Tomahawks & Zombies

by Joe Beausoleil

  Ron drained his drink and chimed in, “I don't care what's going on in the rest of the world. We don't need to know. I care about what's going on back home and what's going on outside these doors.”

  He's right. The rest of the world isn't our problem, not when we were hungry and far from home. We don’t even know what’s going on down the block. What’s important to us has really shrunk down to our immediate area.

  We finished the last of Ron’s rum as we took turns watching out the window and thinking about our next move. We can’t stay. No food. No water.

  I should record our names. I’m Jake Wanderingspirit from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I was on vacation in Cancun when some kind of global outbreak happened. I am trapped in a hotel with my friends Dave Friesen and Ron Mackowey. I’m recording what’s happening and what I know about the madness that is going on. I don’t know what we are going to do but we want to go home. We want to get out of here, to someplace safe. Is there any place safe?

  December 27

  The Cuba plan is out. Dave absolutely refuses to even discuss it; all he talks about is getting home to his wife. Ron and I want to get home to help our families as well but shouldn’t we be realistic? It’s a long way to go when you have no way to get there or know what you will find when and if you do. Cuba is close, just a boat ride away, we could make it. They love Canadians. It’s a safe place (last report) to wait, find out just what the hell is going on before we make the trek home. Maybe the government will even fly us home, they have done it before in times of disaster helping stranded Canucks…always well after every other country has but still. I don’t know where the embassy is, probably in Mexico City.

  There is no point staying here, it’s not safe. We can’t stay. I want to stay but we can’t. Last night, we heard screams in the streets and shooting in the distance. The power is out. We are sitting in our dark hotel room, peeking out the windows. The water is out. Food is gone. Working on little sleep from the night before we come up with something of a plan:

  Get a car or truck, and head north. Avoid Mexico City. Stop only for fuel and food. Take turns driving and we can get to the Mexican-US border in a couple days. That’s our plan, drive north. First we need a vehicle to get out of town. A car and a lot of luck.

  Before we leave we decide to explore our abandoned hotel one last time to find supplies. There is no one here, everyone left days ago, but every step I took made me think I heard something. Prying open the kitchen’s walk in freezer we loaded up on frozen tacos. At least we have some food. I am pissed that they would serve frozen tacos in Mexico but I’ll save that for a strongly worded letter when we get home. I found a meat cleaver on the floor. It’s well used, heavy and sharp. Everything else was cleared out, looted by the staff when they left days ago. I can’t blame them, if we knew what was going on we would have left too. We are lucky the language barrier hasn’t gotten us killed. From a linen closet, we loaded up on towels. You are supposed to steal the hotel towels. It feels normal. Ron grabs a mop, something to keep some distance from those bastards is his reasoning.

  For water we empty the tank behind the toilet and fill whatever plastic bottles we have.

  Venturing into the city, we stuck close to the buildings and were on the lookout for anyone alive or dead. A few blocks from the hotel we found a suitable vehicle, an abandoned taxi. What looked like hair and flesh is embedded in the grill, the hood is smeared red and the windshield is cracked and spider webbed on the passenger side. The dash is covered in an array of statues to the goddess of death, Santa Muerte has more followers then she knows, more and more every day. Most importantly, the keys are dangling in the ignition.

  The driver window was open just enough that I could reach my arm in and unlock it. Ron holding his mop like a spear and Dave scanning the abandoned street, I open the door. With my meat cleaver at the ready, I opened the front door and I jumped in. I quickly unlocked the passenger door for Ron and the back door for Dave. Dave opens the door but yells and fell backward on to the street. The car wasn't empty. No one checked the back seat. Up sits Cristobal, I bring my meat clever up and start to swing. He ducks. The meat clever sunk deep into the passenger seat head rest.

  “What the hell are you gringos still doing here?” Cris said as he rubbed the sleep from his bloodshot eyes. Valid question. Cris told us after he dropped us off he went home but it was too late. That's all he would say about that. Just that he was too late. Since then he’s been sleeping in his car because it was safer than anywhere he could find. We kicked out the empty bottles from the back seat and throw in our gear. Sleep wasn't the only thing he was doing here, drinking and then urinating in the bottles. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to leave his safe spot.

  “Playing the odds” was his comment when he saw me looking that the dash that had a lot more goddess of death statues on it than the night he helped us escape the airport. “The shrine was open until yesterday, now it’s a burnt out shell.”

  Ron nodded to the blood stained hood and smashed window, “What happened?”

  “Crazy shit, that’s what happened, “ Cris said, “Real loco shit.”

  I figure we’ve wasted enough time sitting here so before he can say anything else I told him “Two choices. You can come with us or get the hell out.” The look on my face told him I was serious. Honestly, I would have done whatever it took to get that car and get out of there.

  “It's ironic that the robber is being robbed, but sure. Where are we headed?”

  Cancun is a small tourist town and getting out wasn't hard. Not as hard as I thought after seeing images of cities like New York, L.A, or even Paris. In their shorts, swim trunks and bikinis, the undead, caught while enjoying the sun and sand, now limp and shamble after us, the sound of the engine seemed to attract them. One moment the street was deserted, the next they came from around the corner with eyes locked on us.

  “Hey, I think I slept with that one.” Ron said as we past what was once a beautiful girl.

  Liar.

  December 28

  The air conditioning doesn’t work. The rolled down windows just blast the hot Mexican air on us like a furnace. What we need most is water; Dave gulped the last half bottle a few hours into the ride. It’s uncomfortably hot with four guys in the taxi. We get irritated at the slightest movement. There is nothing like a sweaty hairy thigh rubbing against your sweaty hairy thigh to put you in a bad mood. Skin sticking to the hot cracked vinyl adds to the discomfort. The peeling sound your thigh makes as you try to find a more comfortable position only to discover there isn’t one. After hours of driving Ron tossed Cris’s Mexican pop CD out the window. “Good,” Dave says” I can't take that shit anymore.”

  We tell Cris our plan as he tunes the radio.

  “Where my car goes I go, and you’re crazy if you think I'm going to Canada.”

  I assure him we will part company as soon as we get another vehicle.

  Cris translates that most stations have little news, just telling people to bar your doors and stay inside.

  “They bite you, then soon you become one of them…for the most part.”

  I ask him about that and he tells me there is a rumour that someone was bitten but didn’t turn.

  “Lies maybe.”

  The roads are pretty empty, just a few cars speeding the other way and a couple cars pass us. We drove all night, stopping only to switch drivers and once to siphon gas out of an abandoned truck left jacked up with a flat tire. Exhausted, tonight we pulled off the road and hid behind some trees. Too scared to set foot, let alone sleep outside in the darkness, we try to sleep in the taxi and urinate in bottles. The windows are open just a crack.

  December 29th.

  In the morning we looked all around before we open the door. With no signs of the undead, I cautiously stepped out cautiously stretching my legs. Four sweaty guys in a confined space creates a real stink, we open the doors to air out the taxi.

  No one got a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t
just Dave’s snoring, or trying to sleep sitting up, or someone’s hot stinky body slumping against me, the slightest sound outside woke me up.

  We’re low on gas. Cris tells us his home town isn’t too far away he thinks we can make it. We have to trust him. We have no choice.

  A road block, with ten to fifteen police cruisers, trucks and SUVs set up on the highway.

  We stop well away to talk it over. They could be dead or undead or whatever the hell those things are. If undead we should be able to maneuver around the vehicles and bump them out of the way and if they are alive they could have water, a safe place, and news. We are going to try it.

  Cris gave a friendly honk as we approached. They were alive and armed.

  “Maybe I'll tell them you kidnapped me and they’ll throw you gringos into prison,” Cris said with a grin. Not sure if the smile was because he was joking or imagining us in prison. Dave was convinced that the police could help and dug into his bag for his passport clutching it like a golden ticket.

  Two officers with machine guns motioned us to stop thirty yards from the road block. Cris stopped the car then made the sign of the cross on his chest.

  Bandits. Corrupt police have turned to robbing people. Everything is gone.

  The police dumped out packs on the hood of a cruiser taking what they wanted, our cameras, liquor, watches, passports, and money, leaving the rest of our belongings scattered on the highway. I protested trying to pull my backpack out of an officer’s grip but was met with a kick to the midsection that knocked the wind out of me. As I lay on the hot asphalt, the officer brought his boot up and was about to bring it down on my face when Cris got him to stop by giving the officer a roll of cash.

  More importantly, then our belonging the cops confiscate the taxi. Quickly we gathered our backpacks and whatever we could. Cris talked them into leaving us our machetes, which they threw in the direction they wanted us to go.

  “They have no use for steel when they have bullets,” Cris translated. “I told them I needed a drink to deal with you guys.” He pulled out a bottle, they let him keep, and took a sip. Tequila trickled down his chin.

  As the sun beat down we walked on. I apologized to Cris for losing his car. He shrugged his shoulders and passed me the bottle, “The police were corrupt long before this.”

  At dusk we headed off the road finding some high rocks so we can sleep in some kind of safety. Using the stolen hotel towels we lay them on the rocks to keep the coolness away from our body. We are still exposed to the elements but safe high off the ground. It gets surprisingly chilly at night in the desert. I thought Mexico was always hot. I take first watch as the full moon slowly moves across the sky. For a second I thought I heard gunfire coming from the roadblocks direction. Just a few faint pops, the breeze taking the sound away before I could be sure.

  December 30

  Desert.

  Vultures circled overhead as the early morning sun woke us. That’s never a good sign.

  My back is sore from sleeping on the boulder, and my ribs are sore from the beating. Ron yawned, complaining about Dave’s snoring.

  “What if those things are attracted to sound?”

  Dave glared at him before he spoke. “Your farting is louder than my snoring.”

  Those things followed the car in Cancun. Those things, who am I fooling? Those things are the undead. The undead followed the car out of Cancun. They can hear. What else can they do? Can they think? Feel? Do they know what they have become? Do they know who they once were? I’m not going to ask them. I’d rather never see one again.

  From the height of our boulder I scanned the horizon, squinting to block the white sun out of my eyes. Not a soul around. It’s a long walk in the relentless heat, the horizon shimmered with heat waves as Cris assured us he knew the way. He damned well better, we have no water. I’m still sweating which is a good sign. The salt stings my eyes and coats my body. Hours later, thirsty and exhausted, we came to a small town. We cautiously approached sticking to the edges of the street, ducking for cover behind parked cars, stopping in our tracks whenever we heard the slightest sound until we make it to Cris’ brother’s place. It’s a sleepy little town, so far no signs of the undead. Cris greets his brother, Claudio, with a hug and after quick introductions he motions us inside. They bar the door and offer us food and drink. We were so thirsty that we didn’t even question drinking the water in Mexico. Exhausted I fell asleep.

  December 31

  Loma Bonita, Mexico.

  We are an oddity in town, not just because we are foreigners but also that no one has come to town in days and those who left were never heard from again. Cris tells me that was pretty much how the town was before all this happened. The young people leave for better jobs and opportunities in the city and resort areas. It reminds me of rural Alberta and some reserves, kids lured for the big city or jobs in the oil field. Now, no one is leaving for a better life.

  Last night I dreamt. I kept seeing those lipless mariachi. They reminded me of stories I heard when I was young. A story told by a great uncle, who heard this story when he was young.

  It was winter, a relative someone whose name is now lost and forgotten, was checking a trap line near Lac La Biche. As he walked deep in the bush, he saw a form coming his way. He stopped to wave but something about the silhouette of the figure wasn’t right, just a gut feeling he had. He slowly walked backward retracing his foot prints, careful to fit in the tracks he had just made. He quickly found shelter scurrying under a large pine tree.

  As he heard the figure’s crunching footsteps into snow, he held his breath, mouthing a silent prayer to the creator. Peaking out between the branches he had to cover his mouth in order to remain silent from what he saw; an emaciated figure, bones jutting out tightly against its ash grey, blue skin, it walked slowly and stiffly but with purpose. It paused at where the tracks suddenly ended; confused it caulked its head like a dog, looking at the foot prints from one angle then another trying to make sense of tracks going forward suddenly stopping. It looked around, sniffing the air like a wolf. The odour of the Windigo hit him like a slap in the face, breathing through his mouth so not to gag on the smell. He knew the slightest noise and the creature would find him.

  It seemed to stare right at him and it was then he saw this creatures face for the first time; gaunt hollow cheeks, ripped and peeled back lips, a raw blood stained jaw with deep scratch marks like the creature clawed at its own mouth, and deep sunken hateful eyes. He saw it for only a second, that’s all he could manage, holding back the urge to run screaming into the night, he creped deeper into the safety of the tree. Like a scarred rabbit, he stayed motionless, his heart thumped in his chest so loudly that he did not hear the creature move off. Long after he creature was gone, the stench of decay hung in the air the reek of rotting flesh, death and pure evil.

  He left the traps unchecked and made it back to town, before he could share what happened he heard the news of another trapper had went crazy and ate his family before disappearing deep in to the bush.

  These things out there now are just like the Windigo; both driven by gluttony, and intense greed. It doesn’t matter how much they eat, they are never satisfied. I’ve seen them with a mouth full of warm flesh. They are stalking others again. In the legends once transformed, a person would become violent and obsessed with eating human flesh, they would become a cannibalistic.

  Like a lot of the gods and spirits, I was told, they ran and hid when it was clear that the white man was here to stay, but now the Windigo has comeback with a vengeance.

  I kept these thoughts to myself as we drink beer in the shade. Ron spoke up telling them that even though nothing has happened yet the town isn’t secured; no one has done anything for defence.

  The highway runs right through town and if it’s not zombies, it’s going to be corrupt police or looters; either way someone they don’t want here is eventually going to come.

  Claudio and his friends agree and a plan is quickly made
. Soon the whole town is helping out.

  Pushing old rusted, faded cars and other debris to block the roads into town. Everyone pitched in to help, using trucks to tow cars and manpower to get them set just right. There are only two ways in to town, both can be locked up easily, the rest of the town has a seven foot barricade at all entry points.

  After a lot of work, it’s time for a New Years Eve celebration at Claudio’s place, thankfully there’s no mariachi band, just lots of people, food and beer. Someone started to fire off fireworks. Cris stopped them, the sound may attract the undead. An exhausting day. It was good to see people come together. After a few drinks the pain in my ribs feels better.

  Happy New Year.

  January 1st

  Loma Bonita, Mexico.

  Cris and Claudio are so thankful for our help in securing the town that they gave us an old truck. It’s not much, a faded baby blue ’58 Chevy Apache, it runs rough (the engine lifters making a ticking noise) and has no power steering but it runs. There are no illusions that this truck is going to take us all the way home, that’s just not going to happen. When it breaks down we’ll find something. Anything will do.

  They gave us a lesson on hot wiring cars, which will come in handy. Their tip is to find older cars and trucks that don’t have fancy computer chip keys or jam a screw driver in the ignition and turn. “If that works you save yourself a load of trouble,” Cris said with a smile that showed he has done this once or twice before, as he handed over a couple old screwdrivers.

  A few of the old ladies give us each a rough wool blanket that is sure to come in handy. We have nothing to give them as a token of thanks for taking us in. An old man gives Ron a well worn straw cowboy hat. It helps complete his redneck look.

  They ask us to stay just one more day but we’ve already said our goodbyes (I hate goodbyes) besides one look at Dave and I can see he doesn’t want to delay getting home longer.