Stronghold

by Ron Tufo

  “See that old Buick next to the Ridgeline? Keep throwing your cable at that until you get the hook to grab. We are going to make a zipline and get down to the parking lot quick like bunnies and into our trucks. Make sure you all have your gear stowed and ready to sling over your back. Once we get the line hooked on, I do not want to be dillydallying up here. Who knows what we will attract?”

  Her first throw went a little wide. We recoiled the line for her and she took another try. This one hit the Buick dead on but the hook didn’t grab. Shit. Oh well, it was not like we were under any pressure here. Only a few zombies were beginning to take note of the rooftop activity. Her third try was the charm. We all had turned our backs to her so she didn’t have to deal with a watchful crowd. I heard Mark congratulate her on the shot and Squeak yanked the cable, setting the hook. And then I heard the three of them go, “Ruh Roh!” in unison. She had missed the Buick and launched the cable right into the bed of the Ridgeline. The hook snagged nicely on the tailgate as Squeak yanked it tight, in one side and out the other.

  “No way! No fuckin’ way. This has got to be a conspiracy. You did that on purpose. I know you have better aim than that. Aw, c’mon. And to think, until this moment you were my favorite child.” Mark didn’t even begin to argue. He knew he was currently at the bottom of the favorite child list because of the Gatling Gun incident, which was still fresh in my mind.

  “Why, Meredith? Why?” Squeak was laughing his Samoan ass off. Mark was doing his best not too giggle where I could see it and Meredith had this look on her face that said, “I made the throw that is going to save our lives and you are giving me shit about it? I am so telling mom and Grandpa!”

  I mumbled something about only liberating armored assault vehicles in the future as Squeak got busy setting the return line for the winch pulley. It did make a nice zip line. One thing we didn’t have was a test weight dummy. I lost that fight, too. It was my only son who said out loud, “Hey dad, it was your idea. You know the rules. It’s only fitting that you should have the honor of trying it out first.” Little bastard. We took our best guess on line tension and away I went. There was just enough slack in the line that when I slammed into the tailgate I don’t think I broke my finger again, but it sure as hell felt like it. We played the game of who weighs what and adjusted the line as best we could. Mer and Mark made very respectable landings with someone at the bottom to slow them. Squeak was last man up. I didn’t know if we could take up enough line to keep the big man airborne and not have him do a face plant into the parking lot. He knew it too.

  To boot it all to hell, we were quickly becoming the morning’s main attraction of the local chapter of Zombies Anonymous. You know, the one with the 12-step program and the guys who go around the room saying they have been meat free for forty-one days now and what a struggle it is but I know I can’t stop at just one thigh.

  He swung himself over the edge of the roof and started picking up speed right away. Damn, the line was too tight. He was coming in way, way too hot. This was gonna hurt. Why I made the next move that I did proves to me that I have to work on my own survival instincts a lot more. I got right between the tailgate of the Ridgeline and three hundred twenty-five pounds of hurtling Samoan. I scrunched my eyes closed so I didn’t have to see how badly I was going to get crushed and made damn sure my finger was out of harm’s way. At least one part of me wasn’t going to get obliterated anymore than it already was.

  You know how time slows down when certain horrible things happen? Seconds seem like hours. I could hear Squeak screaming all the way down. Even with my eyes welded shut I knew the exact nano-second he was going to hit me. Then the world went all fuchsia. Yeah, I know everyone was expecting black. Trust me on this one. So much blood was driven from my core to my head that blood red fuchsia was the new seasonal color.

  I have no idea how long I was out for, but as I came to, the first thing I heard was rifle shots and my daughter’s voice. “I don’t care if he is still out cold. Pick him up and get him in the damn truck. I cannot take them all out before they get too close."

  I do remember saying something very pithy and sarcastic like “Urgh” when I got manhandled into the Suburban. I could tell Mark was behind the wheel and I heard doors slamming.

  Squeak freed the winch cable from the Ridgeline tailgate and we made our getaway from the Hospital from Hell.

  I guess I scared the crap out of my son, and man, since zombies don’t scare this kid, that can’t be a good thing. Mark and Squeak pulled over to the side of the road just as soon as they felt no more attacks were going to come. Mark had been concerned for me more than a little bit since I was slumped down in the passenger seat and drooling with my head on the armrest. In my mind, I knew I had told him not to worry, that I would be all right, but I think it came out like: “Norry, Ibe goot. Urghh.” Actually, that was fairly eloquent for me, considering I felt like I had the Momma of All Hangovers and had just got beaten with a three hundred twenty-five pound club.

  Squeak came running from the other truck and had to catch me as he opened my passenger door. “What the fuck do you think you were doing, Talbot?”

  I gave him my best crooked smile. It was about all I had left.

  “Thank you, little buddy, and if you ever do something like that again I will make sure I come at you feet first, jam them down that big mouth of yours and put your scrawny ass out of its misery!” I smiled again. I was feeling stronger. Pretty soon I might even be able to open my eyes.

  Nancy had told Meredith about saving the Boy Scout canteen for when I needed it most. She concluded that this would probably qualify as a good time to open it. She poured a little into the cap and told me to drink.

  Even in my somewhat less than ideal condition I recognized that smell as soon as she unscrewed the cap, It was Nancy’s secret formula! Joy! My favorite! She had named her mahhhhvelous concoction “The Essence of Chronic,” a liquid extract of my all time favorite strain of weed.

  I greedily reached for the canteen to get some more and Meredith pulled it away, quickly risking her spot at the top of the Dad-O-Meter of Favoritism. “Nu-uh. Mom told me you would do that. She said to make sure you only had a little at a time or you would end up in the emergency room again thinking you were going to die!”

  If not at par with my usual caustic self, I was at least meandering back toward full consciousness. Mark was relieved, plus he was happy to know he had moved up a notch from the bottom of the ongoing, fluid, favorite child standings.

  We picked up the pace. If we caught a few breaks we would make it to Ed and Maggie’s home by nightfall. We didn’t catch a few breaks.

  Seemed like every major intersection we came to had been bound up tighter than a constipated boa constrictor. Sometimes we were able to use our off-road capabilities and sometimes we had to just work through the wrecks. Next time I think I would just steal an iron horse locomotive with a cow pusher and see the country by rail.

  One particular bridge stands out as being the worst. We were just getting into the Boston area. Death and destruction really did hit the more populated areas head on. As we were winching cars and SUVs out of the way, a rock flew right by Meredith’s head. Mark yelled out for everyone to cover since it had come from his watch side. Then the broadside came. Rocks were bouncing off my trucks faster than they could be counted.

  No one had fired back yet because there were no targets in sight, and man, I was so proud of that. I had taught my kids only to spray and pray if there were no other options. So, if they weren’t going to shoot these jerks, I would do it. The fucktards were messing with my trucks. (Albeit what was left of my trucks, but let us not argue semantics.)

  The rock throwers were well hidden and higher than we were, but I don’t think they figured on the firepower we carried. Once I had declared that it was party time, no one wanted to be left out and they all joined in the fun. We peppered their location with everything we had. It was Squeak who called for a ceasefire. Then he called for an
other ceasefire to me, mostly because I wasn’t paying attention to him. They had put my trucks through a hailstorm of granite. I just wanted to fuck them up bad.

  When I stopped shooting, Squeak yelled up, “Hey, you stupid fuckers! Why the fuck are you throwing rocks down on us? Come out now or the next volley will cut right through your lame ass barricade!”

  No one, of course, showed any face, but one brave soul did yell out: “What do you want here? We don’t have enough food to share. Go away now and we won’t throw anything else at you.” Hmmm, maybe I wasn’t the densest person in the area. Even the kids were giggling at the lame bravado.

  It was Squeak who yelled back: “We don’t want any of your food. We don’t want anything from you at all. We just want to get to the people we are looking to help. Don’t you have any common sense at all? You’re gonna throw rocks at someone who is pointing a gun at you. Really? Are you really that fucking stupid? Jesus, I’ll bet your mommy never took you to play in the park because the dirt was dirty. How is it possible for someone to have so little intelligence?”

  “We don’t believe in using guns.”

  “Well gee, that is too bad, cupcake. How is that working out for you? We do believe in using guns. Now here is what you are going to do. We will give you a few seconds and you will disappear, one way or the other.”

  “Wow, Squeak. Very scary. I didn’t know you had it in you, man.”

  “Talbot, if there is one thing that pisses me off even more than missing a block, it is idiots. Why do you think I get so mad at you sometimes?”

  “We’re gone, dude. We’re gone.” You could hear the scrabbling as that little troop of nummies cleared out. I was hoping they may have been some younger Lost Boy type kids, at least that would explain the huge lack of common sense, but I saw a couple with full-on manbeards. How pathetic.

  “Well, Squeak, I guess the good news is that there are other people alive out here. The bad news is, it looks like the gene pool is going to have to work overtime again to weed out the mentally deficient ones. And hey, did you just zing me?”

  It was Squeak’s turn to smile. “You just figuring that out, Talbot?”

  “Wait. What? You just zinged me again, didn’t you?”

  “You know, Ron, occasionally, just occasionally, you are worth the price of admission.”

  We were pulling the last Smart Car (told you we were in the Boston area) out of the way when the winch cable jammed in the drive and snapped. The oversized Tonka Toy rolled back into the bridge column. No one thought much of it until the headless zombie fell from an overhead bridge support and landed smack on the hood of the Ridgeline. Guts, guck, and grayish goo covered the whole front of Honda’s prettiest truck. Squeak, who was working the winch cable, caught the worst of the resulting body explosion. He looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

  It would have been funnier than hell if I hadn’t been just sitting down in the road and crying about the latest truck fiasco.

  Meredith had the best line of the day. “I am so not cleaning that up!” Squeak was standing there with his arms spread out to his sides, afraid to even touch his own face and trying his damnedest to not breathe in any of the effluvium. Actually, looking at him did make me feel better. I like it when Karma makes a timely entrance.

  Mark threw him a roll of shop rags he’d found behind the seat from as far away as he could. And we all commiserated with the sight of Squeak trying to clean himself up. I did notice, however, that no one offered to help. Hey, friendship only goes so far.

  Squeak gave a whole new definition to the word “stink.” Neither Meredith nor Mark would ride in the same vehicle with him. He snuck over behind me as I was watching the kids figure out who was going to drive. He grabbed me from behind, picked me up and gave me his patented “I Love You Little Buddy” bear hug.

  If I had eaten recently, I would have puked down his throat. Oh god, he smelled worse than my hound dog after she’d been playing in the swamp looking for critters.

  “Put me down you big goon! Put me down or so help me you won’t make it through the night!”

  Still hugging me, he crowed, “Aw, you love me. Tell me you love me. I can wait.”

  “I love you. I love you. Now damn it, put me down. I can’t stand the smell of you!”

  Mark and Meredith had never seen their father and his best friend act like two little kids before. They loved it. Frankly, so did Squeak and I.

  The sun was just beginning to slide into the horizon. We would not make it to Ed and Maggie’s today, either. I knew another hospital was coming up in a few minutes and suggested to Squeak that we spend the night there since we could count on it to have an easily secured area.

  “Not on your life, Talbot. I am not going into another hospital any time soon. Besides, we only had those two winch cables. So unless you have another foolproof escape plan that doesn’t include jumping off a roof, it’s not gonna happen. This is your old stomping grounds; what else you got?”

  I accepted what he told me. I wasn’t too keen on the idea anyway. “Okay, a few miles from here we are going to come up on my old grammar school, the Holy Name. I know there will be rooms in there we can secure, no problem. Drive straight ahead for a couple more miles. You will come to a rotary and it will be on the right.”

  Wow! Pulling into the Holy Name schoolyard opened up a whole case of memories. Some were wonderful, some not so much. I had been the first Talbot to attend grammar school here and had set the proverbial bar for my sibs. Barely got that bar off the ground is more like it. My years here were not high on the list of any measure of stellar accomplishments. I was always in trouble (what a surprise!) with one or more of the Sisters of St. Joseph, better known as the “black and whites,” for the color of their veils, or just, “the nuns.”

  The yard was completely empty and the entrances were all closed The place really looked deserted. Good for us. We rode around the building checking all the doors. None of them were unlocked.

  Squeak asked me, “What do we do now, hotshot?”

  My turn to smile. “Gee, I don’t know,” I said airily, “Goof! What kind of a Talbot would I be if I didn’t travel with my very own handy-dandy lockpick set? Never leave home without it! Now, I have a bad finger, so I won’t be setting any Break and Entry records today, but if they haven’t changed these locks since I was a kid, I remember that they were Schlages, and a fairly simple pin and tumbler system, at that. I could probably even bump it open. Gimme a minute and we will be inside.” Squeak didn’t even try to pick his jaw up off the pavement.

  “You know you are going to hell, right? I mean, breaking into to a Catholic school has got be to like a mortal sin or something.”

  “Squeak, my old friend. If doing this gets you into hell, then I have a VIP reserved suite complete with air conditioning and a mini-bar waiting for me. I couldn’t even try to remember how many times we did this as kids. We used to break in so we could get to old man O’Hara’s locker. He was the school janitor; always had a bottle of Wild Turkey in there.”

  Nancy, Hom, and Lyn were sitting at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee. Nancy was worried not so much for me, but for the fact that two of her children were with me. She was also getting more and more concerned for the well being of Melissa, who was becoming emotionally further away every day, and for Melanie, whose whereabouts were a complete unknown. In her mind, she was the only one who was safe, while her entire family was out there somewhere. She was not a happy camper. Lyn and Hom were doing their best to console her, but there really wasn’t much that could help. They were all glad that Squeak had gone with us, because in Nancy’s words, “Maybe he can keep that little menace from getting everyone killed.” Feels so great when your other half has your back.

  Tony came in to get himself a morning cup and saw everyone sitting around. It took him about two seconds to know what the early topic of conversation was about. “Worried about the kids? Yeah, me too. Melissa will be fine; just give her time. I hope the
y find Melanie and get back here quickly, though. I am most worried about the fact Mer and Mark are out there with my temper-challenged son. I hope Squire is able to keep him under control.”

  Changing the subject, he asked, “Where is Steve?”

  Hom took the lead, “He is out with Wink and Gary doing the morning perimeter check. They thought they would be back soon, given that the light snow that fell last night will show if there are any intruders, and that spurred an idea from Wink. We have tons of powdered lime that we were going to use to help reduce the acid content of a plot we wanted to garden out back. He thinks it can be used on some of the perimeter to show up footprints more easily.”

  “Very clever idea,” dad said. “I’m thankful to have him with us. Nothing like another old soldier to lean on. Hey Hom, has he been able to make any progress on those walkie-talkies?”

  Hom smiled at my dad, which in itself spoke volumes. “I am not going to steal any of his thunder. Ask him when they get back!”

  The morning coffee klatch broke up and everyone went about getting their own chores accomplished. Nancy went outside to find Melissa, who had gone for a short walk to Andrew’s grave. As she got closer to her daughter, she could hear Melissa’s sobs. Walking gently up behind her, she put an arm around her youngest daughter. Melissa turned to her and wept openly. “Why? Why, mom? Why did Andrew have to die? Why did dad have to shoot him?”

  It is not often that Nancy takes a hardline stance with any of her kids–she saves that for me when I mess up–but it is exactly how she described things to Melissa. “Sweetheart, please listen to me. The world is in an awful state right now. Do you think for even a moment that dad would have done what he did if there’d been any other options? He thought the world of Andrew. He welcomed him into our family circle like no boy dating one of his daughters has ever seen a welcome. He knew that Andrew was a good man. He was very happy for you both. We are all devastated by what happened but we all have to get past it. Andrew will always be a part of us. He would want us all to win this fight. Do him that honor, sweetie.” They hugged each other long and hard and they cried with each other just as long and hard. They stood together over Andrew’s grave and cried some more.