'Til Death Do Us Part (18 page)

Mike
Journal Entry 3

“
Why would you do that?
”
I asked in alarm. There were times to take acid, most of them revolved around good friends, about
twenty-five
backwards revolutions of the earth around the sun and some great tunes. None of those things were in attendance right now.
“
John.
”

“
Who? Whoa I
’
m seeing trails.
”

“
John the Tripper, we
’
re about to face zombies
,
man
, and you gave me acid. I don’
t even know how to deal with this right now.
”

“
Relax
, man,
”
John the Tripper said
,
putting his hand on my arm.
“
It
’
ll happen on its own.
”

I
’
d had a few
‘
bad trips
’
over the years, one involved a girl and the other was just a low point in my life
, felt like the world was crashing down. The key word in my last statement was
‘
felt
’
like it was crashing down. How the hell was I going to react now that it really was? I think the years had wizened me enough that I would be able to handle the onslaught of the chemicals to a certain extent
,
but we were still talking about tripping on acid during the destruction of a city on fire during a zombie invasion, this ough
t
ta be a blast.
(
Can you see the sarcasm dripping off of the page?
)

“
We gotta get out of here
,
man
,
before this kicks in.
”

“
Before what kicks in
,
man?
”
John the Tripper asked as he was staring intently at the webbing between his fingers.
“
I
’
m a fucking dolphin,
”
h
e told me.

“
Let
’
s go
,
Flipper.
”
T
hen I laughed, my time was running short.

I almost stepped
down into the garage when John pulled me back
in.
I noted
apprehensively
how easily I almost lost my balance. His face looked drawn out
,
but his eyes burned bright.
“
Wait!
”
h
e shouted
loudly
as if we were at a Black Sabbath concert. I
’
d seen them three times but never with Ozzy, twice with the great one Ronnie James Dio at the helm
,
and once with Ian Gillian of Deep Purple fame, not that any of this is conducive to the story it
’
s just to show that my thoughts were beginning to stray even more so than usual.

“
What
’
s the matter?
”
I asked, thinking that maybe
the cool
er was out of beer.
For
the briefest of seconds I did not even acknowledge the fact that quite possibly he was talking about zombies. I
’
m not sure if my life had been in greater danger at
any one point more so than now
just because I was not aware of my surroundings.

“
Don
’
t take your hat off…not ever,
”
h
e said
,
then the corners of his eyes crinkled up from his infectious smile.
“
Want a beer?
”

“
Sure do.
”

“
Well let
’
s go
,
the cooler is in the van.
”

When
’
d he do that?
I thought,
“
Well that
’
s one benefit o
f the zombie apocalypse…
drunk driving isn
’
t a crime anymore.
”

At some point
,
John was no longer next to me but h
ad opened the door to his van and
was now seated comfortably in the back seat. I walked over and was about to get into the driver
’
s
seat
when I noticed he wasn
’
t shutting his door.

“
You want me to get that?
”
I asked
,
looking at him through the rear
view mirror. He looked up at me with a startled expression.

“
Get what?
”

“
Right,
”
I said as I got back out and slid his door closed. I shut my door, the do
me light went out and
the garage
suddenly
seemed darker by significant degrees sin
ce we had started this endeavor.
The
ash that had been sifting through the numerous structural holes now looked as if it was being pumped in. We were in serious danger of death by smoke inhalation and I
had suddenly become
fascinated by all the numbers and letters on the dials of the VW
’
s dashboard.

John tapped lightly on my shoulder with a beer, it brought me back.
“
Thanks,
”
I told him. It was a cold Old Milwaukee in a can, not necessarily my favorite. But I had adopted a new
beer credo for the end of times:
my new favorite beers were
,
first
,
free ones
,
and secondly
,
cold ones
.
John had fulfilled both of those obligations. I popped the tab and was amazed at the feeling of the
carbonated bubbles as the
y
bounced off my nose and adhered to
the remainder of
my moustache and goatee. That first pull of that disgusting beer might as well have been nectar flown down to earth by the gods themselves. I was momentarily in Heaven right up until zombies began to break into John
’
s house.

“
Party crasher
s,
”
John laughed as he pointed behind him. Zombies were at the entrance to John
’
s garage.
“
Must have left the door unlocked. I do that a lot.
”

“
Shit,
”
I said
,
praying that when I turned the key in the ignition
the van would start;
but that would only solve one problem
.
I truly didn
’
t think that the zombies would be so kind as to open the garage door for me.

The van rocked as the first of our uninvited
‘
guests
’
slammed into the side. The van started as John had promised
,
and it sounded good, but was about as useless as tits on a turtle if we couldn
’
t get out of the garage.
T
hen I busted o
ut laughing over my crappy quip.
I mean to the point where my stomach was cramping, the muscles on the side of my face that controlled smiling were in agony because I was smiling so long and so hard, tears were rolling down my face.
T
o compound it, zombies were at my window
,
biting and gnashing at the glass which just seemed like the funniest fucking thing on the planet at the moment. Somewhere deep, deep down inside
,
I kn
ew I was in a world of trouble. W
eird thing about it was
that
I just didn
’
t care.

It had been a long time since I had been able to just let loose
,
and I guess when you
’
re faced with your imminent demise
,
that
’
s as good a time as any.

“
You see his mug?
”
I said
,
tears still streaming as I pointed to the nearest
zombie. I looked into the rear
view mir
ror and immediately sobered up—
if only for a moment. John was playing with something, much like someone else I had loved had been doing so long ago, felt like about
forty
years
,
but in reality was only about
six
months
previous
.

“
What do you have there?
”
I asked John

John was busy s
weeping his hand back and forth.
I couldn
’
t tell because the zombies were so loud crashing into things
,
but I think John was even making airplane noises.

“
John the Tripper!
”
I yelled.

He stopped mid-
flight.

“
What do you have there
,
buddy?
”

“
Who the hell is
‘
Buddy
’
and this is a garage door opener that I am pretending is the plane that took me to San Francisco back in
‘
69 to catch the Dead.

My excitement was short-
lived as I realized that
,
without power
,
the opener
was better off as the toy plane…and
then the garage door rumbled open. I didn
’
t give a shit how, I dropped the transmission into drive and h
eaded out.
I had to go over the lawn to avoid a small contingent of zombies in the driveway.

“
Don
’
t hit her azaleas or she
’
ll have a cow. Ran over them once with my
Segway. S
he was pissed for twelve years
,
three months
, and a day-and-a-
half
.
”

“
So it took her that first part of a half day, twelve years
,
and three months later to get over it?
”
I asked.
He said it so seriously
that
I could not doubt
how long she was mad;
the
Segway
part though was a little tough to swallow.

“
And a day,
”
h
e answered as he shrugged his shoulders. 

“
How
’
d the garage door open
,
John?
”
I asked.

He looked up again then past the mirror to the window outside. His hand immediately flew up to his head where he touched the tin foil hat and became comforted.
“
When
’
d we g
et
outside?
”