by Mark Tufo
"Brian!" I shouted again to stop him from completely extracting himself from the cab’s window. I pointed my ringer over my shoulder right at him. “Do not EVER say that I did not give you fair warning.”
He laughed. Travis closed the window as Brian got his head out.
"I don’t think he gets it, Mike,” Gary said seriously.
"He's gonna shoot me when he does.”
"I've got a feeling it'll be Cindy you have to worry about,” Gary warned, turning back from looking at the passengers in the truck bed.
"She does look like she knows how to use that thing, Dad,” Travis piped in.
"Just tell me when we get to the exit and feel free to keep your opinions to yourselves,” I told them. Of course they wouldn’t listen but I might get at least a ten minute respite.
It ended up being more like five.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE – Tracy and BT
BT was looking at the grass causeway as Tracy hurtled down I-95. He barely registered the spike strips as they passed by his field of vision.
"Zombies,” Tracy said flatly a few minutes later.
BT pulled his field of vision in and looked straight ahead. Thirty or so zombies were running full tilt down the highway in the same direction. They nearly took up the entire width of the roadway. Tracy slowed the car down.
"Whatcha doing, Auntie?" Meredith asked.
"Was thinking of going over the grass and just avoiding them,” Tracy responded.
"Do you think they're following Mike? We could be pretty close,” BT said.
"We could roll on up on them and ask,” Meredith grinned.
"I hate Talbots,” BT murmured under his breath.
"There's no reason to fight them, right?" Tracy asked.
"Besides ridding the world of them, no, not right now anyway,” BT answered her.
Tracy drove over the grass in the median, the car bouncing around on the rough ground.
"I like where God put my kidneys, woman,” BT said, bracing himself with one hand on the roof and one on the door.
"He really is kind of a big baby, isn’t he Auntie?" Meredith asked, needling BT.
Tracy laughed as she got to the edge of the roadway and looked both ways for traffic before she pulled out.
"Don’t say it BT,” Tracy said pointing her finger at him, “It's a habit!"
“How many times have you crossed a highway median?” BT asked.
The zombies turned as one when they heard Tracy's car coming down the roadway. Without hesitation they began to run directly at her.
"Good thing they don’t have the concept of cutting us off or this would be close,” BT said, once again bracing himself.
The zombies were running to where the car was, not where it was going to be. They had to keep readjusting their trajectory as Tracy pressed even harder down on the accelerator, the zombies were losing crucial fragments of time during each repositioning. Tracy blew past them somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 mph. The zombies fell back in line, full on sprinting after their retreating prey.
"I hate zombies Tracy, I really do, but you know what scares me more?" BT asked a leading question.
Tracy turned to look, full seconds elapsing as she waited for a response. Icy beads of sweat fell from BT's forehead.
"You driving at high speed, dammit, look at the road!" BT yelled as he kept pumping on brakes that he did not have access to.
Tracy turned back to the roadway, and then looked at her instrument panel. “Wow, I had no idea I was going that fast.”
"We did, Auntie,” Meredith said, clutching on to the seatbelt.
"I'm not that bad of a driver,” Tracy said grumpily, looking into the rear view mirror.
"Please, I'm so young,” Meredith pleaded. “I've always wanted to have a family of my own.”
"Oh for goodness sakes,” Tracy said as she eased up on the accelerator. “Bunch of babies. I'm going to get back onto the other side unless there are some complaints from the peanut gallery.”
"No, we're good now,” BT croaked as they approached a more respectable 70 miles per hour.
Once Tracy had crossed back over she crept the car back up to close to 80 miles per hour. She knew she was close to Mike; she could damn near smell the sanitizer.
"I think I saw a glint,” BT said pointing straight ahead.
Tracy flooded the engine with gas.
"This doesn't mean you need to speed up,” BT said in all seriousness, “We don’t know what we're heading into.”
"Oh come on BT, I can almost smell rubbing alcohol and bleach. It has to be Mike,” Tracy said, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
"I think I smell it too,” Meredith sniffed as she stuck her head out the window.
BT shook his head. “Listen, you're already gaining on them… him.” He changed the word when Tracy looked over at him glaringly. “Let's just make sure we don’t plow into him, that's all I'm saying. You're not listening to a word I say, are you?"
"You still talking?" Tracy asked.
"You weren't born a Talbot, what happened to you?" BT asked her.
"It must be infectious.”
"Great, when can I expect the conversion?"
"Oh, it's already deep into your bones by now, big man, won’t be long at all,” Tracy told him cheerfully.
BT absently scratched his arms. “Feels like I've got spiders crawling on me.”
"In, not on,” Meredith added helpfully.
"There are people in the truck bed,” Tracy said as she shielded her eyes.
BT grabbed his rifle.
"Is that Dad's truck?" Meredith asked, peering over the front seat.
Tracy took a moment to respond. "It's the same color, that's all I can really tell from here.”
"Mike's not really one for picking up passengers,” BT said, really only as a pronouncement and not a query.
"We still don’t know if that's the right truck yet, so let's try not to adopt Mike's philosophy of riddle with bullets first and then solve the puzzle.”
* * *
Brian tapped on the window. “We've got company.”
"Yeah, I saw them a few seconds ago,” I told him.
"You want us to light them up!" Cindy asked excitedly.
"Don’t they have medication for that condition?" I asked. Thankfully the buffeting wind knocked my response clear from her ears.
"Did he say 'Yes?’" Cindy asked Brian as she started to check her magazine.
Perla popped her head up. “What's going on?"
Cindy pointed to the approaching car, rapidly gaining on the truck.
* * *
"Well it looks like we've been noticed,” BT grimaced.
"They're pointing weapons at us,” Tracy said as she eased up on the gas.
* * *
"No shooting!" I yelled.
"No offense Mike,” Brian said, "but I'm feeling mighty exposed sitting here in the back of a truck.”
"This doesn't feel right, Mike,” Gary said. “We can’t just go blasting folks because we have a 'funny feeling.'"
"Agreed, big brother.” I began to slow the truck down.
"What's the plan?" Brian asked poking his head in.
"I'm going to pull over. You guys jump out and use the truck body as cover, no firing until we are fired upon. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough,” Brian agreed.
* * *
"Tracy, I see brake lights. You should slow down, they’ll be able to hammer the hell out of us if we drive by them,” BT said with a little alarm, remembering the last time they had gotten into a broadside attack with a truck full of errant rednecks. His leg twinged in sympathy.
Tracy mirrored the truck in front of her, as it slowed so did she. When it came to a stop she was moments away from stopping herself. “Now what BT?" Tracy glanced over at him.
* * *
"Foh!" Cindy yelled. “That is the biggest man I have ever seen in my life!"
I was busy checking my magazines when Cindy's exclamation
sank in. “What color?" I asked sharply, bringing my head up. “And what the hell does ‘foh’ mean?”
Cindy swiveled her head to look at me like I had asked her if she wanted fries with that. “It’s Shakespearean.”
“Oh, okay that explains everything.” I answered.
"Mike,” Jack said, "He's big, black, and he's walking this way. Looks like he’s carrying a Browning Fully Automatic but it looks like a matchstick in his arms. He opens up on us with that thing and we're in trouble.”
"Where did BT get a Browning?" Gary asked.
“Ron held out on us.” I wanted to cuss heatedly.
"BT?" I threw my gun back in the cab and started to jog towards the small car stopped behind us. I could see the big man grin as I approached.
I heard Perla ask Jack why they had hooked up with a crazy man. I laughed and picked up my pace. I almost tripped and fell to my knees when Tracy came out of the driver's seat. BT was an unimaginable surprise, but when my beloved showed too it was almost more than I could bear. Now I know it had only been a span of a couple of days since I had last seen Tracy, but you've got to remember I truly believed in the depths of my heart I had said my final goodbye to the woman I shared the deepest connection with on this world. I faltered before once again gaining momentum.
I looked over at BT with a huge grin as I ran past and swept my wife up into my arms. I spun her around once, still too caught up in the moment to give her any crap about following us. I put her down and kissed her once. Then I turned to embrace BT in a hug and I was met with a fist roughly the size of a half ham. I crashed to the deck before my body could even begin to register the oncoming rush of pain.
BT was standing over my prone body, finger roughly the size of a Johnsonville Sausage pointing in my face. “You ever leave me with your crazy ass family again and it will be hours before you're able to get your ass up off the ground.”
"BT!" Tracy yelled.
I put my hand up, “It's all right, I deserved that.” BT grabbed my hand and hoisted me up.
"Good to see you man,” BT said grabbing me tight.
There was something comforting about being embraced in steel cabling.
"Mike, everything all right?" Brian asked breathlessly as he and Perla came running up with weapons at the ready.
"Who are these fools?" BT asked, letting me go.
"Replacement friends,” I told him. He looked down on me with a frown. “They don’t punch me.”
"Come on, I barely touched you,” BT groused.
"And yet I found myself on the ground,” I told him.
"Not my damn fault you didn’t like your greens when you were growing up.”
"You know not everyone had their collard greens infused with Human Growth Hormones.”
"What can I say? My momma loved me.”
Brian pulled up a little short when he got closer. I think that was the only way he could get all of BT in his field of vision. “Mike?" he asked cautiously.
I rubbed my jaw. Eating anything with more chew to it than peas for the next few days was going to be a chore. “BT, this is Brian Wamsley, another military man.”
"Oh for the love of God, where do they all come from, do they breed them with rabbits?” BT said.
"Nice to meet you too,” Brian said.
"Oh it's nothing against you personally, it's just that recently I have found Marines to be the least likely to think before they act and that always leads to trouble. This shitbird here has been trying to get me killed for the last four months. And when he couldn’t succeed, he left me with his clinically insane family to see if they could push me over the edge to do myself in,”
"I wasn’t in the military,” Perla said smiling. "So I should be okay,” as she came up to shake BT's hand.
"Yeah, but you’re hanging out with them so it's crazy by proxy,” BT told her.
"Don’t listen to him, he's this friendly with everyone,” Tracy told Perla and Brian.
"Hey, Uncle Mike,” Meredith said diffidently; she had been standing behind BT and I had missed her completely.
"Oh no, there is no way your dad knew you were coming. I am so screwed!"
"Glad to see you too!" she cried back.
"No, no, that's not what I meant.”
"See, this is what I'm talking about, typical Marine. Screw up first and then try to correct later,” BT threw into the mix. I pointed a mean looking finger at BT. “Get that straw outta my face, what are you gonna do, make me a milkshake?"
"Meredith no, it’s awesome to see you. It's just that this isn’t like a family reunion-type setting, it's pretty crappy out here.”
She didn’t seem appeased. “I think I have a pretty good idea of how bad it is out here, we were all almost killed a couple of times,” she blurted out.
Tracy was holding up her hands trying to hold back the flood of words as Meredith graphically and in rich detail laid out all the events of the last few days. I thought Perla was going to collapse.
Unfortunately it seemed an all too standard relating of unfolding events to me. That it happened to my wife, niece and closest friend while I was not there to help almost made my rail-running heartbeat slide off the tracks. I was about to lay into Tracy about why she had put herself and everyone else in danger by coming back when she stopped me dead in my tracks with her next words.
"I wasn't ready to say goodbye.”
What do you say to that? What can you possibly say that doesn’t make you sound like a big asshole?
"I, uh, yeah, we should probably get going, looks like a storm is brewing.”
"One more thing Mike,” Tracy said as she opened her door. My fat bottomed fawn colored Henry came padding out from her side of the car. His huge tongue was lolling as he ran to me, oversized jowls flapping in the wind like the useless wings on a dodo bird.
"No way!" I said as I nearly cried, dropping to my knees. Henry bowled me over like I was a lone bowling pin and he was going for a spare. Drool coated me from goatee to my forehead, and I loved every gross part of it!
* * *
As Tracy got into the car and they got rolling again, BT looked over at her and laughed. “Wow, you hit harder than I do.”
"Damn Aunt Tracy, I will never underestimate you, you rock!" Meredith told her.
"How hard did you hit him?" Tracy asked with her own smile.
"Oh, I smacked the hell out of him,” BT laughed.
They drove up to where the pick-up was parked so that brief introductions could be made and Tracy could give and get hugs from her boys. Mike still seemed to be reeling, whether from the physical blow or the psychological one, she didn’t know.
* * *
Perla and Cindy got into Tracy's car. Our next stop was going to be the very next exit where we would find some sort of transportation for Brian, Jack and the women. First off so they could get out of the rain that was about to hit, and second it would be yet another opportunity for them to go their own way. I had my doubts they would do so, but it would ease my conscience. I had yet to disclose everything so they were not making a completely informed decision.
We had no sooner pulled off the highway and there were a couple of fast food joints. Oh for some onion rings. And a boot outlet store with ten or so cars and trucks in the lot. Brian motioned for me to go in there.
When I pulled in I got out of the truck. Tracy pulled in behind, my heart still tripping at the sight of her. “You know how to hot wire a car?" I asked Brian.
"No, but Jack's got an idea,” he told me vaguely.
Jack walked up to the doors of the boot store and when they didn’t open he gave them a .223 caliber reason to do so. The shattering glass rivaled the percussions of the bullets.
"Army men!" BT said exasperatedly. “Do they remove the brain stem BEFORE or AFTER boot camp?”
"During,” Brian replied.
Jack's boots crunched over the smashed glass. “Hostiles!" he yelled. He motioned with his free hand first five and then another three.
&
nbsp; Within seconds Travis, Justin, myself, BT, Brian, Cindy and Perla had him completely flanked. He backed up to be within our firing line as opposed to being in front. We stayed about fifteen feet from the front of the store and then they came, a worse looking lot of zombies we would have had a difficult time finding. Flesh was sloughing off their faces; the putrid smell of feces and decomposition wafted from the store. Perla took a moment to put her stomach into check, but everyone else stood firm.
The first zombie out was a girl maybe in her early twenties. Her green tinged skin made age identification an impossibly difficult feat, it had more to do with her clothing. She had on a sun dress, a leather jacket and boots. I think it was Cindy who took the first shot, drilled her right in the head, most likely more for the fashion infringement than for being a zombie.
