt like the whole world was shaking and I could hear a rumbling in the air. A peal of thunder broke the air like a gunshot and the flash of lightning seared the backs of my eyeballs. Sweat broke out over my body and chills swept up and down my spine. It felt like I was drowning.

I swam my way out from under the covers as another crash of thunder sounded right on top of the trailer. At some point in my sleep I’d curled into a tiny ball at the bottom of my bed and wrapped myself in the blanket. It felt like I was suffocating and when I finally managed to break my head out into the air I breathed in hard like a marathon runner at the end of the race.

I just lay there for a few moments trying to catch my breath until another peal of thunder surprised a cry from my lips. There was not a single light on in the house and none was shining through the window. Looked like the power was out. A pretty common occurrence here at the Acres in the middle of backwoods Kentucky.

My heart was in my throat and I was doing my best to calm down and get my body back under control. I’d had dreams of being trapped in the dark and chased by some faceless enemy. Constant running and hiding and never quite managing to get away. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had caused that dream.