When Graveyards Yawn - G. Wells Taylor (robert munsch read aloud .TXT) š
- Author: G. Wells Taylor
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A box of crackers lay open on a table in a pile of crumbs. Mayonnaise and peanut butter mini-sandwiches were dinner if the empty jars on the floor told me anything. In front of a door, I suspected was the closet, was a large iron bar loaded down with weights.
āYou better watch your diet, Mr. Willieboy.ā I pointed to the remnants of his supper. āMahatma Ghandi ate that stuff, look what it got him.ā
Willieboy was wearing nothing but his denims. He showed off an enormous musculature in chest and shoulders. āShit man, am I ever wasted.ā He went to his fridge, and pulled out a little stack of pre-cooked beef patties that were glued together with a mortar of yellow grease. He peeled one off and ate it noisily as he spoke.
āDid you bring the fifty?ā His lips smacked with a waxy sound and his yellow teeth champed like a horseās.
āOf course I brought the fifty,ā I snarled and took a seat in the crumbs on the side table.
Willieboy pulled up a chair that had been obscured behind curtains. I noticed an angry red welt on his neck and back.
āIf you didnāt know the dead guys who set the fire, then how did they know where I was?ā
āWhat dead guys?ā His forehead wrinkled.
I told him.
He made a fist of his face and shook his head. āIām tellinā you, Wildclown, it mustāa been a set up ācause after I left you, I found six dead punkers waitinā for me downstairs. Jesus, I was mixinā it up good with them when the fire started!ā He gestured to the injury on his back.
I pulled my gun. I didnāt point it at himājust fiddled with it, sighting along its length and hefting it like it was new.
āNot the best excuse Iāve ever heard, Mr. Willieboy.ā I continued to play.
He froze, mouth full of hamburger, and then began nodding his head and sputtering. āThereāthere! Give a guy a goddamned gun and he gets tough every time. But Iāll show you, you bastard, nobody fucks with Douglas Willieboy.ā
āUnless he has a gun, right.ā I grinned.
āThatās right,ā he laughed. āYouāre okay, Wildclownādid you bring the money? Iām tired of eatinā like a blowfly!ā
āIāve got the money, but itāll take a good story to squeeze it out of me. I fell twelve stories last nightāand Iām a little cranky.ā I leaned back against the cracker box and wall.
Willieboy started talking. He punctuated each sentence with squishy hamburger noises.
āAll right, I knew her better than I saidāthe Van Reydner broad. I mean I knew her in that way, you know. Shit, who wouldnātāshe was gorgeous. So, I was a little bit involved with her, which I said I wasnāt. It wasnāt true love or nothinā, but it was fun. Not every night, but sometimes sheād phone down for room serviceā¦ā He leaned back and laughed. āThatās what she called it. Well fuck, who wouldnāt go along?ā
I couldnāt think of who wouldnāt and I said as much.
āSo that went on for about a month, until she left.ā He smiled a great idiot grin.
āCongratulations, Willieboy,ā I grumbled. āBut thatās not worth squat to me. I hope you enjoy your memories.ā I stood up to leave.
āThatās not all,ā he said this very shrilly for a man his size. āI knew she was going away. I was there when she packed her bag.ā
āGo on,ā I lit a cigarette, offered Willieboy one and took my seat in the crumbs.
āIt was about six days agoāTuesday night. She said sheād be leaving soon, but she wouldnāt be away long. Asked me if Iād be sweet enough to let her go without a hassle. She owed money. See, I was kinda suckered, but fuck, what the hell. It wasnāt my hotel.ā
āDo you know where she went?ā I drew in on my smokeāthere was no protest from the hotdogs. I felt like belching anyway.
āNo, she just went. Course, the night she splitāThursday, no Friday morningāI didnāt know that lawyer had been shot up there. He came down when I was going off my shift at six. She had already left, around 3 a.m.ānailed me in the back room for being a good boy!ā he cackled knowingly.
āDid Authority question you?ā
āFunny that, a little shit from Authority came in before I even got a chance to call. I just figured someone else in the building got aāhold of them.ā
āWhat was his name?ā I leaned forward.
āI donāt know, shitāIām not a secretary!ā he frowned.
āDid you tell him what you told me?ā I started glaring.
āHell no, theyād have framed me like a Vangoff. Iād be eatinā rats in their cellar right now.ā Willieboy wiped a hand across his mouth.
āOkay,ā I said. āYou havenāt told me much worth $50, give me some more, or Iāll leave you to your filet mignon.ā
āAll right, donāt get your shorts stretched out of shape. See, she got a few calls from this guy, Simonāhe never gave a last name. Iād work the switchboard you know, and heād call up from time to time. Always late. Shit, I always figured she was full of it on the massage crap ācause I only saw her with the one client. What did I care, right? That lawyer he had lots of folding money, understand? He can look after himself.
āI listened in from time to time, when theyād talk, her and that Simon guy. I aināt proud of that but itās a boring late night shift anyway. His voice was always kindāa scared like he knew I was listening. Well, theyād talk and Iāve never heard more boring talk. Heād only mention the weather. Heād say that the clouds were going to break soon. He wondered if she were ready for some sun. I kept wanting to break in and scream that theyāre both boring and could they talk about some sex or something.ā Willieboy sat back, his face a mask of introspection before continuing. āThe only time it was interesting was the night the lawyer got whacked. This Simon guy calls her and says itās time for a change in the weather. She said she was getting really tired of the clouds and would be glad for a change and tonight would be good. Boring shit, still maybe, but at least it was something different. He sounded like a real pin-head.ā Willieboy smiled as though heād just opened a treasure chest.
āGreat Willieboy, he was a pin-head, big deal. I could have guessed that. It sure as hell isnāt worth fifty bucks. A name, Simon, talked to her. Wonderful.ā
He kept grinning like a fool. Finally, he leaned forward and pulled a stained envelope from his back pocket.
āI wonder what his phone number and a picture of Van Reydner would be worth?ā He waggled the folded envelope between his fingers.
I began digging for Tommyās annoying plastic mouth purse.
I could tell from the first ring that I had a bad connection. The phone line rattled and clicked like a drunk unlocking a door. Decay. I was just glad the lights were on. Blackouts would soon become a daily occurrence, like the rain. This was another fringe benefit of the Change. Just after the rains started but before the dead rose up, telecommunications the world over went on the fritz. Some of it made sense, too. Cell phones and other satellite dependent technologies like the Internet and television were immediately impaired. The continuous ceiling of cloud could be blamed at least in part for interference. But the Change went beyond that. It was as if the complex system of communications satellites had simply ceased to exist. Signals could not reach them and no explanation was forthcoming. Scientists wanted to blame the residual effects of the Millennium bug, but that concept was too laughable to bear. Instead, the shuttlecraft Declaration was prepared for launch to investigate the anomaly. It blew up on the ground killing everyone aboard.
Computer scientists had warned NASA about that, since it was no secret that computers and networked systems had also begun to behave erratically if they worked at all. But NASA went ahead, boasting a breakthrough in computer system shielding technologyāone of the theories at the time was that electrical systems were being compromised by enormous bursts of electromagnetic radiation from increased sunspot activity. NASA ignored reports that information stored digitally was growing more difficult to retrieve and a program stored might not open completely, if it opened at all. The crash investigators later blamed the computer responsible for firing the solid rocket boosters. Its program designed to control this process fired only one of them, which ripped open and ignited the main fuel tank. Similar computer-related accidents the world over soon gave credence to the theory. Information saved on computers was being garbled and made irretrievable by causes unknown.
And there followed an all-encompassing devolution of sorts. Computers were too undependable so they were yanked out of everything: planes, boats, clocks and cars. Everything. Just about any device using post-1970 designs was scrapped and the world entered a retro phase. Simple old-fashioned internal combustion engines were embracedāwind-up clocks reappeared. Companies dug through their archives for designs and started working on the old reliable. You could get a `57 style Chevy that would look like an original if it did happen to have heavier, rain-resistantāperhaps bulletproofāoptions available. One company offered the Millennium-T with crank motor. Iād actually seen one on the highwayāsmoother lines but just as ugly. The new rule seemed to be simple works. So progress took a couple of steps backward.
Since microwave relay towers were useable but flawed, communications companies were forced to revert to more dependable landlines. Computers and the Internet were unstable, and so the public went back to typewriters and telegraphs. For some reason, electricity itself had begun to behave in an erratic and unpredictable fashion that scientists were still at a loss to understand.
Military leaders were made increasingly paranoid by the revelation that all electrical systems were behaving as if they had been subjected to the magnetic pulse released by a high altitude nuclear detonation. But since the whole world was affected, it was unlikely that any independent country could be considered that hostile. With every surprise the Change brought came a matching conspiracy theory. It soon degenerated to a whole lot of ignorance shooting in the dark as a crowd of walking dead formed around the experts. Pakistan and India nuked each other outright, the Middle East wiped itself off the map and a small but dirty atomic device lifted the Vatican to heaven. Luckily the mass destruction stopped there. Genocide raged through its familiar haunts in the Old World, and in southern parts of the new, but the nukes fell silent.
I had left Douglas Willieboyās room an hour before and was back at the office trying to look busy. A chirrupy womanās voice finally answered. āYou have reached the office of Richard Adrian, President of Simpsonās Skin Tanning and Preservation for the Deceased.ā A recording. āThe offices are closed.ā She spoke quickly, as though she had consumed all the coffee in Colombia. āOur business hours areā¦ā She rattled out the regular Monday to Friday, nine to five routine. āIf you are calling from a touch tone phone.ā I hung up. I had no interest in leaving a message. The receiver shrieked as I set it in its cradle.
It was Sunday. Of course their office was closed. Some still held with the old observancesāthis company could afford to. Economic powerhouses like Simpsonās owned enough of the market to be nostalgic. Most everyone else had to work whenever and wherever they
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