The drop, p.26
The Drop, page 26
Then we hugged again. After that, I went to my room and wept. I wept because we're all in denial. We're all just pretending that somehow this is going to get better, but in my heart, I know where this is going. This is heading downhill, fast. I'm worried that he's going to die. I'm worried that I'm going to lose my dad, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I know dad wants to let me off the hook for that. He doesn't want me to have to experience his death first-hand, but that's what you do for family. That's what you do when someone gets sick. I get that now. No, there's no way I'm going to let him do this on his own. If this does end in death, and I can't see a way that it won't, I'm going to be there to hold his hand, to let him know that I love him and care for him. I'm going to be a good daughter, right up until the moment that I'm no longer a daughter anymore.
He's in there watching the news right now. He's already got The Drop, so he has no fear of the TV. For my part, I'm popping Advil like crazy. Listening to those damn headphones all day has really done me in.
We watched that news conference together with the subtitles on... with that guy that worked for Whoa-Town. I can't believe it. I can't believe that a fucking boy band is responsible for the end of the world. No, check that. I always kind of knew there was something evil about boy bands. Maybe that's why I refused to listen to that garbage in the first place, even when I was a little girl. I will admit that Eastwood guy was kind of hunky though. I still don't understand how all this could be. That's above my pay grade, I guess. That's what guys in army movies say.
Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and everything will be back to normal.
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CDC Press Release - May 24, 2021
For immediate release:
The CDC has determined that Whoa-Town is the cause of HFOD. All exposure to Whoa-Town's album "The Drop" should be halted at once. CDC scientists are still trying to determine how the music causes HFOD, but experiments have been inconclusive in identifying anything specific in the composition of the music that would have an effect on the human brain.
CDC scientists are 99% sure that the music of Whoa-Town is at fault. A cure is in the works, but until then, the new stage of HFOD should be taken seriously. The new stage is characterized by extreme depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. While these behaviors do not lead specifically to death, those suffering from the newest stage of HFOD need to be isolated and protected, until we know where this is leading.
If you have any leads or news about HFOD, please feel free to call our toll-free hotline at 1-800-739-xxxx.
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Manhunt for Whoa-Town Begins - The Sun - U.K. - May 24, 2021
By Michelle Trout
With the bombshell today that researchers at the CDC and WHO have determined that Whoa-Town's album, "The Drop" is in fact responsible for HFOD, a manhunt has begun to locate the band, whose last whereabouts were reportedly in a Mexico City airport over three days ago.
The people leading the investigation, a coalition of investigators from Europe, North America, and Asia, say that it is very likely that Whoa-Town is on the run. Experts think they may be moving towards a South American country, though with the resources at their disposal, they could be anywhere.
American investigators are currently trying to get a warrant to freeze the accounts of Whoa-Town, and most of the Central American governments have agreed to suspend their extradition laws in the event that Whoa-Town is discovered in their country.
Whitehouse Spokesman Steven Fitzgerald says, "It's important that we find them now and not later. The likelihood that something happens to these people before we can get to them is rather high. There are a lot of angry people out there. Whoa-Town's music spread so far, so fast, that there isn't a country in the world that isn't affected by this situation. All it takes is one angry family member, and poof they're gone, and we miss out on getting the answers we need for a possible cure, or at the very least possible justice."
Authorities have established hotlines for anyone that thinks they know the whereabouts of members of Whoa-Town. On the FBI's website, they have photos of all those thought to be with Whoa-Town at this time.
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From the Journals of Katherine Maddox
May 25, 2021
Dear Journal,
I went to the grocery store today. It was a total shit show. The police have basically shut down all the grocery stores in Springfield. When I got there, the lights were off inside the grocery store, which was weird because it's a 24-hour type of deal. I got out of Dad's car and walked up to the door.
There was a poster on the door. I had to wait a couple minutes while the people in front of me each took turns reading the poster. I knew it was bad news because each one of them left in a hurry without saying anything, grim looks on their faces. Turns out all resources in the city, things like food and water, and most importantly, coffee, have been gathered into one secure location. Police are rationing supplies. I wrote down the address and then used my phone to figure out where the hell I was going.
Even though my phone gave me directions, I could have just gotten on the highway and followed the traffic. The road to the warehouse where they were storing the food was backed up for a mile. I sighed as I got in line, then turned off the engine to conserve gas, knowing that it's probably just a matter of time until there's a gas shortage as well. I knew Dad should have gotten an electric car when he had the chance. He said they had no balls. When I said cars can't reproduce, so they don't need balls, he just laughed. Who's laughing now, Dad? No one, I guess.
After two hours, soldiers wearing bright, orange vests guided me into a parking lot and a parking space. A clipboard-wielding woman came up to the car and asked me a bunch of questions, scanned my driver's license, and wrote down the license plate of Dad's car. Once that was done, I was given a basket and a ration card. Then she let me get out of the car and walked me into the warehouse.
The rules were pretty lax. Basically, I could have anything I wanted as long as it fit into the basket. I thought, well that's no big deal. I can fit a shitload into a basket. Only problem was, most of the good stuff was gone. The stuff that would keep had been picked clean. There would be no Beefaroni for dinner that night.
Milk was entirely absent, though there was plenty of canned stuff. I picked up a couple of cans of evaporated milk just in case we needed it. The butter was gone as well, but there was plenty of margarine. I found the pasta section... no spaghetti, just elbow macaroni, penne, and lasagna noodles.
It was crowded inside of the huge warehouse. I don't know what they normally kept in there, but it made your average IKEA look cute and homey by comparison. Row after row of white shelves lined the walls. The majority of those shelves were empty, picked over by the crowds of wide-eyed people rushing through the warehouse, red, plastic baskets gripped in their hands. It seemed like every healthy body in Springfield was there.
People shopped with panic on their faces, like at any moment the authorities were going to shut the whole operation down. Many of the people spent an inordinate amount of time making decisions. I watched one lady with a full basket vacillate between sacrificing precious space for a can of sliced olives or a small jar of raspberry jam for the entire length of time it took me to walk down the aisle. I looked over my shoulder as I turned down the next aisle, and she was still looking at the items as if waiting for one of them to sprout a mouth and shout, "Take me home!"
In the next aisle, I spotted a look I hadn't seen in some time... an HFOD kid in a baseball hat, trailing along behind his mom. Among all of the panicked, stressed, and worried faces, the kid's face stood out like a puddle of blood in a field of snow. I almost dropped my basket. We had all heard the announcements. We had all heard about the rules. How was this one HFOD kid still walking around with his Tranquil face, and why would the mother allow such a thing?
I think she sensed my curiosity because she turned and looked at me, then looked at her child. She pulled the baseball hat low over his face and told the boy to keep his head down. I just smiled at her as I passed, hoping that somewhere there was a jar of marinara sauce to go with the elbow macaroni I had thrown in my cart.
I passed a section of spices, largely untouched, when I saw a group of four, uniformed men hustling up the aisle in my direction. They had serious looks on their faces, like they were getting ready for a shootout at the O.K. Corral or something. I leaned in tight against the shelves as they passed, fearing that I had done something wrong and that they were coming for me. The thought crossed my mind that I had possibly fucked this up, and me and my dad weren't going to have anything to eat, but they swept by me, and then I knew where they were going.
I turned and watched as they confronted the woman with the HFOD child. One man grabbed the boy by the shoulders, knocked the baseball cap off of his head, and bent over to look him in the face. He asked him a series of questions, and I stood there like an asshole watching it all. The woman fought to reach her son, but the other men kept her back. Eventually, the man stood back up, spun the kid around and zip-tied his hands together behind his back. They led him away, the woman trailing after them, asking where they were taking her child. I could see the panic on her face, and it made me ashamed to have even witnessed such a thing. I could barely swallow the fact that I had said nothing. I had just let it happen.
The thought kept running through my mind, "This is America. This is America... things like this shouldn't be happening." But they were, and then I pounced on the woman's abandoned shopping basket, pulling a jar of marinara free before other people started rifling through the woman's forgotten groceries.
I backed away as people started fighting over the things in her basket, throwing punches and cursing at each other. I clutched the marinara sauce to my breast, feeling like I didn't know who I was. In my brain, I was still Katherine Maddox, all-around good person, law-abiding, selfless. But my actions were not jibing with what I had just done. I put my head down, and moved through the store, throwing things in my basket, mostly staples, things that would last a while or go far. A bag of rice, a canister of oatmeal, some cans of fat-free meatless chili. Yum.
I walked to the checkout area like a zombie, clutching my basket tight and trying to avoid the looks of others as they eyed my basket to see if I had something they needed. The lines were long, the checkouts simple. They moved quickly, but the entire time, I felt as if the place was going to explode, erupt into some sort of third-world riot where people started bashing each other’s brains in for boxes of mac and cheese.
Eventually, it was my turn. The good news? The food was free. All it cost me was my ration card. The bad news? I wasn't due for another ration until one week from now. Turns out I had started a brand-new diet regimen, and I just didn't realize it until that moment.
I exited the warehouse, dreading the prospect of returning. I was, however, thankful for the presence of security in the parking lot. I tried to put some sort of emotion on my face, though I felt numb from the entire experience. I didn't want them thinking I was afflicted with HFOD. When I got to the car, I'm not ashamed to admit that I broke down crying. This new world... I didn't care for it. I just wanted to go back to the time where a gal could walk into a grocery store, grab a shitload of microwaveable crap, and walk right back out, but I didn't know exactly when that was going to happen.
When I returned home, Dad still sat in the chair where I had left him, his face blank. I sat at the table trying to compose myself for a while. When I felt like I had myself back, and I wasn't that scared, worried, little girl that had gone through the food warehouse, I put my earphones on, made sure my phone had enough charge to keep going for a while, then I pressed play on Dad's old-school stereo.
He woke up, and we looked at the groceries together. I told him the tale of what I had to go through to get them, and he wrote, "Are you ok?" on his notepad. I said I was. I didn't see any point in giving my dad something else to worry about.
I made cheap-ass, meatless spaghetti for dinner. After what I had to go through, I figured I might as well enjoy the fruits of my labor. I could have maybe thrown a can of meatless, vegan chili in there to flavor it up a bit, but the food was supposed to last for week. I kind of regretted not picking up some of the spices. Dad was never known as much of a cook, and I don't think he would even know what to do with spices if he had any. Salt and pepper was all I could add to the food.
Dad thanked me for it anyway. He wrote that it tasted better due to the fact that I had to go through so much for it. After dinner, I asked him a question that had been on my mind for some days. I asked him where the hell he had heard Whoa-Town before.
If I wasn't so worried about him, I think maybe I would have laughed at his answer. This is what he wrote.
"I had a shitty day at work. My boss was being an asshole. I don't know what he has against me, but he's always riding me. So after work, I decided to go see a movie. Relax. Just turn off my brain for an hour and a half. So I go to the theater, and I got no idea what I'm going to see. There were a couple of superhero movies out, because there always are, but superhero movies are for kids and adults who never learned to grow up, so I was standing there, looking at the board, when a lady came up to me and asked if I had seen the Whoa-Town movie. I said no; it's not really my cup of tea.
She looked at me like I was crazy. I supposed this was a week after the thing had come out. Why they were still replaying a movie that was supposed to be a live performance was a mystery to me, but this lady started chatting it up, and she was attractive. Maybe a little young for me, but I humored her anyway. She was so emphatic about the movie that I almost bought a ticket. But then I said, 'No thanks.' She just shrugged her shoulders and said I didn't know what I was missing out on.
Then she pulls out her phone, and she brings up a video. She starts dancing wildly to it, she reminded me of a maimed animal caught in a trap, jerking from side to side. Then I was like, "Oh, she's crazy." She danced for an entire song... The Drop. Then her movie started, and she was gone. I stood there shaking my head, sort of glad that I had dodged that bullet. Then I bought a ticket for some shitty horror movie where kids start dying because they use some sort of cursed social media. It was horrible, but in my mind, the whole time, I'm sitting in the theater, eating my popcorn, and that damn song is running through my head.
I never thought anything of it, and over the next week or two, I sort of made it part of my everyday routine. I bought the CD, listened to it at home. At work I had head phones, and I would listen to it while at work. I feel sort of guilty knowing what I know now, because I played it out loud at the office. I might have given my entire office HFOD. But I didn't know any better. None of us did. When I bought you that Whoa-Town CD for your birthday, it didn't even register in my mind that it wouldn't be something that you were into.
But that's how I got it. A bad day at work, led me to the theater, led me to a meeting with a crazy woman, and voila, HFOD."
After his story, we sat in the living room for a while, and I could see that things were bothering him a bit. I could tell that the revelation that he may have infected his whole office with HFOD was on his mind, and his previous cheer evaporated.
I didn't know what to say. I never do at times like this. It's one of the reasons that I chose not to come home when Mom was ill. Eventually, my dad got up out of his chair, walked over to the stereo and pressed stop on the CD player. I watched as he sank back into himself, disappearing and turning tranquil. He shambled over to his recliner. I shut off the lights, and went to my room. I'm going to try and get some sleep now, although that image of my dad walking over and turning off the stereo won't leave my mind.
Good night, Journal.
****
Lyrics from "I Guess I'm Just Bad" - From Whoa-Town's Album "The Drop"
No matter what I do
No matter how I try
I just can't seem to be a good guy.
No matter what you do
No matter what you say
I'm gonna mess it up today.
When you walked away,
I didn't follow.
When you said "I love you,"
My reply rang hollow.
I guess I'm just bad,
And I guess that makes you sad.
And I guess I should try a little harder
And I guess you could find a better partner
I know you're waiting for me to change,
I know you're waiting for it all to end
I know you're waiting for your good boyfriend.
I remember when you were sad,
and you needed a shoulder to cry on
I was there, and then I was gone.
I just can't handle the tears,
I got better things to do
But maybe one day I'll be there for you.
I guess I'm just bad,
And I guess that makes you sad.
And I guess I should try a little harder
And I guess you could find a better partner
****
Breaking News Report - Fox News - May 26, 2021
Ashton Uribe Found in Hospital in San Miguel, El Salvador
The El Salvadoran government claims that it has located Ashton Uribe in the Hospital of San Miguel de Allende in the city of San Miguel. Uribe is described as being in a state of sublimity. How he got to the hospital is being investigated by authorities.
There is no further information about the location of the rest of Whoa-Town. International authorities are currently on their way to the city of San Miguel to aid in the investigation.
Mexico City was the last known location of Whoa-Town. Authorities are still manning the hotlines and urging anyone that might have seen Whoa-Town or their affiliates in El Salvador to call the hotline.
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