by Mark Tufo
“You did well. Now let’s go find some gas.”
Dennis could only hope that would be easier than getting the hose, but he doubted
it.
Chapter 12 – Doc and Porkchop
“Bomb huh?” the leader asked as he came up next to the duo on the ground. He lightly
kicked the burst can, sugared beans spilled out.
“What?” Doc asked, trying to clear his eyes so he could get a better look at the ‘shot’
boy.
“He’s fine.” The man laughed. “My name is Captain Najarian. Most of what’s left of
my platoon just call me Cap.” He extended a hand to help Doc up. “The shooter is Corporal
Hildie. Her illegal fraternizing partner next to her is Lieutenant Butz. Just call
him ‘Buzz’ or he gets mad. This is my wife Dina,” he said, introducing the woman to
his right. “And then there’s Chaplin. We think he might be prior military, but since
he hasn’t said a word in the two months we’ve known him, we don’t have a clue.”
“I’m Doctor Baker and this here is Porkchop,” Doc said, still shaking from his earlier
encounter.
“Doctor as in physician? Or one of those PhD types with an advanced degree in like
astronomy?” Lt. Butz asked.
“While I do like astronomy, I am a practicing physician. Or at least I was.”
“You’re a pretty valuable commodity, Doc. What are you doing out here?” Cap asked.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Dina said, trying to comfort Porkchop over his fallen comrade.
“It’s a long story and we really must be going,” Doc said curtly. He did not want
to become another hostage for his services.
“That way?” Buzz asked. “Nothing but zombies up there.”
“This is Hildie…bring the ride,” the corporal said into a radio handset. He had not
noticed she was carrying a pack that housed the piece of electronic equipment.
“We can’t go with you,” Doc said, trying to find a way to extract himself. “I need
to find a safe place for Porkchop, and then I have some personal business to take
care of.”
“Doc, just come back with us. Look around…decide if it’s somewhere you’d like to stay.
You do a few things for us and then decide it’s not someplace you want to be, I’ll
outfit you with a ride and something better than a .38 snub-nose.”
Docs eyes grew wide. Dina was shushing Porkchop.
“Do it for him, Doc. It’s a safe place.”
“Camp Custer was a safe place,” Doc said.
“Whoooeee! You were at Camp Custer? We were getting ready to rendezvous there, by
the time we showed up, there wasn’t much left,” Buzz said. “Thing looked like it had
been plowed under, dead people and zombies everywhere. Shit was still burning, thousands
of birds were circling for meals.”
“Buzz! Dammit! I think he has a fair idea of what happened there,” The captain said
heatedly.
“Oh…sorry.”
“Buzz here is a Marine, they’re not known for their smarts,” Captain Najarian said.
Buzz smiled wanly. “At least let us get a better meal in you and your boy and pay
him back for that dead can of explosive beans.”
Doc nodded reluctantly. They weren’t going to let him go quite so easily anyway. The
‘ride’ was not a tank, half-track, or any other type of military truck for that matter.
A white mini-van pulled up. The driver, who did not look much older than Porkchop,
stepped out.
“Who are the newbies?” he asked.
“Doctor and his kid,” Hildie said.
“Sweet, get in. Your shot woke up a few of our dead friends, and I’m thinking they’re
going to want to crash this party.”
It was a tight fit. Porkchop seemed the happiest with the arrangement. He ended up
on Dina’s lap, which the doc found sort of amusing considering that the ‘boy’ was
bigger than her.
The captain turned from his seat in front. “Can you tell us what happened at the Camp,
Doc? We saw the trucks, but we can’t figure out who would attack and for what reason.”
“Do you have a psychiatrist wherever you’re taking me?” Doc asked.
“Got a school counselor,” Hildie replied. “Why?”
“Oh, you’re probably going to want to have me committed after I tell you the story
is all.”
The ride was shorter than Doc would have imagined. He was still relating his story
about the Camp, Eliza, the zombie-laden trucks, and then his subsequent capture and
torment when they arrived. Everyone was so enthralled they didn’t leave the small
confines until he was done.
“So you’re confident this Eliza was a true blood-sucking, soulless vampire?” Captain
Najarian asked.
“You don’t seem so surprised,” Doc said.
“We’ve heard about her, even captured a few truck drivers who seemed to be reluctant
to talk with us. And you think she’s dead now?”
Doc nodded. “Porkchop heard some of the men talking about it before they left. That
was, of course, after the zombies they were shipping around turned on them.”
“This is some weird shit. You believe him, Cap?” Buzz asked.
“I can assure you, if I was going to make something up, it would be far more believable,”
Doc said in his defense.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure I believe in who Eliza was, but those men did. We
have some people studying the vials she had them wearing to see if we can replicate
the effects they say they did,” The captain said.
“Oh…they worked. But without Eliza alive, I think they’re useless now,” Doc said.
“Convenient.” Buzz extradited himself from the minivan.
“Don’t mind him,” Hildie said. “Strong as an ox, loyal as a dog, dumb as a grape.
But I love him,” she said as she also got out.
“Come on, sweetie,” Dina said to Porkchop. “The mess hall makes the best peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches.”
Porkchop looked to Doc. Doc nodded. Porkchop’s face lit up. “I’m really kind of hungry,
the beans are great, but I always need to fart after I eat them and then sometimes
I fart so hard I’m afraid I’m going to crap my pants and I don’t have any other pants
to wear and I don’t want to walk around all day in crappy pants.”
“Yeah that would be crappy.” Dina laughed, Porkchop joined her. “Maybe I can find you some new pants
too…just in case.”
“I’d like that, as long as I don’t have to go into the dressing room. There’s always
girls in the ones around me and they laugh and giggle a lot, talking about this boy
and how that one kissed her and did these shoes make her look fat. How can shoes make
anyone look fat? Fat makes you look fat,” Porkchop entreated.
“No dressing rooms or shoe talk, I promise.” And then they were gone.
“Let’s get you cleaned up as well, Doc. You look like you’ve had a rough go off it.
I’m sorry about your family, I truly am,” He said. “One more thing, though, who is
Michael Talbot?”
Chapter 13 – Mike Journal Entry 6
“What about a snow plow?” Gary asked.
“What about it?” I asked, looking back at him in the mirror.
“Why aren’t we riding in one of those?”
I didn’t have a valid response. It made sense. A ton of sense. A few tons of sense.
“That’s actually an aw
esome idea,” Travis said.
“Will we all fit?” BT asked.
That also was a valid point. The truck was beyond its limit with the eight of us.
I wasn’t sure about a plow, but it was basically a dump truck retrofitted with a plow.
Really wouldn’t be room for more than three or possibly four. And I was not keen on
splitting up.
“What about two dump trucks?” Tracy chimed in. I think she liked the idea of the bigger,
much safer, vehicle.
“That’ll call for way more gas,” I said, although that idea was not completely out
of the realm.
“What if some of us got in the back?” Travis threw in.
“Naw, that’s not safe. It’s all steel, and you’ll get tossed around like bowling balls,”
I said. Travis was still thinking that sounded fun as hell. Youth is its own folly.
“Wait, wait! What if we built something we could anchor seats to back there?” Gary
said, the light clearly shining above his head. “Hear me out before you say anything
else. We could build a two-by-four framework inside the dump part; maybe even put
plywood up on the sides for added protection. And it wouldn’t be all that difficult
to mount a couple of bench car seats to that. It’d be perfect.”
“And what about inclement weather?” I asked.
“Can’t you just say ‘rain’?” BT asked. “Inclement weather,” he mocked, shaking his
head. “It’s rain, Mike.”
“Well, it could be hail too.” I tried to defend myself.
“Tarps,” Gary chimed in, “we could have tarps pulled over the whole thing. Maybe even
mount a couple of battery lamps inside so we can see.”
“Sounds like an RV on steroids.” I had meant it in jest, but the more I thought about
it, the better it sounded. “Who gets to tell Ron we left his truck by the side of
the road?”
“NOT IT!” Gary shouted.
I don’t know if they planned it that way, but just about all occupants in the truck
save myself responded simultaneously with ‘Not it’. Even Henry punctuated this with
a well-timed burp that, if listened to slowly, could have the potential to have sounded
like ‘not it.’
“What’s one more truck in the grand scheme of things?” BT asked, shrugging his shoulders
at me. “It’s not like he’s not already expecting it.”
“Okay, first off we have a lot of things going on. We have to find a plow and then
the appropriate supplies to retrofit it.”
“Talbot, we’re in the Northeast. How hard do you think it’s going to be to find a
plow?” Tracy asked.
“Is that sarcasm? Because everyone needs a smart-ass. It’s my ass that’s on the line
here. Gary, assuming…” I stopped to look at my wife. “Assuming we find this plow,
how long are you thinking it will take to modify?”
“We’ll need tools, and some torches for welding, but I think with some help I could
have something pretty good to go in two days, tops.”
“Man, I don’t like the idea of having to hole up for two days, but the idea of that
rolling tank…I’m not going to lie, that sounds pretty enticing. And that two-day deadline
is pretty firm? It’s not like that time you promised your friends you would build
them a pagoda for their wedding?”
“It was short notice,” he intoned.
“How short?” BT asked.
“Six months,” I told him.
“Have you ever seen all the angles on those things? It’s as bad as doing geometry,”
Gary said, trying to diffuse the stares being directed at him.
“That’s kind of funny, Uncle Gary, because it’s exactly like doing geometry,” Travis
said.
“Yeah, well…no one told me that.”
“Yet you promised your friends this?” Tracy asked.
“Hey, their wedding was just as beautiful in the tent,” he said in his defense.
“Okay, we’ll try this. Two days, Gary, that’s it. We’ll find a DPW in the next town,
I’m sure they have a garage with plenty of tools. You figure out what we’re going
to need, and a few of us will go out and grab it.”
“Mike you know how I feel about this splitting up stuff,” Tracy said nervously.
“It’ll just be a few hours, in and out, I promise,” I told her.
“You know nothing’s easy any more, right? It’s not like shooting over to Starbuck’s
for a latte.”
“Iced Caramel Macchiato,” I said.
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“I don’t like lattes I like Iced—”
“Yeah, Talbot, I get it. That’s not what’s really important here.”
I was going to argue with her that it MOST assuredly was important. I’d had an addiction
to the damned macchiato. But perhaps it wasn’t the appropriate time. “Hon, for the
foreseeable future, this is how it’s always going to be. Just taking a crap is a dangerous
proposition right now.”
“Eloquent,” BT chimed in.
“You mind if we have a moment?” I asked him.
“We’re crammed in here like sardines, and you want me to ignore the only thing going
on? You must be crazy.” BT said.
“Thanks, man.” I told him.
He grinned.
I continued after I directed a nasty glare at BT; he cared little. “These are the
chances we are going to have to take. There just isn’t a way around it. I’m not thrilled
this is the way it is, but maybe finding Doc will change it. This reward is worth
the risk.”
“I know, I know. I’m just always afraid that when you walk out that door, some or
possibly all of you won’t be coming back.”
“Honey, you know that isn’t going to happen. How many times have I tried to leave
BT behind, and he keeps coming back?”
“Fuck you, Talbot,” he said, reaching over to try and sideswipe my head.
“I’ll put this thing in a tree if you keep swinging at me,” I told him as I ducked
away.
“And that’s different from your normal driving how?”
“Hilarious. Alright here’s our next town.”
“You couldn’t pick a different place?” Tracy asked.
“What’s wrong with Salem?” I asked her. “There were witches here not zombies.”
“If we were battling aliens, I still wouldn’t want to go to a haunted house,” she
said.
What kind of argument can you make against that? I took the off-ramp leading in any
way. We stopped at the town hall. BT and Gary had gone up and into the building while
the rest of us set up a defensive perimeter.
“Five Jefferson Avenue,” Gary said happily from atop the steps.
“Yeah, because I know where Jefferson Ave is,” I mumbled.
“Be nice, Talbot,” Tracy said out of the side of her mouth.
