by Tufo, Mark
“Done playing. Get us out of here. Just keep remembering it’s always going to be you first, and I got a feeling even your mother wouldn’t miss you. Probably sued her for more play time when you were ten, am I right?”
“Mike, focus,” BT said in hushed tones.
“Laser-guided,” I told him, even if that wasn’t mostly the truth. Laser something, but more like an array. My mind was scattered as I fought the demons in my head. I was more than slightly astounded that there was a significant part of me that wanted to blow Dewey’s head clean from his body and then do as much damage as I could to the putrid meat bags around me, whatever that lead us to. The panicked terror was grabbing so deeply into the folds of my mind, it was doubtful I’d ever get another night of peaceful sleep that was not brought on by medication. Good thing my squad was in the same boat; we’d be able to force a volume discount.
It got marginally better when we made it out of that first corridor, and by marginally, I mean we’d gained enough inches of space around us that the zombies couldn’t sample a taste of us simply by an errant lick, which had happened more than I’d care to remember. You can take the zombie out of the graveyard, but you can’t…oh screw it; the analogy wasn’t that good. Suffice it to say there was a rebel or two among Dewey’s crew that wanted nothing more than to tear into us like a bag of steaming microwave popcorn. I can’t even begin to say why they didn’t. Fear of reprisal? Shunning by their mates? Couldn’t have been Dewey’s leadership alone. Not much of any of this was making sense. But as long as we escaped, it didn’t need to. I don’t overburden myself with all the “whys” of something; I prefer to leave the thinking to those more qualified.
“I see light.” Winters had some tempered excitement; hard to get too thrilled about anything, given our current state. I’d been concentrating so hard on a one-inch square on the back of Dewey’s head, I’d never even noticed that the flashlights were beginning to get drowned out. A zombie's foot found its way in between mine and I stumbled; I was thankful I did not have my rifle or I would have fallen over. As it was, I reached up with my free hand and wrenched down on Dewey’s left shoulder. At the same time all of this was going on, the zombies had pressed in closer. Looked like our benefactor had other designs on how he wanted this to go down. The bullet I fired through his right earlobe and into a zombie in front of us looked to be enough to dissuade Dewey from pursuing this proposed change in our agreement.
Anger poured forth through our limited connection, I say limited because apparently, he could communicate with the zombies on a whole level we weren’t able to detect.
“Can’t believe I missed! I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again. How about you, Dewey? You gonna make sure that doesn’t happen again?” He didn’t answer. I blew that ear off his head; there was a small cloud of cartilage debris and a smattering of blood. “I asked you a fucking question! Answer me, because the next one goes right into your brain bucket. Are you planning any more tricks?”
The “No” he gave me felt like it had been pried from the jaws of a pit bull who had sunk his canines deep into a raw t-bone.
“Got to admit, Dewey, that was pretty shitty of you. I kept up my end of the bargain and you decided in the middle of the whole thing to go and change it up? But then, you were a fucking lawyer, right? Your kind aren’t happy with your fair share; you want everyone’s fair share.” I didn’t tell him that when we got outside, I was fully planning on blowing his brains out. At that point, he’d be too dead to care about it. Seemed duplicitous of me to give him a hard time about changing the deal when I’d meant to all along; maybe I was mad that he’d tried first. He’d got pretty close to succeeding, too.
I could see the door that proudly announced we were about to exit onto 7th Avenue; we were about to be right by M&M’s World again. It hadn’t been that long, but by now it felt like almost a year had gone by. Although, that doesn’t make sense; the saying is “time flies when you’re having fun,” and so far, there had been very little of that on this mission. Could see zombies on the roadway as we exited, and a fair number came outside with us.
“What gives, Dewey?” My intention had been to put one in his noggin then make a run for it; he’d obviously had enough foresight or intuition to realize my plan and now had a security team hemming us in.
“Free,” he said at first then, “both” followed.
“Wily fuck, aren’t you.”
“What’s going on, Talbot? Why they still around?” BT wanted to know.
“Dewey here is a pretty smart guy. I let him go, he lets us go.”
“That’s a bad idea,” he replied.
“What’s your alternative? You want to keep moving through this shuffling clusterfuck?”
“This a vote, sir? Because I’m going with no,” Stenzel said.
“I’ll let you vote, Stenzel, as long as you agree with me.” I pulled my pistol back from Dewey’s head; he turned slowly, his black eyes locked onto mine.
“Remember,” he said. I think he was referring to the fact that I had indelibly burned myself into his memory. Another enemy in an ever-expanding list of them. Dewey made sure that his shoulder bully-struck mine as he walked away; the zombies parted and he went back into the underground area. The zombies around us slowly moved backward, reluctantly yielding ground.
“Everyone good?” I looked around at a bunch of pale faces. “Great,” I said before anyone could answer. “Let’s move.” Dewey was true to his word; the zombies turned to watch us go, but none made an overt gesture to follow.
“How long you think we have?” BT had come up beside me.
“Not as long as either of us would like.”
“You realize you’re a master of answering a question without actually giving anything of substance, right? How you missed your true calling of politician, I don’t know.”
“I swear too much.”
“That the only thing holding you back?”
“Not really; no way would I be able to do all the handshaking and kissing of miniature germ factories. Can you imagine? Out there kissing Mr. and Mrs. Maguire’s adorable bundle and the thing sneezes on me? I’d seize up, and you know that would be the picture the newspaper ran with. My opponent would be all over it; how can you trust a man to do right by our community when he can’t even stand babies?”
“Is that how it would go down?”
“Pretty much, I’ve thought it out.”
It was the first smile I’d seen on the man in a while, which, in turn, made me feel better.
“Let’s move, people.” We were double timing. I was amazed I was able to get my legs going; they felt like sticks of timber. We’d gone an entire city block without any problems–hardly something we could have done when people ruled Manhattan, so it was even more impressive now.
“We’ve got eyes on us, sir,” Winters said.
I turned to look behind. He was pointing up. I noticed on every other building or so, there was a zombie, sometimes two, standing there, watching as we went past.
“How is this even possible?” BT wanted to know; we all did. He was just the first to voice it.
“Take them out?” Stenzel was sighting in.
“Not yet. When we get closer to our destination.” Though I didn’t know if this would work; they seemed to be stationed everywhere. No way we’d be able to kill enough of them to make a difference then melt away without giving our location to their ground forces. We were a city block from the NBC studios; there were still zombies either on fire escapes, roofs, or in windows, all just watching, and I would imagine relaying information back through the zombie mental hotline. Communication during a battle was paramount to a successful outcome. Knowing where the enemy was, calling in for help or extraction; all of it was vital, and if the zombies now possessed this strategic ability, everything had got significantly more complicated. Zombies like Dewey had to be in the minority; I was now weighing my decision to not kill him.
How many zombies could he directly infl
uence? Was he a hundred-thousand-watt antenna, or merely a strong walkie-talkie? Could he bounce signals off others of his kind, giving him a network? Logistically, him and others like him would be a nightmare. If Dewey was unique, one of a kind, I had done a great disservice to humanity not blowing his brains out. Our lives were a drop in the bucket compared to the hell he could rain down upon the remaining survivors. The best thing I could do now was report back on my findings as I understood them. We were a couple hundred yards from the Rockefeller Center, our ultimate destination, when the zombies began to move.
“Looks like they finished lunch,” I said. “We’re going to move fast. Winters, you get us up and running; I’ll get a quick message off to Etna, then we’re going to make a run for the church.” Winters looked like he’d swallowed a few eggs whole. “You’ve got this,” I told him.
“It’s not quite the same as setting up our equipment.”
“I have faith.” I smacked his shoulder.
“That’s one of us,” he mumbled as we entered.
“Stenzel, Harmon, stay at the front. Keep me informed about any gate crashers. Do not engage. Pull back to our location.”
Stenzel nodded; Harmon paled. I knew she was dedicated, but I was concerned for her military readiness. Right now, it appeared as if BT was right and I should have left her behind. I knew deep down that would have been the worst thing for her, but now I was left wondering if bringing her had been the worst thing for us. We ran past a desk where, apparently, in better times, we would have met for a tour. We ended up climbing eight floors and into the Saturday Night Live studio. It was difficult to reconcile the juxtaposition of the terror we were in the midst of with standing in a place that had delivered laughs immeasurable over decades. I’d been a fan of the show since…forever. Some of my earliest memories revolved around Chevy Chase stumbling and bumbling over things; I smiled despite it all.
Winters took a cursory look at the massive cameras and then headed back to the studio booth where five chairs were stuffed along with a wall of equipment. He absently scratched the top of his head as he looked over the panels that made a commercial airplane’s instruments look like Mr. Coffee auto-brew settings in comparison.
“No power,” Winters mumbled. I didn’t hover over him; what was the point? And anyway, I was too busy walking the same hallowed ground as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy and dozens, maybe hundreds of other comedians that had made my life more bearable.
“Tina Fey.” BT was sitting in one of the seats reserved for the studio audience.
“Excuse me?” I asked him.
“Had a thing for her. She was my celebrity crush; I told Linda as much.”
“You’d better shut up about that or I’ll tell my sister.”
“I will stick my finger in every bit of food you are going to eat for the rest of your life if you do that.” He was boring through me with a tangible gaze.
“Fuck. No power,” came through my earpiece. I could hear the frustration in Winters’ voice as he worked. He was speaking to himself, maybe forgetting he was talking to everyone, as he mumbled his way through the problem.
“Always wanted to come here,” BT said.
“Of course you did; how else were you going to stalk her.”
“Don’t turn something innocent into something sordid.”
“Were you barred from here? Restraining order, maybe?”
I could see his jaw tighten as he became angrier.
“Hmmm…now that I think of it, my sister and Tina share some similarities. Have you ever screwed up and yelled out ‘Tina!’? Oh fuck. I can’t believe I asked that. Forget that I said anything.”
“That’s the thing, Mike, there are things you say that can’t be unheard. Maybe if you gave your words more than a cursory glance before they exited your mouth, the world would be a better place.”
“You did fuck up!” I was pointing at him.
I don’t think I’d ever watched a blood vessel burst in real time; it was looking like that was about to change. Instead, he finally let out a pent-up breath. “You’re an asshole. That’s your sister you’re talking about.”
“Or Tina.” I was saved from BT’s wrath as Winters spoke.
“Sir, if you could come to the booth.” His tone did not convey hope. BT followed.
“LT, this is Stenzel. We’ve got a small group coming down the road.”
I turned my mic back on. “Get behind the reception desk; see if they go by.”
“Roger that.”
“Generator is dead.” Winters looked up as we entered.
“Okay, then why do you not look particularly glum?”
“Glum? That’s the best you could come up with?” BT asked.
“You a thesaurus now? This your way of getting back at me for the Tina Fey thing?”
A massive finger hovered a few inches from my face.
“Uh…there are solar panels on the top of this roof. It’s possible we have enough juice to run this.” Winters saved me from having my brains swirled by a sausage finger.
“Okay.” I was hesitant; he was talking about power, but everything was off, near as I could tell. “Does it work?”
“I don’t know but I’m going to switch it over and see. It either does or it doesn’t.”
I knew what he was saying; if the panels stayed dark there was nothing we could do to get them up and running, short of getting some fuel for the generator, wherever that was located. And it seemed like our allotted time was running out. I’d rather he had just done it without the set-up for a big reveal; those generally didn’t go as you expected. I’d been on one blind date in my life. Paul and his girlfriend at the time had thought this girl and I would make a great couple. Now normally, this wasn’t something I would do because of too many variables, but Paul and Candice had both said numerous times that she and the other girl, Wendy, could be sisters. And Candice–she was a looker and a sweetheart; I thought she might be the one Paul settled down with. Unfortunately, she jumped off the deep end with a religious cult; went from stable to nucking futs in the span of three months.
But back to the date. We were at the restaurant and Wendy was late, like, three beers late. Finally, Candice stood up and was telling us she was here; I turned and tried to find the girl that could look like her sister. I scanned a group of seven or eight people twice and the only family resemblance came from a middle-aged gentleman that could have been her uncle. When she said her hellos to Candice and Paul and barely gave me a look nor offered an apology for her tardiness, it was safe to assume where this night was going. Let’s be politically correct for once and say that she didn’t even have a great personality. After the meal, I ordered a shot of vodka and another beer. When they came I downed them quickly and stood.
“Paul, Candice, as always it has been a pleasure. Can’t say the same, Wendy; I’ve had more meaningful and lively conversation with a goldfish.”
“Where you going, buddy?” Paul asked.
“Heading home. Gonna go take a big shit and flush this night down the toilet.”
Paul smiled, Candice fumed, and Wendy nearly choked on the cheesecake she was inhaling.
Chapter 5
Mike Journaly Entry 5
As I finished the thought, I saw a red light blinking. Now, as far as I know, red generally isn’t a cherished color when it comes to electronics, and I was about to say something. Winters held his finger up. More lights slowly began to come to life. I could feel hope rising; Stenzel’s news helped quell that.
“Not moving past sir. Congregating might be a better term.”
“They coming in?”
“No sir; I think they’re waiting on numbers.”
“Same orders. Keep an eye on them and disengage the moment they decide to come in. Winters, you need to get me on the air quickly.”
“No disrespect, sir,” he started.
“You sure do get that a lot from your personnel,” BT interjected.
I flipped him off and motione
d for Winters to continue.
“If I knew enough to be a television producer, I wouldn’t have been doing this Marine Corps gig. Get in front of a camera, and I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
BT and I headed out. “How do I look?” I asked him.
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t want to have a nose rocket hanging out.”
“You’re reporting back to base, not hosting a variety show.”
Tommy had come back from checking out our perimeter. “No zombies, but this place had guests recently, within the last few weeks. It seems they have moved on.”
“Any food?” I asked.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said as he pulled out a dozen or so packets of unfrosted cherry pop-tarts.
“I’m sure you are.” I turned my back on the small feast as I looked into the reflective lens of the camera, doing my best to look somewhat presentable.
BT ate his allotment like it was filet mignon. Tommy went and handed Winters a pack; he shook his head but pocketed the morsel anyway. I saw a light on the camera begin to blink; it was weird, but I got butterflies. I can’t imagine many people had access to a television or even the ways and means to run one, but I was about to go live. Then I thought on the dangers of that. This would not be a secure transmission, and just how much did I want any eavesdroppers to know? I knew Etna would see this because they actively searched all bands, but did they do it all the time? And I had no idea if I could receive a response.
“On in three, two…” The light atop the camera went from red to green, Winters pointed at me, and I froze.
“LT! Zees coming in!” I could hear Stenzel and Harmon’s footfalls echo throughout the vaulted antechamber as they were making a run for it.
“Now what?” I turned and looked into the booth.
