Whistlers

Michael Talbot — Journal Entry 13

After a few moments of sitting in silence, we both know that we should to be moving on. The day wasn’t getting any younger, and we still hadn’t found a place to hole up when night came around. Without a word, we both rose and walked down to the road.

“What are these fucking things?” I could barely look at them to formulate the question.

“I’m not sure, but I can’t help believing that they’re the reason this place is screwed up.”

Jack was kneeling by the one I was looking at. He had pulled off a glove and its jacket. Skinny wasn’t even the word that I would have used to describe the thing I was looking at. Its forearm wasn’t much more than two of my fingers wide. I knew immediately what Jack had been looking for; we were both looking at the weapon strapped to its arm. It appeared that the triggering mechanism was activated when the wrist bent upwards. Kind of like Spider-Man. There was a black box about the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes attached right below its wrist. Protruding from one end, and running up the length of its arm, was a piece of what looked like aluminum shaped exactly like the staple that had been yanked from my back.

“Is that a rail gun?” I asked him.

He surprised me when he picked up the whistler’s arm. Personally I wouldn’t have touched it. He aimed it to the far side of the bridge and then moved its wrist. We could hear the whine of the ricochet as the round struck concrete.

“I have got to have me one of those!” Trip was heading towards another whistler.

It took twenty minutes of cajoling and promising that we would get him one once we could eventually figure out a safer way to use them.

“You’ll send shots down range every time you make a toking action.” He seemed alright with that explanation.

There were four motorcycles that were still serviceable. I had not ridden anything with two wheels since I was twelve and rode my friend’s mini-bike — which I had blown the engine of not a half mile into my tour. I had two options. Ride double-bitch (Trip did not know how to ride) or take a crash course, I hope the ‘crash’ part was just a saying. I put it on the ground a couple of times until I felt more comfortable.

“We should get going,” Jack said, looking up to the sky and the dipping sun.

Trip was directly behind him blowing smoke from a joint past his face.

“Do you mind?” Jack asked him.

“I don’t, man, I don’t.” Trip was all smiles. “Giddy-up!”

“This ought to be fun,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

“Where should we go?” I asked him.

“Atlantis, of course.”

“Of course,” I echoed.

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