by Mark Tufo
“I cran ret more,” BT slurred, pointing to a radio down by his feet. “Got Kirby on standby.” He leaned over to get it, the chair, already well past its maximum weight-rating, bent and fell over to the side, and BT’s ass was now gripped tightly in the metal framing. That was all the catalyst needed to jettison the depression. Yeah, it wouldn’t last long, but a reprieve was welcome. I laughed until my sides hurt, I laughed until, regrettably, my sinuses hurt again. Another design flaw—don’t get too happy or sad because you’ll pay for it. I laughed even harder as BT was on the floor making the call. He’d stopped struggling to get out of his seated prison and just stayed doubled into the pathetically inadequate frame.
“Ret yer ass up here!” BT bellowed into the radio. Wasn’t two minutes later Kirby came sprinting in, a six-pack in each hand. He took a quick look around, decided it was better to say nothing, put the beer down, and headed to parts unknown.
“Want help?” I was looking down on BT.
“Just hand me a beer.” He somehow drank down the entire thing sideways, on the ground, without spilling any. It was impressive. By the time we finished off that set of beers, we were sitting on the roof, looking up at the stars. Tomorrow I’d pay for this, but tonight it was exactly what I needed.
9
Mike Journal Entry 8
There was one bonus side effect of the execution of Dewey; without the king, the zombies needed time to sort out who was now running the show. The power vacuum had caused no small amount of disruption. I didn’t personally witness it, but there were reports of skirmishes breaking out among groups of zombies. Can’t even begin to express how happy that made me, that they could turn on their own. Maybe there was still a way out with this; we could possibly have Deneaux teach the zombies some subterfuge, and they would then be too busy killing each other (and, hopefully, her) to worry about us. All I knew was it gave us three days off, three days to better fortify and rethink our strategy.
The use of any flying machines was off the board. I was worried about other animals, too; no clue if the bird thing was unique to Dewey. If not, what was next? Rodents? Insects? Tigers? We were now under siege, no doubt about it. Yeah, we were well-stocked, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t succumb to any of the dozens of diseases rats and insects could bring in. But the zombies didn’t want the land or buildings, couldn’t have cared less. They wanted us, so even if they could employ that tactic, would they? Or would they even have the reasoning ability to realize those aspects of their actions?
Knowing that a wet, stinking pile of freshly extruded shit was precariously stuck to the ceiling over a quickly spinning fan kept me very close to our new home-away-from-home. Any errands run by family members or my squad were in groups no smaller than four, and at the first sign that offal had splattered onto the blades of the machine mentioned above, there was to be no delay in hightailing it back. My squad, instead of harboring any anger toward me, which was understandable, ranged from avoiding the topic altogether, to thanking me for ending his suffering. I dealt with it like I deal with most things—I drank and allowed my lack of short-term memory to help me through. I also immersed myself in some serious dog therapy. Our resident psychologist had closed up shop in the face of the crisis we were about to be dealing with. I couldn’t think of a more cowardly thing to do, but I got it. Plus, that meant I didn’t have to do my obligatory visits, which, again, was fine with me.
Wassau and Major Dylan had come around the second day and scoped out an area to call their own, as had Overland’s team, though they weren’t going to move in until the siege began to squeeze in on itself. The SEAL team leader wasn’t nearly as convinced as I was that this would soon be the case. Deneaux had eased up on her assassination attempts; I was not under the false pretense it had anything to do with me being lost in the shuffle of the confusion going on with the hording zombies. Deneaux was much too thorough to let me slip through the cracks. No, this had to do with the very real and present danger the zombies represented, and with my penchant for surviving, she was banking on me being a last resort of escape. It might have made it more difficult but not impossible to kill me because she was now housed under Wassau’s care.
It hadn’t taken Overland long to figure out she’d been full of one hundred percent good old-fashioned grass-fed, horse crap. I hadn’t seen Forsyth again, I didn’t ask about him because I already knew that dark road traveled upon. The next time I saw Deneaux, I convinced myself that I was going to shoot her the moment the opportunity presented itself. However, I also harbored strong doubts it would work out that way.
I was doing laps around the roof—not for fitness, just my version of nervous pacing. It was on maybe the eleventh or twelfth passing by of my brother that he spoke.
“You’re making me nervous,” he stated. He was sitting on a recliner, wearing maybe the loudest pair of Bermuda shorts I had ever seen, sipping a drink with an umbrella, while reading a book. Tolstoy, War and Peace.
“Little light reading?” I asked as I was about to do my next circuit.
“You know it’s all right if you sit down, right?”
“There’s not another chair,” I told him.
“Oh, I didn’t mean by me. All that nervous energy thrumming off you will negatively affect my chi.”
“You been talking to Trip again?”
“He knows more than you think.”
“Yeah, and that’s what I find scary,” I replied as I rounded the far corner. Gary resumed reading. I headed down to the third floor; Tracy was busy doing eighteen different tasks while also homeschooling the kids. I got a look from her that spoke volumes about me hanging around in the general area and disturbing her. The second floor was off-limits as well; the squad was rotating duty, so at nearly any time of the day, half of them were sleeping. I went down to the ground floor. Apparently, we were ramping up for dinner, and I was entirely too amped to get wrangled into standing around peeling potatoes. I made sure to make a hasty exit. I headed out to the street where BT was tasked with making our fortress even more secure by walling up any avenues of approach. We were going to be a protected enclave within the citadel walls.
“Figured this would be about when you showed up.” BT looked at his watch.
“Almost done, I take it?”
“Was actually about to crack open a couple of beers and congratulate them for a job well done.”
“Then I’d say my timing was perfect.”
“You didn’t do anything.” He grabbed one beer out of the cooler he’d been sitting on.
“I ordered the fortifications.”
“Must be nice sitting upon your throne and decreeing. All you said was to make this place as impenetrable as possible. You didn’t plan it, acquire any of the materials, or do any of the work.”
“I was doing captain-y things.”
“Captain-y?”
“Yeah. It’s what us officers do; complicated. You wouldn’t understand.” He stood up and grabbed another beer. I had my hand out. He, as of yet, hadn’t passed it. “Seriously?” I asked as he looked at it, I could see him debating. He finally relented. “So, how’s it looking?”
“We’ve got the far side of the street pretty well barricaded, enough that they’re not going to spend much time there. Instead, they should come down this other way, to our pinch point.”
I looked to the disused trucks and cars that, if viewed from above, were shaped like a funnel, so that by the time the zombies came through, it would be one at a time. A perfect killing field. This was the best tactic we could employ. Walls, in theory, would keep them out, but historically, walls invariably failed. It made much more sense to give our enemy an avenue of approach, one we could control.
“Kirby headed out with Rose. They’re looking to secure a fifty cal and as much ammunition as they can pilfer. Going to set up a machine gun nest on the second floor, looking right down on the choke point. Once that goes south, Rose has the buildings on either side rigged to come down in a controlled explosion
. Should cause some serious devastation.”
“And then?” I asked after drinking half the beer.
“How many ‘and thens’ do you think there are? Once they break through the destroyed buildings, we secure the first floor and take out the stairwell. At that point…”
He left it unsaid. The siege we were now experiencing would finally be reduced to this one building. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This reminded me of the early days of the apocalypse at Little Turtle. The complex had weathered a few storms before finally collapsing, trapping us in my townhome. Then, we had received a hell of a Christmas present in the form of Alex coming to save us; wasn’t sure what rabbit was going to be pulled out of the hat this time. Hell, I didn’t even know where the hat was.
“And the back side?”
“Street is completely blocked off, and, luckily, on that side of the road the windows are ten feet up and small.”
“We’re still going to need people keeping an eye out. Them using ladders or even creating zombie towers is not out of the question.”
“Remember when zombies used to walk slow, with their arms outstretched?” He drank his beer down. “Yeah, me neither.” He finished then fished in the cooler for another.
“Don’t you think you should save a few for the people that did all the work?”
“Don’t you have more captain-y things to do?”
“How’s my sister?”
“She’s scared, like the rest of us, but she’s a Talbot, so she doesn’t say anything. Tracy?”
“She’s fine. The toughest woman I know. She has this misguided faith that I’m going to ride this tide of shit with all of us in tow, right onto a golden shore.”
“And you?”
“Swarming zombies with overwhelming numbers, that’s one thing. You have a pretty good idea of what they’re going to do. Thinking zombies being directed…got another beer?”
“This is the best fortification we’ve ever had, along with the most armament, firepower, and trained personnel.”
“And I still don’t think it’s going to be enough; we’re safe, but trapped. We need an escape strategy. Maybe we could get Trip to fly us out in a helicopter.”
“That stoner doesn’t need any machines to fly.”
“True.”
“You think Bennington has an evacuation plan?” BT asked.
“If he does, I’m not privy to the info. I would think that would be a last resort. He’s going to hold on until the very end, and like a ship captain of old, my bet is that he’s going down with the base.”
“Want to know what I’m going to do if we finally win this war?”
“I’m listening.”
“Going to find a bunch of golf videos and sudoku books, going to watch the vids and do the puzzles.”
“Way to aim high,” I told him.
“You’re missing the point. I want to do the most boring things I can think of. Something that in no way can ruffle the last few nerves I’m holding on to.”
“Fairly brilliant. Want to know what I’m going to do?”
“No, because I’m sure it involves skinny-dipping with your dogs.”
“That wasn’t it, but I’m not seeing the problem.”
“You wouldn’t.”
We looked over to the side, a truck was coming along with another vehicle.
“What the hell?” BT asked as we walked over.
Rose was driving the truck; she gave us the thumbs up. Kirby pulled around her in a large blue and white bucket truck. She backed into the one remaining gap before shutting the engine down and getting out.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
BT shrugged.
“Whaddaya think?” Kirby was all grins.
“Stealing some cable television?” I asked.
“Funny, sir. I didn’t like the firing point for the choke; figured with this, I could swing out to be more head-on.”
“You really want to have your ass swinging in the breeze above a mob of zombies while firing a mounted fifty cal?” I asked.
“Yeah…” Kirby answered tentatively.
“You ever been in a bucket truck?” BT asked.
“I drove it here,” he answered, defensively.
“In the basket, dumbass,” BT finished.
“No. Always wanted to though.”
“Rose, you couldn’t talk him out of this?” I asked.
“I thought it sounded like a good idea,” she replied.
“She plays with explosives, Talbot. You think she’s going to be the voice of reason? You know I figured it was because your name was Talbot that you were so fried in the brain, but I’m coming to realize that either the Marines attract like-kind, or they fry out any reasoning ability from their recruits.”
“Could be true,” I told him. “Listen, Kirby, I get wanting a better angle, and head-on with the large caliber will decimate them, but once you start firing that thing, that bucket is going to sway like a Kansas wheat stalk during tornado season.”
“Good one,” BT replied.
He didn’t believe me.
“Get up in it,” I told him.
Now he looked nervous. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to summon a tornado; just do it.”
We waited while he fumbled around with the controls and got himself fully extended. “Holy shit—this is pretty high up.”
“BT, show him.”
“Show him what?”
“Show him how not sturdy it is.”
“You just want me away from the cooler,” he grumbled as he went over to the side of the truck.
“No shit. Now rock the boat.”
Kirby was leaning over, watching. “What’s going on?”
BT leaned into the side of the truck and started pushing, leaning back and pushing more, the truck moved a bit; the bucket rocked a couple of feet.
“Fuck!!!!” Kirby was holding on.
“Yeah, now imagine you’re trying to fire a big gun,” I yelled up after taking a copious draught.
“That’s not entirely fair! The stabilizer arms aren’t out.” Rose was enjoying the show.
“Don’t make me demote you,” I told her.
It was all fun and games until the base alarm went off.
I finished my beer. “Fuck. I hate that sound almost as much as I hated my alarm clock.”
“Almost as much?” BT was working the controls to get Kirby down quickly.
“At least there’s no commute,” I told him.
“Weird way to look at it.” BT helped a pasty-looking Kirby out. “You two get the rest of the squad. I want the plating and fencing in place, and shore up the truck.”
“On it,” Rose said, heading into the building.
“We heading to the gate?” BT asked.
“You know what? I think we’ll hang here.”
BT eyed me for a few moments. “You think it’s going to fall?”
“Most of the feelings I have these days revolve around doom and gloom, and right now seems to be even gloomier,” I told him. I didn’t have anything to go on other than my gut said staying put might be for the best.
Tracy was leaning out the window. “You going to check what that’s about?” She was referring to the alarm.
“It’s about zombies!” I yelled back up, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“She could hit you with a brick from there,” BT said.
“Smartass,” Tracy called down.
“Will you do a roll call, make sure everyone is accounted for?” I asked, she nodded and pulled her head in just as the klaxon wound down. If I’d been holding out any hopes that the alarm had only been a test of the national emergency broadcast system, that was shattered the moment rifle fire began.
“Zombies!” Gary yelled from the roof.
That was about as helpful as yelling fire during a 4th of July celebration.
“Where?” I shouted up.
“Coming up over the wall by the hospital
side!”
“Over the wall?” BT asked me.
“Justin is out getting toys for the kids!” Tracy called out.
“Kid can’t help himself; he’s always out when the z-poc starts. Shit.”
“Tommy is with him,” she added.
That made me feel better. Not many were more equipped to survive than that boy was.
10
TOMMY and JUSTIN
“I think you’ve got enough,” Tommy said as they brought another handful of coloring books, crayons and toys out to the truck.
“I just don’t want them to get bored, you know, in case we have to stay inside for a long time. Give them something to do to keep them from being scared, too. One more trip,” Justin said as he unloaded.
Tommy paused, looked up, grabbed Justin’s arm. “Nope,” he said, five seconds before the alarms started blaring.
“It freaks me out when you do that,” Justin said as they both hopped in.
Tommy had no sooner started the truck when they heard shots being fired and then saw a bunch of people running across the roadway, farther up.
“No idea,” Tommy said before Justin could ask.
“You sure you want to drive that way?”
“There’s no back exit.” Tommy put the truck in gear and slowly moved to where the people were running. More people ran across the roadway. Tommy was hesitant to move any further. “Hate to say this Justin but it might be better to ditch the truck and we can run the back way to the building.”
“We just packed this thing, I’m not leaving it.”
“There’s nothing in here worth risking our lives over.”
“It’s not the stuff I’m concerned with; it’s the well-being of the kids I’m going to pass it out to. Look, I think they’re done.”
“I’m worried about what they were running from.”
“They heard the alarm and are heading back home, just like we are.”
Tommy hit the gas, and the truck lurched forward. They’d come to the intersection where the people had been running. There was a loud bang; the truck shook ever so slightly.
