The drop, p.29
The Drop, page 29
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↑ #MeThree 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ I'll tell you what's going to happen. It's going to be like the end of the Kingsman. Whenever someone hits that 60-day mark, their heads are going to explode. Honestly, good riddance if you were listening to Whoa-Town in the first place, you kind of deserve to die.
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↑ SashaM 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ I can't believe that even with all of this shit going on, there are still trolls out there. How about thinking about this in a positive light. Maybe tomorrow is when this will all be over, right? I mean sixty days. We've all learned so much. I know I used to take my brothers and sisters for granted, but now, I don' think I'll ever be able to do that again. Maybe something good will come out of this whole thing. Maybe the world will come out of this changed, more appreciative. A gal can dream I suppose.
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↑ NoDanaOnlyZuul 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ I don't know. The OP makes a pretty damn good point. Nothing on that album, lyrically, can even be classified as good. Sixty days... it says, "We'll be together forever." That's like the type of shit stalkers say to their victims right before they put a knife between their ribs, and then their face, and then everywhere else. I kind of doubt that whoever did this, and I'm not saying it's Whoa-Town, but I highly doubt they did all of this as a lesson to the world. It's far more likely that they just wanted to kill people. This is obviously the most fucked up way anyone could ever do that, but that's what I think is going on.
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↑ GoldBitterfly 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ If you guys are right, I don't know what I'm going to do. My whole family has HFOD... everyone except me. I'm 15! This shouldn't be happening to me. I don't have any friends who didn't fall for The Drop. I'm all alone... if something bad happens to my parents and my brothers, I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I should just listen to it myself. I mean, what else is there to live for?
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↑ 911wasaninsidejob 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ I'll tell you what's going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first day of the revolution. Tomorrow is the day that we, the citizens of the world become free again. Tomorrow is the day where capital and wealth are redistributed in an equal fashion. When people die, that frees up all the land and all the money. America will get reset. The world will get reset. Everyone will be so concerned with rebuilding that all wars will stop and the world will become a better place. Think about what happened the last time there was a great calamity like this... the black plague. What did we get after that? The Renaissance. I know it sucks that family and friends are going to die, but this is obviously the best chance humanity has to actually create a world where we're not hating everybody and destroying the environment.
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↑ PastorKenny'sRowdies 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ Tomorrow is judgment day. All the fags, queens, queers, niggers, and kykes are all going to pay. Tomorrow is the day we take back our world. Tomorrow is the day God points out his favored. Tomorrow is the day we rise. Wake up, America. It's time to take back this country and give it back to those that founded it and made it great. Wake up! The time of the true race is upon us.
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↑ 911wasaninsidejob 1 point • 758 days ago
↓ Shut up, you Bible-thumping, inbred retard. There is no God, and white people didn't make this country great. If you want to give it back to someone, give it back to the Native Americans. Also, I heard that if you hang yourself, God loves you even more.
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****
From the Journals of Katherine Maddox
May 30, 2021
Dear Mom,
I've been wanting to write this for a while now. I want you to know that I won't let Dad go through this alone. Whatever is going to happen, whether he recovers or... something worse happens, I'm going to be there for him.
If the world falls apart around us, if the house catches on fire around us and the entire world goes insane, I will be here with him. I promise you that. I owe you that. And I know that I'm scared, and I know that the things on TV make we want to crawl under a blanket and hide, but I will stand by him, and he won't die alone.
I don't know if there's life after this world, but if there is, and you can see me, I want you to know that if I had it all to do over again, it would be different. It would be so different.
Anyway, I love you, Mom. And if there is a world after this one, I hope we get to see each other again, and I hope that you're proud of me.
Well, Journal, now that I've got that done, let me talk about my day today. This morning, I walked next door to check on our neighbor, Mrs. Van Slyke. I knocked on the door once, but there was no answer. I figured maybe she was either scared, or deaf, or taking a shit, so I knocked again. I must have stood there for two minutes, and the entire time I'm thinking, "I know you're in there, you old b. Your car is still here." So then, with an illogical anger building inside, I decided to knock a third time, hoping that Mrs. Van Slyke didn't have a loaded shotgun cocked and aimed at the door. I mean she could. What the hell do I know about her other than that she has white hair, is old, and keeps a nice yard?
After the third knock, I figured maybe she was too scared to answer her door, so I turned to walk away. Then, behind me, I heard the door open. "Yeah, what do you want?" a surly old voice asked.
I said, "Oh, hi. I was just checking on you. I know things are crazy these days, but I just wanted to see how you're doing since we're neighbors and all."
"You got it?" she asked.
I shook my head in confusion. "Got it?"
"The Drop? You got the Drop?" Her voice was deeper than I expected, but clear and all business.
I assured her that I didn't have The Drop, and she relaxed. Then, just like that, she invited me in. I didn't think twice before accepting her invitation. Up until that moment, I guess I didn't realize how badly I had been craving some sort of interaction besides that which I had with my Dad. I had spent so much time with my headphones blasting music into my brain during the last week that it was nice to be able to hear words being spoken aloud for once.
"I got some coffee, if you're interested," she said. I responded yes.
I looked around Mrs. Van Slyke's dining room, trying not to look like some sort of robber casing the joint. She lived a clean life it seemed. Her knickknacks, a spoon collection, were displayed proudly, but neatly, in a display case in the corner. On the top shelves, fancy china rested, and I wondered how long it had been since she had set a table with those plates. In all the time that I had lived in Dad's house, after Mom had died, I had never seen her have more than one guest at a time. Did she pull them out every now and then and place them on the table fantasizing about family members that would come home and ask her to make them a home cooked meal? Or did she have them because she was supposed to, because every person from her generation had fancy china just in case someone important were to show up at their house unannounced?
She set down a saucer and a coffee cup on the dining room table. It was an old table, antique-looking, made of a deep burnished auburn wood. She sat at the head of the table and I sat to her right.
"Sugar? Cream?" she asked.
"Yes, both."
"I don't have anything but the imitation cream," she said. "You know how it is with all the shortages."
I thanked her, and then dumped enough sugar and imitation cream into my coffee to turn it into something more akin to a hot milkshake than a cup of coffee. "It's nice to talk to someone," I said.
She nodded. "I know what you mean. I've been by myself for a while now, but I always liked that I had the option to talk to people if I wanted to. Hell, I could go down to the grocery store and just chat the clerk's head off if I wanted to get some sort of talking in. But since all this... trouble... I've basically been sitting inside my house watching the TV."
"Do you have any family to call?" I asked, hissing inwardly at my lack of tact. For some reason, I just had to know if she had someone, if she had any family members that were sick with HFOD. I don't know why I needed to know; I just needed to. Plus, I could feel the years between us. I had come over here to check on Mrs. Van Slyke, and she was doing just fine. I hadn't thought about what to do if that were the case. I guess in my brain, I just thought I would show up, and she would say something lie, "Thank God!" Then she'd throw her arms around me, and we have a good chat. Then I would go home, and all would be well again. I would be reset, and I could go back and put on my headphones and hang out with Dad. But that's not how any of this was working.
"I got family. Got a son, a couple of grandkids, a daughter-in-law."
She spoke each word as if she were biting them off, as if sharing were something that she didn't approve of and the very act of sharing personal information about herself might give her indigestion.
"I haven't been able to reach them." These words came difficult for her, like she was confessing a long-held family secret. "I know my grandkids got it... they got The Drop. My boy, Charlie, he was taking care of them, the mother too. I don't know what's going on with them. I offered to go and see them, to help out, but he said he didn't need any help." I could see the subtext there. She should have gone. She wished she had gone. "You seen these crazies on the TV?"
"Which ones?" I asked.
"The ones that think that this is all some sorta act of God."
"Yeah, I've seen 'em," I said.
"You think they're right?"
"I'm no saint," I said. "And I'm fine."
"Yeah. I ain't a saint neither."
"You know anyone with The Drop?" she asked.
It was amazing how easy HFOD could be turned into something like "The Drop." It seemed such a natural switch in terminology that I wondered why we hadn't been calling it that since the beginning. "My dad has it."
At this revelation, she pursed her lips. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "He was always a nice man. It's a shame, with all that he's had to go through."
I nodded my head and took another sip from my coffee. Its sweetness was bitter at that moment. "I've been trying to keep an eye on him, but I just had to get away for a second."
"What stage is he in?" she asked.
"He's still in the sublimity stage. I think he's maybe a week away from the latest stage, so we'll see how that goes." I shuddered slightly.
"Have you thought of maybe taking him out in public, letting the authorities take care of him?"
"I can't do that," I said.
She nodded, and I could see the understanding in her gray eyes, old eyes, end of a life eyes. "Well, if you need anything when he gets there, just let me know. I didn't go and help my grandkids, so I figure I ought to help out somewhere."
"Thank you," I said.
Then she smiled. "Thank you," she said back.
"Why are you thanking me?"
"For a while there this morning, I thought that maybe I was the only person left in the world. You know how it is, when you're all on your own. You think maybe you're starting to go crazy, but there's no one there to tell you that you're not. A mind gets up to tricks when it's on its own, you know." She lapsed into silence then, and I searched for some way to figure out how to keep the conversation going. I didn't want to go home yet, and I was just now feeling the warmth of the coffee as it wormed its way through my body.
"Have you gone to the food warehouse yet?"
She sighed, and scratched at one of her grey eyebrows with a well-manicured hand. "I haven't had the chance to or the need to yet. Really, though, I haven't had the desire. Truth be told, I'm terrified of going out there. Keep thinking I'm going to hear whatever song caused all of this. You heard about the terrorists?"
I shook my head.
"There's sickos out there, traveling around playing the song. I saw it on Fox News this morning. They load up their cars with speakers and just travel around playing that damn song. There was a group of people in St. Louis doing this. They drove through a park where people were gathered, burning up that Whoa-Town mess. Before people even knew what was going on, someone put two and two together. Little bastards didn't get away. A group of people caught one of them. They tore the man apart. But it was too late. Now all they can do is wait. It was one of them damn Muslims."
I could hear the way she said Muslims, the way a preacher might say the name Lucifer. She was old, and she was the only person I had to talk to, so rather than lecture her on her Islamophobia, I just let it go and said, "Yeah, well, there's a lot of sickos out there these days."
"Amen to that," she said.
Then we sat in silence, our words gone, the sadness of the world's condition washing over us and drowning the brief respite and comfort we had given to each other.
I finished the last of my coffee and stood. I could see the relief on Mrs. Van Slyke's face. "Well, I ought to be getting back to my Dad."
Her face broke into a big smile, and I wondered inside at how the prospect of departure could feel so sweet, that sometimes, when a pair of people fail to click, the best part of the interaction is the goodbye. She saw me to the door, and implored me to come and see her if I needed anything. I felt that it was somehow an offer of propriety rather than an actual legitimate offer. I said I would, knowing full well that the only way I would ask her for help was if it were a full-on, end-of-the-world emergency.
As I exited, she said goodbye in a singsong voice, and before I had even gone down one of the steps of her porch, I heard the door slam shut behind me. Then I heard her fasten the chain and turn the deadbolt to her door. I walked back to Dad's house, feeling the entire time that I was approaching a dark, ominous cave filled with bodies inside. But it was just Dad in there, no doubt drooling on his shirt by now.
I walked inside. It was dark and musty smelling. We had kept the windows closed due to the need to play Whoa-Town all day. Neither of us thought it was a good idea to risk randomly infecting people just to get a little fresh air, although there hadn't been many people passing by on the streets recently. It was almost as if we were all in hiding in our little aboveground bunkers, waiting for the bomb to drop and to see what the fallout would do to the world.
I went to my room and took a nap for a bit. Then I put on my headphones, pressed play on the stereo in the living room, and watched my father come to life like a limp puppet animated by strings. I talked with him about my visit with Mrs. Van Slyke, and he said that she had always been sort of an odd duck. She was religious, but also a very sad person. She didn't have a good relationship with her children from what he could tell. He also said she was somewhat of a battleaxe. When some branches from one of the trees in the backyard had dared to encroach over the fence-line, she had demanded that he have them pruned. He had agreed to do so, but no less than two days later, she had showed up at his door talking about lawyers and court, so he had to get off his ass and take care of it himself at that moment just to get her off his back. She never even thanked him. I could see her doing that.
We played another game of chess, and then I turned off the Whoa-Town, watching my father disappear for what seemed like the hundredth time. It never stops being sad when it happens.
Tomorrow is the day that the doomsayers are saying is going to change the world. I don't know if I wish Dad would have been one of the original infected or if I'm glad he wasn't. On one hand, it will be nice to know what is coming. On the other hand, if it's something awful, like the doomsayers say, I think it would be comforting to not have to wait for it. Like if people suddenly lose their minds and start going on murderous rampages, I don't want to have to wait for that. And I certainly don't want Dad to know that it's coming.
I could go crazy myself, just thinking about all of this. Oh God, did I just write that? It sounds like something from a bad action movie. Maybe I should just throw the back of my wrist up to my forehead and faint onto my bed.
I don't know that I'll be able to sleep tonight. But maybe I will. Perhaps tomorrow morning I'll wake up, and this will all have just been one long, terrible nightmare.
Fuck the unknown, and fuck coffee. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep at all. Here's to waking up and everything is back to normal.
Goodnight, Journal.
PART III
ON THE TRAIL
Chapter 11: Back in L.A.
There's a gulf between me and Freddie now. I never quite found a way to apologize to him for the things I said in Oregon. Now that Ella's out of the way, safely ensconced in some semblance of a normal life, fingers crossed, we have no reason to play nice with each other. I mean, I understand his pain. We've all got it, but his runs deeper I suppose.
Whereas before he was all smiles, let's kick some ass, now he's all grumble grumble, what's next? I begin to wonder if he even wants to be here, doing what we're doing. Thankfully, we're back on home turf, well, not my home exactly, but the place I've chosen to call home. Home for me will always be in Springfield, Illinois, back at the house, back where all those pictures of Mom and Dad sit.
I should go back there someday soon. Once this is all over, I will. I'll sit there and have myself a beer or two, cry for hours on end, and remember good old Mom and Dad. Although, I suppose they never actually got the chance to be old. I wonder if I'll take after my parents.
We're shacked up at my place now. Freddie spends his time looking out the windows for guys with guns hiding in the bushes. I spend my time poring over the information I have gathered. It doesn't look like much. I've unearthed some nuggets, for sure, but these are tabloid things, shocking truths that do nothing other than elucidate the nature of each member of Whoa-Town. I'm still no closer to the why or the how.
At this rate, I might as well be working for the CDC... if it still existed. Last I heard, the government had shut it down. The post-Drop government had no faith in it anymore, and public support had all but blown away. No one could forgive them for the number of lives that were lost because they hadn't been able to take their heads out of their asses and spot the real cause of The Drop. If they had just opened their eyes and ears and admitted that perhaps something other than a virus or bacteria could be the cause, they could have saved all of those lives. In the end, the CDC's scientists were quietly shuffled to other government departments. Many of their top scientists didn't make it. They either killed themselves for their failures or purposefully exposed themselves to Whoa-Town in an effort to better understand The Drop. All of their experiments and theories didn't help them in the end. Their obituaries were small and unmourned by the masses.
