by Mark Tufo
“A car? No,” he answered, I could physically witness his thought process as he was trying to go through the catalog of his possessions.
My heart sank. It was going to suck trying to get out of the city ahead of the zombies and the fire.
“I’ve got a van, though.”
I almost kissed him, until I began to wonder if maybe he was using it as a planter in the backyard or something equally as useless. “Keys?”
“In the ignition,” he said, turning back towards the fire. “I was always losing them and that seemed like the safest place.
“It runs then?” I asked, still keeping my fingers crossed.
“In the garage,” he said pointing. “I grew up a few streets away from here before I became a roadie. I loved being on the road, but there was always a part of me that wanted to come home.” Tears were forming in his eyes. “I heard that you can never go home, but that isn’t true. I did, married my high school sweetheart…she still held a flame for me after all those years I was away. We took some cooking classes because we liked to eat well when we got the eats.” He smiled sideways as he reminisced. “Come to find out, I was something of a protégé in the kitchen and ended up teaching the class the following year. Stephanie never got any better, but she attended just to stay close to me.” He didn’t clarify, but I figured Stephanie was his wife. “We were married for seven of the greatest years of my life.”
“I’m sorry, John the Tripper, I am. What happened?”
“She went to Washington.”
“What?” I figured she had contracted some rare blood disease and died in his arms.
“She got a job offer. She wanted me to move with her, but I had finally come home and I didn’t want to leave again.”
I wanted to berate him for letting the love of his life get away from him, but it was his life to live as he saw fit. Who the hell was I to tell him differently? Shit, I was just some bald guy wearing a poncho and a tin foil hat. I would have been shunned by bums in Detroit. “I’m sorry,” was all I could muster.”
“For what?” he asked, looking at me. I truly think he forgot the entire thread of the conversation we were just having.
“Ah...nothing. Do you have any shoes I could wear?” I asked as I looked down at my yellow-rimmed tube socks.
“You going somewhere? I sure could use some mushrooms.”
“For cooking or eating?”
“Both, what else would I do with them.”
“I was thinking you meant the psychedelic kind.”
“Oh no, those taste like shit. I make sheet acid.”
“Forget I asked. John, I need some shoes if you have them, and you need to go pack some shit up. We need to get out of here.”
“Why would I pack shit up?” he asked.
“Figure of speech.”
“You make no sense, man,” he told me as he headed up his stairs. I really hope it wasn’t for a nap.
“Well this is a first,” I said to the empty room. “I’m not the craziest one in attendance.”
“What size foot do you have?” John the Tripper yelled down.
“Ten!” I yelled back up.
“I’m an eight. Can you fit in those?”
“When I was twelve maybe.”
“Well can you or can’t you then?” he yelled down.
I think I would be better off with socks rather than trying to cram my feet into a shoe two sizes too small.
“You could wear a pair of Stephanie’s that she left behind!”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“She was a women’s thirteen!” he added.
“What are they canoes?” I asked softly, I didn’t think he would have heard me.
“She had a condition.”
“Amazonian?”
“A women’s thirteen is about a men’s eleven-and-a-half. You want them?”
“Sure, bring some extra socks.” Now I just had to get over my phobia of putting on someone else’s shoes. Hadn’t been bowling in over twenty-five years after I once figured out how many nasty-ass feet those things had been donned on. And that little squirt of disinfectant deodorant that the ‘shoe technician’ put in there would do little to overwhelm the hardy microbes that must be breeding vigorously in that germ-rich soup of toe fungus and foot jam. How’s that sound for appealing? Might as well dip your feet in dirty toilet water.
I was still rubbing the unseen germs off of me when John came back down the stairs. He was carrying an armload of socks and quite possibly the brightest pink sneakers I had ever seen in my life. I mean they looked as if they were potentially battery powered.
“You’re kidding right? Please?” I begged.
“I like socks.”
“No the sneakers.”
“No, Stephanie left a bunch of stuff behind. We’re still married. She visits about once every two months…she’s late this time though.”
My mouth opened, he had once again surprised me. I moved on to something I understood.
“Can you shut those off?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the brightness.
“You’re a funny bastard!” he said, handing over the shoes and some socks.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said sadly as I went over to the couch to put on my new digs.
John went over to another table in the far corner of the room. He retrieved a large folder that looked thick with paperwork.
“I don’t think you’re going to need to file taxes any time soon,” I said, looking up happily. The sneakers were ugly as hell, but with the added pair of socks, they fit pretty well. Plus, I had the bonus of being able to walk on water if the need arose.
“I’ve never filed taxes,” he said.
“You’re kind of my hero right now,” I told him as I stood, surprised at how well Stephanie’s footwear felt.
“I’m ready to go,” he said, heading towards the kitchen.
“That’s it? That’s all you want to take?” I asked him. “Paperwork?”
“Oh shit, man!” he exclaimed when he turned to me.
“What?” I asked looking around wildly.
“My wife has shoes just like that! How weird is that!”
“Weirder than you know. Let’s get out of here.”
He led the way into the kitchen which had a door to an attached garage, thank God for small favors. The garage was filled with fine soot that was coming in through a partially broken window, but even that did little to obscure the rainbow painted VW van sitting there.
“Did I really expect anything else?” I told the gods of irony.
“Isn’t she a beauty? I bought her brand new back in ‘92.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him they stopped production of his particular model somewhere around the mid-seventies. And beauty was not a word that could be used to describe what rested in his garage. The bright paint did little to hide the various rust holes or the vast number of dings, the van looked like it had been parked on the moon for a few centuries and had suffered a barrage of micro meteor hits.
“It runs?” was all I could ask. It looked too beat up to even be considered a hippie planter.
“Stephanie can’t cook worth a shit,” he said conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her that,” he added as if she were in the next room. “But she has a way with tools like you wouldn’t believe.”
I was now secretly wondering if perhaps Ship-Sized-Shoe-Stephanie, who couldn’t cook but could apparently keep an ancient vehicle finely tuned may or may not be of the feminine persuasion. Again it made absolutely no difference to me, just fodder for my thoughts.
I handed the keys back to John, I wasn’t too particularly thrilled with someone of his mental state driving, but it was still his car.
“Oh shit no, man,” John the Tripper said, pushing the keys back. “I haven’t driven since ‘88 and I just dosed.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“Nope.”
“Besides thinking that right now was a perfect time to d
rop acid, why would you buy a car if you don’t even drive?”
“The dealer said it fit me.”
I shrugged. “It does, but that still doesn’t make much sense.”
“You feeling anything yet?”
“About what?”
“I put some in your fire water.”
CHAPTER SIX
Eliza & Tomas
Tomas sat for a moment longer. His sister turned her gaze back towards the city that was now under attack. He had felt Michael, of that he was one hundred percent sure, but then what? He could not figure it out; it was as if someone had used the Jaws of Life to severe their connection. Tomas was certain that Mike yet lived, because the connection had not faded to black; it had just stopped even as it was increasing in strength. No, something else was happening here. So when his sister suggested they go and join in the fun down below, he was all for it, if only to see whether he could get some clues and possibly feed; he was so hungry.
“Do you smell that, Tomas?” Eliza asked as she tilted her nose up.
“I smell fire and fear,” Tomas said morosely.
“Exactly,” she answered with a smile. They had just reached the outskirts of the city and were coming in from the west the zombies were pouring in from the north.
“What are you two doing?” a woman shouted from her porch. She was flanked by three malnourished children, all of which were carrying rifles of varying calibers.
“We are just going for a stroll,” Eliza answered in a sing-song voice, grabbing Tomas’ arm.
“You need to get out of the street!” the woman cried. “There are zombies all over the place!” The woman was dressed in a moo-moo that at one time may have fit, but now billowed in the breeze. Her hair was pulled back tightly, pinching her sagging flesh against her ears.
“Are we truly in danger?” Eliza asked aghast, placing her hand to her breast.
“Is she daft?” the woman asked Tomas.
“Most likely,” Tomas said. Eliza shot him a wicked glance.
“Come in here!” the woman screamed.
Eliza started heading towards the door.
“What are you doing?” Tomas asked.
“She’s inviting us in for dinner, Tomas. It would be rude of us not to accept.”
“They’re just children, Eliza,” Tomas moaned.
“That’s what makes it so special. Come on, Tomas.”
He reluctantly followed.
The woman ushered her children in and began to doubt the wisdom of her graciousness as Eliza strode purposefully closer.
“You ain’t dangerous or nothing are you?” the woman asked with a quiver in her voice.
“My dear we are your worst nightmare,” Eliza said as she crossed over the threshold.
“Please,” The mother begged Tomas.
“It’s too late,” he said softly.
“Don’t be shy,” Eliza said to the mother as she pulled her in. “Some have said I have no heart, but I offer you this,” Eliza told the young mother. “Would you rather I kill you first or your children?”
The woman nearly swooned. Tomas reached out and steadied her.
“Momma, should I shoot her?” the oldest boy asked. He was standing bravely in front of his smaller sister and brother.
“Run, Jacob, run!” the woman screamed.
“Yes, Jacob, run,” Eliza mimicked. “I love the taste of adrenaline in blood it gives it a slight tang I find pleasant upon my palate,” she said as she swept her tongue across her extended canines.
“Not my babies, please not my babies,” the mother begged.
“Come, come. What would become of them if I left them to their own devices?”
Eliza spun to her right a few inches as a rifle round caught her in the shoulder blade.
“That is how you treat guests?” Eliza said as she traversed the room in the span of an eye blink.
Jacob was six inches off the ground suspended from his neck as Eliza gripped him tightly.
“Please!” the mother sobbed as she fell to her knees.
“Finish her, Tomas,” Eliza barked.
“Let us leave, sister.”
“Finish her or I will pop this boy’s head like an over ripened peach.”
Eliza wrapped both her small hands on either side of the Jacob’s head. She was applying so much pressure that the boy’s eyes were beginning to bulge.
“NO!” the mother shrieked. The small boy and his sister were screaming as they watched the whole encounter from midway up the stairs.
The sound of the oldest boy’s skull crushing dominated above all the other din within the room. His face fell in as bone ground against bone, his body twitched spasmodically.
“Jakie!” the little girl screamed as she ran down the stairs. Brain matter leaked through her brother’s ear.
The woman collapsed. Eliza, in one fluid motion, let the boy drop to the ground and plucked the little girl up into the air. She plunged her fangs deep into the girl’s throat and drank heavily. Urine ran in rivulets from the only remaining sibling.
Tomas was straining against his urges as he watched his sister drink her fill. Her eyes never left him as she pulled the life out of the little girl one drop at a time.
“You must eat, brother,” she said to Tomas as she discarded the girl like a used juice box.
The mother was moaning in her unconscious state, her head resting up against Tomas’ leg. The boy watched as Tomas bent down and almost tenderly placed his lips against her neck. The young boy did not move, he did not blink as blood leaked out from around Tomas’ mouth and onto the carpet.
Eliza laughed as she climbed the four stairs to the boy; he placed his thumb in his mouth.
“No, Eliza!” Tomas said forcibly as he stood after getting his fill.
“The mother lives, Tomas, I can smell her stench of life from here. You are doing her no favors by allowing her life.”
“We have eaten, Eliza, why must you torment them?”
“Two of her whelps are dead and she will be weaker than a newborn for the next two days. My zombies are destroying this entire city. They are not nearly as efficient in their feeding as we are, the pain these two will suffer at their hands will be far worse than the end I offer.”
“You don’t get it. You could stop all off it,” Tomas beseeched.
“How did father tolerate one with such a dramatic disposition?”
“I’m done here,” Tomas said, heading for the door. He waited in the middle of the roadway for another five minutes before Eliza walked out. She wiped the blood off her mouth with her fingers, then licked them clean.
“Don’t be so sad, Tomas, they now live eternally. Come, let us go see what other fun we can have,” she said as she grabbed his arm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BT and Gary
It was long moments before any of them had calmed down enough from their close encounter of the girth kind. The city shone like a dying sun in the rearview mirror.
“That’s really the end of them,” BT said looking back.
Gary’s eyes were wet with remembrance.
Mrs. Deneaux was subdued, but it was more out of self-preservation than from any type of respect. To her, Brian’s death was a necessity; he died to save her. Paul was an idiot that shouldn’t have made it anyway, and Mike’s demise was more of a stroke of good fortune. She realized that he had more than a sneaking suspicion that she was in some way involved in Brian’s death as well as Paul’s disappearance, and he would have kept pressing the matter. Especially since Paul had been eaten—by cats no less. She smiled as she humored herself with the thought. Who dies by cats in a zombie apocalypse? That’s like dying from a hangnail during a war.
“Something funny?” BT asked her.
She hadn’t realized she’d been displaying her mood on the outside. “I’m just happy to be away from there.” she said, recovering smoothly. “I mean safely of course. I am sorry for your loss, Gary,” she said as motherly as she could. It sounded more like a
pit viper before it struck a field mouse.
Gary did not hear the tone, only the words. “Thank you,” he practically sobbed. “I...I don’t know how I’m going to tell Tracy, the kids, my father.”
“I’ll be there with you, Gary, we’ll get through it,” BT said as he turned to face him.
“It should have been me, BT,” Gary sniffed heavily.
“Please tell me you do not plan to cry the entire drive to Maine,” Mrs. Deneaux said. When BT turned an evil eye on her she added. “I’m merely looking out for the lad, he won’t be able to see the road properly and he will give himself a truly bad headache.”
We lose half our number and she survives, the fates are cruel and unjust, BT thought sourly. I am going to have to watch her carefully.
Mrs. Deneaux smiled broadly as Gary looked at her through the rearview mirror.
The Pinto may have been the ugliest thing still on the road, but it ran and that counted for a fair amount. They had just crossed over into Virginia on Route 85 almost to the 95 interchange when Gary noticed that the fuel gauge hadn’t moved since they’d left Old Fort nearly some two hundred miles ago.
“I think we might have a problem,” Gary said.
BT, who had been lost in his own thoughts, sat up. “What’s the matter?” he asked looking around. BT thought Mrs. Deneaux might be sleeping but he couldn’t tell; the old bat had one eye open.
“Fuel,” Gary said pointing to the dash.
“It says we’re three-quarters full,” BT said moving his head so he could see.
“Yeah…and that’s what it said when we left.”
“Then maybe you should find a place to get some. Did I really need to point that out?” Mrs. Deneaux said opening her other eye.
“Maybe if we’re real lucky some gas will spill on you, and the next time you light a cigarette, the world will find itself a slightly better place,” BT said turning to face her.
She lit another cigarette in response.
“Come on, BT, we’re all we have left,” Gary said, trying to make peace.
