“Hilarious,” Paul mumbled as he walked away.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR – Talbot Journal Entry 11
"Gary, slow down,” I told him.
"I'm not even going fast,” he answered back.
"Something's not right, slow down,” I said, sitting up a little bit in my seat to get a better view.
"We've been through this Mike, you do not have Spidey sense,” Gary said with a smirk.
"STOP THIS TRUCK!" I screamed. He damn near threw me through the windshield as he slammed on the brakes. The truck came to a fishtailing halt.
"Happy? You woke the boys.”
Justin and Travis were both removing their faces from the front headrests.
I quickly got out of the truck, rifle at the ready. Our front tires were literally resting on the front edge of a spike strip.
"Damn,” Gary said getting out of the truck. “You saw that from way back there?"
A rifle shot rang out from the tree line fifteen feet away on the driver's side. Gary jumped over the hood and deposited himself on my lap. The boys were out the door before the echo of the shot was complete.
"I take it that was a warning shot!?" I yelled.
"It's twenty feet at the most, how could I have missed?" came the disembodied voice from the trees.
"You could have been prior Army,” I shouted back. Why do I provoke? I don’t know, we all have character flaws, but why do mine seem to always have the potential to get me killed?
"That's funny, just so happens that I am.”
“Always with the snappy line,” Gary admonished me.
"Semper Fi,” I yelled back.
"You don't say? A lot of people know that slogan.”
"Okay how about, ‘this is my rifle, this is my gun, one is for killing and one is for fun.’” "Better,” the voice said. "But Full Metal Jacket is a personal favorite of mine.”
"Alright, how about this, the unofficial Marine Corps motto.”
"I'm listening.”
"Lie, deny and counter blame.”
"Fine, I believe you to be a jarhead now but that sure as hell doesn’t make us friends.” "But maybe we shouldn't be enemies either. What do you want?" I asked.
"That should be obvious, we want your truck. Our car broke down a few miles ago and this walking crap is for the birds.” "Now I know you're an Army dog and all, but what makes you think we carry four spare tires around with us?"
"Well, hadn't really thought it out until you said that.”
"There's gotta be ten thousand cars in the general area, why take ours?"
"Well we DID think of that,” he said defensively, “but we keep coming across these hives of zombies and if you get anywhere near them they get real hungry real fast.” "Been there, done that!” Travis shouted.
"Gary, hold my rifle. I'm standing up! I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me.” "I'll do my best.”
"Comforting.”
"Don’t worry we aren’t the Air Force,” the voice said mockingly.
"Hey!" Gary said as he stood up. “I was in the Air Force! It was a very honorable branch of the military!"
"Don't get your feathers ruffled, friend,” the voice said apologetically as its owner emerged from the tree line, rifle in one hand off to his side.
"How many of there are you?" I asked as Gary handed me my rifle and I placed it over my shoulder.
"Four,” he answered. “Two on this side and two on the other. Yeah, you were pretty much goners.” All of the people came out of the woods looking like they had just come from a camouflage expo.
"It's not what you think,” our initial contact person stated. “All of us know about camouflage but we're not those crazy survivalist types.” "You say that as if it's a bad thing,” I told him.
"Yeah, I guess there's nothing wrong with being alive,” he mused, “This whole thing started while we were in cami’s so we figured we should stick to what works. We were up in the hills, a place called Oak Ridge Hollows, it was a company sponsored paint ball event. Hell, we were having a good old time, drinking beer, barbequing, shooting our bosses multiple times with paint balls.” ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t have done to have been able to do that,” I thought wistfully.
"And this one guy, Sully, he starts getting sick. I mean violently. It was shooting out his mouth and his ass. I could see his trousers stained in crap and blood. I just thought the fat bastard was getting sick from running around all over the place. Most exercise he probably ever got was when he squatted on the shitter and made a toilet baby. Somebody thought to call an ambulance, but hell, we were forty minutes out of town, it was going to be a wait. So everyone kind of sat in their cars or branched off in small groups. A few were with Sully, but you didn't need a medical degree to figure out that he wasn't going to make it. I'd seen guys in combat with limbs blown off that looked better than he did. He died twenty minutes before the ambulance even got there. That was kind of the end of the event.” "Yeah, I could see how that would put a damper on things,” I told him.
"You from Boston?" he asked.
"Yeah, the accent gives it away,” I told him.
"No, it’s the sarcasm, had two guys in my unit from Southie. Their accents were a little thicker than yours and just about everything was 'Wicked Pissah.' But the sarcasm man, they just never let up.” "Yeah, that sounds just about right for Southie boys.”
"Still, I was pretty sad when their Hummer got blown up. The camp lost a lot of color when they moved on.” I took my hat off to pay my respects.
"Anyway,” he said, trying to pull himself away from that unhappy thought, “You remind me of them.” "Yeah, but in a live way right?" I said to him.
"Yeah, but in a live way,” he reiterated. “So a bunch of people start heading home. I mean, what the hell else could they do? But Sully was in my department and for some misaligned sense of duty I figured I should stay with him. My girlfriend here Cindy, Cindy Martell and my buddy Jack O'Donnell and his girlfriend Perla Tirado, we all stayed behind with most of the bosses. Me and Jack were sharing a smoke a few feet away when Cindy came up the large entryway to the playing field, she and Perla were leading the ambulance in. I threw my cigarette down and started walking over to where Sully was and by now it was dusk. The red and blue lights of the ambulance were making everything dance. I looked down to the cigarette wondering if Jack had laced it with anything because Sully was up and the fat bastard was eating, he was eating Lipstein. I mean literally gnawing through his neck.” I don’t know why he thought I needed extra explaining. It wasn't like I was going on the faith of his words alone.
"I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but all I had on me was my paint ball marker. I started running towards the scene, pelting Sully with yellow and green balls. He didn’t even look up as blood spewed out of the side of Lip's neck. The other higher ups had just taken off, left their own to die. Jack comes running up beside me, asking me what the hell I'm doing,” "Thought I was going to puke,” Jack said succinctly.
"Yeah, that's the usual state of affairs when you first come across them,” I said to him, sharing in his pain.
"I guess I finally pissed Sully off when I nailed him in the eye. He dropped Lip and started heading my way. I kept pulling the trigger but what was the use. Jack pulled me out of there.” "We were in Fallujah together,” was all Jack said, and that really summed it up. Looking out for your buddies was the main thing you did in combat.
"I don’t know what happened to Sully,” our 'host' said. Cindy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, remembering the events of that night. “So that's about it, the four of us have been on the run ever since. Oh yeah, and my name is Brian, Brian Wamsley.” "Dude, I don’t need last names,” I told him.