by Mark Tufo
I stood up again. I didn’t get the same reproachable look from Jed I had received the first time. “I think I know what we can do, although I’m not all that thrilled about it. There’s a National Guard armory about seven miles from here. Their entire enclosure is surrounded by Dannert wire. We could cut it down and place it here. It will be close but I think there will be enough.”
For those of you who don’t know what Dannert wire is, picture it as beefed up barbed wire. This stuff is nasty. It literally has razors positioned on it every few inches. The team that was going to have to retrieve this stuff was most likely going to need blood infusions when the task was completed. Like a dumb ass, I had volunteered. Why didn’t I listen to my drill instructor from boot camp? He told us flat out, ‘Don’t EVER volunteer for anything! If you’re picked you go, but don’t EVER volunteer your worthless lives!’ Words to live by. Nice going Talbot.
“All right, now that we know I’m going, we’re going to need a few more people, some to guard and most to help haul this stuff.” Clearly these people had never been to boot camp, because I got more than enough volunteers without any serious cajoling. “A couple of things. Bring the heaviest gauge clothing you can. This stuff will slice through denim like a shark through water. I’m not kidding. Next, does anyone know how to drive a truck?” Thank God someone answered because just thinking about driving that behemoth again made my stomach turn.
“Excellent, excellent,” Jed continued. “Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. Alex will ask for volunteers to help build and erect eight towers. Three towers each on the West and East sides and one on each of the gated sides. We’ve got the folks going with Talbot, we’ll need ten or so people for food distribution, and on a more lugubrious note…”
The guy next to me asked what in the hell ‘lugubrious’ meant. I had no clue, I was in remedial English in high school so I just shrugged.
“…We will need a burial detail for those of our family and friends that have fallen.” I tuned back in to Jed’s instructions.
Don Griffin immediately shot his hand up. “I’ll go,” he said sullenly. “He was my friend.” The remainder of folks already not on one of the other work details raised their hands also.
“All right folks, let’s let this night be done,” Jed finished.
Chairs squeaked, backs popped, soft sighs emanated from the crowd as the meeting came to an end. I walked up to Jed. He wasn’t a spring chicken when this carnival ride began. He was looking every bit of his age and then some.
“You been getting any sleep Jed?” I opened with. He rubbed his eyes in response.
“Jed, you can’t do it all. You can’t be mayor and sheriff and a soldier, that’s too much,” I empathized.
“What, because of my age!” he shot back. He softened when he saw the look of semi-shock on my face. “I’m sorry Talbot, you’ve been an unexpected ally during this…this crisis. You’re right, I am tired. I’m dead tired. No pun intended,” he said as he pointed a bony finger at me. “I’m afraid.”
I moved in to comfort him.
He shrugged me away. “Not for me you pansy, I always knew you Marines were a fruity lot.” I laughed and so did he. The expression looked more natural on him than the scowl I had always thought was permanently fixed to his face. “Now if you’re not going to get all soft on me, I’d like to continue.”
”I’ll try to keep my hands to myself,” I assured him.
“I’m afraid for our little community we’ve got here. The TV reports say that humanity is on the brink of extinction.”
“Oh, you know how the news exaggerates,” I cut in trying to lighten the mood.
He wasn’t having any of it. He continued joylessly, “There are other holdouts out there and eventually we’ll find a way to get in touch with them. But right now we have to stay alive, and if it isn’t against those soulless zombies, we also have to be on guard against humanity’s worst offenders. So maybe the zombies don’t have any clue what they’re doing,” (on an aside, I wanted to interject a differing opinion but wisely or not I kept it to myself) “but that animal Durgan, he is the epitome of evil. I saw him, he was laughing while he was killing folks. Laughing, Talbot!” he almost screamed. “It almost doesn’t seem worth it, if that’s what we’re trying to save, let the damn zombies have the place.”
Holy crap, I didn’t think I’d ever hear Jed getting ready to throw in the towel, he must be a lot more tired than he looked.
“Jed I’d be inclined to agree with you,” I said slowly.
He looked at me with his head slightly tilted as if to say ‘Bah, you’d never agree with me.’
I pushed on.” There have been days, even before all this atrocity came raining down that I wanted to just give up. But there are more important things in this world than just me. I trudge on because of my family and because of my friends, and most of all…” I paused for dramatic effect, “because of you.” I raced in real quick and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow Jed!” I yelled as I raced out of the meeting hall, something clattered close to my heels.
“Fucken fruit,” Jed said softly, smiling as he wiped his cheek.
CHAPTER 12 - December 13th
Journal Entry - 12
I woke up early, dressed and got out of the house as quickly as I could. I had made up my mind last night I wasn’t bringing the boys but I hadn’t told them yet. This was going to bite me in the ass. I could already feel the teeth marks. The added stress of having to look out for their welfare weighed heavily on me and I was looking forward to not having that burden. Yeah, they were better under pressure than me, at least for this situation, and their aim was nearly equal to mine. The idea of zombies being real had not completely set in to my reality. Justin and Travis however, had not only grasped the implications of this corporeality, they were easily sliding into this new lifestyle. I take no small measure of responsibility for their transitional ease. My psychoses had to have spilled over. I’d been preparing for some form of Armageddon for the better part of three decades. And the other factor has to be the video games that are rife with otherworldly monsters, including but not limited to zombies. They’d been prepared and partially desensitized. I trusted them implicitly. I just couldn’t handle the apprehensiveness of looking out for them. Besides, truth be told, if anything ever happened to one of the kids Tracy would kill me, and I’m not talking that ha, ha, figurative shit either.
So I left the house early, my breath leaving vapor trails behind. I carried enough ammo to almost be a hindrance, but it was a comforting weight all the same. Looking back on this day, I wish I had volunteered for the grave digging party. That would have been a clambake comparatively. The truck was already idling with the heat going, for which I was thankful. I was beginning to feel the bite of the cold through my thin gloves. I wasn’t going to wear anything heavier that might hinder my access to the trigger. I walked up to the four people that were huddled by the front grille of the truck. I rightfully assumed they were the wire gathering team. I didn’t ‘know’ any of them, even though I’d seen them around the complex in one fashion or another.
There was Jen, the ‘feminine’ partner in the pairing with Jo(e), the neighbor we had slaughtered coming out of my garage. (That nightmare still ranked in the top three). She wasn’t nearly as outgoing as her former lover and I had never said more than pleasantries to her. I always thought it was a waste that she was a lesbian. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she avoided me. Maybe she had been able to pick up on my lascivious thoughts. She wasn’t looking so good these days though. The deliberation she was giving the mourning process had aged her considerably. Her elfish features had diminished. If I’m being honest it’s not so much that her looks weren’t still there, it was more like her soul was hanging by a thread. The light behind her eyes had dulled leaving nothing more than two dimmed irises. The blackness that threatened to envelope them was not more than a heartbeat away.
Next was Carl, who nodded to me. He was an ol
der guy, mid-fifties maybe, always in his garage working on his motorcycle with the door open whether it was 95 or negative 5 degrees out. He was quick with a wave and a smile, come to think of it I’ve probably waved to this guy a couple of hundred times in the months I’ve lived here and never once have I said hello. Strange. He had two pearl handled revolvers holstered to his belt. He looked like he knew how to use them but I would have hoped that he was carrying more firepower. Oh well, his call. Next was Ben, he was older than Carl, he was probably pushing 65 or 70, great. I was now dreading my decision to not bring the boys. I’d seen Ben around a few times. I don’t think he went out too much. He was always walking his Golden Retriever who looked older than him. I’m not sure which one of them went slower, neither one was in any great rush to get anywhere. I’m no Carl Lewis, but if we had to run for it I’m not sure Ben, or Carl for that matter, could outpace the zombies.
Last but not least, okay by sizing him up maybe he was least, was someone’s nephew. He muttered something about an uncle or maybe elephant trunk, but I wasn’t able to pick it up and I wasn’t concerned enough to get clarification. His name was Tipper. I know! What kind of name is that? Tipper looked like a cokehead. He twitched more than Tom Arnold when Roseanne was yelling at him. I didn’t trust any of them. Even though this was my idea, I now didn’t want to go. I was more than half-tempted to turn around until Ben started to speak.
“Got the truck all warmed up for us,” he drawled.
Everyone in our small party turned and deferred to me. I just wanted to go home and eat one of Tommy’s Pop-Tarts. “Let’s get going,” I said instead. I inadvertently shivered, whether from the cold or someone walking over my grave; I wasn’t sure but it seemed more the latter.
The truck rumbled by Don Griffin’s small burial detail. They were headed out the Northern gate, shovels in hand and a small Cat backhoe trailing with a cart in tow. It wasn’t until I actually saw the cart that the impact of what Don was doing hit. I hadn’t thought about where the bodies would be buried although it seemed logical that they shouldn’t be interred in the complex. There was a small field across the street well within the protective firing zone of the guards. Still I didn’t think it was wise to leave without weapons, I mean who would go and bury the burial team if something happened to them? We swung out and away from the group, heading first east and then north. It would, in a normal world, be about a fifteen-minute drive with traffic and lights, though we now had neither of those to contend with. We had switched them out for zombies and bandits, a shitty exchange rate if you ask me. The drive was relatively uneventful, if not almost downright enjoyable. Ben knew how to handle the truck. Now if I could just get Tipper to shut up I might be able to think.
“Hey Mike,” I winced. Tipper kept going. “Do you think we’ll get to kill some zombies? Huh? I want to kill me some zombies. I was pretty messed up the night it went down, I mean I slept through the whole thing.” He grinned sheepishly.
“My friends call me Mike,” I said, lacing as much menace as I could through each word.
“Hey Mike, so how come there aren’t any more zombies around? Huh? Where do you think they all went? Do you think they died? Or do you think they went somewhere else like Seattle? Huh?” Tipper kept at this pace for most of the ride until mercifully Jen spoke.
“Oh shut up, you little twit!” she yelled. “Decent people stop between questions so the person they are talking to has an opportunity to answer.”
“Huh?” Tipper said tilting his head like a dog.
“But then I guess there’s nothing to worry about, is there?” she continued mockingly.
Tipper finally shut up, maybe he was coming down. Now that I knew I had less of a chance of being interrupted I figured I might as well pass the time talking. I looked longingly over at Carl who was fast asleep and wished I were too. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, I mean, if these are ‘traditional zombies.’”
Jen arched an eyebrow.
“I know, what the hell is a ‘traditional zombie,’” I snorted. “Sorry, if these zombies are like the ones in stories then they are not going to die without a little assistance from us.”
As I hefted up my rifle to show as an exclamation point, Jen’s grip tightened on her own. Tipper had his back towards us, attempting to hide his habit. The telltale sniffing gave him away, that and his acerbic personality. Jen shook her head in disgust. I would have been amused if we weren’t heading to a potential hot zone.
“More like a lukewarm zone,” I said as I stepped off the truck and into the parking lot of what used to be Rocky Mountain National Guard Armory 17.
“Huh?” Jen asked quizzically as she shouldered on by.
“Uh, nothing, and let me know if I’m in your way,” I said cheekily.
“I will,” she responded without turning around.
‘Someone’s sense of humor had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,’ I thought to myself.
Carl was rousing himself out of sleep, buttoning his pants back up and putting his jacket on before he stepped out. Ben was busy securing the truck, okay I thought, three out of four accounted for. Then I had a slight panic attack.
“Where’s Twitchy?” I said louder than I meant to. In the cold still air of the morning it sounded like a shout.
Jen turned. “Who?” she asked
“Twitch…I mean Tipper,” I clarified. The reply was quick and forthcoming but not the one I wanted.
“Look…arghhh, oh fuck!!!! Get it off!!!” Tipper screamed.
Jen and I both turned in horror. Carl was just coming down off the truck and gaped along with us. Tipper had walked up to the front door of the armory, which looked like it had been blasted off its hinges with a tank. Who knows, maybe it had been. But what was captivating our attention was the zombie attached to Tipper’s head. Blood was streaming down the side of his face as he howled in a combination of terror and pain, the two of them staggering from side to side in a macabre dance. I brought my rifle up but I knew at this distance and their co-mingled movement I could not get a clean shot off. I never would have guessed if I hadn’t seen it myself, but Carl was moving with all the speed and agility of a man half his age, unholstering his pistol as he went. Within moments he was within safe firing distance of Tipper and his new dance partner. The zombie paid no attention to Carl as the pistol was neatly placed against its head. If I thought my voice was loud, the Colt .45 shattered any of those illusions. The open entryway to the armory amplified the affect. The noise was deafening, but not to Tipper, his right ear went down with the zombie. Tipper was clutching at the gaping bloody hole where his ear used to be, screaming for all he was worth.
“Shut him up!” Ben was saying frantically. “He’ll have half the zombie population here in a minute.”
“Yeah, as opposed to that small cannon fire,” I said sarcastically.
Jen was walking over to Tipper to try and console him, but Tipper was having none of it. He kept pushing her away. She had finally had enough.
“Either let me see the damn wound, or I’m going to have Carl finish you off!” Jen yelled.
Carl was busy wiping the gore off his gun and didn’t notice that he had been involved in Jen’s plan. But it was effective enough to shut Tipper up. He was sniffling and close to blubbering. I wanted to call him a baby and tell him to shut up, but when Jen finally calmed him down enough so she could examine the wound, I didn’t say anything. I was too busy holding my bile down. The zombie had bitten the ear clean off but the ear had not come off without collateral damage. It had stayed mostly attached to his face when the zombie went down. The force had torn half of Tipper’s cheek off. So not only was there the exposed ear hole but also the muscles that lined the side of his face. He looked worse than the poor bastard lying on the ground. Torn tissue sprayed blood as he swung his head from side to side in obvious agony. I thought the best thing we could do for him was to shoot him and put him out of our misery, I mean his misery.
“Ben!”
Jen yelled. “Are there any rags in the truck?”
I didn’t see the point and I let my opinion be known. “Move away Jen,” I motioned with my rifle.
“Are you crazy!” she spat back.
“What good is a bandage,” I said dismally. “He’ll be one of them in a few hours.”
“You coward!” she screamed. “I can stop the bleeding, and I have some aspirin.”
“And then?” I said lowering my rifle. I just didn’t have the stomach for it.
Tipper was doing his best to hide his tall wiry frame behind Jen’s petiteness, his misery forgotten for a moment under this much bigger threat. Ben was watching the stand-off when for the second time that day I thought my eardrums were going to burst. Jen stood stockstill as blood and gore from Tipper’s demolished head sprayed all over her.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?” she was screaming at me.
I was looking down at my rifle. ‘I didn’t do a damn thing, did I?’
Carl was walking into the armory. “He would have been one of them soon enough, I did what I had to do.” And he offered no further explanation.
Jen still had not moved, at least not in a lateral direction. Even from this distance I could see her shivering, from either fear or rage. Ben hopped back up into the truck looking for a rag, but now for a different reason than before. He came down from the cab with a roll of paper towels. I grabbed his arm lightly before he passed by.
