by Mark Tufo
Zombie Fallout 9: Tattered Remnants
Mark Tufo
DevilDog Press
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue 1
Prologue 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
The Lost Chapters #18
The Lost Chapters #19
Epilogue 4
The Lost Chapters #20
About the Author
Also by Mark Tufo
Also From DevilDog Press
Thank you
Copyright © 2015 by Mark Tufo
Electronic Edition
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cover art by [email protected]
editing by Lisa and Tommy Lane
Created with Vellum
To the wife: I don’t think the missus gets it. Without you woman, none of this is possible. I love you.
To my beta readers: Kimberly Sansone, Vix Kirkpatrick and Susan Di Muzio, words really only scratch the surface. Your attention to detail and your unique approaches to my books help me put my best foot forward and for that, thank you.
To Laura Blair and Richard Ilsley their vivid imaginations have brought to life some of the worst pop-tart flavors imaginable!
To all the first responders and members of the armed forces. You help to make our country the great nation that it is, the Tufo family will forever hold you in our thoughts and prayers. (To those three cops that let me slide after my recent bout of speeding violations, the barbecue starts at two)
Acknowledgments
This is just a small token of appreciation for my fans and those that have helped out along the way, whether through helping to fund our Kilts That Care fund raiser or leaving responses on our podcast! And also a small shout out to the admins for my fan pages in the US and the UK, Pauline Milbourn, Kathy Pippen Turner, Jeff Smith, Baylie Poller and Richie LoBo Edgar Shiers, you guys do a bunch of work and I just wanted to let you know I greatly appreciate it!
A hearty thank you to everyone that donated on the GoFundMe campaign. The families that receive your donations will be most appreciative!
John Cox, Ginny McGee, Malinda Gibson, Gary Reilly, Carol Brunnert, Karen Carbonell, Jennifer Erickson, Vix Kirkpatrick, Jenny Clark, Chuck Lentz, WalterArnold, Jan Buhagiar, Lori Safranek, TimScott, Peter Kirby, Barbara Ferrenz, Jack Hager, Jaz Mixer, Shawn Chesser, Frank Edler, Amber Mohler, Kimberly Calhoun, BayliePoller, Stacey Buhagiar, Michael Milazzo, Charles Rutledge, Nicole Platania, Liz W, Timothy Gildea, Amber Fallon, Brian K, Heather Scott, Eric Shelman, Stephanie Daly, Rob Ritter, John James, Sean Runnette, Alicia Stamps, Lisa Williams, Megan McLaughlin, Jason Teasdale, Dana Ottwell
Prologue 1
Mrs. Deneaux felt pretty good about herself as she exited the Demense building. Tommy hadn’t necessarily been her enemy, but he was aligned with Michael, and that bastard had a way of inspiring those around him to be relentless in pursuit of his adversaries. She walked into the garage. She would have preferred one of the Cadillacs or Mercedes Benzes parked there, but instead settled for one of the military trucks, knowing that it would not need keys. She started the engine before lighting a cigarette. She let her head rest against the back of the seat while she exhaled a large plume of smoke.
“There were times, Michael, I did not believe I would beat you. You were a worthy adversary.” She took another drag. It was lost on her that Mike didn’t consider this survival of the fittest but rather survival of them all. “I will miss you.” Then she cackled, “Not really.” She was half way through her third smoke when a zombie smacked up against her window. She calmly rolled the window down just far enough to put the barrel of her firearm through before placing a round neatly between its eyes. She backed the truck up and pulled out of the garage.
“Now where, Vivian?” She drove a block away and parked in the parking lot of a long-disused electronics store that had closed its doors a few years previous. “First things first. I’m going to need more cigarettes and bullets.” She’d checked the stores for both, and they were dangerously low. “Should I go back to the Talbot stronghold? Those twits would let me back in. How rich would that be to find refuge among them!” The truck was in drive, and she was just about to get going when the first shells rained down upon the building she’d just vacated.
“What’s this? A cigarette and a show, how nice.” She sat back and reveled. Her icy blood ran colder when she saw the van barrel out of the building from the same egress she’d used. “It can’t be!” she shrieked. A small coughing fit erupted as she swallowed an intake of smoke incorrectly. “You cannot have lived, not after that!” But she knew better. Michael fucking Talbot had once again cheated death.
Vivian couldn’t remember ever being so angry and enthralled at the same time. She held some self-directed anger for ever allowing herself to get on the other side of such a fierce enemy, but even more for not just ending it. Never before had she allowed such a threat in her life to go untended for so long. “Only one of us can be standing when this is all over, Michael, and I fully intend on it being me. We’ll meet again, someday. I’m sure of it. But for now, I’m going to dig my toes into the Pacific Ocean as far away from you and yours as I can possibly get.” She drove off.
Prologue 2
During the ride back from North Carolina, I was as emotionally high as I could remember being since the zombies had come. What I would feel going forward would always be tempered with the losses we’d suffered along the way. So the baseline would be a lot lower to start with; it was an evil born from the devastation. Still though, to feel elation, love, accomplishment, just the mere fact of being alive, healthy and among friends and family was nearly beyond words. Of course it was short lived and false, but we had it in our grasp, if only for a moment. We did not tempt fate much on that trip. We topped all the vehicles off with gas and filled everything else that even remotely resembled a liquid container so we would not have to stop again. We took shifts driving, and in twenty-four hours, we had gone from our own reunion to pulling into my brother’s long, lonely stretch of dirt roadway for another.
There was a moment when we were coming in that I thought I was hallucinating. My Jeep, my awesomely beautiful fire engine red Jeep, was parked off to the side. But that wasn’t possible. There was no way in hell anyone would risk their lives to go cross-country to retrieve it. As nuts as I sometimes could get, the thought of doing this would never cross my mind. Okay wait, that’s a falsehood. I have thought about it. Although for the sake of fairness, I’ve also thought about riding a whale and eating thirty-six hot dogs, none of which I would actually carry out due to the potential liability. And to be honest, I would be pissed at whoeve
r had done it here. To what fucking point?
“Mike?” Tracy had asked as I walked around the Jeep.
“Yup, it’s mine.”
“You sure?”
“Well there’s still Henry drool down the back windshield, I’m sure I could get that DNA tested. But unless someone is really into master pranks, I’m not sure how they could have known what license plate to put on. I had Marine Corps plates. When the state of Colorado offered them I was like “Hell yeah!” Figured I was even going to get a little discount on them for my time in the service. Gotta admit I was a little let down when they charged ten dollars more for them. I opened up the side door; dog smell came out. Henry barked like mad as BT took him out and placed him on the ground. He rushed over to me and placed his paws on the running board. This was my cue to pick his ass up and place him inside. He started sniffing like someone had rubbed bacon all over the back seat.
His stub of a tail would alternate from swinging back and forth wildly to going stiff as a board when he came to certain scents he wasn’t sure about or did not like.
“Who did this?” BT asked.
“Someone that knew it was at the sheriff’s in Vona.” I looked up to Ron’s house. It was just then I noticed how dark it was, and I also saw no movement. We hadn’t come in beeping horns and playing rock music loudly, but still it was three cars in a world gone silent. We should have been heard for miles. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Had my Jeep been used as a Trojan horse? But those particular enemies were dead. Weren’t they?
1
Mike Journal Entry 1
“Weapons,” I said as silently as I could while making sure everyone heard me.
The mood changed suddenly and without question. Within a few seconds, everyone was on high alert. We had a loose circle formed and our complete perimeter covered.
“Dad, what are we looking for?” Travis asked.
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
I could feel his questioning gaze without even turning to look. The entire world was out of the ordinary.
“You know what I mean,” I barely explained. “Let’s move closer,” I told the group. “Be careful for booby traps or land mines.”
“Hand mimes? They’re the best. One was so good I actually walked into the wall he was trying to get around.” Trip was, for some reason, carrying Henry, and given the dog’s size, Trip was struggling.
We were a good twenty yards from Ron’s house. We had already gotten by the thick, sharpened wooden poles entrenched into the ground at a zombie-piercing angle. Next came a heavy chain-link fence. Beyond that were the deep and narrow death trenches we’d carved into the ground. Then was Ron’s house. From our angle, we were staring into the gaping wound that was the burned-out basement. Above that was a deck, and it was from there I saw my first bit of movement. I gripped my rifle tighter, if that was even possible.
“Ron?”
“Mike?” We almost asked our questioning greeting at the same time.
“Is it safe?” I asked, pointing to the ground to get to him. He looked sad, defeated maybe. I hoped it was just tiredness. He smiled when he saw us. We climbed up to him. He hugged and kissed everyone, but I noticed the warmth never reached his eyes. He was holding onto something that had an icy grip on his heart. It was Justin that got the first hint of what was going on.
Two dogs I’d never seen before came onto that deck with us.
“Riley?” Justin asked. “Riley, is that you, girl?” He got down on one knee, gripped the dog’s head in his hands, and patted her furiously.
“Justin?” I asked him.
“Dad, this is Jess’s dog, Riley. You remember right?”
I remembered once I rambled through the shambles of my less-than-perfect memory. I’d always liked Jess. Thought she was a sweetheart of a girl. Justin had been devastated when she moved away. I remember meeting Riley once or twice. Jess had apologized profusely when her dog had jumped up against my Jeep door, I would imagine to get a smell of Henry, who although he wasn’t in the car at the time, tended to leave heavy essence trails of himself wherever he went.
Henry wiggled in Trip’s arms until Trip figured out the dog wanted down. I don’t know the conversation Riley and Henry were having, but they seemed to be getting along pretty well, and generally, my dog didn’t play well with others. I was curious to see how he would react to the little dog my brother called Ben-Ben. Thing looked like he was hopped up on sugar shooters.
“Where’s Jess?” Justin had stood up and was waiting for the girl to appear. By the way everyone had filed out of the house and was on the deck with us, I didn’t need their sullen faces to explain. I already knew the answer, and soon, Justin would as well.
“Jess?” He stood on his tiptoes trying to look over the burgeoning crowd.
Ron hugged him.
“Goddammit,” I said. “When is this shit going to end?”
“Dad?” Justin was choosing not to put the pieces of this particularly bad puzzle together.
“Come here, son.”
“Jess!” he yelled out again.
He was rooted to his spot, so I moved to him and wrapped him in a hug he could not break loose from, though he tried. To be in my arms was to come to a horrible realization, and he wanted no part of it. He struck out, punching me in the sides. At first, they were hard hits, but they softened as he began to cry into my shoulder. Tracy wrapped herself around his back.
“I’m so sorry,” she said over and over.
It was maybe twenty minutes later when he’d spent himself. Ron ushered us to a place I could have him lay down. He fell into a fitful sleep about a half hour later. I lightly touched Tracy’s arm and pointed to the doorway. She looked back at him one more time before I softly pulled the door to the bedroom shut.
“It’s good to see you, Mike.” Ron said. He sat at the table. Gary had been filling him in on everything that had happened.
“Yeah, it was touch and go for a while, that’s for sure. Where is everyone else?” I asked.
“Tommy has them outside doing his best to distract them from everything that’s going on.”
“Do you have it in you to tell me what the hell happened and how my Jeep got here?” I knew now that Jess had somehow miraculously stumbled upon my cherished ride and brought it here. But then what? Had she been injured beyond repair when she finally got here?
“It was a damned zombie, Mike, a smart fucking zombie. It traversed every obstacle we had out there. Made it through the basement, found Jess sleeping and … and….” He broke down. I didn’t need the blow by blow at this point; easy enough to figure out.
I let him get it out of his system as best he could. He would carry the guilt of her death with him for the rest of his life. She’d been under his umbrella of protection, and he had seen himself as failing. It did not matter that he had no fault in this. He would never come to see it in that light, and for that, I truly wept inside. Humans carried guilt with them like luggage, and he’d just thrown a fully stuffed duffel bag onto his back. It would eventually wear him down.
“She showed up a couple of weeks ago. Nicole recognized her. Said she’d been to Little Turtle looking for Justin, and when he was gone, she lived in the clubhouse. She said there was enough food in there to last them for years.”
“Right. That’s where we stashed everything from the supermarket when we were still able to defend our home.” I had a pang in my chest for all that could never be recovered. “Lucky find for her. That still leaves a mighty big gap for her to get to Vona and stumble across my Jeep.”
“She had help. A man named Alex.”
“Alex, as in Carbonara?”
“Yeah, I think that was what she said his name was.”
My moment of elation at potentially seeing an old friend was quickly dashed. Ron did not appear to have ever met the man. “What happened to him?”
“Zombie attack, actually not too far from here. A fucking bathroom break, Mike. They were just trying to make a
quick pit stop, that’s all.”
“There’s no rhyme or reason brother; we both know that. Your marker comes up, and that’s it. Doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing. I mean, I hope there’re certain things that I’m doing when I die, but there’s no guarantee.” I was trying to find some levity in the heaviness of our conversation. Either way, Ron wasn’t in the mood. “There’re some holes in this story. Do you know how Alex and Jess got together?”
“It doesn’t get any better.”
“Not sure if it could. But he was a friend I’d like to know.”
“Well, I guess Alex’s family had met with a fate much like the rest of the world.”
“Aw fuck.” I slammed my palm to my forehead. “Those poor kids. Poor Alex. Fuck.”
“Yeah, so he got it in his head that he was going to go back to where it had all started and end it. If you know what I mean.”
I didn’t, not at first anyway. “Suicide?”
Ron nodded.
“He was going to kill himself? I guess it makes sense. At that point, what are you living for?”
“Then he met Jess.”
“Something to live for. Unreal how some things come full circle.”
“How so?” Ron asked.
“Alex came back to Little Turtle in that semi to save us on Christmas Day. Maybe somehow he knew he had one more person to save back there. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have just done himself in wherever he was? Why make a specific trip to your final destination?”
“Sometimes you actually make sense, brother,” he said with a smile that did not have enough power to touch his eyes.
“Every once in a while, I suppose I get my due.”
“What now?”
“I’m done, man. I’m just fucking done. There’s no one out there anymore that needs my help. They’re dead, they’re all fucking dead.” The gravity of that reality slammed into me. We were now a very small island of the living in an ocean of death.
