by Mark Tufo
“Well, we’re fucked now. They’re looking this way.” BT brought his rifle up quickly.
For some reason I could not fathom, he seemed to want this to happen in the worst way. He fired before I could ask him if they were looking at the tree or at us. No escaping it now, we were in the thick of it. I brought my rifle up, sure some of the zombies were still in the patch we could see, and yes, those ones were trying to make a path to us but so were the ones we couldn’t see. With two rifles firing we made short work of five, maybe six. Tommy was looking around, if not for the wind, we could have at least heard them coming. I had the feeling we were in some sort of weird weather phenomenon, like a micro-burst where tiny tornado force winds come down and just shred small swaths, although my understanding was they are very short lived. Not this one, though. It seemed to just be getting started.
Large branches were buffeting against each other with enough force to crack them free from their hosts. Looked like some world class slap fighting going on. Bushes were being uprooted, pine needles blew with stinging force whenever they hit exposed skin.
“We have to get out of here!” I screamed trying to be heard over the roar of the wind. If the zombies didn’t kill us, the forest would. Tommy had fired off to our left as the first of the zombies made it to us. The zombie’s collarbone and part of its ribcage shone a gleaming white as Tommy ripped through its chest, exposing a fair amount of the skeletal frame and musculature. He’d not had a chance to get a second shot off as the zombie had closed the distance too quickly. I then got another demonstration of just how strong the kid was. With his right hand, he punched out. I thought, at first, I’d heard another tree losing its battle with gravity, but it was Tommy’s fist pulverizing bone into shattered fragments. Then I realized it was the zombie’s skull that Tommy had not only broken but broken clear through.
He had his fist submerged halfway into the brain casing of that zombie, the wind again picked up just in time that I missed most of the squelching sound as he pulled free. Personally, I’d probably have to cut that hand off if it had been mine. There would never be a time where I wouldn’t remember where it had been.
“Pull back, pull back! To the field!” The wind had somehow picked up even harder. In less than half a minute we’d made it out of the woods and nearly into another world—one where sunshine and calm dominated. The wind was so tranquil it wasn’t even disturbing the grass. After the barreling train sound we’d just left, this was disorientating in its own right. We were only given a moment to stare at each other in wonderment at what had just happened before the zombies began to appear along the tree line we had just emerged from. As soon as the zombies saw us they broke out in a run, there was no hesitation on their part.
We were doing our best to keep containment and appropriate fields of fire and trying not to overlap our shots. We were holding our own, even winning, when the zombies decided to change tactics; they stopped rushing out to meet our bullets. We could catch glimpses of them moving in the woods, but nothing clear enough for shots. They were fanning out to make a much wider offensive line.
“We need to keep backing up,” BT said wisely, and that was just what we did. The zombies didn’t go for the intimidation factor by revealing themselves first in a great line; they just started bursting forth from the trees. They were savage and fierce looking in their murderous intent. I could almost picture them like early Native Americans, replete in deer skin, carrying tomahawks ready to scalp us for daring to encroach on their land. The ones on the farthest ends of the line did not angle in but kept running straight lines as if maybe they were running a race we weren’t aware of. It was Tommy that figured it out first.
“They’re going to try to surround us.”
They were nearly in position for it to be considered an encirclement right now. Try my ass! I thought sourly. I would have thought that all of the fucking events that led to this very moment were surreal enough, I’d not been ready for a turning up of the dial. There were shouts of men coming from the woods and the percussions of multiple rifles being fired. I was hoping for some long lost military unit stumbling across our position and being in the right spot at the right time to save our asses. What we got instead was fucking Knox. How can shit possibly get shittier? By definition, it is already shit. That’s like having a cupcakier cupcake. But that’s what just happened. We could hear him issuing orders. As of yet, I did not believe he knew we were out here. Well, he knew someone was out here, just not us.
He was much more efficient tearing through the zombies than we were. As it was, we had to get down into the prone position to keep from becoming victims of friendly fire by the enemy, if there is such a thing. We did our part keeping the zombies from getting close enough to bite us, but it was Knox’s forces that did most of the heavy lifting. It did get closer than comfortable a couple of times, pivoting around while you’re lying down is not the best battle tactic. BT had sent a zombie spiraling away as it had attempted to land on him as it dove. He’d flipped over and spun at the right moment placing his left foot squarely center mass on the zombie’s chest and then heaving him up and away. I’d shot the zombie mid-air like a clay pigeon. You just can’t make this stuff up. I mean I guess you could, but no one is going to believe it.
The zombies, seemingly predicting their end was near, were more determined than ever to go out with a mouthful of food. The beauty of the prone position was the ability to get off well-aimed shots, as the recoil was absorbed by all of your mass instead of just your shoulder, making target acquisition much easier. Again, it was just when you had to twist your body that it became awkward, that, and I’d had the luck to place my elbows on rocks shipped in from the Great Barrier Reef. I mean because they were sharp, you know, like coral. Tommy had reached back with his foot and tripped up a zombie that was about to lay waste to my head, it landed with a jaw-crunching hardness to my immediate left. At last, the Australian rocks had earned their price. I pushed up on my hands and knees and began to slam my stock into the side of its skull and then its mouth when it turned.
When it stilled, I dropped back down, not thinking that perhaps I should have pushed it away, if it had been playing possum it would be able to sink into my shoulder long before I could do anything about it. I was placing my second magazine in when the shooting petered out from its frenetic pace to a smattering...and then silence.
“Hello!” Knox shouted from the woods. We kept silent. “Nothing? Not even a how do you do? Well, that’s pretty fucking rude, considering we just saved your asses. Listen, can’t we all be friends? This is a messed up world these days, we need as many allies as we can get, and since I have more allies in here than you have out there, I think you should get up so we can discuss this like civilized people!”
“Civilized my ass, I’ll bust a cap in him if he shows his punk face,” BT said quietly enough, I knew he meant what he said but I could still tell he was nervous.
“Don’t make me shoot you before we get proper introductions!” Knox yelled.
I’d tapped Tommy and BT on the shoulder, Knox had his men moving. Surprisingly, they were adopting the same flanking positions as the zombies had.
“Already know who you are asshole!” BT shouted. I was thinking that wasn’t the best course of action, but it’d already happened. Now we just had to deal with the repercussions. So this is what it felt like on the other end of the spectrum—watching other people do dumb things, I mean. Huh. I don’t think I liked it all that much; might have to reconsider my general actions if we made it out of here.
“I thought I caught a glimpse of your extra largeness. We have a score to settle me and your group. I lost a lot of good men, and I think some sort of tribute to them is in order, don’t you? There’s no need for more than a couple of you to die. I’d hate to see anything happen to your main group. We’ll bring them in, treat them like red-headed step-children, each and every one of them. I’m afraid though, that you, BT, are going to have to go...and so is your little sideki
ck buddy.”
“Sidekick?” I asked BT.
“Go with it, man.”
“They have eyes on us,” I said.
Tommy was looking up in a tree. “There he is, he has binoculars and a radio.”
“Rifle?” I asked as I swiveled over.
“On his shoulder,” he answered.
I’d debated shooting the tree next to him to scare him down, but Knox had already signaled his intention to kill me and take my family, the implication being he knew where they were, as well. This needed to end soon and in our favor so we could get back to them. All of this was going through my head as I lined up the lookout man. At first, I instinctually aimed for his head. He started to scramble when he realized I had a bead on him. I blew a hole about center mass, blowing fragments into his heart, he was dead before he could hit the ground. There was return fire but they were spraying in all directions. Even so, a few rounds got uncomfortably close.
“Cease fire, cease fire!” Knox shouted. “Listen friends! I know there’s three of you, I know you just had a firefight with zombies. You’re traveling light; can’t imagine that you brought more than three or four magazines of ammo on whatever errand you’re out here doing. Of that, what do you have, seventy-five rounds or so between you? I have over twenty-five men here with me and thousands of rounds. There’s no need to make this messy.”
“Wow, you make a great argument,” I shouted. “Gee mister, I guess we will just give up with those insurmountable odds.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Talbot?” BT asked.
“You started it; I’m just adding flair.”
“You’re calling that flair?”
“Mr. Knox, if you come out personally, you have my word as a Girl Scout second class that we’ll surrender and I’ll give you a box of Thin Mints as a bonus.”
Nothing for a few seconds, then laughter that echoed through the woods. “You see? That’s what’s missing with me and my people. Humor. Good old-fashioned sarcastic humor. God, I miss that shit. If I didn’t hate you so much I’d let you live and do comedy shows for me every night. And if you had a joke that sucked, I’d stick you with this blade I have...I call him Shorty. We’ve been through a lot, me and Shorty. Lot of history there,” he sighed. “He wouldn’t kill you outright; you could fuck up your jokes at least fifty or sixty times. Of course, eventually, he’d wear you down. So you’d have to stay sharp, you know what I mean?”
“This guy is fucking twisted,” I said.
“You think?” BT answered sardonically, like maybe I had already forgotten about our earlier encounter.
“You want to know something? I usually wouldn’t have said anything, it’s a bigger surprise that way. We have night vision. I’m guessing you don’t. No moon tonight, either...looks like it’s going to stay pretty cloudy. Sure, you can post guards, take turns and all that shit, but you can’t watch what you can’t see, right? And considering you’re out in the middle of a field, we can hit from just about any angle. You’d be amazed at people’s faces when you sneak right up on them. I mean ‘terrified’ is only one adjective and hardly does their expression justice when we capture them, and we will capture you. Oh, I know you’re thinking you’re going to go out in a blaze of glory, or some shit, or you’ll heroically kill each other rather than let us get our hands on you. I get it, and maybe you’ll try, but you’ll fail. You see, we have medical supplies. Yup, the kind that make you go nightie night real quick. So yeah, my guys are going to shoot you tonight, just with darts instead of bullets. That way, when you wake up, we’ll all be by a huge campfire, and we’ll be having s’mores, my personal favorite. We secured some marshmallows just last night. A little stale, but over the fire, they should be divine. ‘Course, you guys won’t. I’ve been accused of not being a great s’mores sharer.”
“Holy shit, man! Are you going to keep yammering? Giving me a fucking headache.” I shouted.
“What the fuck are you doing?” BT looked exasperated.
“Really? Are you concerned it’s going to get worse for you?” I asked him.
“I am talking!” Knox shouted, apparently he wasn’t too keen on being interrupted.
“Keep going, man. I don’t want to get in the way of your babbling.”
I think Tommy wanted to tell me to shut up, that I was going to get us killed, but we were already heading down that path.
“Spinx. Where was I?” Knox asked.
Presumably, it was Spinx that answered. “S’mores.”
“I hate those fucking things,” I said loud enough for everyone’s benefit. “Gooey fucking mess, shit gets everywhere, more times than not the marshmallow is burned. Who the fuck wants a black marshmallow? I bet you like to burn your marshmallows into fucking ash. Those things taste like old marmite, you ever try that shit? I mean I knew the Brits were a little off-kilter but how is that bitter salty paste a sandwich spread? Sure, crumpets are delicious, then they go and ruin ‘em.”
“Will you shut the fuck up!” Knox screamed.
“Sure, sure. Go on with your little sad, sadistic fairy tale,” I urged.
“Fuck it man, you ruined the moment,” Knox replied.
“He gets that a lot,” BT added.
“Really man, you’re siding with the psychopath right now?” I asked.
“He’s right! I’m just agreeing with that one statement…not with his particular stance on the world,” he added sheepishly.
“For people that are a few hours away from getting skinned alive, you sure are jovial,” Knox said.
“Oh, that’s where you were going with that,” I said. “Hell of a buildup, I shouldn’t have ruined it. That would have been pretty fucking scary, especially if you forced the fucking s’mores on us first.”
“What are you doing?” BT asked quietly.
“Look behind you.” I heard him shift. “Whoa, how did you know?”
“Been hoping MJ was going to keep an eye on us.” The tractor was still pretty far off, but it was going to beat the night. “Tommy over there has been sending a distress signal.”
“Wow. I take back all that shit I’ve been saying about you,” BT said. “Well, some of it anyway.”
There was activity in the woods. My guess was they were seeing the tractor for the first time.
“You better tell them to leave!” Knox said.
“Yeah, I’m going to tell the people that are going to prevent us from getting skinned alive to stop. Go fuck yourself, Knox.”
“We have rocket launchers,” he replied calmly enough.
Well, that changed things dramatically. “Tommy, give whoever is driving that tractor a heads up, pretty sure he’s full of shit, but we can’t risk it.”
He began to talk quietly on the radio.
“See Knox, this here is what we call a standoff. We now have as many people as you do and, yeah, we have night vision. Plus, by now my people will be getting into position to take out yours. Things are going to get pretty interesting real soon. I mean, unless of course you just leave.”
“Mr. T...it’s just a few people on the tractor,” Tommy said to me as if maybe I wasn’t aware of the present situation.
“It’s a bluff, kiddo. Right now we’re lying to each other about whose dick is bigger. And really, neither of us wants to whip it out in public so to speak, so it’s going to be a matter of who believes the other has the bigger one. You know what I mean?”
“That’s the analogy you use? Did you flunk out of fifth grade or something?” BT asked.
“We’ll be seeing you real soon, Talbot!” Knox shouted.
“See, I have the bigger dick,” I said, happily enough.
“You are the bigger dick, that’s for sure,” BT replied. We waited until we could no longer hear their departure before we stood, warily.
“Anyone else wondering how he knew your name?” Tommy asked.
“Well shit, I hadn’t been. We need to get out of here before he realizes I was full of it.”
“What about th
e cars?” BT asked.
“Don’t think it’s such a good idea to go back that way,” I said. We were on the move. At first, pretty cautious, always checking our sides and back as we left, then we moved to a slight jog to get to the tractor. Deneaux was sitting in the cab, smoking a cigarette. A high-powered rifle with a scope next to her.
“Should have let me get closer. I could have taken a couple of them out.”
“Did you hear the part about the rocket launcher?”
“Bullshit.” She dropped her smoke and stomped it out.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Heading back, I suppose.”
I looked around, to my left were my sons and brother. They waved as they came our way.
“Anyone else?”
“Like who? You realize as a fighting force we’re spread pretty thin. Have a lot of non-combatants in the mix.”
“Don’t even go there, Deneaux. We’re not leaving people behind because they can’t shoot a gun.”
“Your call, dearie, I suppose,” she said as she lit another cigarette. “Even if it’s the wrong one,” she finished in a plume of smoke.
“Since you brought up the subject of unnecessary personnel, you wouldn’t happen to know how we keep getting found, would you?”
“How would I?” she answered casually. If I struck even a modicum of truth she’d never show it, and I’d never know. She was in a different league than me when it came to deception. I think her and Satan could have a great sit down regaling each other with stories of complete bullshittery, promising each other all manner of things they would never deliver on and each would probably believe the other would come through.
“Want a ride?” she asked as she started the machine up. A black thick plume arose as she did so, maybe from her, maybe from the tractor.
“Rather walk. The air is clearer.”
“Suit yourself.” She spun the machine on its tracks. “And you’re welcome!” She cackled as she drove on.
