Pacific, Ah

Yesterday I went to see a friend in Pacifica. The skies were blue and the weather was sunny and warm. On the drive down, the sound of Chuck Berry booming from bouncing speakers, the ocean looked cobblestoned and silver and the wind tap-danced on top if it, sending out shimmering waves. With my windows down the air sniffed at the interior of the car like an overly affectionate dog; against my shirt, the backseats, the dashboard, the glimmering hunk of metal in the passenger seat. This was no ordinary Sunday barbecue - we were going hunting, in bat country. The pistol was plastic, of course, a cap gun, filled with 5 rounds of liquid acid.

Baby doll, when bells ring out the summer free. The car bopped and bounced along Highway 1, hugging the curves, rocking to the rhythm, and I thought of J; of a time we spent once on the Russian River. Alcohol-fueled land-cruising in the north country, with wine in our veins and mischief on our minds we menaced the road; driving irresponsibly, having thrown safety to the wind. We'll sing old Alma Mater and think of things that used to be. I pressed my foot to the pedal and the wind pulled back my lips, dragging a demented grin across my face. When the teacher was gone that's when we'd have a ball...

It was just as I neared Pacifica that I saw it. An ugly shapeless mass, cotton-colored and creeping, calmly moving in toward the coast from the ocean. It was devouring the shore and stripping the sun from the beaches. Some dumb bastard must've let loose 40 cargo ships of dry ice on the Pacific! Great, I thought, these lowlife clouds are going to ruin the party. I swatted and shooed at them as I sped past, go go, go Johnny go, go, go Johnny go, go Johnny go! I rolled up the windows, but not before a cloud of cold white air made its way into the car. It spread itself around until I couldn't see the windshield, until I lost sight of the steering wheel. I fumbled for the window but my fingers were frostbitten and numb, the controls slippery and wet. There's a recurrent nightmare I have, where I'm driving along a winding mountainous road, but because of a mechanical failure or a problem with my eyes, I lose control of the car and go barreling off of a cliff, plummeting to a rocky demise. The dream seemed to take shape in this icy trespassing cloud and I felt the chill of foreboding. The cap gun! I lunged for the gun and fired two rounds into the thick pall, sucking the juice from the barrel before slamming the butt of the gun into driver's side window. It splintered with webbed hairline fractures before I jabbed it with my elbow, shattering the glass and expelling the fog like a fart.

I arrived at Dan's and greeted his wife and 4-year old son, T. It was a nice place, spacious, homey. We chatted about the virtues of silence, fear and desire. His wife regaled us with tales of double-amputee hustlers and train hoppers. Later, lying in hammocks, staring at the sky, we watching hawk fights and birds flying. The day escaped us and it was time to grill. T came out of the house and looked concerned. His eyes darted around and he approached me apprehensively. His head moved nervously, like a bird's, and he whispered: I'm not entirely certain I can trust you, but something is about to happen; something bad. Thinking he was humoring me I encouraged him to continue. He pulled a gun from behind his back and placed it in my lap, saying: You'll need this. I have three of them and we're all going to need them....they're coming. Alarmed, I inspected the gun to see if it was loaded. It was.

Convinced the boy was telling the truth, I asked him who was coming, what he needed me to do. Zombies, he said, all kinds of zombies; ogre zombies, ladder zombies, crawler zombies, mega zombies...bat zombies. Fuck, this was serious! We don't use the F word here, he said, I regret to inform you that you owe me a dollar now, but let's worry about that once we dispense with the zombies, because we might not make it out alive. What do you mean we might not make it, I asked, we HAVE to make it. My future depends on it! We were speaking too excitedly and our hushed whispers quickly became a barely concealed commotion. Dan turned from the grill and asked if everything was ok. T put his finger to his lips and I understood - we couldn't tell him yet.

We ate; giant juicy steaks, tasty chicken apple sausage and grilled corn on the cob sprinkled with sea-salt lemon-juice and grated Parmesan. I'd forgotten how good barbecued steak was. I almost started sopping up the blood off the plate with my tongue, and then I remembered: zombies. Dammit, now I was full of bloody meat, like a stuffed human piñata at a Mexican zombie birthday party. Nausea gurgled and swelled in my stomach, clawing its way up my esophagus. I excused myself from the table. While in the bathroom, curled over the bowl like a cane, I regurgitated chunks of steak and small kernels of corn. There was a chewed up cob stuck in my stomach somewhere, I could feel it. When I flushed the bowl, the water swirled mesmerizingly, swishing away in a spiral, and something seemed off. It was dead silent, too silent. The merry mirthful sound of conversation had dried up and I couldn't hear a thing. I spent what felt like tens of minutes listening for a sound, counting the beads of water on the shower curtain, reading the backs of shampoo bottles, looking at my pores in the mirror.

Then the sound of rushing feet. I heard T scream: Runnnnnn!! I gasped and reached for the gun he'd handed me earlier. I was sweating. I could see it dripping off of the back of my head when I looked in the mirror. My heart felt like a kick drum, played by a small Moroccan man inside my chest cavity. This was it - they were here. With shaking hands I cocked the gun and placed myself flat against the wall adjacent to the doorknob, like a piece of paper. Slowly, cautiously, I reached for the knob and quickly turned it. I yanked the door open and leapt from the bathroom with my gun pointed. The room was empty. Decisively, I made my way downstairs, into the basement, and when I turned the corner Dan jumped out from behind beaded curtains with a crossbow trained on my forehead. It's you, he said, thank god. I almost shot you; I thought you were one of them.

So you know then, I asked. Where is everyone?

We got split up he said. Just then, little T burst into the room wielding a shotgun and slammed the door behind him. Get down, he yelled. We dove behind the couch as a shotgun blast rang out. Quick, he said, it is imperative that you surrender your weapon. They're drawn to shiny metals; throw it over the couch. What, throw my gun, I asked. Are you sure that's a good idea? Don't we need these to fight them off with? Don't ask questions, he said, just do as I say. So I threw it. Then, the sound of slow rising laughter, from Dan and then T. My pupils were frantic and confused. What? Why are you laughing?

You imbecile, T said smiling and showing his teeth, I hadn't imagined it would be that easy to dispose of you. Grab him. Dan grabbed at me and I screamed out. NO! What are you doing?! We have to work together! They'll kill us all!! T thrust his weapon into my stomach and I lost my breath to a fit of coughing. No, he said, they're going to kill you. It was then that I realized what he had intended all along - he planned to use me to secure their escape. A large black hood fell over my face and I couldn't see. I felt it sliding over me as I was kicked into the floor and shoved into a giant burlap sack, like a strangely shaped, shitty potato. I cried out but my words were muffled by the bag. I thrashed and kicked and cursed and fought to tear my way through, when I fell out of a hammock onto the ground.

Is everything alright, Dan repeated from the grill. T was backing away, terrified, and I looked up at Dan as he came nearer. Hey man, what's wrong, he asked. ZOMBIES, I shouted, they're coming. You can't feed me to them! I pulled out my pistol, the one I had brought from the car, and fired off the remaining three rounds. One for Dan, one for the cat and one for T. Things got a lot more interesting after that.

It got dark. We sat around a fire and watched the stars. Orbs of various sizes glowed and pulsed around us. You don't really believe in zombies, do you, Dan asked.

For fuck's sake Dan, what do I look like, a god damned idiot?

The cat looked at me and said: No, you look like a pussy.

And then we laughed, and laughed, and laughed and laughed.