Club Tropicana: Here There Be Monsters

In the violent burn, the almost unbearable heat and scorch of our post-apocalypse weather, I eased my way towards the meeting place, taking care not to touch any of the charred remnants still gathering gray specks of dust on the streets, until one of the forecast gales would finally blow them into bits. We had been informed to dress in light clothing, white if we had any, to avoid being seen. Even if we were meeting in the middle of the day, and in a place that was known to be somewhat safe, no one wanted to take any chances.

As the heatwave just went on and on, stretching herself into her third week, I met Roxanne near her house. We agreed to meet up in the park, in broad daylight, to try and minimize the danger, although it was by now common knowledge that the monsters did not only attack by night.

She was dressed in all-white clothes per instructions. I, not owning a white skirt, had chosen a pastel peach-colored billowing house dress, long enough to camouflage my legs, but allowing enough movement so if we needed to run, I could do it.

There were others, scattered around the once lovely area, sitting near the pond or trying to catch a bit of shade under the huge oaks and birches. Roxanne had brought with her a blanket for us to sit on. It was yellow and pink, with white polka dots, a beautiful thing, and it made me briefly think of innocent picnics before any of this, with rickety camping chairs and the family bickering and ants and toasts and raspberry fingers.

Help me, will you, she said, and I took the other end of the blanket. Sorry about the moisture, but it will dry soon.

I looked at the exposed fabric, and shivers ran throughout my spine. I almost let go of it in revolted shock, but didn’t, and instead smiled at Roxanne. Yes, it’ll dry soon. I’m happy you brought it so we won’t have to sit on the ground. I mean, I don’t know how dangerous that might be, for the toxins.

Exactly. I got most of the blood out back at the apartment.

When did it happen?

Yesterday.

Do I – did I know –

I don’t think so. One of the resistance. We were ambushed. I still haven’t figured out how they do that exactly, since it was in the blazing sun, like today, and – but it wasn’t here, ok? I wouldn’t have asked you to come if it had been here. I mean look at all these people, they are here, too.

Yes, I know. I think there would have been a notification if this area had turned into a red zone.

That’s right. And my place is right there. If anything starts to go down, we can make a run for it. I mean Daniela – she had one of them blasters, and it didn’t seem to make any difference.

I know. I still can’t believe there is nothing else to do but to try and escape them.

I know. But we will find a way. I know it. We have to. Okay so what do we have?

Obediently, still trying to avert my eyes from the obvious blood stains and doing my best ignoring the fact that I was sitting right where someone had died, I opened my backpack and produced what food I had left. Roxanne did the same.

I don’t know where she had gotten the bread, but it was delicious and fresh. I had made some coffee in a thermos of what little I had left at the apartment. I had fruit, lots of it. The green grocer from my neighborhood – the store just stood there now, with the doors open. It had stayed like that for days already. I wasn’t the only one helping myself before everything started rotting in the searing heat. The monsters didn’t seem to be interested in fruit. Or they hadn’t yet found it.

No one had any idea how they moved around, or what their weaknesses were, or even what exactly they looked like. Only bits and pieces of information were given in intermittent broadcasts, like the recommendation of the white clothing, and the order to avoid the streets at all costs at night time. Apparently they were nocturnal, night feeders. Apparently their eyesight was poor. Apparently they rather sensed than heard or smelled us, people. No one really knew.

Now I feel as if I missed some crucial homework, not having been to see any of the horror movies in the past fifteen years.

Don’t be ridiculous. This is not some horror movie.

But of course it is, Roxanne! This can’t be happening. I wish I would have at least seen A Quiet Place. Now I suppose I’ll never see it.

Yes, it can hit you like a ton of bricks, the randomness of our longings. The missing of the good old regular life.

Yes. Movies, music – I don’t even dare listen to the radio anymore, even though they seem to be pretty sure it would be fine during the day. But the base – if their sense of touch is heightened, then wouldn’t they be able to pick that up? The vibrations, the thumping? Like with our heartbeat?

My mother is so worried about me, I mean all the time. I tell her, I can’t take your worrying on top of worrying about myself here!

So she’s – she is fine?

Yes. She got out. This time of the year we usually make an annual mother-daughter trip. It used to be my Mother’s Day gift to her.

That sounds to wonderful! I’m sorry.

Don’t be sorry. We’ll go again, one day. This will all go away. Which is why I wanted to see you, really.

Oh, look at the ducks!

Don’t touch them, jesus!

What what?

Don’t you know anything!? Come, get up, help me move the blanket further, away from the birds.

I wasn’t going to touch them! I was just surprised is all. Is this far enough? I haven’t seen any animals since, you know, since – it happened.

The birds are sometimes the first sign.

Sign of what?

That they are coming. I don’t know if it is some kind of hive mind mentality in connection with the birds, or if they just can spot them easily, the little black dots here and there. I still haven’t figured out if they are really very stupid, or extremely intelligent, given what little sense of self they may have. Look. If your connection is still working, would you write about this? It needs to come from an unknown source. I’m too hot for them right now, everyone knows I’m involved with the underground. But they don’t know about you!

I can’t – who would –

Listen, you gotta do it. There is no one else. Just dress it up a little. If the creatures figure out how to use the connection, we are screwed anyway, so you have to do it and you have to do it fast. We might lose power any day now. I trust you. I can’t do it, I lost my connection about a week ago – stop crying! Look, I know everything is shit. I’m sorry I yelled. It’s just – we are all we got now. There is no one else. Don’t you understand that?

But I am afraid.

I know. Everyone is scared. But there are so few of us left. And as long as the officials keep denying any knowledge or connection between the two events, the creatures and the strange tropical weather, someone else needs to draw attention to this! Or else they will just snatch us all one by one! Divide and conquer. That’s what this is.

Okay okay! I’ll do it. So who should we be aiming this for?

You can call for an assembly of the Club Tropicana. It is one of the covers that just stuck, I guess. You know what I would choose, I mean my first choice, if I could get any feature I wanted?

No, what?

Teleportation.

Yes, that would come in handy, especially now. I think I’d need a longer fuse. I’m bound to attract them by just – going on a solitary rampage in my apartment.

Still no word of your man?

No. And our last words were uttered in anger. Biblical expression. But true.

You’ll find him. I know it. A lot of people just vanished in the first few sieges. They are waiting, hidden. Trying to come up with ways to fight back, just like us. Why were you fighting?

I don’t know. I don’t remember.

A quarrelsome relationship doesn’t hold any interest for me, personally. Not a confrontational person myself, I would end the affair when it got too heated with arguments. I think it is so trivial and useless, to waste energy fighting. The relationship paranoia. One of the most horrifying things I know. No one can make the other person responsible for their own emotions.

Yes, it is pointless, but there is an attraction, there, for some, in a relationship that constantly keeps pushing its boundaries and takes nothing for granted. But of course it is immensely hard. Still, it is the tails to the heads of our passion. I mean was. I mean is. Jesus!

Basically people want good things to others, and especially those who they love. I can’t stand the idea of my loved one constantly doubting my motives and questioning my love that way.

Thinking outside the box, she said. It is important, to possess not only the academia of intelligence, but emotional sensitivity as well. To be able to contrast and combine and bring unexpected things together in a creative way. To have a contrapuntal way of seeing things.

I guess it is a question of self-confidence. And self-love. If you don’t really love yourself, you are constantly calling into question the love of others. Do I dare eat a peach? she said.

Go right ahead. Won’t you look at this! My backpack. You fixed it! Oh, this is going to be the headline, I said.

Alien versus Predator! It’s a no-brainer! I said.

I mean, in case the officials get a wind of this – I don’t want it to be instantly recognizable as some manifesto to gather forces and knowledge to have it out with the creatures. Besides, there is always a burke lurking there somewhere, ready to screw everybody over to take the monster back to his superiors for further study, I said. Club Tropicana, huh? And they won't know what it means? 

No. But the underground will. Wait. Can you smell that? Sulphur. They are coming, we need to disappear now. No, leave it! There’s no time! Go, go!

It is as unreal as a half-remembered old song, how things are, what became of us. This is like the magical looking glass with shadow selves and the upside-down and card deck soldiers coming to get us, with the Queen’s instructions to off with our heads still lingering in the humid gale.

Only this was the real world. I ran.

When the monsters got me, Roxanne was out of sight so I’m thinking she made it through at least one more attack. Right before they reached me, I thought randomly that peach really wasn’t my color anyway, and about the last time I had had sex with my man, and how I had never made it in show biz, and now no one would ever hear my Oscar acceptance speech, rehearsed laboriously in front of my bedroom mirror, with a bottle of Eternity Summer in my hand as the statue.

I heard someone screaming and screaming, the sort of high-pitched screams when one is in terrible agony. One of them had its claws on both sides of my head, I felt the rough, hot, scaly skin, since of course I couldn’t see them even when they were standing right in front of me, and as the pressure started to feel unbearable, I realized it was I who was doing the screaming.

Then the skull broke in a sickening tear.

Note: these words could not have come to be without continuous osmotic assimilation, going on for decades in some cases, of the following works by many writers and directors and collaborative forces: The Birds, The Stand, The Witches of Eastwick, Alien, Aliens, Predator, The Terminator, Secret Window Secret Garden, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Lost Boys, Stranger Things, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later…, Cell, The Mist, Here There Be Tygers, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mickey Mouse Thru the Mirror, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1984, to name a few.

Like The Man always says, it is more about the story and less about who wrote it first. These fantastic works are gifts to our shared cultural subconscious and inherently a part of us all and the reason we cannot sleep at night because the closet monsters are out to get us. I forgive you. Forgive me. Thank you. I love you.