by Mark Tufo
“It’s getting close to go time,” Mike said nervously. “I sure do wish I had a beer.”
“A beer would go down nicely,” Jack agreed.
“Those sounds make my blood run cold, Jack. Are you we sure that waiting for them to come in is the best move?” Mike asked, questioning the only plan they really had afforded to them.
Mike turned to watch Trip scribble something on the side of the smooth, steel structure. “What are you doing, Trip?”
“Graffiti, man, I want people to know we were here…kind of like Kilroy,” Trip said as he tried to write. “But this pencil I borrowed doesn’t really work.”
“Pencil? That doesn’t really look like a pencil. Jack, you see this thing?” Mike asked.
Turning, Jack saw John trying to scratch the surface of the tower with what appeared to be a fuse pencil.
“Whoa! Dude! Stop! Do you mind if I take a look at that?” Jack asked, reaching his hand out.
“How do you spell ‘Ponch’?” Trip asked as he turned, placing the ‘pencil’ in his mouth in a questioning manner.
“You seriously don’t want to be doing that, John,” Jack stated, slowly shaking his head with amazement.
“He’s eating explosives, isn’t he?” Mike asked, but it was more of a statement. “You have got to be kidding me. John, buddy, could I maybe borrow that pencil?” Mike nervously shuffled closer, his trembling hand extending toward Trip.
“Yeah...he is. Bite down on that hard enough and you won’t have to worry about further dental work.”
“Sure, Mike, not a problem. What’s mine is yours, except for the Phrito’s. Those were pretty much mine,” Trip said with a smile.
He pulled the pencil from his mouth, the end of it catching on his front tooth. His fingers fumbled and the cylinder plummeted towards the ground.
Jack watched as the fuse pencil fell through John’s fumbling hands. It struck the steel grating with a clink and rolled toward one of the openings. Seeing it start to fall through one of the spaces in the grating, Jack dove for the side of the walkway, falling onto the metallic structure chest first. The fuse pencil fell all of the way through. Reaching his hand quickly underneath, he felt the chilled metal of the object land in his hand before it could begin its long journey to the ground, and to the waiting walking dead below.
Mike had made a move for the pencil as he watched it fall from John’s hand, but Jack had been quicker. There was something here he didn’t understand. Jack had a secret; Mike would keep his eye on him. Thus far, they were allies, but only because of common enemies.
“Damn nice grab, man. Hundreds of zombies and dozens of night runners and we almost did ourselves in. Although, if I had my choice between being eaten or blown up...”
“I just get lucky sometimes,” Jack replied, rising. He glanced to see a look of thoughtful concentration, perhaps a glimmer of distrust, cross Mike’s face.
Yeah, we may be allies, but it’s obvious the complete trust factor isn’t there yet...perhaps for either of us.
“And I don’t think we’d be blown up with this, but it sure would have sucked mightily to lose it,” Jack continued, holding the fuse pencil up to find it still intact. “I think we’ve found our distraction.”
“Alright, let’s get by the ladder and I’ll toss what Trip volunteered.” Mike held Trip’s skivvies as far away from himself as possible. “Oh, God, I think I see some brown on there,” Mike said, trying to hold back some bile.
“Damn, I could have really gone without seeing that. We could use both. The skivvies for smell and the C-4 for noise. If we went partway down the ladder and tossed them, we could wait for the ensuing fight and make our way through the woods. Where we’ll go after that is another story, but at least it’s away from here. Are you going to guide John?” Jack asked as he watched Mike don the NVGs.
“Sounds good, Jack. You lead the way, we’ll follow.” And that way I can keep my eye on you, Mike thought. “You tell me when to toss the underwear,” Mike said.
“Toss them?” Trip asked, shocked. “I thought you wanted to wear them. I’ve had those since 1978, man.”
And apparently wearing them ever since, Jack thought.
“Oh, God. I think I’m going to be sick. Jack, get us the fuck out of here,” Mike said.
“Okay. Let’s shimmy down. Weapons ready. And, John, it would be much appreciated if you didn’t launch that thing into my back,” Jack said, nodding toward Trip’s slingshot.
Jack secured his M-4 by his side and swung his legs onto the ladder. Looking down, he saw the milling group of zombies below become agitated as darkness settled firmly upon the land. The distant shrieks carried on the night air, drawing closer by the second. Night runners approached from the surrounding trees. The plan looked a lot different and a lot less appetizing as they descended the ladder with the inky blackness of night all around.
This looked like a much better plan during the day, Jack thought, visualizing the shake of Lynn’s head.
“I wish the moon was out so we could see a little better,” Mike said so softly that no one else could hear. “What is it about the daytime that makes plans seem all that much better? Because right now, I’m heading towards a shitload of zombies and night runners with dirty fucking underwear in one of my hands. How did that ever sound like a good idea?”
Jack looked upward, past John to where Mike was.
Can this fucker read minds? Mike thought.
“I was just thinking that.” Jack confirmed Mike’s fears.
Jack opened up and casted outward, sensing a pack of night runners closing in. He wasn’t really sure that holding up on the tower for the night wasn’t actually the better option but, here they were, and they might as well give it a try.
“We have about twenty-five night runners about to interrupt our little get-together. Are you ready for this?” Jack asked.
“No,” Mike answered honestly. “Just tell me when I can heave this thing, and we’ll go from there.”
Jack stopped about twenty feet from the ground. The reek of the dead below threatened to bring tears to his eyes, and he felt bile rise in his throat from the stench. Taking a few shallow breaths to calm himself, he sensed the pack of night runners drawing closer. They were still hidden within the dark folds of the trees, but their high-pitched screams mixed with the moaning of the zombies just beneath his feet. Hooking his legs in the rungs, he took the block of C-4 from his pocket. He then took the fuse pencil and held it at the ready.
“They’re close. Anytime will do,” Jack replied.
“Hey, Trip, can I borrow a couple of marbles?” Mike asked.
“Why? Do you just want to toss them, too?” Trip asked, still a little saddened over the prospect of losing his beloved underwear.
When Mike didn’t immediately reply, Trip began anew. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re going to toss my marbles as well!?”
“Trip, man, first off, I think you’re marbles were tossed out a long time ago, and you need to keep it down a bit. We’re kind of in a life or death situation here,” Mike said, trying to placate the man.
Mike felt a hand hit the bottom of his foot. He reached down and grabbed the handful of marbles that Trip had reluctantly handed over. Mike wrapped the underwear around the marbles for weight.
“I swear to God, if I get pink eye or something from touching these things, I’m going to be really angry. Here goes nothing.” Mike hurled the package.
The shorts, carrying the stains from years of concerts, motorcycle rides, and partying, launched into the night air. The ends not wrapped around the marbles fluttered as they sailed. They flew over the heads of the waiting zombies and came to rest just beyond the agitated horde. Night runners broke into the opening, their excited shrieks rising and their pale faces seeming to glow in the darkness. They came to a stop, lifting their noses to the night air. As one, they turned slightly and, with a scream, streaked toward the marble-filled shorts. Jack readied the fuse pencil and C-4.
&n
bsp; Mike watched as the shorts arced into open space. The zombies, which had been mostly looking upwards as their meal came to meet them, were now somewhat distracted. They had caught scent of the stained clothing…and also something else. The night runners were coming into range. The zombies seemed torn. The trio on the side of the water tower they could still see, but they could not get. Some of the zombies peeled off, heading toward the underwear. Others ranged farther out trying to get a line of sight on the new food source.
Seeing some of the horde below streak off toward the night runners emerging from the woods, Jack slammed the pencil against one of the rungs in order to activate it. He then placed it into the block of C-4 and brought his hand back, ready to toss it.
“I’m going to get my slingshot ready,” Trip said, not really talking to anyone. With his hand, he reached in to grab a couple of pieces of his ammunition.
Jack threw the block away from the tower in the opposite direction than their intended route of flight. With the strong scent and noise from the C-4 going off, he hoped that enough of the zombies and night runners would be drawn off, allowing them to escape. There were already signs of the night runners and zombies tangling with each other near the pair of downed shorts.
“PULL!” Trip shouted.
“What the f—?” Mike began, hearing Trip shout.
He watched as Jack tossed the C-4 and Trip honed in on it with his slingshot, like it was a clay pigeon
“NO! Trip!”
But it was too late. Mike knew the second Trip released that marble that he’d strike the explosive. The guy was nearly flawless with the weapon. The marble made a solid ‘thunking’ sound as it slammed into the side of the C-4. Mike braced for the explosion he figured was coming entirely too soon. He would count his blessings if a brilliant flash didn’t melt their faces off.
“Damn, that was close.”
Mike watched the fall of the explosive as it landed by one of the support legs for the tower.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Jack said, watching the block of C-4 get knocked out of the air. “Cover yourself,” he shouted, and buried his face in his arms.
A blast shattered the air around them and the ripple of the explosion threatened to tear them from their moorings on the ladder.
“WHOA!” Trip shouted. “What a rush!”
Mike could see little more than a bright flare in his field of vision, but once his ears stopped ringing, the groan and creak of metal stressed to its capacity dominated.
“Jack, man, the tower’s gonna go! We have to get off this thing!”
“Too late. Hang on,” Jack cried out.
“You’re kidding, right? You and Trip think this shit up?” Mike asked. The tower began to lean. It was minute at first and then it became a full-fledged list. “Shit,” Mike muttered. “I always hated those dreams where I fell.”
With a shrieking twist of metal, the tower leaned farther. The support structure snapped with a loud clang. The group wrapped their legs and arms tightly around the rungs as the list became a free-for-all tumble towards the ground.
Michael Talbot – Journal Entry 7
The next twenty-four hours for me involved a death and a rebirth of sorts. The last things I remember with any clarity are Jack’s and my hastily laid plan to escape the water tower. Kind of had to like the guy, he ‘winged’ things about as much as I did. We were on that infernal ladder heading down towards a multitude of gnashing mouths. I thankfully swung Trip’s nasty pre-Reagan era underwear as far away from me as was humanly possible. It was just bad luck there was a prevailing wind that let me get one final intake of his crotch area. My last few cognizant thoughts, and one of them was going to be this? How bad must I have been in a former life that this was partial payment?
The underwear arced out and then plummeted to the ground where I swear (maybe not on a stack of bibles) that I heard them splash wetly down onto dry ground. Let that visual sink in for a couple of seconds. Zombies and Jack’s night runners were heading straight for it like the heavily-stained cotton cloth was a human buffet and not the accumulated dingle-berries of a burn out. I was vigorously rubbing my free hand against my poncho in the hopes I would be able to wipe off what I undoubtedly ‘caught’ as Jack was tossing the C-4. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Trip stir. It...it just happened so fast I couldn’t react. Maybe I was thinking that it wasn’t possible or that even ‘he’ couldn’t be that close to insane. I was wrong on both counts…all counts really.
I heard Trip yell “Pull!” That stupid fucking slingshot came up, and a ball-bearing was heading for a target I intrinsically knew he was going to hit. I swear I could hear Jack’s expression drop. The C-4, which had been on a trajectory that would have been a safe enough distance away, now dropped faster than a nun’s knees at church. (Oh get your head out of the gutter, I’m talking about genuflecting in prayer!) I stuck my head through the safety bars that enshrouded the ladder to watch. I guess I was either hoping it would hit the ground and miraculously bounce away, or it was a twenty car pile-up happening in front of me and I had to see how it was going to end. The C-4 literally just splatted to the ground and stopped. Of course it didn’t help matters that it was leaning against one of the support legs for the tower.
“No fucking way.” I may or may not have said that out loud.
Maybe it was Jack, I don’t know, things started to get blurry, but he recommended we cover ourselves, and that sounded like a pretty damn good idea. The explosion was deafening and blinding; my senses were rocked. I gripped that ladder hard enough that a casual observer may have thought we were lovers of some metal-human fetish. Even over the voluminous ringing in my ears, I could hear the pops and groans of the stressed support structure beginning to give. We were moving, and not because of any physical activity on our part. The tower was crashing down. John ‘wheeed’ the entire way. The tower first leaned backwards toward us, making it appear as if it were going to land on our ladder. The safety shroud was stout, but not that much. We’d be crushed like ants under boots.
I felt wind rush by me as we began to twist to the side. We were momentarily saved from being flattened, but we sure as shit were not out of danger. You know how people sometimes will be recounting a story of some scary accident and they start with “Oh, it just happened so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared.” That certainly wasn’t the case here. My dangerous mind had done me the great disservice of slowing everything down into easily digestible bite-size morsels so that I could enjoy every fucking terrifying millisecond. My body was pulled so tight, that, if someone had the desire to ‘pluck’ me, I would have resonated with sound. I’d thought the C-4 was loud, but it had nothing on the crashing of that water tower. When we finally struck ground, my head rattled inside that cage like a marble in a tin can tossed off the side of the Grand Canyon. I felt like someone had taken an aluminum bat to the side of my head.
As I write this now, I know what happened. At the time, though, I was unconsciously conscious; meaning that I was still awake, but I had no idea who I was, where I was, or what was going on. The force of the fall had ripped the safety shroud completely clean from the ladder, I was in flight for a few seconds, and then I found myself swimming. The tower itself had ruptured, sending however many millions of gallons of water rushing to the lowest point in the lay of the land and, it just so happens that I was in that path. Zombies and night runners were flowing with and around me. I saw an empty Phrito’s bag or three, then trees and we were all hurtling towards them. Some of the zees in front of me were being crushed and spun around large tree trunks. I was rapidly approaching my demise, and it was made of oak.
I might not have been with it completely wits-wise, but my survival instinct was in high gear. I started jamming my hands down into the surf trying to find a handhold; anything I could to stop my present ride.
Chain link!
I felt fencing. I was going to lose a fingernail, but that beat getting battered. My right hand found purchase fir
st, and my shoulder popped and groaned much like the water tower had. I was in serious danger of wrenching my arm clean from its socket, so I shoved my left down as well and scrambled to grip something. The tension eased as I distributed the weight. I figured I could ride out the storm until, of course, I saw a zombie heading straight for me mouth-first like a shark. Water was flowing past me, and sometimes over my head. At times, I was struggling to get air as I held on, and yet the damn ‘Great White Zombie’ kept coming. I did the only thing I could in defense—I ran. In this case…that meant letting go of the fencing.
I once again found myself become flotsam in a turbulent wake. I twisted and fought the current as much as I could. I don’t know why I thought it would be better to see the trees coming as opposed to just running into them. I tried to push off just far enough as a large oak dominated my view. It wasn’t enough. My already pounding head took another shot as the top of it scraped bark. I know I cried out in pain and what little grip I had on my present reality was ripped free. It was like my thoughts had been pounded out by the beating. The force of the impact may have saved my life as it swirled my body around the tree and to a low hanging branch, which I clung to like a sailor will a piece of driftwood during a capsizing. Zorca—zombie orca—wasn’t quite as lucky. I didn’t see him hit the tree head on, but I had the unfortunate luck of hearing him do so, and then I got to feel the spray of blood whistle past me on both sides. The water was murky and it was too dark to see that it had turned to whatever grisly color he had tainted it. And then…that threat was past.
I don’t know how I knew, but I realized that wasn’t the only one. I shook my head, hoping that somehow I would unlock whatever door had been slammed shut from my concussive hit. No luck. I was scared, maybe more so than I’d ever been in my entire life, and it wasn’t because of impending death. I’ve been in its presence many times over the years. From my days in the Marine Corps to the apocalypse I had left behind, and even the world I now found myself in. No, it wasn’t death that had me so frightened, it was life. It was the life I couldn’t remember. I did not have any idea who I was. Names meant nothing, occasionally I would be served up the mental imagery of a face, but I didn’t know the person. Was it my wife, a daughter perhaps, someone I had killed in a battle, both foreign and domestic? Was I a good man or a mass murderer? Nothing…nothing meant anything to me other than my next breath.
