by Ron Tufo
“Finally, we close out tonight’s program with The Really Bad News segment. But first a commercial break.” Guns started to point at Gary again, and swiftly, at that. He quickly recovered with, “aaaand we’re back from commercial. Don’t forget, kids, Christmas is coming soon! Make sure you ask your parents for your own special personalized My Little Zombie doll. Get yours before someone else does!”
We are all giggling now, but we are also making like we were cocking triggers. Gary’s acutely developed sense of survival finally became aware of his pseudo-predicament and he launched into the worst.
“Look, everybody, I am glad Mark saw this too or I know you all wouldn’t believe it. Hell, I saw it and I still don’t believe it. The weirdest thing about this zombie march is that I swear I saw Abner and his wife leading it, and they didn’t look dead. Semi-dead? Kinda dead? Yeah. Soulless–well, okay, they always looked like that, but…shit. You know what I mean. I can’t even begin to tell you why. I mean, I didn’t go up and ask; ‘Hey how are you guys doing? See any good movies lately? By the way, what’s with all the zombies, neighbors?’”
This is our future?
Killing is the easy part. Getting to that point without getting yourself killed in the process is the hard part. - J. A. Redmerski, Reviving Izabel
Squeak, dad, Lyn’s son Jesse, Wink, and I all loaded ourselves into the newest addition of the Talbot mobile Light Infantry troop mover, a beautiful Chevy Silverado Crew cab with all the comforts of home. It was charitably donated to the cause by the now defunct Searsport Motor Co. Very kind of them; that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
Making the morning perimeter round was good for a whole bunch of reasons. We rotated the personnel so more folks would get to know each other and their behaviors. It also served to provide a few more eyeballs on the edges of the compound. Knowing threats early was always better than knowing them late or getting completely surprised.
Occasionally there would be a free range zombie scuffling around that needed dispatching, and it was a chance for the less experienced among us to feel what it was like to take out a hostile. Sounds callous, I know, but that does not mean it wasn’t a necessary evil. Hate to say it right out loud, but it was something we all had to be capable of doing. Even the women, some of whom had never shot at anything other than a target, had to take their turns in the rotation and in the gallery.
“Hey, Squeeze,” my father snorted from across the cab, “pull over for a second, I want to check out what I saw moving in the woods over there.” No one was quite sure yet whether Tony called Squeak by so many incorrect nicknames because he couldn’t remember the right one (a distinct possibility) or if he just wanted to poke the big guy and see what kind of reaction he might get (also a distinct possibility). For a little guy, my dad had no fear of the bigger ones. I remember all his high school stories of football games, fights with bullies and the like. He sometimes got his ass whipped. Never seemed to bother him all that much. I think he always figured his turn to reap some revenge would eventually come. Then again, my father couldn’t hear well enough for us to be sure he’d ever got Squeak’s name right anyway.
It looked like Squeak wanted to tell dad to call him by his correct moniker, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. I think he, and everyone else, got a kick out of hearing what name dad would come up with next. It provided too many groans and chuckles; why mess with it.
With the truck pulled over, Tony pointed and whispered to Jesse, “See her? Right past that Poplar tree.” Jesse couldn’t see a damn thing and was asking himself, which one is the damn poplar tree anyway? He says to my father, “You do know I was raised in a city, right? I don’t know a poplar tree from an ice cream cone.”
My dad fields this acerbic reply and doesn’t miss a beat. “With that mouth and brain you must be my daughter’s kid. All those rumors about you being adopted must not be true.” He proceeds to point out where and what he wants Jesse to see. Young enough to not be sure when my dad was yanking his chain, Jesse’s lips were forming into a big “What rumor?” reply when stirring in the woods finally caught his eye. He dropped his nervous query and saw what used to be a young woman who was now in a pathetic state of decay and barely managing to stay afoot in the woods. Jesse knew he was along for the tour this morning to see if he could handle what was to come next. Much to his credit, he got the nod from his grandfather, raised his rifle and…missed.
Dad had seen where the shot went and told Jesse to aim a little left and lower. The next shot put her down. Dad gave him a nice out for the miss by telling him the sight on that old Winchester Model 1873 repeater was probably off a bit and that he should learn how to reset it when we got home. Would have been great advice if Jesse could hear him. Tough to hear when you are on your knees losing breakfast.
Neither Wink nor Squeak said anything when Jesse and my dad got back in the truck, but both of them did the proper man response and compassionately gripped his shoulder. No words were passed.
Having driven the remainder of the truck passable perimeter, Squeak asked if anyone wanted to take a quick ride into town. His official reason was to see if anything was going on. His unofficial, and unspoken, reason was to sneak into Tozier’s Family Market and see if there were any Twinkies left. It seems we all have our weak points.
There were only a couple more sightings on the way down the mountain. Jesse took one and Wink took the other. Squeak pulled the truck into Tozier’s parking lot. Everybody looked at him as if to say: “Why?” Squeak beat them to it. “Look you guys, if you are going to make me eat Lyndsey’s excuse for humanly edible foods, I am going to supplement my diet as I see fit. One of you cover me. I am getting a shopping cart and taking all the Twinkies I can find! Don’t make me hurt you! I need these.”
Wink is a big dude too, but even he was not going to get between the Samoan and his No Expiration Date delicacies. Dad never backed down from a big guy in his life, but some sort of self-preservation code kicked in to his hardwiring, warning him that this would not be a good time to press his luck. Jesse was too busy laughing and asking if he could look for some Sno Balls and Moxie.
“Sno Balls and Moxie. Really?” says Wink.
Since there was no respectable or believable answer to that question, Jesse just shrugged and said: “Hey, you try growing up on my mom’s cooking and see where your taste buds go for nourishment.” It was decided that no one was going to steal Ron’s truck and that everybody should go shopping to cover each other.
Wink was posted at the broken front door to watch their backs. Squeak made for the snack aisle like a man on a mission. Jesse was close behind him. It was a small enough market that some daylight snuck in through various hightop windows so at least they weren’t in completely blind darkness.
Dad and I grabbed a shopping cart each and headed for the beer coolers, naturally.
A shot came from outside the store and Wink yelled back at us. “Hey guys, that was not me. Not sure where it came from, but it was a rifle. I am coming inside the front door–I’ll still be be able to take out any zombies but I do not want to be in the line of fire from some trigger happy yahoo.”
Either zombies can still hear or they have a sense that tells them when food is near. When you think about it, I am not sure it makes any damn difference. Either way the bottom line was they knew we were there and started to move from behind the deli cases. Figures they would be holed up behind a meat counter.
Jesse saw them first as he was following Squeak in his pursuit to recover the Lost Twinkies. Surprised the crap out of him. He began to fire blindly into the deli display. Mostly he shattered enough glass to wake the dead, well, undead, in this case. He did get one of the zombies, and as he backed up to reload, the others started to follow Squeak.
Wink bellowed into the store, “What the hell is going on in there?” just as another round zinged into the wall near his stakeout. He forfeited his position quickly, as this shot was just a little too close for comfort. He hop
ed his new spot would give some telltale if there was another discharge. It was bright daylight outside, so spotting any flash was going to be difficult.
Jess screamed, “Squeak! I am reloading and you have three zombies coming at you. Turn around, man!”
“Are they close? I can’t see very far in this lowlight!”
“Not that close yet, but they will be on you in a minute.”
“Okay, cool, I can finish filling my cart. Hey, there are plenty of Sno Balls here. My guess is no one wanted them!”
Jesse took out one of the zombies that were closing on them and raced up to Squeak, who just finishing loading up a cart with Twinkies and Strawberry Sno Balls. He turned around none too soon and screamed: “Hit the deck!” at Jesse so he could get off a clear shot. Jesse was always a bright kid with quick reactions. Served him well. He dove for the linoleum just as Squeak was double-tapping the blood-stained apron ladies from the deli section.
Up until this moment, I don’t believe Squeak had ever heard how creative a Talbot can be with vulgar invectives. Jess let loose a stream that made the Samoan blush. Not an easy feat. His mouth just formed into an embarrassed “Wow.” He finally blurted out, “I am so telling your mother what you said. Man are you gonna get it! If you are lucky, she will wash your mouth out with soap. If you are not so lucky, she will wash your mouth out with something she cooked!”
When Jesse finished fake-gagging and getting a smile from Squeak, they both realized Tony and I had not been heard from in all the jumble of snack cake gathering and trigger pulling.
Then they heard three other quick shots from the front of the store and saw Wink doing a strategic retreat into the building. “Someone keeps shooting at me from across the way. Thank goodness he’s a bad shot or you guys would be explaining to Hom why you are Winkless when you get back to the compound. I cannot for the life of me make out exactly where the fire is coming from, but it is definitely across from us somewhere, judging from the angle of the hits on the wall. I don’t know if we are going to be able to get out of here without a fight. Where are Tony and Ron?”
Squeak replied, “We were just asking the same question.” On cue they heard us arguing from farther back in the store.
“No, I am not taking any Keystone Light, dad, not when there is some perfectly good Heineken. I would rather drink sparkling pond water than that piss. I’ll get another cart if you want, but we are going to load everything else first and if there is any room left you can have that miserable excuse for beer.”
“Ron, you already have two carts full of the stuff you like. I like Keystone Light and I am going to put some in the truck even if we have to leave you here.” And that was the name of that tune!
I wisely shut up. Half because I knew my dad really did like that Yangtze River urine and half because I really believed that my one and only father really would leave me behind. Wink knocked on the open cooler door and yelled in, “If you girls are done in there, we really should be strategizing our exit. There is at least one unfriendly out there with a gun.”
The argument over which beer to take resumed as Tony and I pushed our spoils of war out of the walk-in cooler. When we reached the front entrance, Wink pushed Squeak’s Twinkie-filled shopping cart out the door first to draw some fire.
It did. They ducked. The shopping cart took one for the team. Squeak was devastated. Once again, it was Jesse who delivered the winning sarcastic remark of the morning. “Squeak, do you really think a bullet is going to damage something that is right up there with cockroaches in terms of surviving a nuclear attack? Just eat the rifle-opened packages first before they go stale in a year or two.”
It was Tony who spotted the location of the shooter. “Right across the road, second story, middle window.” Everyone wanted piece of this and it sounded like a howitzer as four rifle shots simultaneously broke up around and through the targeted window.
A woman’s startled voice soprano-ed back at them. “What are you shooting at me for? You are the ones stealing all my groceries.”
“Lady, are you nuts? We are only here for beer and Twinkies.” Having said that out loud, I suddenly realized who was the crazy one here and it wasn’t the lady across the street.
“Maybe a little,” she responded. “Can you blame me? What is left in that store is all I have to eat. If you have not taken any real food, then you best leave. If you are taking any real food, bring it over to me and I will let you leave without potting any of you.”
We would never be able to load the truck without her seeing everything we did, so it actually sounded like a pretty fair trade. Our skin for some Campbell’s Soup. Not bad.
“We are not taking any food, but what do you want? We will bring it over to you.”
“Canned goods and other non-perishables. A couple of shopping carts’ full,” came the reply.
Wink and Jesse were already on it. As they filled the carts and had them ready, I called back to the nice lady with the gun. “We have two carts’ full for you. We are coming over now. No shooting. Is it a deal?
“Yep,” she called down. “Leave them by the front door of my house and then go look to your left.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” I say to the group. Again, it was dad who saw what she meant.
“Uh, guys, maybe we should do as she says and right away, too. Look what’s coming around the curve.” As we had earlier been concerned about the whereabouts of our many local zombie friends. Those concerns were now relieved. Crap, there was a lot of them.
The witch in the window cackled. “Best listen to what the man says. You aren’t going to be able to avoid my shots, and if you take much longer you are going to have a fight on two fronts.”
Seemed like the old lady knew her tactics. She had us pinned. Squeak grabbed both carts and made his clanking way across the street. The door to the house opened as he got there and both of the carts disappeared into the interior hallway. Two seconds later Squeak flew out of the building, repeatedly smearing his mouth across his sweatshirt sleeve and spitting.
“Why is it I always attract the old ones? That old lady planted one right on my mouth, tongue and all. Gross. She told me I could stay if I wanted to. Damn, that’s just wrong on so many levels.”
The once rapid truck loading process stopped in its tracks while everyone reacted to Squeak’s distress in just the way you would expect three men of various ages to react to a situation like this one. We all burst out laughing and ribbing.
Wink got his wisecrack in first. “Gosh Squeak, she didn’t look a day over ninety. Maybe you should reconsider?”
Jesse was next. Brave boy, you think? Nah, smart one, though. He was standing behind his grandfather for cover. “Yeah, Squeak! I bet that crepe paper skin and floppy arms are hardly noticeable in some soft romantic lighting.”
I was just opening my mouth ‘cause it was my turn, when the Samoan version of “Don’t you say anything, you little shit,” teleported straight into my head.
Dad caught it too and quickly decided he also would like to live a little longer. As the joking subsided, our attention was drawn to the mess coming around the bend in the road.
You could now make out the ringleaders of the Abner and Ida Variety Show. Abner was flagging, but stubbornly hanging on to his position in the lead. Ida, on the other hand, was bursting with hellish energy and urging the group onward with broad, sweeping her arm gestures. We all started to pile in the truck. As my dad got in next to last in the back seat, he simply couldn’t hold his tongue any longer and voiced to Squeak, “Hey Squid. If you scrunch over, there is room for your new girlfriend.”
I don’t believe I have ever seen a more burnt-beet red shade of Squeak. The passenger door to my truck slammed so hard I really thought it was going to break the hinges. I smiled at the visual of Squeak getting the make put on him by a walking wrinkle and moved around to the driver’s side. I’d almost got there when I noticed that the old bat’s first shot was dead center on the windshield. Son of a
Bitch! Why do people keep lighting up my trucks!
It took only a few seconds and I had worked myself into a frame of mind to shoot up the front of the old harpy’s brick front house. Hey, fair is fair. Hole my truck and I hole your house. I would give her fair warning to stay away from the windows, but I wanted to make a nice cream of glass entrée out of the front of that old lady’s house.
Dad saw me grab for my rifle and gave me the old finger wag. Crap, why did we take him with us this morning anyway?
“Aw, c’mon dad. She deserves it. This was completely uncalled for! It’s a brand new truck!”
Laughs and chuckles took over once again as we pulled out of the parking lot–from everyone but me, I might add. I really wanted to light up that old biddy’s house. The giggles quickly gave way to more somber thinking when Wink said, “Ron, pull over for a sec and let’s see which way this group moves.”
Sure enough, the zombies turned to head up Mt. Ephraim.
“Well, that tears it,” came from Wink. “There is no way they are going to miss the compound. We don’t have nearly enough ammo with us to do any real damage here. Boys, we are in for our first defensive battle.” Ominous words indeed.
I put the truck back into gear and started to climb as quickly as the Chevy would move. The faster we were home, the more time we would have to improve some woefully inadequate defensive lines.
Shit. Up until now we’d been having a pleasant little zombie apocalypse.
Gary was out walking the woods around the main house and checking what fences we did have up for integrity. If any zombies come right down the road and then aim straight for the house, either from the front or the back, we’ll be fine, he thought. Wink’s area was well lit with thousand-watt, high powered sodium lights running from his generator and guarded well, as was the front of the Talbot main home. But if anything came at us from the sides we were royally screwed, blued and tattooed. There had just not been enough time to get any more prepared than we were. Oh well, hope for the best and expect the worst.
