Whispers - Volume 1: A Collection Page 3

  Anyway, this isn’t about me.

  We’ll get to that.

  So you’re probably wondering what the chaos is all about? Lemme tell you!

  When I…sorry, we (Richard and I) got here, we started the drinking with a Bud. It’s normal practice to line the stomach before the good stuff. Anyway, the TV was blaring behind the bar, some football game, before a NEWS FLASH appeared, stopping the game short. I heard half of the bar groan in unison. As a result I didn’t hear the beginning and I had to make do with reading the headline. The words were scrolling along the bottom and they said: MYSTERIOUS OUTBREAK. STAY IN YOUR HOMES AND DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR.

  Well, as you can imagine I found that highly amusing. It’s like something out of a Carpenter or Romero film. Horror films ain’t real. Even for a psycho like moi. They always get the little details wrong, which ruins it for a seasoned pro like me.

  Richard turned to me and pointed at the screen. “Y-y-y-oou see-e t-t-that?”

  I swigged some Bud. “Probably just another swine flu panic. Nothing to worry about.”

  Richard nodded at that point and returned to his beer. Good boy!

  Ten minutes later, the NEWS FLASH hadn’t gone away and the bar people were starting to get irritated. The bar (the actual bar where the booze is kept) was tucked into the corner of the room so everyone else was to our right. I was against a wall on my left. I liked this position. I don’t want any fags coming up behind me and…I’m only joking. I love gays…erm…

  Napkin 3

  Moving on.

  I don’t have anything against gays. I’d only kill them if they touched me. Luckily for the gay community, it hasn’t happened yet. Why am I confessing this to you? Well…I’ll probably be dead if you find these and if you don’t, I’ll be alive. Check your missing persons list…hang on, you won’t be reading this if I’m alive… paradox!

  Anyway, so the patrons are getting a little annoyed. Richard’s face is smeared with panic and fear so I shake my head at him. “It’ll be fine. We’re in a bar full of testosterone and pool cues and I know the barman has a shotgun under the till. We’re fine. Safer than a bank vault.”

  Richard nodded, unaware of my own minimal fear and the fact I just told the biggest whopping lie of my life. I lied and it got Richard killed. Which was the plan, I suppose. I could work for the government.

  The first person to die was Jimmy, one of the pool freaks. You know the kind; the guy who stacks coins on the table for constant, competitive games of pool. I noticed his skin was a sickly shade of pale and sweaty and he swore it was a dodgy curry from the night before. His friend told him to take something for it and he did.

  A chunk out of Sonny’s throat, his pool opponent.

  Jimmy pulled away with a chunk of viscera between his lips. Sonny helplessly clutched at the bloody chasm in his throat. Crimson soaked his chest as he bled out before our very eyes. Gurgling erupted from his exposed jugular, the noise echoed around Jericho. No one stepped forward to help him, no one could. He was dead before he hit the shiny wooden floorboards.

  I agree that was an extreme way to win a game of pool but…never mind.

  Anyway, Jimmy was soon battered down by three men with pool cues. They beat him to a bloody pulp before one man, Chad, spread Jimmy’s lips and teeth across the edge of a booth bench and stamped his size twelve through the back of his head with a sickening squelch, crackle and pop.

  Richard vomited on the floor. It stung my nostrils. I swear I could smell Sugar Snaps. The other men looked at Chad. “What the fuck, man? Why’d you do that?”

  Chad shrugged. “Gotta aim for the head, innit?”

  Another man, Travis, stepped forward. “Yeah, but a heads up would have been nice. You got skull on my new Converse.” As if to prove his point, he shook his left foot and a slab of jellified muscle flew across the room, hitting the bar. It slid down slowly and stopped halfway.

  It’s still there now.

  Some people. Apparently Chad and his friends believe in zombie movies. Not that Jimmy was a zombie, he was merely sick. Maybe there was news to this virus after all. All this and I just sat there. Observing. Like the sick sumbitch I am.

  Richard needed some consoling at this point but I was more concerned with the shotgun the barman was holding. The barman, from this point of view, was a rotund, wheezing mess. His pale cheeks were mottled a permanent red from exertion…generated from walking back and forth once in a while. His black hair was slicked to the left, with product or grease or sweat or something that gave off a sour fragrance. That might have been his cologne. Eau de toilette indeed. His waistline bulged, testing the restraint of the trousers, belt and tucked-in shirt. Every nook and pit of his flabby belly was visibly taut against the sweaty, blue material of his shirt.

  Now you tell me, would you want this man holding a Spas 12 shotgun?

  In this environment, with an outbreak imminent?

  No.

  But he was. He shook worse than a vibrator on full speed. Sweat was pouring down his face and staining his collar. And he was aiming the gun at the patrons.

  That’s when things got really bad.

  The patrons were fine, it’s the newcomers that scared the living shit out of me.

  The door burst open and three women stepped into the bar. I thought we’d been overrun by bikini models. I didn’t know these broads but let’s name them Sandy, Candy and Mandy. I saw thigh and cleavage and tanned, toned stomachs with belly piercings and long glorious brown hair, blonde in one case (Sandy), and bodies you could break the law for. In another location, with me and them alone…and my bowie knife…

  And bloody mouths. Let’s not forget the glazed over white pupils either.

  With amazing speed, Mandy sprinted the small gap between the door and the pool table and latched onto Chad. Her teeth tore into his throat and ripped with such force and vehemence I heard it from back here. It was like a t-shirt being torn. Seconds later, Chad’s dead head whipped off the dartboard behind his friends. An arc of claret filled the air, peppering the walls and ceiling and everyone below it. His torso collapsed to the floor, blood spurting from the newly formed stump.

  The barman shot at Mandy and missed. The sound was deafening.

  BOOM!

  The spread of the bullet shredded through Travis, tearing him to pieces. His left eye dropped from its socket and wobbled on his cheek, still attached to the optic nerve. The top of his head exploded and his chest turned crimson immediately. More blood spattered the wall and booths and unused pool cues located on a rack. His body tumbled on top of another guy, Dave, and pinned him down. Dave was screaming. Mandy jumped on him too, ripping at his face with her fingernails. I saw an eyelid stretch and rip, attached to the nail itself. Then an eyeball, the white orb popped like a balloon, spraying Mandy with yellow viscous fluid. Mandy licked it from her lips.

  Rufus, Graham and Clint remained. Clint, almost as if his uber cool name depended on it, pulled a revolver and fired, from near point blank range. The bearing of the bullet smashed into Mandy’s chest, spinning her backwards in the air. She landed on her head, no, face and her neck snapped, killing her immediately. The corpse looked like an unfortunate gym accident. Clint kicked the body over and it leaned against a booth, legs spread. Rumour has it Clint spends time on a gun range. There’s your proof. One down.

  Candy climbed the pool table and leapt for Rufus. He swung a pool cue like a baseball bat, snapping the cue over her head with a stomach-churning crack. Home run! Candy face-planted the floor. Rufus finished her off with a curb stomp, smashing the brain. Two down.

  Sandy ran out of the bar. I’m not sure why and it alarmed me. Zombies have no fear or intelligence or self-awareness. If that’s what they were, I mean they were going for jugulars so they share a common trait. They swarm until dead, one by one, no reluctance. Sandy indicated that she had some notion, some knowledge of danger. She ran.

  That scared me into action.

  Graham and Rufus pulled their guns
too.

  Then the Chinese man arrived.

  Napkin 4

  The crazed look in his eye signaled mortal danger for us all.

  I already told you about Richard. Once my drinking buddy was decapitated (his head came to a rest in Mandy’s crotch, as mentioned earlier), the Three Musketeers (Rufus, Graham and Clint) fired on the Chinese guy, riddling him with bullets. His body tumbled to the floor in a bloody heap. During the crossfire, a bullet hit the barman in the eye (he screamed, slapping an eye to the gushing hole. It sounded like an empty washing up liquid bottle squirting), who dropped his shotgun, which self-fired on him, hitting him in the stomach. I thought the size of the gut might save him but alas, I’m not a doctor. The impact propelled him onto the bar where he currently resides.

  I’m tempted to tickle his brain again but time is of the essence.

  After that, the Three Musketeers turned on one another. I remember thinking it was just like something out of a horror movie. Cliché, right? Hang on…right, I just checked my napkin pile. I probably have enough to tell you how it went. It’s kinda cool.

  Clint started with, “Whoa, whoa, whatta ya doing?”

  “Easy, guys! There’s no need to panic,” Rufus replied.

  Graham said nothing, he was too focused on his aim.

  What we had, ladies and gentlemen, was a Mexican standoff. I shit you not. Rufus aimed at Clint, Clint at Graham and Graham at Rufus. All scared of one another.

  What if he’s one of them? You could see it on their faces.

  In all my life, I never thought I would actually see a standoff. A psycho doesn’t go searching for gun-wielding freaks because, let’s face it, we work better with weak, defenseless people. Don’t get me wrong, I was filled with mild terror at this point. I felt myself shaking on the bar, bouncing my empty J.D. glass. Even us psychos feel fear on occasion, it’s an equal opportunity emotion. There was something magical about this scene, though, it took me back to my youth when I watched flicks like Unforgiven or Reservoir Dogs and any John Woo movie.

  I didn’t stay mesmerized for long.

  They all fired as if on cue. Rufus collapsed first, his face caved in, spraying blood and bone out in front of his falling torso. He landed in a booth, bounced off the squeaky leather seat and slid into the foot hole. A bullet clipped Graham’s eyebrow, spinning him around, and he fired, unconsciously hitting me in the leg. That’s right, if you thought I was getting out of here unharmed, you were wrong. You think I wanted to stay in this bar and write my deathbed notes and the confessions of a psychopath? There’s a reason, you see…but let’s finish this off.

  Anyway, Graham hit the deck but not before his chin bounced off the pool table and snapped back. Clint went last, taking a round to the chest. Clint was the eldest of the group, evidenced by words like grandpa and old timer escaping his buddies’ lips on several occasions over the years. His death was subtle compared to the last seven minutes of chaos. We can let it slide though, he was called Clint after all.

  Then all was silent. Apart from me and the hole in my leg.

  Not a hole, more a throbbing void of unfathomable pain.

  Like a bloody vagina gouged into my leg. Painkillers wouldn’t really help.

  Remember, I was a little doused anyway. Thank you, Jack. It took the edge off. When the adrenaline fades and Jack’s embrace ends, I’m in for a hell of a time.

  So here I am, all alone, in a bar full of corpses and death. I look at the floorboards now and all I see is red. A sea of blood and sinew and eyeballs and skull fragments and

  Napkin 5

  bile and even a string of intestine. That’ll be the barman’s…I didn’t notice that before. Huh. You know when you’re in a bathroom and the water splashes out of the bath and soaks the floor and you feel like you’re walking on water?

  Imagine that with blood and bodily fluids? That’s what I’m staring at now, smelling on every second breath. Yes, bodies shit their pants when they die. Richard certainly did, the reek is unbearable. Anyway, I finally have a hold on the void in my leg, I wrapped it up in Richard’s polo neck. I mean, he doesn’t need it anymore. The pain is easing too, thanks to my friend, Jack.

  My biggest concern isn’t Richard’s headless corpse or the barman’s increasing stench and proximity to me now (as I write this, his dead face is knocking the edge of my pen, fucker) but the NEWSFLASH I mentioned earlier. That’s right, the TV is still going. In the movies, the studio would be getting destroyed by the undead by now. It looks like Channel 5 have it covered though. Anyway the NEWSFLASH added more words to their update. It goes something like this: MYSTERIOUS OUTBREAK CRITICAL. STAY IN YOUR HOMES AND PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELVES.

  I’m no expert, but since when does the public news openly encourage people to defend themselves? I mean, this is an extreme situation, judging from Sandy and her bitches, but surely the government would have something to say about it? Why isn’t the President addressing us directly?

  So the NEWSFLASH concerns me. Why don’t they send in the army? That’s one thing. The second, and I can’t stress this enough, is the most terrifying though. Several gunshots went off. Not exactly subtle. Anyway, it attracted some unwanted guests. Sandy has returned with her friends.

  At last count, I am surrounded by seventy-two mindless corpses.

  Except they ain’t corpses. Last time I checked, corpses don’t stand and observe you with their dead, mindless eyes.

  They haven’t eaten me or attacked me, no. They’ve surrounded the exterior of the bar. In doing so, they’re standing vigil and are currently watching me. Seventy-two pairs of white, dead, hungry, maniacal eyes all watching me sit here and jot down my last words. Patiently too, I mean what the fuck are they going to do? Watch Oprah? Go to work? Fuck that.

  I think my conclusion about Sandy was right. She’s aware of the danger within the building so they’re keeping their distance. For how long, I don’t know. Even for a psycho like me, it’s a little unnerving.

  The third thing is this. The NEWSFLASH has warned that bodies are coming back to life. Zombie, the word, not the awesome 80’s movie, hasn’t been broadcast or mentioned yet. It’ll probably cause utter chaos…well, more than is currently happening on the streets, but they estimate the time for a body to turn, after symptoms and illness (think Jimmy and his ivory complexion) is about two hours.

  Two hours.

  If that’s correct, and I’m still sitting here in seventeen minutes, then Clint will be up and about and feeding on my brains. Clint is the only person who didn’t take a headshot or incur some brain trauma during that awesome Mexican standoff.

  If they are, in fact, zombies.

  And the other seventy-two mindless drones are watching intently. I can hear several sneering behind me. One coughed, three just laughed (such menace did the laughs contain) and I can’t hear anything other than ragged breathing. Do zombies…these things, breathe? Or laugh? I never heard of a zombie chortling before.

  I’m fucked basically…

  Napkin 6

  Fourteen minutes to go.

  Death hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe he took one look at this situation and swiftly turned in the other direction, said “fuck this” and jogged on.

  I wouldn’t blame him.

  So why haven’t I tried running away? You’re probably thinking that as you relish over turning my ordeal into a million dollar blockbuster…if you do, I want someone cool. Whatever you do, don’t hire some stupid rapper to play me.

  That probably makes me racist. Meh!

  I haven’t run because of my injured leg and the bloodthirsty crowd outside. It’s a bad combination. Would you run if you had a weeping cunt in your leg; denying you top speed, great mobility and even a chance to outrun your enemy?

  Didn’t think so.

  Despite this, well…and here is a moment of enlightenment for you.

  I don’t want to.

  Even with the cunt in my leg and Sandy and her choirgirls and the army of drones/zombies or whatever
you want to call them and the dire situation, I want to stay. Who’s to say the whole world isn’t like this? Where would I run to? It’s an excuse, but a fucking tangible one. Regardless though, I don’t want to run anymore.

  I’m fifty. I’m done with running.

  I’ve had enough. I feel my time has come and all of the demons from my past are catching up with me. To me, those seventy-two deadites out there are my comeuppance for my sins. For all the victims of my past. I don’t believe in God but only God could create something so evil, so debauched. I’m a psychopath and I’ve a firm grasp of what evil is, despite the fact we’re supposed to feign being evil and declare insanity.

  I’m a psycho but I know what I am. I don’t broadcast it but I keep it in check too.

  After all, I’ve never been caught.

  I believe the bodies outside are my karmic retribution.

  For John Piper, who used to bully me at school and enjoyed pissing on me and then took my lunch money claiming, “you gotta pay the Piper, son!” He did that for three days. I paid him alright when I sliced off his cock and shoved it in his mouth and made him choke on it.

  For Beverley, my first girlfriend. We fucked, she ran off with someone else. No one ever did find their quartered corpses at the bottom of Lake Whisper. Shame.

  For mother, who pushed me one too many times, punished me with a belt and a bamboo cane. Her head, or to be more exact, her skull is sitting on my mantelpiece at home. I don’t keep company often. I don’t keep her in the cellar, I want her to watch me forever, to be proud of me.

  For the tramp on Ninth Street who smeared shit on my leather jacket one time.

  For the teenager who tried mugging me. I carved his face with his own blunt knife.