by Mark Tufo
Job watched with some detachment as his friend first screamed frantically and then tried to wrest the wheel from the twitching hands of the steering corpse, Job’s foot had lodged down on the accelerator, causing the car to top out at 130 miles per hour. The essence that was Job moved a few feet higher from the scene just as the car began the first of its twelve somersaults. It was the fourth spin that sent Kyle hurtling away. Job was finding it more and more difficult to relate to the events that were unfolding before him. A higher calling was beckoning. And then he found himself in the Field of Flowers, an inner peace that every man strived for settled on him like a warm blanket. He took two steps to the comforting light before the serenity was ripped from his shoulders. Light faded to Dark. He ran as far and as fast as he could away from the hate, the pain, the misery, and the torment, but it was not quickly enough as his world faded to black.
* * *
Ron watched in awe as the police car finished the last of its death throes, screeching metal succumbing to the pissed off caws of disturbed crows. He didn’t know what they were bitching about, they'd dine well tonight.
Tony ejected the spent shell casing from his rifle and with the bolt action drove another into place.
"Dad! Wow!" Ron said with true amazement.
"Keep your focus, your daughter is still out there."
"Yeah, but still…"
"We'll celebrate when this is over," Tony told his son. It had damn near been sixty years since he had shot a human and it sucked now as much as it had then. The Japanese on Tarawa had been a ruthless enemy committed to the extermination of the Americans who had the audacity to land on their soil. Tony and a platoon of fellow Marines, due to intense shelling from the Japanese, had become separated from the larger battle group they were assigned to. For four days those forty men had held on to a knoll roughly the size of a football field. The Marines had not slept the entire time as the Japanese sent everything they could at the detachment.
The Marines had bloodied their hands as they dug down as deep as they could with their small shovels. Mortars, grenades and withering machine gun fire rained down on their position almost the entire time. The only breaks in the devastating arsenal assault were when the Japanese would launch a charge. Seven times they came and seven times the Marines had rallied. Their dogged persistence and crippling marksmanship repelled the Japanese.
After the third assault, grumblings of Tuefelhunden came to the fore in the ranks of the Japanese troops, the German word for Marines which quite literally translated into Devil Dog. For what demon must they be fighting that could survive the shellings and the hundreds upon hundreds of Japanese soldiers that kept assaulting their position.
Tony, a mere corporal, found himself in charge of the remnants of his platoon as his lieutenant was killed and the gunnery sergeant was incapacitated by a gunshot wound to his abdomen. The snot-nosed 19-year-old was going to do his damnedest to keep the remaining twenty-two of his fellow Marines alive. He kept his word to fifteen of them. A battalion of Marines had finally pushed far enough inland to encapsulate the ‘Fighting Fifteen’ as they became known in the papers back home. The Japanese initially feared that the gates of Hell had been ripped open as thousands of Marines poured out of that small hill; they turned tail and ran as if their very souls depended on it. Tony had always hated the moniker the newspaper thrust upon them. Twenty-five of the finest men he had ever known had lost their lives in a land God had forgotten, and apparently so would the people back home.
* * *
"I see Meredith!" Ron said excitedly.
Tony once more brought his eye down to the sighting aperture.
Even at 110 miles per hour, Officer Gibson took in all the information around him. He had been a good cop once and those skills made the leap into psychosis with him. He first noted the pickup truck strategically parked on the on-ramp. He also noticed the smoldering wreckage that was Job and Kyle. Most disconcerting though were the two riflemen taking aim on his position. He had absolutely no hope of returning any sort of covering fire, his only hope was to use the car in front of him as a shield.
"There's Dad!" Meredith exclaimed.
"Not yet girl!" BT yelled as Meredith pulled a hand off the steering wheel to wave at her father. BT looked back at the cop, hoping that he had been too focused on them to notice the cavalry, but it wasn't to be. The cop car started to shift over to Meredith's left, and then the cop gunned it so that his front quarter panel was even with Meredith's rear.
"BT, I'm sorry he got past me," Meredith said frantically as she looked at the police cruiser in her side view mirror creeping up.
"Let him," BT said coldly.
"You said to not let him," Meredith responded.
"If I learned nothing else from your uncle, I will now be able to go the grave with the ability to adapt."
"The grave?"
"Figure of speech. I hope," BT mumbled.
"Did you just say, 'I hope'?"
"I did not say that out loud."
"You're right, I just made that up. I'm driving 110 miles per hour down a highway with a psycho cop chasing our asses and I needed to add a little more flavor to the mix."
"Sorry," BT said, looking over his shoulder at the cop car which was just a few feet from pulling even.
Officer Gibson liked his position, he was damn near parallel to the bitch and her black boyfriend, another quarter mile and they'd be past the other pick-up truck. Then he'd shoot the life out of the both of them, repeatedly. He'd be long gone before that other truck would ever be able to catch up. Screw it, maybe he'd wait for them too, death did not discriminate. "Should almost be past them," he said to himself, doing the calculations in his head. The bigger truck to his right had him completely shielded.
* * *
"NOW!" BT shouted.
"Now what?!" Meredith screamed, looking around for some new threat.
"Slam your brakes! Put your foot through the floor board!"
"Don’t you yell at me!" Meredith shot back, even as she used her entire frame to stand on the brake pedal. The truck bucked, the ass fishtailed, tortured brake pads melted under the intense heat. BT had to brace himself against the dashboard from the forces applied to his body. Smoke shot out from all four braking points and the rear end threatened to come completely off the ground.
* * *
Officer Gibson took a second longer to react as he was already enjoying the mythical killing fields. As the front end of the truck slid past him he was awarded the view of two of the largest rifle barrels he thought he had ever seen in his entire life. "Fuck…"
* * *
The smell of burnt pads hung in the air as Meredith's truck limped to a stop. The screech of metal on metal thankfully came to a halt in another three hundred feet. The right rear wheel having completely seized up contributed to the quickness of their stop.
Meredith was first out, running to her father. Ron put his rifle back into the cab and met his daughter halfway. Tony, not knowing if the initial threat was over or if another threat were to soon present itself, grabbed the rifle from the bench seat.
"I thought I taught him better," Tony said, shaking his head as he went up to check on his granddaughter.
* * *
Tracy could hear the distant sound of a horrific car crash but it might as well have been the miniscule pleadings of an ant under a sun intensifying magnifying glass for all the attention she paid it. What was magnitudes louder was the slap of bare feet on pavement as her pursuers chased her down. At 5’2”, Tracy was never going to be a world class sprinter, but the prick behind her sure was.
Tracy could tell from the faces of the children in the car staring back at her that she wasn't going to make it. She first saw her reflection in the glass and then that of the tortured soul that chased her. Ryan, Dizz, Angel and Sty were all pressed up against the far side of the interior, wide eyed expressions of fear on their faces. Tracy could feel the pull of fingers that grasped out to latch on to the hood of her
sweatshirt. Angel squealed and buried her head into her brother's shoulder. Tracy knew she would never be able to open the driver's side door and close it before the damn track star got in with her, and then she'd be exposing the kids to danger. Either way the kids were doomed as she felt the press of the keys in her right pant leg; Dizz had given them to her when he had gotten out of the car.
Tracy almost ruptured her ankle as she got within two feet of the car and thrust off to the right with all her force. Her ankle screamed in pain. ‘I will not be a cheap B movie heroine that sprains an ankle and gets pounced upon by (insert movie monster here). I lived with Mike too long,’ was her next thought.
The zombie slammed headlong into the car. The door creased significantly to the point where it might never be able to open again. The zombie did not stop or even address the injury to its leg. Its knee cap had shattered in three places and what remained had shifted a full two inches to the left. Tracy was saved by this very damage. The zombie's left leg had locked completely up. His decathlon days were gone, but that wouldn't stop any of his peers from cutting in line.
Dizz hopped into the back seat just as Tracy opened the driver's side door. The car rocked from multiple zombie impacts. Angel shrieked with each one, Sty only every other. Tracy slid over as far as she could and still remain in the driver's seat. Zombies were pressed up against the glass. She could not keep her eyes from them as she tried in desperation to start the keyless car.
"Hells bells!” she said as she raised her butt off the seat to fish the almost forgotten keys from her pocket. 'This is where the B Movie Queen drops the keys,’ she thought sourly. "Mike, stop it!!!" she yelled.
Diz was scared shitless. It looked like their driver lost her mind and now he was going to have to drive. They might as well open the doors; it would be quicker and less painful.
Tracy's inner ramblings did not come to fruition. The implosion of the window masked the sound of the engine. Eager fingers reached in just as Tracy jerked back and placed the car in drive, not knowing whether it was running or not. Blood-crusted broken nails clawed through the air seeking to gain purchase, but were denied as the car leapt forward. She almost crashed headlong into the junipers and that would have been the end. The small Subaru would have hung on the large plants like a shiny bulb on a Christmas tree. Fortunately she jinked at the last moment and floored it. A small contingent of zombies chased them as Tracy headed back towards Route 3.
Eliza and Tommy - Interlude
"Do you feel it brother?" Eliza asked as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"I feel pain, Lizzie," Tommy answered back.
"Yes," Eliza answered, reflecting back in reflection to a time long past. "Isn’t it wonderful?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Talbot Journal Entry 8
Gary had been driving for the last fifty miles or so and was reveling in it. He had lost his license about two years prior to the zombpocalypse, something about trying to run over a judge's flower bed. I never got the full story and to be honest, I really didn’t want to know. I’ve had enough close brushes with the law that I didn’t want to know any information that could possibly get me in trouble as an accessory to the fact or some other bullshit. Suffice it to say, Gary was enjoying the end of the world in ways many of us couldn’t understand. His whistling had at some point become less of an annoyance and more of a regular rhythm of the road. My startling awakening had nothing to do with him breaking into song in full on a cappella mode.
I sat bolt upright as a fairly strong shock was sent through my body. I almost jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Dad," Justin started.
I turned back. He looked like I felt. "You felt it too?" It was phrased as a question but it just as easily could have been a statement.
"It wasn't Eliza," Justin said, bowing his head.
"No, it was Tomas." I don’t know why I went back to his old name, but whatever had reached out and made contact was not the Tommy I had known. It felt like a malevolent presence and it was searching for us. I don't think I can explain it any better, but it was as if Tomas had cast a wide net but the holes within it were big enough for us to wriggle through. It would only be a matter of time before he sealed the holes up and we would be trapped like dolphins in a tuna net.
"It didn't feel right, Dad," Justin said, still clutching the sides of his head.
"I agree."
"He was looking for somebody, but I don’t think it was us," Justin finished as he rubbed his temples.
"You got all that?" I asked him. All I had felt were the greasy fingers of evil as they had brushed over my scalp.
"I think it was his aunt, I'm thinking he was maybe even calling to her."
"Like a summoning?" My heart started to freeze. Alex and his family were in extreme danger. Eliza and Tomas, like twin vipers, had turned their deadly gazes towards them and we were powerless to help before they struck. We had a general idea of where to go, but my actual hope had been that Eliza would track us down, not the other way around. I already know that was a horrible plan, you don’t need to remind me. I can't imagine a buck waiting for, or even wanting, the hunter to find him. That is not how the deadly game is played.
I could only hope that Paul and Erin were finally home. Would thanking God for small favors for only having half of your loved and cherished friends destroyed be a bad thing? I couldn't even begin to think about how many transgressions I had with the Big Man, what's one more? And then the stupid straw that broke the camel's back analogy decided to rear its ugly damn self.
Gary had still been doing his best 98 Degrees or Back Street Boys impression. I can honestly and thankfully say that I did not know which one it was. Although I figured I lost a few man points just by knowing the names of those bands.
"Right now you feel like you could never love again, now all I ask is for a chance
to prove that I love you…" Gary's voice had risen as he sang. Cats in heat would have been preferable.
"Gary!" I shouted. I had awoken Travis, although the fact that he slept through that caterwauling was impressive.
“… from the..." Gary trailed off as I shook his shoulder. "Hey Mike," he said with a large grin.
"Having some fun there brother?" I asked him.
"Who doesn’t love a good love song?" he asked in response.
"Depends on who is singing it," I barbed back.
"I guess that's true," he answered, thinking about it. I could tell though that not once did he question the validity of his rendition, "What's up?"
I started flipping through the atlas and alternating between road signs trying to find out exactly where we were. After a few moments of quietude, I could tell Gary was getting antsy to start up his song. I had to stop him before he got going, at all costs.
"All right, in about another fifty miles we'll be coming up on Route 77. I want you to take that heading south. It looks like eventually in South Carolina it will hook up with 95 and then we can take that into Florida."
"Mike," Gary said in all seriousness. "We could have saved a lot of time if we had just taken 95 all the way out from Maine."
He was right and I regretted my poor decision, because in all likelihood people I loved would suffer because of it.
Travis stretched and groaned. "Wouldn't have found the kids then," he said, rubbing his eyes.
Out of the mouths of babes, although who was I kidding? At 17 years old, he was bigger and faster than me. "Good point," I told him. If all else completely went to hell, which was a more likely scenario, we had at least saved those kids and I could go to my beratement from God knowing Tracy was safe.
Gary nodded his head once and went straight back into his song like he had never missed a beat.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – Alex and Paul
The furniture store proved to be worth its weight in gold after Paul and Erin had tried to go home, Asheville, North Carolina was a vast wasteland. It looked like the entire region’s National Guard had decided to make their final st
and here. The only thing that stood taller than ten feet was the church in the center of town. Like a stalk of corn in the eye of a tornado it stood, righteous and untouched. At least it looked that way. The small caravan pulled up to the stairs that led to the massive oak doors to search for signs of life.
"Are you sure about this, Paul?" Erin asked her spouse as he started to ascend the stairs.
"I was until you asked," he responded back.
Mad Jack was following behind, struggling to hold up a box that was roughly the same shape and size of a 25 inch old school television and looked twice as heavy.
"What is that thing and do you want some help with it?" Paul turned to ask.
"I'm good," MJ puffed out. "Is she watching?" he asked in between heavy breathes.
"April?" Erin asked. "You know giving yourself a hernia to show off in front of a woman is not appealing," she told him.
He shrugged with a grimace.
"Are you sure you don’t want any help with that thing?" Paul asked, smiling.
"This thing you refer to..." MJ took a breath, "is a prototype."
"A prototype? It's not going to blow up is it?" Paul asked, grabbing Erin's arm and pulling her a few steps away.
"Blow up? Why, do you know something I don't?" MJ asked in alarm. He looked like he was about to place his burden down and make a run for it.
