Stronghold

by Ron Tufo

  While this little exchange was going on, a shot rang out from the window bars. Granny stumbled her last. I turned to see my middle daughter lowering her weapon.

  “Well, dad, somebody had to do it. You two were busy tossing sarcastic remarks at each other and mom and Squeak were watching the show. Mark won, by the way.”

  My son had just out-sarcasmed me and now my ex-favorite daughter was piling it on. At least she had remembered the family credo: “It’s no fun kicking someone unless they are already down,” and she had just shot her first zombie without so much as a blink.

  I didn’t know whether to shit or get off the pot. I just couldn’t decide if I was the proudest parent in the world or if I had just become a doddering old pop. Leave it to Squeak to build me up when I need it most. He just smiled and said, “Kinda sucks to be you right now…hey, buddy?”

  “Fuck you very much, Squeak.”

  Nancy, of course, gave me that all knowing wife look of: Geez–you are such an idiot, the eye roll said it all.

  Really felt like answering her unspoken words with: “Yeah, but I am your idiot and the marriage code says you have to help me out here.”

  “Fuck! Fuck! And double fuck!”

  In all this urgency, None of us had tried to get through to my eldest daughter, Melanie. Perhaps I should mention that all my children’s names begin with M. Makes it easier for me when I forget who’s who. This way, I’ve got a one-in-four shot at getting it right. Way better than yelling: “Hey kid, yeah you, stop trying to drown your sister.”

  “Nancy, try the phone again for the hell of it, would you? See if you can get through to Melanie, and Melissa, too.”

  She humored me and tried. No luck. Just an empty buzzing on the other ends. Damn, I hoped that some of what we taught them got into their heads.

  Rule #1: When the shit hits the fan, run to Maine.

  Rule #2: There is only one rule.

  It is always said that as a parent, every time your child leaves the house, be it on a date, with friends, or just out for a lousy walk, that the very worst responsibility of parenthood climbs to the top of the Hit List: waiting.

  All we could do was wait again until they got back safely. So, we waited.

  It is a seven hour drive up the coast of New England from the towns where our two other daughters lived. That is without any pee or Burger King stops. It was 7p.m. Our family decision to go into lockdown in case of a crisis was in effect. Go ahead, try and give me something to do to take my mind off this agony.

  Nancy was doing what Nancy does best. She was cooking. Not that anybody was hungry, but it did provide a certain level of normalcy to see her doing one of the things she likes to do. Mark and Squeak were cleaning rifles and playing a Nintendo game. Mer was playing a video game she had downloaded on her iPhone 318, or whatever the hell the newest model was called.

  I was standing at the front door, wondering how I could make a jail break and not have anyone yelling at me for breaking the lockdown rule. No more zombies had tried to crash the party, and it was deathly quiet outside. Deathly, I laughed sadly.

  No evening breeze, no forest animal sounds. Even the loon that had taken up residence across the pond and should be emitting her haunting hoots and yodels at this time in the evening was silent. Spooky, to say the least.

  And then it was 7:08 p.m. This bullshit was not going to work for me. I told Nancy, “Look, I gotta do something. I am going down to my dad’s to see how everyone is holding up over there.”

  “Ron, you are breaking your own rule the very first time it is put into effect. You know this is not going to go over well with anyone else.”

  “It’s a stupid rule and deserves to be broken.”

  “Why? Because it is affecting you?

  “Well, yuhhh!” Turning to Squeak, I said: “Will you stay with my family for protection, bud?”

  I get the giant Samoan Sigh and the words: “Yes, but I really don’t want you out there without backup.”

  “I get it, man, I really do, but I am going nuts and I don’t want to have to be alert for anyone else but myself.”

  “Ron, it’s only been like ten minutes.”

  “Yeah? So what’s your point?”

  I really can’t be bothered with logical conversations when they tend to get in the way of doing what I want. I thanked my friend and unlocked the door. I heard the lock click behind me. That would be Nancy, being pragmatic as always. I could hear the gears churning in her head already, If that stubborn little shit gets himself eaten, I am going to kill him.

  I took two steps off the front porch before I realized what a consummate idiot I was. Fumbled the flashlight on and aimed it low so I at least wouldn’t trip my way to my death.

  Took me about twenty minutes to do a three-minute walk. Step, listen, step, listen. Took everything I had not to run like the dickens and pound on my father’s front door. With my luck, I would have collided with a zombie out for his evening constitutional.

  I finally got to my dad’s, and as I am climbing up the stairs, I am also shouting for recognition. “Hello…the house, it’s me, Ron. Open up.” A fucking pistol shot breaks through the glass and whizzes past my ear.

  Behind the pistol, in a prone shooting position, is my goddamn certifiably psychotic brother, Gary. “What the fuck yoo doon!?” My Bostonian dialect does tend to emerge when I am really pissed. “You almost shot me fah chrissakes!”

  “Hey, not my fault, man. You shouldn’t be outside, anyway. Besides, how was I supposed to know you weren’t a zombie?” I really didn’t believe him. Especially since he missed me; he is too good a shot.

  “You’re going to try and convince me you didn’t hear me yelling all the way up the stairs?”

  “No, I heard you, man. Still coulda been a zombie, though.” If logic escapes me sometimes for short periods under duress, it takes long vacations from Gary.

  Dad and Lyn’s husband, Steve, came racing down the stairs and the first thing my dad whispers to Gary is, “I told you not to shoot the door. Didn’t I tell you not to shoot the door? No one is going to get through two layers of extra thick tempered glass without throwing a brick through it first. Do you see any zombies carrying bricks around? Do you? You’re fixing this all by yourself in the morning.” The whisper had become a hiss by the end; yeah, the madder he gets, the quieter he gets. Dead giveaway as to how much trouble you are in. Dad hadn’t given out his “Let me treat you like a twelve-year-old” lecture in, like, thirty-something years. He must have been really heated up at this one.

  Before this train left the station, I figured I would get my two cents in too. I opened my mouth for a nice acerbic retort to Gary while I had a perfect opportunity, but I did not get one word out when dad turns to me and even more quietly says, “And just what the hell are you doing here anyway? You know damn well you were supposed to stay put in your own home.”

  He turned and went back upstairs without another word and left us all gaping. I was not going fall any farther into this hole. I looked round and focused on my sister. She was not much help either.

  “So, what are you doing here, big brother? Your rule, if I remember, is no one outside after lockdown in a crisis.”

  So, I am starting my best manly whine now, trying to save some face. “Lyn, I am losing my mind. I’m praying Melissa is actually on the way up here and in all the urgency we forgot to try and call Mel. Maybe it was too late already, but there was zero chance by the time we remembered. My only hope is that they left Massachusetts in time and are on the way here. I’m kinda losing it just sitting around waiting…I need to be doing something!!”

  “I can make you something to eat and get you a beer. Sit down and we’ll figure out if there is anything else that can be done.”

  I love my sister, I really do, and I may be crazy, but I am not stupid. I told her just a small ham sandwich would be fine. I hadn’t had anything to eat in a while and I was thinking this wouldn’t be too much of a challenge for her.

 
She looked at Gary, her son Jesse, and Steve, who all politely declined any food but would love to have a beer. All that shooting probably made Gary thirsty and I caught a glint in Jesse’s and Steve’s eyes that promised this would be interesting.

  I watched her take some bread, ham, and mustard out of the fridge. Okay so far. I may yet survive until my daughters showed up. The guys all sat on the other side of the table across from me, leaving Lyn a seat next to mine. That’s gentlemanly of them, I thought. What I should have been thinking is, why would these three jokers bother to do something nice?

  Lyn brought the beers and the welcoming koosh resounded over the table as the cans were opened. Then she brought my alleged sandwich and put it down in front of me, expectantly. I could see the three of them elbowing each other with unspoken jibes of “Let’s see him try to get out of this one.”

  I tried; lord knows I tried to take a bite without gagging. Just couldn’t do it. I could not help myself as sputtered to my sweet sister, “How, Lyn? How? How can you make a ham sandwich taste like it came from a diseased wild boar when I watched you take the fixins’ out of the fridge and put them together on the countertop. How do you do it?”

  Oh dear God in Heaven help me here. Lyn stared back like she was going to burst into tears. “Oh Lyn! Amiga, really, it’s not that bad. Here, I will eat the whole thing!!” Damn, did I really say that out loud?

  Steve purposefully fell out of his chair and made a swipe at the table top as he if he was trying to stabilize himself. He knocked my Sandwich from Hell onto the floor. I LOVE THIS MAN!

  Gary genuinely fell out his chair because he was laughing so damn hard. Jesse was busy trying to breathe without choking himself.

  Lyn asked me if I wanted another sandwich!

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I really should get back to my own home and sweat waiting for the girls along with Nancy.” My stomach, however, was screaming: “No! No! And Hell Noooo! Run Away!”

  The walk home for some reason seemed less scary than the walk over had been, but I was still cautious. Take a couple steps, listen for whatever. Take a couple more steps, listen again. Gabby came bounding down the road and let out a hello howl as she recognized my scent. I wonder what the high jump record is for short, bald, old guys. I reckon I’d just set one. Blast it, if I live through the night it would be a miracle of epic proportions. I love this dog as much as I love any member of my family, but this night was just full of too many surprises. We’d had our first taste of zombies, I had tried to eat Lyn’s pretext of a sandwich, two of my daughters’ whereabouts were unknown, my brother shot at me, and my dog tried to scare me into a heart attack. Are we havin’ fun yet?

  Gabby rubbed up under my hand for a nice head scratch, of which I am always willing to oblige. Seriously, I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t pet or scratch a dog every chance they get. Kinda glad about that. Someone who doesn’t like dogs is just not to be trusted, nor is anyone who isn’t instinctively liked by a dog.

  So here we were, enjoying a person/dog moment when she starts to growl and whine and back away. Lemme see, she had only done this one other time. Oh shit, not again.

  Sure enough, Gabby bolts for the house, and honestly, if I could run anywhere near as fast as her I would have been gone, too. I do the slow, “I really don’t want to see what’s coming” turn around, and yup, you guessed it, there it is, about twenty feet away, upwind and coming on like a dazed boxer in the 12th round.

  If I could whistle, I would have had time for the entire version of MacArthur Park. It was my favorite song in college–ran over seven minutes. I guess when you are badly out of shape as a real, live person, then you are badly out of shape as a real, un-live zombie. I was beginning to wonder if this one would make it to me at all before having the zombie version of a stroke.

  Actually, it took so long, I went from being scared to being bored waiting for it to get close enough for a no-miss pistol headshot. I shifted myself a hair to the left and the moonlight came in over my shoulder; I could then see that it had once been a woman.

  “Aw, crap,” I said, “that’s no woman. That’s Janine from just off our property.” So I popped her. Never liked her much anyway.

  Not going to clean up this mess tonight, I thought and turned to make my way back to my own home where a stiff shot of whatever bottle of booze was open, waited for me.

  Squeak came flying down the road with one of those mad-scientist flashlights that pretty much lights up the entire county. “Ron, Ron…you okay, man?”

  “Dude, I’m fine. Let’s just do a quick survey and make sure no other unfriendlies are out here. Then it’s back to the house.”

  From the other direction, the roar of my brother’s old Chevy plow truck came over the hill and went heavily airborne as he crested. Squeak and I had to jump off the road not to get creamed as Gary braked inches from where we stood.

  “We heard the shot! Dad made me come out to see if you were dead.”

  “Gee, thanks so much, bro. Knew I could count on you.”

  “Can’t you Talbots say anything without sarcasm smeared all over it?” Squeak felt compelled to ask, snidely, I might add. Gary and I both stared at him and on the same downbeat, with no prompting, we replied, “Why would we want to do that?”

  Gary turned the truck around. Squeak and I hoofed up the hill to my home.

  The long wait began again.

  The Escape

  Run, Forrest, Run. - Jenny Curran, Forrest Gump

  Melissa and Andrew were still close to being moonstruck kids in love with very little sense of how nasty the world could be. No matter how much I had tried to impart the wisdom of Talbotism Philosophy into the girl, I just couldn’t seem to make it stick. She is a beautiful and gentle being and I am proud to have as her my #3 daughter, but still.

  We wondered if they would chance the race from Massachusetts to Maine to be with the family. On that awful night in December, Melissa had been listening to the television while not really paying all that much attention to it. Immigration problems were nothing new in Colorado, but god, the news never seemed to get anything right anymore. So, here was more about the famous, blue-grey oozing, shuffling immigrants with their eyeballs falling out we’d been hearing so much about. (Damn. I thought INS was handling that problem.) Then suddenly, a jolting newsflash broke through the drone of a slow news day report. It developed hastily into a disturbing and incoherent story. When Melissa saw some of the actual footage, however, it became imminently and quickly clear to her that her Uncle Mike, the craziest one in the Talbot family, (Well, she chuckled, maybe second to Uncle Gary, then again, maybe third to her dad…oh hell, they were all nutjobs), had been right all along. Then she watched as some stupid-ass reporter actually got bit from behind. She did what any self-respecting Talbot would do given the circumstances. She threw up.

  My sweet Melissa shanghaied her boyfriend Andrew, leaving a note for his parents. Andrew’s folks, the wonderful couple, Ed and Maggie, had generously allowed them living space in their home while the kids got on their feet. Andrew was trying to raise them on his phone while they were at a dinner party at a friend’s house, to make they sure they knew what was going on. Melissa insisted they take only the bare essentials as they bolted. For Andrew, that was his guitar and some of his record collection. Surprisingly, for Melissa it was her sketchbook, camera, and .22 pistol. (Wait! What!? Melissa has a pistol? Seems I did make an inroad after all. She even had a couple boxes of ammo!)

  Melissa had interpreted the news correctly. This was a bad thing, and if the Talbot children had learned anything at all in their short lives, it was that we all belonged together in a crisis. She was fairly sure she had managed to get a text through to us before communications started to drop letting us know she was coming.

  Getting out of Massachusetts was difficult. Everyone and their Aunt Shirley had by now realized being in a heavily populated area did not provide much of a chance of survival; too much competition, too many dead.
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br />   They spent the first half of the night just trying to get out of the state. It was eventful, to say the least. They eventually made it to the Rte. 95 highway okay, but then things went all to hell. The highway was moving at rush hour speed coupled with zombie-hour speed, which is to say, not at all. Andrew was driving and Melissa was trying unsuccessfully to call or text anybody, with no luck. She finally put her phone down. (Yes, folks, she actually became physically disconnected from her phone. Will wonders never cease?)

  She looked out the window, from boredom more than anything else, and was rewarded with what she assumed was an argument going on in a car full of family types driving next to them with their windows down. She tried to ignore them, until she heard a truly blood congealing scream and, “The little son a of a bitch nephew of yours just bit me, hard, and now he‘s trying to bite my daughter! Get this kid under control now, will you, Jim? Oh never mind, you suck at discipline; that’s why this damned kid is such a pain. I’ll do it.”

  Melissa watched as the lady who had just got bit leaned into the back seat got a good look at the nephew and started shrieking back at Jim. “Holy shit, something is wrong with this kid! Pull over quick and take a look at this. He looks horrible.” So, Jim crept over to the breakdown lane and everyone jumped out of the car get away from bite-boy. No sooner had they gotten out, than a speeding motorcycle, cruising on the shoulder past the stopped traffic, slammed into the back of the car and sent the rider in an ass over tea kettle vault right over the top.

  Their own problem forgotten, Jim and his lady friend run up to see how badly hurt he is and the dude just gets up and starts slowly walking back toward them. Teeth are snapping, one leg is dragging, twisted rather artfully the wrong way. Artfully, that is, like an LSD trailer. Now they start to back up toward their own car again. Cue the little nephew who has also made his way out of the car. He gets his auntie again with a nice crunchy chomp. Her screams go from an emphatic wail to a low, sickening moan in just moments as she dives into shock.