by Mark Tufo
“I loved Steve. He was a decent man, great father, and provider for our family. I just wasn’t in love with him.”
“A lot of people use that excuse sis. What exactly does that mean?”
“We could have been roommates for all the passion we had in our lives. We didn’t even sleep in the same room anymore.”
“I didn’t know...you guys always seemed so happy.”
“You ever seen him hug me? Kiss me?”
“No; I don’t know...that’s not stuff I’d be comfortable watching.”
“I’m not exactly comfortable with it either when I see you and Tracy, but you guys are practically oblivious to those around you when you do. Kiss and hug I mean; it’s just something so natural and easy for you both. We’d lost that about five years ago. I tried so hard to rekindle it, but he was uninterested. I was done. Jess was ready to move out and I wanted to start over—maybe find someone, maybe not. I just knew I didn’t want to live like that anymore.”
“I’m so sorry sis. You could have talked to me, you know.”
She looked at me strangely.
“Yeah, you’re right. I would have told you to stop being so high-maintenance or something.”
We walked in silence. Well, I walked in silence, mostly listening to my sister talk. I knew the chatter for what it was. A way to distract her from what was happening; what had happened, what was likely to happen next. She could talk until she passed out if it kept her from those dismal thoughts. It was between breaths I heard an engine—a big one.
“We have to hide.”
Chapter 14
BT
BT began a controlled slide down the rest of the slope as Michael, Steve, and Lyndsey headed off. He knew his only hope was to hide in one of the machines. He hadn’t noticed it at first, as he was trying to keep his footing on his rapid descent, but stones and loose material were raining down on him from above like a cataclysmic storm. The sheer number of zombies running dangerously close to the edge of the pit were knocking all manner of debris free. At first, BT was alright with the occasional pelting, it was when zombies started tumbling down into the pit all around him that he realized how much trouble he was in.
“What the hell?” he asked, shielding his eyes to look up. He’d not been discovered; it was just that some of the zombies were being forced over the edge. Those that fell to the bottom were incapacitated or killed outright. Others, that fell on various parts of the winding roadway only suffered minor injuries or a broken bone or two. They would limp or drag their bad appendage and just keep on going. At first, the zombies began to head back up the slope to their initial pursuit. It was one of the not-quite dead ones that had rolled all the way to the bottom that gave the others a reason to eat in...at a more local venue.
“Oh shit,” BT said as he saw the first of the zombies turn to look at him. More than a handful were capable of full sprint and others were being added to the fray. The front end loader was closer but the truck was his preferred destination. It didn’t dawn on him that he could get in the big machine and literally bulldoze his way over to the truck.
“This was such a Mike move,” he thought, standing midway between the two machines. A hundred yards to the truck, a hundred to the loader, and a fifty yard lead on the zombies now at the bottom of the cauldron with him. “Better not be locked,” he said, reaching the truck and stepping up onto the running board. He grabbed at the door handle with too much force, lost his footing and fell to the ground as the door unexpectedly swung open. He landed hard on his side where his rifle was hanging, forcing the air from his lungs. Spitting gravel dust from his lungs, he looked up to see the zombies were closing fast—twenty-five yards, not a foot more.
“Fuck that hurt,” he muttered as he forced himself up, grabbed the door handle, swung into the truck and used momentum to pull the door closed behind him. He quickly slammed both doors locked then collapsed on the bench seat to catch his breath. He was looking right up at the dark dome light; the son of a bitch that most certainly had drained the battery because the door had been left slightly open.
“Now what?” he asked, as zombies ran full force up against the large truck. “What would Talbot do?” Then he laughed. “I don’t care, because I’d do the damn opposite. That’s what.” He waited until his chest didn’t hurt before he sat up. He pushed back into the seat, surprised to see a zombie peering into the windshield. It had climbed onto the hood to get a better vantage point.
“What the fuck?” he said, scrambling to get his rifle into position. The zombie pushed itself off the hood before BT could shoot it. He peered around. “Can’t be more than a dozen, fifteen at most.” He couldn’t get an accurate count because he couldn’t make out all of the activity behind the truck by using only the rearview mirrors. “What are you tricky fucks up to? Time to play,” he said as he reached into his pocket for the suppressor he’d brought with him. He unscrewed the muzzle break and placed on the much longer attachment. It wouldn’t completely silence the sound like Hollywood portrayed, but it would significantly reduce it. BT hoped it would do its job well enough that no one outside of this pit could hear it.
He unrolled his window, not wanting to damage the only barrier he had between him and the enemy. The closest zombie reached up to get at him, BT blew off most of its skull. Inside the cab of the truck, the expended round was loud enough to make him wince; outside the sound was as flat and stifled as two wooden boards clacking together. Two more zombies died quickly before the rest figured out their food was lethal and hid behind the truck with the rest, silently waiting out their food.
Prey always moves.
BT rolled the window down more, and with some degree of difficulty, tried to fit the firing half of his torso out so that he could kill any zombies that showed themselves. “Like trying to shove a cork up an ant’s ass,” he said as he pulled himself back in—he was almost certain he heard a “popping” release as he did so. “Dammit.” He rolled the window back up. “Well...nothing to lose,” he said as he looked at the dangling key fob hanging out of the ignition. He closed his eyes and cranked. So much of nothing happened that he wasn’t even sure he’d turned the key. There was no engine whir, no clicking of a solenoid looking for juice, no dim flickering from the dome light or even a light on the instrument panel to give any indication of hope that this truck could potentially start ever again.
“Well, that answers that question.” He heard the handle on the passenger side squeal in protest as a zombie tried to open it. BT slid across the seat and quickly grabbed the window handle. He’d no sooner lowered it than a zombie's hand and forearm pushed through. An outstretched finger had narrowly missed poking his eye. Instinctively, BT had grabbed that cold, unnaturally strong flesh. He forced the arm down, snapping the thing’s forearm against the door. The resultant sound was louder than the rifle had been. There were no howls of pain, just growls of rage as the zombie was denied a meal. BT rolled up the window as quickly as he’d rolled it down. He trapped the zombie’s arm at the breaking point.
“I can’t even go into how damn gross this is,” BT said as he watched the fingers furl and unfurl in a desperate attempt to get at him. The zombie had stepped onto the running board and was looking directly at him.
“Yeah, this isn’t going to work out for us, buddy.” BT wanted to get his rifle in the appropriate position to get a shot off, but the angle was tight and he could not get the barrel on the right trajectory as the buttstock kept hitting the ceiling of the cab. With the rifle up against his shoulder, and his right hand holding it tight there with the pistol grip, he rolled the window down a few inches with his left hand. He fired before the zombie had a chance to retreat. A back splash of blood from the close contact killing, sprayed into his face.
“Well, that was pleasant,” he said as he wiped his face on a shirt he found on the floorboard that smelled of high school football team, jock strap funk. When he was done, he looked over to the tractor. He was fast; that much he knew. He just couldn’t know whether a
ny of the zombies were faster. It would only take one of them to slow him down enough for the others to catch up. One on one was fine; twelve on one? Not so much. He thought that most likely the bulldozer was dead as well. He liked the idea of being able to see 360; in the glass structure although essentially, he would be encased in a fish bowl like the last lobster in a fancy restaurant where you get to choose your entrée.
He slowly opened the door, cursing under his breath as one of the rusted hinges squelched in protest. He could see some shuffling of feet from the zombies but as of yet, none had peered around to see what he was up to. He put the rifle to his shoulder as he moved to get out. Still nothing. He was weighing the pros and cons of flat out turning and running, when one of the zombies peeked around the edge of the tailgate. BT took a shot that whined off the thick metal and buried itself into the dirt some yards away.
“So much for stealth,” he said, as he tactically withdrew, keeping his back to the tractor and facing the zombie threat. The zombies didn’t take long to circle around the far side of the truck, BT moved quickly away from their shield. “Show yourselves and we can get this over with.” As if one of the zombies understood his words, he peered over the hood of the truck; almost as if it was attempting to lure BT to use up his bullets as it ducked back down. The image of a carnival shooting gallery flashed through BT’s mind; he smiled. If it had not been for the scraping of rock on rock, BT would not have ever turned to see the line of zombies running full speed down into the pit to come up on his back.
“Tricky fucks,” he muttered. Steeling his mind, he started to do the math in his head: how long would he be able to back up this way with the rate the zombies were coming in? If a horde of dead things is charging towards a tractor and a man with a rifle is running towards it from seventy-five feet away while shooting behind him, what are the chances he will beat them to safety? He thought he would have remembered if he had that math question. If he could manage to kill one zombie per bullet and not fuck-up opening the door, he figured he could make it out of here. Even he didn’t like those odds, but turned to begin running. Almost immediately he heard the telltale signs of pursuit. He recalculated when he saw their speed; the gap was closing faster than he’d figured. He knew he was going to have to time his entry perfectly; if he fell back, if he slipped up at all, he would not be able to recover. Zombies were just coming around both sides of the dozer as he launched himself upwards using everything he had left. The first third of his boot gripped the top of the tank-like tread; his forward momentum brought the rest of his body up and completely on.
Breathing hard from the exertion, he was reaching for the handle when his left leg was tugged violently backward. With the rifle in his left, he struck backward and down. The aluminum handguard smashed into the zombie’s mouth, breaking its teeth into jagged, uneven rows. This somehow gave it a more predatory look, like a shark, but the strike was enough to send the zombie reeling away. BT flung open the tractor door—briefly thankful that it was unlocked. He hopped in, slammed the door behind him and made sure it was locked. He didn’t revel in his victory long, as he realized he had put himself in a small, glass enclosure not much bigger than himself. In less than a minute he was completely surrounded by zombies. All of them, for the moment, doing nothing more than staring at him, like they were at the aquarium and he was the sad but prized sea turtle everyone loved to visit.
“Still better than having a conversation with Trip,” he said as he caught his breath. He felt that way right up until a few of the zombies began to lick and bite at the glass. “Fuck me,” he whispered. Then some began to rap lightly on the structure. “If this is psychological warfare, you guys are winning.” BT kept turning to see what they were doing. He knew this monster dirt pusher had to have strong, tempered glass, but that made him feel only marginally better. After all, maybe he was safe for the moment, but he was still trapped in a tight spot. His lack of maneuverability was going to make it difficult to fight his way out of his present predicament.
“Might as well see if anything happens.” A ray of hope flooded into his darkening spirits when panel lights turned on as he twisted the key in the ignition. As quickly as those hopes were illuminated, they were blown out when absolutely nothing happened. “NO! I refuse for this to happen!” He turned the ignition again; this time he noticed an orange panel light up. He began to laugh. “I think I just pulled a Talbot. Damn glow plugs.” Diesel engines on the majority of heavy machinery use glow plugs, which must be primed and charged up before they are warm enough to start the mini-explosions that crank the powerful engines. It was quite possible the zombies knew he was on to something as well. They bumped up their attack. BT turned lightning quick when he heard the first zombie smash a softball-sized rock against the glass.
With the first strike, there was nothing more than a chipped out star; on the second, fragmented lines began to radiate outward. When BT thought the plugs had warmed enough he turned the key from its three-quarter position to all the way on. There was a hiccup of thick, black smoke, miraculously, the engine sputtered and coughed like a black lung victim before it began its heavy rumbling.
“Yeah!” BT raised his fist into the air; this was punctuated by furious beating against the glass as the zombies realized they might be in danger of losing food. BT found the lever that made the beast go forward; he pressed down on the foot pedal. The large machine vibrated uncontrollably and the motor began to die out. He removed his foot from the pedal and took it out of gear. “Almost stalled it out; I’ve got a sinking feeling that if this thing dies, it won’t ever start again. Damn zombie apocalypse is making a pessimist out of me. I hate when shit like that happens.” He pulled down on a lever that showed an image of the engine; there was a delay as the power generator took a moment to accept the command. The dozer shook like a wet dog, a few of the zombies fell off as if they were fleas on the aforementioned canine.
“Now we’re cooking with gas!” He put the engine in gear; this time instead of wanting to stall it jumped forward. More zombies were shaken loose or fell from the tracks as their perch began to move. “My turn to play!” He turned the dozer hard to the right and went forward, catching the heel of a zombie that was not quick enough to get out of the way. From his position BT could not hear the bones snap and crunch as the zombie fell over and was mashed into the ground, crushing and grinding every internal organ and bone into fragments. He chased down two more this way before the zombies began to congregate behind the machine where they were relatively safe. So they thought, anyway, until BT found the reverse pedal and took out another half dozen in a similarly grisly fashion. “I’m not sure I should be having this much fun, I’m going to blame it on being around Mike too much,” he grinned. Blood erupted like geyser spurts from the intense pressure.
He still had to deal with the zombies that were directly behind him clinging to the machine; at the moment they were just holding on, but eventually they would start the smashing process again and BT did not believe it was going to take much more than five or six good hits before they broke through. BT positioned the tractor where it would have the longest straight run available to him. He wedged the rifle between the pedal and the seat and grabbed the heavy pry bar that was next to it. “I’m going to fuck you up,” he said as he swiveled and opened the door. He wrapped his left hand tightly around the assist handle and leaned out. With his right, he swung the metal bar, striking the closest zombie hard enough that its head impacted the glass with enough force to shatter its skull.
“There. You’re sufficiently fucked,” he told it as it fell away. The second zombie thought maybe it had a chance of getting in close before BT could swing again. She was right and she was wrong. He did not have the momentum to recover from the swing, but he could pull back. He jabbed the zombie in the abdomen and forced her off the structure and onto the tracks where she rode along until it pulled her under the front. The machine gave hardly a shudder from her passing.
“You’re next.” BT wa
s pointing with the bar. The zombie moved to the far side and tried to wrench open the door. Frustrated, he then began to smash the door handle, which gave way much quicker than the glass. He almost seemed as surprised as BT when he was able to pull the door open. BT swung inside the cab quickly thrusting the pry bar like a spear, breaking through the zombie’s chest cavity, completely impaling the fiend and forcing it off the tractor.
“Shit.” he said as he looked at the destroyed door. “It was fun while it lasted.” BT turned the dozer and headed for the switchback trail that led up and out.
“Yup, I take back what I said. I’d definitely spend an evening with Trip discussing his fascinating tin foil hat folding techniques rather than this shit,” he said as he stared to his left and down the steep embankment. The dozer was wider than the trail in most spots, meaning that half of the track was riding on air. There was not one atom in BT that wanted to experience the sensation of spinning and falling off a cliff in a twelve-ton tractor. Like the pied piper of old, BT led a gaggle of zombies out of the quarry. None approached too closely, falsely fearing that at any moment the machine could be thrown into reverse and run them over. BT himself couldn’t imagine the set of circumstances that would compel him to try that. He sweated, swore, and occasionally prayed the entire twenty-minute excursion up the side of the pit. When he finally broke out onto the level surface he congratulated himself on a job well done.
“Ain’t nobody could have done it better, baby! That’s the law and I laid it down! And who the fuck am I shouting at! Now I have to go and save that cracker’s ass.” BT had a momentary panic attack as he looked at all the switches and dials until he found the right one. “Three-quarters full. Well ain’t that a piece of good news. Although I have no idea what the mileage is on one of these things.”
BT watched as it got preternaturally dark due to the murky storm clouds rolling in.
